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!

Where there's a Street With No Name

It’s not always easy for the Dolls to be living in different countries. We miss each other a lot. During the day I miss not working together (thank god for Skype), at night I miss not partying together and I miss the other Doll dearly at certain other occasions, like heart breaks and birthdays for example…

We hadn’t seen each other since March so we had all the more reason to meet up for my birthday and celebrate! We chose to meet sort of half way in Ghent, Belgium. We’d never been there before but we heard lots of good things about it. And rightfully so! We had a great time. We went on a boat tour through all the pretty canals and we ate proper fries with delicious Belgian mayonnaise (slightly more sour than Dutch mayo). We went to the excellent museum for contemporary art S.M.A.K. and to a crafty market (so nice to be on the other side of the stall for once!). We enjoyed Belgium beer in the sun and went clubbing till the wee hours. And of course we went for some (secondhand) shopping. Geeske extended her collection of weird objects with eyes and iffy 80s pop singles, while I bought some kitchenalia to add to my collection of food shaped objects (my latest obsession - also added to my collection that weekend: a hamburger phone, a birthday gift from my dear friends).

But what I loved most about Ghent were the street names. Like…

Little Shaking Fish Steet

Smut Street or Sludge Street.

And what about...

Zonder-Naamstraat - Street With No Name

Pensmarkt - Paunch or Gut Market

Kluizenaarstraat - Hermit Street

Pekelharing - Pickeled Herring

Heilige-Geeststraat - Holy Spirit Street

Gelukstraat - Lucky Street

Kapucijnenham - Capuchinham

Zwartezustersstraat - Black Sisters Street

But my absolute favourite was…

Little Street With No End

Which was of course a dead end street. Aah, gotta love the Belgians!

the Berliner Skank a la Dutch Dolls

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 at Kiki 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 Cassiopeia in 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...



Bye bye Berlin, until next year!!

this weekend in Roffa

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...

Salford Ladettes Club

This year I really got spoiled with birthday presents... Ghetto gold AND my lovely boyfriend treated me to a weekend trip to Manchester. He knew how much I wanted to visit this city, home of my favorite band ever: The Smiths (and many other great bands). I've been a die hard fan since I was 16, so his gift was a dream come true! Highlight of my pilgrimage was traveling to this gritty neighborhood in Salford (next to Manchester) to have my picture taken in front of the Salford Lads Club. The place became an icon because of the famous picture by Stephen Wright, which was used for the inner sleeve of The Smiths' The Queen is Dead album. It also appears in the video I posted earlier here. I can die now and heaven will know I'm not miserable.

Saturday we spent the day strolling through the Northern Quarter, which is packed with 2nd hand stores, crafty markets, independent boutiques, cute eateries, great bars and clubs. And there are some excellent record shops as well. One, Beatin' Rhythm, stocks nothing but cds and 45s of girl groups, doo wop and northern soul. I probably could have completed my collections of songs about dances there instantly, but my budget forced me to stick to just a few cds.

It was also in this store that I saw a poster... The poster said Toddla T, the boy wonder from Sheffield, was DJ'ing that night in Manchester!! Another dream come true! His set didn't disappoint. He played some of my favorite tracks, like Too Many Men and The Migrain Skank (blogged about here and here)! My boy and I were the only ones who knew how to do the Migraine Skank, so we got props from the MC haha!

Manchester isn't the most beautiful city on earth, but I kind of like cities that are a little rough and in transition. It has an interesting (musical) history and nowadays it's a great city for shopping, drinking beer (go to The Knott for some real ales) and parteeeeee! MADCHESTER!!!