Have a nice holiday y'all!

Me, I think I'm gonna place my tent somewhere here in beautiful Andalucia :

What is all this bitching about "Volver" being inferior to Pedro Almodovar's previous movies? Personally, I think it is one of Almodovar's very best. Ignore the critics and judge for yourself!

***

Since last year the European Film Festival joined forces with Filmvondsten, the summer event of the Royal Belgian Film Archive, which holds a similar view on cinema. As usual, many Cannes premieres will be shown during the first week of July. This is my personal selection before I move southwards :

THE WAY I SPENT THE END OF THE WORLD (Catalin Mitulescu)

Dorotheea Petra (Eva) won the prize for Best Actress in the Un Certain Regard section at this year's Cannes film festival

12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST (Corneliu Porumboiu)

winner of the prestigious Caméra d'Or Award for best debut at the latest edition of the Cannes film festival

IKLIMLER (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

I'm counting the days to see the third film by this brilliant Turkish director (remember "Uzak")

TO GET TO HEAVEN FIRST YOU HAVE TO DIE (Djamshed Usmonov)

After "Angel on the Right," the new film from Djamshed Usmonov featuring Dinara Kroukarova

SEHNSUCHT (Valeska Grisebach)

Officiel Selection from the last Berlinale 2006

LUXURY CAR (Wang Chao)

from the maker of "The Orphan of Anyang" and recipient of the 'Un certain regard' prize at the latest Cannes festival

FANTASMA (Lisandro Alonso)

the third feature from Lisandro Alonso after the amazing "La Libertad" and the brilliant "Los Muertos"

SOLNTSE (Alexander Sokurov)

the master of contemporary Russian cinema with his latest masterpiece

I hope I will still have some time left for record reviews and packing my bags...

Full Frontal Attack

BATTLESHIP's debut album "Presents Princess" on Mitch Cardwell's Raw Deluxe label was one of my favourite records of 2004 so when I read about an upcoming European tour a couple of months ago, I immediately contacted my pals at the mighty Pit's. "Presents Princess" was limited to 500 vinyl copies, sold out a long time ago and was released on CD a couple of months ago by On/On Switch. A few weeks ago a new 7" called "To Give, Not A Gift" has been released on Double Negative Records and Greg "Gris Gris" Ashley finished recording the new album. After witnessing Battleship on the shitty Pit's stage yesterday, I think the new album is going to be a totally different experience than the first one. Live, the band blasted out some maniacal spazzcore in the vein of Melt Banana and The Locust, gone were the Gang Of Four-like rhythms of the first record. Still curious about it though...

Peace...

In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace - and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

Harry Lime (played by Orson Welles) in The Third Man

Domenico Ghirlandaio 1449-1494
Fresco at Cappella Tornabuoni, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, created 1486-90.

(Let's Go) Totally Nutzoid!

I don't know how it really happened but my five-years-old kid took a bad fall on my 7-inch collection. Needless to say, I was furious not in the least because he always seems to ruin the most precious ones. At the age of one-and-a-half, he gripped the first A Frames long-player out of my record-rack and let if fall on the floor. A couple of months before, I had specially ordered the album in the States and was very glad that I received a pristine copy without bent corners. Not any longer though. Why didn't he pick the Aerobitch album next to it, or the A-Lines one on the other side? Yesterday, his main target was the amazing first Tokyo Electron 7-inch which went for $51,00 on eBay last week. N° 38/229 of the Destructo invasion from the outer space edition will be housed in a mutilated sleeve from here to eternity.

Soon I realised however that it is quite stupid to be upset by a couple of bent covers of records with titles like "Break It Down" (Rat Traps), "Don't Care About Nothing" (The Tears) or "(Let's Go) Totally Nutzoid!" (The Real Losers). I mean, I don't want to live the life that is being reflected in the songs I love, but I can't deny that the wild energy & recklessness influences my everyday life. I will not cry if I notice someone scratched my car or if somebody tells me to fuck off and I realise I shouldn't worry too much about bent record covers. That's what I was telling myself after I calmed down and it works. After all, it's only music and although this music means an awful lot to me, I think it was pretty funny afterwards that the kid fell into my punk rock singles collection.

