CCstream is indeed an untraditional angle on the Blues… synths, rhythm box and a computer-based sequencer, along with traditional vocals, blues harp and guitar. The songs are mostly originals with a few cover versions thrown in for good measure to provide a frame of reference.
CCstream is the result of coincidence and a result of a chance meeting mid-2005. Within a few months, an album’s worth of tracks were recorded as primitively as possible, despite the high tech gear, as “first takes” were the order of the day.
Let’s backtrack a while to the late 60s:
Håkan Sjöström got in with the London blues crowd as an alumni in Alexis Korner’s prestigious “school of the Blues” which was his band while Claes Cornelius played Blues in the unlikely city of Venice, Italy. There soon was a tight blues freaks community of musicians in Venice, one being Guido Toffoletti who was later on to be the number one star the Blues in Italy serving his apprenticeship in Korner’s band as well. Claes commuted to Denmark for a short period and then to the USA and for a while an avid visitor of the Ash Grove blues club in Los Angeles, before going back to Italy to become full-time musician and founding The Blues Right Off. This band had a couple of firsts: first Italian blues band to record an album, “Our Bluesbag”, and first band in Italy on an own label.
Eventually, in yet another bout of relocating between Copenhagen and München, Claes worked also as an A&R man and producer, for example with Mickey Baker on “Tales Of The Underdog” (Artist Rec’s, Denmark) and an album on Ariola (now BMG) with the band Art Class. Later on, having joined Mega Rec’s and Megasong Publ’g, Claes worked with Clas Yngström and his band Sky High which was a hot Boogie Blues outfit in Sweden. In the wake of massive success with Ace Of Base, Mega Rec’s ended up being sold leaving Claes free to get back into composing, guitar playing and producing.
Meanwhile, Håkan went on to play with a staggering number of bands, including Bo Diddley, Champion Jack Dupree, Blues Inc., Folk Blues Inc., Postal Service and Emergency Express.
Claes had quit his art studies in Venice but Håkan picked up where Claes had left off, becoming also an acclaimed painter in the Cobra style as exemplified by CCstream’s cover artwork as shown on this homepage.
For tech freaks, here are some notes on equipment:
Håkan plays the latest incarnation of the famous Hohner Marine Band harp – tough to play, but a harmonica that really delivers the goods. In his opinion, the only key that is a no-no is the key of D (needing a harp in G). Good keys are C, G, A and B. A vital element of his sound is his microphone, an absurdly sci-fi looking Philips from the early 50s. Some tracks were recorded with a condenser mike in front of a bratty Fender 15W amp, some through a Marshall JMP preamp running red-hot or a JoeMeek VC1 EQ/compressor, low fidelity being the aim in this particular game.
On guitar, Claes alternates from vintage or newer Gibsons to ultra-cheap Epiphones made in Indonesia or South Korea as well as a Casio! While having loud amps (Fender Bassman, Super Reverb), a small Boss VF-1 preamp box was in use for most of the guitar tracking, mainly with a Casio MG-510 (which also has MIDI) in standard tuning. Nearly all other guitars are in various open tunings with 5 strings instead of 6. Either the top string or the bottom string is removed. Slide stuff is with handmade ceramic slides by Bahrija Mujakic and the nearest approximation of a prohibition era bootleg whiskey bottleneck.
Sequencing was on Cubase and audio recorded on an ADAT 8-track digital recorder.
Song details:
“Email Blues” is all about difficulties in communication, despite technological advances such as email, SMS, etc.
“Headcuttin’” is a cool blues harp instrumental by Håkan, evolving from a solo harp bit.
“House Of The Rising Sun”: yes, this is indeed the famous song that was a huge hit for UK’s The Animals. That old version was done in a Bach-like arpeggio minor / major chords fashion, but we took it back to Blues inspired by a live Odetta version.
“Ratman King” came about as the Copenhagen downtown area around the studio had a rat infestation. We imagined an army of rats taking over the World under some crazy human’s control. With its political overtones, you can call it an anti-fascist song.
“Bad And Worse” is when things go totally wrong – a good theme anytime for a blues song!
“Poverty Game” is about the media cashing in on poverty around the World.
“Strange Fruit” is impossible to improve on, in Lady Day’s immortal version. We thus tried to pervert it, and to change it to reflect modern times and racism in the World still today. It is set to a Sturmtruppen Techno beat for a start…
“Highway 7”: don’t take a trip down this particular road unless you can out-negotiate the devil.
“Quake Zone Mama” was rush-composed for a fund-raising effort for the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir. Niss contributes stellar sitar playing on this one.
“Road To Fate” was written for a memorial concert to celebrate Italian bluesman Guido Toffoletti, a CC friend from the old days, and Håkan added later on his harp bits. It is probably the first blues song to have a citation of “Santa Lucia”, a fave aria on tourist gondola rides in Venice where Guido came from.
“Stock’n’Roll” is about why we zap away from CNN or BBC financial news, stock market reports, etc.
“Spoonful” is of course an attempt at outdoing The Cream in terms of an absurdly long version. Niss contributes on sitar, seriously outgunning guitar players!