By Sofia Ciechowska Illustration bi Basje Boer
Unruly Music Magazine July and August 2012
Food
What’s Cooking
The Hey! Ho! Let’s Go! Issue
Nite Jewel, Frankie Rose, Flamingods
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just add color the chuck taylor all star color collection
The Hey! Ho! Let’s Go! Issue
This is Ramona Gonzalez, who is better known as Nite Jewel. Ramona is sitting in front of an ice-cream parlour in Venice Beach, Los Angeles. The photo was taken by Suzanna Zak on a sunny day in June while the both of them were on a nice afternoon stroll through the low-rise housing of the LA seaside. After taking this photo, they bought a scoop of vanilla (maybe two – who can resist the sight of these huge ice-cream cones?) and meandered in the direction of the beach. On the way they smelled flowers, talked, looked at old motorcycles and blossoming trees. They saw curtains hanging from an open window, slowly waving in the wind, and simply thought of nothing....
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Content
The Hey! Ho! Let’s Go! Issue
Nite Jewel
Frankie Rose
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Page 24
Flamingods
Agenda
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TOP 5 NEW MUSIC WE SAW YOU NITE JEWEL FRANKIE ROSE FLAMINGODS DIIV FEATURED ARTIST REVIEWS FILM
10 13 16 18 24 30 35 38 42 47
BOOKS FASHION FOOD HOROSCOPE AGENDA SUBBACULTCHA SHOWS OTHER SHOWS FREE STUFF AFTER MIDNIGHT OVERVIEW
48 50 52 54 57 58 64 76 77 78
Summer is here. And in summer we travel. We take our tired bodies and souls across distant borders to places we’ve never been before. We disconnect. We have no reference and therefore we don’t judge. We have nowhere else to be than just ‘there’. We read, eat, sleep and swipe the sand from our bedsheets. We reflect. We are new and we experience. Time does not relate to space any more. Life unfolds itself and we effortlessly float from one moment to the next. We forget, and we remind ourselves that we should never forget to forget. We will be like this for ever. We will be perfect from now on. See you on the flip! Page 6
in juli / augustus o.a.
EYE
Simone Signoret & Yves Montand Ruim 20 klassiekers, policiers en film noir
Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition Tentoonstelling en alle films
Cinema Egzotik: Night of the Kidnapping Presentatie Martin Koolhoven en Ronald Simons
38 Témoins – Lucas Belvaux Première met Yves Attal
The Battle of Algiers – klassieker Met muziek van Ennio Morricone
Info & tickets: www.eyefilm.nl
Colophon
Who we are and what we do
Subbacultcha! Magazine is made at our office in Amsterdam Da Costakade 150, 1053 XC Amsterdam, the Netherlands www.subbacultcha.nl. magazine@subbacultcha.nl We are Editors: Leon Caren and Bas Morsch Editorial Assistant: Megan Roberts Design: Bas Morsch Interns: Freek van Heerikhuize and Eden van den Bogaard Good Girl: Loes Verputten Good Guys: Christopher Schreck and Bauke Karel Printing: Drukkerij Gewa, Arendonk, Belgium Contributors: Brendan Baker, Carly Blair, Basje Boer, Brenda Bosma, Leon Caren, Zofia Ciechowska, Bobby Doherty, Daniel Evans, Viktor Hachmang, Freek van Heerikhuize, Marc van der Holst, Kathrin Klingner, Lize Kraan, Bas Morsch, Christopher Schreck. Mandy Sharabani, Gert Verbeek, Isolde Woudstra and Suzanna Zak Distribution: Amsterdam: Tessel Dekker, Elizabeth Prins, Bauke Karel, Sandrine Mary, Ana Milheiro, Fedor Oduber, Ansuya Spreksel, Stefan Stasko, Patrick van der Klugt, Dineke Tuinhof, Agata Bar, Charlotte van Brakel Utrecht: Freyja van den Boom, Janna Smeets, Jitske de Vries Groningen: Wout Merbis, Hedwig Plomp Den Haag: Leroy Verbeet Rotterdam: Nahry Dougarem, Lukas Dikker, Ilse van der Spoel Leeuwarden: Jan Pier Brands Leiden: Milou Laan Haarlem: Yannick Tinbergen, Bert Zaremba Nijmegen Arno de Vreng Tilburg/Eindhoven: Kevin Jansen Deventer: Marjolein de Vliegher Delft: Daniel Enciso Breda: Christopher Freudberg Pick up Subbacultcha! Magazine here (among 500 other places): Amsterdam: Kriterion, EYE, Canvas, American Apparel, Episode, CREA, De Balie, Melkweg, Paradiso, OT301, De Nieuwe Anita, Restored, Zipper, Concerto Utrecht: Ekko, ’t Hoogt, Tivoli, The Village, Revenge, Plato, dB’s Rotterdam: Worm, Rotown, Lantaren Venster, De Witte Aap, Willem de Kooning Academie If you want your bar, venue, store or business to be on the distribution list, please send us an email. Advertising To advertise in Subbacultcha! Magazine send an email to magazine@subbacultcha.nl. Memberships Become a member of Subbacultcha!. For only €7 a month you get free access to all Subbacultcha! shows and the monthly magazine sent to your house. Plus, you get a fresh Subbacultcha! bag. Check the website to sign up. Cover: by Thijs Kuijken Page 8
And we are kindly provided by
Top 5
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Last month at our office
Concert: Moon Duo @ De Nieuwe Anita
After the opening of the Strawdogs exhibition at our HQ, we went to De Nieuwe Anita, to find it packed with boys and girls swaying their hips to the dark and pulsating grooves of Moon Duo. Great day in Subbacultcha! land.
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Song: Mac DeMarco - Baby’s Wearing Blue Jeans
Wonderful summer tune from his equally amazing new album, Rock & Roll Nightclub. Listen to the song twice and then try not to sing along, the next time you hear it. Trust us: it can’t be done.
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Novel: Teju Cole - Open City
Usually we only read books that are at least 20 years old, to make sure they stood the test of time. So many books and only so many you can read, right? But Teju Cole’s novel Open City (2011) is an exception to the rule. A wonderful journey through time and space told against the backdrop of the vibrant city of New York.
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Location: On Cloud Nine
A certain person on the Subbacultcha! team just had a baby daughter and he’s particularly enjoying his summer evenings, spent watching quality TV series (Boardwalk Empire, Girls) with his woman by his side and his baby sleeping quietly on his chest. Living the life.
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Colouring Book - Thrill Murray
UK-based publishers Belly Kids are releasing a Bill Murray colouring book called Thrill Murray. For this project 24 illustrators created 24 images, all inspired by the great man himself. Buy it in our webshop.
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By Zofia Ciechowska
This month’s recommendations
New Music
Blood Diamonds
www.soundcloud.com/blooddiamonds
Remember that whole story about Charles Taylor giving Naomi Campbell a bag of blood diamonds and Naomi just called them ‘dirty-looking pebbles’? Really unreliably shit web sources say that’s bollocks and it was actually a copy of Michael Diamond’s, aka Blood Diamond’s, new Phone Sex EP that’s coming out on 16 July. Who would’ve known? Michael Diamond makes deliriously cheery, K-Pop-inspired tracks that’ll make you trip unicorns, ice-cream lollies and kittens dipped in chocolate sauce. His latest track, also ‘Phone Sex’, produced with the superbly awesome Grimes is hitting the top of our summer playlists this year. (And to all the girls/guys looking for a cool tall boyfriend, this dude is 6'9''!)
Protect-U
www.soundcloud.com/protect-u The Washington DC-based studio project of Mike Petillo and Aaron Leitko, Protect-U come from that group of alt-dance music buddies like Ital, Innergaze, Beautiful Swimmers and whatnot. After doing a lot of random button-pressing and crate-digging this duo came up with a sound that buzzes with energetic synths, the occasional chunky clap and melodic shuffles, all with a tinge of swirling analogue ’70s sounds. It’s sexy, wet and woozy, like a skimpy bikini that keeps on falling off after a dip in the pool. Easy now! Page 13
New Music
continued
Haleek Maul
www.soundcloud.com/haleek-maul
Floating somewhere between Barbados, New York and the Internet, 15-year-old Haleek Maul is the new cool kid on the alt-rap circuit. Apparently this dude has been pounding out beats since the tender age of 11: he got his hands on a computer before he hit 10 and now he’s giving Rihanna a run for her money as Barbados’s hottest new musical export. Gravedigging dark horrorcore beats and spitting out some hella creepy lyrics, Haleek reminds me of Odd Future, Mykki Blanco or Spaceghostpurrp, but then I remember he’s 15, which means that this little man will have even fresher tricks up his sleeve any minute now. Check out his EP Oxyconteen, released in June.