But kid, next time you "go totally nutzoid", please go outside the house, OK? After all, these records will be yours one day...

Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog)

Timothy Treadwell spent 13 summers living among wild bears in the Alaskan wilderness until one of his beloved grizzlies got tired of the stalking and decided to devour him at his campsite in Katmai National Park in the fall of 2003. In telling this story, Werner Herzog relies considerably on Treadwell's own video footage and it soon becomes apparent that Treadwell was an incredible irritating nutcase, a manic-depressive ex-alcoholic whose pseudo-ecological nonsense and selfishness were in big contrast to the desolate and raw beauty of the undisturbed wilderness. Treadwell was no biologist but a ridiculous charlatan who claimed himself the saviour of the grizzly bears in a nature reserve (!). By exposing the animals to human contact, he did them more harm than good while his egomaniacal rants against the park authorities, poachers and other visitors to his remote hideaway are proof of his insane behaviour. He wanted to become one with the bears (in which he definitely succeeded!) but never even considered asking himself if the wild animals appreciated his presence. Herzog's documentary tends to voyeurism and sensation but it suits the subject of a bear-obsessed paranoid loser perfectly. Totally embarrassing!

Cinema Novo Festival 2006

***** The Forsaken Land - Vimukthi Jayasundara (Sri Lanka 2005)



**** El - Luis Bunuel (Mexico 1953)
**** El Angel exterminador - Luis Bunuel (Mexico 1962)
**** Grain in Ear - Zhang Lu (China 2005)
**** Asshak : Tales from the Sahara - Ulrike Koch (Germany 2004)
**** La nina santa - Lucrecia Martel (Argentina-Spain-Italy 2004)
**** Los muertos - Lisandro Alonso (Argentina-France-The Netherlands-Switzerland 2004)
**** Bright Future - Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Japan 2002)

***1/2 Café Lumière - Hou Hsiao-hsien (Japan 2004)
***1/2 Three Times - Hou Hsiao-Hsien (Taiwan 2005)
***1/2 Be With Me - Eric Khoo (Singapore 2005)
***1/2 Los olvidados - Luis Bunuel (Mexico 1950)

*** Free Zone - Amos Gitaï (Israel-Belgium-France 2005)
*** Nordeste - Juan Solanas (Argentina-France 2005)
*** Sa-kwa - Kang Yi-kwan (South-Korea 2005)
*** SPL - Wilson Yip (Hong Kong-China 2005)
*** Election - Johnnie To (Hong Kong-China 2005)
*** Crying Fist - Ryoo Seung-wan (South-Korea 2005)
*** El imperio de la fortuna - Arturo Ripstein (Mexico 1985)
*** Macunaïma - Joaquim Pedro de Andrade (Brasil 1969)
*** Simon del desierto - Luis Bunuel (Mexico 1965)
*** Les artistes du théâtre brûlé - Rithy Panh (Cambodia 2005)
*** Noticias Lejanas - Ricardo Benet (Mexico 2005)
*** Bashing - Masahiro Kobayashi (Japan 2005)
*** Mongolian Ping Pong - Hao Ning (China 2005)
*** Paradise Now - Hany Abu-Assad (Palestina-The Netherlands 2005)
*** The Cave of the Yellow Dog - Byambasuren Davaa (Mongolia-Germany 2005)
*** The Wayward Cloud - Tsai Ming-Liang (Taiwan-France 2005)

**1/2 Play - Alicia Scherson (Chili-Argentina-France 2005)
**1/2 Shanghai Dreams - Wang Xiaoshuai (China 2005)

** El aura - Fabien Bielinsky (Argentina 2005)
** The Sunflowers - Wang Baomin (China 2005)
** La sagrada familia - Sebastien Campos (Chili 2005)
** The President's Last Bang - Im Sang-soo (South-Korea 2005)
** Mur - Simone Bitton (Israel-France 2004)
** Vital - Shinya Tsukamoto (Japan 2004)
** The Syrian Bride - Eran Riklis (Israel 2004)

* Takeshis' - Takeshi Kitano (Japan 2005)
* Attente - Rashid Masharawi (Palestina-France 2005)
* Le temps révolu - Minh Hô Quang (Vietnam-France 2005)
* The Taste of Tea - Katsuhito Ishii (Japan 2004)

0 Water - Deepa Mehta (India 2005)
0 Un oso rojo - Israel Adrian Caetano (Argentina-Spain-France 2002)

ALI FARKA TOURE R.I.P.

