| Editorial - 31 July 2006 |
| Rounding up this month with another visit to London. I'm here until wednesday-evening
to pick up the company laptop (nice small yet spacious Dell Latitude D620) and get VPN, FTP and files and
folders access sorted out. That should get me set up to do whatever's needed from home or anywhere in the
world. Some more structure, some more possibilities, less hanging around waiting for others. Don't get me
wrong, sometimes that's cool, but sometimes you just want to keep going and going and then every short stop
becomes unbearable ... Writing this in my hotelroom again. London's not that bigga deal when you're working until 8 in the evening, grab a quick dinner in your hotel alone and then sit behind the laptop for a few more hours. But given the rental cost in London and the proposed salary, this free hotelroom, the long hours and early traintrips beat living here any day of the week. We can't all have Claudia's salary, can we ? |
| Editorial - 26 July 2006 |
Blogger, aspiring standup comedian and webcartoonist Sh3ll4c recently started making some pretty nice paintings. Mostly of sweet little ghosts.
I so much liked the blue one, I wanted to buy it. Shellac said I should consider the yellow one as well, as
they fitted so nicely together. And maybe I could make some pictures for him of all his paintings ? A few days
ago I did just that and at the mean time picked up my two paintings. He's right ... they do fit nicely together.
And I got them at a bargain price ... everyone happy.
|
| Editorial - 23 July 2006 |
| Standup comedy originated from the english speaking countries. Be it telling jokes, making snappy remarks or insightfull observations ... for some reason the brits and yanks have perfected this certain style of comedy. As the incrowd of The Joker contains at least one full blown brit and two others with paternal roots on that island left of the old continent, it seemed appropriate to have a night filled with english comedy. So Thomas Smith (slightly too drunk after a family-dinner to be really funny), Nigel Williams (quick and insightful as always) and Alex Agnew (hilarious) took us belgians for a ride ... and we took some shots. Here's a selection. |
| Editorial - 14 July 2006 |
| Last week I went to Brussels to pick up an award Wereldkeuken won in a photocontest. He couldn't go himself so .Marsman and I went to pick it up. There were a lot of pressphotographers so I got my name and face in a newspaper. Pretty funny. We took some pictures ourselves (obviously) and you can find my short selection here. |
| Editorial - 12 July 2006 |
A little over two weeks ago, dutch comedian
Hans Sibbel visited
The Joker (together with Nigel Williams and Wim Helsen). As usual Franky and I were present and took
some shots. The best were up on The Joker's photostream the next day (click next for the rest of them), but I have just
now selected a bigger batch and placed them on Flickr. Watch 'em
here (click next for the rest
of them). |
| Editorial - 10 July 2006 |
| Why doesn't whisky taste as good as usual after you've been eating chocolate ? |
| Editorial - 7 July 2006 |
| Nothing special right now. Gonna have to process a bunch of pictures in the following week, so I'll be busy in my free time. |
| Editorial - 2 July 2006 |
| The fourth day, the final day. By now my body was telling me two things.
