We Have Blog

Field Day

2011-08-14T00:20:00.002+01:00

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you probably know that we are no fans of the type of festival that requires one to bring their own roof to sleep under at night. Not to mention the sleeping bag, air mattress and pump – though I can safely say, following a rather disastrous encounter at a recent Lowlands festival, that our hate versus pumps is wholly reciprocated. Luckily, there is another type of festival in existence that doesn’t require one to queue to shower (and if your no avid reader of this blog, you might be able to take a wild guess at which we prefer at this point).

More after the jump.

London’s Field Day is definitely a festival from the latter category. It is held in the beautiful Victoria Park, located in Hipster Central, better known as East London. If you approach it right, it’s really a sight to be seen. The park is situated right next to the newly constructed Olympic Park, so if you’re one of the estimated 1,5 million people you missed out on tickets for the opening next year, you now know where you’ll need to be to not miss out on the fireworks. When you come at the park from a different angle, you’ll get to see a whole different kind of fireworks. As the ‘Lympics are still a year away, things aren’t entirely up to speed yet in the area surrounding the stadium. For one thing, there’s Hackney, a lovely neighbourhood as long as you know where to be, and maybe more importantly, where not to be. Hackney Wick station, which is closest to the entrance to the Field Day site is definitely a place not to be. It’s the kind of place where you have a can of pepper spray at the ready and you’re finger on your phone with the alarm number under speed dial (a feat which I told the main writer of this blog last Sunday – and boy, how true did those words turn out to be less than 24 hours later).

But the riots have been overanalysed and written about enough, so I’ll just get back to Field Day. With a start at noon on a Saturday, and a preference for sleeping late on my side, I’ve already missed 36 bands (yes, I counted them) by the time I’ve finally managed to make my to the East End and through the masses at the entrance to the festival site. But I’m still right on time for Matthew Dear and his live band. As for me, it’s also a tiny bit too early for Matthew and his men as the early hour, and abundance of sunshine seem to castrate his stage presence. Dear’s electro might not be resistant to direct sunlight but he manages to steer clear from total disaster on character (and the fact that ‘Slowdance’ is just an amazing track might also have helped a bit).

Villagers are next up on what is officially known as the main stage, though the crowds gather en masse for James Blake. A rather unfortunate mistake by the organisers is that they’ve put Blake up in a too small tent with an awesome sound system with the only setback that it stops being awesome exactly where the tents ends (and who would have thought that tents could actually influence sound levels – no one who’s ever tried to sleep in one at a festival, I can tell ya). The set-up of the festival and remarkably low sound levels at the main stage allow the few people, or picnickers rather, at the main stage to observe all of this mayhem while enjoying a surprisingly good set by Villagers.

From there it is onwards and upwards as next on the bill are the recently reformed Electrelane. The all girl outfit seem to have some trouble setting up, delaying the already surprisingly tight schedule. However, they are worth the wait – be it the delay at the festival or the years after they split up initially. Their set has the perfect build-up: they’re really easing their audience into their back catalogue, though ‘The Power Out’, perhaps their best album, gets the most air time. A look at their set list might reveal a rather surprising addition in their Bronski Beat cover. However, the live version of ‘Small Town Boy’ is as Electrelane as it gets and even gets the crowds moving (a notoriously hard thing to achieve in Top Man land).

As the time schedule and delays are running all out of hand at this point, Twin Shadow is already playing his last notes by the time Electrelane have finished, while the stage where Actress is supposed to appear is running so far behind that no one has a clue anymore what time he will be one. So main stage it is again, for Warpaint this time. ‘Undertow’ is a really great track, but for me personally, that’s all they have to offer. Frankly, they are a tad bit boring live.

Then it’s on to find another band to see, which is turning out to be a real quest as each and every stage seems to be running at a different schedule. The tent where Jamie XX is playing is filled to the rim and the second James Blake set of the day befalls the same faith. So on it is to the smallest tent of the festival where Born Ruffians are due to make an appearance. And I’m just in time as a short but heavy downpour precedes their set. Everyone in the vicinity flees towards the shelter making sure the tent is packed to capacity for the Canadians. And what do you know, everyone, even the part of the audience who are just there because of the rain, can sing along to the band. ‘I need a life’ is met with a massive sing-along and after just three seconds of ‘Hummingbird’ the crowd is turned into more of mess than Hackney High Street would be the next Monday. The band does try and play a track from their second album, but realise only too soon that it’s not what the audience is after, and return to more of the indie goodness of ‘Red, Yellow & Blue’. If anything, their set is too short, but that seems to be the trend at Field Day.

It’s up to the ‘headliners’ after this, but with names as Wild Beasts, The Horrors, and Gruff Rhys, (all of whom have played more London venues this summer than I’ve counted riot vans down my street this week – which is a lot I can tell you) I went for Born Ruffians as my personal headliner and left for the hills – or maybe speed bumps would be more accurate as we are talking London here. Field Day is still a relatively new festival, with its fifth and largest rendition this year. But despite its great line-up (certainly when taking the tiny price tag that goes with it into account), it still suffers from some teething problems. There are huge lines everywhere, the stages are either too big or too small for the bands that are playing them and the sound is abysmal at times. The great atmosphere and the guy who makes a falafel wrap faster than you can say ‘Field Day’ (seriously) make the day a success though. Let’s just hope the co-occurrence of a certain other East London events doesn’t thwart the festival’s existence next year.

Best of 2011 so far

2011-08-02T23:25:00.003+01:00

As per usual, we of IKRS have been busying ourselves with coming up with what we think are the best tracks of 2011 so far. We might be a bit late this year with our half year lists, but hey, apparently we finally all got lives to attend to as well. My contribution can be found below the bump, that of the others is available via IKRS, and, if you're into that sort of thing, Spotify.

1. Tune-yards – W H O K I L L (4AD)

You have to finish the way you started, so that’s what I’m doing: with a woman with ukulele. I’ve given up on even trying to spell her stage name the way she likes it, as frankly, it reminds of that time when each and everyone of my classmates suddenly seemed to have lost the capability of taking their fingers of the shift-key in a sorry attempt to come across cool on MSN messenger. So I’m just going to refer to her as Merrill Garbus, and as that is her real name, you can’t accuse me of anything. Her debut Bird-Brains (again: MSN trauma) already managed to catch my eye, but with the incredibly lo-fi production of that record - she literally recorded it on a dictaphone in her living room - she didn’t manage to reach her full potential. Fast forward to 2011 and we’ve got a new album – names are certainly not her strongest point – that fills in all the blanks left by after that first acquaintance. And where that might be one fine album, it is nothing compared to what her live performance is like. Just to see her set up loops of vocals, percussion and ukulele is an incredible experience, let alone the amazing sounds that sound from her throat once she actually starts to sing. ‘Hatari’ has made it one of my favourite live experiences ever, and even though it’s not on this album, I just couldn’t let it pass for this blurb. The animalistic sounds she manages to produce in that one track would scare away a lion. Seriously, go see for yourself and be amazed. From Whokill, ‘Gangsta’ and ‘Bizness’ are obviously the best tracks, but again, as addictive as they might be on the album, it’s nothing compared to how their live counterparts. Just listen to ‘Bizness’ – that intro, she does all of that live. There’s no backing tracks, she actually sings it. And the saxophones! It’s just breathtakingly beautiful.

2. Tom Vek – Leisure Seizure (Island Records)

Oh, the curse of liking albums better than someone else does and thus having your piece appear after Ilse has already written about it and the urge to then rewrite my bit so it won’t look as if I just copied her (we seem to be of very similar opinions with regards to this particular album)! Maybe it’s thus a good thing that we seem to have completely different ideas about which albums were worthwhile this year, as I’ve now only had to rewrite one entry. But hey, let’s get back to Tom Vek and pretend I didn’t just delete an entire blurb about ‘We Have Sound’ and missing his gig last month because I was too busy.

Tom Vek is the kind of artist who gets people falling over themselves trying to announce their bliss at his return to the active music when announcing a new album. At that point most artists would only be able to disappoint. But not Tom Vek. He’s got something up his sleeve, or in his swagger, that manages to live up to those expectations and come up with one of the best albums of the year. ‘Aroused’, ‘We Do Nothing’, ‘A Chore’, almost every track on the album could easily stand out in the crowd of indie / electro singles that have been released this year, but as an album he’s in a class of his own.

3. Austra – Feel it break (Domino)

The top 3! We’ve finally made it there! And this fantastic debut album by Austra definitely is a step up from the rest of my top 10. Austra, a band from Canada (of course, as what is a top 10 without some Canadian influences?) are just three people, whatever their musical compositions might believe you to think at times. Lead singer Katie Stelmanis has been going at it solo for well of six years now, but with the addition of two extra band members she has finally hit the right spot. It might sound a bit familiar, but Stelmanis used to sing opera. Seriously. For the second year in a row I’ve got a former opera singer in my top 3. Next thing you’ll know mountain bikers will be going road cycling and win the Tour de France. There are certainly similarities between Austra and Zola Jesus: the amazing voice, both starting out DIY but going on to discover actual production and the doom and gloom hovering in the background. ‘Lose it’ is probably one of the songs where those opera influences in her voice shine through the most, and contrast most with the electronica she has discovered since. ‘The Beat and the Pulse’ is my personal highlight of the album though: it’s dark, it’s danceable and it has this incredible hook that makes it into one of the best tracks I’ve heard this year. The rest of the album might lag behind a tiny bit behind these two tracks, but boy, if this is only their debut album I really want to see what they manage to pull out next.

4. Bright Eyes – The People’s Key (Polydor)

I’ve never been a big Conor Oberst fan. I like all his Bright Eyes, solo and Monsters of Folk output, but it never managed to really entice me. Maybe it’s my current obsession with sci-fi (for which I blame Alan Moore, who is even more amazing in person than of his comics might imply), but with ‘The People’s Key’ Oberst had me at the scorpion-men intro. The almost paranoid opening must have some sort of meaning, but as Oberst would rather leave his audience in the dark than use a powerpoint to present his album ideas in the way Sufjan Stevens has done on his last tour (and I’m to lazy to actually find a insightful review that does have the answers), I’m at a loss. But Conor Oberst still manages to sell out the Royal Albert Hall so he must be doing something right. And on this album, that ‘something’ would be writing actual songs that would do quite well as radio singles. ‘Jejune Stars’ and ‘Haile Selassie’ are just two of the tracks on this album that make me wonder why this hasn’t reached the level of exposure which would lead my mom to have a vague sense about who he is (on last inspection, she knew a surprising amount about the Kaiser Chief’s last album, meaning that someone is lacking in putting actual music out there).

5. Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact (4AD)

Ah, Gang Gang Dance, a band that, even though they’ve delivered some awesome albums over the last few years, still seem a bit unsure about their live performance on stage and thus rely on the help of a guy with a garbage bag and another guy with some crazy dance moves to make their shows worth their audience’s money. Or so they seem to believe themselves. I’m not saying these extra additions don’t make for an interesting show, but it feels to me as if the band is undermining, and underestimating, the quality of their music by putting their faith of attracting an audience on garbage bag waving friends. Especially since their latest and finest album should convince people that the band can manage fine on their own. Gang Gang Dance have been a long time coming. Their previous albums suffered a bit from the hit-and-miss syndrome a lot of bands seem to suffer from, but with ‘Eye Contact’ they finally seem to have gotten it exactly right. The album start off with the amazing ‘Glass Jar’ – and even though virtually every song that reaches the 10 minute mark is amazing in my book, this one deserves some extra credit. It is immediately recognisable as being a GGD track and manages to be interesting for the entire duration of the track, without being even remotely danceable for the first five minutes or so, which would be the main reason to listen to the band in the first place. If only they knew how to use ∞ appropriately they would have definitely ended up in my top 3.

6. Nicolas Jaar – Space is only noise (Circus Company)

This one took me by surprise. I think a track of the album popped up in one of the Drowned in Sound SpotiFriday playlists and I was immediately sold. There’s a hint of the Max Richter album I loved last year in there, but at the same time it goes in an entirely different direction. Unfortunately for me, that direction also seems to allow only for weekday midnight gigs, which is not something that is really an option if you’ve got 9 o’clock meetings planned the very next day. What is also unfortunate is that Jaar seems to think that space is only noise. As a self-acclaimed space nerd who’s had an interest in anything extraterrestrial since I found a book talking about a mysterious ‘planet X’ at my local library (which turned out to be Pluto, and had been discovered as early as 1930, just to illustrate how up to date local village libraries were ‘back then’) I can safely say that space is much more than that. Or less actually, as most of it consists of a vacuum which doesn’t even allow for noise to exist, we just so happen to live in that one tiny corner of the universe with an atmosphere that does allow for sound to penetrate the air. Space can never be ‘only’ one thing. It is way too vast, or maybe even infinite (thought that seems to be a bit weird if it is expanding, and there’s something paradoxical about an infinite thing expanding...) to use a term as derogative as ‘only’. But other than that: nice album.

7. Destroyer – Kaputt (Dead Oceans)

Dan Bejar, the main man behind Destroyer, is one of those people that somehow nestles in the immensely complicated network of Spencer Krug-related musicians. I have given up on actually understanding how those Canadians are all connected in one way or other (and I say one, but I bet that once you start looking closely, they’ll have been in three, if not more, bands together at some point and will have spawned even more). But none of that really matters as it’s the music that we’re really interested in. Destroyer has been around for quite some time now: Dan Bejar can compete with bands such as Of Montreal in releasing more albums than anybody actually realises (this is number 9) and this one just might be his best. It contains the epic ‘Bay of Pigs’ which already saw the light of day on an earlier EP. On that EP it was the centre piece, the reason the whole EP existed, but on this album it feels a bit out of place. The rest of album is mix of folk and pop, with some blues influences here and there (anything with a saxophone qualifies as ‘blues’ in my book) and this 11 minute shout out to electronics just doesn’t fit in. It is nitpicking though, as on the whole it is one the best pieces of music I’ve heard this year (but hey, that’s what this countdown is all about) and there has to be some reason why this hasn’t ended up any higher on my list.

8. EMA - Past life martyred saints (Souterrain Transmissions)

I’ve dealt a lot with the EMA this year, so I’m glad they’ve managed to release an album. Unfortunately, the EMA I’ve been dealing with is also known as the European Medicines Agency and not Erika M. Anderson, who is the one that has actually released this beauty. It’s probably for the best though, as I don’t think the EMA are particularly musical and Anderson has already proved herself with her previous band Gowns. Album opener ‘The Grey Ship’ is perhaps the best example of why this is such an amazing solo debut: the tempo changes, the build up, the lush voice, just the right balance between a lo-fi sound and an actual production team. But maybe that was to be expected as her album has been released on the label responsible for Zola Jesus’ European releases (the same one that urged her on to expand her fantastic Stridulum EP to a full album). I like the darkness that looms through most of these tracks, much in the same way as they did on Zola’s EP/single release streak from last year. She might miss out a bit with regards to singing ability in that comparison but she makes up for that by using some interesting song structures and by not being younger than me.

9. Ringo Deathstarr - Colour Trip (Club AC30)

I like it when a band has put some thought in their band name (or stumbled across a brilliant idea quite unexpectantly, as might rather be the case here). I think Ringo Deathstarr has by far been my favourite this year.Their album might be described as a paint by numbers copy of My Bloody Valentine, but I’ve never been much into the latter, so call me ignorant, but I really love Colour Trip. Most tracks sound like they’re being played on a soon-to-be-retired phone on a noisy train, but even so the catchiness manages to reach the surface. Live they were amazing too. Amazingly loud mostly. My love for them might be somehow related to them playing the last ever gig at my favourite London venue the Luminaire (caught some of my favourite gigs ever at that place, not to mention the brilliant warnings written on the wall in that venue telling people to shut while the bands are playing). Maybe I ought to just listen to MBV and likes a bit more, but to be honest I never really loved the likes of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (cringeworthy band name BTW) and countless others so this band must be doing something right.

Helen Arney – Animals and other songs about science (N/A)

As we, for the first time ever, actually had rules for making these top 10 lists, I decided to bend them a bit (I’m a rebel). ‘Cause that’s the whole point of having rules in the first place: bending them (also, I’ve been relentlessly watching reruns of Futurama as if it was Friends, hence my current obsession with bending). So here’s my first entry: a loose collection of songs that haven’t been released to form an album, or even an EP. They’re just some tracks that got released during 2011 and just so happened to end up on the same bandcamp page, forming some kind of cohesion between them as they were all coming from the perhaps a bit estranged mind of Helen Arney. And I like them. Mostly because they are incredibly nerdy and played on a ukulele, but also because they are just really catchy. ‘Animals’, a biologically correct song about sex, must be my favourite, if only because of that description. With just vocals and ukele, the songs aren't very complex musically, but lyrically they are all quite brilliant. If you're a bit of a nerd, even a tiny bit (and who secretly isn't?), you'll love this.

I'm in the Guardian!

2011-06-15T13:03:00.000+01:00

With text this time! (next time with name!)

If anything, this shows I spend too much time on Twitter. Whole story here.

Slutwalk & Naked Bike Ride

2011-06-12T13:53:00.001+01:00

epidemiologista's photostream on Flickr.

Primavera 2011 - long post, sorry, Sunday evening word vomit

2011-06-05T23:23:00.008+01:00

The prologue

Every decent festival has a prologue: at Lowlands you can spend a whole extra day sleeping on a half-inflated air mattress whilst fighting boredom by inventing stupid games that don’t really work but hey, you’ve got entertain yourself some way, at Pinkpop you spend that extra time queuing in varies places to get your wristband and secure that one place that isn’t at the bottom of a hill for when the inevitable rain will fall, and at Glastonbury you get drunk. At Primavera you spend it watching a couple of bands in a fake ancient looking square just around the corner from where the ’92 Olympics were held. And no, Las Robertas and Comet Gain might not be the most entertaining bands, but when you know Echo & the Bunnymen and Caribou are also on the bill it is certainly worth that cheap metro ticket and the 30 second wait to get your wristband. Yes, the food and drinks might be slightly overpriced, and the queue for the toilets is a tad bit intimidating, but other than that even Dutch and English audience combined can find very little to nag about.

Girl Talk

Chapter 1: Of Montreal, Suicide & Girl Talk

Imagine: a festival terrain right next to the beach and a shopping mall with wonderful clean toilets and metro and tram stations right in front of it. Sounds rather perfect, doesn’t it? It gets even better when you realise that there are actual seats at some of the stages, though this also means a lot of stairs. And I really mean a lot of stairs. But hey, as long as you can also use them to sit comfortably whilst enjoying a bit of Glenn Branca I’m not one to complain.