Motion Sickness of Time Travel
motionsicknessoftimetravel.bandcamp.com The solo music project of Rachel Evans of LaGrange, Georgia, has been garnering praise for a while now, but this plug is gonna make her HUGE, I swear. Inspired by cosmic/new-age stuff but not in that stuck-in-the-past type of way, Evans’s music spins a web of cosmic love and peace, but at the same time it sounds loud, strong and badass, like a super-fucking-rapid river crashing through a beautiful, serene pine forest. There are 26 (yeah, you heard me) releases on her Bandcamp, each a gem in its own right, ‘Chinaberry’ being the newest collection of drunken bird-paradise sounds. Page 14
New Music
John Jacob Niles
John Jacob Niles was born in 1892 which would have made him 120 if he were still alive today! So we’re whipping out our ouija board, tarot cards, candlesticks and witchy make-up to summon the ghost of probably the most prolific yet somewhat forgotten American balladeer. Niles’s high falsetto slowly recounts the lost tales of Appalachian folk music that he would transcribe on his trips in the Southern States back in the 1930s. And although each song becomes more heart-wrenching than the last, there’s something about this music that makes you want to grow a huge beard, wear a coonskin hat and chop down a few trees or something. Scour the Internet for An Evening with John Jacob Niles.
Kemialliset Ystävät kemiallisetystavat.bandcamp.com
Finnish is cool firstly because it uses awesome umlauts and double consonants everywhere to make super-long words; secondly because it also sounds like cool alien speak; and best of all, it has spawned this amazing recording project called ‘Chemical Friends’ by Jan Anderzén and other musical free-floaters. Since 1995 this man has been sampling everything and anything – from what sounds like meowing cats to balalaikas, mandolins, toys, Sun Ra, Karlheinz Stockhausen and droney spooky-boingy things. His Bandcamp alone will provide at least a summer’s worth of intense aural space travel. Page 15
We Saw You
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Spotted at Subbacultcha
Photo by Lize Kraan
What is your worst travel experience ever? Last year at Dour Festival, the window of our car was smashed. The thieves only took our navigation equipment but the hassle and the ride back home with one window less was damn annoying.
Marco Muhring, spotted at the Com Truise/Molly Nilsson show in Ekko in Utrecht on 7 June 2012
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Features
The Hey! Ho! Let’s Go! Issue
LA’s ’80s-revivalist Ramona Gonzalez better known as Nite Jewel may have added production value to her sophomore album One Second of Love, but it still has the flickering prettiness we know her for. The murk-pop queen switches her divamode on/off and talks flying first class (she didn’t enjoy it), comparing her first record to losing her virginity (she didn’t enjoy it) and travelling in general (she loves it). Also there’s a guy dressed as an ox in the video for the title track (he freaked her out). Interview by Brenda Bosma Photos shot on film in Venice Beach, USA by Suzanna Zak
You seem like a lady of the world. Tell me what first-class flying is like? One time I had to fly first class, because I had missed my flight. It was the only seat they had available. I actually thought it was pretty awful. The seats are only comfortable for tall people. As I’m fairly short my feet couldn’t touch the ground. Also, you don’t get your own table, you have to share this huge island with the person next to you. I was sitting next to this snobby person who was taking Page 18
up the entire island with her papers. It’s a good thing you get free champagne. What can’t you leave without when going on a trip? I can’t leave my journals and notebooks. One time I lost one of my notebooks in Austria. I’d like to think that somebody found it and is reading it right now. Luckily I never have forgotten some of the other essential things like underwear or birth-control pills.
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Nite Jewel
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Nite Jewel
The Hey! Ho! Let’s Go! Issue
Have you ever taken a trip for soulsearching reasons? After my first year of college I went on a two-month backpacking trip to Europe. I was travelling with someone who was very interested in boys. That was kind of annoying. She wanted to go out clubbing every night, whereas I had a boyfriend and didn’t care to know what kind of crazy drink they had in Barcelona. One of the best trips I’ve ever had was just driving across the US with a friend. In the grandness and emptiness of it all you can really get to know yourself. The good thing about trips is that if you are open for it they can give you presents that lie outside of your comfort zone; the bad thing is the moment when you have to pack and head home again. How are you with goodbyes? Kind of terrible. I suffer from super separation problems when I end tours, like I miss my tour mates terribly, even if they annoyed me. I definitely feel happy when I’m travelling. It’s hard to say goodbye to the experience in general. Isn’t it an advantage that your husband is touring with you? That’s not always the case. He has his own musical career. But we’re used to that. We actually enjoy the time apart – I even think it’s good
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for us. When we get to see each other it’s really exciting. You wouldn’t know we’ve been together for seven years. Compared to your first album this one has a smoother and crisper sound. Would you say it’s a more mature and confident sound? Definitely more confident. I compare my first album to losing my virginity. It´s an exciting thing, but really awkward and you don’t need to do that again, you know? So obviously all the sex you’re gonna have after the first time is gonna be slightly more knowing and self-aware. I’m curious to know what really happened in that one second of love. That phrase came to me in a friend’s studio when we recorded the initial sessions for this album. I had a lot of time to sit down and it got me thinking about how I experienced the world. I really felt that the connections we make online are very rapid yet intense and powerful. I don’t think one second of love is something you can really find when you interact in person. In the videoclip for ‘One Second of Love’ you seem a bit left out. Is this exemplary of your everyday life? I read something about you sometimes feeling like an anxious chipmunk? I feel torn a lot in my everyPage 21
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Nite Jewel
day life, I really can shift into different personas depending on the environment. I wanted a video about this dichotomous relationship between in-person interaction and digital interaction. It eventually is conflated into some kind of ecstasy, which you
If your life from now on was a trip you could book at a travel agency, would you rather travel on a bumpy road without navigation or fly first class sitting next to a nice person to an all-inclusive resort? The former of course. I get off on how the world looks, not how it’s
can hear in the song as well. Yes, when the guy dressed as an ox walks in. He was the star! He just fully busted out everything. I didn’t get to talk to him. Is that the anxious chipmunk talking? I think he was a rapper or something. He was quite, um... strange.
been constructed. And then the guy dressed as an ox walks in! [Laughs] Yes, ’cause that can’t be constructed.
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Nite Jewel play on 19 July at EKKO in Utrecht. The show is free for Subbacultcha! members.
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The Hey! Ho! Let’s Go! Issue
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Frankie Rose
New York-based musician Frankie Rose made a name for herself by playing drums in bands such as Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls and Crystal Stilts before picking up the guitar and fronting a band of her own. Recently she’s been doing a lot of touring on the back of her successful new solo album Instellar, so we thought it about time we give her a call and talk about essential travel items, hiking in the mountains and missing American drip coffee ‘So... travel. This is a music magazine, right?’ Interview by Basje Boer Photos shot in Brooklyn, USA by Christopher Schreck
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Frankie Rose
So, you’re about to embark on a European tour. What are your thoughts on touring? Well, there’s so many factors. It depends on who you’re with, your accommodation – that’s like 90% of it. Touring takes a lot of energy. It can be horrible or it can be amazing. I did a tour of forty days in the middle of winter one year and that was horrible. It was beautiful to see everything covered in snow but a drive that should take seven hours took twelve, and then you still have to do a show. But then I’ve also been on tour in the summer and that’s just amazing. On tour you just never know what you’re really in for. Like, anything can happen. Well, that’s the nature of travelling. But I’m very excited about the people that I have on this tour. I’ve sort of gone with the ‘the more the merrier’ kind of philosophy for this tour. I have seven people this time around. So it should be, if anything, no heavy lifting. Literally, because there’s not enough for all of us to carry. [Laughs] What essential items do you need when you’re on tour? I have this pillow that I HAVE to have with me. It’s sort of like my woobie, like babies have. Lavender oil. Page 26
Deodorant, that’s pretty key. [Laughs] And clean socks and underwear and a toothbrush – then you’ll be okay. What European city are you particularly looking forward to on this tour? Barcelona. I love the beach. And I know the city a little bit. Do you speak some Spanish? I do speak a little Spanish, I’m Mexican. I don’t speak it that well. My mother does, my whole family lives in Mexico, but I’m very... American, so... [Laughs] Do you ever get homesick? Oh yeah. I am a true homebody. And I’m not a city person. I mean, I live in New York City and I love it but if I were travelling I would go to an Amazonian rainforest. I don’t think I would want to go see another city. I’d rather go to a waterfall. Or just Hawaii. Or go hiking in the mountains. But I’m always visiting other cities. This year was the first time I’ve ever taken a vacation and it was really amazing. I was in the Dominican Republic and it was great to not have to do anything I didn’t want to do. Just lying on the beach? That’s all I did. And it was so great. What do you miss most when you’re away from home? My bed. My housemates. The
The Hey! Ho! Let’s Go! Issue
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Frankie Rose
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‘There were crazy bad moments, crazy good moments. I was filthy and I had a shaved head.’ food. The food is a big deal. You don’t like foreign food? No, I absolutely do. But it’s just that in New York City and in most metropolitan cities you can get all kinds of different food that’s done really well. Mexican, Japanese, African food – it’s at your fingertips. Indian food, at any time. But not when you’re travelling. Oh, and coffee, American coffee. I miss drip coffee. But I do enjoy European food. It’s a lot of bread and cheese. [Laughs] I did notice that. What’s your fondest holiday memory? Camping in Yosemite, that’s a National Park. I’ve never seen so many stars. We used to camp all the time. I have a lot of great memories of forest camping, beach camping. I never get to do any of that now, I never have the time. It’s a shame. Camping can be a bit of a hassle, I think. Yeah, but it’s a fun hassle. I mean, I enjoy building a fire. That’s the fun of it, I think. But you do have to have a body of water near, so you can go swimming. Otherwise it’s just... icky. So... travel. This is a music magazine, right?
