In mid January next year, a chaplan and a priest, both Elvis fans, will be holding a unique two-day conference in Huis ter Heide near Utrecht just for military personnel called ‘I Did It My Way,’ featuring life lessons from the King himself. Lessons will be learned from songs such as “Suspicious Minds”, “Where could I go but to the Lord” and “How Great Thou Art”. Using film and documentaries featuring Elvis, parallels will be drawn with daily life. Oh, and “participation is open to non-fans as well”. Just mentioning that gives me the creeps.
I knew Elvis was a religion for many people after a friend of mine went down to Graceland and saw people crying over Elvis’ grave as if he had been Jesus Christ. We know that there are people obssessed with Elvis, but this is just weird.
Filed under: Aviation,Music by Orangemaster @ 11:03 am
Two dance music fans wanted to go to the Ultra Music dance festival in Miami in late March, but there were no direct flights to Miami in that period. The guys decided to challenge KLM on Twitter: if they could get 150 people for a flight, KLM would fly them to Miami. KLM agreed, but they had to have the people before 6 December. They started a website and got 285 people!
If this is not a creative use of Twitter, I don’t know what is. It also sounds like a Christmas tale. Well, OK, a little bit like one.
(Link: sevendays.nl, Photo of an unrelated Lufthansa Canadair regional jet 900 (or 700?) flying to Munich out of Schiphol airport)
A film nobody has really been waiting for is coming out on 9 December: the New Kids film ‘Turbo’. Website Flabber also tell us that they’ll be a German version of the film as well because these wild and crazy guys have fans in Germany. Yes, it sounds and even looks like an American film trailer, but do not be fooled by the voice-over! The English subtitles are both inaccurate on purpose and not on purpose (the swear word ‘kut’ (used like ‘damn’ or ‘shit’, but meaning ‘cunt’) is left intact, while ‘your fired’ should be ‘you’re fired’. And it’s so not about the dialogue.
From the province of Noord-Brabant or just Brabant (there’s no South Brabant, that would be Brabant in Belgium and a long story), the New Kids are popular because they represent relatively modern Dutch white trash with accompanying music, known as happy hardcore and matching late 1990s clothing: sporty camping comfort with mustaches and mullet hairdoes.
“They’re basically always drunk, driving around and destroying everything that comes in their way, which sometimes leads to getting a good beating themselves.”
For the beginners, it’s time to learn what ‘doe normaal!’ (literally, ‘act normal’!, meaning ‘stop it!’), a lesson you’ll not soon forget.
North Holland radio sation WildFM felt like giving a prize away that was not the usual fare: a chihuahua, a type of dog that became increasingly popular once American socialite Paris Hilton was seen with one. Other unusal prizes the radio station has given away in the past include a breast enlargement (how very man friendly) and a dream wedding worth 50,000 euro.
Boffins over at the sleep research centre of the Canisius-Wilhelmina hospital in Nijmegen have concluded that learning how to play the Australian musical instrument didgeridoo helps reduce snoring. The specific training of the mouth and throat muscles to play this instrument apparently help reduce sleep apnea, which causing snoring.
Some 50 people were given a didgeridoo training for four months, which was not easy as one third quit, claiming they were not able to sustain the necessary circular breathing, never mind the time committment. No definite conclusions were drawn with such a small bit of research, but the boffins could be on to something. The Dutch were inspired by the Swiss who did something similar and obtained similar results.
To wipe away the associations some of us have of digireedoo players being Caucasian dreadlock-wearing backpackers who play on the street as they need cash while on vacation in major cities during the summer, have a look at the cool, modern sounding didgeridoo player jamming with South African rapper Jack Parow live at De Nieuwe Nor in Heerlen a few weeks back.
Today, 20 November 2010, is the day that ‘The Netherlands screams for culture’ (Nederland schreeuwt om cultuur), a movement among the general population to campaign against the huge budget cuts in culture subsidies throughout the Netherlands.
Big whoop? Why can’t all those venues and orchestras make their own money and stop sponging off the government? As a North American used to ‘pulling yourself up by your bootstraps’ when it comes to culture, knowing that some venues (actual businesses) are subsidised up to 40% (!) is hard to fathom. And if you pull the plug on their grants, entire smaller cities will have no cultural institutions to speak of. But is that such a bad thing?
While there are all kinds of scandals involving cities pumping millions into local, bankrupt football clubs, the arts will not only suffer budget cuts, but the price of tickets for shows in 2011 will be taxed at the 19% VAT (valued added tax) instead of the current 6% rate. Theatre producers are going to the mat with the government, as the decision was made on a whim and will probably costs thousand of jobs. Interestingly enough, sports events will still be taxed at the 6% rate.
The idea behind this logic is politically motivated: One of the recently elected political parties pushing for this want to punish ‘left-wing, artsy-fartsy voters’ and coddle their ‘not as highly educated, right-wing, white, Dutch voters’, also referred to as ‘Henk and Ingrid’, The Smiths if you will, you know, regular Dutch people. Henk and Ingrid are much more inclined to go to a football game than catch Stravinsky’s Petrushka at the ballet.
On October 26, directed by Jules Buckley, an orchestra of some 150 musicians jammed out the Mambo from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. I can’t imagine Henk and Ingrid hate this so much they would want the government to pull the plug on all our major, award-wining orchestras, which is actually scheduled to happen.
Here are members of the Dutch Radio Orchestra and the Radio Choir staging a flashmob at The Hague central station against the Dutch government’s plans to scrap the Netherlands Broadcasting Music Center (MCO).
You may have heard that soul legend Solomon Burke (Everybody Needs Somebody to Love, Got to Get You Off My Mind) died in the Netherlands last month. What you may not know is that shortly before he had recorded a CD with songs written (and performed) by Dutch rock band De Dijk (lit. The Dike).
Now I have always considered De Dijk a decent band, but nothing special. Funny how swapping out the singers can make such a difference to my ears, even though Huub van der Lubbe is no slouch.
The CD De Dijk recorded with Solomon Burke is called Hold on Tight.
In December 2009, after a wave of criticism from the media and beyond, Dutch copyright collection agency Buma/Stemra (B/S) decided to back off on its plans to make people pay for embedded music streams. However, today they announced that they will go ahead with their plans after all. According to B/S logic, embedding music is another form of ‘rebroadcasting’, which require licences. Buma/Stemra will start charging for music streams and video streams like YouTube, all of which will be confirmed soon. According to Tweakers, last year the projected rates for embedding videos with music were lower than embedding music streams — why, nobody knows.
They also say they won’t bug private persons, just companies. We’ll see.
The latest disco video of tom-boy Dennis (Denise van Donselaar) has her being undressed and dressed again (and again) while girls with triple strap-on breasts dance through clouds of bubbles.
Also good for last-minute Halloween costume ideas. See if you can find the ‘secret level’.
Filed under: Music,Science by Orangemaster @ 3:57 pm
The Noord Nederlands Orkest of Groningen plans to participate in scientific research into the Mozart effect together with the Univeristy of Groningen.
The Mozart effect is a theory that claims to boost one’s IQ (and that of children) by listening to and/or playing Mozart. During an upcoming concert, the audience’s brain activity is going to be measured, as part of an experiment.
There are all kinds of serious studies on why listening to music is good for your brain, but then the idea that it increases intelligence is controversial at best.
Although I love Mozart, I preferred to go to Salzburg and check him out in person.
