I would appreciate some of DU's good vibes or

[highplainsdem]

109. I found the longer article the snippet in reply 108 is from, and I was

right about it being much longer. There were 15 paragraphs - 7 about Vreemde Kostgangers and then 8 specifically about George, interview questions and answers - before it got to what was quoted in that Postsen.com article.

The original article is at https://www.ad.nl/show/george-kooymans-spieren-gaan-sneller-achteruit-dan-ik-dacht-en-dat-is-shit~a88ce2df/
Archive page at https://archive.ph/yIBUX

First of all, the reason George was talking about the end of his life was that the interviewer brought it up: "I think it's tough, also for your family. To what extent are you already working on the ending?" It wasn't a subject George had brought up.

Earlier, after being asked how he was doing, George had talked about the muscle deterioration going faster than he'd expected ("And that's shit," he added). Asked about what he enjoys, he mentioned reading and watching TV, as he had for the Volkskrant article I posted about above, and he also talked about the beautiful natural scenery, the woods, around his home, and said he sometimes goes out into the woods with his scooter. Then he laughed and said, "Well, it's the little things that you will appreciate."

The interviewer - who was doing this interview via Zoom, which is how George prefers to do interviews now - asked if he could stand to have his guitars around when he can no longer play them. (I can think of some things to say to that journalist about his questions.) George said he just likes to look at them, as he did when he was a kid looking in guitar store windows.

George talks about the remodeling he's doing, which was also mentioned in the Volkskrant article. But he adds the detail that his daughter will be moving back in, with her partner and their baby. He'd earlier mentioned visits from his kids and three grandkids helping him stay positive, along with friends he still sees, and occasional visits to Amsterdam and The Hague.

He talks about how proud he is of the final Vreemde Kostgangers album: "I think it's a beautiful record, which we all wanted to finish despite Henny's illness and and mine."

All in all, a much more positive attitude than the snippet suggested. Despite the journalist trying, with some questions, to get him to sound less brave and positive than he is.

George seems to think now that the ALS symptoms were beginning to show up in late 2019 rather than 2020:

Your last performance in Ahoy in 2019 was released on DVD, how did you watch it?

"It was a good show, but I can see from myself that the fatigue was already there. In hindsight, that was kind of the case. These days I am constantly tired. That's not for me, I was never tired."

That shorter article's headline - "George Kooymans: ‘It’s good that Golden Earring stopped’" - aloso spun what he said, making it sound worse. He said that "maybe" it was good that it ended when it did, since he thought the band's creativity was weakening (after a mere 60 years).

The first 7 paragraphs of this longer story were about Vreemde Kostgangers, with George's bandmate Boudewijn de Groot talking abour the friendship and mutual respect in the trio, and about the challenges finishing the album:

"Henny certainly wouldn't have wanted a tribute." Certainly, says Boudewijn de Groot, Mist would have sounded different if fate hadn't been so merciless to his two comrades. The title track, for example, the first on the album. Henny Vrienten sings the verses, while he actually wanted to alternate them with Kooymans and De Groot, the men with whom he formed Strange Boarders since 2016.

As early as 2020, the three started writing, playing and recording. Corona, first Kooymans' illness and then also that of Vrienten made working together in the studio impossible. "Had that been successful, certain instruments would have been played by others," says De Groot. "Henny wanted me to play some acoustic guitar parts. All choruses would have been done by the three of us, while now the demo versions have been used almost everywhere. George does his own chorus, and Henny largely does too."

Which reminds me that there was a review of Mist in De Volkskrant today:

https://www.volkskrant.nl/cultuur-media/mist-van-drie-popgrootheden-in-hun-nadagen-is-even-veelkleurig-als-de-herfst~b25480ea/

https://archive.ph/PB2CH

The headline is

Mist, by three pop greats in their twilight years, is as colorful as autumn

which sort of ignores the fact that Boudewijn was a folksinger and George a rocker and their different backgrounds are why they chose the band's name Oh, well. It's a mostly positive review anyway, though with some silly look-at-me-critiquing diva turns, as when the review says George's song "Fender Strat" about his love for guitars "balances dangerously between classic and old-fashioned rock." That description isn't just balancing dangerously - it's run off a rhetorical cliff and and the reviewer didn't notice.

But I do love this line:

It is autumn on Mist. And the album is just as multicolored.