Balls in the open, spirits to be cured

Faust on friday were truly psychedelic, droney and dadaistic. trademark guitar riffs on the other hands missed, but not for the worse. The sound in the lower deck of the steel boat it was held in, added a great deal to the atmosphere, albeit there weren't much people at it. At the encore, singer Jean-Herve Peron put on a robe while wearing nothing underneath, his balls swinging visibly with every move he made, surely a bonus you couldn't expect before from elderly avantgardist though he seems to be have been eccentric enough at past shows.

Larkin Grimm did a nice set in a candle-lit darkened upstairs room of the Paradiso. She freed each member of the audience of bad spirits by blowing sparks on them using an indian incense bundle. She closed it with a ritual of thanking the wind and water forces before starting her intricate folk melodies and singing her sincerely spirited words which deeply impressed the 20-headed audience. An afternoon of music and backroom talks kinda became a night of exploring the Amsterdam streets, vegan mexican food and salt-rimmed margarita's, thanks for the nice evening Larkin. She's playing tonight (17th yes) in Amsterdam's cafe Sappho after 21h, if anyone interested still catches this on time. Maybe another home improvisation session will happen this week out of the blue, with a special person joining our the folk cirle?


From the same Appalachian environments as Larkin Grimm, hails her indian spirited friend Lara Polangco, a young singer songwriter who plays the dulcimer too and did a lauded duo set with Larkin at the recent Terrastock 6 festival. Debut album should arrive soon I hope, after hearing this sweet-voiced folky song below.

Lara Polangco - Orphan Girl

Krautrock in oblivion while a Grimm reaper appears as a shaman

Tomorrow, Faust live! A German free-travelling squatter boat on the northern Amsterdam docks serves as the ultimate fitting industrial setting. Stubnitz is the keyword.
Faust in depth; 50 year old krautrockers from a lost German improvisational era of the late 60's up to the 70's, where new boundaries were created and set the blueprint for a lot of the current experimental music, either electronic or acoustic driven. One could perhaps even go as far as saying that they might have inspired some early punk bands, but intangible webs better be left alone in fear getting into a sticky mess. The band is notorious for sticking it to 'the man', in most cases the audience gets their favourable disrespect in ways of verbal abuse or being spat upon by the band. How hardcore indeed. Don't let the below tracks fool you into false conclusions, diversity ages slow and fruitful.

Faust - Flashback Caruso (1973)
Faust & Dälek - Imagine What We Started (2004)


Back to current times, to the current flow of folk.
Larking Grimm plays this sunday afternoon, upstairs in the church-like Paradiso. Some say she is like the Cocorosie sisters, Joanna Newsom or Björk. Such talk is all a matter of shallow subjectivity since Larkin Grimm shapes music as spiritual energy and emotions. Those are her sincere words to speak out loud. It's lucid dreams out in the open, examined and rewrapped for your inner being. If all goes well, I'm having talk with her with the motivation to turn it into an article, though I'm getting more curious to know her outlook beyond the music, especially after reading a choice she made -or rather a path she took- last summer, found on her personal blog, July 2006:


"BECOMING A SHAMAN - yeah, those "freak folk" junkies are all talking about shamanic stuff, but I'm actually going to take my powers to another level by apprenticing under two shamans in upstate New York this August. In light of the coming need for a mass leap of consciousness (we're shooting for the year 2012), I've decided to help to facilitate the process of change by becoming a traveling shaman. I have been practicing many methods of dreaming recently, and trying to enable other peoples' dreamsduring my musical performances. I think that if we can just get people to imagine a better world, and to see their dreams as potential future rather than fantasy, we can really change things for the better. Personally, Iwant to see folks retiring their SUV's and riding their bikes to work, limiting unnecessary travel, and focusing on improving their local communities. After I get my certificate in "advanced shapeshifting", I'll be taking off on another tour, going out to California."

