Soundtrack of my life
.
Because of a copyright dilemma there is no longer any music on this site. As soon as this is sorted out, this blog will have a soundtrack again.
Vacation
Published: 2010-07-18 13:55:56
Within a few hours i am off for a four weeks vacation. I didn’t finish half off the things i would have liked to do before i go, but hey, nobody is perfect.
As always i made a cd with some songs for the whole family to enjoy in the car that we have rented.
Not all songs are on Spotify, but quite a few are. So, here is the playlist as far as it can be reconstructed on Spotify. See you in about a week or four! Have a nice time!
(And yes you are right, i did
spell the word Poleponesos completely wrong.)
Helix
Published: 2010-07-17 15:51:32
About a year ago I bought a small pile of Helix magazines. That is magazine for scientists in the field of biological chemistry. I noticed that there were some great microscopic pictures in it, and even some interesting articles that i could read. Recently i finally spent a night cutting out all the photo’s and making collages of them. I think that if you mae paintings of blow ups of some of these photo’s you would have some real cool art.
Philips
Published: 2010-07-16 15:45:09
Philips has made many advertisement records for many countries. I probably only know a fraction. But the ones i do know are often great. here is one made in 1964 for Spain:
I think the record is both an ad for contest, inviting people to record a song, and a souvenir of an advertisement movie that Philips apparently has made. A “paper musical”!
Here are close ups of the four pictures on the sleeve:
When I tried to find info on this animation movie, i found out the complete movie is on YouTube. It was made by the Joop Geesink Studios! I vaguely remeber having seen this once on an animation festival long time ago, together with other old productions from Joop Geesink. I love this stuff! If anybody knows if there is a DVD of (more of) this, i would love to hear where i can get that.
The two pieces of music on this 45 are from André Popp.
Here is part one:
And here is part two:
Here is another animation from the Joop Geesink Studios, made for an Heineken commercial:
And here is another one made for Philips:
Billy Meier
Published: 2010-07-15 15:35:44
There is a man in Zwitserland, called Billy Meier, who is saying that he has been in contact with aliens since half a century. They take him on trips through space and time, and let him take hundreds of pictures of them, of their crafts and of what he sees on the timespacetrips. If you are not familiar with the Billy Meier story, please check it out. It is all over the internet, so that can not be difficult.
Until a few years ago i gave him the bebefit of my doubt. I have personally never seen any proof of alien life, but the sheer fact that there is life at all seems in itself so absurd to me that alien contacts seem not impossible.
But what bothered me is that the UFO’s on Billy’s pictures look very much like hubcaps to me. That doesn’t mean that they are fraud: maybe alien timespace ships look indeed like hubcaps. But recently i saw a video on YouTube in which a friend of Billy shows some lousy prints of Billy’s photo album.
On the pictures incredible things are to be seen: aliens, timespace crafts, other planets from close up, prehistoric earth, dinosaurs, etcetera. Here are some of the best pictures form that video:
I am beginning to get more and more pissed off by people making outrageous claims and showing no proof, or lousy picutures like these.
I made some drawings of what i can see on these pictures, and that makes it clear that the dinosaurs are not real. They are anatomic incorrect! Especially the third dino is a joke.
Not to be continued!
Matchbox labels (part 5)
Published: 2010-07-14 15:33:03
Here are the last matchbox labels that i want to show you:
I love the way the colours have disappeared. Or maybe this is how the labels looked right from when they left the printer.
This is the weirdest series in my collection. It are 28 labels from a brand named “clock brand”. They are pretty ugly and they are all the same, except for a little detail.
This series is NOT for sale!
Matchbox labels (part 4)
Published: 2010-07-13 15:31:15
Here is one of my favourite series:
And here are some other nice series:
I have absolutely no information on these matchbox labels. I just think they are beautiful and underrated as objects.
And here is the best series in my collection:
Matchbox labels (part 3)
Published: 2010-07-12 15:28:32
Some weeks ago i promised to show you mors of my matchbox label collection. Here are some nice series:
My collection is not very big. That is because i don’t do effort to find more matchbox labels than what crosses my path. I think there are a few million interesting matchbox labels and they all cost little to nothing. That is no reason not to collect them, but unfortunately there is a time and energy limit to every activity.
To be continued tomorrow!
Bestiare
Published: 2010-07-11 15:24:47
Half a year after there was an article about my advertisement record collection in a dutch magazine i got a phone call from a woman who had some advertisement records for me, if i was interested. Always! So i went to her place and got about fifteen advertisement records. I had all of them, except two, but there were also four paper picture discs in the pile that i had never seen or heard:
She had listened to these records when she was a little girl and apparantly she liked them a lot, but she gave them to me anyway.
The records are French and they were originally a series of four. “Le ours” is missing. So, if anyone happens to find “Le ours”, think of me, please. I got about thirteen advertisement records for trade!
Intermission
Published: 2010-07-11 10:16:41
Within a few days we are going on vacation for four weeks. I have a little too much things that i want to have done before i go away, so the rest of my life, especially this blog, is taken the blows for that.
During our vacation i will not touch a computer, so there will be at least four or five weeks intermission in this blog. And since i haven’t posted much in the past two weeks, that make a huge gap in what is supposed to be a daily blog. But i don’t really mind, to be honest. Life is like that, as we all know.
