For the last two days I've been working 16 hours at the call center! Just imagine how exhausted I am. The afternoon I can take, but then come those 4 hours in the evening and especially the last two are killing! Fortunately I surrounded myself with nice colleagues who were able to get me through. This was the finale, now need to find myself another job. Maaaaaaaaybe, but really, maaaaaaaaybe, I'm able to stay at the call center for a couple more months, I have to check on Monday to see if I can stay or not. Hopefully I can, I've sent some letters for other jobs but so far no response. I could use the money!
This evening I'm going to FOAM to see the Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin exposition. It comes with a free guide tonight. They're a couple and are HUGE names in the fashion industry. Here are some examples of their work
One time Dirty Projectors and Björk collaborated performing together live, now they've recorded those live songs, the result being Mount Wittenberg Orca. I saw Dirty Projectors live last year in Melkweg in Amsterdam where they played When The World Comes To An End minus Björk unfortunately but amazing none the less. Here is the studio version. Start hocketing everybody!
And for you who don't know what hocketing is, I have Mr. Longstreth explain it for you
Another stream of images
Last night after work I happened to crash a party looking like a total punk with my Dr. Martens, shorts, long socks, David Bowie T-shirt and cross necklace. I had everyone staring at me which was secretly kind of cool :P I didn't join the party, was hardly able to keep my eyes open, but I made quite an impression I bet
This afternoon I had my first ever serious job interview. I had done two before, one for a call center and one for the cinema where I worked as a volunteer, but those I consider not that important. This one, however, was a bit more serious. It's not like I really want the job and it means the world to me when I get it, wouldn't go that far, but if I get the job it would be nice at the least. I'll be hearing from them in about two weeks so that leaves me with enough time to do things that I'm no longer able to do if it happens that I have to start working 4 days a week. But it's not certain yet if I get the job so I might still be without one after two weeks. It did go pretty well though. I was very relaxed and the two women I spoke with were really nice and normal. I liked the atmosphere. It didn't feel like this big official thing. It's not that I had to appear in a complete suit or anything. I don't like it when they want to turn these things into something more than they are 'cause at the end of the day it's just a simple conversation in which you tell about yourself. So it was definitely a good thing they were very laid back and didn't put any pressure on me or something. In two weeks I'll know what will happen next, whether they choose me or not. We'll see...
Last night there was Patrick Wolf and as I expected a little and was a bit afraid of the audience was pretty lackluster. I had felt this a bit before at Lowlands and it happened again. It's like some people are a bit afraid to show their massive love for Mr. Wolf because he wears these outrageous costumes and at times bump and grinds the stage with last night him even grabbing his crotch and rubbing his butt showing it off to the audience. :p I can understand if you happen to take a friend of yours with you, one that knows his music a bit but isn't that familiar with Mr. Wolf the performer, and he starts dancing Beyoncé style, you might feel like you have to defend Mr. Wolf as well as yourself a bit, telling your friend he's not always like this and even though he might show up half naked showing off his nipples he's still an awesome performer. So I can understand that completely. I have found myself doing the same, defending him by making clear that whether you might like his nipple touching or not, underneath all of that he's still a very talented musician. But Patrick is Patrick and his craziness and silliness comes with the package. So that response of the audience is okay if, that is, he's performing at some kind of festival where people aren't especially coming to see Pat Pat. But when I'm going to see Mr. Wolf in a sold out Paradiso I expect it to be filled with fans and enthusiasts, or at least some crazy fans at the front row. But this was not at all the case. The entire show I saw those front row people (I was standing something like row 5 or 6) just standing as if they were waiting for the bus to arrive. Okay they applaud and yes, you're allowed to experience a gig entirely the way you want. But don't tell me that as a Patrick Wolf fan the way you connect to his music is by standing still especially to his upbeat songs like Vulture or Bloodbeat. That's how you show your appreciation? That's what his music does to you, makes you feel? When he performs a song like The Sun Is Often Out, a very sad