Yeah. I did do a lot of travelling when I was young. I backpacked all around Europe. I was a punk and I lived in squats for six months. That was not boring, that was straight travel. That was before the euro and I couldn’t speak a lick of anything. It was very brave of me, now that I look back on it. Were you by yourself ? Yeah, I was by myself. How old were you? Twenty-two. I was crazy. There were crazy bad moments, crazy good moments. I was filthy and I had a shaved head. But you did make music? No, not back then. That was sort of before. You know, I didn’t know what I was doing. Frankie Rose plays on 18 July at OT301 in Amsterdam. The show is free for Subbacultcha! members.
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Flamingods
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Bursting into peals of laughter every five minutes in their cluttered Brixton house, Flamingods talk about growing up in Bahrain, their collection of exotic musical instruments and setting fire to bandmates. Apparently it happens – even among the best of friends. Meet Kamal, Sam, Craig, Charles and Karthik. Interview by Zofia Ciechowska Photos shot in Brixton, London, UK by Daniel Evans and Brendan Baker
Tell us about growing up in Bahrain. Karthik: I actually grew up in seven different countries and home is somewhere between Dubai and Kosovo. I think it’s so important to experience different places otherwise your outlook on things becomes stagnant. The most important thing is to get out of your bubble; bubbles are the worst. Kamal and Sam: Bahrain is an unbearably hot, humid island – it’s even humid in the winter. It’s a small, small country; everyone knows each other, which is good and bad in many ways. But there was no music scene there so we came here. It’s nice to go back there because it’s very relaxing – that’s all you do: relax and get fat on
your mum’s cooking. Travel seems pretty important in your music. Kamal: For me, travelling is a way of expanding your knowledge about so many lifestyles, cultures, music and film. I don’t think we’d exist as a band if it wasn’t for travelling. Encountering tribal music in the Amazon was really significant for me musically. The fact that they were just playing rhythms that had been passed on to them by their ancestors and that they could improvise without any apparent structure had a profound impact on the way I make music. The same goes for the street musicians I met in Tanzania. Sam: It’s so important to do Page 31
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Flamingods
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things off the beaten path and experience things as they come. Kamal: Plus, all the instruments we’ve collected come from trips we took around the world. We have a taishögoto, a Japanese instrument that Kamal got from a shop in Camden – kind of like a typewriter sitar, if that makes sense: you can plug it in and make loops and stuff. We have these hand drums from Bahrain called darbukas with these lovely Ancient Egyptian designs, which make a beautiful high pitch; and we use rasta-heads during our gigs, made out of shells that always fly off and hit people in the head. But our most precious possession is a keyboard that makes an out-of-tune, clangy sound. We can’t find another one anywhere. If this thing dies our careers are fucked. What do you miss from your travels? Craig, Sam and Kamal: Freedom. When you go somewhere you don’t have any structure, you’re not tied down to anything, you don’t own anything. You are outside your comfort zone but in a good way; we love that loss of comfort zone. Everything seems exciting on holiday, you get a hotdog and you’re like, ‘YEAH! I GOT A HOTDOG!’ Is the cool stuff you wear during your gigs collected during your travels? You Page 34
have a pretty awesome array of headgear. All: We wear Thai ritual hats and a Persian warrior helmet, and Sam wears his favourite poncho. He’s only washed it three times! One time we were at a festival and the smell was pretty bad, so we decided to move Sam to another campsite. He was asleep in his tent at the time, so we picked up his tent with him inside and moved it. A while later we saw Sam emerge from the tent in a huge cloud of smoke. Turns out we put the tent on a dying campfire which burned through the whole tent, his sleeping mat and his poncho. It was hilarious. Kamal, I heard that you might have to leave the UK? Being forced to travel can’t be much fun... Kamal: Yeah, the UK government have changed their visa laws so I have to find a full-time job that pays 20 grand per year within the next two months otherwise I’ll get deported. There’s no way out; it’s looking pretty grim. I’ve received a lot of marriage proposals, though... Flamingods play on 20 July at Roodkapje in Rotterdam and on 21 July at De Nieuwe Anita in Amsterdam. Both shows are free for Subbacultcha! members.
The Hey! Ho! Let’s Go! Issue
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DIIV
Brooklyn four-piece DIIV just released their amazing debut album Oshin through Captured Tracks. Their blend of dreamy pop songs and up-tempo rock and roll grooves have been met with great excitement by the international music press, so chances are they’ll be spending the bigger part of the year on tour. Just before they hit the road, photographer Bobby Doherty met up with them in their hometown Brooklyn and took some beautiful photos. Photos shot by Bobby Doherty in Brooklyn, USA Page 35
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Look on subbacultcha.nl for the complete photo series. Page 36
DIIV
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DIIV play on August 26 at OCCII in Amsterdam. The show is free for Subbacultcha! members. Page 37
Art
Featured Artist
Thijs Kuijken
Thijs Kuijken is better known as I Am Oak, the skilled and sensitive songwriter who has recently released his new album Nowhere Or Tammensaari, which was recorded in the middle of Finnish nowhere. Besides writing songs, Kuijken is also a very gifted photographer. The wonderful, minimalist images printed on these pages betray the same sensitivity and stillness that can be found in his songs, radiating love for detail and nature. The strong focus on something simple and small – like a stone or a branch of leaves – in fact exposes the grandness of life in an almost philosophical way. Thijs Kuijken’s work will be on display at the Subbacultcha! HQ from 09 until 27 July. Da Costakade 150, Amsterdam. Open Mondays to Fridays, 11.00-17.00. Feel free to drop by.
www.iamoak.com Page 38
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Featured Artist
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Music Reviews
New releases worth your while
By Carly Blair
Micachu & the Shapes Never
Twin Shadow Confess
The sloppy, loveable mess of a record that was Micachu & the Shapes’ 2009 debut, Jewellery, was one of the freshest-sounding releases that year. After last year’s live album Chopped & Screwed, this London outfit are back and ready to colour outside the lines of pop all over again with Never. Though it’s somewhat less hyperactive than their debut, the ultra lo-fi production and kitchen-sink instrumentation that gave that record much of its particular cacophonous charm remain. Leading lady Mica Levi and her measured, androgynous vocals serve as a sort of Cesar Milan-esque noise whisperer, holding the leashes of a bouncing, happy pack of instruments of all shapes, sizes and sounds. Without her it would be a chaotic mess, but with her it makes for a liberating listen.
New wave revivalist George Lewis Jr, aka Twin Shadow, broke hearts with his remarkable 2010 debut, Forget, then broke some more hearts and filled up dance floors touring the world with a full band in support of it. According to Lewis, his sophomore album was inspired by the time he crashed his motorcycle with a friend on the back. ‘I remember in that moment I wanted to say everything to him,’ he writes breathlessly. ‘How could I say everything in a split second? How could I bury my words in his heart?’ While his new material is indeed often touchingly confessional, in addition to being considerably more up-tempo and danceable than his early work, it lacks the intimacy that made Forget unforgettable, and his would-be James Dean posturing comes off as overly affected to me.