The day starts of with thirst. Yes, thirst (and no not for knowledge, were not from Greece). There’s around 40.000 people roaming the festival, but there’s only bar that’s actually open leading to queues that only move when people give up on getting a drink there and make their way to the mall. The reason for this a new way of paying for your drinks with a futuristic plastic card linked to an account you have to set up on the festival’s website, a system that requires a working computer system and wi-fi connection and which fails miserably on the first day.

After missing the whole of Of Montreal by waiting to get a bottle of water (it looked great on screen though, but no new tracks), it’s on to P.I.L. who are playing the Llevant stage, which is condemned to solitary confinement in the outer corner of the festival. Surprisingly though, the stage is about twice as big as the main stage and hordes of Johnny Rotten fans have made it there. After having seen a rather miserable reincarnation of the Sex Pistols a couple of years ago, P.I.L. seems to suit Johnny Rotten a whole lot better: he can actually sing. Glenn Branca and his ensemble are the next surprise and probably an act that wouldn’t fit on any other festival (well, Northsea Jazz probably, but Oneohtrix Point Never and Salem wouldn’t be listed on the same stage).

From one old man to an even older one: it’s Suicide. And at the age of 72, Alan Vega is showing that somewhere between 62 (Glen Branca’s age) and his age is the right time to quit music altogether. The horrifying scream in ‘Frankie Teardrop’ is reduced to a feeble ‘Oh no!’ which is enough to convince us to go back to the present day with a bit of Ty Segall. The band from California feel right at home in the warmth of the Spanish night and manage to get the whole crowd on their feet and dancing (except for me as I seem to have finally reached that age where I really need to sit down every now and then because my back is killing me – in my defence, it was around 2am at this time and I had been up on my feet since 7am the day before and am generally a whiny person).

After a sneak peek at Salem (avoid at all cost) it’s on to a bit of the Flaming Lips spectacular. It’s predictable, but it’s fun. At 5am in the morning it’s finally time for the best act of the day: Girl Talk. The guy is a bloody genius. Nothing’s more fun than a whole crowd of pretentious hipsters singing along to Bon Jovi and Kelly Clarkson like their life depended on it.

Srsly, if I need to caption this you're reading the wrong blog

Chapter 2: PULP!!!!

It is finally there: the day most of the people present at Primavera have been waiting half a lifetime (or at least half a year) for: Pulp. After scaring away most of the other hostel guests by doing an overenthusiastic Pulp-karaoke on the ‘house and R&B’-evening on our first night there, we know we are prepared. As we made it back pretty late on the first day (“we saw the sun rise” wouldn’t do justice to the time we finally made it back), the day starts of pretty comfortably in the auditorium of the museum of natural sciences which, for this festival, houses DM Stith and Sufjan Stevens. DM Stith is amazing, and it’s a shame he’s only allowed four songs. Sufjan’s performance is perhaps even better than the one a week earlier at the Royal Festival Hall in London. It’s crazy, absolutely ridiculous, genius and just plain indescribable. There are angel wings, various alien costumes, the whole of Age of Adz, talk of star people and Royal Robertson (the artist who inspired the album) and a half our finale consisting of one song only. And of course there is an encore with ‘Chicago’, which is still one of the best songs ever written. And this only the opener to the real headliner of the day!

As for the rest of the day: Male Bonding were okay, as were M. Ward, Pere Ubu and the vegan cakes (vegan cakes! At a festival! If anything indicates the quality and variety of food availability at a festival, it's the presence of vegan cakes!). Belle & Sebastian were in a league of their own, that is, if they weren’t playing at the same festival as Pulp and I wasn’t just standing at the front during their performance to get an even better spot during the next gig. After an endless period of waiting during which someone has discovered you can display silly messages on the screen behind the stage using Pulp’s laser show, the 4 letters that were already faintly visible light up (just after someone had the clarity of mind by texting their position as ‘near to the ‘P’’) and the festival explodes. It takes ‘Do you remember the first time’ to get the most annoying people out of the way, but the rest of the set is pure bliss, being surrounded by hundreds of people who can sing along to every single line of every song (a feat which does unfortunately drain out Jarvis himself at times). But Jarvis – and the person in charge of the sound – soon recover and the rest of the set is just perfect. There’s a marriage proposal at the end of ‘I spy’ – which causes an emotional overload for a lot of people – and a lot of grinning at the loud shouting of inappropriate lyrics in unison or marvel at Jarvis's manual to sex during 'This is hardcore' (which is a lot more informative with the visual representation). Jarvis is still in top form moves across the stages in ways the twentysomething hipsters on the Pitchfork stage can’t even contrive. It all culminates in ‘Common People’ which Jarvis dedicates to the Spanish Revolution - or #spanishrevolution, a lot of whose demonstrators are present at the festival. After admitting he’s only a foreigner and doesn’t know much about what’s going on, he claims it can’t be right if police beat over a hundred protesters into the hospital. His words are greeted more enthusiastically then Barca’s Champion League win will be greeted the next day and a glorious mess ensues (and what else would you expect with 45% of the ‘common people’ being unemployed). The rest of the night sees people spontaneously bursting out in reiterations of ‘Common People’ in line for food or the toilets. It was awesome.

Oh, and Battles played later. The drunk people dancing to their music was more entertaining than the band. But had seen Pulp at this time and were busy remembering the first time.

Tune-Yards

Chapter 3: the afterbirth

So 2 days have gone by and the real headliner of the festival has already played – what’s left? Although the last day of the festival has a pretty decent line-up, it still feels a bit like an afterbirth (© Ilse van de Spoel). But showing up does pay of: in the line for John Cale (which is in the auditorium again) we get treated to the sight of Jarvis himself who gets priority treatment whilst entering the building. Just that makes it worth it – that and the seats that are perfect for sleeping (I can vouch for that).

Tune-Yards (imagine wonky spelling) is pretty amazing as well, as are Einstürzende Neubauten, Gang Gang Dance – garbage bag boy apparently is part of the band – and Swans. Matthew Dear is were things get a bit more interesting: you might have already read about his charismatic stage presence earlier on this blog but I can now reveal where he gets it from. For he is Freddy Ruppert’s (of Former Ghosts) long lost twin brother. Damn, I even had to check whether any of their live dates had clashed to be certain they weren’t the same exact person. Both have the same looks, the same charm, same manner of moving around on stage and both make dark electronic music that I really like.

Matthew Dear finishes just in time for me to catch the best bit of PJ Harvey’s show, which is very long but very good. And her white outfit makes it easy to spot her even if you’re sitting on a staircase at the other end of the field where she is performing because your feet are finally starting to really give out. To end the night in style, we catch three bands that are playing at the same time. We start of with Odd Future who jump into the audience feet-first. Nice one guys. Then it’s on to Animal Collective who are incomprehensible as usual (they mainly play as yet unreleased tracks) and finally Pissed Jeans who sound like being born and vomiting at the same time (again © Ilse van de Spoel). Holy Ghost! loses out to the prospect of a nice warm shower and a comfortable bed.

Epilogue

The festival finishes as it started: with just a couple of bands in a square. We prefer a day at the beach and some tapas over Mercury Rev at this time though.

I’ll be back next year.

Bands I would have liked to see but missed (but don't really care about as I've seen so much else): Caribou, Interpol (I know, but I’ve never seen them), Islet, Glasser, Baths, The National (they played on the same day as Sufjan Stevens and Pulp, had I gone to see them as well it would have the most perfect festival day ever rendering all other attempts to entertain myself with live music futile), Deerhunter, Julian Lynch, Twin Shadow, Jamie XX, Lindstrom, Warpaint, Perfume Genius

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2011-06-01T08:55:00.000+01:00

2011-05-31T23:59:00.000+01:00

Welcome to my little blog, where I'm trying to keep you guys up to date with my London life (with the emphasis on trying as don't think I've written anything substantial in months - except for reviews of course). Oh, and if you want to read everything in Dutch, than this is an option.

London Music

Funzies Sports

A little help

2011-05-16T11:52:00.000+01:00

via @jackschofield

A week in pictures

2011-05-14T15:17:00.002+01:00

Spot the fox on the station

Entry to QI granted

QI Christmas episode (yes they record this in May)

For those of you who are interested: the guest on the show were Sean Lock, Ross Noble and Brian Blessed

There was a surprising amount of talk about bestiality which will probably not make the final cut

Stephen Fry's hands outside the ITV studios

Have I Got News for You set

I sat all the way on the right in this picture and could only see Ian Hislop and Paul Merton's receding hairline

And lastly Sufjan Stevens at Royal Festival Hall

Above picture is what I was expecting from this folk singer (he has been likened to Bob Dylan for those of you who don't know him)

It got a bit crazier during Chicago with a monkey for a hat

However, Sufjan only sported the 'plain' monkey hat look during the encore

The rest of the show featured costumes such as these full size angel wings...
(but banjo - thus still folk)

...the more plain fluorescent tape costume...

...a diamond alien costume with disco ball...
(and lots of talk of star people)

...and an adapted version of his eagle wings for the 25 minute 'Impossible Soul' finale

(that link isn't the entire track - surprisingly it's to big for the internet)

Also, there was confetti

And balloons
(and hip hop dancing, but that's a bit hard to photograph)

Overall, it was on of the best gigs I've ever seen and the sheer the diversity, chaos and multitude of things happening on stage have made it absolutely impossible to review. Hence, pictures.

More pictures (and in better resolution) on Flicker (1) and (2)

Also, a video of Vesuvius (from a gig last year - so the show elements present yesterday are mostly missing) which was by far the best song in the set - apart from Chicago of course

And while I'm at it, a video of Chicago

If you would happen to think he's a bit weird: his parents thought they were star people (aliens basically), he plays 51 different instruments, likes to knit, makes all the costumes himself, once planned to write an album for each state in America (he managed Michigan and Illinois), is responsible for the only double EP in history, releases a Christmas album each year and has brother (Marzuki) who is really good marathon runner. Now you have reason to think of him as 'weird'. But in a wonderful way.

Finally...

2011-05-03T14:50:00.000+01:00

Despite all the bank holidays lately messing publication schedules up, my paper has finally made it to the internet. It's available here, though I'm not sure whether it has open access - but you will at the very least be able to read the abstract (again). If you want to read the whole thing, you can try the 'Download PDF' application in the upper right corner. If you're denied access but keen to read the paper (one can never know), I can send you the PDF myself - it's only 8 pages of scientific gobbledegook.

Scary...

2011-04-27T09:53:00.000+01:00

xkcd.com

#twitterjoketrial

2011-04-16T00:05:00.000+01:00

This:

Lead to this:

(As seen at the #twitterjoketrial gig, which functioned as a fundraiser for an idiot who joked on Twitter that he was going to blow up an airport but got taken too seriously and has now evolved into a cause Stephen Fry would go to jail for)

My First Paper©

2011-04-15T14:16:00.003+01:00

The full thing will be online next Tuesday for everyone to enjoy (I'll link it up then), but for now, you can enjoy the abstract and be baffled by the number of initials in my name.

Goals

2011-04-07T11:05:00.001+01:00

I've got a list of things that would be very nice if I would achieve them at some point but wouldn't mind very much if I didn't. One could call them 'goals' - which I have done in the title of this post in the sake of brevity - but I'm not getting all worked up about them. I would view my life as complete though if I were to make (one of) them reality.
The list comprises:

Publishing in the BMJ (I like their font)
Publishing in the Guardian (I like their font and their interview style)
Owning a dishwasher

I would be especially pleased to achieve the latter, though I now seem to have a shot at achieving the second one in a 'future science writers prize' organised by the Wellcome Trust, the Guardian and the Observer, which are three of my favourite entities in this world. The prize includes publication in the Guardian and £1000 which ought to be enough for a dishwasher. I think I'm entering.

Cold Cave @ The Lexington 5 April 2011

2011-04-06T00:02:00.001+01:00

Even Charlie Brooker on a bad-hair day wouldn't be able to muster the amount of vitriol needed to review opening act Drum Cunt (...), so we'll just leave you with a warning.

Cold Cave seem to expand further everything time I see them: this time there's five of them. Or rather, four of 'them' and Wesley Eisold who has decided to become David Bowie. Last time he seemed to not even notice there were any people in the same room, and now he seems to be on the way to become an extravagant frontman - he's got the flashy rings and goth shirt to show it. The photographers apparently were in the know about this change in appearence as they gathered en masse in front of the stage in an attempt to blind the entire audience with an abundance of bright flashes not seen since the last supernova (which is not an awful lot better than the deafening effect that usually ensues after seeing Cold Cave).
Once control over some of the senses is regained, confusion reigns. Is this camp band really the same Cold Cave as before, though with added guitar player? Is Wesley Eisold really making all those Brett Anderson-like poses on stage? Okay, he is supposed to be a poet, so he's allowed to be weird, but this seems like 180 degree turn in the opposite direction. Hell! One song even sounds like a 'Love is a Battlefield' cover (if it was: kudos to you, Sir, my ears weren't cooperating enough to actually make the words out)!
Eisold still can't really sing, but we've got whole hordes of tv shows just to tell us that it isn't about the singing, but the songwriting, so yeah, that's okay. Or is it? On the first album, the songs were loud enough to hide the fact that most of the lyrics were just shouted into the mic, now that he seems to be flirting with disco, his lack in holding a tune kinda shows. 'The Great Pan is Dead' is still a loud enough song to make for it, but other than it Cold Cave seem to be this year's Foals, which is sad as I really enjoyed their first album (and might have already ordered the new one on a whim - any takers?)

Sea shanties and the Humane Genome Project in 1 show: only on IKRS

2011-04-05T09:51:00.002+01:00

Ikrs 23rd March by Ikrs on Mixcloud

I wants one!

2011-03-30T21:35:00.000+01:00

Mail on Saturday

2011-03-26T14:12:00.000Z

Watson

2011-03-25T16:52:00.001Z

I finally got a new computer at work (only took 6 months) and as a true geek, I've decided to name it Watson. Partly, because research is a bit like detective work (and with the computer as my sturdy assistant, that makes me Sherlock), and partly after Dr James D. Watson who won a Nobel Prize for co-discovering the structure of DNA. The reason for the latter is because the man is a total jerk which I can use as justification when I shout abuse at the thing when it inevitably will refuse to do what I want it to do.

Also, I have discovered that Bikini Kill is the perfect music for a Friday afternoon.

We Love Cox

2011-03-13T17:57:00.002Z

Ikrs 9th March by Ikrs on Mixcloud

(please don't cut incriminating soundbites out of this stream...)

I can do science me

2011-03-11T15:53:00.001Z

"I am very pleased to inform you that your above mentioned manuscript has now been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Obesity."

Yay! The article I wrote as a part of my Masters has finally been accepted, meaning that I am now officially a scientist.

Also, I have found out that I am just 6 years older than the computer I'm using to write this on.

We're on a roll people!

2011-03-09T10:03:00.003Z

Ikrs 2nd March by Ikrs on Mixcloud

And we've also got a Facebook page, if you're into that kind of stuff (please be our friend)

Look! A new show!

2011-02-27T20:47:00.002Z

Ikrs 23rd February by Ikrs on Mixcloud

Officially a massive nerd now

2011-02-12T21:46:00.002Z

I kind of scribbled some words down for the blog of the Royal Statistical Society. Mainly because I've been getting a bit fed up with the Daily Mail's interpretation of science, but mostly because last week the Guardian joined in. My blind anger has led to this piece (which has actually been read by at least one person judging by the comment) and me now having an actual editor who has already made me commit to writing something similar every three weeks. You can read the rest of it here.

Also, this week my existence has been confirmed inside of the department I've been working in since October last year: I am apparently a studentship with half a telephone number (does this mean I can't say I'm not made of money anymore?).

Review: Jonny - Jonny

2011-02-01T10:35:00.000Z

Having your new band labelled a ‘super group’ can be both a good and a bad thing: you’re bound to get a decent amount of listeners, but you could also fall into being a mere curiosity, where people only show up for a gig because they liked your earlier work and leave disheartened when they find that the combination of their favourite artists doesn’t have the expected spectacular result. Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake and Euros Childs (formerly of the more interestingly named Gorky's Zygotic Mynci) seem to have tried to tackle the latter problem by using the most inconspicuous band name of the decade yet: Jonny.

Day 93

2011-01-26T14:14:00.001Z

I think informing the author about the decision is another stage?

It's always possible to wake someone from sleep, but no amount of noise will wake someone who is pretending to be asleep

2011-01-19T22:53:00.000Z

Excerpt from the book, the story of Jonathan Safran Foer's grandmother:

"We weren't rich, but we always had enough. Thursday we baked bread, and challah and rolls, and they lasted the whole week. Friday we had pancakes. Shabbat we always had a chicken, and soup with noodles. You would go to the butcher and ask for a little more fat. The fattest piece was the best piece. It wasn't like now. We didn't have refridgerators, but we had milk and cheese. We didn't have every kind of vegetable, but we had enough. The things that you have here and take for granted... But we were happy. We didn't know any better. And we took what we had for granted, too.

"Then it all changed. During the War it was hell on earth, and I had nothing. I left my family, you know. I was always running, day and night, because the Germans were always right behind me. If you stopped, you died. There was never enough food. I became sicker and sicker from not eating, and I'm not talking about being skin and bones. I had sores all over my body. It became difficult to move. I wasn't too good to eat from a garbage can. I ate the parts others wouldn't eat. If you helped yourself, you could survive. I took whatever I could find. I ate things I wouldn't tell you about.

"Even at the worst times, there were good people, too. Someone taught me to tie the ends of my pants so I could fill the legs with any potatoes I was able to steal. I walked miles and miles like that, because you never knew when you would be lucky again. Someone gave me a little rice once, and I traveled two days to a market and traded it for some soap, and then traveled to another market and traded the soap for some beans. You had to have luck and intuition.

"The worst it got was near the end. A lot of people died right at the end, and I didn't know if I could make it another day. A farmer, a Russian, God bless him, he saw my condition, and he went into his house and came out with a piece of meat for me."
"He saved you life."
"I didn't eat it."
"You didn't eat it?"
"It was pork. I wouldn't eat pork."
"Why?"
"What do you mean why?"
"What, because it wasn't kosher?"
"Of course."
"But not even to save your life?"
"If nothing matters, there's nothing to save."

Down with men & homeopaths!

2011-01-18T21:18:00.002Z

These are two videos that I happened to stumble upon on Twitter (just to show how very useful or at least interesting this medium can be). If you wouldn't happen to have the time to view both of these rather lengthy videos - you really should though - I can heartily recommend the first bit of the Naomi Klein/TED one (though you'll probably want to keep watching it after the first bit) and the last bit (from around 9:45) of the Ben Goldacre one on Matthias Rath - if evil has a face it must be this man.

