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 Went to see Young Magic at Rotown tonight. WHOAA!
To kick off I can remark the only bad thing about the gig; there was seriously too little audience to witness this event of epic proportions. The three piece band Young Magic managed to rip open a beautiful, ever expanding musical scenery in which you could feel tiny and overwhelmed. The ethereal vocals sounded like there was an entire choir hiding somewhere behind the stage, yet they managed to produce this with just the three of them. The sampled warm beats emerged the audience in a hot vibrating bath. A rare instance where there's actually someone on stage playing a guitar and it doesn't automatically turn into some over-done rock band.
Young Magic are certainly something to experience live if it drops by your town.Emo-indicator:  excited Now Playing: Young Magic - Melt |
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 Last week I got a mail from Rotown saying they were giving away tickets to people who attended the concert of the Hundred in the Hands in November 2010. I sent in a mail and won 2 tickets. Since D couldn't come, I brought along Jerry.
The Hundred in the Hands this time around were only the opening act, so only played 5 songs or so. I was amazed at how easily they lured me into their music, despite not knowing any of the songs, since they didn't play anything off the EP I know. THITH is one of those rare bands that turn everything into magic. And I do love an act where I can check out all the gear they were playing with (did I spot an Akai sampler + controller, I think I did!). Talked with them after the show (J bought not one but two signed vinyl records). Delightfully nice people.
I'm going to qualify EMA (the main course of the evening) as 'not my thing'. Sure, Pitchfork may rate her album as #13 of top 50 albums of 2011, but to me it still sounds like grunge music that arrived 20 years late to the party. And whereas some people may like that a lot, to me the drama in the presentation and near-to-spoken-word lyrics struck as a bit pretentious and generally turned me off. Only at the last song, when the band members dropped the guitars and focused more on electronics ('my thing') I sort of got into it, but by that time it was too little too late. Still, I think plenty of people enjoyed themselves last night.
Some good news is that THITH are still negotiating it, but they hope to be back in the Fall of this year. As a headliner. Let's hope so, cause the short gig certainly peaked my interest. *makes note to get the new album when it comes out AND the previous album that followed the EP*Emo-indicator:  happy Now Playing: The Hundred in the Hands - Tom Tom |
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Originally published at B-sting.com. You can comment here or there.  Swwweeeeet! Check out the classic Moog Google coded and put up on their front page for Bob Moog‘s birthday! Wish he was still around to see that.
If you’re late for the party, you can find the synth on Google’s Doodle page.
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 Once every day when I ride the train I get freaked out. This is because a familiar voice is talking to me. It's the woman you see on the left here. And that's kind of spooky, considering she is dead.
Her name is Loes van der Schaft. She died in March 2011. I didn't know her personally, but most people in the region of Rotterdam and the Hague know her or rather, know her voice. She presented the news and various things on radio for Stads Radio Rotterdam, Stads Radio Den Haag, Radio Rijnmond, Radio West, the national news service ANP, Radio 4 and so on.
But she also did commercials and other voice-over work. Also for the Dutch Railways (NS). In fact, that automated voice you hear on the Sprinter trains that announces the next station or the automated voice that announces delays on stations? That's Loes.
I know that the speech you hear is 'computer generated'. It combines words and parts of sentences that Loes van der Schaft voiced separately into an almost 'natural' sentence that you can understand. People get angry when they hear her announce a delay. Or like usually on the Sprinter when she announces the next stop, no one takes notice.
But every time we pull into Delft Zuid, I do take notice and I feel like a ghost in the machine just guided me to my destination. She verbally waves goodbye when I get off and with her warm voice always welcomes me back when I get on. And that freaks me out.Emo-indicator:  scared |
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 Today, while searching for a band that (apparently) takes its name from an anime character, Google displayed this message at the bottom of the search results:
In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.
At first I was kinda saddened and angry that Google filtered my results. Mind you I use Google.nl, so my Dutch search on a Dutch domain in Dutch (though from an American company) results are filtered based on some AMERICAN law that does not apply to me? Fuck that!
But then I read the text a bit more and clicked the second link. It basically links to a site that lists the full letter of complaint to Google concerning the copyright infringements. This letter however includes a full list of all 374 infringing urls. Ah ... so Google did provide the search results, except they couldn't link to them directly. Also notice that the url's on the website aren't links either. LOL
Who needs a bunch of Dragonball Z episodes? Courtesy of FUNimation, cause they complained to Google.