song that asks for the audience to be completely silent, it's perfectly alright. I loved that and I was touched by it the same way as when being at a Beirut concert where it's just all about the music and I don't feel like having to jump and go completely wild. I still loose myself in the music completely, but in a different way. But when songs like Tristan come up or Hard Times you just feel like dancing to that infectious and catchy beat. Those songs ask for that. But these people were still standing fairly still even during those songs. Fortunately I was surrounded by some people who were dancing and enjoyed themselves a lot and I guess those people saved the gig for me. To me the audience adds so much to the atmosphere and is able to hype up the artist performing so when that's not the case it starts to become rather dull. I've read that some people felt at the beginning Patrick didn't seem that much into it but what do you expect when you make your first appearance, you even get real close to the audience at a distance from where they are able to touch you, but nothing happens. I expected girls and boys screaming holding up their arms trying to grab a piece of Pat Pat. But no. It's like they weren't interested. And it's not like you have to be like that, wanting to touch the performer that you came to see, but at almost all concerts I've been to that's what happens when the artist gets that close to his audience. Arms reaching up for Alice Glass of Crystal Castles, Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, I've seen it happen. But not when Patrick does the same. At least not at Lowlands or in Paradiso. It should make for an exciting moment, but here nothing happened. I remember my first Patrick Wolf show at Shepherds Bush Empire in London where this crowd of mostly teenagers went completely wild. Most of them dressed up, some having their hair dyed Patrick Wolf style and during the show even starting a mosh pit! Where are those Dutch crazy Patrick fans?! I would love to see them at his shows. Perhaps they just don't exist? Still Patrick was in great form and he even played Pigeon Song as well as The Libertine. Didn't expect that to happen. It made me crave for more of his old stuff. But when he played Tristan and I even held my arms up I felt a bit stupid considering around me the enthusiasm was completely lacking and it made me seem a bit weird like I'm being this outrageous fan when all I was doing was holding my arms up just a bit. Those people need to know they almost completely drain the performance from all its energy nomatter how hard Wolf and his band are trying. Luckily Patrick started to get really into it especially after such songs as The Sun Is Often Out and Pigeon Song which did get really enthusiastic responses. Maybe the Dutch fans like his slower stuff more, the darker sound, those songs in which he shows his great musicianship. That has to be it else I just can't explain. But like I said, Pat Pat found his groove and started to make some jokes and even took some shots of some kind of liquor :) Someome I guess ordered it for him 'cause all of a sudden I saw this guy walking towards the stage with these small glasses on his tray. First I thought he was the empty beer glass collector, but turned out he was on his way to bring Mr. Wolf some alcholic beverage. Mr. Wolf changed outfits two times, each time wearing cool black boots, just like me :p Unfortunately his song The Magic Position couldn't really interest me that much anymore, maybe because I've seen him play it before and it's the obvious favourite amongst a lot of his fans, but personally I don't think it's one of his best or most fun songs. I much rather prefer Tristan or A Boy Like Me when I want a Patrick song that can really make me dance and jump around. Apart from the lackluster audience I had a good time and thought the show was great. Patrick has a really strong voice, knows how to play instruments well and is able to entertain his audience in a fun tongue in cheek way. I would love to see him again although I would really like it if he did a show playing only old songs. I recall reading once that Bloc Party did a surprise gig somewhere in Australia where they performed the entire first album live. That must have been a great experience. I would love for Patrick to do the same though I doubt that will happen, unless he once again decides to retire. But I don't see that happening anytime soon and don't want to see that happening either. Unless of course he then decides to unretire like he did before. Then it would be great. :D
This is why I love Dirty Projectors soooo much. Watch them perform on Jimmy Fallon's show. Thanks to Stereogum!
Also they did a very intimate performance of the song for The Roots before they recorded the show. It's even more amazing than the performance on Fallon. One person even had to say this about it:
'This video makes me feel like I've wasted my life. It's that beautiful.'
