As you might have notice Dutch Dolls are on a bit of a hiatus...

In the meantime keep up to date with Geeske at www.geesvoorhees.com.

See what's Nanna is up to at www.nannakoekoek.com and www.nannakoekoek.blogspot.com.

Cheerio!

Night at the Museum

Even more thrilling than Ben Stiller's Night at the Museum (I fell asleep while watching..) is the annual Rotterdam Museum Night. Tomorrow no less than 46 museums and galleries in Rotterdam are open till the wee hours (2.00) as they put up special installations, events, live bands en parties. A great chance to check out the Custom and Tax Museum, the Museum of Chess Pieces (huh?) or the Feyenoord Museum (located in stadium De Kuip), just to name a few.

But why not seize the opportunity to visit kids museum Villa Zebra with no kids there?! Besides their excellent current exhibition they've got workshops and performances by actors from theater company Jeugdtheater Hofplein. The festival and Villa Zebra are both celebrating their 10th birthday, so all the reasons to party twice as hard. That's why yours truly will play the best songs of the last decade. Hop on the special Museum Night bus or boat and come to Rotterdam's most fun museum! It's going to be a looooooong night!

*FREEBIE ALERT*
We've got special (digital) vouchers to give away for those of you who would like to visit Villa Zebra tomorrow. With this voucher you'll get FREE entrance!! Interested? Email us at info [@] dutchdolls [.]nl. Please note, this is for Villa Zebra only, you'll need a passe-partout to visit the other participating museums. These will be for sale at Villa Zebra (€17,50) (buy tickets in advance for €13,50 here).

Puha Party

Join us tomorrow December 17th for some rollatordisco at PUHA's Greedy X-mas party in Utrecht! Puha is a funky little shop in the Hardebollenstraat, that sells great stuff by young independent designers (they've got the very last pairs of our Hand in Glove mittens for example). So get your pressies while drinking and dancing; Christmas shopping doesn't get any better than this!!

Now let's hope and pray we survive this trip with Blanche through the snow and icy streets (definitely not the right weather conditions for a soundsystem!)...

Variété De Luxe #3

This Friday our friend Peter 'Teps' de Koning is hosting a third edition of Variété De Luxe: a highly entertaining evening filled with music, poetry, comedy, ukuleles and Blanche's "rollator disco"! Entrance is €0, which includes a glass of bubbles!!

Friday November 26, 19.30. 1st floor of the Public Library Rotterdam, Hoogstraat 110.

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!!

70% awesome, 30% weird

Last Sunday was another one for the 'plain weird' tag.

Photo by www.mathildekarrer.com.

Slightly hungover, our alarm started ringing at 09.00h... We dressed up with lots of fake fur, leopard print, gold chains, pearls and more things that are cute, but wrong. We put Blanche together and wheeled her over to AHOY, Rotterdam to deejay at the 100% tuning event. Which was as cool as we hoped it would be. Actually, it was cooler. Words do not describe what the event was like, but once we hooked up the battery, and DJ Assault was blasting through the speakers.. jaws dropped. Ooow, how awesome it felt to walk through all the extreme cars, with smoke effects, major sound systems, video screens, pearl paint jobs, airbrush, Svarovsky, rims from outer space... and lots of girls in skimpy outfits lying on top of them and twirling around them. The rollator fit right in. As did we... ahum.

After playing every nasty tune that we had, we went home. We took the subway and the elevator. We decided to party a little in the elevator and cranked up the volume as we went up. Eh... as we should have went up. The elevator broke down and we were stuck!! Even the guy of the helpdesk that answered our distress call thought it was funny. Two policemen and a mechanic had to come to set us free. What a Sunday..... really weird, but a 100% awesome!

Yaam man!

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!!!

You're too Görli Görli

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.


Sophia George - Girlie Girlie. Get it here (YSI).

the foxy golden girl

Blanche, she's here!! Not shaped like an old lady, but like a mobile soundsystem.


We took a very boring grey walker, spray-painted it pink and kitted it out with alot of gear and now we can make alot of noise, everywhere! We stroll behind the walker in style while playing a happy mix of boogaloo, reggae, soul, dancehall, dub and all the other things that make you feel sooo good!!

It's all in our coconutsmix. Have a listen here.

To celebrate the birth of Blanche we will be going for a loong walk in Berlin this summer. We will hit every spot we can and keep you posted on everything that is going on. So if you're in Berlin this summer.. Come boogie with us!

No Italo Tourist

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!

Amari - Italo Tourist (Get it here)

Illustratie Biennale!

This saturday will be the first edition of an event called Illustratie Biennale. Which is (as you might think) all about dutch illustration and design! Some of my personal heroes will be there, so exciting..

The event will be held in Haarlem and was initiative of the famous Piet Zwart Institute, a centre for postgraduate studies connected to the Willem de Kooning Academy and responsible for some great names in design-land. The place will be divided in several different areas with exhibitions, a shop and a digital presentation with over a hundred designers! I will be involved in the shop part where I will be selling some Dutch Dolls stuff and some zines called zo ordinair (so tacky) with solo-art (see the picture above!). I am also part of the digital exhibition with some drawings... and will be playing some tunes during the day.