(Rough Trade)
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(4AD)
Music Reviews
DIIV Oshin
Holograms self-titled
Formerly known as Dive, this Brooklyn-based spin-off of Beach Fossils got its start as Zachary Cole Smith’s solo project, though it’s now evolved into a quartet. Smith conceived the project in a Bushwick painter’s studio with no AC and no running water. While the sweltering surroundings must have made him long for a bit of refreshment, the name Dive was actually inspired by the Nirvana song. No surprise, then, that classic grunge influences are sprinkled throughout Oshin, though Krautrock and psychedelia also inform DIIV’s decidedly retro sound. The reverb that drenches everything lends their songs an appealingly dreamy quality, but it’s Smith’s engrossing guitar melodies that will make you jump right in and explore DIIV’s depths.
Sweden is typically portrayed as the paragon of Scandinavian socialist democracy, the kind of place where everyone is equal and life is generally safe and comfortable. All that orderliness demands its fair share of conformity, though, and if Stockholm’s Holograms are any indication, not everybody finds it so easy to make the necessary sacrifices. To wit: ‘We live in a sterile, boring country and have to create our own distractions.’ Armed with decrepit instruments, post-industrial industriousness, boozefuelled impudence and foolish hope for something better, Holograms wage war against the drudgery of dismal existence with their synth-driven postpunk anthems. The battery of hooks and incendiary sense of urgency they employ are potent enough to help listeners defeat boredom, too.
(Captured Tracks)
(Captured Tracks)
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Music Reviews
continued
Dirty Projectors Swing Lo Magellan
Purity Ring Shrines
This Brooklyn-based experimental pop group have carved out a niche for themselves with their blend of ambitious experimentation, traditional instrumentation, and harmonically-complex vocals. Never resting on his laurels, mastermind David Longstreth has come up with something new once again on their sixth full-length. While previous albums were self-consciously conceptual, Swing Lo Magellan is what Longstreth refers to as ‘an album of songs, an album of songwriting’. It’s amusing to imagine this being something novel. By freeing themselves of self-imposed rules, Dirty Projectors have allowed in a refreshing sense of playfulness and spontaneity, and while they’ve always been an interesting band, that unguarded intimacy makes this their most welcoming and indispensable record yet.
Just one of the many delightful initiatives of Evangelical Christians is the practice of wearing so-called purity rings, which indicate that the wearer has made a vow of chastity. Interesting, then, that the Canadian electro-pop duo of the same name make the kind of dreamy, seductive R&B-inflected dance tracks that lonely music nerds would like to but probably only imagine having sex to. After a series of deliberately released singles, all well-received, anticipation for their debut full-length has reached a fever pitch. Since it contains all four of those great singles, it has by default more gems than your average pop album, but several of its new tracks are just as high quality, and Shrines has enough precious relics to warrant worship by its listeners.
(Domino)
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(4AD)
Music Reviews
Page 45
LUKE TREADAWAY
NATALIA TENA
‘A REAL GEM’ HEAT
EEN FILM VAN DAVID MACKENZIE
VANAF 2 AUGUSTUS IN DE BIOSCOOP www.wildbunch.nl
/WILDBUNCHblx
3ht
By Gert Verbeek and Basje Boer
Film
New Films and DVDs
Sleeping Beauty
Tiny Furniture
The preposterously beautiful Emily Browning plays Lucy, a student with several jobs: at an office, in a bar and as a parttime prostitute. Her private life consists of bickering with her roommates and enabling the addiction of an alcoholic friend, a bookworm called Birdmann. Throughout this somewhat bizarre drama Lucy remains inscrutable, but trying to figure out what’s behind her lies and self-destructive ways is exactly what makes her – and this film – so enigmatic. Especially when Lucy takes on yet another job, one that requires her to be fast asleep while paying customers have their way with her. This much-debated debut by Australian novelist Julia Leigh is definitely a love-it-or-hate-it movie. But even if you hate it, you’ll love to discuss it. (BB) In theatres 12 July
Two years after its premiere, Tiny Furniture has only recently been released in Europe. In the US, Lena Dunham’s second feature became part of the renowned Criterion Collection and got her a job as creator of the HBO series Girls. Dunham plays former art student Aura, back home in New York. She struggles to find a way out of the gap between college and the real world, feeling disregarded by her artist mother (Dunham’s real mother, Laurie Simmons) and dating the wrong men. Her best advisor is druggy British friend and comic relief Charlotte ( Jemima Kirke). Dunham excels in fast sharp dialogues and doesn’t shy from self-degradation. The widescreen format makes the mundane look epic, as it usually does. (GV) Out now on DVD
Julia Leigh, 2012
Lena Dunham, 2010
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Books
Page 48
Illustration by Viktor Hachmang
By Marc van der Holst
How to read...
Books
Richard Brautigan Richard Brautigan was the original hippie writer. He was so hip, he hated hippies. ‘When the 1960s ended, he was the baby thrown out with the bath water,’ friend and fellow hippie writer Thomas McGuane said when the critics stopped digging his books, but they’re still well worth checking out. Most of his oeuvre is very funny, poetic and, well, hippie-dippie stuff. Titles include Willard and His Bowling Trophies, In Watermelon Sugar and Please Plant This Book, to give you an idea. They feature mayonnaise jars, papiermâché birds, a library of unpublished books and lots of beautiful women. Far out.
his Japanese ex-lover who just moved out. It’s all very touching in a weird and wonderful way and really, really good. Though his novels are best, and all worth your time, Brautigan’s poetry is also very groovy. Wilfully naive and childlike, it’s very endearing and sweet stuff. I’ll leave you with a few typical lines from what is one of his most well-known poems, ‘All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace’: I like to think (it has to be!) of a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labors and joined back to nature, returned to our mammal brothers and sisters, and all watched over by machines of loving grace.
My favourite Brautigan book remains the first one I read (thanks again, Brenda Bosma), Sombrero Fallout: A Japanese Novel, about a sombrero falling from the sky and the effect that has on, eh, hu- Right on! Bro, I’m off to my manity (I told you, this is hippie- crash pad to drop some bennies dippie shit. But it’s good hippie- and mellow out. Peace. dippie shit. Dig?) interwoven with the author’s thoughts about Page 49
Fashion
€15 Outfits
By Mandy Sharabani
Every month we give €15 to someone to compose a full outfit for a good night out. Yes, quite a challenge. This month Evelyn Grunau, a 28-year-old imagineering student, living in the north of Amsterdam with her boyfriend and her two cats, dresses up to go see Flamingods. What do you think of the challenge? Batwing Fringe top €15 is a mean budget, because NewYorker - €6.95 (on sale) when you see something nice This top reminded me of the Indian and look at the price tag, some- dress I had as a child. It is a bit too how it’s always €14.99. short though. I cut it up, to make
some accessoires for in my hair
How did Flamingods inspire you? and around my arm. Tribal! I thought of Native American feathery stuff. As a Skirt child, I used to go to the carnival C&A - €4.50 dressed up as an Indian girl with The skirt is not really tribal, but it braided hair in a similar outfit to had a similar color as the top. this one, but brown. Any strategy? The first thing that came to mind was buying a long T-shirt and customising it with, for example, batic. But that turned out to be too expensive. It’s also quite time-consuming, not to mention the risk; I could mess up the shirt.
Feathers NewYorker - €1.95 No Indians without feathers!
Schmink set/4markers Blokker - €0.99 No Indians without schmink! And I could have gotten flip flops at Blokker for €1 but I only had €0,60 left.
Then I simply thought of the top Wanna go shopping for a €15 and took it from there. It took outfit? Please send an email to me four hours in total. fashion@subbacultcha.nl. Page 50
Photos by Isolde Woudstra
Fashion
€15 Outfit
Evelyn Grunau (28) dressing up for Flamingods Budget spent: €14.40 Page 51
Food
Cooking with...
By Zofia Ciechowska
Future Islands’ Samuel T Herring
I always thought that one day when I have a big grown-up kitchen I would get those tiles with meaningful mantras that housewives put in their houses but inPage 52
stead I’d put some Future Islands’ lyrics on them. Ha-ha! My parents have one to this day in their kitchen that says, ‘If mama ain’t happy ain’t
Food
Photo by Pedro Quintans
nobody happy.’ I love that one. No truer maxim has ever been spoken. Are you into fish at all, given your last name? Or has it done that reverse psychology thing that makes you run from tins of tuna and aquariums? I love to eat fish! I really liked fried bluefish as a kid. It’s pretty plain but I still love it, though. I’ve heard of this Dutch food called broodje haring, can you get me some of that, please? Is there any recipe you really enjoy making? I’m not really a recipe guy. I
kind of just shoot from the hip. I made a potato salad for the first time the other day! It was pretty good. No recipe though, I just asked four or five people how to make it and then I just did how I wanted to do it, ha-ha. This is a non-recipe recipe for my special breakfast. It’ll give you super strength... or send you back to sleep. Future Islands play on 14 August at Melkweg in Amsterdam. The show is free for Subbacultcha! members.