Code writing

2011-01-12T15:02:00.001Z

By courtesy of xkcd

Article submission attempt #4 - Day 77

2011-01-10T10:25:00.003Z

End of Year list 2010

2010-12-31T16:32:00.000Z

10. The National - High Violet

Oh, the absolute impossibility of ranking the overload of records I want to include in this top ten! I think I’ve included and excluded this particular album at least twice on a daily basis over the last week. Am I going to include it over records such as Glasser’s excellent debut Ring? Have I heard enough of the brilliant Autre Ne Veut even though I’ve only discovered their self-titled album two weeks ago? What am I missing on Twin Shadow’s album that everyone else seems to be in love with? And then there are bands of the likes of Beach House, Deerhunter, Bathcrones and Islet that I want to at the very least mention, and how can one manage such a thing when you’re only allowed ten entries in this conglomerate of best music in the first year after the noughties ended?

I’ve managed to see the National perform live no less than three times this year, and only one time did they manage to slightly disappoint me: there had been mentions of Sufjan Stevens appearing as a special guest, but we had to make ado with some guy from Arcade Fire (if you’re not Win Butler himself, you’re ‘some guy’), which given my idolisation of Mr Stevens was an utter disappointment – but more on that particular subject tomorrow. Other than that their shows consisted merely of moments of complete bliss – complimented by someone shouting “The English are waiting” during one of the lengthier moments of contemplation in between songs, though former albums formed the main contribution to this fact. I love High Violet, though someone still ought to clarify that name to me, but it just doesn’t reach the brilliance of Alligator or Boxer. It feels like more of the same – even though even that is very impressive when it originates from a band like this – and I’m craving something new.
Track: The National - England

9. Sufjan Stevens - All Delighted People EP

Yes, I’ve included an EP. But as it is the first ever EP to be released on double vinyl (as in, the thing didn’t fit on the by convention defined one slack of vinyl which managed to hold all EPs up until the moment Sufjan Stevens decided All Delighted People didn’t qualify as an album) I reckon I’ll be granted permission to include it on this list (if not, bite me). And a great EP it is. Just look at the cover! It’s like a ‘Where’s Waldo’ book without Waldo (so far, I’ve located five Sufjans, Leonardo DiCaprio, Aaron or Bryce Dessner – they are far too similar for me to able to tell them apart – an inflatable Santa and the Dalai Lama).

Highlight of the album, sorry: EP, are the two versions of ‘All Delighted People’ which are very loosely based on Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Sound of Silence – and apparently the Apocalypse and existential ennui, whom always make for an interesting combination if I may say so. And of course the fact that it just so happens to come rolling out of Sufjan Stevens’ head only months after admitting in an interview that the whole “I’ll write an album for each and every American State” project might have been a bit overambitious and that he feared he could never write music again. Only to release this beauty and an albumto critical acclaim this year. And though The Age of Adz might be wonderful, it doesn’t measure up to this EP. However, it’s still no Illinois, on which even the song titles were a delightful read.

8. Baths - Cerulean

Seeing Baths live was one of my favourite music-related moments in 2010. I wasn’t even sure whether I should go through the trouble of travelling through half of London (or what qualifies as half of London in my world) in order to be able to see Will Wiesenfeld – a resident of Los Angeles of course – perform his debut UK show in a basement in a venue that goes by the rather appropriate name of ‘Camp’. But hey, I had already bought a ticket and staying home would’ve just be wasteful, now wouldn’t it?

His music rests somewhere between chillwave and dubsteb, two genres which have been exploited by many over the last couple of years for some quick fame, but Baths manages to find some new ground. That, and he is more cute than any baby panda known to the internetz (I may have spent some of my otherwise precious time on lolcats this year, but I balance it out by fervently reading the Guardian’s Science section). I absolutely love it when an artist seems genuinely surprised people even showed up to their show, let alone dance to their music, instead of using the words “thank you” to signify they’ve reached the end of a song. So far, this list had been limited to Dan Boeckner, Alexei Perry and Gareth Campesinos!, but Will Wiesenfeld is a very welcome attribution. Also, the fuzzy animal impression which he uses to introduce ‘Animals’ is not to be missed.

Track: Baths - Plea

7. Wild Nothing - Gemini

When I first listened to this over half a year ago, I wasn’t convinced. The whole thing sounded rather bland and not one song managed to catch my attention and as a result, I didn’t even consider the album for my half year list. When the album did appear on Ilse’s list, I decided to give it another chance, and what do you know: I loved it. The haziness and how everything just blends together sounded perfectly wonderful all of a sudden.

In a live setting they were amazing as well, even though their London date was the last one of a lengthy tour taking them through Europe, making it painfully obvious at times that sleep is an absolute necessity and that Jack Tatum’s voice does not benefit from a lack thereof. He did manage to reach those high notes though, eventually. Other than that, the gig was rather amazing – maybe even more so since they were obviously not at their best. With tracks like ‘Confirmation’ and ‘Drifter’ they certainly did manage to convince me to add another album to my vinyl collection (though admittedly, given the state of my vinyl addiction that doesn’t take much these days).

Track: Wild Nothing - Confirmation

6. LCD Soundsystem - Is this happening?

As one of the albums I was looking forward to most this year, I’m really glad it turned out this well. There were the mishaps by Foals, Mystery Jets, Blonde Redhead (not that Penny Sparkle is an awful album as such, it’s just a bit of a letdown after 23), Yeasayer, MGMT, and I believe Klaxons dared to resurface – and isn’t it just amazing how many of these albums you can find on the NME end of year list? – just to remind us that good albums by fairly established bands shouldn’t be taken for granted. With gems as their self-titled debut and Sound of Silver, James Murphy and friends certainly had something to live up to.

Maybe it’s the hinting of a retreat from music, just as Sufjan Stevens did, that made this record even more unexpectedly brilliant even though it lacks in songs as brilliant as ‘Someone Great’ or ‘Tribulations’. But nevertheless, it is an awesome record, and live it’s even more amazing. I don’t think I stopped moving for more than a second during their two hour gig earlier this year. But hey, they’ve probably got the best line-up anyone could wish for with people like Nancy Wang and Pat Mahoney; even if James Murphy were to recite the phone book (if those things still exist) over a jam session of the band, the entire city of New York would come out to dance.

Track: LCD Soundsystem - You Wanted a Hit

5. Perfume Genius - Learning

I might have been a bit overexcited about this album when I put it on number one half a year ago. I still think it’s absolutely great, it’s just there are about four albums that I think are better, two of which were also kind of around when I attempted to make this list last time round. I think this in itself proves the silliness of these lists: you need some perspective, some time to really appreciate some records and some more distance from others (which brings Editors’ second album – An End Has a Start – to mind, which I found mind-blowing at first and have never listened to since).

Nevertheless, Perfume Genius’ debut album is absolutely excellent. I love the combination of the at times almost hesitant, shy and calm poppy sound of the tracks with the dark, scary content that sounds like it ought to belong in a Xiu Xiu song. There are not an awful lot of people who manage to pull that of successfully. It seems very probable that if it hadn’t been for blogs and the internet, someone operating in such a small and specific niche as Mike Hadreas would not even be able to actually be an artist. Something which showed during his first show in London this year. He’d had next to none experience in performing his tracks live and seemed very insecure at times, and still managed to sell out this venue, solely on the reputation he had build online by recording songs in his bedroom. Pretty extraordinary.

Track: Perfume Genius - Learning

4. Infinite Body - Carve Out the Face of My God

Someone wrote about this album that it’s this day’s classical music, and I couldn’t agree more (and I really should start writing down quotes when I read something I want to use as I couldn’t for the life of me tell you who actually said that). Infinite Body’s music is a sort of ambient Fuck Buttons but with that LA sound that really seemed to catch on this year, resulting in 40% of my end of year list originating from this one city. And when you think about that a bit more, it feels rather weird. How does one city, on the other side of the planet, manage to dominate this year’s album list? According to my flatmate it’s impossible to form a band in London because the city’s too crowded: there are no affordable spaces where you can really practice – meaning without the neighbours calling the police because you’re making noise - resulting in ‘bands’ having to get full time jobs in order to pay for practice space and then not having the time to practice in the now affordable space. The vast open space of the USA seems to be winning on this.

I have used ‘A Fool Persists’ as my ringtone for the better part of the year, which wasn’t a big success as I didn’t really want to pick up my phone on the rare occasion that it actually went off. On the album it works perfectly though. All the songs flow into each other, something which I love as it means you shouldn’t play this album on shuffle. Shorter interludes are alternated between the longer tracks, and while the all tracks feature a drone of noise which strangle reminds me of No Age – or not so strangely as the album has been released on their record label - there is some real beauty in there too.

Track: Infinite Body - Dive

3. Zola Jesus - Stridulum/Stridulum II/Valusia EP

I didn’t really know which release to choose as Zola Jesus has released rather a lot this year. She’s made it even more difficult by releasing her stuff first in the USA, then adding some songs before she released the same stuff in Europe, then figuring that she should also release the new European stuff in the USA but adding some more new stuff and finally releasing the last new USA stuff in Europe as a single. I could just choose Stridulum II as that features most of her stuff and was actually intended to be an album – according to the press release that landed in my inbox at least, Nika Roza Danilova herself seemed to disagree – but then I’d miss out on ‘Poor Animal’. Moreover, I don’t own that record myself, whilst I do own Stridulum and the Valusia EP (and that last one comes in some beautiful packaging).

But hey, let’s talk about the music. I think these releases are bloody brilliant. The songs on Stridulum sound more like her earlier work, but cleaned up, the layers of noise have lifted a bit. ‘Night’ and ‘Manifest Destiny’ are filled with despair, but at the same time there is that glimmer of hope which sounds so amazing when the opera-trained Nika sings it. The tracks on the Valusia EP are more poppy, as if she discovered catchy melodies and figured she could get away with that as well, and oh my God, she can. One of my favourite tracks is ‘Sea Talk’, which also featured in a now almost indistinguishable version on her Tsar Bomba EP. It’s been brushed up from the – sorry for the cliché, but it just really fits here – rough diamond it was to a real gem.

Live she possibly even more impressive. I’ve seen her with a full band crammed on a small stage in New York and on alone on a vast stage in London with nothing more than a laptop. She has enough attitude to make both work, even though she’s obviously absolutely uncomfortable with a whole crowd of people staring at her. With the progress she has made in this year alone I absolutely can’t wait for her new album next year.

Track: Zola Jesus - Manifest Destiny

2. Max Richter - Infra

I guess this is my odd one out this year. The music on this album was originally commissioned by the Royal Ballet as a collaboration between composer Max Richter, choreographer Wayne McGregor and artist Julian Opie (whom you might know from the Blur cover he did a lifetime ago). So surprisingly, I’ve got a ballet as my number two, even though I have never seen a ballet. It is also inspired by T.S. Elliot’s ‘The Wasteland’ and Schubert’s ‘Winterreise’, both of which I have never read or heard. Goodie.

The album isn’t actually the original piece. The original was 25 minutes long and recorded as a BBC documentary in 2008. Since then a lot has been added to the piece to make it suitable for recording as an album. Not that is a studio album in the strictest sense of the word. There are individual tracks, but you can’t really listen to on track on its own. The tracks come together to form one piece of music, and the separate tracks might be viewed as chapters. You could try and read a random chapter, but that would only end up like watching a single episode of Lost: complete gibberish (not that I’m insinuating that particular show would start making sense if you were to put yourself through watching more than one episode, or the entire series for that matter).

On this album, Max Richter combines classical music – when he performed the album this year, he was accompanied by a string quintet – with electronic noises, which I believe is the perfect way to get me listening to classical music. Apart from the fact that it’s absolutely beautiful. For the first half of this year I only listened to classical music when my flatmates were practising their violins and that came with a lot of Hungarian swearing (in which I am now quite proficient), so discovering to this was quite the epiphany. Maybe ballet ought to be up for 2011.

Infra by max richter

1. Former Ghosts - New Love

If my putting this album on number one comes as a surprise, then you obviously haven’t run into me this year. I have been absolutely infatuated with Former Ghosts this year. Last year’s Fleurs ended up pretty high on last year’s list (third place, I keep an excel file) and with the prospect of live performances this year, I was excited. And wow, I wasn’t disappointed at all when I saw Freddy Ruppert perform live for the first time in May this year. He was preceded by Parenthetical Girls who were all kinds of amazing themselves, and I and the rest of the audience just stuck around for Freddy thinking he could never amount to very much after just having seen the best gig of the year. How wrong were we. During his set the sheer display of emotion on Freddy’s side made me feel so uncomfortable that I wasn’t even sure whether to applaud or slap the girls who were drunkenly screaming at him (I now know I should’ve gone for the second option). It was also the first time I heard ‘New Orleans’ and saw a grown man cry on stage. Wow.

It got even better, if ‘better’ is the right word in this case, when I saw him in his home town of Los Angeles. He performed the track ‘Mother’ that night, the night of his dead mom’s birthday, while his father and brother whom both had never seen him perform under the denominator of Former Ghosts were standing right behind me creating the illusion that Freddy Ruppert was looking right at me each time he almost succumbed to tears. It was heartbreaking. Then he finally released New Love and I just so happened to be the first person in the world to find the vinyl waiting for me on my doormat. So through the magic world of Twitter, the first glance Freddy Ruppert got of his own finished album was of a picture I send him of my album (followed by weeks of harassment by people wanting me to upload to thing, so for future reference: no I will not).

The album itself is brilliant. I love each and every track on it, though ‘New Orleans’ and ‘Bare Bones’ are my absolute favourites. The lyrics seem so simple and the emotions so raw, I’d almost wish I’d have a break-up to get through so I’d have a proper reason to put this album on repeat. To be quite honest, this album has made me a little bit afraid to fall in love. The emotions behind lines as “I waited my whole life to find you / But I’m not the one you waited your whole life to find” and “Oh stop my heart from beating / Oh I’m so tired of not sleeping / Oh love, keep it away from me” make me doubt the lines it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

Track: Former Ghosts - Winter's Year (feat. Yasmine Kittles)

Flatmates

2010-12-21T15:42:00.000Z

As people kept asking me about my flatmates, here's a picture of Nick and Chrissy

IKRS 8 December - double wammy!

2010-12-17T11:37:00.002Z

Ikrs 8th December by Ikrs on Mixcloud

SUEDE

2010-12-09T00:25:00.001Z

Oh, the suspense of going to a Suede gig! And the horror when you finally take a look at your ticket that’s been lying around gathering dust for months and realise that you’ve actually booked a seat instead of a ticket in the standing area. Sitting down at the Suede gig you’ve been quite literally waiting for years for, ever since they broke up ages ago (7 years, 1 month and 3 days to be precise, but who’s counting anyway?). Could it get any worse? Well, there is the venue it’s being held at: the O2 area (or millennium dome for anyone who believes that a venue named after a phone company should at the very least provide you with a proper signal). Maybe it’s me, but I feel there is something inherently wrong when a band that appealed to, and sang about weirdoes, creeps and other generally awkward people sells out London’s biggest music venue. But perhaps it’s just in my mind that the whole raison d’être of a band like Suede is affected when people’s main reason to buy a ticket is “a nice evening out”.

Not that above rant disqualifies Suede as a band in any way. After Brett Anderson’s solo career (or a lack thereof), it seems very reasonable that they cash in now. How many bands have preceded them by now? It’s only a few months ago that Pavement took control of Brixton Academy for almost a week and managed to sell out every single night, so why can’t Suede come along for the ride?

But enough on the why’s and how’s, it’s the music that matters, and one of the (very, very few) benefits of having a seat is that it is pre-assigned, allowing one to miss support acts such as Dial M for Murder, whose name is as off putting as David Cameron’s sudden love for the Smiths – and have you read Morrissey’s subsequent rant? “David Peckham”, excuse me while I giggle as a 5-year old. New Young Pony Club’s faith is rather similar, although ‘The Get Go’ remains one of their more brilliant efforts.

Whilst waiting for the main act, the arena fills, ads for Peter Andre and Barry Manilow gigs flash over the screens and the man next to me enthusiastically recounts his last gig experience: a 1999 concert by Suede. He still owns the shirt he bought at that particular gig, but his lifestyle since has condemned it to be used merely as a flag. When the light finally go down, and a dark opening tune starts to play while people around me scurry to their seats (this takes longer than you’d normally expect, considering the age range of the audience) time seems to turn back and the last ten years seem not to have happened at all. Even from the distance I’m at, Brett Anderson can be made out unmistakingly, and another benefit from sitting halfway up the stairs becomes obvious: from this distance it is impossible to make out whether the band have aged as much as their audience.

Music wise, they certainly haven’t. From opener “This Hollywood Life” to the very end everything is performed absolutely flawless (kudos to the tech guy who had to readjust Brett Anderson’s microphone thingy about every five minutes or so). And because it’s Suede, every other song or so makes your hart jumps as they’re playing one of your favourites: ‘Trash’, ‘Filmstar’, ‘Animal Nitrate’ or ‘Everything Will Flow’. Brett Anderson still has the moves and the voice and every high note is reached, while the giant screens mainly show the drummer as he is the most immobile person in the set. When the cameraman finally zooms in on Brett Anderson (and who else would you want to look at?), a choice has to be made: watch the gig on the screen or live as the set up of the venue doesn’t really allow you to do both. While it is great to be able to actually see Brett’s face, it does feel a bit like you’re just watching it happen instead of actually being part of it. But hey, there is a probably a reason why they were already advertising the recordings of this gig before it actually happened.

As you might expect, everyone is on their feet within minutes and dancing like a bunch of overexcited teenagers whose parents have allowed them to go to a gig unchaperoned for the first time ever. ‘Pantomime Horse’ offers a short moment of deliberation and time to reconsider of the more edgy dance moves before the set is off again and the singing along wins it from the dancing - the question remains whether that was an actual improvement. Naturally, there is an encore, which Brett starts with an acoustic rendition of ‘The Living Dead’ – rather appropriate for the occasion in an ever so slightly sarcastic way if I may say so. The Wednesday night ends on ‘Saturday Night’ and the reassurance that this wasn’t their last gig. Which is all I really needed to hear. Next time I’ll be more careful whilst ordering tickets.

The first decent snow today!

2010-12-02T10:06:00.002Z

Cat vs Printer

2010-11-28T21:51:00.000Z

2010-11-25T21:02:00.002Z

Ikrs 24 November 2010 by Ikrs on Mixcloud

2010-11-17T19:20:00.002Z

IKRS - Try-out

2010-11-14T23:44:00.001Z

Show 1 by Ikrs on Mixcloud

Our Radio Try-out! Stopping mid-sentence because you suddenly realise you've pressed the wrong button, remixing stuff live on air because you've got stuff playing out of two channels at the same time and panic because the keyboard stopped working. Next one will be better. Yup.

