Instagram story viewer> @northstarrunner> Posts

North Star Runner / Bo Menning

@northstarrunner

791

followers

1251

following

ＤｒｅａｍｙＳｌｕｄｇｅ ∆° New album The Dennen is out! °∆ Down-tuned guitars • ambient drone • drum machines.
Bookings: DM

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

And here it is... The Dennen! The album I didn't think that I would have made if it weren't for @pieterkloos at @tarwesound
The making of this album was a dream. It's a place where I feel safe and where I found comfort and peace in volume and loudness. A room full of amps that became a living creature that wrapped its arms around me. What a thing it was.

The album is out today! Released on @platoutrecht records as a stunning 2 LP in a gatefold sleeve featuring the artwork of @mozemertens and photos by @gertjanvanderloo

Thank you @jenni__vl @immennimmen @wetteloos and @litzbergmusic for reminding me that I had to make this record.

See you at the release show tomorrow at @dbs_utrecht with @thistlesiftermusic taken in Utrecht, Netherlands by @northstarrunner

75

6

8 months ago

What an amazing evening it was to open for @coasterband feat. Immen at @dekrommeharing.brewpub x @ekko.nl
It felt great to perform in the town that I call home most of the time. I love this current DIY music scene that we've got going in Utrecht at the moment. We follow our own paths. For instance when I look at @ineptitude_music (post-hardcore)or @immennimmen (dream folk). They're total opposites and yet they're cut from the same cloth. We make things happen and people are into it. Last night was a great example of that. That's the kind of scene I came from way back in Soest & Baarn. Guys a little older than me showed me how to do it. Do it yourself with some help from others, cos no one else is going to do it for you. This momentum is yours. Stay true to what you feel that feels right.

📸@thomasdoet by @northstarrunner

51

4

a day ago

Playing in Germany has always been a thing I love doing.
The drives through the German landscape are always beautiful. I like to take the time to take a detour here and there and take the back roads that cut through to the forests. Just me, Guido(sound tech & bestie) and his campervan. 🌲
It's been a while since I've played in Germany, but I'm going to do more of it. The shows in Mannheim and Trier were great. @greatescapesband , @edenbleak and everyone at @juzmannheim were the sweetest people. ❤️ So much energy and awesome sounding bands ranging from emo punk to guitar driven electro dream pop with me doing my dreamy sludge thing in between. It worked so well together.
Thank you for putting this show together @variant_coverage_blog

On Saturday I played in Trier at @limbus.trier
@dam4rv is a great friend and such a humble sweet guy who used to book Aestrid in Trier all the time at Lucky's Luke since 2017. He's got his own place down town now and invited me to come play in his new bar. We spent the afternoon walking around the old city with Marvin as our tour guide and catching up on each others lives. ❤️
Playing shows, travelling and catching up with friends and making new friends is the best. The friendships I have abroad mean the world to me. To do music like this feels most natural to me.

Next up: @coasterband album release show on Thursday October 15th at @dekrommeharing.brewpub

See you soon.
Xo, Bo. taken in Utrecht, Netherlands by @northstarrunner

47

4

5 days ago

How do I move forward?
How do I go from here?
Alone in a city where I disappear.
Thinking about the future.
Finding my way in this city's landscape.
Everything feels so familiar here.
And everything feels totally different this time after so many years.

I'm always looking for places where I feel safe.
A place called home. I don't know where or what that is to be honest. Safe meant being away from where I grew up.
Safe is in the friends I have and in the new friends that I've made on this trip.
I've dreamt of spending more time in Hamilton and writing my own history in this town.
There's something about this place and my friends who live here also can't put their finger on it.

Thank you sweet friends from the Hammer.
You know who you are.
Gonna come back here.
It makes me feel alive.
Got my drive back.
I said to myself:
No Fear, No F***** Fear, No More.
You got this, You got this Bo.

Xo, bo.