The Sam Herring Breakfast Minute 1 potato 1/4 bunch of kale sausage (Jimmy Dean for real) • Dice the potato and throw it into a wok. Fry on medium heat with a bit of olive oil. • Turn every couple of minutes until golden brown. • Chop kale into smaller pieces and add to the wok with the potatoes. • Place a couple of tablespoons of water into the wok to steam and cover.
1-2 eggs salt, pepper, olive oil
• In a separate pan, fry those eggs and those sausages. • I like my yolks runny and with plenty of salt and pepper. • Boom! • Then consume
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Horoscope VIRGO
23 Aug–22 Sept
You’re working on your disappearing act. ‘Now you see me, now you don’t.’ You bump your nose against the mahogany door. Who hung that poster of that window painting by Magritte up there? Oh, sweet illusions.
LIBRA
23 Sept–22 Oct
Below the kitsch painting on the cupboard in the sun, that’s where your cats always fight for a spot. It’s never for the spot next to the difficult abstract thingee you got from your artsy friend who’s into epoxy and turtlenecks. That’s how the world works.
SCORPIO
23 Oct–21 Nov
You don’t like Ally McBeal-type career girls exuding high maintenance and low serotonin; you like big butts and you cannot lie.
SAGITTARIUS
22 Nov–21 Dec
Did your heartbeat just tap the chorus of ‘La Cucaracha’? Are you in love, Sag?
CAPRICORN
22 Dec–20 Jan
Goddamnit, Cornmeister! We love your eloquence, but Page 54
By Brenda Bosma
what’s ‘chillaxing’ doing in your vocabulary? We so are not air-crashing cymbals at this.
AQUARIUS
21 Jan-19 Feb
The camera zooms in. The worms are mating. The camera zooms out. The hawk spots his snack that will only fulfill him for a couple of minutes. Oddly, you feel alive and radiant in this stupid game of games.
PISCES
20 Feb–20 March
You wish you could disappear under that rock that Caspar David Friedrich pranced around on before he painted himself as a contemplative wino. Before you go down, you’d first push him off, ’cause you don’t want no prancing looney on your grave.
ARIES
21 March–20 April
At night still half asleep yet half consciously you try to fluff up the pillow beside you as you always seem to do since the breakup. But now there’s this person lying on it gently snoring a Sam Cooke song straight into your frontal lobe. You pinch it. Yes, you are wide awake.
TAURUS
21 April–21 May
Baby, it’s not love; it’s
Illustrations by Kathrin Klingner
Horoscope
an addiction. This person keeps dangling on your lower lip like a cigarette. Ash falls. You ask for an ashtray. Can’t you reach? Quit smoking already, T-bone.
GEMINI
22 May – 21 June
On holiday you wonder if there are any aquariums in the area. You’re sick of all those overweight people with their flaky skin creeping around in circles. You long to see some fish. Oh fuck, you just want to go home.
complete stranger in a supermarket. And it hits you right there in the aisle with all the toilet fresheners; you are a good person – or at least you’ll die trying to be one. ‘No, you have a nice day, Salima!’
LEO
22 July–21 August
CANCER 22 June–21 July
Normally you enjoy being a peacock when it comes to the game of courtship, parading around your interest for weeks before hitting your target. Guess what? This month you’re like the bottom corner of a refrigerator door Nothing that we’re doing on this and your target is a magnet slidplanet is important. But what’s ing towards you like it’s the easmore important than having a iest thing. We don’t know why – laugh with a complete strang- well, yeah: gravity of course – but er who at the same time as you let us say: just enjoy the smoothreaches for a tube of squeeze ness of fate’s happy facial exprescheese? Maybe it’s coincidence, sion. maybe it’s true love. Foremost, you are having a laugh with a Page 55
Muziekgebouw Early Bird Preview 2012-2013 John Cage 100 Fall 2012 In the Fall of 2012, Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ celebrates the 100th birthday of John Cage with a series of cutting-edge concerts. Cage was a pioneer and an enfant terrible of modern-classical music and music notation.
Listen To This 2012/2013 The Listen To This series explores the boundaries of (modern) classical music with challenging concerts and an even more challenging side programme. Highlights: Colin Stetson on 8 March 2013 and Konono No.1 on 5 April 2013.
World Minimal Music Festival 3-7 April 2013 The second instalment of this fantastic festival promises to be a good one. Work by groundbreaking minimal music composers is performed by some of today’s leading artists. Just like last year there’ll be a free complementing side programme with film, debates, art and sound.
Early Birds Everyone under 30 for €10,- to Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ
Call het Muziekgebouw or buy tickets at the register 020-788 20 00 | www.muziekgebouw.nl
Agenda On the following pages:
Subbacultcha! concerts and films totally free for members Page 58
Other shows Page 64 Free tickets Page 76
This is Travis Egedy AKA Pictureplane. Travis plays on 10 August in Meneer Malasch in Amsterdam. The show is free for Subbacultcha! members.
See all these shows for free. Sign up at www.subbacultcha.nl.
Disappears
08 July - Effenaar, Eindhoven 19.30 | €9 | Free for Subbacultcha! members
This krauty, repetition-loving Chicago group have described theirs as ‘music for record collectors’. After releasing their second album last year, they lost drummer, producer and co-founding member Graeme Gibson to his other project, The Fruit Bats. Fortunately, they struck gold in terms of replacement: Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley joined their ranks and is now fully integrated into the band. Their third full-length album Pre-Language came out on Kranky earlier this year, and features their most focused work yet.
I Like to Watch Too
13-14 July - Paradiso, Amsterdam 20.30 | €15 | Free for Subbacultcha! members
While ‘I Like to Watch Too’ may sound like a support group for Peeping Toms, it also happens to be an annual showcase of cutting-edge dance performances interspersed with installations, music and film. With performers both international and Dutch, established and up-and-coming, and performances both rough and ragged and silent and intimate staged in every corner of this legendary pop temple, I Like to Watch Too should offer up plenty of camaraderie for all the dance-loving voyeurs out there. Page 58
See all these shows for free. Sign up at www.subbacultcha.nl.
Frankie Rose + Herrek
18 July - OT301, Amsterdam 20.30 | €8 | Free for Subbacultcha! members Frankie Rose made a name for herself by lovin’ (or at least drummin’ for) and leavin’ the Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts and Dum Dum Girls. She then formed a ’60s revivalist group of her own, Frankie Rose and the Outs, and quickly released their solid self-titled debut back in 2010. Clearly not one to stand by her band, after just one record the Outs were out when Rose released the fantastic Interstellar a few months ago. She’s left behind the reverb-soaked retro of yesteryear, setting her course instead for some downright heavenly dream pop. Support by Rotterdam based tribal pop band Herrek featuring members of Luik and Bonne Aparte.
Nite Jewel + No Ceremony /// 19 July -EKKO, Utrecht 20.00 | €9 | Free for Subbacultcha! members
The LA scene revolving around Ariel Pink churns out the kind of music you might expect of a place that’s as suffused with irony and weed smoke as it is with sunshine and smog. Nite Jewel’s Ramona Gonzalez, as well as her husband and bandmate (and Haunted Graffiti member) Cole M Greif-Neill, can be counted among its key members. Gonzalez’s early work fell in line with Pink’s warped, AM radio funk aesthetic, and could justly be described as ‘dance music you can’t actually dance to’. Her latest album, One Second of Love, retains the slinky retro vibes of yore, but also finds her moving in a cleaner-sounding and poppier direction. Support from mysterious Manchester pop group No Ceremony ///. Page 59
See all these shows for free. Sign up at www.subbacultcha.nl.
Flamingods
20 July - Roodkapje, Rotterdam (+ Herrek) 22.00 | €7 | Free for Subbacultcha! members 21 July - De Nieuwe Anita, Amsterdam (+ No Ceremony ///) 20.00 | €7 | Free for Subbacultcha! members
Kamal Rasool and three of his four bandmates in Flamingods grew up on Bahrain, a small island in the Persian Gulf. While everyone else on the island was listening to rap and metal, Kamal was travelling the world with his family, collecting percussion instruments along the way, and infecting his friends with the likes of fellow tribal-drumming enthusiasts Animal Collective. Fast forward a few years, and what was originally Kamal’s bedroom project has evolved into Flamingods, a psychedelic ethno-folk clergy based in London preaching Sung Tongs sermons to the weary masses. These dudes are a spontaneous bunch known for starting parties that only the cops can stop, so come prepared for an all-out jamboree.