Elvis on his day off

2010-10-28T22:53:00.001+01:00

Amir Shoucri, director of the video: The original concept was to recreate a complete Vegas-era Elvis spectacle. I planned and arranged the production for months -- lights, stagehands, the works -- at great personal cost, both financial and mental. We hired four hundred extras: a 23-piece backing band with vintage instruments, a stadium-sized audience all done up in period haircuts and wardrobe, and a second film crew "shooting" a video within the video -- just for effect. We even rented an outdoor marquee for the establishing shot. The day before the shoot, Freddy changed his mind. He said: "I'm just not feeling it dude." So we fired the entire crew, most of whom have families to support, and made this instead.

Opposites attract

2010-10-26T23:20:00.004+01:00

That is what they say, right? It might not be two opposites actually coming together in the case I'm referring to, but they came damn close. I'm talking here about the extravagantly extravert 19-year-old Anja Plaschg, better known as Soap&Skin, and the introvert Mike Hadreas who makes up Perfume Genius. Two performances that couldn't be more enchanting, though different in so many ways.

First up is youngster Anja. She was supposed to have performed in London earlier this year, but her efforts were thwarted by a particular Icelandic volcano. Just the setting, in the wonderful Union Chapel (and an actual chapel for that, with Sunday services and all) is worth the wait. Add to that the chamber music ensemble that lines the part of the stage that isn't taken up by Soap&Skin's grand piano and you've got a rather promising formula for a good night of music. But that is not all, there is also Soap&Skin's personality that makes up a large part of the show. Her voice is something to be jealous at, and she isn't afraid of showing it off. The theatrical tracks from her album Lovetune For Vacuum are blasted into the chapel, both vocally and by her admirable piano skills. At times the chamber music ensemble seem to have the utmost trouble matching her volume. Not that it really matters, they get to chance to shine in some of the more calm songs.

Halfway through there is a moment though, during 'Spiracle'. Soap&Skin sits behind her piano belting out the lyrics when she suddenly appears to have a complete black out. Seconds of silence, retracing her steps on the piano but the words don't seem to come back to her. A minute passes, still there's silence. A bit hesitant she gets up, and walks over to her background singer - a few people applaud encouragingly, but she, almost panicky, signals them to stop. The other singer whispers the words into her ear and shyly Soap&Skin makes her way back to the grand piano, takes a deep breath and sings the rest of the song with such vigour as to make up for a lifetime of mistakes.

Surprisingly, fear and making mistakes seem to be exactly what the song is about, and the breakdown fits rather nicely in the set. At this point you still want to believe in her sincerity, but as the set progresses it gets more and more obvious she is playing a part. Which is absolutely not a bad thing, it even goes rather well with the music. And the fact that I initially was rather hesitant in believing the black out was a set up is a good indication of her acting skills. For someone of her age, it can only be very promising.

The next performance, only 24 hours later, could not be more different. Perfume Genius has been in London earlier this year, for one of his first performances in front of an actual audience. It was sold out weeks in advance, and talked about for even longer. I believe I wrote at that time that it felt a bit like a piano recital, and oh boy, Mike Hadreas has been listening. Whereas his first performance was in an actual music venue, this time he has taken a step back and is performing in a hall that belongs to the English Folk Dance and Song Society which is also infrequently used, you've guessed it, for the recitals of the local music school. And with the plastic seats lined up especially for this occasion and the lack of proper stage lighting it does set the scene for a proper recital this time.

However, there are some signs of improvement since last time. For one thing, Mike Hadreas appears more confident. Not that he is not his shy self, but the presence of an audience seems less like a surprise to him and he dares to interact with them this time, even make jokes. Also, the pan flute on Alan Wyffels's keyboard is tuned down a bit - a big improvement in my humble opinion. Music-wise, the performance has also improved: there are less mistakes, though it's certainly not flawless. But flawlessness wouldn't suit Perfume Genius as the occasional cock up is actually quite charming. The most impressive bit of the evening is when Mike takes place behind the grand piano that is set up just next to the stage. Maybe it's the contrast with the for the occasion installed sound system that results in rather flat keyboard sounds or grand pianos in general, but it sounds absolutely mind blowing. Where Soap&Skin excelled in big and theatrical sounds a day earlier, Perfume Genius manages to impress with simplistic songs that win on content.

A minor flaw is the lack of a back catalogue, which results in Perfume Genius literally performing all his songs and, in the end, a rather similar setlist to that of his show earlier this year. There is still enough there to keep one interested though: the interaction between Alan and Mike, Mike's smile when he gets a song right, and of course the rather brilliant songs itself. There's nothing like a bit of dark storytelling disguised as a pop song.

Anniversary

2010-10-26T22:16:00.001+01:00

Today is my one year anniversary of living in London! Hurray for that! And if you've missed me in the time I've been gone, well, than it might please you to know that starting next week I'll be once again hosting a (so far nameless) radio show on Rare.FM with another PhD student whom I have yet to meet. Exciting times!

The show will be on Wednesdays from 5 to 6pm (or 6 to 7pm in CET), and you can tune in through the Rare.FM website - of which the tuning part is about the only feature that's currently working, sadly.

That's my flatmate in the black/weird dress!

2010-10-24T21:41:00.000+01:00

Performing a duet with different costumes, and showing a working process: Dotty Ujszászi & Benny Maslov. Choreographed by Hubert Essakow, costume designer Fabrice Serafino.

2010-10-21T10:20:00.002+01:00

2012 'lympics

2010-10-15T15:27:00.000+01:00

"At least half of the tickets will be priced under £20"

Actual prizes

I'm particularly surprised at the tickets for the cycling road race. Traditionally, that one's free. Also wondering how many people will come up with £2000 to view the opening ceremony, or £450 to see gymnastics, swimming, diving, beach volleyball or athletics. By my count all those events are usually pretty short in duration.
Also surprising: football. The Olympics are in London, but footballers are playing as far away as Glasgow, which is not even in the same country as London. I would have thought London, or even England would have a sufficient amount of excellent football grounds.

They've also made a provisional schedule.

Why Googleing yourself is useful from time to time

2010-10-13T12:01:00.001+01:00

I've been awarded a prize!

Banksy

2010-10-11T11:46:00.002+01:00

Indian summer

2010-10-10T21:53:00.000+01:00

PhD

2010-10-07T17:05:00.000+01:00

'The Letter'

2010-10-06T23:51:00.000+01:00

Tube strikes

2010-10-04T22:10:00.001+01:00

Just to give you an idea of the scale of this. All lines in colour are either suspended or have severe delays - I've marked the one line that does seem to be running with an arrow. The "Special service" means that lines skip random stations (the stations shown in red on the map). They said they were doing better than last time.

Cupcake anyone?

2010-10-03T16:13:00.002+01:00

World Exclusive!!

2010-09-23T23:53:00.000+01:00

That's my newest vinyl record apparently! Yesterday I surprisingly had Former Ghosts's new album 'New Love' waiting for me when I got home. Surprisingly as a day before it was announced that the album wouldn't be released until 8 November. An even bigger surprise was to learn that even Freddy Ruppert himself (the man behind Former Ghosts) hadn't even seen the vinyl. The first time he actually saw his own album on vinyl was when I send him a picture of it over Twitter. Now isn't that nice? (And the new album is AMAZING)

En de clip van de dag is... tromgeroffel

2010-09-21T23:40:00.000+01:00

'New Orleans' van Former Ghosts! And I couldn't be more excited. Sinds vlak na het uitkomen van het debuutalbum van Former Ghosts dit nummer opeens standaard werd opgenomen in de live set van de band is dit één van mijn favoriete nummers. En dat nu dus al zo'n 10 maanden terwijl het officieel nog steeds niet uit is: op 9 november verschijnt het op het nieuwe album 'New Love'. Live is het nog beter. In deze versie hoor je het al een beetje, in het refrein, aan het eind van het nummer: "I fell in love in the first place." Die snik. De beide keren dat ik mocht toekijken hoe hij zich door dit nummer worstelde had hij halverwege al moeite de tekst nog uit te spreken zonder schijnbaar zichzelf te verliezen. Na die laatste zin had hij even een moment voor zichzelf nodig voordat hij weer de zaal in durfde te kijken. Nou ja, "zaal in kijken", richting het publiek staan en naar z'n laptop staren (en tapdansen, maar dat moet je zelf maar ontdekken wanneer hij in november in Paradiso staat *hint*). De clip gaat een hele andere richting op dan het nummer, maar de fles Jack Daniels verraadt dat het weldegelijk om een Former Ghosts clip gaat (whiskey is essentieel). Op 1 oktober komt Freddy Ruppert nog met 'Old Love' een gratis mixtape die je van zijn blog kunt downloaden als soort van teaser voor het album. Dat en een clip met hem in een Elvis pak. Dat krijg je van al die whiskey.

‘Laredo’ van Led er est! En een instructie how not to make a video. Gelukkig is de muziek beter. Het nummer featured op het debuutalbum Dust on Commonvan de New Yorkers. Het is warmere versie van cold wave – let’s introduce the term tepid wave – met veel synths en bas. Ik kwam de band naam tegen toen iemand met een shirt van de band voor me stond bij een Gold Panda gig en het de volgende dag opeens bij de nieuwe releases stond op Spotify. A lucky find indeed. Als dit nummer je al aanstaat, moet je zeker de rest van het album eens luisteren, dat is zelfs nog beter (ze schijnen band-shirt waardig te zijn) en klinkt iets minder alsof het op de verkeerde snelheid wordt afgespeeld. ‘Port Isabel’ bijvoorbeeld kan concurreren met de beste tracks van een band als Cold Cave. Nu nog een decent video.

‘Brother’ van The Organ! Een band uit Canada, you just can’t go wrong with that. Okay, Nelly Furtado’s werk is van discutabele aard, maar over het algemeen gaat die regel toch aardig op. Zo ook voor deze all girl band die ook wel the lesbian Smiths genoemd werd – en waarschijnlijk om die reden ook gefeatured werd bij The L Word. Het is een van de bands waarvan ik het echt jammer vind dat ik ze pas heb ‘ontdekt’ nadat ze er alweer mee opgehouden zijn. Ze hebben slechts één album nagelaten, Grab That Gun, maar dat is wat mij betreft dan ook meteen een van de betere albums van the noughties. Met name dankzij die fantastische stem van Katie Sketch, die zich sinds de break up in 2006 richt op haar carrière als model. Daarnaast heeft ze ook nog een restaurant geopenend in Toronto en heeft ze zich inmiddels op een nieuwe band Mermaids genaamd gestort. Misschien is Spencer Krug toch niet zo alleen in het niet kunnen stilzitten.

‘Morning After Pill’ van Meanwhile, Back In Communist Russia...! Het is geen proper clip – het is eigenlijk gewoon een foto – maar gezien er schijnbaar geen enkele clip van de band te vinden is on the entire internet en ik de band toch een keer wilde noemen moet het maar voldoen. Mocht de bandnaam je bekend voorkomen, dan zou dat (behalve als je de band al kent natuurlijk) kunnen komen doordat Los Campesinos! ze noemen in het nummer ‘Don’t Tell Me to Do the Math’. En gezien Gareth Campesinos! me al op het spoor van Zola Jesus, Former Ghosts en Perfume Genius heeft gebracht, dacht ik dat deze referentie ook nader onderzoek waardig was, met als gevolg dat de 10” van Indian Ink vandaag op mijn deurmat belandde (en dat ik nu zijn Last.FM stalk, maar dat feit zullen we maar buiten beschouwing houden gezien hij te veel The-Dream luistert). Helaas bestaat ook deze band - uit Oxford, mocht je afvragen waar het accent vandaan komt - niet meer van de solo-projecten na de break up heeft ook niemand meer iets vernomen.

‘See Spaces’ van TEEEEETH!!!! Ik geloof dat TEETH!!! de geprefereerde spellingswijze is, al is het aantal ‘e’s en het gebruik van Caps lock erg variabel. ‘See Spaces is hun eerste single en een album schijnt al onderweg te zijn. Afgelopen weekend stonden ze op het beste festival dat Engeland kent: Offset. Dat was gedeeltelijk vanwege het bouncy castle (the mummy of all bouncy castles) en vanwege de kleinschaligheid en vijf podia waardoor er geen moment was dat je niet ergens een geweldige band kon zien. T3ETH was daar dus één van, met als hoogtepunt dit nummer dat qua sfeer nogal aan ‘Die Slow’ van HEALTH doet denken (of misschien is het de caps lock). Hoogtepunt van de set dan, het hoogtepunt van T∑∑TH zelf was het slotnummer van de set van Telepathe waarbij de man-van-de-Mac (Macist?) in zijn American Apparel onderbroek op het podium stond te dansen.

Some random pictures

2010-09-18T23:59:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago I went to the London Zoo - they had late night openings throughout August of which this picture best describes the atmosphere.

There were penguins...

...and other very dangerous animals...

...such as these llama's

Baby giraffe

Siamese giraffe

I also went to Offset festival, which is the best festival ever (East London hipster galore). Note the bouncy castle.

Last and probably least: the London finish of the Tour of Britain. The finish was in Newark, where they're planning on having the actual Olympic race in 2012. I do hope someone changes their mind. After already having seen the Tour de France, it was pretty pathetic (this is the actual finish line, about half an hour before the finish, it didn't get more crowded). Greipel won the stage, Albasini won the yellow jersey (which was surprisingly white) and Johnny Hookerland won the mountain jersey and the best applause. There were no interesting persons to hand out any of the prizes since they were all attending to the pope (Best pope-UK visit memorabilia I've seen so far: Let Us Spray garden sprinkler)

Evil Eye or cyborg?

2010-09-17T12:40:00.000+01:00

Science jokes (sorry)

2010-09-13T23:54:00.004+01:00

(Comics from the excellent PhD comic - obligatory literature for any grad student)

Did you hear the one about the statistician? Probably.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

A sodium atom walks into a bar.
After sitting at the bar for a while enjoying his pint, he suddenly starts frantically looking through his pockets.
"What's the matter", says the barman, "have you lost something?"
"Yes", says the sodium atom "I've lost an electron".
"Are you sure?" replies the barman
"Yes, I'm positive."

"Barman, a pint of adenosine triphosphate please"
"Certainly sir. That'll be 80p"
(you need to say that one out loud for it to work)

Did you hear about the molecular biologist who swallowed a beaker full of restriction endonucleases?
He came to a sticky end...

A infectious disease walks into bar.
The bartender says "We don't serve infectious disease in this bar."
The infectious disease says "Well, you're not a very good host."

Two bacteria walk into a bar.
The bartender says "We don't serve bacteria in this bar."
The bacteria says "But we work here! We're staph."

A room temperature superconductor walks into a bar.
The bartender says "We don't serve any superconductors in this bar.
The room temperature superconductor leaves without putting up any resistance.

An infrared photon walks into a bar and says "Is it hot in here, or is it just me?"

A neutrino walks into a bar.
The bartender says "We don't serve neutrinos in this bar."
The neutrino says "Hey, I was just passing through."

The Higgs boson walks into church.
The Priest says "We don't allow Higgs bosons in here"
The Higgs boson says "But without me, how can you have mass?

A statistician walks into just your average bar.
The bartender says "We don't serve statisticians in this bar."
The statistician says "Well, you're just mean."

Some helium gas just drifts into a bar.
The bartender says "We don't serve noble gases in this bar."
The helium didn't react.

There are 10 kinds of people: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Mathematicians should be integrated into society, but it would mean giving them more powers.

What do you do when you find a dead chemist? Barium

What’s round and growls? – A vicious circle!

What type of bear dissolves in water? A polar bear.

Strikes & Boris Bikes

2010-09-06T20:06:00.000+01:00

Chaos is about to ensue in London: the Tube is going on strike. For 24 hours, from 5pm on Monday until Wednesday morning (I do hope part of the strike involves an appeal for better maths classes). The reason is completely legit: due to funding cuts, TFL (Transport for London) wants to cut about half its safety staff, and with a few near-disasters in the last couple of months (e.g. a fire at Oxford Circus, a run-away train on the Northern line) that doesn't seem to be a very good idea.

Where's does that leave the 3 million commuters whose lives depend on this underground maze of trains? Well, we just have to take the bus - which are crowded enough as it is during rush hour, not to mention the fact that your trip can take up to four times as long compared to a journey on the Tube. But mayor Boris Johnson (formerly known a founding member of The Muppets) has a solution: we all have to get on our bikes. Yes, because all London needs at a time when the streets will be filled with extra bus services and an overload of cyclist-hating drivers is more inexperienced cyclists. There are some escorted bike rides, though I guess bunches of cyclist might only add to the problem. His bike suggestion might also includes some more mentioning of 'his' rent-a-bike scheme now known as 'Boris Bikes' (and I say 'his' as it was actually an idea of former mayor Ken Livingston - but Livingston Bikes just isn't catchy).

The strike is subject to some heavy criticism. Safety is of course very important, but by taking out the Tube system, you hit the heart of London. The Tube is as vital to London as ambulance services or fire brigades, making it very hard for Londoners to sympathise with the TFL workers. They feel like Tube workers take advantage of their monopoly position in transporting the city in order to get everything they like (their pay cheques are allegedly pretty high). Further strikes are planned in October and November - YouTube vids of angry Londoners surrounded by transport chaos to follow as soon as someone gets out their iPhone.

This is also very good...

2010-09-02T16:29:00.000+01:00

Particularly because they have anticipated on what people are gonna try to type in.

The BEST music video EVER!

2010-09-01T00:14:00.002+01:00

If this still qualifies as a music video that is. It isn't really a video and, for me at least, it isn't really about the music. Also, it only works properly in Google Chrome, which has never worked properly for me in the first place, so yeah, awesome job on that.

Nevertheless, even as the stop and go movie I had to watch this as, it is still one of the best things I have seen of late. And that includes Inception, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and penguins (and you know how hard it is to beat penguins).

So yes, as awful as Google Chrome tends to be, I guess you'll have to try it out to try this out (I nearly cried and not because of my browser):
http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/

EDIT - The whole Chrome thing is rubbish, just tried it in Firefox and it works absolutely perfect. And just to give you an idea: this is a still of the video that it came up with for me. That's actually the house I grew up in. Amazing stuff.

Ageless

2010-08-05T16:54:00.001+01:00

Another 'secret' gig! Oh, I just love these. At first you're like, "why is everyone getting so excited about this 'Special ageless Guest' at this Upset The Rhythm gig?" Only to start grinning slightly when you finally (it took me at least a day) crack this immensely Beautiful Mind-level-code-breaking-knowledge-requiring-code and know that is actually LA homies No Age - No Age, ageless, get it? - who are playing. And because it is supposed to be secret, and they don't want everyone to catch on, the show's really cheap as well! What more could you want? Okay, a pony or world peace maybe, but let's be realistic, shall we?

