Western Justice (Jack Rieley & Machiel Botman, 1975)

That evening, four years ago, Jack Rieley sat in a London hotel room, talking with Carl Wilson and Mike Love. At the time he was the manager of the Beach Boys. They were talking about The Netherlands, where they would travel to the next day. Jack had never been there before, but became fascinated beforehand because of the stories of the others. “You’ll love it”, Mike said, and Rieley took him at his word. When he suggested to leave early next morning, it was welcomed favorably, even though the Beach Boys weren’t expected on the stage of the Concertgebouw until midnight. The next day they were packed and ready waiting at Heathrow Airport, staring at the fog that made a pack of fat cotton of the London airport.
It wasn’t until at about 2 o’clock at night that – against all security regulations – they could leave with a private plane heading for Brussels, where a row of taxi’s was waiting for them to bring the gentlemen over to Amsterdam. From time to time Rieley checked the meter that showed the amount due in Belgian Franks, and he wondered if this was all worth the trouble. The concert started at 5 o’clock at night. Jack Rieley stood on top of the majestic stairway, and for several minutes he stared breathlessly into the dark hall. Packed! Rieley: “It was then that I knew that either the people in this country were completely mad, of that something was happening that I wasn’t able to value yet. But I knew at that moment that one day I would be coming back here.”
That happened, one and a half year later. For a whole summer the Beach Boys lived in The Netherlands, in beautiful homes in Het Gooi for which they paid a fortune on rent. During that time they recorded “Holland”, a fantastic album, made in a mobile studio that was housed in an empty building in Baambrugge.
Jack Rieley felt that a chapter in his life was closed. More or less by chance he had become the manager of the Beach Boys, more or less by chance he had delivered the most important lyrics, and more or less by chance he had played a role in the transformation the band went through: from hit machines dressed in white suits to the [pop]temples like Fillmore East. Jack decided to stay in The Netherlands when the rest returned [to California]. He rented a house on the Leidsegracht [along the Amsterdam canals], looking forward to something bigger, like every Amsterdam citizen. That he found in Broek en Waterland, one of those beautiful villages under the shadow of Amsterdam, where the ‘Mokummers’ [nickname of Amsterdam inhabitants] hardly ever come (Ransdorp, Holysloot, Durgerdam, Uitdam, Zuiderwoude [all small villages northeast of Amsterdam], if it’s 15 kilometers, it’s a lot).
Rieley: “After “Holland” I actually didn’t want to do anything in the music business. I was busy taking root in The Netherlands. I started loving this country, and I did my best getting to know it. I was in fact kind of a student. I simply didn’t have time for something else.
Gradually though the idea was planted to start to do something again. One night – sitting at the piano in the old doctor’s residence – a song rolled out again. Then an idea came, it developed into a project. Rieley felt that after a long time something was about to happen again. His fast growing enthusiasm was shared by Machiel Botman, a friend he met years ago when the Beach Boys were looking for houses in The Netherlands and the Botman family lived in the coach house of in one of the houses that were rented.
Together they did a very ambitious project: WESTERN JUSTICE. A “Rockbook” as they call it, as the chosen format didn’t really fit in an existing category (pop opera, pop oratorium, concept album). Rieley calls it a “production album”, whatever that may be. WESTERN JUSTICE consists of an album and an included booklet, the diary of a person not mentioned by name that runs from August 16th until 27th in the year that the western world gets a taste of his own medicine: drought, war, starvation, and political turmoil, while the former Third-World watches disinterested.

In the Summer of 1974 Rieley ran the idea by Roel Kruize, the energetic president of Bovema, a man Jack has deep respect for, because of his company’s dynamic approach in a country that has little say commercially, but all the more artistically [internationally seen]. Kruize said: “Why don’t you do this with us? You claimed to have so much trust in Dutch musicians? Now you can prove it is true that albums can be mad in The Netherlands of international standing. And on top of that: I rather do some like WESTERN JUSTICE myself, than that it is given to me from abroad.”
94 people have participated in WESTERN JUSTICE, during 256 studio hours. Even for international standards it has turned into a very expensive album: it costed over a 150.000,- Dutch Guilders to complete the most ambitious project ever made in The Netherlands.
By the way: after having played a test pressing for weeks, still something new shows up, that pleasantly affects me in this already monumental piece of music. WESTERN JUSTICE is like nothing you have ever heard before, although of course some parts are reminiscent of Beach Boys output like Sunflower, Surf’s Up, or Holland (but so what?), by the way without those incredible perfect vocals that threatened to kill the production of abovementioned albums. WESTERN JUSTICE remained the work of man.
And the follow-up? Dutch studio’s is becoming more popular in 1975 behind those of Muscle Shoals and Kingston in the international pop scene, Dutch musicians are invited to participate in foreign super sessions, and Machiel Botman, the nineteen year old red-haired skinny phlegmatic, photogenic French literary scholar – who sings most of the lead vocals on WESTERN JUSTICE – becomes a star.