📸 @nathan.mccrory taken in Hamilton, Ontario by @northstarrunner

30

4

13 days ago

What a dream it was to come back to London and to play with @stogiemonacomusic & @czechhotel
We turned @supplydemandbrewery into our little ambient world on a rainy Wednesday night with Stogie Monaco making his live debut and Czech Hotel doing a stripped down set, exploring new ground. @alexjhindriks and @alexthebass and I all have so much admiration for each other's creative endeavours whether it's music, art or photography. It all comes from a deep place. I love how we've always stayed in touch over more than a decade. This is the stuff I live for. Making beautiful memories with friends cut from the same stardust. It was so nice to catch up with you Brandan, Juno, Maddy, Ryan and Daphne. You're the sweetest people! Otherworldly it was. Let's do this again next year. taken in London, Ontario by @northstarrunner

24

2

16 days ago

Thanks to everyone who came out to the @themulespinner last night. It was a thrilling new experience for me playing in this room by myself as North Star Runner. I know the room so well. It gives something back if you give it all of yourself. Thank you @glenmarshallproducer @nathan.mccrory, Matt and Jake. Thank you @davehindthingmaker for your beautiful set and the tabla/sitar musicians that went on before me. It was an evening devoted to droney music in a city that really means a lot to me.

I write to make sense of myself. I play to empty myself.
Nothing was ever normal or safe for me. The way I was brought up and the way I go through life are worlds apart, and yet so tightly connected. Every time I'm down here in Hamilton I can feel the life where I come from. I'm a product of my past, of a factory life. It makes me try harder and do better. Aim truer. Live this life deeper. Hamilton is my mirror and shows me my true self.

📸: @perennials_music taken in Hamilton, Ontario by @northstarrunner

52

2

20 days ago

by @northstarrunner

80

8

23 days ago

I'm so so thrilled to return to Hamilton, Ontario next week and play a show with my friend @davehindthingmaker hosted by another dear friend of mine, @glenmarshallproducer . Hamilton makes me play a certain way. Always better than what I thought I had in me. Always better than the last time. I can still feel what I felt when Bob Lanois showed me and my former band, Aestrid around. Your factory buildings felt familiar to me, cos I grew up around factories. The nature surrounding the city felt like home. You've been in my dreams a lot Hamilton. Even the cover photo on my album The Dennen was taken right outside Hamilton near the Falls at Dundas, cos I wanted to capture this feeling of feeling safe.

The show is on Saturday September 26th at The Mule Spinner, situated next to The Cotton Factory. It will be a private event. Shoot me or @themulespinner a message and you're on the list :)

So grateful I get to Canada again and play shows, catch up with old friends and make new friends.
I can hardly believe it. Am I really doing this?
I guess I am ;)

XO, Bo. taken in The Mule Spinner by @northstarrunner

45

0

a month ago

These past two days at @tarwesound have flown by. We captured 4 new songs. Recording with Pieter Kloos is always such a thrilling experience. He sets up the amps, the mics and makes sure we capture the atmosphere in this big room. The deep sound of 4 guitar amps and a down-tuned guitar with a bunch of pedals is a majestic thing to experience. It feels like it moves through me as I move through the worlds of each song. Sometimes it feels like it's not me. But it is me. At times it's as if I'm moving out of my body. Recording this way is a very physical thing for me.
Singing about grief, loss and pain comes with a bunch of tears and breaking down halfway through a vocal take.
I take a deep breath, pick myself up off the floor and try again. A séance followed by the relief of a coffee break and stepping outside in the sunlight.

Xo, Bo by @northstarrunner

51

2

a month ago

69

2

a month ago

I can't see you but I know you're there...
The full moon brought me a new song again last night. It's been a few full moons and I'm ready to go into the studio again with Pieter Kloos next week. There is enough for another album and I can hardly believe it. What a thing it is to feel the songs flow through me. A lot has happened in the last 12 months. It has been the fuel for the fire. Burning under the full moon.

Xo, Bo by @northstarrunner

31

1

2 months ago

The Room of Rooms⚡ On Saturday September 26th I'll be returning to The Mule Spinner in Hamilton, Ontario. The Mule Spinner is one of those places that I deeply connect with. It's an old red brick engine room and there's something about that. It makes you play differently. It made me play like there was no tomorrow every time I played there with my former band Aestrid. If you were there, then you know. I grew up in a place that resembles the east side of town where the Cotton Factory and The Mule Spinner are situated. Memories from growing up in a place like that will have a lasting effect. In my case it made me play with all my heart, always, and to the fullest. The depth and the heaviness I put in it were something that struck the two men who run this place, Glen Marshall and the late Bob Lanois. They made me realise that what I do is no small thing and that I should realise it too cos it is a vital thing. It's the thing that really saved me when I wasn't in a great place.
It'll be special to play at The Mule Spinner again. A room that holds so many memories. A room that gives back if you play with fire. Just like Bob said.
I'll be joined by Dave Hind and Shaamaa from Brantford and Hamilton.

Tell your friends. It'll be a good one.
Xo, Bo. by @northstarrunner

48

1

2 months ago