An onverview of songs, all unique in their spiritual buzz, healing those wounded:

Larkin Grimm - Pigeon Food (cd: Harpoon, 2005)
Larkin Grimm - I'm Just Saying Yes (unreleased, on blog, 2006)
Larkin Grimm - The Waterfall (cd: The Last Tree, 10 oct. 2006)
Larkin Grimm - Little Weeper (cd: The Last Tree, 10 oct. 2006)

Electional currents of neo's and socio's

I feel should elaborate a bit on the Belgian/Flemish city council elections which were held last sunday, being an expat Belgo and whatnot, the ups and the downs clear cut out for ya! -oh I didn't vote, cos I'm not registered as living in Belgium, thus no vote for me, grumble-

All the controversy circulates around the Vlaams Belang party, the neo-conservatives of the Flemish part. As the wikipedia article shows, the neutrality is a serious topic so take a look at the talk page to get a better insight into the party's current views on resolutions.

Over the past few months there have been numerous manifests carried out through alternative media and musical manifestations, with oddly enough even Microsoft sponsoring this recent political concert in the Antwerp centre. All of lefty and socialist Flanders combined their creative forces to put a stop to the doom-politics of the neo-cons, something which is rarely seen in Western Europe these. For example in Holland when the politician Pim Fortuyn was in his prime rise of power before he got assasinated, there was hardly any strong fist made by the left. Therefore the vile neo-con crusade did not stuggle much with public blocks, which was a shame really though this says all about the unpassionate Dutch civil behaviour (this civil obedient grey mouse behaviour has always been present in Holland and is one of the things I truly, deeply hate about this country)

The outcome is that Vlaams Belang didn't gain much in the big cities, but they did climb 5% in overall in the Flemish part which is grim news. This happened mostly in the oh-so cultural countryside which is no sudden surprise. They heroicly call it a landslide win to fuel their own propaganda parade, whatever pleases them but the voting results in overall showed no real big wins or losses for any party. Locally, the scenario is different, especially concerning my fair birth city Antwerp, where the party has it's dirty roots. Antwerp had a 33%(!!!) Vlaams Belang city council over the past 4 years, while a socialist mayor kept his role. Sunday, the (well, cigar smoking) SPA-Spirit socialist party of the mayor, somehow managed to go up from 20% to 35% and now holds the majority of the Antwerp city council again. This came as a surprise since lefty people were fearing the worst for Antwerp this time. Still, the whitened suburbs showed an increase of VB votes and it's tough to swallow that there are stats of around 60% VB voters in those parts. Ignorance is bliss to those in their villa's, yuppie condo's and posh retirement homes and praise them who apparently think it's better to create a enthnical society gap, the empty humans they are.

VB's conclusion statement on the night of results was that it was the *newly achieved* immigrant vote that halted their march in the centre and the poorer parts of the city. ''Oh yes, it indeed is not fair to let decent, honest immigrants vote, ofcourse they work to clean your toilets, pick up your garbage, produce your products in unhealthy chemical factories and so on, but that doesn't make them people" Sarcastic indeed. According to these flemish fascists, immigrants who have recently become belgian nationals, should not be able to vote, purely based on the fact that they don't vote in the neo-con favour. I wonder how quickly their pignecks would turn if immigrants would vote for them, by godspeed I tell ye. Every time a member of VB was interviewed sunday night, they kept on referring to the immigrant/new national vote. Over and over again dragging this cat into the same alley. What gives; in fact there were just over 2000 new immigrants granted Belgian citizenship, thus 2000 votes they probably did not get. In a city of nearly 500.000 inhabitants, 1.000.000 for the whole Antwerp agglomeration, you can understand how ridiculous their moaning for the ignorant sounds. But yes, the ethic of this wonderful party goes deep...''we're not racists'' you can hear them scream, ''but we're fatherland culture loving nationalists" is what they chant, contineously, filling the air with their verbal poison.

Does that bascily mean that as an expat EU person, I normally should not be able to vote for the Dutch city council elections here either, which I did? Or should I be no problem, just cos I'm white and carry a EU identity? Welcome to the world of Flemish neo-cons. they are so so right.

In the end, the VB haven't lost much ground..in fact they slightly gained nearly everywhere or stayed equal. It's a dangerous stigma to be taken serious. Even at times where they have fucked up, they have not lost much support which is even more worrying which indicated the sheer stupidity of the voters following them. Scray shit has gotta give sometime.

Rant over and gutted.

Whaddaday-hey, the days reposed personally

all summerised.

