Parade alternatives

Rotterdam boasts itself as a city of festivals. And rightfully so. There are so many it's impossible to go to them all. But which ones to skip??

Next weekend do go to Metropolis - a FREE music festival where you can catch the likes of Les Savy Fav and The Vaccines, as well as tons of other bands that you never heard of but who will (possibly) be famous next year.

This weekend, June 24-26, travel South to the Wolphaertstraat to visit Bazar Bizar. Over 60 (!!) artists will sell their prints, drawings, jewelery, clothing, zines, toys and what not. Plus there will be good food and music (including from our own Geeske).

And/or you could go up North to the bustling neighborhood of Het Oude Noorden for Route du Nord. This route will take you along all the galleries, shops, cafes, restaurants and temporary art spaces that are tucked away in the narrow streets of "The Old North".

A festival you certainly should not miss (unlike me..) is the Open Dans festival. Jan Misker and our friend Janne Eraker hand picked the best, fresh and exciting dance acts that are out there in Rotterdam today. The program is just as divers as the city itself: there will be everything from modern to urban, from tap to tango, there will be video-installations and turntables, there will be more established dance makers as well as young and upcoming ones, plus workshops, live music and parties! And all this for just € 25 (3-day passepartout - separate tickets available too). Skip De Parade, I'd say!

The Old North

As you may know I travel quite a bit between Cardiff and Rotterdam. Roughly once a month I fly over to the Lowlands to work together with my Dutch Dolls-colleague. I usually crash at her place, or I catsit for a friend who goes on holiday a lot. They both happen to live in what is rapidly becoming the funkiest area of Rotterdam: "Het Oude Noorden" ("The Old North").

Now I used to be a Westside girl (for years I lived in notorious Spangen) and swore West was the best. I never liked "The Old North" very much, with its dark narrow streets and boarded up houses. But the dark days are over. Every time I take tram number 4 or 8 from Central Station towards my temporary home I notice new eateries, new shops and new artist studios. Here are just a few of the gems that spawned here recently.


☝ Mother and daughter run Lof der Zoetheid, a shop and cafe located at Noordplein 1. They serve breakfast, lunch, and afternoon tea, and they do catering as well. You can buy beautiful 'afternoon tea boxes', filled with yummie stuff and a special afternoon tea, for you to take home (or you can make yourself immortal by giving this to someone else).

Westerkaatje. This traiteur is an institute in Rotterdam, and in October they opened up a new restaurant at Benthuizerstraat 60-D. A first sign of gentrification??


☝ Cafe De Bel, Gerard Scholtenstraat 61b, is a dive that looks like its been there for ever, but only recently it became VERY fashionable to go here. It's even been dubbed "De Rotown van Noord". It is rumored that with every wodka you order you get a free bag of crisps! Every time I arrive in Rotterdam the first thing I shout is "I want to go to De Bel!", but for some reason it never happens. But this week I want to go to De Bel FOR REAL!!!


☝ For 60s lamps and furniture, 70s ceramics, weird 80s objects and art go to Spam (Zwaanshals 243a). There are also plenty of second hand (book)/antique shops in the area, and today I even spotted a charity shop on the Zaagmolenstraat!


☝ More and more empty stores are turned into studio spaces by artist, designers and party organizers, who double their work space as a shop. Take Maatschappij Voor Volksgeluk on the Benthuizerstraat for example. 19 artists are united in a former fire station "Center of applied arts" Rotabs at Zaagmolenkade 46. They also host events and there's a shop.

Nice opportunities to explore the area are festivals like the Swan Market and Route du Nord. Swan Market saw its first edition last month, and another one is scheduled for March 6! At this 'lifestyle market' designers sell their products in empty shops in the 'Zwaanshalsgebied'. Route du Nord takes place in June I believe. Artists open up their studios and all sorts of happenings, readings and shows take place.


☝ On my last ride on tram 4 I noticed the prison complex on the Noordsingel (pictured above) has closed and is now FOR SALE. Very curious to see what will happen to this HUGE complex. Think of the opportunities! A couple of years ago two friends of mine paid homage to this prison with this ukelele version - in Dutch - of Folsom Prison Blues. I think it's utterly brilliant!


De Wisselende Contacten - Noordsingel Blues. Get it here (YSI).


Johnny Cash – Folsom Prison Blues. Get it here (YSI).

Oh and I probably missed loads of places, so please leave comments and suggestions on The Old North!

F.A.R.T. in the bathroom!

This must be one of the weirdest places we’re ever going to DJ (though our party in the elevator, that got stuck by us jumping, is one for the books too)… Tomorrow we’re going to play in the bathroom of a hotel room. Somewhere between the bathtub, the sink and the toilet Dutch Dolls are going to whoop it up! How appropriate for a festival called F.A.R.T.. All kinds of artists have been asked to fill the rooms of the hotel and hostel with installations, mini-exhibitions and performances. At 23.00 the warehouses open up for DJs and live performances.

So on invitation of Johan Kleinjan we’re playing at his SUPERRRMINIFEEST in Room 31 of Boutique Hotel Quartier du Port from 20.00 till +/- 22.30. We already got some great suggestions what to play, from Piss Up A Rope and Don’t Shit Where You Eat by Ween, Ring Of Fire, Drop It Like It’s Hot, Push It, Earth Wind and Fire and Golden Brown by the Strangles, to anything by George Michael. Alas, since it’s vinyl only this rather limits our selection of bathroom-themed songs. But don’t worry we’ll be bringing some other great stuff to make sure it gets hot and steamy in there! Better leave your kids at home...

