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First of all HIP HIP HOORAY for Dutch Doll Geeske!!! It's her birthday, weehooo!! Congratulations my dear dollegue!Sorry to alllllll of you readers for not posting in over a week. The Dolls have been reunited and we've got loads of very important stuff to do! Like working on a new demo and new summer dresses :-) And when we're not doing Dutch Dolls stuff I try to squeeze in as many dates with friends and family as possible.But now I find myself with 45 minutes to spare on this Monday morning! This post should be about the great time we had at DISCO DOOF and at the CARNAVAL last weekend. But as I'm writing this on a friend's computer I haven't got any pics or videos here with me, so I'm afraid we'll write about that another time. But I've got something for you to keep you occupied in the meantime... My friend Rutger tipped me off on this and eversince I've spent way too much time on FAIL Blog. I promise you, it will not only crack you up, it will change the way you view the world. Failures everywhere!
And through FAIL Blog I stumbled upon another great blog: There, I Fixed It. It's filled with handiwork that makes Macgyver look like he's got two left hands.
Well got to run now. I'm on a TIGHT schedule! I'm guessing your day might turn out to be less productive than mine ;-) Enjoy!
With the new Dutch Dolls website online, and a break from my regular illustration work due to the summer holiday, I finally found the time to start working my picture book. I’m not giving away too much about the plot, but I can tell you it’s about music and various types of animals, especially lots of apes…
At first I thought it would be fun to do a musical blog post with an ape-theme (The Apers, Can Your Monkey Do The Dog, etc.). But as I was doing lots of studies of apes from books, I was taken to tropical places like the jungles of Southeast Asia and the savanna’s of Africa. I decided it might be more interesting to post some tracks based on their geographical origins. I'll do a post on Southeast Asian tunes later, I now present you a few songs from Africa. Enjoy the very best of what has come from this continent since Mujava’s Township Funk!
Hip hop artist K’naan was born in Somalia and has been living in Canada since he was 13. His third album, Troubadour, has just been released and I dig it a lot!! On the album are guest appearances of artists such as Damian Marley and Mos Def, and now Afrikan Boy joins in on a remix of T.I.A..
K’naan- T.I.A. (Remix feat. Afrikan Boy). Get it here (YSI).
Husband and wife Amadou and Mariam are what you could call musical veterans. They’ve been playing together ever since they met at Mali's Bamako Institute for the Young Blind in 1975! Their popularity has been growing steadily over the years, and jumped when Manu Chao worked with them in 2003. Now they seem to have entered the realms of mainstream, with even a Bmore remix of their single Sabali!
Now for The Very Best, that's what the two guys from Radioclit (from London) and Esau Mwamwaya (from Malawi) call themselves. And I must say, they live up to their name. I'm a fan! They are working on their debut album Warm Heart of Africa and Ezra Koenig (singer of the afro-indie-pop band Vampire Weekend) lent his vocals to their first single. We’ll have to be patient, the album isn’t coming out until this fall. But they’ve got a mixtape/bootleg album out, which you can download for FREE from their MySpace!
Dutch Dolls is rocking Het Paard van Troje (The Trojan Horse) in The Hague again on Friday July 24th! On Jacques de la Disque's invitation we'll play our most ecstatic tunes at DISCO DOOF. Bring your earplugs, because we'll be cranking the volume up to 11!! Of course Jacques will spin some records himself, and Yobkiss and Blokgolf are on the bill as well. Expect electro, italo, rave, housy stuff and of course disco! Disco Doof starts at 23:30 and it's just € 4,00 to get in!
In my last blog post I was whining about how much I missed Holland. Here we are, a week later and the homesick feelings have vanished. It must have been my hiking trip along the Pembrokeshire coast. Absolutely STUNNING. Not exactly rock 'n roll, but it is wild and rugged, hell yeah. And such friendly people. The bus driver, our neighbour at the campsite, the farmer… Oh so sweet I wanted to take them home with me! Another plus about Wales is that the Welsh love singing. The singing during a rugby game is deafening! Wales has spawned some very famous singers: Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey and let's not forget the notorious Charlotte Church. Wales is also pretty well represented when it comes to the female singers who have been dominating the (indie)charts lately. Duffy, Adele (okay okay, she’s only half Welsh) and more recently Marina & the Diamonds and Ellie Goulding. I really dig the latter one. She is a folky singer songwriter, who fiddles with electronics. And like every other self-respecting female singer using electronics, there just has to be a dubstep remix. Her's is done by Jakwob. It isn't as massive as "the other one", but still very good.Ellie Goulding feat. Frankmusic – Wish I Stayed. Get it here (YSI). Ellie Goulding - Starry Eyed (Jakwob Remix). Get it here (YSI).
Okay, I admit it. I totally gave up my animal-lover-credibility when I bought this bag. It's made of a toad, a swedish toad. With fake eyes.
