Last weekend Hong Kong Dong celebrated the release of their debut album with an excellent gig at the DOK arena in Ghent.
Their eclectic indie pop thrives the most in a live setting and most songs get a more rock oriented layer. The guitar injections of Geoffrey Burton give the songs a nice edge and his guitar solo in ‘Romance’ makes me which I could go and see them play on a daily basis. The band played a large selections of songs from the album but also threw in some golden oldies like ‘Lesbians Are A Boys Best Friends’ and ‘On a Sunny Day’. They finished the set with a steaming rendition of ZZ Top’s ’Give me al your Loving’ that left the crowd ecstatic.
Go see them when you have the chance. They’re one of the most entertaining live bands I’ve seen in quite a while.
Video and photos right about here:
Photos by Dominique Dierick
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’m a bit late with this, but if you have the time do check out Multiple Visions at NICC in Belgium. It’s a great exhibition about multiples from the 1950′s up until the present day. (multiples. A term designating works of art other than prints or cast sculpture that are designed to be produced in a large—potentially limitless—number of copies.)
Lil promo text: This exhibition explores the meaning of the multiple today by confronting the viewer with objects from the 60s, 70s and 80s along with more recent editions. By creating a dialogue between the works, this project aims to both highlight examples of Belgian multiples as well as contextualize them internationally with some of the best works from around the world.
Here’s just a few names of the artists who have works in the exhibition: Francis Alÿs, Joseph Beuys, Guillaume Bijl, Marcel Broodthaers, Vaast Colson, Christo, Wim Delvoye, Marcel Duchamp, Marlène Dumas, Jan Fabre, Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, On Kawara, Anish Kapoor, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Jeff Koons, Sol Lewitt, Paul McCarthy, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Panamarenko, Man Ray, Edward Ruscha, Luc Tuymans, Dennis Tyfus, Koen van den Broek, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Henk Visch, Andy Warhol and Franz West .
Pretty impressive list.
The exhibition closes on Sunday.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Barcelona, Casa Milà, Gaudi, lomo lc-a+, Park Güell, Sagrada Familia
camera: lomo lc-a+
film: lomo dia, 200 asa
shot: april/may 2010
shot by: miss K.O.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Chuck Palahniuk, ex-drummer, Haunted, Koen Mortier, Rant, Tell All
THIS IS THE SIXTH OF 10 POSTS ABOUT WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO IN 2010.
‘Haunted’, one of my favourite Chuck Palahniuk books (along with ‘Fight Club’ and ‘Rant’) is being turned into a movie by Belgian director Koen Mortier.
Haunted is a novel made up of stories. Twenty-three of them, to be precise. Twenty-three of the most horrifying, hilarious, mind-blowing, stomach-churning tales you’ll ever encounter. Guts is probably the most notorious story in the book, so disturbing that reportedly over 60 people fainted while listening to readings of the story during Chuck’s book tours. The short story is available for free on chuckpalahniuk.net.
Koen Mortier will write and direct a big screen adaptation of the novel. No small feat as the novel is told as a modern-day ‘Canterbury Tales’ or ‘Decameron’: a journey-narrative interrupted by each storyteller’s tale, essentially creating 23 separate stories. Turning the book into a screenplay will ask for some serious pruning.
The Belgian director is mostly known for writing and directing the excellent Ex-Drummer, a movie that also had it’s fair part of disgusting and disturbing images. So Mortier seems like the right choice to take on ‘Haunted’.
Chuck himself has a book scheduled for 2010: ‘Tell All’, a novel fictionalizing the life of American playwright Lillian Hellman (out May 4).
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Broken, Butthole Surfers, Death Bells, download, Gibby Haynes, Mark Lanegan, Mogwai, mp3, remix, Soulsavers
Mark Lanegan fans no doubt already bought ‘Broken’, the new Soulsavers CD (released mid August). Second track on that album is ‘Death Bells’ featuring Lanegan and Gibby Haynes (Butthole Surfers) on vocals.
Mogwai have now remixed ‘Death Bells’ and in my opinion the remix just blows away the original. They’ve left the structure and vocals of the original, but added loads of their trademark feedback and wall of noise, which transform the song in to one heavy thundering freight train coming your way.