Support is provided by Tqqundo frrrr, or whatever you get when you randomly slam your hands on the keyboard. The project is a solo venture by 18 year old Felix Lee, and is... interesting... So it's not my thing: he's just a bit too pretentious for my taste, with the pictures of African statues, the black cape and church bell he uses to create loops. No, definitely not my thing. SAUNA YOUTH I like though. They're a punk band, as simple as that. If they did the old 1-2-3 before each song they'd be the Ramones all over again. As soon as they start to play the singer disappears into the audience, only to emerge between songs to show that there is an actual person doing the singing and that it's not just a tape. They rather literally bring the house down with their final tracks when the crowd surfing singer's foot gets caught on some wires running along the ceiling. Difference with the 'real' punk era is that in this case the loose wires are neatly tied to the ones remaining on the ceiling by someone in the crowd. How very courteous.

I have seen No Age 1,5 before - the half time being at the Lowlands festival, when Franz Ferdinand ran past while I was getting drinks and no one warned about this fact until they had found their way to the front of the crowd (ah, the fond memories!) - and when I was in LA, I took the obligatory picture of the back of the Smell which features on the cover art of their collection of EPs known as Weirdo Rippers. I guess that place is starting to become the Abbey Road for hipsters (not just because of No Age, but of all the amazing bands that emerge from The Smell). So in all you could say I'm a bit of a fan.

As their second album is coming up, No Age bring a mix of old and new, and geez, I'm really looking forward to that new album now. The new tracks neatly fit in with the stuff from Nouns, but may be just a bit more melodic, if you can discern any melodies underneath the layers of noise that is. All the songs you'd want to be there, are on the set list: 'Teen Creeps', 'Eraser' and 'Everybody's down'. The LA duo keep insisting on us being an amazing audience, which I guess has something to do with their performance at the Underage Festival (you have to be < 18 to get in there) just a day earlier. It's always nice to see people whose taste in music you can actually trust appreciate your music, and I can personally vouch for 14-year olds years having untrustworthy tastes in music.

While SAUNA YOUTH got the audience involved by involving themselves in the audience, No Age choose the opposite strategy and get nearly half of the gathered crowd on to the tiny elevated space in the front of the room. It does signify the great atmosphere of the night, as well the culprit of having a singing drummer: once people appear on the stage, Dean Spunt disappears. At the same time, the only sign of Randy Randall's continuing stage presence is his hijacked guitar. Ah well, duo's brilliant looks weren't the reason people were there anyway. So how long do I have to wait now till I can hear this brilliant new album of them?

A guide to graduation

2010-08-04T12:15:00.015+01:00

A few people have asked me about this, so as an expert, I will provide you with a few handy guidelines.

(If someone can find an even cheesier picture - do let me know)

Graduate in Summer. If you graduate in June, July or August, you will continue to receive student loans until the following 1st of September without having to pay any college fees. Unfortunately, if you don't know about this, they (meaning the people handing out the free money) won't tell you about this until you've already put a final stop to your monthly financial supplies. If you graduate any other month, you have a choice: continue leading the luxurious life of a student till the 1st of September (however long that is) or face reality. The first will entitle you to student loans and free public transportation, but you'd have to continue paying college fees. So it's just a matter of how often you intend to use the train.
Don't take too many extra courses. Once you graduate you will get vouchers to take some classes for free after you've graduated. So if you're planning some sort of ridiculous schedule allowing you to include that one course about some otherworldly statistical method or the latest shenanigans in the field of stem cell transplantation: don't.
Choose the person who will give the talk at your graduation wisely. Yes, you will have to ask someone to give a talk at your graduation, as they'd like it to be 'personal' (I personally think 'embarrassing' would be a more suitable denominator). But as I said: choose wisely. Go for someone with a) a loud voice to keep the elderly quiet (they are known to collectively shout that they can't hear anything, causing everybody else to hear nothing but them shouting), b) someone who doesn't cause the audience to fall asleep (even though that would take care of the problem posed under a), c) someone who you've actually worked with and finally something for personal gain: d) someone from a company or business enterprise as they have the big bucks and are thus more likely to provide you with a gift. Also, a hint for receiving your talk: you have to stand up and face the music so don't put your hands in your pockets (though I honestly wouldn't know where else to put them, maybe you should wear a straight jacket if such garments would be allowed during graduation ceremonies).
Hand in the paperwork. As with everything, graduation has to go on file. So you have to make sure the Examination Committee has approved your placements, coursework and grades and you have to formally apply to a Master of Science examination (if you manage to fill out the form, you're considered fit for graduation). The dates when all of this has to be handed in can be found on the UMCN website, but only under the Bachelor of Science headings. The MSc examination application has to be handed in about a month before the Committee actually meets, and study plans & grades two weeks before the meeting. Officially that is. In reality there is quite some stretch in the 'final dates' you can hand things in. I for one handed in my final grades two days before the meeting and it was totally fine.
The nasty bit. There's always a nasty bit, isn't there? So the Committee has approved and you're now a Master of Science - what to do in the two weeks before the actual ceremony? First of all: practice the evil laugh that goes with the title. Afterwards, you can start with some more paperwork. You have to let the IB-groep, Studielink, and the university know that you're no longer a student (the fist two you can do online, and Studielink will provide you with the necessary information about university forms). Also, you can probably apply for a refund of part of your college fees. Finally, you have to sort out your bank account as you won't be allowed to have a student's account. However, postpone this al long as you possibly can as accounts get a lot more expensive and the bank probably doesn't know you graduated in the first place.
The ceremony. The final hurdle! You'll get a formal invitation that also lists the other graduates in your session. Diplomas will be handed out in alphabetical order, so you know beforehand when you're up. You can take whoever you like to the ceremony: there will only be 8 - 10 students graduating at the same time, and the lecture room is ginormous, so bring your entire family and all of your friends (preferably you should leave pets at home). Dress casual chic. Even the professors (yes, prof. Zielhuis will be there) don't dress any different then usual - apart from maybe wearing their Sunday tie on a Wednesday - so don't go all overboard on clothes. As a graduate you have to sit in the first row the entire time so, for the sake of the rest of the audience, do something nice with your hair as they will be bored for most of the time as they have to listen to stories about people they know nothing about or jokes about workings of Western Blotting or bias-corrected accelerated bootstrap methods. There will be free drinks afterwards (essential information!). But most of all: do try to enjoy it a bit.
The afterlife. As you're an alumnus now, you'll get to join the alumni society, which entitles you to at least one free food event a year. Also, you get to keep your @student.ru.nl e-mail address for six months, and you can choose to hold on to it for another six months. Good to know if you'd like to apply for a job and don't want to use your hotmail.

So Iceland don't know how to play football...

2010-07-27T15:53:00.003+01:00

...but they sure know how to celebrate when they finally manage to score a goal

Stephen Fry

2010-07-26T23:52:00.000+01:00

The world wouldn't be the same without him (or his Tweets to be more precise).

Animator vs Animation

It only takes a pound to seriously piss off a supermarket...

Ow NOS...

2010-07-15T11:54:00.001+01:00

Mike Hadreas' Piano Recital

2010-07-15T00:19:00.001+01:00

What a treat: in the same week as naming Perfume Genius' debut album my mid-season favourite, I get to see Mike Hadreas live. And I say Mike Hadreas, as it doesn't really feel like it's Perfume Genius up there, he's more of a real person, less of a distant artist - even though his set is set up at the back of the stage of Hoxton Hall, a place rather reminiscent of Paradiso in Amsterdam.

He is preceded by Porcelain Raft who is off to a bit of a rocky start with his first song, but all else is surprisingly good. It's not the obvious choice to put this artist on as a support act for Perfume Genius (except for the whole hey! He's a male singer-songwriter too, you know?-concept), but who actually likes obvious choices anyway? He's a at a crossroads between Caribou and Alaska in Winter but then poured into a one-man show with a guitar, keyboard and sampler and all of that looped into a lovely electronic slightly danceable mix. Well, I say danceable, but it's rather more of an introverted tap your foot to the rhythm and move your head from side to side kinda music. Rather lovely if I may say so (and as I'm reviewing this shindig, I think I may).

As you might have read on this blog, I'm rather in love with Perfume Genius' 'Learning' - read: obsessed - so you could say I had some very high expectations of this gig. When listening to the album, you might expect to find a singer-songwriter who is rather disconnected from the world and writes his songs in a dark room contemplating the beauty of suicide. Just the mere entrance of Mike Hadreas onto the stage obliviates this image. As if it were a piano recital, and Mike Hadreas the lucky seven year old who gets to show off what he's learned in the past two months, he takes up his place behind the piano and waves at the audience. It gets even more recital-like when he looks up for approval to his patron saint Gareth Campesinos! who's also attending Perfume Genius's London début.

For this live setting, Mike is accompanied by Alan Wyffels (nothing could describe him better than his name - if it is actually his name as I'm only sure it's Alan and there's an Alan Wyffels on the sleeve of the record), who acts as the teacher conducting the recital - as yes, we are still attending a recital. The best moments are when Mike makes mistakes - forgetting to change to a different chord or just getting lost in the music - and the audience, as if we were the proud parents attending our son's performance, applaud even louder. There are actually quite a few of these moments, though they only add to the intimate atmosphere.

Is this then the perfect gig to accompany the perfect debut album? No, it most certainly is not. There is that awful moment, at the very beginning of the gig, when Alan uses the 'pan flute' mode on his keyboard to accompany 'Look Out, Look Out', which absolutely ruins the song for me. Maybe it's my aversion to the pan flute (pan flutes and banjos are works of the devil), or the fact that I happen to be standing on the left side of the stage right in front of the boxes from which the pan flute emanates, but it's more a of a distraction than an addition to the sound in any way possible. Nevertheless, the rest of the set is simply enchanting. 'Learning' - a quatre mains piece in live setting - and 'Mr Peterson' more than make up for the use of the pan flute mode. As a true seven year old, Mike Hadreas seems genuinly surprised and thankful at the love his music is receiving, and as he doesn't really seem to know what else to do, scurries of the stage after another quick 'thank you' at the end of his set. This just might have been the most genuine gig I've seen in quite some time.

My tips for De Affaire 2010

2010-07-12T23:52:00.002+01:00

In a week time, over 40,000 people will be crazy enough to start the hellish mission of basically walking a marathon a day for four days in a row - and FYI, I am allowed to call it a hellish mission as I once attempted this quite successfully myself. I still believe there was only one reason I managed to pull through these Four Day Marches, and that would be this little festival called De Affaire that takes place in a wonderfully peacefully park right in the hart of Nijmegen, situated at just the right distance from the madness that is the city centre during these shenanigans. On the third day - the day you actually have to face some 'hills' - Late of the Pier were to play de Affaire at a quarter to midnight, and I wasn't to miss that performance, nor the exciting Tour de France stage that was also taking place that day. The only solution was to walk twice as fast as I usually did and skip all breaks (if you are interested, the finish line had just opened up on my arrival and I managed to watch both, and even go out dancing afterwards, only to retire when I thought it was better get at least some sleep ere I start walking again). I thus blame De Affaire's always excellent line-up for my succeeding in obtaining my one and only Royal medal.

But as far as stories go, a lot of people at this festival will have ones better than mine, some might even be music related as the line-up always seems to be amazing. A perfect balance of acts with an excellent live reputation and always some pleasant surprises, and virtually every musical niche seems to be represented. So what to look out for this year at the 24th edition of my now favourite festival?

Los Campesinos!
Saturday 21.15 - Saddlespan
I love that they're playing this festival, partly because I might have convinced them to do so. I think all I need to say here is that I've already seen them 7 times and am still looking forward to this performance. And it might be a very special one as they're performing at their label Wichita's birthday party just two days earlier and will be performing a lot of old stuff that they rarely play anymore. They might as well do 'The International Tweexcore Underground' in Nijmegen then - any special requests by Tuesday or Thursday evening please, then I'll work my magic on Gareth again.
Los Campesinos - This is how you spell "Hahaha, we destroyed the hopes and dreams of a generation of faux-romantics"

Oh No Ono
Saturday 19.30 - Saddlespan
Another case of I've-seen-them-live-and-I-want-more. They supported Wolf Parade on their London date, and boy were they better than the actual support act. Their album ended up in my mid-season favourite list, and that was mostly due to their live performances which are just exuberant. Finally a band that seem to enjoy themselves more than their audience does.
Oh No Ono - The Wave Ballet

HEALTH
Sunday 21.15 - Club Voerweg
Bring earplugs for this one. It's outside, yes, but still bring them. They were amazing on a small stage like Merleyn just last year, and they must have liked the place as they're back for more now. 'Die Slow' is still a personal favourite, though their entire second album is one of last year's better albums. If you don't like noise, you'd better skip this one. If you do, I'll see you there!
HEALTH - Die Slow

Toro Y Moi
Tuesday 21.00 - Ruïne
Noise haters might go to Toro Y Moi in stead. My first tipped band I haven't actually seen live yet! It's an Affaire exclusive as he hasn't even performed in London yet! Well, he's actually doing his first London date the day before arriving at De Affaire, but still, that's pretty good programming. His album 'Causers of This' was one of favourites of this year, a perfect soundtrack for summer and another one riding the chillwave hype. Looking forward to this!
Toro Y Moi - Blessa

Errors
Tuesday 20.30 - Club Voerweg
The programming is almost perfect, this being it's only flaw as half of Error's performance clashes with that of Toro Y Moi. I still have to make out which one of them will get my eventual vote. With Errors you'll at least be sure of some deadly catchy and danceable tunes. I want to see people dancing here!
Errors - Antipode

Dum Dum Girls
Thursday 22.45 - Ruïne
Er, yeah, Dum Dum Girls, so far, I seem to have missed four of their London dates so I really want to see them at De Affaire. I'm even willing to sacrifice the opportunity of seeing both Cut Copy and The Golden Filter in Paradiso. They make catchy lo-fi pop songs, some even in German, that will be stuck in your head for days.
Dum Dum Girls - Jail La La

A Very Special Guest
Thursday 23.30 - Saddlespan
This year, they've added a bit of mystery to De Affaire, and I love it. Opposed to Glastonbury or Lowlands last year, they've actually managed to keep this secret act secret. Though it must be said that we didn't know about Them Crooked Vultures until a few days before the festival and I might have just missed out if this is just another public secret as I live in London now. The nominator appears to be singular, so I'm guessing a solo performer. As Doornroosje already managed to put Pavement on this year, I can't help but feeling very excited about this - and in need for clues that don't really tell you anything but do manage to make you even more excited.

Other honourable mentions:
The Antlers, The Morning Benders, Tokyo Police Club, The Hundred in the Hands, Post War Years, Memoryhouse, Pantha du Prince, Gold Panda, and a special recommendation by my Icelandic flatmate: FM Belfast from Reykjavik.

Timetables and more information can be found here

Mid-Season Favourite Album Countdown

2010-07-12T22:16:00.000+01:00

(Almost) all recommended albums - by myself and two other IKRS contributors (Stef & Ilse) - can be found in this Spotify playlist.

10. Oh No Ono – Eggs (Leaf Label/Friendly Fire Recordings)
So I may be cheating a bit with this first one as it was released last year on the continent. But as it took a few months more to cross the Channel, and since I may have slightly forgotten about it while compiling last year’s list, I’m giving it a second chance. One of the reasons I might have overlooked it last time round probably was the presence of this other Danish band (remember Mew?), and what is the possibility of two Danish bands coming up with brilliant albums in the same year? Well, the two of them certainly provide evidence for a Danish sound – and that does encompass more than just the high singing – as Oh No Ono do sound rather similar to the aforementioned, but they do provide their entirely own sound, whether this would be psychedelic rock (Internet Warrior) or pure disco (Helplessly Young). Live they’re equally enticing, partly because they appear to enjoy being on stage even more than any person in the audience could enjoy themselves while dancing to their music. And they’re also one of the opening acts on the forthcoming Affaire Festival in Nijmegen! So please do come early if you want to see Los Campesinos!, because Oh No Ono is definitely a band you don’t want to miss (if not for the music, then for their amazingly handsome guitarists, yup).

09. Sleigh Bells - Treats (Mom + Pop/N.E.E.T.) This is one of those rare occasions on which, after I’ve seen a band live, I didn’t particularly look forward to the album. However, as the XX did last year, they really managed to surprise me. Sleigh Bells have a story to them. A story of the kind you’d expect to see in a movie featuring Sandra Bullock rather than in actual reality. Derek Miller, who’d played in hardcore band ‘Poison the Well’, was waiting tables in New York when he met Alexis Krauss, a former teen pop star and at the time fourth grade teacher. He asked her whether she’d like to sing in his band, and electro hip hop duo Sleigh Bells was born. Their songs sound quite aggressive and up front, but do keep a sense of pop which allows them to be stuck in your head for days to come. The album might be just a tad bit too monotonous to ensure them a place in my end-of-the-year list, but for now they’re quite enjoyable.

08. Broken Bells – Broken Bells (Columbia)
It took me quite a while to start appreciating this album, but once ‘The High Road’ really hits you it’s very hard to put this album down. And I’m not the only one to appreciate this fine track by James Mercer of the Shins and Danger Mouse, as it has also been featured on the Match of the Day album for the World Cup. But maybe that ought to cause me to reconsider Broken Bells as they are featured on there among the likes of Glasvegas, Iglu & Hartly and Scouting for Girls – and that’s when I’m not even looking for the bad eggs in there. Ah well, football fans are not a bunch that is well known for their exquisite taste in music and kudos to the person who managed to get at least one decent song on there. I’d have seem them live by now, if it weren’t for the ridiculous requirements to get into the outdoors audience of the Jimmy Kimmel show. Is this the point where someone intervenes with the words ‘That’s Hollywood’?

07. Beach House – Teen Dream (Sub Pop)
‘Norway’ is a good contender for track of the year. It’s structure is so simple that it’s simply amazing they can get away with it. But I guess that’s part of the strength of the album: tracks that are so simple that you just can’t help yourself singing along to them after hearing just the first few lines. That and Victoria Legrand’s voice (I believe a breeding programme should be created in order to preserve her talent and create a whole generation of Legrand-like singers). And it’s not just on record, live they are amazing as well, no matter the size of the venue. I’ve seen them in a storage/art room behind the bar of a pub, a proper sized venue hidden somewhere in Hammersmith (anything west of central London I consider hidden) and in an enormous venue like the Roundhouse and each and every time they delivered an amazing set, even being a match to the equally amazing Grizzly Bear in the latter venue. Also, their Record Store Day exclusive EP was pretty neat as well. And I’m not just saying that because it was on blue vinyl.

