Something’s been brewing in the last couple of weeks. While I was suffering from a severe flu, my songs have done a lot of work for me. After they had seen my performance on SKY Controversial TV and heard the three songs I have written so far in my Mystery Pop project, California based media company Reality Entertainment and British Mass Marketing guru Martin Faulks concluded that we should team up for success. We believe that we are truly complementary as artist, label and marketeer.

Reality Entertainment is owned by legendary rock producer Warren Croyle who has worked with a diverse array of artists such as the Outpatience with Guns and Roses to Roy Hay of Culture Club not to mention Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, Paul Kelly, Godhead, Marcy Playground, Warrior, Face to Face and many more.. How Reality Entertainment came into being is nicely described in this article. At present Reality has some of America’s best metal acts in its porfolio combined with more mainstream bands like KC and the Sunhine Band. What I like best about Reality Entertainment is their no-nonsense approach and their thorough understanding of today’s media landscape. They are groundbreaking and a healthy firm in a sick industry. Working with Reality enables me to launch my songs and upcoming Mystery Pop album to an enormous audience in the US, the UK and basically the rest of the world.

Martin Faulks will guide me on the way as far as promotion is concerned. Martin, is an independent marketing and mass media specialist. He also has a heart for the music industry and publishing. To illustrate that he currently runs the promotion for another legendary music producer. Peter Waterman’s book The Fame Factor is an easy to follow step by step guide to the formula that helped Pete to make Kylie Minogue, Steps and Bananarama household names. Talking about learning it from the best…

We have decided we are not in a hurry. I’ll keep writing songs for bestselling Mystery authors until we have enough material for an album, after which we’ll dress up for battle. As a first step on the way, Reality Entertainment will produce a video clip for my latest song in the Mystery Pop project: the Bond Code. After City of Secrets, this is really the song that opened the door for me. The song will be available in all the major online stores in a couple of weeks and is already now on Amazon.com.

From now on, my artist name will be “Corjan”. I will drop “De Raaf”, (which wasn’t actually even my real last name).

Never in a million years could I have imagined that I’d ever get the chance to sign up with a significant American label, let alone on equal terms. I now know you can feel very small and very big at the same time.

On with the show!

My appearance on SKY TV has resulted in another spin-off. Philip Gardiner, the show’s host is also a bestselling author and award winning film maker. Philip is the author of Gnosis: The Secret of Solomon’s Temple Revealed; The Ark, the Shroud, and Mary; Secret Societies; and Gateways to the Otherworld. He has appeared on hundreds of radio and television shows and created several award-winning documentaries, including Freemasonry for the Discovery Channel. His most succesful book to date has been The Bond Code. The book deals with legendary creator of James Bond, British intelligence officer and author Ian Fleming, who discovered the ancient concepts of Gnosis through the works of Carl Jung and worked the ideas into his books.

This weekend I finished a song that was inspired by The Bond Code. Although I didn’t set out to write a typical Bond-song, the result would fit seemlessly into the score of a Bond movie. It’s got the horns and the trumpets, the percussion and the strings. The song deals with Ian Fleming, who lost himself in the character he created and who was everything he ever wanted to be. It was fantastic to sing about tuxedo’s, champagne, saving the world and the betrayal of a hero. Thoroughly loved every minute I spent in the studio with this one. The song is now with The Masters to get mastered. Philip Gardiner’s production company will make a video for this song in the next couple of weeks. I feel like I am being spoilt rotten and love every minute of it.

Let the music play!

My Mystery Pop project hasn’t gone completely unnoticed. The idea to make an album full of songs, endorsed by bestselling Mystery Authors has struck a chord somewhere.

The Video clip for the Patrice Chaplin song City of Secrets (the Grail in you) will be released as a bonustrack on the forthcoming DVD “The Initiation of Alice in Wonderland”. The distribution is in the hands of Warner Brothers Home Entertainment. The DVD will be in the shops around Christmas and deals with the life of Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Caroll. Carroll was the enigmatic man who created a magical and surreal reality populated by characters mined from the depths of his imagination. Were they simple tales of fantasy to entertain children or something considerably more profound?

Everyone knows that Johnny Depp plays the Mad Hatter in the Tim Burton film, Alice in Wonderland, but few know of the amazing man who first imagined the world of Alice in Wonderland. The film makers explore the wonderful world of Lewis Carroll and for the first time delve deep into the mind of the man to discover the hidden mysteries and meanings behind his incredible creations.

You can watch the trailer of the DVD on Youtube through this link.

So proud of this video…..