Rest In Peace brother.

Agitated - ELECTRIC EELS

Agitated by: Morton, McMahon, Marotta

I feel so agitated, so agitated,
Run through a washing machine, agitated.
So agitated, so convoluted
I hate it, I hate it, I'd just like to shoot it.

It's five a.m. and I'm crawling the walls
Waiting for imaginary telephone calls.

You know what I think, I think the whole world stinks.
I don't need no shrink, I just hate it.

Sometimes I think I'd be better off dead,
Just like my cousin Fred.

1977 All rights reserved

"Colour Green" - Sibylle Baier

After VASHTI BUNYAN's magical "Just Another Diamond Day", here's another devastatingly-beautiful folk gem from the early 1970s that'll blow your mind.




check out Orange Twin Records site here

Finally on DVD : Krzysztof Kieslowski's masterpiece "LA DOUBLE VIE DE VERONIQUE". The only interesting news of the last 3 weeks.

King Shiloh Sound System

A terrific reggae sound system yesterday at my hometown that received massive response by a super-enthusiastic crowd. Majestic music indeed!

Les Amants Réguliers

The ones who don't like it call those who do "pseudo-intellectuals" but to hell with those dumb-asses; Philippe Garrel's latest film is a true masterpiece!

Saturday Night Fever !!!

picture by Joost Dierick

Saturday was a crazy night!! First there was that funny guy from Bordeaux who made some great trashy rock 'n roll dance music under the moniker FREDOVITCH. Dressed up as a knight, he freaked out on drums, organ and guitar and spiced things up with exciting samples. Mix the rawness of King Louie's One Man Band with the freakishness of Mr. Quintron, add mucho enthusiasm and some neat song writing and you get an idea of the amazing sounds of FREDOVITCH. Bingo!

THE KING KHAN & BBQ SHOW was scheduled next at The Pit's and expectations were very high since this two-man band released a killer of an album last year. Their 45 minutes show was great fun : King Khan wore a sexy pink dress and made us dance like fools with his delicious licks while BBQ rocked the hell out of his rudimental drum set and added some great & raw vocals. Party!!!

When I heard that my favourite rhythm & blues blasters THE SEATSNIFFERS were playing at my hometown on the same evening as The King Khan & BBQ Show at The Pit's, I panicked for a few seconds but soon realised that shows at the Pit's must end at 10 PM and that I could probably make it in time for Belgium's finest. So after the King Khan & BBQ Show, I jumped into my car and rushed back to my hometown while some black rock 'n roll blasted out of my car hifi. Last year, The Seatsniffers had played their 10th anniversary show and since I hadn't seen these guys in about two years I was anxious to witness if they could still tear the house down. My god, they drove me to delirium! The place was sold-out (thanks Jan!) but fortunately I managed to seize a place in front of Roel, the hard-blowing sax maniac. The band blasted out one amazing song after the other : steaming hot rhythm & blues, a crazy ska-tune, savage rockabilly, a hot-blooded polka... unbelievable how tight and to the point this fabulous band was! Even the Link Wray cover "Run Chicken Run" sent chills down my spine! Did I already tell you how I danced like a fool since this probably IS the best fuckin' dance band in the world?!! Totally incredible how a Belgian roots band rivals its American idols and leaves everybody KO. Don't miss them when they're in town or don't mind driving 3 hours to see this truly unique band!

The Wayward Cloud

Beste Steven De Foer,

Ik heb mij weeral eens mateloos geërgerd aan één van uw filmbesprekingen in De Standaard van woensdag 11 januari jl. Het komt er op neer dat iedereen die van "The Wayward Cloud" houdt een intellectuele snob is die te veel films gezien heeft en dus alleen nog maar bevredigd kan worden door exotische arty-farty experimenten. De film staat volgende week op mijn programma dus kan ik er mij nog niet echt over uitspreken maar Tsai Ming-Liang's vorige films, die u blijkbaar ook allemaal slecht vindt (lees : te moeilijk), belandden steevast bovenaan mijn jaarlijstjes.