06. Xiu Xiu – Dear God I Hate Myself (Kill Rock Stars)
After seeing him ‘play’ in Ekko in Utrecht, Jamie Stewart scares me. Yes, the sound quality wasn’t all that, but there are ways to deal with that other than shouting at the tech/sound guys as if they have stolen your lunch money and getting electrocuted while trying to fix it yourself. I believe even Angela Seo was slightly intimidated – as were the guys standing in the trajectory of the bottle that was kicked of the stage, a point in the show at which the audience collectively took a step back. Luckily, I’ve also seen him play in London and do know how the new album is supposed to sound like live, which is pretty good. I’ve only really gotten into Xiu Xiu since I’ve started listening to Former Ghosts last year (a super group in which Jamie Stewart is also involved who will release what is going to be the best album of the year called ‘New Love’ in September), and as much as I like ‘Dear God I Hate Myself’, it’s not one of his (their?) best. Fabulous Muscles and Knife Play still top that list, but this is nevertheless a very worthy effort. Now let’s just hope Jamie Stewart manages to actually get through a set without physically attacking the audience next time he’s around (which will be on a tour supporting earlier mentioned Former Ghosts album FYI – and yes, I will now stop plugging albums that have not even come out yet).

5. The National – High Violet (4AD)
Even though this is not The National at their best, it’s still an awful lot better than what most bands dare to put out. Alligator and Boxer still top the list of their best albums for me, and they’re tied as I keep switching back and forth of liking one of those better than the other. But this is supposed to be about their newest endeavour so let’s focus on that shall we? It took some time for me to really get the album, well, it actually took hearing it being performed live – and is there anything better in this world than hearing ‘England’ live in London? ‘Runaway’ turned out to be another gem, as well as ‘Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks’ with that beautiful melancholic “All the very best of us / String ourselves up for love” chorus. I just love how Matt Berninger can make any silly thing sound like the most profound truth. Not that his lyrics don’t make sense, but sometimes he just manages to work in a sentence that appears to me more like a mind fuck than a well thought out lyric. And after seeing him joke around a bit at the Electric Ballroom gig, I think he’s rather enjoying people’s attempts to make sense of his nonsense. I’m just sad that ‘Terrible Love’ now seems to have become their set closer of choice, as ‘Mr November’ or ‘About Today’ seemed so much more equipped to let everyone go home on a high.

04. LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening (DFA)
So this album already made an appearance in both other lists, so it must be good! And I absolutely agree. I’m a sucker for songs that exceed the five minute barrier, so this album is a real treat for me. I love the balance between the more dance punk based tracks and the electropop downbeat ones. All killer no filler you could say. So there’s no ‘Someone Great’ or ‘Tribulations’ on this album, but I think that overall it is an equal to the two earlier releases by James Murphy and friends. That point is best signified in a live setting, when all three albums just blend into a perfect mix of all that DFA goodness. As others have mentioned, this album relates more to the work of the Juan Maclean, and that’s probably got do to with Nancy Whang taking up a bigger role in some of the songs, such as ‘One Touch’. ‘You Wanted a Hit’ (which almost touches upon the glorious ten minute mark) and ‘I Can Change’ are the two tracks that bring this album to its high for me. ‘Pow Pow’ is what keeps it out of the top three.

03. Zola Jesus – Stridulum EP (Sacred Bones)
Yes, I’m slightly cheating again. But is it really cheating if there are no clear rules for making this little feature in the first place? There’s just that name – album countdown – that might imply that EPs are not welcome here, that they are what vuvuzelas are to festivals to this blog. But as with vuvuzelas, this Zola Jesus’s EP is pretty hard to ignore. It’s just six tracks long, but oh, they’re all so incredibly good. I already loved last year’s album The Spoils, though that was a bit flawed in that it was just too lo-fi. Home recordings can be absolutely great, but that album just took it too far. Luckily, it did ensure the right amount of publicity for Nika Roza to be able to record this EP in a proper way. There’s this sense of impending doom and anxiety that keeps hunting you throughout the sextet of songs that makes one almost scared to put this record down, while there’s also that spark of hope in lyrics as “But at the end of the night, we’ll be together again” in opener ‘Night’. I’m completely enchanted by this EP – it even beats most full length albums of this year. And she’s also coming over to pay the Netherlands a visit, together with Xiu Xiu and with/as Former Ghosts, together making this already my most anticipated gig of the year. And they’re making me wait till 20 November. The waiting’s unbearable already.

2. Infinite Body – Carve Out the Face of My God (Post Present Medium)
I absolutely love this album! I almost feel bad about my number one being a better album than Infinite Body’s as this is just so amazing, and it seems go so unnoticed – luckily for my number one he made a near perfect album to ensure the first place on my list (and is that enough to get your attention so you come back for tomorrow’s number one? I promise it will be REALLY good!). Infinite Body is the solo endeavour of California’s Kyle Parker who used to make a lot of noise as Gator Surprise, but decided to start making this beautiful music in stead, and what an awfully good choice that was. He apparently still has a full time job working in a movie theatre (he’s the guy getting you the popcorn) and barely has enough equipment to perform live. All the more reason to be amazed by what he manages to create on this LP. Oh, just wake me up with the sounds of ‘A Fool Persists’ and know that nothing could ruin my day – had I only considered this on 11 July. His music seems to relate to what Fuck Buttons do, but less harsh, though still noisy, a bit like Fennesz. It would deem it very appropriate for a Stanley Kubrick film. Or just any other occasion as you should just give it listen. Or two. Or listen to it infinitely as I now tend to do.

1. Perfume Genius – Learning (Turnstile)
I’ve been in love with this album ever since I heard the first demo’s of ‘Lookout, Lookout’ and ‘Learning’ and the album wasn’t even near actually existing. And that’s been some time now, and I still simply can’t get enough of those tracks. Mike Hadreas has such a fragile voice, and manages to get the piano to match this fragility, but his lyrics reveal a much darker side. Songs with a twist, not like the earlier mentioned Xiu Xiu, but more in Pulp way – and that’s always a good way, isn’t it? Just take ‘Lookout, Lookout’ as it tells the story of Mary Bell : “Mary, Mary Bell / With an uppercase M / All the neighbors know / What your mother sells / But you carved out a name for yourself. [...] Keep your wits / He will not be missed / He didn’t have a family to begin with.” It gets even juicier if you’d know that the lead character of this song was just eleven at the time.. But it’s not all just storytelling, Perfume Genius also is the aggressor (Learning: “No one will answer your prayers / Until you take off that dress”) and the victim (Mr Peterson: “My work came back from class / With notes attached / Of a place and time / Or how my body kept him up at night”). All sung with the same rather sweet voice, strangely reminiscent of Sufjan Stevens’ ’John Wayne Gacy Jr.’. A psychological roller coaster, this album, and one of those rare albums that you’d like to label ‘perfect’. And can anyone please enlighten me as to the role Caralee McElroy has played in the creation of yet another one of my favourite albums? I think she might just be my new favourite music person.

Kom maar op met dat geel!

2010-07-12T09:48:00.001+01:00

To ease the pain a bit (just a bit)

2010-07-11T23:39:00.001+01:00

Gapminder chart

2010-07-11T11:15:00.000+01:00

World Cup meets Tour de France

2010-07-07T20:08:00.002+01:00

The final ought to be very interesting for the Rabobank team. (Also, note the Hela Curry Kruiden Ketchup - if anyone is planning on coming this way: pannenkoekenmix and Hela Curry Kruiden Ketchup).

And Nierman after the match:

E-mail to the Beeb

2010-07-07T14:40:00.002+01:00

Dear Sir/Madam,

I'm probably sending this to the wrong person, but I'd really like to see this problem addressed. During the entire World Cup, your (and ITV's) commentators have been systematically mispronouncing the names of virtually all Dutch players. We have rather accepted this fact and are very pleased with your overall coverage of the Cup.

However, in light of our possible Final against Germany, I'd like to address your pronunciation of 'Sneijder'. As opposed to German names like 'Schweinsteiger', you'd might note the absence of the 'ch' after the initial S. This means that 'Sneijder' is NOT pronounced as 'Schneijder', as you keep insisting on doing. Some examples of how his name ought to be pronounced can be heard in the snippet (<- also an 'sn' there rather than a 'schn') of the radio coverage I've included in this message.

I, and the rest of the Dutch community in England, would be very pleased if you would take this into consideration. We would hate to hear 12 German names in the final (or even 1 if we end up competing against Spain).

Kind regards,
Linda Wijlaars

2010-07-07T14:24:00.003+01:00

1 - 1

2010-07-02T22:42:00.002+01:00

2 - 1

2010-07-02T22:32:00.002+01:00

Zola Jesus @ Glasslands Gallery NY

2010-06-30T23:58:00.001+01:00

Oi. Red-eye flights may seem like a good idea with the whole you-save-money-on-a-hotel-room scheme and the fact that you don't actually loose time during the day in which you could have done something better than trying to make yourself the slightest bit comfortable in an aeroplane seat that doesn't seem to be made to fit a human body, but oi. If you can't sleep in anything else than a bed (a contraption that has proved itself rather bothersome this last month) than it is absolutely not the best idea. For one thing, because one of the side effects of this kind of sleep deprivation is apparently amnesia. While there were four bands on the bill at Glasslands Gallery in Williamsburg - and I am pretty sure there actually were four bands - I can't seem to remember seeing more than two. I do remember the excellent vegan pizza I had at Vinnie's Pizza (seriously some of the best pizza I had in my life - whether vegan, vegetarian or carnivorous) and I certainly remember the taxi ride home, but in between there seem to be some serious blanks. And yes, I blame sleep deprivation.

With Vivian Girls and Dum Dum Girls around, and Mika Miko sadly passing away, there seems to be a thing around for all girl bands. Well, you could call it a trend, but girl bands are around all the time (what about Sleater-Kinney or the Spice Girls for that matter?); it just so happens that quite a few of them have decided that this is the time to get noticed. Effie Briest, named after the lead character of a novel by Theodore Fontane, are one of those bands. There's six of them, and they have just released their first album 'Rhizomes'. Live, it's a pretty impressive sight with the six of them. And it's not just the looks they're going for. Some songs are driven by catchy bass lines while most thrive on the dual forces of drums and bongos (if those things are called bongos, I'm not that into percussion to be quite honest). As Zola Jesus, they are on the Sacred Bones label, and you can expect something similar, though Effie Briest are more mysterious, or as Loud & Quiet describes them: a sub-lunar art rock sextet. And for some weird reason sub-lunar seems to be a pretty accurate description of their post-punk inspired sound, whatever sub-lunar may musically imply..

Much has been written about Zola Jesus in the past few months, most articles including the g-word. Well, I can say one thing for sure now: anyone using that particular description has certainly not seen her perform live. If I'd had to name someone her performance came close to, I could name no other than Celine Dion. Yes, you've read that correctly. Not that I've ever seen Celine Dion live, or would no any other song of hers other than that Titanic one, but that's what immediately sprung to mind. Well, if you consider the five fans blowing onto the stage creating the dramatic wind effect, and Nika Roza's size which necessitated a box for her to stand on (it is possible Nancy Wang!), and the combined effect of the two while she was spreading her arms out wide, you'll get my point.

Now, it wasn't just that moment, there was also something in the delivery of her performance which made it more 'Celine Dion'. While the album and the EP might not be most accessible records, her live performance is at times best classified as pop music, with catchy tunes and an amazing singer accompanying those. Nika Roza manages to give one of those rare credible pop performances, of the kind Sufjan Stevens has been accused of whilst touring with his 'Illinois' album. To back her (in)credible performance up, she has gathered some help in the form of three key/synth players and a drummer, giving herself free reign of the stage and the front of the audience - I'm afraid that if she'd gone further she would have gotten herself lost.

Most tracks featured on the set list are from the Stridulum EP that was released this year, but also last year's album is covered with 'Clay Bodies', which sounds an awful lot better live with less noise covering up Nika's voice.'Night' is still a personal favourite, although absolute every track sounds right on target when she performs them live. Unfortunately, she hasn't actually scheduled any Dutch dates yet, although she is planning her first European tour in August/September. But even if she skips us then, she'll be back in October to tour with Former Ghosts (as will be Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart), which should be even better.

New job

2010-06-30T17:51:00.001+01:00

I started my new job this week. I am now a Research Assistant at Imperial College in London. I work in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, doing absolutely nothing that's connected to infectious diseases in whatever way. I have an entire office to myself so it's a combination of Spotify/6Music all day long. I already have 6 different kinds of tea in my drawer.

Today, I have discovered a swimming pool in the basement. As this place is a labyrinth (as opposed to a maze, there's a difference there: a maze is hard to get into, but easy to get out of while a labyrinth is easy to get into but hard to get out of - this knowledge might be usefull in Trivial Pursuit or pub quizzes) I am not sure whether I will run into it again.

I also have a telephone, fax machine, and an apparently endless office supply budget. I wonder how many different coloured post-its I could order (suggestions as to what colours I ought to try first are welcome as well as a website listing the various options).

Former Ghosts @ The Echo, LA

2010-06-28T01:27:00.001+01:00

I always try to read books in their original language - except when they were written in French as I can only play bingo in French (or any language other than Dutch, English or German for that matter), so an entire book would be a bit too much of a stretch - so why not go see a band in their natural habitat? Now, I'm not implying I flew all the way from London to LA just to see Former Ghosts (that wouldn't do justice of the great city that LA actually is and might be a slight overstatement on the things my craziness and more importantly budget will allow me to do), but it certainly influenced my travel itinerary.

Now, I've just mentioned that I think LA is a great city, and it certainly is, but the downside of that city just is that the public transportation isn't all that. And why should it in a city where absolutely everyone can afford a car? I for one can't even afford thinking of buying a car, as every other student in Europe, so I had to make ado with the metro as buses where a bigger mystery to me than the solution to a Rubik's cube. I also discovered that streets can bear the same name for miles to come in the States (as in, it took me over 3 quarters to walk there). Surprisingly, I was still early and got the chance of lurking around Origami records which only sells vinyl and has the best collection of local records which I've ever seen in a city (go LA!). I may have spend a bit too much in there.

Afghan Raiders, from Las Vegas, were to start this event, kindly curated by Rainbow Arabia who took on a residency in the Echo in June. After the first few songs I'd rather taken a liking to them, and was even very interested in their upcoming album (do you also feel a 'but' coming?) which is coming out later this year, September if my memory serves me well. However (nope, no buts today), when they ended on a David Bowie cover, they lost my support. 'Fashion' isn't one of my favourite tracks, but Afghan Raiders still manage to personally offend me - but that might be because I'm a bit anal about David Bowie tracks being covered by band that are not worthy (which means everyone but the master himself and Kevin Barnes when he's wearing his golden hot pants). 'Fashion' is to be recorded for the first ever David Bowie tribute album that has actually been approved by Mr Bowie himself. The project is organised by Manimal Vinyl and profits will go to War Child - and with contributing artists ranging from Duran Duran and French First Lady Carla Bruni to A Place To Bury Strangers and Rainbow Arabia that ought to be interesting at the very least.

Luckily there's Freddy Ruppert to lighten up the mood. Okay, scrap that, no Former Ghosts performance is ever going to 'lighten' any mood - even suicidal would darken after hearing this live. But it just is so incredibly good. The sound quality doesn't really compare to the Luminaire, but it doesn't even matter an awful lot as Freddy is so emotive that his performance would be amazing even without sound.

'New Orleans', a track that is well under way of becoming my favourite song ever, is second on the set list, and seems even more stunning than the first time I got to witness it. Just hearing this one track live makes the whole 20 hour journey worthwhile for me (well, that might be just a bit of an overstatement, but it's certainly worth the overstatement). What makes it even more special, if special is a word you'd want to use to describe this, is his rendition of 'Mother', as his mother's birthday would have been coming up this very week and his father and brother - both not frequent members of his audience - are present today. This makes it almost gut-wrenching to watch, but in the best way possible.

The set almost naturally comes to an end when Freddy just doesn't seem to be able to carry on any further. So no encore, and why should you? As John Peel once wrote: "I doubt that Leonardo, having completed work on The Last Supper, presumably to some local acclaim, would have interpreted this acclaim as a signal to paint in a few more figures, and find the utterly predictable making and taking of encores rather debasing." Indeed. Without an encore, it just seems that more real, which seems like the popular term to use these days.

As aforementioned, the evening was curated by Rainbow Arabia who also allowed themselves the closing slot on this evening. Much to my own regret, I had to miss their set as sleep deprivation and an utter lack of knowledge of where I was or how to get back to my hotel urged an early retirement. Thank God for friendly taxi-drivers.

NY

2010-06-26T14:55:00.000+01:00

LA

2010-06-26T14:31:00.000+01:00

Stats

2010-06-09T14:18:00.001+01:00

Yup, some more stats, this time about the 7 months I spend in London doing my placement at UCL.

I was in London from 26 October 2009 to 23 May 2010, that's 7 months, or 29 weeks or 209 days. I have seen a total of 171 bands during this time, which is 24 bands per months or 6 per week. Impressive, no? In total, I have now seen 521 bands, so my London residency makes up 32% of my total. My files go back to 2004, so it took me about half a decade to see the other 68%. If I continue at this pace, I'll reach 1,000 on 11 December 2011.

Surprisingly maybe, I've still got a lot bands I want to see. These include:
Sufjan Stevens
Perfume Genius (and he's playing in London on 13 July)
Zola Jesus
Interpol with Carlos D (not gonna happen)
David Bowie
Crying (not sure whether they actually exist yet though)
Infinite Body
Maps & Atlases
Washed Out
Dum Dum Girls (playing de Affaire :) )
Toro Y Moi (also playing de Affaire)

Best bands I saw in London:
Former Ghosts

(appropriate distance)

Parenthetical Girls
LCD Soundsystem
Los Campesinos! (first time was the best)
Vega (though he was officially performing as Neon Indian)
Wolf Parade
Cold Cave
The National
YACHT
Phoenix
Beach House
Grizzly Bear
Xiu Xiu
Islet
Shy Child
Memory Tapes
Fever Ray
Mew
The Whip

Scarecrows on a killer slant

2010-06-03T17:15:00.000+01:00

I love this band, and for once not because of their music, but because it reminds me of a week when everyone I met told me I was absolutely crazy: the Four Day Marches. I participated in this madness, and the day before I was supposed to start walking a marathon a day and would have to get up at the very appropriate time of 3 in the morning, I went to see Liars. They were awesome. I can now say that I did manage to finish on the fourth day, even after seeing Late of the Pier the night before and going out till half two in the morning. I especially loved my supposed insanity: the friends who where also walking the 40k thought I had completely lost it as they were happy to reach their bed at the end of the day and some of the party people at the festival believed I was taking drugs of some kind (which, just for the record: I was not). As to this video, given the awesomeness of the title, I am slightly disappointed, but hey, what else would you expect from Pitchfork?