Also, for the Dutch people out there, digital rights lawyer Arnout Engelfriet has an interesting piece on how not only anti-piracy organizations are killing the internet, but the pirates themselves aren't helping either.Emo-indicator: amused Now Playing: Spinvis - Astronaut |
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On the 4th op May, the Dutch remember those that have fallen during 'the war'. Originally it meant just World War II, but the definition has been stretched up a little. Basically it's to underline the classic words "never again" the atrocities of war. People shouldn't have to die in brutal ways because of an ideology.
Last week there was a small riot in the media. By tradition the committee that organises the official ceremony at the war monument in Amsterdam (attend by the Queen and any one in politics and the army/navy/air force who means something) has a competition for young people to write a poem or short speech. The winner gets to recite their text. This years winner, 15-year old Auke de Leeuw who wrote a poem titled Wrong Choice ("Foute Keuze") does not get to recite his poem.
Why? Because the pro-Israel organisation Center for Information and Documentation Israel (CIDI) complained to the memorial organising committee and forced them not to have the poem recited. His poem deals with an ancestor, Dirk Siebe, who made the wrong choice during the war; he fought for the Nazi's and died on the Eastern front for ideals that weren't worth it. The CIDI says the memorial shouldn't be focussing on remembering people who fought for the Nazi's, aka 'the wrong side'. For similar reasons a memorial in the town Vorden became controversial because they wanted to have the memorial for German soldiers too, since there's a burial ground for German soldiers there. They too fell during the war.
And this is where I disagree with the CIDI. The poem clearly underlines that the ancestor made the wrong choice. But this doesn't make it any less of tragic story of someone who marched off to war to die for ideals that weren't worth it. It's easy to be silent and cry over heroic soldiers, brave resistance men and poor people who were dragged off to death camps. It's much harder and confronting to look in a mirror and compare yourself to people who were the 'baddies'. The truth is most of the people who did awful things were just like you and me, except they had to make a choice and made the wrong one. They chose themselves or some insane ideal over what should be 'universally right'; caring for the life of others.
 Tomorrow, on the 4th of May, I'll be thinking of Ans van Dijk. She wasn't a war hero, in fact she was quite the opposite. Most people will label her a monster. She did terrible things. She made so many wrong choices. But what bugs me about her story is: why?
She was Jewish and she was lesbian. If those were the only facts about her, CIDI would place her on the list of people who we should remember. But that's not all about her. Despite being Jewish and lesbian, Ans worked for the Nazi's. She betrayed tens, maybe hundreds of people who would be sent to their death. According to her own defence she was driven by fear of the Nazi's, but during the trial she was described as having a merciless 'satanic hunting instinct' for anyone who got in her way. She was doing more than just saving her own skin, she was a 'Jew hunter'. She was also the only woman who was executed in the Netherlands post-war after a trial found her guilty.
That she was executed has been called curious, since there were other people who did as she did, but didn't receive the same sentence. The historian in the linked story above believes that one reason she specifically was executed is because she was Jewish and lesbian. Because people were ashamed that 'some one like them' who should have been on 'our side' 'should have known better' and instead made those terrible choices. The wrong choices. Ans was a blemish that needed to be erased from the history pages. And I think erasing that history is a capital mistake that will doom people to repeat the same wrong choices in the future.
It's easy for CIDI to label people 'good' (Jews) or 'bad' (Nazi's/people who fought for the Germans), the same way the Nazi's did, but in reverse. But the thing is, a lot of people died in that war. Too many. And a lot of people killed or were killed because they didn't have a choice. Either because they were Jews or lesbians or gypsies or in the wrong place at the wrong time or simply because they were soldiers ordered to fight. On whichever side. But the people who were deemed 'bad' often did have a choice. Ans did. And eventually, so did Dirk Siebe, since he wasn't German and was not forced to enlist in their army.
So on the 4th of May, I'd rather remind myself and the next generation of that. That people aren't bad because they were born on some part of the world or chose to believe in God or Allah or whatever. They are bad, because they make bad choices that not only profit themselves but also sent other people to their death. That some other people need to make way for you, because something they are or do is inferior, according to you. That your life is worth more than theirs. And that that belief is something worth dying over in a war. Or worse, that you'd go so far as to betray 'your own', just so you can stay alive.
On the 4th, I'll be reminding myself and others to never again make the same choices Ans van Dijk did.Emo-indicator:  sad |
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Queensday 2012 was rather ... uneventful. Me and D decided to go to Delft this year. We walked through Rotterdam to the station and checked out the various junk being sold. On the way to Delft I changed to just a t-shirt because it was warmer than expected. D ended up buying a basic shirt at the Hema because she was overdressed too.