Thursday 05-10:
At the Dutch Film Festival there was a screening of student films and Samatha invited me to see the foreign documentaty her friend Deniz. Though I liked some of the ironic animation films, the rest kinda left me cold. The only piece that really stood out for me sincerely was the short documentary Following The Fish made by the Turkish student Deniz Baser. Then again I'm always very positively biased to cultural/foreign documentaires, my arty flaw therefore exposed. The story was based around old fisherman Mr Gokhan in modern day Istanbul, who talked about his current and past fishing days and the cosmopolitan change of the city. There were sublime sceneries of Istanbul's hustle & bustle and the general cinematography was well composed. I really hope she can submit this film to the cultural NPS network, the VPRO or perhaps even foreign networks like the French-German ARTE, as it would totally fit there for it to air on TV.

Straight after I made my way through the rain (oh joy!) to DB Studio near my gaf, where friend Peter had his graduation party (see link for story n pic), plus also leaving the alternative media organisation 3voor12 which he set up years ago. Usual suspect friends Pim, Iris, Jurriaan, Klazien and Michel were already there (hey guys!), so I joined in to catch his goodbye speech, the kiddie apple champagne and soon enough Plunk! did a bonus set with Danibal on mouth harp, creating some sort of throat singing and beatboxing over breakbeats. I got talking to Danibal for his nice cd's he gave to me through Sama, plus he might join our livingroom folk session next time, another soul welcomed. To finish the night Der Tante Renate, a small German fella from Hamburg, played a nice set of electroey beats with a gamepad and his electric guitar. I got pulled on stage by crazy bouncy ball woman Klazien, not able to pull away and the stage got stormed after that. Got home way too late. what's new. Klazien & Michel from Rotterdam stayed at my place, which was kinda last-minute late night style of decision making. Waking up again at 6:30, as the story goes....

Friday 06-10
Night in Waterfront with Jet, Klazien and Michel, with local Rotterdam rock bands playing, lots of teenagers present with some old rockers. Most of the music was lame, except for Sanne en Ik, a angsty punk band by some crazy dude with seriously weird lyrics about biting bulldogs, how to train your daughter to be a heroin hooker and whatever nonsense. right. His girlfriend Sanne had become his ex a week ago, so the band name is freshly outdated. The guy should consider doing stand-up comedy if ever needing a new direction. In the bar a rock karaoke started with the usual 60's to 90's rock songs....it was fun till it got painfully quickly so we had to walk off. Some guys started doing improvisation samba drumming in the hallway and thankfully weren't ripping off the same old rhythms but keeping it sincerely spirited. A ride through riverside Rotterdam to the north side was an eyeopener to experiencing the city's scapes I never explored before by bike.

saturday 07-10
day 3 of the not-much-sleep parade, Belgium the setting for this scenario. Had an editorial meeting with the magazine, packing the zines and eating all sorts of belgo waffles n pastries fueled by beers afterwards. At Night, a Breakcore Gives Me Wood rave at the Hof ter Lo, where Serge of Gonzo is the coordinator. Artists Sickboy from Antwerp and Droon from Ghent are the driving forces behind the Wood parties which are getting bigger numbers of people in with every rave, which is nice for them since they push the sound of a small scene. I got in well past midnight as by pure coincidence I ran into 2 friends in Antwerp's centre and went for a drink instead. Finally arrived at the venue after taking a wrong bus to the outskirts too, smart move, and found the rave a steaming pit of dancing bodies, junglists alongisde squatters, gabbers and metalheads, a nice snapshot of the breakcore scene alive. Bigshot honcho Venetian Snares gave a fierce set and although being manic driven and all, it was nearly the same set he did in The Hague a few weeks earlier, but freaks dance to anything so why moan. DJ Floorclearer was more interesting; meddling between punk, metal and breakcore. Droon's set was fun to watch too as he was wearing his trademark airplane suit and helmet, playing his keytar (a pc keyboard glued to a guitar body).The cheesiness of his sudden trance and pop outbursts into the hefty core sound was good for comical dance relief. I somehow ended at the Antwerp station at 6.30 and fell asleep on a cold bench for a while, sleep everwhere when in need, why worry.

It cricks, crackles 'n' rattles!

Playing time, double contextual scraps.

