Dennis

There are at least seven artists that go by the name of Dennis. 1. A three-piece from Oakland/San Francisco Find more info about them on fieldofdumb.bandcamp.com 2. A Dutch pop artist. Real name: Denise ten Donselaar. Born January, 3, 1984. "Some just call it music, to me it’s like a drug." This is not just a line from Dennis’ debut single No Can Do. The Dutch singer knows what he is talking about. With a smashing debut album, this brand new pop star expresses her unconditional love for music with a remarkable string of potential hits. Dennis has always been surrounded by music. She grew up in her dad’s recording studio, where musicians came and went all day. Young Dennis kept her eyes and ears open, storing all the information she gathered over the years in her head. She started taking singing, piano and dance lessons at the age of 10. A few years later, she formed her own band, did a lot of backing vocals for other artists and, basically, seized every opportunity to perform on stage. "But I was too wild and too young to be serious about it. I wanted it all: lots of girlfriends, even more boyfriends, hanging around in bars, going to dance events… I didn’t get serious about music until much later", she says. The turning point came after a trip to the US, where she worked with kids from the ghettos of New York, who had little or no future. "There I saw the other side of the coin. I realized how lucky and safe my life was and how grateful I should be." Back home, Dennis decided to turn her life around and pursue her true calling: writing and singing her own songs. That decision was reinforced by a serious car accident she had upon her return in the Netherlands. A combination of a busy schedule, jet lag and fatigue was nearly fatal when she fell asleep behind the wheel. "Suddenly, I knew what to do. I decided to spread my wings and do what was in my heart." The tattoo she got of a dragonfly is a constant reminder of that defining moment in her life, about which she sings in Dragonfly, one of the few ballads on her debut album Her Name Is Dennis. The record is a mixture of rock, pop, dance and soul. It sounds rough, smooth, experimental and commercial, all at the same time. Dennis: "First and foremost, I make pop music. But I have an eclectic taste in music - ranging from Nelly Furtado, Pink, Gwen Stefani and Gavin DeGraw to Dinah Washington, James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt. My album is a mixture of everything I like." The songs on the album are accessible, smart and original. Whether it’s pop, rock or funk, Dennis sings it with ease and conviction, blessed as she is with a powerful and versatile voice. She compares the diversity of the album with a typical street in Amsterdam, "where one house is slanted and the other tilts over, one has a garden and the other has a balcony." Her music has a similar diversity: sometimes edgy and weird, at other times poppy and girly. Besides a powerful vocalist, Dennis is a talented songwriter. On this album, she co-wrote the majority of songs with up and coming Finnish producer Mikko Paavola in his Stockholm-based studio. It was a very fruitful collaboration, says Dennis: "Mikko and I have a similar style of writing and we hit if off immediately. We are a golden match. Mikko came up with beautiful combinations of chords, and I wrote the melodies and the lyrics." Lyrically, Dennis is inspired by all the things that a woman her age is interested in: being in love, physical attraction, friendship, shopping, joy and sorrow. She has a great sense of humor, in the form of self-mockery, double entendres and puns. Just listen to the sassy seduction on Thirsty and Dennis’ entertaining view of a shopaholic on Money. But Dennis is not afraid to show a more serious side of herself either: Song For Bas is a very personal song about her nephew, who died at a very young age. From raving party girl to rising pop star – Dennis is one of a new breed of talented and edgy young singers. www.thisisdennis.nl/ 3. A German contestant to the talent contest "Multimediaxis sucht den Superstar". Most of Last.fm's playlist is made up by this artist. More info on www.multimediaxis.de 4. A German jazzy Krautrock band. An enigma of Krautrock, Dennis existed on the Hamburg scene for some 30 months as a collection of musicians from Tomorrow's Gift, Thirsty Moon, Kravetz and Xhol, playing free-rock to enthusiastic festival goers. In charge was Frumpy drummer Carsten Bohn (the band was named after his son, see picture). It seems that Dennis were never a proper band, and really existed in two different line-ups, thus their LP was a collection of jams and impromptu encounters, remixed and compiled at a later date. All the musicians in Dennis were also involved in various other bands at the time. Carsten Bohn and Hans Pape both worked on the Uli Trepte "Inbetween" sessions, a project that eventually became Kickbit Information. Carsten also established the "Voll Bedienung" percussion project along with former Tomorrow's Gift drummer Zabba Lindner. Various others also worked in Achim Reichel's "AR" series of sessions. Dennis, exuded the talents of the musicians' backgrounds, and the album HYPERTHALAMUS comes across as a collection of extracts from acid-jams and freak-outs, with a hybrid of progressive, psychedelic and cosmic styles, notably elements of late Tomorrow's Gift, Thirsty Moon, and even hints of Embryo and Guru Guru: a musical melting pot of surprising diversions and fusion sounds. All told, it's a little-known classic. Discography... HYPERTHALAMUS Do Your Own Thing / Others Do / Already / Grey Present Tense LP Nova 6.22352 AO (1975) Thomas Kretzschmer (guitar), Klaus Briest (bass), Jim Wiley (bass), Manne Rürup (keyboards), Michael Kobs (keyboards), Willi Pape (saxophone, clarinet, flute), Olaf Casalich (percussion), Carsten Bohn (drums, percussion) 5. A three piece Connecticut punk/emo-core band. With the requisite brief lifespan and obscurity of output; a demo and a 7" EP surfaced, and another recording session went unused between 2005 and 2007. There were approximately 30 (including the infamous Operation Ivy cover set, Halloween 2007) live performances, and songs went unnamed, referred to only by the numerical order in which they were written. Members now perform in such rock ensembles as Dead Uncles and Ripshit. http://dennis.eatyourguitar.org 6. A Norwegian one off rap-project They released the single "Ja Ræpp" in 1994 to promote the "Yes" side on the Norwegian 1994 EU election. It's a well kept secret who was the artists behind the Dennis moniker, except it is revealed that one of Norways best known artists was involved. 7. A Russian rapper from the United States of America. He used to go by the name "Balplaya" and also "Ekspo" with his friend "Element" Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.