Clip van de dag

2010-06-02T22:02:00.001+01:00

De clip van de dag heeft elke dag een nieuwe clip, hopelijk zorgend voor een blijvende stroom van nieuwe, leuke, en/of goede muziek. Vandaag is de clip van de dag...

*tromgeroffel*

‘You Won’t B Here’ van Perfume Genius! Op 21 juni zal het debuut van Perfume Genius, ook wel Mike Genius uit Seattle, uitkomen onder de titel ‘Learning’, wat ook meteen een van de meest briljante nummers is die ik de laatste tijd gehoord heb. Om maar met wat namen te gooien: Perfume Genius klinkt een beetje als Bark Cat Bark met zang of Anthony Hegarty maar dan net-wat-minder-camp-maar-nog-steeds-heel-goed. De clip is niet bepaald opvallend, maar als je nog thuis woont bij je moeder zullen je middelen ook wel beperkt zijn. Voorlopig staat er alleen nog een London-date op het programma, en wel op 13 juli, wanneer ik net London verlaten heb zou hebben (note the doubt about actually leaving London before that date due to this announcement). Maar aan de positieve kant is dat ook net voor de Affaire, en gezien Los Campesinos! ook heeft geluisterd en nu op de bill staat, schat ik de kans reëel dat Perfume Genius hetzelfde doet. Yup, I deem my powers limitless.

‘Evelyn McHale’ van Parenthetical Girls! “Evelyn McHale, a 23-year-old woman who jumped from the Empire State Building observation deck on May 1, 1947 and was photographed immediately after by Robert Wiles in beautifully serene repose atop a crushed car." En als je dat eenmaal hebt gevonden op Wikipedia, dan is de accompanying video met kalkoenen, kippen en een ezel natuurlijk meer dan logisch. Het nummer is afkomstig van het laatste album van Parenthetical Girls, dat nog steeds aan het uitkomen is. Patrick Wolf mag het misschien leuk vinden om zijn laatste album in twee delen uit te geven, (((Girls))) gaan daar overheen door hun album in vijf delen uit te brengen: iedere drie maanden één deel. Privilege part 1: On Death and Endearments kwam eerder dit jaar uit en het tweede deel zal snel volgen zodra ze dit hebben geschreven en opgenomen na hun korte Europese tour samen met Former Ghosts. Bijkomen zal sowieso ook even nodig zijn gezien alle 500 limited edition LPs met de hand genummerd zijn met het bloed van Zac Pennington. Nice.

‘Cover the Walls’ van Internet Forever! Hey, ik woon in London, zal ik dan ook maar iets dat daadwerkelijk uit London komt bij mijn clips van de dag doen? Okay, technisch gezien komt de band voor 1/3 uit Cambridge, maar de meerderheid is toch Londons - in ieder geval dat ze daar wonen, het aantal Londenaren dat ook daadwerkelijk als Londons zou kwalificeren is bedroevend laag. ‘Cover the Walls’ is de derde single van Internet Forever, die live ook zeer vermakelijk zijn - al stonden ze toen ik ze zag in het voorprogramma van Jeremy Jay, en het is niet heel moeilijk om een betere indruk te maken dan eerdergenoemde. Een debuutalbum is nog niet in de planning, maar erg lang zal dat, of in ieder geval een EP of some kind ook niet op zich laten wachten. Eerder deze maand releasden ze nog een single ‘Break Bones’ op het label Art Fag, waar ook bands als Best Coast en Dum Dum Girls bij thuis horen. Niet dat ik ook maar in enige mate een gelijkenis hoor met said bands, maar hey, oordeel zelf.

Ed Ruscha

2010-05-29T22:17:00.000+01:00

Capsule reviews - The End (for now)

2010-05-23T19:47:00.001+01:00

So this was my last week in London, for now at least. I'll be back in two weeks, but it still feels like a farewell. For this reason, I had planned a crazy week with music every night. That could lead to one enormous review, but this once, I still stick to the capsule concept. Not because it's 27 degrees outside and I prefer lying in the park with a book, but because I saw the best gig in my entire life this week and all the other things seem rather bleak now. So no long renditions of how much Oh No Ono seem to enjoy exhibiting their Mew and MGMT inspired psychedelic rock; no endless rants about the Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug comedy roadshow (also known as Wolf Parade) and Spencer Krug's fabulous 80s TV show haircut; no whining about the abysmal support act Crystal Castles ended up with after both HEALTH and Male Bonding were taken of the bill; or even the brilliance of Neon Indian doing Vega tracks as an encore. Even a festival like Stag and Dagger with the likes of Team Ghost (with that other guy from M83), LoneLady, Comanechi, Active Child, The Radio Dept. and A Place To Bury Strangers couldn't measure up to seeing Former Ghosts live. Nope.

The only band that came close was Parenthetical Girls, who conveniently played on the same night at the Luminaire, which I have to say is a great venue. And not just because they tell people to shut up during gigs by writing this on the walls: it's also got a giant disco-ball. And as Zac Pennington said, you can tell if it's a good venue if they let you sing on the bar. As the venue is only half filled, there is enough room for Zac and his freshly painted silver microphone to go about the audience, and even dance in the back where nobody's standing anyway, or hang from the rafters in front of the stage (which is quite up front, so to put it, if you're standing on the front row - though as Zac is blessed with one of the most theatrical faces in human history it's definitely worth the occasional crotch in your face). As the Dance Dysmorphic Tour ends in London, and this end happens to coincide with a certain Steven M's birthday, Parenthetical Girls (who are by the way supported by Former Ghosts's Freddy Ruppert on samples and occasional guitar) treat themselves to some foamy champagne, and us to 'Handsome Devil'. If anyone should be allowed to cover the Smiths, it should be this band.

I can't even begin to describe how very special, and mostly intense, Former Ghosts' performance was. I've seen over 500 bands live (yes, I keep an Excel-file in which I track each and every band I have EVER seen, and no, I don't think I'm OCD), and nothing even begins to compare to Freddy Ruppert. At first, I was a bit disappointed as it was just going to be Freddy Ruppert, no Jamie Stewart (Xiu Xiu) or Nika Roza (Zola Jesus) to back him up, but as it turn out, he doesn't really need them anyway as I ended up just staring at my wall for about an hour when I came home afterwards. I just couldn't do anything else. In a way, his performance reminded me about how it felt to hear patients' stories during lectures in my first years as a medical student: at the end you're not sure whether to applaud since, though it's very brave of them to tell their story to a bunch of barely post-pubescent students who are struggling to keep awake, it sort of feels like you're applauding the fact they've got a disorder of some kind. Freddy Ruppert puts some much emotion into what he does, that the process itself seems to be killing him. After the first song he is already out of breath (which might also have something to do with him beating the drums with a vengeance all Rocky films combined wouldn't even come close to), but he just keeps pushing himself to go even further. As a result, 'New Orleans' seems more like torture than an actual performance (though in the best possible way), and Freddy needs a few moments to regain control of himself before he can even carry on.

I already loved last years Fleurs, which I've now learned contains an epic amount of reverb: if you take out all the instruments and then line up just the reverb, you've got 8 3/4 years of sound. That's just amazing! Some quick calculations have told me that my entire music collection (some 22,000 tracks, roughly) wouldn't even fill two months. And as I need a terrabyte-size external hard drive to accommodate my music, I don't think that's just me.

Live, it's even better, just through the sheer display of emotions. When Freddy tries to announce his last song after a truly amazing 'Mother', he can't even control his voice. He seems at the verge of breakdown, and if what he did wasn't so brilliant, you would want him to quit right now.

(Freddy Ruppert photos by Stella Kowalski, Zac Pennington photo 'lend' from the Flicker stream on Last.FM)

2010-05-23T12:48:00.000+01:00

2010-05-23T01:20:00.000+01:00

2010-05-22T12:50:00.000+01:00

2010-05-20T15:27:00.000+01:00

I have to be finished in:

Pavement - Joanna Newsom - Cold Cave

2010-05-18T16:33:00.002+01:00

Pavement/The Clean @ Brixton Academy What I like most about Pavement, is that when you google them, you actually get pictures of pavement in London, and that I recognise this as being London-pavement. It also might be an indication that I need to look up just a bit more. I'll start by admitting that I'm not that much of a Pavement fan (neither the band or the pedestrian accommodating kind). Sure, there's some tracks I really like, but their reunion was as big a news story to me as the cheese preferences of Nick Clegg. Wait no, the cheese story was actually quite compelling.

Nevertheless, I was pretty excited about seeing them live, primarily by proxy as everyone ON THE PLANET seemed to think of this as the opportunity of a life time to finally see the BEST BAND EVER live again. Well, I must disappoint them then, I didn't agree. Okay, it was great, starting with the Clean, whom I must admit I've never heard of before. But as people got even more excited about this little London residency when they were announced as one of the support acts (though I must admit that Broken Social Scene caused even more of a riot), I just let myself be dragged along in all the preconcertal bliss. Seeing them live was... alright. They certainly are a threesome of some very talented musicians, but no more than that - though they did appear to have at least one fan who went completely mental when they played what appeared to be their biggest 'hit'.

For me, it's easy to point out the best moment of the evening: 'Frontwards', which is truly the best Los Campesinos! cover I've ever heard. And yes, for just a second I actually did think it was a LC! cover. Silly me. What strikes me most about the rest of the evening, is the lack of enthusiasm in the audience. Sure, there's a small group of fanatics jumping on the front rows, but they're just a very small group in an immense venue like Brixton Academy. And also, they're just jumping, no moshpits or anything else that I'm almost used to happening at every single gig I happen to attend in London. Most people just stand there, with a beer in one hand, like their reminiscing good times. And they might well be, as Pavement's days of fame are now well in the past, as will be the days when their fans used to attend each gig with an attitude that secured at least some mayhem. Or they bought their tickets for the same reason I did when the fourth date of their little residency was announced, thinking: "Oh, well, I might just as well buy a ticket then."

Joanna Newsom @ The Royal Festival Hall Yeah, nice venue, the Royal Festival Hall. A bit less nice is the part where you are not allowed entry into the actual hall when you're just a bit late because someone decided to throw themselves in front of a train. The only comment on Roy Harper that I can make because of this that Joanna Newsom seemed to be absolutely honoured to have him as her support act. And as everything Joanna Newsom utters is an absolute truth, we will take her up on this.

On the day of this performance, the Guardian published an article in which they mockingly named Miss Newsom 'Olde Spice' (as opposed to Arty Spice for Lady Gaga...). I'll let you decided how relevant it is today to keep on handing out Spice Girl-denominators to all female performers, but just this once, The Guardian couldn't have been more spot on. While some may have a slightly Disneyfied view of Newsom , she has got a lot more Grimm brothers spunk to her than you might expect. Although her mere presence is enchanting, it starts to get really interesting when she opens her mouth. That conversing with an audience can be real addition to a performance is more than proven tonight, even though the performance itself is of course even more heavenly.

A downside to every Joanna Newsom performance must be the inability to create a setlist that includes all 'hits' as most of her songs on her three albums easily reach the ten minute mark, resulting in a lack of both 'Emily' and 'Peach, Plum, Pear'. Unforgivable in my opinion, even though her rendition of 'Monkey & Bear' is sublime even without an entire string section, and ''81' and 'Good Intentions Paving Company' might as well be the best new tracks I have heard this entire year. All that's left is to buy a ticket for her show in Amsterdam and hope for the best.

Cold Cave/Factory Floor @ Cargo Every time someone mentions something about Cold Cave, I'm inclined to brag about the fact that I've seen them when Caralee McElroy was still part of the band. That one time, they just seemed to be more of a band than a Wesley Eisold show. Not I don't like the Wesley Eisold show, I even quite enjoy it, it just seems that the others don't really have a function other than provide entertainment in the way that each of them seem to manage to move to a different rhythm of the same song.

The same might be true for Factory Floor: they're just there to fill the stage for half an hour or so. I can't tell how long they've been on there, as I have the faint idea that they played only on song, though others tried to ascertain me of the fact that they could recognise separate entities in the wall of noise created by the threesome. Well, might I congratulate you with that capability then?

As always, Cold Cave create an even more impressive wall of noise (thank heavens for earplugs!), but this time it is a very melodic one. Last year's Love Comes Close was one of my favourite albums, and still regularly finds its way into my Last.FM stats. The amount of people dancing or even moving at Cold Cave gigs seems to decline however, as has the average duration of a set. Within 40 minutes Cold Cave have finished their setlist, leaving me feeling rather bereaved after having paid £13 to see them. Yeah, okay, they did feature their entire album, but what about Cremations for instance? Or maybe something new? They sure seem to have a lot more of a back catalogue if you visit their merchandise stand (they even have cassette tapes!), so why do they seem to have so much trouble creating a decent set?

Avian Flu

2010-05-16T23:19:00.001+01:00

So I'm getting quite into this whole 'save the animals' thing after reading 'Eating Animals' by Jonathan Safran Foer. My main objection, if you can call it that, however, was that the book described the situation in the States, which of course is far worse than in Europe.

Well, today Avian Flu (H7N7, the slightly less deadly form of Avian Flu, but still deadly) was found at a chicken farm in Deurne, which some of you might know as the village where I was raised. 28,000 chickens were killed because of this. 28,000 chickens! That's your average amount of football supporters that fit into one stadium! You don't want to be in that situation for too long a time, but it's alright if your dinner spends its entire (but very short) life that way? Seriously, those chickens cannot have had a 'normal' or 'healthy' life anyway. Do you really want to eat these animals? This time they found a disease that could infect humans, but most of the time they have al kinds of others diseases that just don't happen to form a threat to humans as far as we know so it's 'fine' to eat them according to the health authorities. They don't even try to hide this fact from you: everyone knows you should thoroughly heat chicken in order to kill all the bacteria the flesh is swarming with. Is the really the kind of food you want to offer your children? Let alone the antibiotics and other chemicals these chickens, and other factory farm animals for that matter, are filled with.

Everyone knows that what we're doing to these animals is inherently, ethically and morally wrong. But as long as we collectively ignore it, and enough people are still ignoring it, we feel that we're okay with ignoring it. It doesn't help very much that the only people that seem to be calling out for these injustices are the Party of the Animals, who are depicted as being a bit flimsy at the very least, and 'hippy-organisations' as some people call them. I don't really sympathise with either of them, but I urge you to think about this. I also want you to know that 'organic' or 'biologic' meat is not an awful lot better. Most of the time, this just means that they have had other food than just genetically manipulated corn or 'had access to the outdoors' (meaning that they had a window to look at the outdoors).

If I had the opportunity, I would love to do the proper research and make a European version of this truly amazing and eye-opening book, but unfortunately I haven't. So I'm trying to do my bit this way. I'm not trying to make you give up meat, I just want people to admit that factory farming is not right, in whatever light you look at it, and that changes have to made. One way of endorsing this would indeed be to stop eating meat, as I have done, others would be to just be conscious of what you're eating. And maybe eat free range chickens and eggs a bit more.

MWO

2010-05-12T09:50:00.001+01:00

I have been president of this group for a year, and member and treasurer for even longer, and I didn't know any of this (except for the last sentence about us quiting).

100 things I hate about the tube

2010-05-11T19:13:00.003+01:00

* Work in progress *

1. Smelly people
2. Smelly people's armpits in your face
3. Other people's armpits in your face
4. Weekend closures
5. Severe delays
6. Minor delays
7. Signal Failure
8. Track replacement work
9. "The Gap"
10. Delays due to a person under a train
11. Delays due to The Ashcloud (WTF?!)
12. Bums sleeping on the tube
13. Bums playing guitar on the tube and asking money for it
14. Bums playing guitar on the tube and not asking for it
15. Bums just asking for money
16. People on the platform blocking the exits so you can't get out
17. People on the platform getting in before they let people of the tube
18. People who think there's just enough room left for them to get on
19. People who think there's just enough room left for them and their suitcases to get on
20. People who think there's just enough room left for them and their children and buggies to get on
21. Children who forget to get of with their parents and cry
22. Children who cry
23. Children who scream
24. Children think they can climb on me
25. People who faint on the tube
26. People who are sick on the tube
27. People that cough in my face
28. People that sneeze in my face
29. People that cough at the back of my head
30. People that sneeze at the back of my head
31. Little people that cough on my coat
32. Little people that sneeze on my coat
33. Dirty old men who make the eyes at me
34. People who try to read along with the newspaper I'm reading
35. People who don't let me read along with the newspaper they're reading
36. Tropical temperatures on the tube
37. The wind when you go up the escalator at Camden Town
38. The Saturday escalator-closures at Camden Town
39. The Sunday entry-closures at Camden Town
40. People who stare at you
41. People who stare back at you when you stare at them
42. People with loud music
43. People who smoke
44. The colour of the Piccadilly and Victoria lines (Tories!)
45. The extra bit of the Circle line which is not a circle
46. The lack of black on the Northern line
47. The lack of pink on the Hammersmith and City line
48. The immense distances you have to walk to change at King's Cross
49. The part where the Northern line doesn't go to Liverpool Street
50. The bleeping light when my Oyster Card auto top-ups
51. People who keep standing in front of the entry gates when their Oyster Card/ticket doesn't work
52. People who stand still when they get of the escalator
53. People who stand still, deciding to go either right or left, at the bottom of the escalators at Camden Town
54. The last train
55. The lack of night trains
56. The 'Seek Assistance' notice when you really don't need assistance
57. People who just arrived at Heathrow on the Piccadilly line who keep sniggering at the mention of 'Cockfosters'
58. People with large suitcases who put them in the middle of the aisle
59. People with large suitcases who put them in front of the doors
60. The ridiculously large amount of Health & Safety warnings
61. The 50% discount on penalties if you pay within the first month
62. Pee smell
63. Smoke smell
64. Random horrid smell
65. Having to wait longer than 3 minutes for the next tube
66. The lifts at Goodge Street
67. The lifts at Mornington Crescent
68. The separate tube stations for the Northern and Bakerloo line at Elephant & Castle
69. The Waterloo & City line (if it exists)
70. People who press the 'open' button to open the doors
71. People who do not manage to stay on the right side on escalators
72. People who do not get 'Keep Left' signs
73. People who do not get 'Keep Right' signs
74. Groups of Spanish tourists who do know when to get off the tube
75. People who count down the stations till they have to get off
76. People who keep looking at the tube map to see where they are
77. People that keep that bags on the seat next to them
78. Dogs on the tube
79. Fat people who think they can squeeze in
80. People who keep the doors open
81. Stations flooding when it rains
82. People thinking the train will stop at Warren Street despite posters and at least 5 announcements that it won't
83. Trains saying they go to Morden that actually go to High Barnet
84. Overground being closed for half a year
85. Boring advertisements
86. Having to wait at Camden Town because all the next trains go to Morden via Bank and I want to go to Kennington via Charing Cross
87. Having to wait at Camden Town because all the next trains go to Kennington via Charing Cross and I want to go to Morden via Bank
88. The amazingly detailed and up-to-date descriptions of what they're doing when someone has jumped in front of a train
89. The absence of trash cans
90. The presence of trash
91. Couples
92. Old people who want you and no one else to give up your seat for them
93. Other people who won't give up their seat for old people
94. People that hold on to me in stead of the railing when the tube starts moving
95. Tourists who don't get that there's no money left on their Oyster Card
96. People that fart
97. People that stand in front of me while I'm sitting who fart in my face
98. People who stroll through tube stations like it's a park. IT'S NOT! Now bloody move!
99. Having to move to the front of the carriage because the last set of doors will not open
100. Having to move to the rear of the carriage because the first set of doors will not open

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

2010-05-09T17:43:00.005+01:00

That was quite a moving week, wasn't it? With the elections and not knowing what is going to happen next: did David Cameron win the elections as his party has the largest share of seats or did he lose since he hasn't been able to create a majority, something that hasn't happened for 36 years? And which losers (as it's quite clear both Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown lost) will now form a goverment? Luckily, there's always music to keep your mind of these nasty thoughts.