We hung out at the Datscha with Jeroen and his girl and had cake & lemonade. We tried to squeeze ourselves along the canals to Wolbodo where there would be an auction or something for a colleague but err ... not much going on there. We shuffled through Delft and ended up having a late dinner at café de V. From there some more shuffling through the city back to the station and back home. When we got home we crashed into bed and slept for a bit till it was time to get dinner.
The loot of the day? Not a whole lot. D got a book and an LP, but that was it. Oh well.Emo-indicator:  tired Now Playing: Gossip - Music for Men |
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Originally published at B-sting.com. You can comment here or there.  I moved the site to a new server! B-sting.com has been kindly hosted by Jocelyn of Sugarcube.net for a few years, but since I got my own server at Pretty Hate Machine (not-related to the NIN album), I moved all my sites there. This one has been last to move, because migrating WordPress was a new challenge to me.
Yesterday the booking form for a gig couldn’t be filled in and e-mail sent to any address on the domain wouldn’t arrive for a few hours. Woops! But that’s fixed now.
Now that that’s out of the way, maybe I should get back to what I was planning to do, namely get EP02 out that I promised in my New Years post? About that: three tracks are pretty much done and might need a bit of tinkering before I’m completely satisfied. Then there’s also the issue of track 4. Every EP needs at last 4 tracks.
So right now the main obstacle is to create track 4. Granted I have plenty of half-assed ideas and experiments lying about, but stomping an actual track out of it is easier said than done. Wish me luck!
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 The new Zombolette by Scarlette Baccini is out, joy of joys! I had the grinning pleasure of reading it back to back today. I can honestly say, as a long time fan of the comic, this new book is perfect for both long time followers and newly interested people.
Whiny readers could complain it's a few old Zombolette comics mixed with a lot of new ones, but I hope the get their brains chewed off. The new Zombolette comic fleshes out the complete back story of the funny, un-mannered, undead girl (or is she a boy?). How she got to know her best friend/room-mate Cameron, the opinionated Guinea Pig , how she discovers who she is now, instead of who she was before she died, Zombolette doing science, discovers her inner super-hero, what she thinks of vegetarians and of course her hilariously terrible track record in dating. The new material is the cake on which the older, reworked comics are now the cherries.
Zombolette has grown. Well, the comic has, Zombolette is still her uncharming, farting, pun-LOLzing old self. Unless you mean she has grown her tummy. Which by the way has nothing to do with her over-eating. It's cause of the decomposition gasses. She is kinda dead you know. Hehehe, I said gasses.
With guest appearances by Quentin Tarantino, a Walrus and Ragedaisy's Clonegirl in the guest comics. Go get it now! (or on Amazon).
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On Retecool, there was a discussion on the progress of our new station in Rotterdam. The old station was built in the Fifites after World War II (cause Rotterdam was bombed to piece by the Nazi's). There was some discussion as to why the old station had to go and that it was pretty, that the new station is ugly and that it lacks intimacy. Someone wondered if this new station would be torn down again in 30 years if it didn't suffice. My reply to that seems worth posting here:
"Yes, cause that's how we do things in Rotterdam. If something doesn't suffice any longer*), we tear it down and built something that works. We don't mind being in a building pit, we're used to that**).
That's why the old station had to go. (By the way that Fifties architecture wasn't THAT beautiful or THAT old.) Beautiful is also a very subjective term in Rotterdam***). If you wants something beautiful and old, that has become totally impractical, go try to park your car in the Amsterdam canal area. If you can even get into the city at all.
And having an intimate moment at a station? Hi, we're talking about a major transporthub, not some idyllic little station in Limburg where only some local little train stops once every hour. If you want intimacy, get a room in the hotel opposite to the station.
Only if something impractical doesn't get in the way****), then we leave it standing."
*) That's the old, noisy, 2-track train viaduct that ran through the city even before World War II. It was torn down and replace by a tunnel that has 4 tracks in the nineties.
**) Rotterdam after the Nazi bombing.
***) Yes, this is an actual statue in Rotterdam and nope it depicts Santa Clause. Hehehe.
****) That's the railway bridge called 'De Hef' (The Lift) that was part of the old train viaduct. It's not connected to any road/rail any more and has been placed in a permanent raised position as sort of a monument. To what, we're not sure either.
Emo-indicator:  optimistic |
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bsting's journal