Yesterday, I had the first screening of the City of Secrets Video. Maurice Bossers, the editor, has done a marvellous job. I think he succeeded to create a story in moving images around my song. He has blended dirty black and white images of myself with bright red images from the Patrice Chaplin’s Siesta movie. The focus is particularly on Ellen Barkin, who wears a great red dress. We have used the church and confession scenes and some footage of Ellen running through the corridors of a dark hotel. The old Siesta scenes work really well with the material we shot in Amsterdam last week. To emphasize the spiritual nature of the song and the quest for the woman in the video, Maurice has given me sort of a halo which looks quite cool I think. The editing is not too flashy but really does justice to the story I want to tell which I consider a great accomplishment by the editor.

I have added a gallery to the photo page with 25 stills form the video. It is now being micro-edited and mastered so we can send it off to SKY to be included in my performance on the Gardiners World talkshow that will be televized in a couple of weeks.

On Sunday 4th October we have been filming for the video clip of my song City of Secrets (iTunes), the song I wrote for Hollywood author Patrice Chaplin. The “we” in this case is Director John Nieland, Producer and Camera guy Dennis von Ende, a small crew and myself. This video clip will have its world premiere on the Gardiners World TV show on SKY Controversial TV that is dedicated to my work and which will be broadcasted in about 6 week’s time in the UK and later in the US. I was filmed singing, wandering the busy Sunday streets on several locations in the heart of Amsterdam. John is a man with enormous drive and energy. He also had a very clear vision of what the clip needed to look like. Dennis was the perfect guy to put it on camera. Calm and patient, with a rare love for detail. Even though this was their first project together, it felt like we had been working together for a long time.

This experience was a first for me in many respects. Not only is it the first video clip I have ever made, it was also the first time that I presented myself so directly and closely to the public, singing and with some bits of dancing. In the clip, we try to capture the lively big city atmosphere of Amsterdam. We have been filming in HQ cinema format, which will be edited into a moody black&white. During the edit we will also use scenes from Patrice Chaplin’s 1987 Hollywood movie Siesta. Together the images will tell the story of unanswered love which is the theme of the song. I hope the video will truly echo the desolation, the big city atmosphere and the interaction I have had with the public.

I could never have realized this video without the tremendous help and support of the Dutch Camera College. Run by veteran cameraman Maurice Bossers, this institute specializes in training people in the media and television industry to the highest production standards. Maurice will be responsible for editing the video clip. His is the gargantuan task of ploughing through the more than 3,5 hours of video and make it into an apple pie. I am very happy that I can draw on his long experience and creativity. The clip will be ready for screenings around coming weekend. I can’t wait.

Yesterday, I was the guest of the Philip Gardiner show on Controversial TV. Even though the show won’t be broadcasted before another couple of weeks, everything is recorded “live” in one take. There’s no editing. The only thing that will be added in later will be the Video Clip of my latest song City of Secrets, which I wrote for Hollywood author Patrice Chaplin.

As the regular talkshow host Philip Gardiner couldn’t make it because of personal circumstances, I was interviewed by Andrew Gough. Andrew is the former Director of the Institute of Interdisciplinary Sciences (ISIS), and Chairman of the long running esoteric research society, The Rennes Group. He has written for journals and publications of all kinds and decoded Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code in the bestselling book, The Dan Brown Companion (Mainstream 2006). We talked for some 45 minutes about my Mystery Pop project and my co-operation with the wonderful Kathleen McGowan and Patrice Chaplin, the results of my research into the Mystery of Rennes-le-Château and about Kathleen McGowan’s The Book of Love. At the end of the show I did a live performance of my song of the same name that was inspired by her book. Singing it live for the first time on television was a very moving experience. This song has a very special meaning for me and to be able to share it with so many people at the same time was something else. One of those moments that will stick by you for a very long time if not forever. The show will be televised all over Europe and the US and it will also be included in an upcoming Reality Films DVD covering Gardiners World.

As the shows for an entire month are recorded on one day, I had the opportunity to meet a number of very interesting people. Thursday night I had the privilege to dine with Jean-Paul and Robert Bauval, whose bestselling books on the Sphinx and Pyramids have kept me occupied many hours of reading. On the Friday, I met Julian Rees and Martin Faulks.

Another thing this performance has taught me is that the Mystery Pop project is far from over. What started with a song for Kathleen McGowan is turning into a big project now. At this moment I am working on a song for another star NY Times bestselling author who has sold almost 10 million books and more and more requests are coming in.

Tomorrow I’ll be in Amsterdam with a film crew to shoot my first video clip in this project : City of Secrets. Expect to find a report here soon.

Take care | Corjan