Unless you've been lying under a rock for the last few months you will know today is D-day here in the UK. And even though I have very little with royalty or the institution of marriage, I couldn't resist the whole royal wedding fever while making a new Spotify mixtape for TwentyTrackTape...
BY ROYAL (DIS)APPOINTMENT contains 20 songs that cover all aspects of marriage: courtship, persuasion, parents' disapproval, objection, going to the chapel, the punch up at the wedding, solidarity, regrets and divorce.
Of course The Dixie Cups are on it with their Chapel Of Love, as well is Morrissey's Will Never Marry. There's Hot Chip's ode to monogamy and some good advice on marriage from Jimmy Soul and Smokey Robinson's mother. As I'm not the romantic type there a quite a few songs about divorce on it, including a song by Marvin Gaye, who recorded an entire album about his split from Anna Gordy (as part of their divorce settlement Marvin had to pay an extensive percentages of royalties of his next album to his ex. Consequently he made Here, My Dear, 14 songs about the deterioration of their marriage).
Especially for those of you who don't have Spotify, I'm treating you to a couple of the 'high lights' of my mix:
The Shangri-La's - Give Us Your Blessing. Get it here (YSI). The Shangri-La's are one of my favorite girl groups. The girls sing like their chatting to each other, and lots of their songs are a bit sinister with sound effects dramatizing the mood. Wedding bells, a thunder storm and car crash can be heard on this song about two teenagers who run away because their parents don't approve of them tying the knot and crash themselves to death.
The Five Du-Tones- Divorce Court. Get it here (YSI). A hilarious song that reenacts a court session. Especially one of The Five Du-Tones singing the wife's lines in a high pitched voice, and the husband breaking out in tears at the end!
Barrington Levy - Quick Divorce. Get it here (YSI). Another song set inside the court. The reggae singer begs and pleas the judge to dissolve his marriage as fast as he can.
The hardest part of making this compilation was to limit it to 20 songs. I would have loved to included a Latin version of Frank Sinatra's Love And Marriage as sung by Peggy Lee, or I Cried All The Way To The Alter by country singer Patsy Cline or any song by The Wedding Present. But alas for them! Also my beloved Mirah didn't make the cut with Til Death Do Us Part, but I will share it with you here.
Mirah and Golden Bears - Til Death Do Us Part. Get it here (YSI).
And if this song was on Spotify it would have definitely made the list. More sound effects!
It's the happiest time of the year, and I'm watching horrormovies as if my life were depending on it. For fellow genre-lovers; here are some of the highlights of this month. For people that are not into guts, weirdo's, unneccesary nudity and wild chases with or without chainsaws; scroll baby scroll.... all the way down!
I: Haute Tension (2003) A french horrormovie by Alexandre Aja. This one had it all; gay love, a guy that looks like a ranger, but does nasty things with chopped off heads... lots of suspence, great acting and an unexpected brilliant twist in the plot. A definite keeper, and it ended up in the top 25 scariest movies of all time!
II: Body Bags (1993) Nice 'vintage' horror triptych of genius John Carpenter (Halloween, The Fog, The Thing) and Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist). This one came to me in a package with a note enclosed: "this is the movie we talked about last week, hope you enjoy it". That was the nicest thing ever, especially because I really enjoyed it. These three short films (The Gass Station, Hair, Eye) were all very different, one was really funny and another gave me sweaty palms, but I saw things in all three of them that I saw in movies that are much younger than these. Really worthwhile if you like orang-y blood.
III: Devil (2010) I was told that this one was superscary and I must say that the concept seemed kind of appealing to me. A bunch of people getting stuck in an elevator is nasty to begin with (I know this from personal experience) but when people start dying every time the light turns off (electricity malfunction?) it gets even nastier. I thought of Cube immediately and hoped for a nice psychological game with some nice gore added to it. Nevertheless, I should have remembered that it was directed by M. Night Shyamalan. He likes religion and stories that are full circle. I'm not into that, it's not what I look for in a horrormovie. I like bad endings and even more.. the unexpected. Not a keeper, but at least there was no Haley Joel Osment to overact this movie to death.
IV: The Human Centipede (2010) Last but REALLY NOT least: a dutch horrormovie that kept me nauseous for quite some time. Director Tom Six and his wife apparently wrote the movie and also came up with the rather sick idea of having a MAD german doctor (Dieter Laser, awesome name huh) sew together three people and give them only one digestive system. After some experiments on dogs, he does it for real. Just try to picture what this human centipede looks like and one can only imagine what happens with the second and the last person, when the first one eats. Not for weak stomachs, but really original and well made. And oooh, the mad doctor... love his looks!
Here's some of the sound that goes with all that terror:
Yes, the day has finally come: the holiday to be specific...
When our german friends (who are actually dutch) decided to get married in france, we were told they wanted to fly us in to DJ at their wedding. Of course we really had to think about that... NOT! But before we bring the happy tunes and party with the newlyweds, we will set up camp and try to ride some waves in a different part of france; Ile d'Oleron. Even though I can't surf, I love hanging out in the water and I just like to pose for pictures holding a board.
We leave you with an awesome feelgood song by Amari. Enjoy your long hot nights.... I know we will!
