Finally the wait is over. It's been a good few years, but the artist formerly known as About is back!
After working and touring extensively with Dutch band Voicst and doing production work for loads of other artists, Berlin-based Rutger Hoedemaekers has reincarnated in the persona of Bart Constant. To give us a taste of the new album he has just released a video for one of his songs: Do Better. And it's absolutely AMAZING!!!! The song, which features Dustin O'Halloran on piano is so beautiful, and the video (well video, it's more of a mini movie) is stunning. The song and the vid just work so well together. It was directed by Mirka Duijn and produced by Nina Spiering, who collaborate under the name of Kimmo Films.
Somehow releasing an album never comes easy for Rutger. Just before his first album was supposed to come out he suffered from a collapsed lung, three (!) times. Just before he was about to master this latest record his mixer failed and he missed his flight to London and thus his appointment at Abbey Roads Studios. And then his purple Polo broke down while he was on his way from Berlin to the shoot in Rotterdam, the car he needed to sell in order to finance the video... Insane or what?! But even though he couldn't make an appearance in the video, it's here and it's great. The album has been mastered and we are now anxiously waiting its release. Until then marvel at this:
Things started out great for Blanche, but unfortunately for the last few days it has been pouring here in Berlin. And with the rain our plans for doing all these guerrilla DJ gigs were flushed away.. So we decided to try our luck with some clubs and bars (read: places with roofs). And at Yaam we got lucky! They loved the look of Blanche as well as our Coconut Mix, so they asked us to roll by on Saturday afternoon. We're so thrilled; the place looks like a beach, they've got great cocktails and jerk chicken. So Berliners, drop by from +/- 17.00 till 19.00 at Stralauer Platz 35!!!
Yesterday was a very special day. Because, despite of our first Becks-and-Hefeweizen-hangover, we decided to get up 'early' and take our lovely lady Blanche for a short stroll through Görlitzer Park in Berlin. Just to see how loud she can get. We were so hung over that we forgot half the equipment (we even forgot the music!). We went back twice and we still didn't have everything... But nevertheless Blanche's first walk in the park was a delight. We made one enemy but lots of friends. The local drug dealers were a fan. They want to book us at their next "party"!
We also met a musician called Wynton Kelly Stevenson. It turns out he has a very original way of playing the harmonica. Check it out on his MySpace!! It's a nice blend of dub, blues and hip hop. "That's the shit right there!", to speak in the man's own words. Sometimes Blanche gets stuck in the cobbled stones. As we were jerking her we ran into another awesome musician.Yarah Bravo is MC/singer/beat maker and apparently she has a weak spot for sound systems. Her voice reminds us a bit of Lisa „Left Eye“ Lopes, and she's opening up for Freeway tomorrow. Who is very scary looking, like a black version of Matisyahu, but with less hair on top. So we might go and check her out live! You can watch her in this video...
Here's our ode to yesterday. A song we didn't play because we forgot to bring it.
I still have to thank my friend Peter *. Thank him for introducing me to Miss Platnum!
Miss Platnum was born in Romania, but moved with her parents to Berlin when she was a kid. She used to work as a background singer until she started working on her own music for her debut album Chefa. I think her style is truly unique: Balkan-flavoured R'n'B. So lots of brass, rolling R's and songs about food and Mercedes Benz. She takes the piss out of the (Western) ideal beauty and the stereotypes of Eastern Europeans in a very funny and clever way. To be honest the R'n'B songs are a bit too mushy for my taste, but I absolutely LOVE her uptempo work.
For some strange reason I just assumed that for her latest album she had tipped over to the R'n'B side, maybe because a sophomore album is usually more 'mature'. So even though The Sweetest Hangover had been released in September I didn't give it a listen until yesterday. Silly me! The songs might not be as catchy as some of her older ones, but it is a great record with plenty of uptempo songs and still heavily Balkan influenced. Have a listen to Come Marry Me, a duet with German hip hop superstar Peter Fox, from her first album and She Moved in!, taken off her latest release.
Miss Platnum - Come Marry Me (feat. Peter Fox). Get it here.
* If you can read Dutch, do check out Peter 'Teps' de Koning's blog!! He wittily writes about all sorts of interesting stuff, like music from around the globe, politics, soccer and personal memories. I think he is one of the best storytellers in the Lowlands!
Last weekend we discovered a new store just around the corner of our house, called the 80's toyshop. It is packed to the roof with vintage BMX and chopper bikes, Hulk Hogan action figures, Star Wars memorabilia, arcade machines, Amiga computers and much much more. My beau was drooling over the Kuwahara BMX in the window, but instead of laying down 600 quid he decided on spending £2,50 on a game for his Gameboy.
Now where was his ancient Gameboy? It had to be in one of these boxes that were still unpacked, gathering dust in our storage. Now comes the good part: in his quest for his Gameboy my man found my bag-that-looks-like-a-rock!! So here it is:
Does it look like a rock or what?!
And while I was doing some cleaning out over the weekend, I came across another great German fleamarket buy, that easily makes it into my top 3 of weirdest finds...
Now if it's true that the tie was designed to focus attention on a man's crotch, I think this tie definitely succeeds in that goal.
