Noiseblog

No entries during the next days. I’m off to the UK where I won’t see My Bloody Valentine.

Last weekend at OXOT:

Fieldings (on saturday) - third time I’ve seen this film-project of Wilfried Pulinckx, with live impro-music by a bunch of friends. Quite different from the other two films, and certainly a lot different from his last film - even more abstract, with some faint reflections of actual settings - wallpaper, dangling feet, distant landscapes. His best so far?

R.O.T (on sunday) with a humming set. Liked it. Quite different from other sets that I’ve seen from them, and when I told Laurent he translated that into “calmer”, while I meant “electric”.

Very different, but highly entertaining: MC Dusaar [mySpace]!

Here they are at a different gig, clearly filmed with a cellphone. Totally Destroyed Man!

Totally. I was about to say that in those days having a story was still important, but I really know nothing bout the genre (apart from some super 8-reels - a feeble 20 - found on fleamarkets over the years). Some rare exceptions not taken into account it’s probably just the moustaches that make things special. Just to say that download-blogs are really boobing booming these days. That constatation was going to be the topic of one of my following entries, but hell - it ain’t important.

For this occasion, the ex-Lord of De Living, Diskoster, teamed up with Manory, of The League of Mentalmen [mySpace] on bass. It’s been ages since I’ve seen Diskoster on guitar, and even longer since I’ve seen him in a non-solo act. You had to do your best though to hear the bass, on the recordings I made from the show (and that I might post soon) it’s bearly unaudible.

I’ve posted a clip of my own set a couple of entries ago, but in case you missed:

If you just happen to pass by, my project’s called Portable Noise Kremator [info], and yeah, that’s a guitar being mistreated. As Damien (OS125) put it after the show: “I hate guitars too”. (Though I must admit that I don’t have anything personal against guitars.)

Micht did a nice set, very different from the one that he did a while ago at De Dolle Mol, in Brussels - he used a bit more material during this set, but the amount of equipment he uses is still pretty minimal - mainly drones, and a noted piece of Cyclic Noise. Cool. Soundbits soon.

Preliminary Saturation are Wouter Jaspers (Frans Fjödor) and Steffan de Turck (Staplerfahrer - mySpace) from Vatican Analog, in Tilburg. A whole lot of equipment, part electronic, part electro-acoustic with a couple of odd frequencies. Drones ‘n noise.

As already mentioned Frans Fjödor is the alter-ego of Wouter Jasper, who also played in Preliminary Saturation - he and Steffan will be touring the eastcoast of the USA in september (see Wouter’s mySpace for their schedule), doing a couple gigs together (as Preliminary Saturation), while Wouter is also doing a couple of solo-sets. Frans Fjödor is mainly noisedrones, and things really started to work after a couple of minutes. I’ve recorded part of his set, I’ll probably upload some soundbits sooner or later.

OS125 [mySpace] did a pretty harsh set, when I saw him at De Dolle Mol it was just him and a mike, this time he had a bit more material with him, but things were equally harsh ‘n ripping. A good work-out for the audience. See the clip below:

Neurobit didn’t play (cause sick that nite), but just a couple days prior to the festival we were contacted by the people from Bruital Orgasm [mySpace], from Liège, Belgium - They’re acquintances from OS125 and played the night before in Nancy together (if I’m not mistaken). Bruital Orgasm list a whole bunch of synths on their site as equipment, a noted instrument they used that night at Don’t Cum was a spinning-wheel. OS125 did some neat percussion on bass and assorted tin cans. The range of effects they used on their synths made things a tad noisier than one would have expected. See below:

Spotted at a friend’s place: The Life Of An Agent, Police training in the Kádár Era [website], a DVD she bought in Hungary. The DVD is a collection of instructional films that served to teach members of the (Hungarian) secret police about methods designed to protect the state socialist regime. Methods that apparently closely ressembled those of their East-German comrades, the Stasi [more].

“Is this one interesting?”
“Nothing happens. I mean, it’s interesting, but nothing really happens. At one point they’re spying upon an artist - I mean, a guy that looks artistic - his hair is a bit longer than that of the others - and it’s totally clear that the guy is doing totally nothing, maybe just involved in making paintings in secret.”

No extracts on youTube, but here are some related youTube-finds, respectively a Stasi Observation Video Clip with short speech from Erich Mielke about “Punks, Schihänds und Heawy Mettal” in the DDR, and the second one a training movie from the Stasi. There’re other, simular movies to be found on youTube. Search and you will find.

