LIP 8968-2
Guitarist Alex Merck graduated from Berklee College of Music, Boston,
and has recorded and toured with Raoul de Souza, Kay Eckhard de
Camargo and many others. He also composed several film-scores and a
collection of songs for crime- and horror scenes in TV-movies, which
was used by countless productions. He has also been a guest-speaker
on many conventions (IIR, Jazztimes-Convention, Musica etc.) and
occassionally contributes articles to music and computer magazines,
specialising on economic, computer (mainly Apple Mac) and Internet
issues. For more bio, click
here
Dog Days was originally released in 1988 in Germany only - and has
been unavailable for almost 10 years before the re-mastered re-release on
Lipstick Records in 1999. The music combines rock and funk with jazz in its
very own entertaining way without copying any other musicians.
It includes the rocky ballad Sheilas Tears as well as some typical jazz-rock songs dominated by guitar and saxophone. And the final song is almost neo-baroque with harp-like sounds created by a classical guitar sample on a legendary EMU-III sampling instrument.
The musicians were a live touring band (performing in Germany and France - including the "Jazz A Vienne"-Festival) at the time - and several have become well-known in the meantime. Second guitarist Helmut Krumminga joined german superstar-rockgroup BAP in 1998 and saxophonst Chris Schneider worked for many popgroups and producer Trevor Horn.
The songs:
Musicians: