March 1, 2014

Tracksuit king Roy Donders quits his house parties

Filed under: Fashion by Branko Collin @ 3:03 pm

tracksuit-kouchiThere is a Dutch media phenomenon called Roy Donders who feels so manufactured that when a website reported it was all an act, I said to myself “see, I told you so!” Unfortunately the source turned out to be a parody site.

It appears fashion advisor Roy Donders, whose main claim to fame is pushing fancy velours track suits as everyday wear (the Dutch neologism ‘huispak’, ‘home suit’, was coined) is going through a rough patch. A year ago broadcaster RTL gave him a TV show in which he could advertise himself, but RTL is now among the first media to make fun of the 23-year-old. RTL reports eagerly that complaints have started to come in about the track suits Donders sells. Donders also quit giving sales parties at private homes after he was kicked out of one his own parties in Rotterdam last December.

Tracksuits in the meantime are predicted to play a role in this weeks carnival celebrations with some stores selling a wig resembling Donders’ curls.

(Photo by Flickr user Kouchi, some rights reserved)

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January 25, 2013

City marketing video for Heerlen: simple and laid back

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 10:42 am

Amsterdam advertising agency KesselsKramer has made the city marketing video below for art centre kunstcentrumSigne (kuS) in Heerlen. The city in Limburg has been going through a long metamorphosis and rebranding process to shake its darker past and get out of the shadow of neighbouring Maastricht.

Heerlen also celebrates carnival with more of an accent on kids having fun as opposed to university students and has enough room to accommodate everyone unlike Maastricht that is often overcrowded. Not unlike the cities themselves, the Maastricht carnival is a very flamboyant yet proper affair, while carnival in Heerlen is smaller but more about fun than good looks.

Older good stories about Heerlen:

Dutch astronaut André Kuipers wears Heerlen space watch

Visiting a neighbourhood built by Hitler

Heerlen, the 33rd city of the Netherlands, in an ultimate attempt to seek attention from KesselsKramer on Vimeo.

(Tip: a whole bunch of people from Heerlen on Facebook, Photo of Sudoku by yourdoku, some rights reserved)

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January 24, 2013

Carnival hits and misses for February 2013

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 11:53 am

Carnival is just around the corner, and we’ve dug up some music for you to get your senses properly numbed for one of the biggest parties of the year.

Gebroeders Rossig – Kom maar uit de kast, Kiekeboe!
(Come out of the closet, Peekaboo!) poking good fun at a boy who likes to wear women’s clothes.

Kutzooi – Party Groove
Beer induced, with a splash of Die Antwoord styling and a generous helping of Dunglish. I dare you to watch the whole thing.

Gerst – Ik laat je thuis
‘Ik laat je thuis’ (‘I’m leaving you at home’) is a parody of ‘Ik neem je mee’ (I’m taking you with me’) by softy hip hop artist Gers Pardoel and has just had more than one million hits on YouTube. A man whinges about his buzzkill wife and tells her she’s staying home.

(Link: www.omroepbrabant.nl)

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January 15, 2013

Chirping chick song goes Dutch

Filed under: Animals,Music by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

The Italian radio hit ‘Il Pulcino Pio’ (The chirping chick) has a Dutch version: ‘Het Kuikentje Piep’. It reminds me of a modern version of the Old MacDonald nursery rhyme, but with a generous helping of auto-tune.

Since this summer the original Italian version has had more than 50,000,000 views, on its way to possibly match and beat (gasp!) Gangnam Style, which currently has over one billion views.

Carnival in the South of the Netherlands is less than a month away, and this is surely going to be played to drunken crowds in many cafes. It is also a fantastic way to find out what kind of sounds many animals make in Dutch.

(Link: www.volkskrant.nl, Photo of chicks by homer4k, some rights reserved).

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January 29, 2012

Singer gets death threats over burqa song

Filed under: Music by Branko Collin @ 4:05 pm

Radio Netherlands writes:

Dutch satirist Johan Vlemmix has decided not to perform his latest hit Do the Burqa onstage following death threats.

The song, a carnival parody to the music of Van McCoy’s ‘Do the Hustle’, is a huge success on YouTube, so much so that the video provider has switched off the comments facility. Too many people were posting angry reactions saying that they had been insulted.

The images show a woman wearing a T-shirt which can be instantly converted into a burqa […].

The Dutch government wants to ban burqas, a head garment traditionally worn in the Arab world.

Vlemmix once ran for parliament on a platform in which he would become Minister of Fun. In 2007 the entertainer flirted with controversy over a song about Polish guest workers.

See also: Carnival song mocks liberal parties—”Behave yourselves!”

(Video: YouTube / Johan Vlemmix)

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January 23, 2012

Carnival song mocks liberal parties—“Behave yourselves!”

Filed under: Music by Branko Collin @ 6:03 pm

Duo Kwast en Krietje has written a song about the spat between the leaders of the two liberal parties in Dutch parliament, Prime Minister Rutte and PVV leader Wilders, last September. Wilders told the Prime Minister back then to “behave himself” (doe eens normaal in Dutch) during a budget debate.

At the time Wilders’ behaviour was widely held to be inappropriate. Dutch parliamentarians are generally expected to be civil, behaviour that is monitored by the chair.

Carnival is a time in which traditional roles are reversed. Each Carnival association (each town has one, large cities often have more than one) elects its own ‘prince’ who pretends to have taken over from the actual government, and songs and floats often mocks those in power. The tone with which this happens tends to be very light-hearted though—carnival-goers tends to be fairly uncritical of authority in daily life, at least in my experience.

Kwast en Krietje are from the town of Wanroij in Noord-Brabant, near the Limburg border.

(Link: Omroep Brabant. Video: Youtube / Krietje)

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March 7, 2011

Carnival parade in Sittard, the Prince throws oranges

Filed under: Food & Drink,General,History,Music by Orangemaster @ 2:36 pm

I had heard rumors that in Sittard, Limburg, the carnival Prince throws oranges and I had to go and find out if that was true. Once his float arrived on the Market Square I snapped a picture of him (Tom 1) and I also caught an orange. I’m grateful he didn’t try to hit people with them.

A lot of the people parading also gave their social commentary about Sittard, a city falling apart and watching the number of inhabitants dwindle like many other places in Limburg. In local dialect, these signs read ‘Greetings from the torn down city’, referring to the many broken down and empty buildings in Sittard.

In sharp contrast to the ugly parts of town, the lovely Sjtadscafe de Gats dating back from 1535 on the Market Square makes for a lovely background. I saw a few more similar buildings from that era, as the town didn’t really suffer serious architectural damage from WWII.

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January 30, 2011

Classic Dutch carnival: Stoned as a Shrimp

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 6:00 pm

Some 12 years ago after my first real Dutch party, someone bravely got up the next morning, made coffee and threw on a CD of comedy songs and sketches by Kees van Kooten and Wim de Bie (aka ‘Koot en Bie’), one of the most famous Dutch comedy acts ever. I could understand the odd word, but this song called ‘Stoont Als ‘n Garnaal’ was something I could dig. It means ‘Stoned as a Shrimp’ (I’d rather have an aliteration, so I didn’t use ‘prawn’ on purpose), and the Dutch ‘stoont’ is incorrect on purpose, it should also be ‘stoned’.

(roughly translated)

At uncle Piet’s party
There was some very good weed
After the second ‘stick’
Everyone got a kick
But Granny Van de Kamp
Wanted to get higher
Started swinging from the lamp
And sang this refrain

We’re as stoned as a shrimp
Stoned as a shrimp
Take another toke
‘Cause stoned as a shrimp
That’s what we all are

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January 29, 2011

A carnival hit that tells it like it is

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 6:00 pm

Just two days ago I posted that “swear words in a foreign language are often perceived to be not as bad as in your own language,” and to back it up, here’s another carnival song called ‘Fok Joe’ (phonetic Dutch for ‘Fuck You’).

The opening shot of the ‘security guy’ has his Julian Assange look down pat, while singer Danny Panadero went as the doppelgänger of Pitbull, albeit with a mullet.

“I have a hit because there’s ‘fuck you’ in it,” the song of a Dutch ‘volkszanger’ (literally ‘folk singer’, but meaning ‘singer of the people’) who predominantly sings light ditties about love and life, a style that is popular in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany and very appreciated during carnival.

Around 1:40 Panadero is singing at a children’s birthday party and mentions that K3, one if not still the most successful Dutch-language act ever who sing kiddy songs, should sing “a fuck you” as well.

‘Fuck you’ in Dutch sounds too banal,
but sing it in English and the whole place sings along.

He took the swear words right out of my mouth.

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January 27, 2011

New carnival song boycotted over the word ‘anus’

Filed under: Music,Weird by Orangemaster @ 10:32 am

It’s OK to make fun of hard-working Poles and sing ‘racist’ slurs about the Chinese, but a funny song that starts with ‘Manus, get your finger out my anus’ is actually being boycotted by carnival-oriented radio stations.

On any given day you can hear songs on the radio with the words ‘fuck’, ‘pussy’, ‘bitch’ and the likes, but ‘anus’ (same in Dutch) is apparently Not Suitable For Work (NSFW). I don’t get it and neither do De Pikanto’s.

You all have to hear and see for yourselves, of course. It’s in Austrian style, very nice and clean, just the word ‘anus’ sticks out and yes, there are references to bisexuality and anal sex, as if that was ever a problem in the Netherlands.

The song comes from a 1970s song and is done here in carnival style, so in fact it’s been around for some 40 years. As well, using the argument of ‘but kids will hear it’ when the radio does play ‘I wanna Fuck A Dog in The Ass” by Blink 182 (De Pikanto’s argument) is very hypocritical. It is linguistically and culturally true that swear words in a foreign language are often perceived to be not as bad as in your own language, but ‘anus’ is a proper term if ever there was one.

If a drag queen sang this, would that have been better? I do love all these controversial carnival songs though.

Anyone remember this famous Dutch television advert with children and a song playing called ‘I wanna fuck you in the ass’? That was on TV for a while before something was done about it or not I could be wrong.

(Link: depers.nl)

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