A "guerilla Christmas store" is opening up tomorrow at gallery BLAAK10 in Rotterdam. Students and alumni of the Willem de Kooning Academy will sell their designs. Prints, books, t-shirts, jewelry, bags, ceramics, cushions, the inevitable designer toys and Dutch Dolls items, it'll all be there! Should Santa Clause let you down, you could always go there after Christmas to spoil yourself, the guerilla store is open till January 3rd! Academiegalerie BLAAK10, Witte de Withstraat 7a, Rotterdam. Open Tuesday - Sunday 11.00 - 18.00. Late night shopping on Friday December 11th 18.00 - 21.00.
Ever heard of zombie walks? God, I think this would be the best thing to do on Halloween ever! Dress up like a zombie and invade the streets with hundreds of other zombies. I knew of zombie walks in the US and Canada, but I didn't know there was one so close to where I live: in Bristol!! They had a zombie walk for the first time last year and was a huge success.Just look at the pictures! Anyone who fancies joining next year's walk should check out their Facebook group or MySpace and let me know so we can stride together!
I would definitely be heading over to Bristol to walk along today, if it wasn't for the fact that my day is packed with other fun events and parties here in Cardiff. First I'm heading over to the Halloween October Fest at Artisan Beer's on Kings Road. It's a micro brewery (it's so small you could call it a nano brewery!) within an artist studio complex, so there will be the best beers, market stalls, open studio's, a BBQ and lots of live music. Among which the amazing Word Virus Essay!! I'll then be popping over to a friend's birthday party and to top it off I'll be dancing till my legs are worn away down to my knees at Dance of the Dead!! The line up of Toddla T, Ms Dynamite (she's back!!), Mumdance and Squire of Gothos (just to name a few) will have me walking home like a zombie for sure!!
So after a little over five weeks I'm back in Cardiff. Except for the rain, it feels nice to be at HOME again. Surrounded by all my stuff, having a closet full of clothes to choose from, being called 'love' by the cashier at Tesco's, a PROPER INTERNET CONNECTION... The latter, plus the fact that we worked/partied/relaxed a lot, were the reasons for the infrequent postings the last couple of weeks. But I'll make up for it now by giving you some of Berlin's highlights according to Dutch Dolls...
Like this tiny Greek restaurant called Thalassa (Körtestrasse 8) in Kreuzberg. No live music, no tacky decor, no colums. This family run restaurant serves finger licking yummy food, prepared by a big mama. Highly, highly recommended!
Does fermented cabbage sound appealing to you?! To me it never did! But in Korea they love the stuff: kimchi. I've never been a great fan. So when I made a bet (trying not to drink alcohol for one day..) my challenge would be to eat kimchi. Of course I failed... So off we went to Kimchi Princess, a new, stylish Korean restaurant in Kreuzberg 36 (almost too stylish for its surroundings). I had a kimchi crêpe and it was de-li-cious! I'm converted :-)
One of my best nights out ever was probably atKiki Blofeld: dancing to obscure soul & funk music in a boathouse, chilling outside by a campfire and playing foosball under the stars. Brilliant!!This picture of the (then empty) boathouse doesn't do it justice at all!
Dutch Dolls had another memorable night out at Cassiopeiain Friedrichshain. The ruins of an old factory house two concert venues, a beergarten (check out the pic), an open air cinema and skate hall. Very raw, but the atmosphere is very gemütlich. We shaked our booty to some live R'n B (!), hip hop and dancehall till dawn!
Two nice dives in the neighbourhood of the Falkensteinstrasse in Xberg are Madame Claude and Konrad Tönz. In Madame Claude you can play ping pong or play your musical instrument at one of their open mic nights. Sometimes they have bands playing in their tiny and very damp basement. Oh I just love Konrad Tönz! The bartender is superfriendly and he blends in neatly with the retro interior of the bar... The DJs spin their records (boogaloo, schlager, (ost-)beat, soul and jazz) on two mono record players. Dutch Dolls recommends buying a bottle of sekt (German sparkling wine) there. The bartender will keep it chilled for you in the fridge and he'll fluff you up every now and then.
They say "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". So when in Berlin, go to the fleamarket! The one on Arkonaplatz has a very nice selection of old junk (I should say vintage - go to Mauerpark for a massive amount of just junk). Once a month the legendary punk club SO36 has a Nachtflomarkt. The quality of the goods isn't that great, but it's cheap. So at least you still have a chance of finding a real treasure here. Another big plus is that you can 'trödel' here with a beer in your hand and excellent soul music in the background!
More legendary punk is to be found at the Ramones museum in Mitte. On display are Ramones memorabilia from some obsessive fan. Which is great! There's a framed pair of Johnny's pants, old report cards and of course lots of pictures and posters (there are actually some pretty cool photobooth photo's and contact sheets). Every punk-ish band that visits Berlin drops by at the museum and they often do an acoustic live show. For FREE!! I went there to see the Riverboat Gamblers! I enjoyed it a lot, even though they couldn't rock out as much since they didn't want to trash the museum. On YouTube I found the video that the guy in front of me made. He was clearly into it as well; the camera is bouncing to the rhythm...
Dutch Dolls is a Design + DJ duo. This is our blog. Here we write about our designs, upcoming gigs, events and exhibitions, our latest musical findings, inspirations and whatever goes on in our daily lives...
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