When I bought it, my naive mind thought that the animal had died a natural death and that some taxidermist dude turned him into a bag. Turns out it did not quite happen like that, but I'll spear you the details. The thing has been on my case me eversince I bought it. When friends come over, I hide it... I can't throw it away, because it will have died for nothing... I certainly can't wear it. The toad haunts me.
Suggestions anyone?
And I thought last weekend was exciting, but it just keeps coming - the good stuff!
This friday, doll Geeske will be deejaying at EXIT Rotterdam. this evening will be dedicated to the wonderful musical genre; riotgrrrl. The genre that brought us Sleater-Kinney, Peaches, The Gossip, Le Tigre, Bikini-Kill and much much more awesomeness! That means I will be diving into my old punk records. Even though I've been in the urban mood for a long time... I'll always love guitars, especially with female vocals.
The evening will not just be filled with my tunes, but there will be some great girl punkbands as well. Such as Queen Bee, Dusty Blinds and Cheap Thrills. Come and throw some beer, I'll get you a new one!
Exit, 21.00u, 5,-
After waking up the next morning with my probably wooden head (as we say in dutch).. it's time to put that headache to rest and grab every tropical tune that I've got. For I'll be off DJ-ing at the open dans festival in Rotterdam, DEK22.
This festival is so cool and so refreshing and is supposed to bring the underground danceworld to the surface. There will be streetdanceclasses, workshops, live music, performances. All done by young dancers either established or not. I'll be bringing the summer with me after a probably awesome live set by Doktor Schnitt! Come dance wiv' me!
DEK22,(my set starts at) 23.00u, tickets for the whole day: 10,-
Look what I found in a charity shop! I just couldn't resist... So I thought I'd do a post about my weirdest finds ever; I also wanted to put up a picture of a bag, which I bought at a flea market in Berlin, that looks like a ROCK. Yes, it looks just like a real stone! But I couldn't find the thing. I suspect my boyfriend of secretly getting rid of it!! I promise I'll post a picture if it ever turns up. Now I just know Geeske has enough weird finds to write a 'my weirdest finds, part 2'. Oh please show us that bag you bought in Sweden!
Although I have no regrets about leaving Rotterdam to set out on great adventures abroad, I sometimes dearly wish I was still there... So many great people, so many good friends, lots of fun stuff going on, and let's not forget it's the city where they invented the KAPSALON (shoarma, fries, metled cheese, salad and garlic sauce)! I miss it.Take this weekend for example... On Friday Dutch Doll Geeske's musical collabaration with Auke, TERROR DORKS, will make its debut at Worm!! Auke is the beatmaster and Geeske is on vocals, owww yeah! She's been sending me some lyrics and they are absolutely hilarious!! I just know this song about the KAPSALON is going to be catchy as hell. I can't believe I'm going to miss this! All together this whole Beniworm evening sounds excellent: 'open sauce' barbecue, inflatable objects, more music and cold beer... Mmmm. I wish I could just teletransport myself!Then on Saturday Antistrot presents the mural they've been working on at the espresso bar in Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. They'll start off with some performances at 14.00. I think you should prepare for the worst. I overheard a bit of the soundtrack for it, and it had something to do with 'Mannenkoor Karrespoor'... Then at 15.30 it's time for boozing as the mural will be disclosed. Read some in depth information about this artists collective at the Boijmans website (great it includes the word 'onderbroekenlol'). While you're in the neighborhood, why don't you hop over to the MK Gallery in the Witte de Withstraat, where Pim Palsgraaf has an opening (more free booze!) at 16.00. Maybe you'll be able to spot parts of the stuffed seagull and the stuffed pheasant, that were once hanging in my living room, in his art works. Well have fun you guys, I'll be thinking of you...
After a few weeks of hard work we finally saw some daylight again ... because our new website is finished!! Everything is new, it looks gooood, it has an actual navigation system and some impressive elements, such as drop down menu’s and a shopping cart. Oh jeez, we feel so modern and improved! *** To celebrate this rebirth we offer you a free screen print when you place an order for € 25,- or more (ex. shipping costs) at our webshop!! ***
The print is filled with lame jokes, weird animals and even weirder: Patty Brard (Holland's most repulsive tv host, ex-popstar and survivor of a few medical experiments). It is signed by Dutch Dolls and it measures 42 x 29 cm. We printed it in red, black and dark gray on heavyweight paper. If you want some Dutch Dolls art on your wall, act now! We’ve only got a limited number of prints!We're very proud of the new and improved site, especially since we made the whole thing ourselves (if art doesn’t work out Nanna could be a hacker-spy for the CIA or something). Nuff said, click on the image above to check our new website. We hope you like it!!!
Well got to run now. I'm on a TIGHT schedule! I'm guessing your day might turn out to be less productive than mine ;-) Enjoy!
