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Yesterrock re-issued CRAAFT’s „Second Honeymoon“ and BOULEVARD’s „What’s Up“ albums yesterday. A history about CRAAFT can be found below. We are taking world-wide press requests for these two releases. PR: digitally via Haulix. Please e-mail us at info@germusica.com if you are interested in a press download.
CRAAFT – The History
„It was in August 1984. I just had returned to Frankfurt from a 6-month long USA tour with Tony Carey. At the time, I had owned a small studio above the disco “Music Hall” at the Volta Street in Frankfurt. Music manager Uwe Block contacted me one day. He played a couple of songs to me that had been written by Klaus Luley and Franz Keil. He asked me if I could imagine to work together with them and I immediately agreed since I was enthusiastic about the music.
In a threesome, we spent the next couple of months at my studio, worked on the songs and recorded some demo tracks on an 8 track Fostex tape machine. The playbacks were recorded first. Klaus played most of the guitar parts, Franz played the keyboards and I was in charge for the bass and some additional guitars.
The drums were programmed by myself with a „Friendship“ Step Sequencer and a Dynacord drum sound module. The cymbals and high-hats were recorded live.
Due to the limited amount of tracks, we were in need to mix the playback first and record the vocals afterwards. The lyrics were not finished; most of them have been written by Tony Carey later. Because of this, some demos still feature some “working texts” by Klaus.
Uwe Block flew to New York to hook up there with Sony (CBS at the time) – and came back with an offer for a record deal. I’d been working quite a lot with Peter Hauke before, and Uwe suggested him as producer for the record.
To keep the feelings of the demo tracks alive, we transferred the recordings at Hotline Studio to a 24 track tape machine, added some more stuff and recorded the vocals with the final lyrics again. The drum tracks were played and recorded live in the studio by Sandy Gennaro (Cindy Lauper).
At the end of 1985, we flew over to Bearsville near New York. The debut album by our group CRAAFT was recorded there at Bob Dylan’s studio and mixed by Brian McGee and Andy Lunn.
After the release, we toured all over Europe and performed at a lot of TV shows as well. One of the club gigs took place at the legendary Marquee Club in London. Here, we were joined by Meat Loaf bass guitarist Steve Buslowe and drummer Sandy Gennaro. The highlight for everybody involved was the European tour as a support act with Queen.
Our second album „Second Honeymoon“ was recorded in a similar way. Since I in the mean-time had established myself as a studio producer for both commercials and films, I left the band after we had out the second album.
I’m glad that with Yesterrock there’s a label out there which will re-release both albums again with a remastered sound and including numerous bonus tracks.”
All the best to our fans…let’s rock on…
Reinhard Besser (2012)
Tracklist: 01. Run Away, 02. Twisted Up All Inside, 03. Chance Of Your Life, 04. Jane, 05. Gimme What You Got, 06. Running On Love, 07. Hey Babe, 08. Illusions, 09. Don’t You Know What Love Can Be , 10. Are You ready To Rock, 11. Right To Your Heart, 12. Don’t Stp To Rock, 13. Something For Nothing
Bonus tracks: 14. Long Long Time (Demo 1987, 15. Break Away (Demo 1987), 16. Take It Easy (Demo 1987)
germusica 