Overall it was screaming "what the hell are you doing to me ?", but some parts were thanking me
for going home each night and sleep in a good bed and not the usual crummy inflatable mattress
on the oddly shaped soil of the surrounding meadows. For this I'd like to thank the people of
De Lijn for organising the fluid and frequent
busline between the trainstation in Leuven and Werchter. My longest wait for a bus has been 3
minutes. You can't get that kind of service during a working week. Eels is one of those bands that never disappoint. Whether it'd be a cd or a concert, there's always something extra special about them. Haunting lyrics, catchy melodies, heartbreak, anguish and solitude. As I've said before I love that stuff. Around 85% of my cd-collection contains dark and gloomy bands. So yeah, I think you all should've seen that concert. Unfortunately around the same time soulsinger Bettye LaVette was performing in the pyramid. I've read somewhere you can compare her to Nina Simone or Anita Franklin but without that one worldhit that makes people remember you. I just had to go and see. A sixty year old bluesy soulsinger with talent to spare and a band of great musicians. I'm sorry but I think I drooled a bit. Leela James is doing her very best to become a funk- and soullegend. She played in Leuven a little over half a year ago but I missed that concert so I really wanted to see her this time. The pyramid tent was packed and everyone was shaking his or her booty. I'm not gonna divulge too many details whether I simply tapped my foot or got 'down and dirty' ... yeah right ... guess you know better, don't you ? Anyway, the gig was excellent, sweaty and fun. Frenchie Laurent Garnier did his best to get everyone shaking again but he's trying to be a little too experimental these days. Sounded good to listen to, but it looked like people were leaving anyway. Not a good sign is it ? Friend Franky was equally un- and impressed with the set given by Garnier. Ben Harper wasn't as good as usual. Maybe I was not in the mood due to the blistering sun, but I didn't really listen. Can't recall hearing the songs I know. Or a Hendrix cover ... Could've been lack of food so we all went outside to buy some better and cheaper food and larger and cheaper drinks. 2 euro for a cup of coca cola or water starts to get silly after a few days. Especially when you can get a can for fifty cents less. We are not moneytrees ... Refreshed after drinking some orange juice, it was time to meet up with some non-blogging friends (yes, I do have those as well) to go see Hooverphonic. They brought a greatest hits show with not that many surprises and after having seen them a few times some things get stale. Sure, Geike has a wonderful voice and Alex and Raymond know how to play their instruments but ... sometimes you just expect a little more. At least Depeche Mode would be special. I have only seen them once before (in january 2006) and they blew me away back then. A great show, good music and wonderful songs. They translated that show onto the Werchter stage (dropping the big metal ball for instance) and were - for me at least - a worthy closing act this year. I'm glad I went as I saw some good concerts and the weather was divine. Will I be going again ? Don't know. Not unless there are some very good bands. |
| Editorial - 1 July 2006 |
| Busy day today. More interesting bands to check and trying to survive
the third day although I have to confess going home each night beats the hell out of trying
to sleep on the campingsite - which has it's merits as well, but hey, face it, I'm getting
older and I'm taking a Werchter newbie with me each day and I can't put her through too much
at once. At least I thought so, found out she's pretty tough. Didn't go too early as I was going to take it easy this year and I don't ever want to see or hear The Kaiser Chiefs again. They fucked up the previous summer for me. Just something personal. I know they have good songs but I just can't stand them anymore. No, the main selling point for me for today were The Raconteurs. Steady As She Goes is awesome. The riff, the lyrics, the simplicity. The rest of the set showed lotsa good things. Heavily drenched in raw Mississippi blues as well. Always a plus in my book. Loved it. Might buy the cd now. What's there left to say about Franz Ferdinand ? Seen 'em a few times now and I still have the best memories about the first time. Small venue, great songs, laidback attitude. Life was good at that moment in time. Hence all next concerts by them should be slightly worse. But even measured against that high standard they were still quite good. After a while however, dropped by the pyramid stage to listen to Calexico. Just to see what's out there. Check out something else. Get some food, sit down, enjoy life for a change. Hadn't done that for a long time. Time to hook up with Manuel as well. He got off work and wanted to see the last two bands. I have seen Placebo four times now I think. They played a few festivals I went to, but the last two times with almost the exact same show. End of long tour, start recording new album and all that. But now they're back with a new one, they played a lot of songs from it (maybe even all of them ?, dropped the bigger part of the old setlist and rearranged the whole show. Needless to say it almost kicked ass. It could've been a bit harder or rougher, but I liked it nonetheless. Meds is one of the best songs right now. When dEUS released their first album in six years last year I immediately bought it. Tom knows how to write great songs and lyrics and with the addition of Mauro Pawlowski on guitar the funky weirdness and chaos - which was so sadly lacking their third effort - is back. Their set was superb. Starting of with Theme From Turnpike, picking up Fell Of The Floor Man, swirling through Nothing Really Ends and going through a lot of new gems from Pocket Revolution. Seeing and hearing everyone sing Suds 'n Soda was a high point, but let's not forget Mauro's backing vocals and excellent guitarfills. A lot of people call Tom a god. For me, Mauro is god. And dEUS is still the biggest band in Belgium ...  And most surprising, seems there's another picture by me on drieduizend today. One from the Mandy & Martine set. Didn't see that one coming. Hadn't guessed that'd be a suitable subject. |
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