I looked around a bit on the website of Doc-Air Films [website], “the first and only portal for the online distribution of documentary film in Central and Eastern Europe” (taken from the about-section) - Argos [website] in Brussels has more or less the same mission statement - distribution, but not online, and certainly not for download. All movies in the Doc-Air catalogue can be downloaded against a small fee - 2 to 4 euro - or seen in streaming format for as little as 50 cent. Some are even available for free. Now, this is an interesting concept.

Note: I just visited the site of Argos, and apparantly in september 2008 they will launch an online catalogue - Read: a database-based library system. That’s like a search-box, and the result of your search is a title, an author and the place where you can find the book or film. Right. Close, but no cigar.

Optimus Prime, Tilburg:

“We’ve seen that guy, you know.”
“I know nothing.”
“At Optimus Prime. He was there.”
“What did he do?”
“I don’t know if he did a performance.”
“What did he look like then?”
“He had a T-shirt on of Vomir [blogspot ]. Like those two other dudes that were with him.”
“Anyhthing else that could help?”
“He was wearing a Vomir-shirt.”
“And he didn’t play?”
“I can’t remember.”
“I think he’s in my friends-list on mySpace.”
“Maybe we were outside when he played.”
“But I don’t know.”

He’s in this movie. I think.

[Intermezzo] Get your own Vomir shirt from the UK-based At war with false noise [website] (they have some great stuff out). The only shirt of a band that I ever had was a “Boys don’t cry” T-shirt of The Cure that I got from my girl-friend when I was 17. I got an instant aversion of printed-on T-shirts from that very moment on. I even have an aversion of images of shirts with prints on.

Looking at the pictures I posted a couple entries ago [over here] there is indeed one bloke wearing such a shirt, standing next to Philipp Monopolka, but that’s not the dude.

It’s someone else.

Oxot [website] is an artist-collective focusing on “outsider-art”. They’re throwing a 3-day happening-thing this weekend (in Westerlo, Belgium) with workshops, animation, gigs, a party,… For the experimental minded there’s a screening of Wilfried Pulinckx’ latest film, with live impro-music, the whole aka Fieldings (use the search box of this blog to find out more). On sunday, from 17:00 on there’re experimental sets with (a.o.) R.O.T. (Belgium’s finest - err - whatever). From what I’ve heard R.O.T. is also going to do something with film.

Here is Hellfiller, last year at Oxot:

As a side-note: I just notice that my older clips at youTube all have gotten two black margins at the left and right, and appear to be slightly outstretched. Guess they’ve been re-encoding all the older material they have on their servers, screwing up things while doing so. Oh well, fuck quality - Quality is overrated anyhow.

And this is almost ridiculous.

A whole lotta time ago (one year and a half or so) I saw a show by Wes [website] at Trashfest, in Rotterdam [more]. He played synth, and tattoed his arm, live on stage, using a sewing machine - the needle broke in his arm, which didn’t keep him from smiling and having lots of fun throughout the performance. Apparantly Wes graduates this year from the art-academy, and he’s throwing a party (annex performance, Hoodoo Wes Voodoo - mySpace) at De Player [website], in Rotterdam, this friday and saturday. This could be good. De Player looks like a cool spot for hanging-out too, you have to search a bit (a lot) though to find the calendar on their site. Click on every imaginable spot and you will find it too. Hurray!

About Sjonie Tattoo (taken from Wes’ site):

Sjonnie is a sailor from the ancient area Katendrecht in Rotterdam.
On his travels all around the world he eased his time with studying the crafts of tattoo.
Now while no ship has any job for him, he still travels around the world tattooing his life on his body and collecting stories from the people a shore.
He did not forget how to drink beer, and more beer he drinks, how better he can remember the lyrics of the classical harbor songs from Johnny Hoes & Slome Japie!
What makes him into a sentimental old grumpy captain, but still enjoys telling the stories from his body!
Sometimes even with sewing machines!
Meeting Sjonnie guarantees a whole evening of historical, bizarre entertainment with an educational touch of the good old times!
Sail on sail on sailor!

Developed some films. Took some time. Below are some quick scans from the negatives. If I come accross live pictures on other sites or see dudes carry around DSLR’s with big lenses I sometimes think I should go digital too. But then again, old-fashioned alchemy is cool too. From top to bottom: C-drik, Man Manly and Odal (Nibor is no part of the act, he’s just being spontaneous) at Optimus Prime, some months ago, in Tilburg. More pictures soon.