The release of WESTERN JUSTICE is on forthcoming March 7th.

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Broek in Waterland, late summer
The terrace at Neeltje Pater is filled with Dutch families. Children lurk over their ice dreams to the boats on the lake, to [their] dad with a lager in his hands, and back. It’s not going to happen today.
De Erven 1 [address], we walk around the back. Machiel Botman opens the door. Jack Rieley and I don’t know each other. In order to getting to know each other we talk about my hometown (Amsterdam, he loves so immensely) and his (Milwaukee, Michigan, in his own words a place to die). From a tea table I pick a small magazine that Jack compiled when he was at around 15 years old. . It’s about pop music. Dion, Frankie Avalon, and Freddy Cannon call the shots. Amazing to see how much Jack’s first journalistic piece looks like mine, at the time in The Netherlands.

After an hour we end up where we should be: at WESTERN JUSTICE. Jack explains what all of it involves, but regularly the same despondency I feel overwhelmes him: there’s nothing to listen to yet, therefore there’s nothing to discuss.
“Let me hear something” I suggest, pointing at the piano. Jack sits behind it and changes instantly. Gradually he becomes enthousiastic, now and then he interrupts his ragged piano playing with a miffed “Now I wish I could play piano”, when his fingers can’t follow his thoughts. Machiel sings along part of STUCK (THE CIRCLE).

The first time that Jack heard that remarkable, sometimes delicate voice, sometimes piercing voice, was on a day in the coach house of Huize Woestduin in Vogelenzang [village near Bloemendaal), where Machiel, his brother Harm and his mother lived. As Harm and Jack were discussing the cover of the “Holland” album (which Harm was supposed to have made, but which didn’t go through), Jack was affected by a voice that came from the toilet. He buried it in his memory when it turned out the owner of the voice was hardly interested in music!

From the diary: the Emergency line too long and was annoying this afternoon. Three hours of waiting only resulted in a box of powder milk, a large bag of grain, and a dozen of batteries (labelled: Gift of the people of Surinam).

Heemstede, Autumn.
The Bovema-studio is packed with people and equipment. The band is working on the basic tracks, the start of many studio hours. It is hard labour. Musicianship is craftmanship here. Jack is standing behind the glass of the control booth, like a commander amicably carrying out for which he warned for beforehand during lengthy conversations: no compromises!
Long dialogues with arranger Gerard Stellaard lead to a whole lot of side trips, but most of the time the return to “the way we played it at first”. For two hours I watch fascinated; then I have to leave. Jack takes the time to say good bye, then he picks up the microphone and sings for the fiftieth time the line I can dream by now: “There’s no rain but me to make things right”.

From the diary: the announcements from the radio news service were anything but reassuring. The Latin-Afro-Asian top conference came to a standstill on the question if further help should be offered to the countries of the Emergency Pact. Reports have come in from France, Germany and Belgium on people dying of starvation. For the Midwest of the United States things look pretty gloomy.

The first time Machiel has to sing al of a sudden is scared to death. Up till then outwardly he didn’t show any doubt, although later on he’ll admit that he had constantly played with the idea that he might not be the right guy for the lead vocals. Jack mercilessly let him have it, and slowly but surely Machiel gets in shape. If at the end of a session he has to crawl under a piano because his voice would sound better that way, he does it without complaining and does it well, too.

From the diary: all new leaders look joyous at the world, clearly impressed with the possibilities the new-found power offers them. They have put up a sign that says: Now you are the law. Use it.

A couple of problems disappear during the sessions, a couple of others arise. Jack later says: “Machiel’s voice was an uncertain factor before we started. Of course it is different at home behind the harmonium, than in the studio. It all depended on the flexibility Machiel would have to muster. This turned out to be a windfall. The lead vocals turned from a toss-up into one of the strongest elements on the album”.
Another windfall: Jos Hermeierm the drummer. In the conversations beforehand Jack couldn’t make any sense of him.
He decides to take a chance. Hermeier turned out to be the most dedicated man during the session.

Jan de Hont, a guitarist of international class, who is forced to make a living in the Netherlands with more or less obscure session work, in addition to playing bass with Neerlands Hoop, starts a bit stubbornly with this job. But when at a good time he can be heard playing with Eddie Jobson (who plays synthesizer and violin on WESTERN JUSTICE), their doing so great, that it sounds like these gentlemen have been playng in óne band for a decade.