You could be sitting on your couch this saturday, drinking hot tea while watching a movie, which would be nice.. But you could also put on some tight pants, a skimpy shirt, grab your earplugs and come to 'Het Paard' in The Hague. And party hard.
Jaques de la Disque is celebrating his birthday and invited some really cool people to provide the soundtrack. Yobkiss will be playing live on the drums, we will do a DJ-set and Jaques will play some tunes himself. And when the room is smelly and damp, boss of all ravers, DJ Donna Summer will make it even smellier. This man is known for the notorious Birthday Parties in Berlin. The only party where there's a confetti-machine that spreads about ten pounds of paper in one night.
We decided that we will let the rave-boss do the rave and make you skank. Listen to the wonderful remix of Little Boots by Toddla T and you'll understand what we mean by that.
Little Boots - Meddle (Toddla T rmx) Get it here (YSI)
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...
Woohooo, it's online! Our latest collection t-shirts: FREIKöRPERKULT!! Made in Berlin! The drawings are weird, but they’re weird for a reason. If you take a good look, you might be able to find out which game - from back in the days - we played. It is a LIMITED EDITION, there are just 2 shirts available per size. So hurry yourself to our webshop!
Ooooo I'm so excited, tonight is THE NIGHT!! And when I say night, I mean night (this is Berlin after all)... I'll be behind the decks somewhere between 2.00 and 6.00 at BAR25! If you're in Berlin, come party with me, Sonic Me, Female Macho and Jan Brandi!!
BAR25 is a pretty amazing place, beautifully located at the riverfront of the Spree. There are different area's, including a restaurant, an open air cinema and a circus.... Disco balls and swings hang from the tree branches. There's even a sauna! BUT there are some major redevelopment plans for this area. Read: office buildings. The future of BAR25 has been uncertain for the last couple of months and it is most likely it'll have to close its doors soon. The people of Berlin have been heavily protesting against these plans, read more all about it at the website Mediaspree Versenken!
Since our last post the days have been filled with social gatherings and entertaining visitors. Therefor we are tired....
Activities included drinking vodkashots at the CCCP-bar (the only bar that has an actual stuffed bear with a chainsaw on the wall), lots of fleamarkets and beergartens. A nazi-bunkertour, a Kreuzkölln-safari, open air swimmingpool, grillsessions, more long bikerides and wurst(farts).
Despite the heavy legs and the sunburnt shoulders, we collected a lot of inspiration for the tapestry, so it's back to work! We leave you with an image of Geeske's room at the Friedelstrasse, which has become known as 'the ghetto-shack'. Please note the curtain that makes a hallway to the other room, which Clemens can only enter through mine. To thank 'FriedelFabian' for this very raw, very Berlin, very inspiring shack his portrait is being emboidered and integrated in our piece of art. Will it be a flattering portrait? You decide after looking at the picture below..
In between hangovers, BBQs, chilling in the park, long bike rides and 'trödeling' we've been working on our 'tapestry'. The word itself seems to be a mystery to many people. We know it's a bit outdated (by three decades), but as you know we like outdated stuff. Perhaps the pictures below can enlighten you about where working on...
A couple of years ago the Dutch Dolls went on a road trip to Prague. We were driving in a 24-year-old Saab, which had a heater that was always turned on to the max; a sauna on wheels it was. After a pit stop in Berlin, we headed further South. But then in Dresden a TWAT who made an illegal U-turn knocked out our Saab with her Baby Benz. She kept screaming "Es ist ganz neu! Es ist ganz neu!", she didn't care about us and our ruined vacation at all. We never made it to Prague. We were forced to return to Berlin where we stayed for the remainder of our trip. We wanted to make an embroidered report about this disastrous adventure. But five years later it's still not finished... It probably was too painful...
But now we're back in Berlin WITH A MISSION! We are finishing the tapestry!!
New adventures will be captured in fabric, found objects, pictures, drawings, embroidery, scraps of paper, and what not. We'll be living on the edge these next couple of weeks to make sure this will become an interesting piece of art. Geeske is determined to eat some BUGS. Unnecessary nudity is already taken care of as well! We'll keep you posted on our quest right here on our blog. The pile of junk as portrayed above will be doubled in size next week, that's a promise! Should you have any suggestions for high voltage situations in Berlin, BRING IT ON!!
Finally!!! Dutch Dolls cross something else besides that windy erasmusbridge; THE BORDER. We were asked to take part in an exhibition in Gartenstudio, Berlin, which opens next friday the 17th. I don't know who came up with the idea to make coffee the main subject, but that would be our favourite thing in the world!
As I mentioned before, my screenprinting-equipment is not taking me seriously. Or I should just consider a different career that does not involve screens and paint - jeeezzz. After some very necessary cursing and the impressive launch of a spoon, I managed to produce some good prints. Too bad we can't be there ourselves, but if you're in the neighbourhood, check out that cute studio in Kreuzberg. Which is only the coolest area of Berlin!
Of course, I can't resist posting Siw Malmqvistskrautclassic Wie Heiss Ist Der kaffee?
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...
All music and images posted on this blog are for promotional purposes only. Downloads are available for about a week. You like what you hear? Buy it!!! Links to the artists' websites are always provided in the posts.
If you are an artist, or are affiliated with an artist and you want your music/image taken down, please contact us and we'll be happy to do so.