Pictureplane
10 August - Meneer Malasch, Amsterdam 20.30 | €7| Free for Subbacultcha! members
On last year’s Thee Physical, Pictureplane’s Travis Egedy introduced the world to what he termed ‘new forms of techno fetish in a world with no true physical limits’. Lyrically, the album focused on themes of transcending Page 60
As a member you will also receive this magazine every month plus a stylish tote bag
gender and embracing sexuality. Sonically, you could call it synthwave or a sort of industrial-pop which intermingles ’90s diva-sounding vocal samples and Egedy’s breathy vocals with buzzing synths and pounding beats. While Egedy’s mission to open up queer culture to the outside world got some drag queens’ panties in a bunch, his music’s viscerally-pleasing blend of the rough with the pretty and overall danceability had this old hetero feeling more trancegendered than usual. Let’s get post-physical!
Future Islands + Fair Ohs
14 August - Melkweg, Amsterdam 19.30 | €13 | Free for Subbacultcha! members
This Baltimore synth pop trio’s latest album, On the Water, was recorded at the seaside. Waterfront life is present throughout the album, from field recordings to the tempo, which has mostly slowed down to match the ocean’s tranquil rhythm. While it’s mellower than the songs on 2010’s excellent In Evening Air, OtW has plenty to keep us moist, its songs filled to the brim with all the romance, throbbing rhythms, addictive melodies and stirring vocals that earned these guys a special place in Subbacultcha’s hearts in the first place. Singer Samuel T Herring’s frenzied onstage antics and the band’s tightness make their live shows well worth witnessing.
Jacuzzi Boys
24 August - dB’s, Utrecht 21.00 | €8 | Free for Subbacultcha! members
When asked if they’d ever consider relocating from their hometown to a place with a more vibrant music scene, Jacuzzi Boys answer with an emphatic ‘No!’ Why’s that, you ask? Probably because they’re from Miami, and their practice space is located in a trailer in a state park on a tropical island. Guess that explains their surfy garage pop and sunshiny disposition, too. Their songs are catchy as hell and backed by an energetic punk attitude that makes for great live performances, so tonight’s show is bound to be a thriving, hot and sweet summer punk endeavour. Do not miss. Page 61
See all these shows for free. Sign up at www.subbacultcha.nl.
Spilt Milk - 10'' Release Show
25 August - De Nieuwe Anita, Amsterdam 20.00 | €7 | Free vinyl for Subbacultcha! members We’re proud to announce that we’ll be releasing a 10'' called Carnet De Voyage by one of our favourite Dutch acts, Spilt Milk. The beautiful modern folk songs on this release are based on early poems by the American Modernist Wallace Stevens and are truly something else. For a change, entrance will not be free for Subbacultcha! members; however, if you show your Subbacultcha! pass at the door you’ll get the fresh 10'' for free. Good deal, right? See you there!
DIIV
26 August - OCCII, Amsterdam 20.30 | €7 | Free for Subbacultcha! members
Formerly known as Dive, this Brooklyn-based spin-off of Beach Fossils got its start as Zachary Cole Smith’s solo recording project. Nowadays, DIIV is a quartet which includes drummer Colby Hewitt, formerly of Smith Westerns. The name Dive was actually inspired by the Nirvana song. No surprise, then, that classic grunge influences are sprinkled throughout their music, though Krautrock and psychedelia also inform their decidedly retro sound. The reverb that drenches everything lends their songs an appealingly dreamy quality, but it’s Smith’s engrossing guitar melodies that will make you want to jump right in and explore DIIV’s depths. Page 62
Shows in September
Agenda
As a member you will also receive this magazine every month plus a stylish tote bag
All Month: Foam Photography Museum
Open daily 10.00-18.00, Thur & Fri until 21.00 | €8 | Free for members
As usual, Subbacultcha! members get free entry to Foam Photography Museum. The always special exhibitions at Holland’s leading photography museum continue throughout the summer. Go check out Light of Other Days (Until 22 August) by the talented Swiss duo Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs; Album Beauty curated by Erik Kessels which is an owe to old-school photoalbums; an exhibition of the work of paparazzo Ron Galella and much more. Also still on display is our very own exhibition Musicians at &Foam (Vijzelstraat 78, until 15 July). Check foam.org for a full programme.
Bostheater - Side Programme
Every Sunday until 01 September - Openluchttheater Amsterdamse Bos, Amstelveen
Located at the heart of the Amsterdamse Bos, this open-air theatre is a truly amazing setting for dramatic performances. Every year during the summer Het Bostheater presents a modern take on a classic play. This year you can enjoy Ödön von Horváth’s Wiener Wald, inspired by a Viennese waltz composed by Johann Strauss II. Besides the main event, the theatre will also be open on Sundays for a diverse side programme that will be free for Subbacultcha! members. Expect concerts, theatre performances, poetry readings and lots more. For more info go to www.bostheater.nl. Page 63
Page 63
Agenda
Focus
Pitch Festival After a solid debut, this festival will once again grace the Westergasterrein with top names in progressive electronic music influenced by everything from dubstep to house, pop, disco and jazz. Why trek out to the middle of nowhere, wait in long lines to shower and sleep in a smelly tent when you can dance, do drugs and catch VD right here in Amsterdam? 06-07 July - Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam FRIDAY, 06 JULY HIGHLIGHTS The Weeknd On record, Toronto’s Abel Tesfaye’s mix of left-field production and R&B is sprawling and druggy, better suited to the after-party than the dance floor, but he’s bringing a band on tour with him. If early live videos are any indication, the Weeknd should get your Pitch weekend off to a delightfully debauched start. Nick Waterhouse This 25-year-old San Franciscan looks like Buddy Holly and makes retro rock ’n’ roll and soul that’s energetic and timelesssounding enough to make you forget the day the music died. SBTRKT London producer Aaron Jerome makes a kind of post-dubstep à la James Blake or Jamie Woon that’s unencumbered by (potentially disappointing) live vocals and eminently more danceable than either. Azari & III This Toronto quartet’s sexually-charged lyrics, disco vibes and cross-dressing diva vocalists make them kindred spirits of Page 64
Hercules and Love Affair, albeit in a less campy and ultimately more credible and interesting way. Vondelpark This British trio got the laptop containing their entire new album stolen last summer in Amsterdam. Here’s hoping that their hypnotic mix of post-dubstep, post-rock trip hop and experimental elements finally earns them the karma they deserve. SATURDAY, 07 JULY HIGHLIGHTS Blondes Brooklyn-based duo Blondes make atmospheric electronic dance music based on jamming over a looped foundation. Hopefully the torn passport problems that kept them from playing at OT301 this winter won’t plague them this time around! Nosaj Thing LA-based Jason Chung was destined to become a band geek, but then a hip-hoploving bus driver, some bootlegged audioediting software and productive friendships with the likes of Daedelus and Flying Lotus shaped him into the hip-hop and dubstepinfluenced IDM whizz he is today.
Focus
Agenda
Nosaj Thing
Shlohmo Hailing from Los Angeles, Henry Laufer AKA Schlomo makes slo-mo post-dubstep compositions with an ethereal beauty that harks back to classic Boards of Canada, placing him among the cream of the crop of talented young beat-makers currently taking the world of electronic music by storm.
Gold Panda With a name like Derwin Schlecker, Gold Panda was destined to find a profession that justified the use of a stage name. Happily his choice was to make ecstatic, shimmering electronica flecked with bits of hip hop and folk. More info: www.pitchfestival.nl Page 65
BINNENKORT O.A. DO/5/JUL
EXCLUSIEVE NL CLUBSHOW
N I C K WAT E R H O U S E
WO/22/AUG
DEER TICK
+ NAALD EN KRAAK DJ’S
VR/24/AUG
ZA/7/JUL
KICKING THE HABIT <3
DISAPPEARS
+ KLEININDUSTRIE + WOLVON
DO/06/SEP
DO/19/JUL
SUBBACULTCHA! PRESENTS:
NITE JEWEL
ZA/28/JUL
BRIGHT FRENCH FRIES + JUNE MILLER + MILEZ & EL MARIA
SUMM ER DARKNESS WINTERKÄLTE + NÄO + DIRTY K + MONOLITH
E K K O E N T I V O L I P R E S E N T EREN:
ADRIAN YOUNGE PRESENTS VENICE DAWN
DO/13/SEP
LOCATIE: KARGADOOR
DOUG PAISLEY
+ WOLVES IN LOVELAND
VOLLEDIG PROGRAMMA & TIJDEN:
POPPODIUM EKKO | BEMUURDE WEERD WZ 3 | 3513 BH UTRECHT | WWW.EKKO.NL
Shows in July and August
Agenda
Twin Shadow plays three shows in the Netherlands this summer, of which one is at de-Affaire in Nijmegen. A free festival with an amazing line up. Go east!
