It's off to Brooklyn

It's off! To Brooklyn! My submission for The Sketchbook Project. I suffered from the 'blank canvas syndrome' for a long time, but when I had finally decided what to do with my theme ("the grey side of life") I did enjoy it a lot, experimenting with different techniques and just making silly portraits. Instead of using the ultrathin paper of the sketchbook I used paper made from recycled elephant poo (!!), which I then hand bound together using a saddle stitch. I'm not super pleased with it and next year I'm going to do everything differently  (of course :-), but it definitely got the creative juices flowing. And I guess that's what it's all about. Here are some sneak peeks..

The sketchbooks will go on an exhibition tour in April, starting in New York. Then my sketchbook will travel, along with a staggering 5000 other books, to Chicago, Portland OR, Vancouver, LA, San Fransisco, Boston, Portland ME, Toronto, Philly, Atlanta, Austin, Melbourne and last stop London.

The thing with lists

I regret not having made a "Best of 2011" list. I'm a pretty obsessive list maker: shopping lists, to do lists, checklists, playlists... And I especially love end-of-the-year lists. What better way to reflect on the past year than to put it in lists? It raises all sorts of issues. Like what the hell have I been up to these last 12 months? With whom? Have my tastes shifted? What is it exactly I enjoy in this song or movie or book? Oh remember that gig?! Wait a minute, was that this year, or last year? What were my highlights and what were my lows? Etc. 

I know exactly the reason for the absence of my musical Best-of list. I just find it too difficult to put one song above the other, to put them in a hierarchy. I guess for me thinking about the list is more important that the actual countdown. But I do want to force upon you the songs from 2011 that I enjoyed the most (even though it's way too late - we're almost two weeks into the new year (yikes!)), so I'm just going to do it by presenting you a few in quiet random categories.

In the category Best Retro Indie Pop...

Cults - Bumper. Download it here.

Love the girl group sound. With a guy. 

In the category Best Fuzzy Guitar...

Male Bonding - Bones. Download it here.

Runner ups: The Drums, Wavves, WU LYF and Wild Flag (though not as fuzzy).

In the category Best Electronic...

Little Dragon - Ritual Union. Download it here.

This song was a revelation to me it was.

In the category Best Foreign Language...

Chucha Santamaria Y Usted - Fiebre Tropical. Download it here.

From Oakland of all places..

In the category Best British Alternative Rapper...

Ghostpoet - Cash and Carry Me Home. Download it here.

Overall Dels impressed me more with his album GOB, but then again his best singles were released in 2010. The fact that Ghostpoet's show was one of my most enjoyable gigs of the year puts him in favor here.

In the category Most Overlooked Artist...

Theophilus London - Why Even Try (feat. Sara Quin) (from Tegan and Sara) (RAC Remix). Download it here.

I've been madly in love with this guy from Brooklyn ever since his early mix tapes, that were full of The Smiths references. Every single tune he's released since then has been absolute quality. 

In the category Best Cover...

Spoek Mathambo - Control (Joy Division).

This was a tough one. I listend to Tennis' cover of Brenda Lee's Is It True? an awful lot. But it's the video for Control that has made me tip over to the South African.

Gems from the East and the West

I'm a big fan of girl groups; they make up a substantial amount of my record collection. So you might imagine the thrill when I came across the cd Let's A Go-Go! Singapore and Southeast Asian Pop Scene 1964-69 at Earwax in Brooklyn. Which is a nice little store by the way. They don't have a huge selection, but what they have is all good (lots of reissues that are dirt cheap). The 31 tracks on the cd feature not only girl groups, but also boy bands and solo female vocalists. It's a rather nice compilation of pop songs, rock 'n roll, beat, garage and surf in several languages. These are two of my favorite songs:

Betty Chung - Bang Bang (yes that's a Nancy Sinatra cover). Download it here.

I couldn't find out more about Betty Chung than she was (is??) Chinese and also an actress and played in a Bruce Lee movie.

Dara Puspita - A Go-Go. Download it here.

Dara Puspita were one of the more successful girl groups in Indonesia in the 1960s. What made them really stand out at that time was that they played all their music themselves. Their live shows are supposed to be really wild and quite a sensation! And all this in an oppressive regime, where you could be jailed for playing rock 'n roll. There is a greatest hits album out on the Sublime Frequencies label, which I desperately want to get a hold of.

I also bought the double LP West Indies Funk 2. I have no means of letting you hear anything off this record, but just to give you a taste here's a track of volume 3: a steel drum version of Hold On I'm Coming!! Also highly on my wish list as you will understand.