Of course, i still do the daily collages. Here are a few recent ones:
De Comcommers
Published: 2010-07-05 23:16:36
The LP by De Comcommers is out! Andy Warhoofd & Bob Geldwolf recorded the songs in 1991, just for fun. Andy wrote all the songs, and together they played all the instruments. I got a cassette tape of these recordings long ago and tried to convince Marthy Coumans to release this on his label, Grey Past Records. That took a while, but is was worth the waiting: the sound has been seriously improved and Berend Vonk has made a beautiful sleeve for this unique labour of love.
I have no idea how to describe the music of De Comcommers. To me it sounds as a mix of Biet Het, The Four One & Only’s and some totally obscure 60’s records. Here is the title track:
And you can buy the LP here: huiboki@tele2.nl.
iPad
Published: 2010-06-30 20:21:37
I think i would like to have an iPad. But not only are they expensive (and not yet available in Holland), i also have no real reason to buy one.
Last week Arjen showed me his iPad. It was the first time i hold one, and it felt very attractive. Today Arjen sent me this link. It looks i have at least one reason to get an iPad!
Piraten radio (part 1)
Published: 2010-06-29 11:20:56
Dirk Koorn gave me some 45’s made by Dutch radio pirate stations.
He left the records in the bag of my wifes bike, where they they had to survive a few weeks of rain before i discovered them. Fortunately i already had them all.
In the mid eighties there were thousands of pirate radio stations operative in Holland. They were playing Dutch records that the mainstream radio stations refused to play. Braodcasting was illegal and the Radio Controle Dienst did a lot of effort to find and fine these stations. Of course, the word station is too much honour for what most of these radio/pirates were± a few hundred 45´s, one or two records players, a microphone and a cheap transmitter with a reach of a few kilometers.
I listened a lot to these stations whenever i had the opportunity. Especially in a car you hear mindboggling examples of the worst radio shows you can possibly imagine.
Many of these pirate radio stations made at least one record, that in most cases was never played anywhere else than on their own station and in the homes of their handful of listeners. I have always bought any pirate radio station record that i encouneterd, so i now have a pretty impressive collection. Unfortunately i have never met anybody that shared my interest in these audio oddities.
Basically these 45´s all have the same ingredients: a hoempa sound, bad lyrics, lousy singing, ugly sleeves and an instrumental B-side. But of course there are a few records that stand out. Like the one that Dick Tames made:
Here is Dick Tames with a song that says it all, if you can understand Dutch, of course:
Sure to be continued!
Piraten radio (part 1)
Published: 2010-06-29 11:20:56
Dirk Koorn gave me some 45’s made by Dutch radio pirate stations.
He left the records in the bag of my wifes bike, where they they had to survive a few weeks of rain before i discovered them. Fortunately i already had them all.
In the mid eighties there were thousands of pirate radio stations operative in Holland. They were playing Dutch records that the mainstream radio stations refused to play. Braodcasting was illegal and the Radio Controle Dienst did a lot of effort to find and fine these stations. Of course, the word station is too much honour for what most of these radio/pirates were± a few hundred 45´s, one or two records players, a microphone and a cheap transmitter with a reach of a few kilometers.
I listened a lot to these stations whenever i had the opportunity. Especially in a car you hear mindboggling examples of the worst radio shows you can possibly imagine.
Many of these pirate radio stations made at least one record, that in most cases was never played anywhere else than on their own station and in the homes of their handful of listeners. I have always bought any pirate radio station record that i encouneterd, so i now have a pretty impressive collection. Unfortunately i have never met anybody that shared my interest in these audio oddities.
Basically these 45´s all have the same ingredients: a hoempa sound, bad lyrics, lousy singing, ugly sleeves and an instrumental B-side. But of course there are a few records that stand out. Like the one that Dick Tames made:
Here is Dick Tames with a song that says it all, if you can understand Dutch, of course:
Sure to be continued!
Cats (part 3)
Published: 2010-06-29 10:09:43
Of all the sketches of the catlike trademark characters, that i made a few days ago, only a handful is exploring further. I kind of liked this one:
Last night i tried to use this drawing as a starting point and came up with this:
Although these designs look pretty much alike, they still have enough differences to use one design as the basis for another series of designs. Of course i hope i will have no desire to try and do that!
Dingenzoeken (part 2)
Published: 2010-06-26 19:31:11
My love made some better photo’s of the collages that i made of the screws and nails and other objects that i found on the floor during my work as a housepainter:
My grandmother had a box with old buttons that i often played with as a child. My grandmother was very close to me, especially in the years after her daughter/my mother died. Her husband was an agressive alcoholic and she had a pretty tough life. She never had any money, although that was never an issue. But i remember that as a child i already noticed that there was no stuff in the house. No books, no nice furniture, nothing but the basic necessities. And nothing ever changed. Maybe she had two sets of chairs during all of her long life. When she died, about ten or twelve years ago, i got the box with buttons as a souvenir. The buttons are cheap, old and often damaged, and the only thing i could think of of doing with them was glueing them all on one piece of hardboard:
To create little souvenirs of the people and things are or were dear to me is a very pleasing pastime. And there are still quite some projects to be finished. Or even started.