Zomer in de Tolhuistuin until 30 September - Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam While awaiting the grand opening in 2013, Tolhuistuin in Amsterdam-Noord are preopening their doors during the summer. From Thursday till Sunday you can enjoy drinks on their amazing terrace overlooking Het IJ, as well as a diverse and entertaining cultural programme featuring concerts, parties and lots more.
Metropolis Festival 01 July - Zuiderpark, Rotterdam Each year, this free festival attracts roughly 35,000 visitors to its various stages around Zuiderpark, and has long served as a diving board for upcoming bands that tend to go on to make a big splash (Wu Tang Clan, for example). This year’s lineup features a diverse mix of new and established, mostly American and Dutch acts ranging from hip hop to punk and folk.
Connan Mockasin 01 July - Metropolis Festival, Rotterdam 02 July - Paradiso, Amsterdam New Zealander Connan Hosford started a blues-pop band called Connan and the Mockasins back in 2004. They relocated a
few times, swapped a few members, then Hosford returned to New Zealand, scrapped the whole lineup and renamed the project Connan Mockasin. It must have been a wild ride, because their sound has evolved into something truly strange, featuring warped guitars and creepy melodies, with colourful, Holy Mountain-esque videos to match.
Active Child 01 July - Metropolis Festival, Rotterdam 03 July - Paradiso, Amsterdam 10 July - Doornroosje, Nijmegen Ex-choirboy Pat Grossi is quite the musical chameleon. After easing modern ears into the notion of harp-based dance music, he changed his colours subtly, stripping away the cheesy, blatantly chillwavey synths of his early work and replacing them with more R&B-inflected vocals and a post-dubsteppier feel.
Wiener Wald 03 July - 01 September - Bostheater, Amsterdam Located at the heart of the Amsterdamse Bos, Het Bostheater is a truly amazing setting for theatre performances. All summer you can enjoy Ödön von Horváth’s play Wiener Wald as well as an entertaining side programme. Read more on page 63. Page 67
WO 4 JUL METRIC VR 6 JUL SHEARWATER VR 6 JUL VIVE LA FETE ZO 8 JUL KURT VILE & THE VIOLATORS DO 12 JUL AMSTERDAM BASS FESTIVAL T/M
CASPA, DOOM, FOREIGN BEGGARS,
ZA 14 JUL SKISM, ED RUSH + MANY MORE
DI 14 AUG FUTURE ISLANDS | FAIR OHS WO 15 AUG CEREMONY MA 3 SEP WALK OFF THE EARTH DI 4 SEP OF MONSTERS AND MEN WO 5 SEP WILL AND THE PEOPLE WO 19 SEP FUN. | WALK THE MOON LET OP: DIT IS SLECHTS EEN SELECTIE VAN HET PROGRAMMA. HET VOLLEDIGE PROGRAMMA IS TE VINDEN OP WWW.MELKWEG.NL MELKWEG AMSTERDAM - LIJNBAANSGRACHT 234A
Agenda
Shows in July and August
Julidans 03-14 July - various locations, Amsterdam The 22nd edition of Julidans presents the grand masters and enfants terribles of the international contemporary dance scene. The company of nudity-loving Canadian choreographer Dave St Pierre will open the festival with a performance that’s sure to provoke.
hearts with his 2010 debut, Forget, then broke some more hearts and filled up dance floors when he toured the world with a full band to progressively more packed houses in support of it. In general he skillfully blends a variety of ’80s influences, lovelorn sentiments and a cinematic vibe into distinctive and affecting songs, but his newer material is considerably more uptempo and danceable than his early work.
Pitch Festival
Kurt Vile & The Violators
06-07 July - Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam After a solid debut, this festival will once again grace the Westergasterrein with top names in progressive electronic music. Read more on page 64.
08 July - Melkweg, Amsterdam 14 July - Valkhofpark, Nijmegen (de-Affaire) Philadelphia’s resident childish prodigy and his band of constant hitmakers churn out guitar-focused, um, ‘new’ classic rock. Lately Vile has stripped away most of the effects and production grime that muddied his earlier work, revealing songs that are more spacious and cogent than ever, yet still capable of transporting you back to listening to music with your dad as a kid.
8Bahn Area Festival 06-08 July - 8Bahn Area, Ede Three days of nonstop programming? Camping on location? Absurd lineup? And all of that in one setting? One setting which happens to be on a former military site? Here in the Netherlands? Welcome to 8Bahn Area, the self-proclaimed Most Bizarre Summer Festival, featuring five stages of the most progressive (mostly) house and techno DJs and live acts out there.
Disappears 07 July - EKKO, Utrecht 08 July - Effenaar, Eindhoven This krauty, repetition-loving Chicago group just added Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley to their ranks and dropped their most focused full-length yet. Read more on page 58.
Twin Shadow 07 July - Vera, Groningen 08 July - Rotown, Rotterdam 14 July - Valkhofpark, Nijmegen (de-Affaire) George Lewis Jr, aka Twin Shadow, broke
St Vincent 10 July - Doornroosje, Nijmegen 11 July - Tivoli De Helling, Utrecht 12 July - Dour Festival, Belgium While St Vincent’s first two albums were a bit precious, Annie Clark don’t wanna be a cheerleader no more, and with her latest album, Strange Mercy, she’s sullied the counterfeit naivete of Marry Me and ripped and torn away the lavish orchestral flourishes of Actor, and what’s left is her least affected and most empathetic work yet.
CocoRosie 11 July - 013, Tilburg 31 July - Paradiso, Amsterdam CocoRosie have a strange beauty to their sound. Sisters Bianca and Casady started making music together in Paris in 2003 after previously having fallen out. Their 2010 Page 69
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Shows in July and August
album, Grey Oceans, showed off a new, less lo-fi aesthetic and crisper instrumentation, and their solid new 7” single ‘We Are On Fire’ / ‘Tears for Animals’ just came out on Touch and Go.
Dour Festival 12-15 July - Dour, Belgium Dour has cemented its status not only as one of the biggest European festivals, but also one of the best run and most affordable for its size. For its 24th edition, the new electro, dubstep and drum ’n’ bass stage will be expanded and will occupy a new area of the site, and along with six other stages will attract 200 of the best of rock, pop, indie, hardcore, metal, reggae, dub, techno, electro, house, disco, dance, hip hop and rap acts from around the world.
Club 4 Reel ft. Excepter 13 July - OCCII, Amsterdam Club 4 Reel is an electronic club night started earlier this year combining DJs with live experimental dance music. If you’ve been to the OCCII but never heard Excepter, and I told you that they’re ‘totally an OCCII band’, then you heard them immediately afterwards, you would simply nod your head in agreement. Boundary-pushing, psychedelic and vaguely disturbing stuff.
I Like to Watch Too 13-14 July - Paradiso, Amsterdam This cutting-edge dance and multimedia festival should offer plenty to peep at for all the dance-loving voyeurs out there. Read more on page 58.
Festival de-Affaire 14-20 July - Valkhofpark, Nijmegen Another promising free festival designed to lure culture vultures from Amsterdam and
Agenda
beyond to random parks in less-touted cities outside the capital. This bad boy features several terrific bands spanning pretty much every genre a modern-day self-respecting hipster is permitted to non-ironically enjoy. Consider this a golden opportunity to explore what Holland’s oldest city has to offer. ft. Awesome Tapes from Africa, Fenster, Twin Shadow, Kurt Vile & the Violators.
Lou Barlow 14 July - Valkhofpark, Nijmegen (de-Affaire) 15 July - Paradiso, Amsterdam Besides being bassist for indie-rock stalwarts Dinosaur Jr, Lou Barlow also fronted The Folk Implosion and the now-revived Sebadoh. His bands influenced more commercially successful contemporaries such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and you can argue that especially Sebadoh’s brand of scrappybut-beautifully-melodic indie-rock stands the test of time better.
Frankie Rose 18 July - OT301, Amsterdam This former Vivian Girl has left behind the retro of yesteryear, setting her course instead for some downright heavenly dream pop. Read more on page 59.
Nite Jewel 19 July - EKKO, Utrecht Nite Jewel’s Ramona Gonzalez gives friend Ariel Pink’s warped AM radio vibes a poppier and cleaner-sounding twist. Read more on page 59.