That's quite a big thing to say, but I feel there's some truth in that. It does kind of make me feel that way. I either want to be in Dirty Projectors or start my own band a la the Projectors. They have one of the best jobs
Before Dirty Projectors appeared on the stage the stage as well as the crowd belonged to TuNe-YaRdS. I think this is the first time I went to a show where the crowd actually got really excited during the supporting act and didn't hold back. I even felt they were more enthusiastic during TuNe-YaRdS than Dirty projectors but maybe that was just me. They're a two man band, but the focus is mainly on singer Merrill Garbus who is actually TuNe-YaRdS. I had heard her song Sunlight before which is a nice one but didn't blow me away. I haven't listened to the album yet, but I definitely will especially after last night. Though something tells me their music is much better and fun when being played live than on the record. Merrill is such a force of power. She owned the stage like this crazy woman. The crowd seemed to love it. The responses were extremely enthusiastic and Merrill even spoke of us as her dream crowd. She's amazing live. Her voice so powerful. If I didn't like Dirty Projectors' songs more I would say that TuNe-YaRdS upstaged them performing with so much energy, even though Dirty Projectors were still top quality. A great thing was that it didn't take that long at all before the Projectors came on stage after TuNe-YaRdS. Most of the time it takes quite a long time before the main act comes on after the supporting act, but Dirty projectors appeared very quickly performing the beautiful Two Doves as the first song of their set. It seemed to me though that their set was rather short or perhaps I was just enjoying it too much that I completely lost sense of time. I love Dave Longstreth's voice and on the albums the three girls accompany him beautifully and live the addition of the girls' voices works even better. Their drummer Brian McComber was amazing as well and Amber Coffman looked very pretty as did the two other girls. The best surprise came at the very end when they all of a sudden started to play Knotty Pine. I had searched for some setlists from previous concerts of them this year but I didn't see Knotty Pine being on any of them and because it's a song recorded for the album Dark Was The Night, which is a collaboration album featuring songs by various artists, I didn't expect them to play it. So when they started playing the song I filled up with excitement. It took a while before it actually sunk in that they were playing the song. It was a real surprise. It's one of my favourite songs by the band and the one which actually got me into them. I had heard about them before but they seemed a difficult band to get into. Of course when Bitte Orca received so many great reviews, many people saying that it's the best album of 2009 together with Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavillon, I couldn't ignore them any longer and started really listening to them and fell in love. Another song I really love is Rise Above and they played it. A shame they didn't play What I See and I don't remember them playing No Intention either, but I could be wrong about that :) Sometimes it happens that I don't really recognize songs any more at concerts and forget which one is what exactly. It happened during WOMEN :D
Here are two videos from YouTube of both Dirty Projectors and TuNe-YaRdS
Again I haven't gone to the cinema as I was planning to. Don't know what's wrong with me lately. Maybe next week I'll manage or tomorrow. I have watched some movies on my laptop at home, though. One of them being L.A. Confidential. Yup, I never saw that one before until last night. It's a very good film, solid, with good performances by all actors especially Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe although Crowe's character is a bit too much. Really, he's expected to kill someone over a woman? I don't care how much of a weak he has to protect women and stuff, but killing another man just because the guy made love to the woman Crowe's character has fallen for? Plus, Kim Basinger won an Oscar for her performance. Receiving a nomination already seems to me a bit too much. Yes she's very mesmerizing and alluring. There's a constant mystery surrounding her but I have a feeling that's just the natural Kim Basinger effect. That's something that's already there, she was born with it and it just so happens that it's very useful for the part she plays here. But winning an Oscar?! I don't know. What bothers me as well is that she creates this mystery, but then it turns out that her character doesn't have a hidden agenda at all so she's not at all that mysterious. She only makes herself appear that way. Some months ago I saw her in The Burning Plain and if she receives an Oscar nomination for that one I could totally udnerstand and wouldn't disagree a bit. Her performance is very powerful in that one. She appears to be completely vulnerable and you expect her to fall apart any moment. She really is that woman trying to escape her boring everyday home life by hooking up with another man. Though she is afraid to get caught and she might not feel real guilt towards her family she does seem to find it real hard to cheat on her family like that. Sorry for giving away all this info, but I just had to explain :) Perhaps there just weren't that many other great performances by Supporting Actresses that year.
I think I'm buying myself a ticket to see Dirty Projectors this Sunday...
New Kings Of Convenience video. My mum and I will be seeing them in a couple of weeks!
After having seen them live at Lowlands I'm even more excited for their next album and to my surprise there will be a new one already January 2010! Above you see the cover artwork for the new album titled Contra and a link to their website where you find a tracklist among other things
I'm gonna need another dose of Anna Karina Godard. As you can see in the video below I'm very tired. Just look at those eyes. I feel like I've been eating all day, which is actually what I did. I picked up my parents from the airport with my brother. They returned from their three week vacation in Suriname and brought a lot of fruit especially for me! And I love fruit. Papaya, mango and some sorts you won't find here. Had not done any of those waving on the webcam videos in a long time. So I thought let's just do one. Just for me :) Throw myself out there. Probably going to watch Le Petit Soldat in a couple of minutes. Tomorrow I'll focus on my thesis again. It has been such an exhausting week. My videos come without sound. No microphone. Seems I should turn on the light, it's getting dark. Can you believe I'm already here for 22 years? Sometimes I still can't.
LOVES Music, Cinema, Fashion, Art, Writing, Photography, Drawing, Acting, His Skateboard, His Tambourine, His Polaroid Camera! <...> GUS Van Sant I Want To Be In Your Movies! + In Alexis Dos Santos + Cam Archer Ones Too :) <...> WANTS To Move To Utrecht
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