Wednesday night with a bunch friends, we organised a grouphug freakfolk session at casa Sebcatlitter, which went on waaaay deep into the night. Waking up hours later at 6.30am for another day of corporate slavery with the damocles realm of sleep deprivation; not recommended must say. Rewind, the livingroom was turned into an instrument mine field with chunks & pieces loitered everywhere. It was nearly like a Fonal concert setting, errr except that we made more mess with drinks n food. What to pick, what to play of this scattered array; we had music boxes, xylophones, melodica's, african lamellaphones (or better known as thumb piano's), kiddie keyboards, cheapo accordeons, various guitar shapes, shakers, drumming pads, bird & frog sound tools and an amazing sounding Botswana bush bow-slash-violin, was that all? -pfew-
Fair play to Wouter for bringing most bags of instruments including his old mechanical tape recorder for making grainy looping drones, which really coloured the acoustic sound.
We played a few hours and recorded most of it, will put mp3's links of some session pieces on here soon after filtering the grit from the chissle. Thank Mark, Gijs, Ellen, Wouter, Maarten, Iris, Merel and Daniel for coming out to play. Below some pics taken by Mark and Iris, thx too!






















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Just heard about a pretty nifty electronical instrument; the *Cracklebox* (ta, Rory!)
"The Cracklebox was probably the first commercialy available portable selfpowered alternative 'keyboard' analog audio synthesizer with inbuilt loudspeaker" Old skool glitch, wowza! :)


Apparently this device was created in the 70's and has been recently revived by the good people at Amsterdam based Steim and the German Sonig label. It's really no surprise that Jan Werner (part of electrofrizzy outfit Mouse on Mars) is the connection here, being the programmer at Steim and owner of Sonig at the same time. Various artists are using this device nowadays and had seen it used before at a MoM show which tickled my curiosity. And curiousity indeed kills this cat slowly, especially when this device can be purchased for next to nothing* (*only applies ro addicst of musical gadgets I reckon) at Steim's online shop. Just play kids, play!

Talking in NY synchronicity equals stupidity & Icelandic hangaround soundtrack for rainy day

Last nite, cafe & bok liquid enjoyment in Averechts. Minimalistic melancholia and dubby tunes provided by Bastiaan and some by me. Mixing bits for a few old chaps and affiliated people, a sunday night out the easy way. Must check out more of the Microcosm Music label, soothing melange! Wixel's nightly discovered stuff is good to, released on the Utrecht Mechanized Mind label of ehmm.. Bastiaan!

Monday morning feedback buzzing through the head, lacking thalamus adrenaline from a poor night's sleep indeed.
How to amuse yourself in this scenario; a dull grey day, office space dismay, creating the flutter for ample action and keep the employees at bay. hurray!

Then there always is New York small talk to cheer you up, it does the trick. We really need a Randstad version of this, I tell ye (fyi the triangle area of Amsterdam/Rotterdam/Utrecht/The Hague). Enlightenment through glum minds works a-treat indeed.

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Woman: You know how those animal people are, though. I mean, I speak to them, though! I've done pigeon rescues and stuff before. I love animals.

Man: Did you ever bury your rats?

Woman: No... I just can't bring myself to do it.Man: How long has it been? Three years?

Woman: Yeah. They're still in my freezer.

Man: Just bury them already!Woman: I can't bring myself to do it! They were my favorite!

Man: But they're IN YOUR FREEZER! Why not have them stuffed, then?

Woman: What? No! That would be wacky!

--A train, 207th St
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Blind date boy: So how long was your ex on the job?

Blind date girl: Well, he's been a cop for three years, but he still lives with his parents because of how little cops get paid.

Blind date boy: Cops get paid shit in the beginning.

Blind date girl: Well, he was making a lot more before, you know...

Blind date boy: Oh yeah, being a drug dealer.

--Austin St & 72nd Ave, Queens
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On this windy & rainy day, to mark the start of the oh-so new autumn, some drowsy Icelandic tunes by Sigur Ros.

Sigur Ros - Josep Tekur Fimmuna i Vinnuna
Sigur Ros - Hlemmur #1
Sigur Ros - Hvalir i Utrymingarhaettu

The music is part of a soundtrack which they fully composed for the urban vagabondic documentary 'Hlemmur' by Olaf Sveinsson: ''Hlemmur is a film which revolves around the lives of some unfortunate destitute men who spend most of their time in and around reykjavík's main bus station, hlemmur'' Alcopop happiness in Icelandic slurs; short clip bit