No Ceremony /// 19 July - EKKO, Utrecht 21 July - De Nieuwe Anita, Amsterdam Cold keyboard loops, distorted beats and warped vocals, shape their bleak and grim aural world. Page 71
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Shows in July and August
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Drukpers ft. John Talabot
Pictureplane
20 July - Trouw, Amsterdam
10 August - Meneer Malasch, Amsterdam
Just when you’d like nothing better than a permanent vacation, the German label of the same name brings one of today’s premier purveyors of Balearic bliss to perhaps the finest venue in Amsterdam to enjoy ecstatic dance vibes. Note that those nice folks at Trouw have decided to help you afford all those impermanent vacations: until 21 July tickets are half-price (so just €8) before midnight. Bless!
Pictureplane’s Travis Egedy makes distorted post-physical pop for perverts with a techno fetish. Read more on page 60.
Flamingods 20 July - Roodkapje, Rotterdam 21 July - De Nieuwe Anita, Amsterdam This London-by-way-of-Bahrain psychedelic ethno-folk group preaches Sung Tongs sermons to the weary masses in tribal drum form. Read more on page 60.
Here We Go Magic 13 August - Paradiso, Amsterdam After releasing a dazzling solo debut as Here We Go Magic, Luke Temple brought a full band on board. Fortunately, they clicked on stage well enough to draw the attention of Nigel Godrich, who offered to help them translate their hypnotic live vibe to tape. Godrich’s guidance has served their sound well, capitalising on both Temple’s mastery of somnolent atmospherics and the liveliness the band adds to the mix. The resulting album, A Different Ship, is their most seaworthy yet.
Kliko Fest ft. Ty Segall
Lower Dens
04 August - Patronaat, Haarlem Ty Segall is like the rock ’n’ roll equivalent of the goose that laid the golden egg, putting out a steady stream of consistently solid neo-psychedelia, and he’s even more exciting live than he is on record. Add to that nine other garage bands, and you’ve got yourself a rock ‘n’ roll decathlon just in time for the Olympics.
13 August - Paradiso, Amsterdam 15 August - Merleyn, Nijmegen Jana Hunter and her band of dark nerds often remind me of fellow Baltimore outfit Beach House, but whereas their pop evokes the kind of sweet dreams your mother bid you, Lower Dens’ somnambulant explorations are more ambiguous, and therefore more fascinating. Pop a few nootropics and let their complex and subtle magic do its work.
Shabazz Palaces 05 August - Bitterzoet, Amsterdam Ishmael Butter, The Artist Formerly Known As Butterfly (of Digable Planets fame), continues to trade in left-field hip hop with intellectual aspirations with his newest hip-hop collective. Last year’s Black Up featured languid and jazzy production that recalled J Dilla’s vibe in general and mellow, word-of-the-day-loving lyrics that transcended overblown rap stereotypes.
OFWGKTA (Odd Future) 14 August - Paradiso, Amsterdam This LA hip-hop collective featuring Tyler the Creator and Frank Ocean, also known as Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, have gotten as much attention for their antics as they have for their music. Basically, imagine what would happen if you took the hyperactive kid eating Elmer’s glue in Page 73
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Shows in July and August
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Shows in July and August
your second-grade class, added 15 years, and threw a shitload of money, attention and pussy at him, and multiply that by, like, 15. Anarchy.
Future Islands + Fair Ohs 14 August - Melkweg, Amsterdam This Baltimore synth-pop trio never let us down live, the band’s reliable tightness creating the perfect backdrop for singer Samuel T Herring’s frenzied onstage antics. Read more on page 61.
Ceremony 15 August - Melkweg, Amsterdam Ceremony hail from the Bay Area, and made their (apparently-not-so-unique) name playing purist hardcore in the tradition of Black Flag. Perhaps to the dismay of some fans of their early work, their latest album, Zoo, finds their music falling more in line with the Joy Division, Wire and Pixies influences they’ve alluded to all along.
Jonathan Richman 15 August - De Unie, Rotterdam 16 August - Bitterzoet, Amsterdam Jonathan Richman is the founder of the influential proto-punk band The Modern Lovers. Since their eventual breakup he’s built up a devoted cult following as a solo performer, charming audiences with his goofy stage presence and unaffected outlook on life.
sic. Amongst the highlights of the music programme are Deer Tick, Bowerbirds and Of Montreal.
Junior Boys 22 August - Bitterzoet, Amsterdam In a crowded landscape, Junior Boys stand way out for their ability to be catchy without being shallow, and romantic without being schlocky.
JEFF The Brotherhood 23 August - Vera, Groningen Nashville duo who make garage pop that sounds like Weezer with ear-melting guitar solos and who have recorded splits with Ty Segall and Best Coast.
Jacuzzi Boys 24 August - dB’s, Utrecht Jacuzzi Boys play catchy garage pop songs with an energetic punk attitude that makes for great live shows. Read more on page 61.
Spilt Milk 22+23 August - Noorderzon Festival, Groningen 25 August - De Nieuwe Anita, Amsterdam We’re proud to announce that we’ll be releasing a 10” by one of our favourite Dutch acts, Spilt Milk. Come join us for the release party in De Nieuwe Anita. Read more on page 62,
Noorderzon Festival
DIIV
16-26 August - Various Locations, Groningen Groningen’s very own international performing arts festival Noorderzon is back with their 22nd edition. Once again the festival offers up a cutting-edge mix of contemporary art, theatre, modern dance and live mu-
26 August - OCCII, Amsterdam This Beach Fossils spinoff’s reverbdrenched dreaminess and glorious guitars are cool enough to make you want to forget the sand and jump into something deeper. Make sure you don’t miss this one. Read more on page 62. Page 75
Free Stuff
Free tickets and goodies
To win, sign up to our mailing list on www.subbacultcha.nl. 2X2 TICKETS BOOK LAUNCH D.I.E NOW + SHOW REAL DRAMA
3X2 TICKETS 8BAHN FESTIVAL
2X2 TICKETS TWIN SHADOW
01 July Veemtheater, Amsterdam
06-08 July 8Bahn Area, Ede
8 July Rotown, Rotterdam
2X2 TICKETS ST VINCENT
2X2 TICKETS JOHN TALABOT
3X2 TICKETS CEREMONY
11 July Tivoli, Utrecht
20 July Trouw, Amsterdam
15 August Melkweg, Amsterdam
We’re also giving away free tickets to Kliko Fest, Kurt Vile & The Violators and Noorderzon Festival Page 76
Submitted photos
AFTER MIDNIGHT
Send photos that were taken after midnight to aftermidnight@subbacultcha.nl If your photo gets published, you win a good goodie This monthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s photo was submitted by Dineke Cornelissen Page 77
Overview of all Subbacultcha! shows in July and August
08 July
Disappears
Effenaar, Eindhoven 19.30 | €9 | Free for members
14 August
Future Islands + Fair Ohs Melkweg, Amsterdam 19.30 | €12 | Free for members
13-14 July
24 August
I Like to Watch Too
Jacuzzi Boys
Paradiso, Amsterdam 20.30 | €15 | Free for members
dB’s, Utrecht 21.00 | €8 | Free for members
18 July
Frankie Rose + Herrek
25 August
Spilt Milk - 10” Release
OT301, Amsterdam 20.30 | €8 | Free for members
De Nieuwe Anita, Amsterdam 20.00 | €7 | Free vinyl for Subbacultcha! members
19 July
26 August
Nite Jewel + No Ceremony ///
DIIV
OCCII, Amsterdam 20.30 | €7 | Free for members
EKKO, Utrecht 20.00 | €9 | Free for members
All Month
20 July
Subbacultcha at &foam
Flamingods + Herrek
Open Wed-Sun 10.00-18.00, Thur until 21.00 | Free for all | Until 15 July
Roodkapje, Rotterdam 22.00 | €8 | Free for members
Foam
21 July
Open daily 10.00-18.00, Thur and Fri until 21.00 | €8 | Free for members
De Nieuwe Anita, Amsterdam 20.00 | €7 | Free for members
Amsterdamse Bos, Amsterdam Every Sunday free for members
10 August
see their website for info
Flamingods + No Ceremony ///
Bostheater
Mediamatic
Pictureplane
Meneer Malasch, Amsterdam 20.30 | €7 | Free for members
See all these shows for free. Join at www.subbacultcha.nl Page 78
3 JULI t/m 15 SEPTEMBER LIEFDE, KITSCH, HUMOR & MUZIEK IN HET BOS WIENER WALD 3 juli t/m 1 september, di t/m za BOSGASTEN concerten op zondag BOSLAB 4 t/m 15 september CHECK DE BOSLADDER OP BOSTHEATER.NL VOOR DE PROGRAMMERING ZONDAG GRATIS TOEGANG VOOR LEDEN VAN SUBBACULTCHA!