Best Coast/Yuck/Philadelphia Grand Jury @ Mme Jojo's Something 'light' to start of this week of musical madness: 6 gigs in one week again, and I don't get to see everone I'd like to! First choice to make is whether Best Coast and Yuck are preferred over High Places and Bachelorette, and it turns out they are. Before said bands are seen in a live setting that is. Philadelphia Grand Jury - or Philly J's, as they'd like themselves to be called (I guess they've realised that lengthy names only really work on Sufjan Stevens albums) - are a great opening band. They're energetic, don't seem to give a fuck (excusez le mot) that absolutely no one is there to see them play and just go for it, ending with a rendition of Jay-Z's 99 problems which I actually don't hate. Good for them!

Yuck, a band who have been on the receiving end of some good old blogosphere praise lately, fail to leave a real impression that lasts after having seen the rest of the bands I have seen this week. The same holds true for Best Coast. Their set is rather messy, with the three band members having different ideas about what the setlist looks like, though they do seem to have copies of the same thing. Bethany Cosentino just doesn't seem to care that much about what we think of what she's doing on stage. And was that drummer the girl from Vivian Girls? It's been bothering me all week!

The National/Buke and Gass @ The Electric Ballroom Now there's a name that causes me to drop everything and delve into that emergency fund I've created in case David Bowie ever decides to do live gigs again - and if he were to do so (Glastonbury's birthday is coming up, rumours are still alive and strong), could he then please wait just a couple more weeks so I can replenish this fund of mine?

Buke and Gass, hailing from Brooklyn, are opening for The National. And they may just be the next Sufjan Stevens, but absolutely no one wants to listen to some experimental guitar jingle jangling whilst waiting impatiently for their favourite band (we can soundly establish The National being the favourite band of every single man in the audience - and I say man as at least 90% was male). I don't even feel like googling their names as even writing about this makes me anxious about getting to the bit where the National actually come in. Oh I even love reliving the anticipation! The eloquence of Stephen Fry and Joanna Newsom combined wouldn't suffice to describe the brilliance of the National in a live setting, but I will give it a try.

And enter dramatic walk-in music... Lights are dimmed and the shared excitement becomes almost tangible as the eight (!) men that make up the National on this tour enter the stage and take up their positions while Matt Berninger pours himself a glass of wine and takes some time to tape his lyrics to the floor (surprisingly, nobody shouts "The English are waiting" during this interval). As this is the first official gig to promote their fifth album High Violet, this entire album is featured on the setlist, starting with 'Anyone's ghost', which of course everyone knows by heart already. Matt Berninger even faintly tries to excuse us by mentioning the album was streamed on NPR, before exclaiming that he doesn't care anyway (and why should you as everyone single person in that room was intending to rush to the nearest record on the day it was going to come out?). 'Afraid of Everyone' is next, and sounds remarkably likes the first song. Any initial disappointment is however erased from the minds of the audience by the sheer brilliance of what is to come: 'Secret Meeting', 'Bloodbuzz Ohio', 'Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks' (I've been singing this al week in the shower), 'Slow Show', 'Mistaken for Strangers' and 'Squalor Victoria'. OMG. I absolutely broke at 'Slow Show', only just managing not to turn into a complete blobbering mess, to be topped by 'Mistaken for Strangers' and maybe the best ever version of 'Squalor Victoria'. And at this point, we're not even halfway through the setlist.

One could accuse the National of being a band that depends on sad songs, leaving you bereaved and disheartened, but as Matt kindly explains before 'Sorrow', that is quite the opposite of what they intend. By singing about these sad things, you manage to give them a place which results in an uplifting feeling. A statement with which I can only concur, especially when 'Apartment Story' is next. I'd like to stay in that rosy-minded fuzz for days to throw in a cliché. The National's closing statement starts with 'England', which is of course absolutely fabulous to hear while you're in England, but can't quite measure up to 'Abel' or 'About Today'. And can I add a note to my future husband here, saying that he might be obliged to get married to this song? (so I like 'Slow Show' better with the whole "I wanna hurry home to you" bit, but "I made a mistake in my life today" is probably not a sentence you would like to hear that day - but maybe I have given this just a bit too much thought given that I'm single and years away from getting married anyway).

But of course there is also an encore, a four track long one even! 'Runaway', a song that did not quite work for me on the album, is truly great in a live setting. But then again, it's followed by such utter brilliance that it does seem to be a bit bleak in hindsight. 'Fake Empire' and 'Mr November' are the obvious choices and although you know exactly what to expect, you are completely blown away. Matt jumps in the audience during 'Mr November', seemingly to get to every single person in the audience as he manages to get to the farthest back of the venue, ending up screaming "I'm Mr November! I won't fuck us over!" whilst standing almost next to me. Amazing, my life is complete (except for seeing Mr Bowie life, but that's only a minor glitch by now). He manages to get back to the stage to start singing 'Terrible Love' only to immediately dive into the audience again. For me, Mr November is still the better track, and has more energy to really end on a high, but as I touched Matt Berninger (twice!) I did that anyway. Oh, now to wait for the chance to see them again!

The National/Buke and Gass @ The Royal Albert Hall But wait, I can see them again! And the very next day, as their Electric Ballroom gig was just a warm-up for this event at the Royal Albert Hall. Another option would have been to go see Deerhunter, but with The National that's just not really a choice. This time round, I'm not as deprived as the day before, so I can actually manage to listen to Buke and Gass, who are quite good (though certainly not the new Sufjan Stevens). It's all a bit experimental, similar to Wildbirds and Peacedrums, but with a bit less jazz and a bit more country (luckily only a bit).

Compared to the first day of their duo of London dates, this one was both better and worse. Better in that the sound quality was much improved (in the Electric Ballroom the bass started resonating every time they used an Em chord - which they use a lot), but it was seated. And yes, everyone was standing by the third track, but only in front of their neatly arranged chairs. Not that it really mattered, 'Slow Show' still shattered me to pieces. As this night was supposedly 'the real thing' Matt Berninger refrained from taping his lyrics to the floor. Oh, and if only he had! Twice they attempt to play 'Baby, we'll be fine' but both times Matt forgets his lyrics and they then just abandon the whole thing, leaving me feeling a bit bereaved as it might have been the second track of the evening that I hadn't already heard the night before. The other one being 'All the Wine' in the encore, which is similar to the one the other night. But as it is election night this time, 'Mr November' just gets that bit of extra meaning, getting everyone's hopes up to seeing Nick Clegg getting his way when they get home. Again, Matt goes for the audience, and even tries to get to the circle seats on the first floor, but only his microphone manages to get there (kudos for the amazingly long cable). This night, 'About Today' is the show stopper, and how much more befitting it is than 'Terrible Love'! And how disheartening to go home and see a blue picture of England indicating the Tories are winning...

Rob Ince's School for Gifted Children: Module one (featuring Prof Brian Cox, Marcus Brigstocke, Simon Singh, Adam Rutherford, Tim Minchin and others) But hey, lighten up! There's always comedy to make one feel better, and if you combine that with a load of science you've certainly got my attention (oh, I wish I was an experimental high energy particle physicist). Though to be honest, I only bought a ticket in the first place because Prof Brian Cox was on the bill, and I am absolutely in love with his pronunciation of the word 'wonderful' (he said it at least twice, so I got my money's worth). Without really going into details, as I am aware that comedy for science geeks has a very limited audience and would probably only work in London, I would just like to say that I was completely blown away and might have to start reading everything Carl Sagan has ever written. The picture on the right came up twice during this night. Carl Sagan called it 'The pale blue dot'. It was taken by Voyager 1 in 1991 as it was leaving our solar system and shows the earth suspended in a ray of sunshine. It shows the immense fragility of our planet, but at the same time that pale blue dot is the place where all our heroes have lived, all our wars have been fought, our entire history has happened (the actual quote is much more eloquent, but I haven't been able to get my hands on a copy of the Sagan book yet). Also, it was absolutely heart-warming to spend this night in room full of hopeful LibDem voters (go Evan Harris!).

Foals/Jonquil @ The Ansom Rooms (Bristol) Yeah, I can be short on this: whereas the former night was spend in the company of LibDem voters, 95% of the audience in Bristol wasn't old enough to vote. Also, Foals played the EXACT SAME SETLIST AS IN KINGSTON! I could, much to my own annoyance, predict each and everyone song. So this was the last time I've seen them, and Jonquil weren't my thing either (bit of a Vampire Weekend/Foals mix). Best bit was seeing what Ed Droste would look like if he hadn't been awake for five consecutive weeks - and may I say that is pretty fine? Oh, if only I had gone to the Pavement is rad day at the Windmill in Brixton, they had a free bbq!

PS. Bristol is very nice though. Do go to Start the bus, they've got excellent hippy burgers.

PPS. And for those of you who notice that I've mentioned six gigs but only have written about five: well, the last one was one of my flatmates performing at the Wigmore, which apparently is a really big deal. But as I was fighting to not fall asleep, others were fighting to keep in their tears. So I don't think I could write anything sensible about that one.

ENGLAND YOU'VE LET ME DOWN!

2010-05-07T00:40:00.001+01:00

Right now, it's looking like the Tories are going to win.

Riots have already broken out in Hackney, people have not being allowed to cast their vote for various reasons, votes by post have been lost...

Hopefully this is all just a bad dream and Labour and LibDem will have decleared a shared victory by the time I wake up tomorrow.

*Morning update*
This is all so unreal. I don't know anyone who was gonna vote Tory. Everywhere around me there's a sense of utter disappointment and disbelieve. This was supposed to be an election bringing change, LibDem was going to 'win'. Not the elections, but for the first time a third party would have a profound influence on the results. As it turns out, they've lost seats. The fact that it looks as if there is going to be a Tory government makes me feel almost personally defeated (and I may have already made my first reference to the Tatcher years...)

Revising my paper

2010-05-04T12:45:00.001+01:00

I did actually write some bits of it myself...

More Twitter stuff

2010-05-03T23:29:00.000+01:00

With no HIGNFY happening this week to make room for the Prime Ministerial Debate, Ian and Paul make the most of their day off

I love how Matt Berninger can sing the most ridiculous nonsense and still make it sound like the most profound truth

Daleks get everywhere

Some random websites:
Humour, according to Microsoft
How to make any website look like it was made by a 13-year old in 1998
When cyclists have too much time on their hands
Or surgeons
Or birdspotters

And the Beeb's answer to one of the GREAT questions in science: what is out there?

Well, rather a lot.

Capsule reviews - Eyjafjallajokull week

2010-04-25T19:18:00.010+01:00

exlovers/Jonquil @ The Bull 'n Gate This was promising to be a very busy week for me, with no less than 6 gigs in 7 days, starting with exlovers. That is, if it hadn't sold out before I managed to get a ticket. Who'd have thought this would actually sell out? Not me at least.

Crystal Castles/Male Bonding @ Heaven Well, at least this was something to look forward to as their first album Crystal Castles really managed to impress me, and I'm very much looking forward to their new album Crystal Castles, though I'm not sure whether I'll prefer Crystal Castles or Crystal Castles as Crystal Castles seemed to have moved on from Crystal Castles. But before Crystal Castles can debute Crystal Castles, they first have to cross an ocean to get here. Which was made quite impossible this week (Damn you Eyjafjallajokull!). So now they have rescheduled their show to my rescheduled Have I Got News For You date. It's probably Nick Cleggs fault.

Fuck Buttons/Factory Floor @ Koko But hey, there's a bright side to this mess! Fuck Buttons are English and in England and are not being thwarted by volcanoes or sold-out gigs! Too bad the decision to go see them was so last-minute that I forgot to take my earplugs with me. And I believe Fuck Buttons were the reason I purchased them in the first place.

Once again, Koko proves its utter lack in qualities that make a venue more than just a venue. Upon entering, a security guy is directing ticket holders towards him in the most blunt way I've ever witnessed. You really feel welcome here. After informing whether earplugs are available somewhere in the building, and being directed from security people, to the reception and bar personnel, physics appear to be the only viable way to prevent from going deaf (as in, according to 4Πr², which represents the spherical shape in which sound spreads from a single point, but also taking into account the acoustics of the room and of course the multiple points of origin, sound levels significantly drop with every metre you remove yourself from the stage - but I might have listening to Prof Brian Cox just a bit too much lately to believe everyone thinks physics are easy peesy, which for the record: they are).

Factory Floor do the honours of supporting Fuck Buttons on this home game. They sound like a blend between the aforementioned and Holy Fuck, something which I have for some time now wondered what that would sound like. And at times, it's really, really good. Unfortunately, I haven't actually seen Factory Floor as I was building a human shield of tall people as a form of ear plug-replacement, but I strongly suspect them of harbouring a female band member who sings. Ha! How's that for deduction?.

Fuck Buttons are of course a band you don't really need to see, they don't make for a particularly interesting stage performance (even though they've now got an enormous disco ball), so yay human sound protection-shield! They were a bit ineffective though, as I still ended up with quite a buzz in my ears, but it was certainly worth it. I don't think I need to write an awful lot about this band: if you've seen them before you know they are absolutely amazing live; if you haven't, then you probably wouldn't want to see them anyway. This performance at Koko was no exception to their continued live-awesomeness, which is quite surprising given the track record of Koko in sound quality. The solution to this thus seems to be play you're music REALLY LOUDLY. As in, YOU HAVE TO SHOUT AT THE TOP OF YOUR VOICE IN SOMEONE'S EAR AND THAN THEY STILL CAN'T HEAR A WORD OF WHAT YOU'RE SAYING-loud. Earplugs, FTW.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti @ Cargo Nope, not happening. Surprisingly not due to volcanoes, but due to other non-disclosed reasons (Nick Clegg?). But hey, there's still that weird seated HEALTH/Chrome Hoof gig at South Bank Centre! And HEALTH are already in Europe and sold out...

Soap & Skin @ The Union Chapel Ah, finally, an artist from Germany! That's gonna be okay, trains are still going, cars are working, boats are a viable option! But no, miss Soap & Skin was planning on flying into London, and as she was taking an entire orchestra with her, there's no way to transport this bunch of musicians to London in time. Again: damn you Eyjafjallajokull!

Holy Fuck! @ The Coronet Theatre Do I really to digress on this?

LCD Soundsystem/YACHT @ Brixton Academy Is this happening? The gig of the week? As James Murphy has now apparently aptly titled his third album under the moniker of LCD Soundsystem: Yes, This is happening. Starting with the utterly amazing band that is YACHT. So there last album See Mystery Lights wasn't all that, live they more than compensate for the few dull and repetitive moments on record. Jona Bechtold, or David Bowie as someone next to me thinks to be a more befitting name for him, should definitely shoot an indie-work-out video. Seriously, he jumps and dances around the stage in a way that would be impressive to even most hyper-active kids. And he still manages to sing. You'd think that this would distract some attention from Claire Evans (or Annie Lennox, according to my neighbour), but she makes sure it absolutely doesn't. Dressed in a leotard, she's a perfect match for Jona. And in the chaos of what is their performance, there is still room for some synchronous dance moves, just adding to the absolutely dazzling effect of what is YACHT. Who wouldn't want to see a Bowie-Lennox collaboration live on stage? I know I would. Yup.

But oh boy, oh boy! It's about to get even better! LCD SOUNDSYSTEM! I'm absolutely in love with their new album. There is even a slight possibility that I might even love it more than Doctor Who. No, scrap that, that would be blasphemy (and has anyone seen last night's episode? It had Doctor Elizabeth Corday and the Weeping Angels in it! Who had thought that of all aliens in Doctor Who, statues could be the most frightening?).

Apparently, one of the reasons James Murphy & co have sold out Brixton Academy twice are their multiple appearances on the 'best of the decade' lists by Pitchfork. Something that doesn't appear to lead to people actually listening to their music in advance though. If they had, this minority had been warned about the absolute impossibility to remain immobile during songs like say, 'Tribulations', 'All My Friends', 'Daft Punk Are Playing At My House' or 'Us vs Them'. But I don't need to inform you of the greatness of almost each and every track LCD has EVER produced. Oh, that moment where Nancy Whang starts the synthesizers on 'Tribulations' might just be the best moment in contemporary music. Who said disco was dead?

All the music mayhem of the week is immediately forgotten when you get to see a band of the likes of this. Everything just works, the new songs fit perfectly with the better known old stuff - though James Murphy grudgingly remarks that we probably know the new stuff as well - well yes sir, AS YOU ALSO POSTED IT ON YOUR OWN WEBSITE THIS VERY WEEK!. Sorry, I was a bit frustrated at that rather bitter and accusingly statement of the man. Other than that short moment, he is his slightly geeky and cuddly self, which is what everyone wants to see (well that and Nancy Whang, but you can't just ask her to go stand on a box, can you?). But it's not all dancing, 'Someone Great' gets the sudden calm it deserves and 'New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down' serves as the perfect cooling down.

If there is such a thing as a low in this two hour long disco-bliss, than it might be 'Pow Pow', which I still just don't get, whereas 'Drunk Girls' is really starting to grown on me, even in the absence of violent pandas. And maybe the absence of 'North American Scum', just because that's exactly what I wanted to shout at the religious Pitchfork followers who didn't move a single muscle. But 'Yeah' was still there (the Crass version, I believe, as opposed to the Pretentious one), as were 'Losing My Edge' and 'I Can Change' and 'Yr City's A Sucker'. Oh, couldn't this just have gone for ever and ever?

LCD Soundsystem - Tribulations
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A week in tweets

2010-04-25T17:57:00.000+01:00

Photos courtesy of http://picturesfromthedailymail.com/ http://fuckyeahnickclegg.tumblr.com/ and Princes Diana (the Twitter version that is)