One Saturday though the inevitable setback. That day nothing goes right. The ladies choire turns out to be a misfire. The country fiddle that is necessary for a certain track, somehow doesn’t work out right (and Jack still doesn’t know if that was caused by him or Joost Belinfante).

Panic all around, that would be solved later on. Only ónce before during work on WESTERN JUSTICE, Jack Riely had that feeling: “When we had finished the preparations, and we would finally start, I suddenly thought: Here I am, thousands of kilometers from home, in Heemstede, The Netherlands, with people who have never worked on something like this, and no name [person] to fall back on commercially”.

From the diary: One of the neighbors came over to say goodbye. Through a few dubious connections he succeeded in gaining a spot in some kind of private jet. Through another plane and a boat he’s supposed to end up in Brazil. I wished him luck, congratulated him, all the while thinking he would never make it.

London, Winter
The receptionist of the Holiday Inn in Swiss Cottage says that the gentlemen Rieley and Botman wish not to be disturbed before two o’ clock PM. Later it would become clear why. Until nine o’ clock that morning they had been busy mixing Western Justice, the title song that closes the album. And there’s still no total consensus. In the afternoon the four of us (Machiel, Jack, Bart de Groot of Bovema, and I) go to the Abbey Road Studio’s to put the finishing touches on the song, last night’s company must have heard at about a hundred and fifty times.
Historical ground: while downstairs a full London Symphony Orchestra is working on a session, WESTERN JUSTICE is being completed in the same studio where the Beatles once recorded a masterpiece.

From the diary: There are rumours that the Emergency line won’t be opened tomorrow. I have been very careful with my rations, because it’s only until Wednesday that it’s my turn to be waiting in line.

Within an hour the job is done, and for the first time I hear WESTERN JUSTICE as a whole. The four of us we’re sitting there listening with our headphones on. I’m being overwhelmed by this monumental piece of music, but when I want to make a comment to express my admiration I see that Jack and Machiel are listening focused with closed eyes. Jobson’s violin rises up from the music, a compelling and imposing sound. And then it’s over. We look at each other, not knowing what to say. Jack is very emotional and acts like a child on a playground. In the hall Jack and Machiel make an appointment for next Monday when they can take the mastertape of WESTERN JUSTICE with them. I walk ahead of them, outside te see if our cab is approaching. André Prévin, the world famous conductor, is standing on the parking lot. We look at each other. And I think: “He álso makes music”.

From the diary: This afternoon I woke up because of banging on the door. Jan had a 24 hours leave pass. For two months he had been typing application forms for the army. He had a variety of stories to tell about corruption, degradation, and starvation. He had experienced a lot. It was fantastic to hear to hear this kind of news from someone I know, instead of the thin voice on the radio. We talked until dawn.

An hour later Jack still hasn’t calmed down. The revelry in the Dutch colony (expanded with Harm Botman [Machiel’s brother], his girlfriend, and Bart’s wife is all-round. We drink coffee, cogna, eat sickly sweet English pastry, and still can’t get over the fact that all work is done. I get in the cab, heading for the airport, when the party hasn’t even started yet. Hard to imagine that that man [cab driver] doesn’t even know.

From the diary: In New Delhi fellow scientists from Ghana, Tanzania, Korea and Chile have proposed to end the top conference. The countries of the Emergency Pact have to pay for their previously committed acts against what then was known as the Third World. The proposal caused a lot of confusion in the conference benches. The responses were intense. In Paris and Washington there have been calls to unleash a nuclear attack. But more sensible people press on mitigation. After all we would be destroying our food and energy sources we need so much as well.

Broek in Waterland, Winter:
Christmas Eve. The clock calls the believers in Broek to go to Mass. Jack, Machiel, and I are listening to the test pressing of WESTERN JUSTICE. While enjoying a glass of gin we talk about lots of stuff into the night. About the possibilities to perform the project on stage as well, what their plans are. On the promotional activities that will be undertaken on both sides of the ocean after the release. On the commercial aspects of the Rock book. (“There is no reference material. The appeal WESTERN JUSTICE radiates is hard to read”).
Machiel Botman: “For a long time I had the feeling that I couldn’t judge about the quality of the album and my own share in it. I mainly go with the opinions of other people. Those remained good, but I was hesitant. I decided to use the time between the completion of and the release to take some distance and judge myself. But I believe that I’ve figured it out: I think we have made a good album.

From the diary: On the background one can hear that every radio in the building is turned on, tuned on the simultaneous translation of the Latin-Afro-Asian top conference. Accusations. So many countries remind us of: “Do you remember when…”, “I remember the time that our country…”, “Our government is doing exactly what theirs did back then…”.

Pictures:
Left: the new star: Machiel Botman
Right: from left to right: Jack Rieley, Machiel Botman, Gerard Stellaard