Henri Grünbauer
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No Strings is an album which was released early 2021. Almost All compositions were originals written by Henri Grünbauer. It's opening song Pain is a 2019 collaboration with Paul Hoppe on drums. The album features 13 songs and an instrumental. Hard Times is a Backfire-cover, the band Henri played in around 1985. The song is dedicated to the late Bassist/singer Dirk van Burken. Early copies of this album lacked the song 'High Tide', which was put out as a single later the year.
Inner Dealings Is a very compact thematic introspective album consisting of just 10 songs. Play Chuck B Play is a tribute to the late Chuck Berry. All songs were especially written for this album. Inner Dealings was released in 2019. A 2021 second edition had three more songs.
Black Hole was the first all vocal solo album by Henri Grünbauer. It features 15 songs from his repertoire through the years all newly recorded. It has a vague story about an astronaut lost in space too close to a black hole he cannot escape. All other songs are memories he has from life. The original album was released in 2017 with a 'Deluxe' edition containing a second disc consisting of some covers and pre-production versions of the songs following in 2018, as a sort of 'thank You' to the followers. It is still the one album of the three with the most views on YouTube.
'Gateway' is a collection of fresh recorded original instrumentals, old and new! The release of the album, which was originally titled 'Lift Off' coincided with the launch of the new independent 'Nutking Records' -label and the start of Henri's solo career in 2016. 'Gateway' has the two 'Contemporary'-originals "Stug" and "Kartelschaar" added to the tracklist.
High Tide is de last single from the 'No Strings' album, it is backed by an instrumental from the 'Gateway' album called French Connection.
Sting Like a Scorpio is the second single-edit from the 'No Strings' album. It was released as an MP3 on social media on the internet in 2020. Sting like a Scorpion appears to be inspired by a quote by the famous boxer Muhammad Ali. Who said: "Float like a Butterfly and sting like a Bee". Henri sings it as "Float like a Bat and sting like a Scorpion". The single was backed by "Twins", a tune from Henri's 2016 all instrumental "Gateway" album used as a digital B-side. (singles ought to have B-sides, agreed?). Of course the match is there's a Starsign in both titles. However, the title "Twins" (or "Gemini" in latin) refers to the Twin lead guitar arrangement of the tune, so, it has little to do with Starsigns. Henri is a Scorpio by the way.
No Strings Attached is the leading single from the "No Strings' album and thus the title song. It was edited for radio yet still clocking in at 5:47. The B-side was also an edit from the 'Gateway' album, titled 'Another Windy Day'. The singles from the 'No Strings' albums were the only ones with special radio-edits. The singles from 'Inner Dealings' were just the same as on the album.
The 'No Strings' album produced four singles which is more than the other two albums. 'The Virus' / 'Don't Touch' preceded the album by several months, at the moment the Corona-Virus hit Europe. Both songs were on the playlist for the '2020/2021 Safety' tour, which unfortunately didn't have any dates.
The title song Inner Dealings was released as the lead single from the album being backed by 'Walking Away'. Walking Away was a completely different recording from the album version however with an instrumental backing similar to the Saint Vitus-song 'Why".
The songs from second single 'What's in a Game' / 'The Clue' were straight off the 'Inner Dealings' album, no edits. What's in a Game features several acoustic Guitar-parts.
'Bunch of Tunch' was in fact a belated Kerozinekikkers single. Since Henri wrote or co-wrote some songs and does the lead-vocals, he sometimes uses these as promotion material in his solo efforts. Henri Grünbauer featuring the Kerozinekikkers is a special single released in 2021 consisting of the songs Henri sang on their studio-albums 'Kwaak' (2002) and 'Inblazen' (2006). These songs are 'Bunch of Tunch' and 'By Accident'. Bunch of Tunch was the first ever MP3 single distributed with their E-magazine "De Kerozinekrant" This release features a remastered lossless version of the song. By Accident has the unique 'Kerozinekikkers" arrangement. As a matter of fact 'Bunch of Tunch' had an earlier physical release for use as promo-material, then backed by the instrumental 'Choices'
The 'Black Hole' album didn't have any singles other than 'Lift off' / 'Black Hole'. Preceding the album with no less than 13 years, these songs were different band-recordings by De Kerozinekikkers and Sound Advice. On ReverbNation, Nutking Records has apparently re-released the old single featuring "Lift Off" in it's original 2002 Kerozinekikkers rendition on the A-side with "Black Hole" in a 1998 Sound Advice rendition on the flipside. It appears to be originally released in 2004 as a promo for a possible "Sound Advice" -Tour, the first since 1999. The idea was to form a trio with Kerozinekikkers' Ben on drums and Joris on bass. Henri would be singing and play Guitar as per the 1997/1998 and the 1999 Tours. Since these tours the Kerozinekikkers had already been touring but around 2003/2004 nothing was happening while the 2002 "Kwaak" CD was recorded. Henri didn't like this hiatus and made arrangements for the Sound Advice Resurrection-tour. Since he had credits on both these tunes, he was able to use it as a promo single.
'Ready to Start' was a mini album to support the 2000 Sound Advice Easy Wisdom Tour. Note that the Kerozinekikkers release with a translated title (to Dutch) to support their Pre-Kwaak Tour had almost the same content. It appears that The Kerozinekikkers minialbum, which was called 'Klaar voor de Start' had two of the three live tracks from an alternate night. The album had two further instrumental tunes dated 1999, these might be the very last studio recordings by Sound Advice. It is known that on the last tour, Rob Jaeger (co-founder of the Kerozinekikkers) played tenor-saxophone, along with an unidentified second tenor saxophonist.