The biennale will be opened at 11.30u by Joost Zwart and will be finished at 18.00u. Take a look at the website for more info!

the value of repetition

The pattern we designed for our lavender sachets Monsters in your Closet (with loads of moths on it) is now featured on REPEAT-X REPEAT-Y, an online collection of 'fresh' patterns. Go take a look, there's some pretty cool stuff on there!

Talking about the value of repetition.. we would like to remind you our wonderful smelling lavender sachets are available from our webshop :-)

easy jet set

Tomorrow, right after our students presented us their zines, we graded them and gulped down a drink at the closing reception, we need to hurry ourselves to Schiphol Airport to fly across the Channel. We'll be heading straight to the club to DJ at the Word Virus Essay's EP release party in Cardiff!! We're feeling very rock 'n roll..

After playing together for little over a year it's now time for this triphop-drum-'n-bass-four-piece to release its first mini album Fields Apart. It's going to be such an amazing night at the always bumping 'n grinding Toucan club, with support of one of Cardiff's finest MCs Skunkadelic and us playing till the wee hours.

Have a listen to the teaser on their MySpace (and while you're there check out the artwork :-)! For all of you who won't be able to pick up the physical thing, the tracks will be available through iTunes, Amazon and Nokia as well.

Toucan, Womanby Street Cardiff. Doors 9pm. Free before 11pm, £3 after.

zinesters for a week

Oow we wish we could be students in our own workshop at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam this week. The workshop is all about ZINES: self published, DIY, low budget little magazines ('invented' in the 70s by the punks, popular with the riot grrls in the 90s and still amazingly alive and kicking today). We decided to do this the oldskool way, so no computers!! The subject is so much fun and inspiring, and the students' enthusiasm and diligence is so contagious, our hands are itching to make a zine ourselves!

After our briefing yesterday it was time today for the students to get out their scissors, knives, markers, tape, glue and old magazines and get in line for the photocopy machine...

kill your darlings

After just a couple of hours of bad sleep we woke up today (Sunday!) at 7.00 a.m. (again!) to continue working on the maquettes. But as they were almost finished we decided it was time for a radical change. Geeske decided to buy 60 kilos of plaster to flood the dreamscapes and Nanna's team let go of their material pieces and decided to go for something more abstract... With just a couple of evenings left and loads of work to do we predict more sleepless nights!

workshop Going Dutch (Dolls)

So here we are, snowed in in Amsterdam... Luckily we are stuck on the top floor of a beautiful old building, overlooking the big flea market at Waterlooplein with 22 talented and enthusiastic students from all over Europe.

While they are busy cutting foam and creating a little utopia out of matchsticks, vegetables, charcoal, straws, wires and jelly, we finally found some time to blog! Yesterday we started the workshop "Going Dutch" at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture. We're coaching 22 out of the 150 (international) students to create their dream landscape the Dutch way. Which means there's lots of talking and debate about what your ideal landscape looks like and how this can become one big piece of land. Quite a challenge! It's all about the process, so we'll keep you posted!!

MAYHEM tonight!

O yeah, Dutch Dolls will make their DJ debut in Cardiff tonight at Mother Mae I, an electro night of mayhem at the Cardiff Arts Institute!! They tell us to expect "everything from electro-pop to dirty beats via all manner of friendly filth with an electric undercurrent". Plus lollipops, limbo bears, riot showgrrrls and FREE PINK FIZZ.....

We're on from 11.00 till 12.00, HALLELUJAH!!!

Cardiff Arts Institute, 29 Park Place, Cardiff.
Check out the Facebook event here.

A crafty Christmas

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.

Dust Off

When Nanna and me were at some opening in some gallery, we ran into our old teacher of the Art Academy. In between sipping cheap wine and nibbling euroshopper nuts she asked us if we wanted to submit an idea for the next project week called Slow-Lab which focussed on old techniques and handwork. There was nothing slow about the whole thing cause we had to submit the idea practically within the hour. But we pulled it off and called our project: Dust Off

The idea was to let the students take a look in their grandma's attic, the dusty drawer, or to let them go to the thriftstore to find something old and forgotten. They had to let that object be an inspiration for something new using various techniques. Because this assignment was pretty vague we made them take a look at some wonderful artwork done by Merel Karhof, Sarah Illenberger and Richard Saja. They master this dusting off thing!

I have to say, the students went all out! I've had an awesome and inspriational week and have never seen such a hardworking group. Most of the participants used techniques that they'd never used before, and I really respect that. Unfortunately I couldn't put everone's work up here, but only a small selection.

Merel de Graaf - Embroidered family portraits

Ming Ho - Screenprinted Puzzle

Sharon van Wijngaarden and Ingrid Wuyster
Screenprinted educational illustration

Nancy de Wit and Sjoerd Bongertman
(puff)screenprinted scarf 'mink'

We bring you: BASS

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)