Over film valt veel te discussiëren, alleen irriteren uw besprekingen mij vaak omdat een duidelijke verhaallijn voor u een absolute noodzaak schijnt te zijn zodat u zelf niet te veel inspanningen hoeft te leveren om een film te begrijpen. Jo Smets formuleerde het destijds mooi in Knack bij zijn bespreking van Bruno Dumont's "Twentynine Palms" : "De gemakkelijkste reactie is geeuwen, de zaal verlaten en uw als anti-intellectualisme vermomde mentale luiheid gaan ventileren."

Gaat u in het vervolg aub dit soort films niet zien en bespaar ons uw simplistisch geleuter.

Groeten,
Luc O.

IT'S ALIVE!!! (I mean, it's supposed to be...)

Tonight, I am going to THE KING KHAN & BBQ SHOW at The Pit's and I'm really looking forward to it 'cuz their record will probably end on top position in my best-of 2005 list. Kris 'Demolition Derby' Verreth will be there too with a bunch of records I ordered through his excellent mailorder service during the last couple of months. Consequently, I will be able to give you my list of favourite records, 7-inches & reissues of 2005 one of these days. In the meantime, here are my favourite shows of the past year :

1. THE LOST SOUNDS at The Pit's "a total mindfuck - keine schönheit ohne Gefahr nicht?"
2. THE REATARDS/TOKYO ELECTRON/ANGRY ANGLES at The Pit's "the Tokyo Electron bass guitar that got blasted into my face couldn't spoil the fun that night - Jay Reatard was simply devastating"
3. THE FATALS at The Pit's "a real surprise - amazing psychotic blues sludge"
4. THE BLACK LIPS/RIVER CITY TANLINES/GHETTO WAYS at The Lintfabriek "3 x bingo - Oh what a night!"
5. TEXT OF LIGHT : A Live Musical Homage to Stan Brakhage featuring LEE RANALDO, WILLIAM HOOKER, DJ OLIVE, ALAN LICHT, AND ULRICH KRIEGER at De Vooruit "A great project and a mesmerizing way to enjoy the avant-garde films of Stan Brakhage"
6. THE EX at the N9 Villa "still going strong after all these years - it made me realise how influential The Ex was and still is"
7. TH' LOSIN' STREAKS at The Pit's "ex-Trouble Makers - these guys know how to party!!!"
8. THE MOJOMATICS at The Pit's "2 Italian gentlemen - these guys know how to rock in style!!!"
9. SOUTH FILTHY at 't Oud Liefken "A last minute show I organised at a great place at the countryside - a night to remember!"
10. THE BASEBALL FURIES at the 4AD "A great show but lofi punkrock bands should be seen at a small joint like The Pit's instead of on a 1 meter high stage"

I also enjoyed two reunion shows in 2005 : THE STOOGES in Lokeren and PERE UBU in Brussels. I think I missed 3 great bands last year being the DEMON'S CLAWS (snow blizzard), CRASH NORMAL (those damn Derwishes!) & THE MIGHTY GO-GO PLAYERS (dead-beat). The worst shows were those by ROCK CITY MORGUE (ex-White Zombie - bweurk!), BAMBU STATION (very mediocre reggae band from the Virgin Islands), THE WHIRLING DERVISHES OF KONYA (I missed them in Konya last year - their show in Antwerp however turned out to be very artificial (read : downright boring!)), DIE ROTZZ (C'mon guys, a little effort please? A show is not supposed to be a sloppy rehearsal!) and some Flemish art school shithead band called HARKER that fucked up the immense beauty of The Goddess (1934) at the Cinema Novo Film Festival in Bruges.

My yearly favourite shows list used to be much more varied but nothing much seems to happen outside the punkrock scene nowadays. The end of the Bluesestafette in Utrecht means no more exciting soul & blues shows. Reggae has always been a dubious live thing with more letdowns than revelations. World Music is doomed to fartsy Art Centres. I could go on. At our little punkrock scene however, things actually happen if you know what I mean so here's another thumbs-up to everybody's favourite club the mighty Pit's. I hope the cops won't bother us again before 10 PM...

I would like to end this post with a quote from Peter Guralnick's essential book "Feel Like Going Home". Sadly, nothing has changed ever since and I'm not talking about the blues scene alone.

These were, in fact, many of the same problems which have plagued every blues "concert" I have attended since I first saw Lightnin' Hopkins at Harvard twelve years ago : a stiff, unnatural atmosphere, an unbridgeable gulf between performer and audience, and a tendency to treat the blues as a kind of museum piece, to be pored over by scholars, to be admired perhaps but to be stifled at the same time by the press of formal attention. It was a depressing realization and one that left me on the whole with the feeling that even in its own backyard blues had ceased to be a living experience.

Good Night, And Good Luck (finding an exciting non-punkrock show in 2006!)

Good Night, And Good Luck

An intelligent American movie that impresses deeply and will most likely end up in my Top 10 of 2006. Already!

KING KONG

Cheap! The girl fell in love with King Kong. Period. We really don't need that pathetic Adrian Brody love affair! Alternative end : Naomi jumps after King Kong from the Empire State Building! Now that would have been true love!!

Sándor Márai

I have just finished another great work by the Hungarian author Sándor Márai. This largely forgotten writer has only recently been "rediscovered" when his wonderful book "Embers" from 1942 was republished in English and German in 2000 and became an international best-seller. Nothing much happens in this two hundred page novel but the duel of words and silences between two close friends who haven't seen each other for forty-one years provokes an inarticulate tension that is hard to beat. Márai is a true master in analysing the smouldering "embers" of feelings of lust, love, revenge and hate and this quality can be found throughout his complete works.

"Conversations in Bolzano" is a book set in 1758 and written in 1940 that was first translated in 2004, only the second of Márai's works to be brought to a wider audience. It tells the story of ten days or so in the life of a Venetian libertine, whom one might recognize as Giacomo Casanova. It's another fascinating tale of suppressed love & humiliation.

Profoundly antifascist, Márai survived World War II, but persecution by the Communists drove him from the country in 1948, first to Italy and then to the United States. "Memoir of Hungary, 1944-1948" provides one of the most poignant and human portraits of life in Hungary between the German occupation in 1944 and the solidification of communist power in 1948. Both a fervent anti-fascist and anti-communist, Márai draws a vivid portrait of these turbulent times, while delivering a telling indictment of the communist system from which he fled.

It is almost unbelievable that one of Márai's best works "Az Igazi/Judit" has not been translated into English or French yet. Fortunately, the Dutch translation "Kentering van een huwelijk" has just been issued and the book, originally published in 1978, confirms Márai's position as one of the most important authors of the twentieth-century. It tells the story of the deconstruction of a marriage, seen from 3 different points of view : a bourgeois man, his wife and the housemaid he later marries and divorces. The philosophical reflections on human nature, loneliness & betrayal are riveting personal reflections; pieces of wisdom from a true master that ask to be re-read. Somewhere in the book, the bourgeois man talks about the right to die in loneliness. After Sándor Márai's wife died, he himself retreated more and more into isolation and finally committed suicide in San Diego in 1989, completely ignored by the world. Not unlike Cesare Pavese's suicide, it makes the sincerity of his work even more heartfelt.

kazoo + jazz = no fun

I have just bought the THELONIOUS MONK QUARTET with JOHN COLTRANE at Carnegie Hall CD reissue on Blue Note Records and the kazoo-like humming, omnipresent on the last tracks, irritates me terribly. I have absolutely no clue where this disturbing background drone comes from. I first thought I had bought a defect copy but when I listen very closely, I realise it comes from one of the musicians. I tried to find info on the internet because no review mentions the annoying humming but the only relating thing I found was a sentence in a review of an old Art Tatum CD : "...and Slam Stewart turns in some of his patented bowed bass work with accompanying humming, creating the illusion of a low-pitched kazoo". Is Ahmed Abdul-Malik spoiling the fun?