Golddiggers is a digital only 2022 Solo single by Henri. The tune Golddiggers is an original composition and was introduced at the Comic-book presentation of 'Het Goudelixer' by Marco & Henri Grünbauer on 26-2-2022 at Zimihc Theater Witte Vrouwen Utrecht. The digital B-side of the single (if such a thing exists) is 'St. Louis Blues' by W.C. Handy, a tune written down as one of the first recorded Blues songs in the 1930s. Henri's first band, Contemporary had it on it's repertoire in the mid 1970s. On 21-4-2022 ex-member Otto Grünbauer married his Lia and the remaining members Stefan and Henri surprised by playing several Contemporary-songs. St Louis Blues was one of them. The complete setlist is on the setlist-page.
This is a Tribute EP to some of Henri's musical hero's. The EP was sometimes used as a promo for the 1999 Tour along with the 'Ready to Start' minialbum. The recordings were made in 1998 with Jan Ensink on Drums and Stephan von Meulenbrouck on Bass. The songs are written by, The Rolling Stones, Rory Gallagher and Jimi Hendrix. Henri played in a few coverbands like Feedback (1977-1979), Blue Jeans&Black (1989-1994) and Band of Victas (2008-2014) before, but these songs were never done and they were still on his wish list. Besides the popular repertoire, bands like 'Winterkwintet', and 'Court of Session' provide a vast amount of Jazz-standards.
This was classic 1996 Sound Advice with Henri on vocals and Guitar, Hans van Basten on Drums and the late Martin Smit on Bass. In a live setting, their female vocalist would handle 'One of a Kind' but Henri would sing 'By Accident' and 'Hard Times' himself. It might be of interest to check out the Sound Advice albums 'Mean & Ugly' (1996) and 'In Concert' (2000)
An album offering some of the latter day Sound Advice recordings. The last Recorded Tour was the 1997/1999 Easy Wisdom Tour. With Jan Ensink on drums, Marco Roest on Bass and Henri Grünbauer on Guitar and Vocals. in 1999 Henri joined the Kerozinekikkers and Sound Advice was put on hold. There was an early 2000-tour, but no recording exists. The '97/'98 recordings are essential and the original release was a 3CD package which proved too expensive in use as promotion material for the 1999/2000 tour, hence the minialbum 'Ready to Start' was used, along with the Tribute EP, which, due to authorization laws was off little use in the matter.
The second Acoustic Sound Advice album is a 'Singer/songwriter' release. In fact, this release was a solo effort and not so much a follow up to the original 1997 Acoustic sound Advice album, which featured some unplugged band recordings and a vast mount of classical material. Also, the 2017 version was released as a bonus disc to the 'Lift off' Deluxe release.
The three parts of the Spanish suite represent all (major) emotions: in part 1 (Andaluza) we find above all (channeled) anger and attendant alertness, paraadheid, aggression and possibly fear. Important to the brain to use. In part two (caprice 11) we find especially the heavy side of life: sorrow, sadness, pain (physical and psychological) depression and anxiety. In the third part (Soleares) come the lighter sides of life covered: joy, glee seeing new possibilities. The suite closes with a positive note.
The 24 Caprices for Classical Guitar 1996
In 1996 Henri wrote a series of 24 caprices for the Guitar inspired by Paganini. Musically they are originals, but the idea to construct them as material to practice diverse techniques, some not so usual, is the same. The Caprices were finally recorded between late 2013 and early 2016, The numbers 1, 4 and 19 were regular items on the acoustic setlist.
Concertino per Guitare Solo 1998
Actually, a small orchestral score from the Concertino exsists on an old Atari-computer, and this piece was ment to be played on an electric guitar. Usually from orchestral pieces a score for piano only is made along with it to help a conductor get an idea of the piece before working with the orchestra. Since Henri can't play the piano properly, He scored this classical guitar arrangement, which proves more difficult to play then the lead-guitar part of the work itself.
Contemporary was Henri's early '70s first band. This EP is a rerecording containing a 10-minute+ medley containing "Symposium I/The House of...Lonesome City/Careless Love/Boogie-c" followed by the self-composed Diptych "Rendez Vous/A Peine".
Two of their originals: "Stug" and "Kartelschaar" were redone in 2022 as well as an sologuitar-version of the all time classic "St Louis Blues" which was a favourite in the repertoire of the group.
Cruise on Out is an early single with an instrumental backing. You don't know really was Henri's Guitar Tour the Force which impressed Yasin Khasim to hire him for his Soul System.
Nutking Records took over the orphaned Bounty Records around 2016. Bounty Records was founded in 1983 to release recordings by reli-punk band 'Jezuz Kriziz'. The label was abandoned soon after the band's split was announced. The label was resurrected in 1992 to serve as an Indie-label for Henri's band 'Sound Advice' and succeeded by negotiating to acquire the publicising rights of a few other obscure labels like 'Salesbury Sounds', 'DNA records', 'Sloot Records' and some limited rights of 'Red Rat Recordings' as well, hereby attaining the rights to the "Saint Vitus' -repertoire including the North American exclusive release. Around 2016 Henri started to record new instrumental material for the 'Gateway' album and it was clear the accompanying single 'Lift Off/Black Hole' would be the start his solo career. A new label, called 'Nutking Records' was founded which inherited all the Bounty Records material. Were Bounty Records rereleased almost every note on tape by the most obscure bands they could found, Nutking Records seems to be investing in getting a coherent and quality-consistent back-catalogue. As was stated in the founding meeting "We will cut the crap!"
