World Exclusive!!

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*

'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

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?

Science jokes (sorry)

(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

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...

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

The BEST music video EVER!

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

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

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.