Rino van Hooijdonk

Lango-Django

Those of you out there who attended Django in June last month may, like me, have fallen under the spell of a lovely "old school" player named Rino van Hooijdonk. (His first name is pronounced "Reno", but I haven't got a clue how to pronounce his last name!)

Rino is a Dutch fella in his fifties who learned his GJ as a teenager from the gypsies on his area. He's played with many top players, including Stochelo, Lulu R, and Fapy, but says that the last few years have been pretty lean gig-wise, not just for him but for most of the guys he plays with.

I mentioned to him the last day of DiJ that I'd be interested in paying him to write out some of his cool stuff for me, and he seemed to like the idea.

so I've just e-mailed him to try to set up something, and I wonder if anybody else might be interested in joining the Rino lessons club?

I'll let you know once I have a better idea about the cost, etc. but if this sounds interesting to you, please PM me.

Thanks,

Will

Michael Bauer

Rino is amazing! How many guys on earth can say that, once, Stochelo used to play rhythm for them? Rino can, but doesn't. Great guy, amazing player of the type I love so much. Count me in. One of the two great new friends I made this year at Django in June. Tim Robinson is the other...another guy who can play with anyone.

Bob Holo

Lango-Django wrote:

lovely "old school" player named Rino van Hooijdonk. (His first name is pronounced "Reno", but I haven't got a clue how to pronounce his last name!)

You can get pretty close by saying:

(f)Von Ho(eh)-Dawn(k) if the Euro-vowels are tough for you.

And yeah... he sounds like a total kick in the pants neat guy.

But don't you go saying he's old! He only has a year on me... lol.

Lango-Django

Thanks, Bob, for the phonetics lesson... I'm guessing that, um, somebody has been slacking off from the old luthier's workshop?

But hey, I didn't call Rino "old"... he's younger than me... I said he was "old school"... he does lots of banjo-style strums and hot chords, the very kind of 1930's stuff I love but which is probably considered passe by modern GJ standards, but very much in the hot club tradition.

When they did that exhibition of all the beautiful vintage guitars at DiJ, Rino was one of the players showing off the guitars and everyone I spoke to agreed that somehow no matter which guitar he happened to be playing at any given time, Rino's solos were always louder than the others! He's got a real strong right hand and a great sense of backing up other soloists with pretty chords and fills... A real treasure.

And by the way, Rino's hobby is making guitars, he brought a real great-sounding one which he sold while he was at DiJ so I guess it helped finance his first trip to North America... I bet Mr. Holo and Mr. van Hooijdonk would get along like a house on fire...

wim

yeah rino's guitar was awesome!! and he brought another nice one to samois ..

anthon_74

Great Idea Will ! I'm in. He taught me 2 of the best licks I learned all week.


Anthony

Lango-Django

Ok, buddy, I'll let you know once I hear from him.

In the meantime, I just stumbled upon this old thread from 2012 when Rino did a gig in Brighton, UK... check it out:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10546

kevingcox

Rino is a fine example of how engaging seemingly simple ideas can be. While other players would shred away Rino could just throw out a few notes and make everyone turn their heads. Fantastic. I think that is what the OP meant by old school. I recognized nearly everything he played, but he always made it sound fresh.

Passacaglia

I'm in as well, Will. Thanks - great idea.

And another reason I'm in mourning for the time being. Move on, let go, all that good enlightenment stuff...but man, I'm bummed I didn't make it this year. Just jamming with the caliber and variety of folks for this many hours, in this one place, is easily worth the price of admission, imho.

Lango-Django

Thanks for the support, everyone.

Now, as I've said here several times before, quoting the immortal Blackadder, "I have a cunning plan..."

I think you guys are going to like my cunning plan.

I will go so far as to say it is "as cunning than a fox who went to Oxford and got a PhD in cunning"

I hope to be sharing it with you soon, so stay tuned!

Will

Matt Henry

I bought that Rino guitar Wim was talking about, the one from Django in June last month. It's really great.

I've been a fan of Rino's playing since I came across this clip of him and Lulu a few years ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZPuUtREDn4 But that's the only thing I ever knew about him. I was stoked to see him on the staff list at DIJ this year and I'd be interested to learn more about lesson options. His classes were fun and he was friendly, generous, and approachable the whole week.

To me his last name sounded like "vahn Hoydunk" when he told me how to say it. Rino is active on Facebook btw. He just posted some clips of Adrien Moignard, Benoit Convert, and Adrian Holovaty playing the guitar he built. It's a Selmer style and the model is called the Cathédrale. https://www.facebook.com/rino.vanhooijdonk