And do check out that earth scorching guitar 3 minutes in. Pure fucking bliss!
The track was released as a free MP3 , so feel free to download it here, possums. Essential listening fodder, I tell ya.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Blonde Fire, Joe Vanhoutteghem, Naïve, single, The Hickey Underworld, video
The Hickey Underworld have just released the video for third single ‘Blonde Fire’ (excellent track, but what else did you expect?).
The video was directed by Joe Vanhoutteghem and is one of the best music video ever made in this little country. Warning: this video contains fire, blood, nudity and a cute bunny!
The Hickey Underworld’s debut album is out in Belgium right now and will get a European release in the Fall. They will tour Holland in October and November.
PS Spot the 2 album and first single cover references in the video and win err… nothing.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: album, Dave Grohl, Deserve The Future, Foo Fighters, John Paul Jones, Josh Homme, Led Zeppelin, lowlands, pukkelpop, QOTSA, Them Crooked Vultures
The big news today is the confirmation of a new supergroup: Them Crooked Vultures.
The band has Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) on drums, Josh Homme (QOTSA) on guitar and John Paul Jones (Led Zep) on bass. That’s about as super as supergroups get, I guess.
And to make things even better: they’ve already recorded an album. No official release date has been set, as it turns out that an earlier announced release date of 23 October turns out to be fake. Also the album cover and album name ‘Never Deserved The Future’ that were doing the rounds of the internet are fake. The official band website and the first merchandise do use the frase ‘Deserve the Future’ frequently, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that becomes the eventual album title.
First gig is this Sunday in Chicago and rumour has it they will also play Lowlands festival in Holland. Let’s hope they come to Europe a week early and also play at Pukkelpop. No need to worry if they don’t as they’re apparently planning a world tour around the album release.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: brooklyn, Crawling From The Wreck, Daan, Manhay, video
Daan released ‘Crawling From The Wreck’ as the second single from his Manhay album. I’m posting the video here because it’s by far my favourite track from the album and in my opinion already a Daan classic. I love the way it builds up into a crescendo, making it a perfect track for Daan to take it even further in a live setting. Something he’s also discovered himself, as this song is already near the very end of the set list at his current gigs and it’s without a doubt one of the highlights of said gigs.
The song is about the heavy car crash he had some time ago. The video is another self-directed effort and was made in Brooklyn, NY.
I’m crawling from the wreck
Rally around the flag
Skip the final act
Put the rabbit back
Give the guy a break
Do another take
Drag another lake
Just try not to fake
Sixteen for the road
Lost by just a note
Hopelessly devote
Forcing me to quote
On my way to god
Shooting to get shot
People talk a lot
Bullshit by the lot
I can walk on the water
I can make it myself
I’ll endorse any slaughter
I will marry the elf
For these bags filled with clean air
For the ones I do care
For the audience waiting
For a crash with a flair
I’m crawling from the wreck
Frontal lobe attack
Nurses selling crack
Monomaniac
Gamblers out of luck
Stars without a buck
Churches lightning struck
Milfs that need a fuck
As a little bonus, here’s also a really nice video of Daan at his house and in his studio, talking about his guitars, his record collection, the new Manhay record, the recording process, how he writes his songs, et cetera.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Days to burn, dEUS, Leaving Montreux, Mauro & The Grooms, Mauro Pawlowski, Studio Brussel
My blog stats tell me that a lot of people end up on this blog (welcome, take off your coat, sit down, have a beer) looking for the MP3 of ‘Leaving Montreux’ by Mauro & The Grooms, which I talked about in THIS post. Sadly, at this very moment in time and space the song is no longer available in Mauro’s MySpace player, so I thought I’d show all the people who still want to hear this excellent (and still unreleased) track some different opportunities to do so.
First of, Alexandra Crouwers (who’s work was mentioned on this blog before) made this great CGI video for the track:
On a side note: the new Mauro & the Grooms album ‘Days To Burn’ was completely recorded and ready to be released. But Mauro recently said that he is now unhappy with these recordings and that all must be redone. So to say the least: the release of Days To Burn is not exactly imminent.