At 22.30 we’re crossing the street to the Westelijk Handelsterrein where we’ll play a set over a proper PA in warehouse no.15. Come and shake your booty between 23.00 and 24.00, and stick around for more great performances by the likes of zZz, Doktor Schnitt, J.C. Thomaz & The Missing Slippers, DJ Shitmeister T!!

An ear for an ear

My apologies dear readers for being off the radar for so long. Holiday in France, working on our rollator-soundsystem Blanche, tight deadlines, a course at Central Saint Martins in London and friends visiting were to blame. But now I’m catsitting in London for a week so for once I’ve got loads of interesting stuff to blog about!

In between work I’m planning to go to lots of museums and exhibitions, a musical, the Hackney carnival, do shopping (of course), go to Brighton and see lots of live music. I’m not doing too bad on the latter with Field Day festival, Jens Lekman, the Blow and the Evan Parker Trio already under my belt.

Funnily enough balding men were the stars at Field Day. Caribou was great live, playing songs of his EXCELLENT album Swim. Max Tundra could play schlagers for all I care ‘cause his dance moves are the best and make his sets always enjoyable. I was pleasantly surprised by a very techno-oriented set by experimentalist Matthew Herbert, partly created from the top of a ladder and in a little dome tent on stage.

Then on Tuesday we went to see Jens Lekman and The Blow in the beautiful Union Chapel in London’s East End. My friend Kate was spot on when she described The Blow as “the female Max Tundra”; her dancing was a bit like a spastic tapdance. Very nice, just like the songs (with lots of finger snapping and hand clapping sound effects). It was a bit of a pitty her lyrics were inaudible due to the enormous natural reverb of the church. Then again, it's a real church with pews and a pulpit and candles, so what are you gonna do. Jens Lekman's performance was a joy, as always. I never listen to his albums (his “tram number seven to heaven, did you eat your banana from Seven Eleven”- lyrics tend to get on my nerves), but when he’s in the neighborhood I can’t resist seeing him. He's just too charming! And from the balcony where I was sitting I noticed Jens is balding…

Last night my beau tried to push my musical boundaries by taking me to The Vortex Jazz Club to see Evan Parker, an apparently very famous free jazz improvising saxophone player. This music needs trained ears to be fully appreciated, I think. So I just took a pen and doodled away on the reservation card that was lying on the table. In return for enduring this my boy promised me to join me to ANY show of my choice. So tonight I’m dragging him along to a African house club night at Notting Hill Arts Club. Ngagna, sweet revenge.

Caribou - Sun. Get it here (YSI).

Max Tundra - What Time is Love (KLF cover). Get it here (YSI).

The Blow - Hey Boy. Get it here (YSI).

Jens Lekman - A Postcard to Nina. Get it here (YSI).

Evan Parker - Dark Interior (extract - just to give you an idea...)

putting the kids to work

Summer is over. But it's the start of a new season... the 'cultural season'! Rotterdam celebrates this with the Wereld van de Witte de With Festival (as you might have gathered by now), Utrecht does it with UITFEEST: a 2-day party with lots of art, poetry, guided tours, music (o.a. Voicst, GEM, Room Eleven and Wolter Kroes) and workshops. All taking place this weekend, September 12th and 13th! Dutch Dolls will be putting the kids to work in Leidsche Rijn. We'll be making a 'Vinex village' out of cardboard boxes. If you're between 2 and 6 years old come join us!!

homo universalis 2.0. in a TENT.....

It all goes down at the Witte de Withstraat in Rotterdam this week! Tomorrow is the opening of BLURRR in exhibition space for contemporary art TENT. It's a very special exhibition/event to celebrate TENT's 10th birthday. Hurray!

BLURRR (excuse me while I quote from the website) "reveals a new cultural practice in which the young artist goes beyond the borders of different disciplines and presents him/herself as homo universalis 2.0. (...) Thanks to the possibilities of the Internet, it seems that multitasking has become the most important basis for the practice of art without being noticed. Artists are simultaneously a performer, singer or designer. They work alternately in collectives, duos and groups. They share their knowledge or work on social network sites such as Facebook, Hyves or MySpace and assign the public an active role in their work." Sounds kind of familiar?! That's why TENT approached Dutch Dolls to take part in the large-scale educational project that accompanies the exhibition.

The educational project is named 'Wildgroei' ('proliferation') and is organized by an occasional artist collective, consisting of S.P.A.M. van Griensven, Selfcontrolfreak, Ivo Vrouwe and Maartje Aben and Dutch Dolls' own Geeske. From the 9th of September till the 15th of November high school students will work with the collective on an installation. Every move is being monitored by a camera, so you can keep track of the whole thing (somewhere) online.

Anyways, come to the opening tomorrow at 18.00 to enjoy performances by the HuMobisten and Nina Boas, music, drinks and food (by Hete Bliksem!)! Or take a look at the Wildgroei in progress sometime during the Wereld van de Witte de With Festival.

The good stuff just keeps coming!

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,-

Oh screw happiness, let's get doom

On april 4th tegendraads festival will take place for the second time. From 19.00 - 04.00 LVC in Leiden will be transformed into a place for music, art, food and more.

The selection of performing artists is not for the soft-hearted but should be totally surprising and refreshing (which is always a good thing). It's mostly, punk, noise, grindcore, breakcore, doom and well... experimental stuff I guess. So if you're not into that, don't go.

Perhaps you're not into music anyway, and you just like to go shopping. If that is the case, you should check out their HUGE collection of t-shirts, all limited editions and all designed by fellow young artists. Just to name a few awesome ones: Bitches in Control, Ingrid de Lugt, Baschz and Dutch Dolls!