If things were up to me, I’d just spent the following month moaning about my sad life here, back in the Netherlands. That wouldn’t be a good idea though and indeed, things look a whole lot better again (right now as I am writing this, that is; my mood can change for the worse within an hour or so). My supervisor sort of encouraged me to go back to Athens soon. Also, the weather here isn’t much different from that in Athens just now – in October, can you believe it? So let’s be brave and walk to that pile of CDs that I have (and want) to write reviews of, on which I found…

… Of Montreal’s The Sunlandic Twins (on Track & Field). I already possessed eight or so Of Montreal-albums, which is mainly because I used to have a hard time restricting myself to buying only what was necessary, and I wasn’t really in need of yet another one. Their happy Elephant 6-style indiepop, which reflects a lot of Beach Boys-influences, is quite enjoyable but not for an infinite number of albums. Yet the band has changed, not dramatically, but still enough to keep things interesting. Their new sound is a bit more electronic, a bit more spacy, along the lines of Disconnect The Dots on their previous one. Nothing too spectacular, nothing to worry about if you liked their previous albums – and, at the same time, nothing to have high hopes for if you didn’t: just the small change bands need sometimes to keep things interesting for their listeners. And to keep it even more interesting: turn the CD of before the last few, rather boring songs start. They leave a bitter aftertaste.
(And because you might be interested: the band will tour Europe next month and has some mp3s available.)

Going back home alone is not something one easily gets used to (to be honest, I wouldn’t want to). Only some experience makes me better in predicting how I will feel: very sad, nearly desperately right before I leave, with a strong desire to say something special, to make up for something stupid I had done, which, of course, never works. The flight back home, without something nice to look forward too, is always boring, but being tired helps to make the time pass by easily; the train is filled with Dutch people which always annoys me, basically because they are so Dutch.

I am home again. The flat smelled like it was new, but it doesn’t feel mine (yet). It’s uncomfortably strange to be back home again, to be alone again. To cheer me up a bit, there were quite a few new CDs in the mailbox (Clientele, Bearsuit, Pipettes 7″ and more). Also, as far as I can see, there are no bills that I had forgotten to pay and no one died. The contrary, two friends of mine got babies, one of which I hadn’t heard of before. Yay!

But still, I miss the girlfriend. And this place is a mess, this site looks kind of weird on my own computer, I am terribly tired and in a very moany mood. Sorry about that.

As you may or may not have noticed, there had been a problem visiting this site using Internet Explorer since the weekend: the browser crashed upon loading. Thanks for those who let me know; as I use Firefox myself I hadn’t noticed. Apparently, the problem was a sidenote post about The Pipettes, which didn’t use any exceptional tags, so let’s say the main problem is Explorer itself. As I can’t really ask you to change browsers, for the time being I have deleted the post. If you happen to encounter any other problems or, even better, know of a better solution, don’t hesitate to tell me about it!

Today, we finally got ourselves a copy of Athens News, the weekly English-language newspaper in Greece. It’s even better than I had expected it to be. I had seen this sort of weekly English newspapers in other countries before, but those were mostly filled with ways to spend your money as a tourist, accompanied by a few general articles on what’s going on in the country. This, however, is a proper newspaper, with all the stuff you would expect from one written in the native language: news, background articles, sports, culture; it even has TV-listings. Of course, being published weekly creates both the need and the opportunity to write from a rather distant point of view, focussing more on general things than on what has happened the day before, but that makes it even better to read. Especially since the articles not only explain things that might not be so obvious to foreigners, but also offer interesting insights. Worth buying again.

Their website could do with some tidying-up, but if you don’t mind using an amateurish search function and you’re into British humour, you should really look for the column written by Brian Church. His books tell you more about Greece than the Lonely Planet and the Rough Guide together.

I got an email from Alex who is in Fotomoto (of Zaporozhye, Ukraine) the other day. I have written about them before, comparing their subtle electronic songs to Stereolab and French chansons, and I quite like them. If you’d rather have the opinion of some authority: late John Peel was a fan as well, he even recorded a session with the band. Also, here is an mp3. They will come back to Western Europe, playing in Brussels at the first of December and recording another BBC session on the seventh, and now they are looking for some (Dutch) gigs for the dates inbetween. So as, contrary to popular belief, I hardly have contacts with bookers and venues, I thought I’d post about it here; if you might want to book them, don’t hesitate to send me an email.

I am no sure if it is purely a Dutch thing, but being able to speak English at a high level is really a way of being cool (t)here, like being good at football or knowing most bands of the hitparade used to be at secundary secondary school. Now I hide my head in my hands when a ball approaches me and I used to confuse U2 with UB40; you should get an idea about my Enlish, if you hadn’t gotten it from my posts. So I feel obliged to ask to be excused for the many grammar and spelling errors mistakes on this blog. I really try to avoid them, do a lot of correcting a postriori afterwards, but there will always be many traces showing that it is written by a non-native English speaker. So be it. If I wouldn’t try, my English would definitely not get any better.

The plane ticket I bought myself the other day will bring me back to the Netherlands in four days from now. I will be on my own again. And I know that I shouldn’t anxiously count the days and hours until the plane leaves but enjoy the (short) time we are still together instead. But then, after a bad night and a fight with an unnecessarily set alarm clock, I woke up drowned in melancholy and I can’t really seem to make it go away.

It is not just that I’d rather be with the girlfriend. Well, it is that too of course: she is the sweetest and most beautiful creature on this planet and just being with her makes life so much more worth living. But then, being away from her is just a temporary thing: it might be hard at times, but keeping in mind that it will change before too long, it is bearable.

What I am really worried about though is that don’t really know how to live my life on my own. Of course, years of experience have taught me how to make it through the days in a way that is kind of fun, kind of enjoyable and does not take too much of an effort (did I tell you I am a lazy sod?). I go to work, do the unavoidable shopping and housework and spend a huge amount of time listening to music, reading about it and writing about it. And while I have no intention of doing this less in the future, I want to enjoy it more. I want to be involved in my own life more properly. I don’t want to just listen to what happens to be on the top of the pile of CDs to review –which is the choice that not only gets the review out of the way sooner but also doesn’t involve choosing– I want to listen to what I feel like listening to. And, at the same time, I want to write what I feel like writing and read what I feel like reading, no matter if it is old or new, if it is leading to a post on this blog or to pure self-enjoyment.

But what if I lack strong feelings? Or, probably more accurately (and less depressingly), if I have a hard time communicating with those feelings? For this is what makes it so tempting to fall back, to keep on living the same old life. After all, this has become the easiest option, the default one. And it is hard, at least for me, to not follow default options.

We should go out tonight though, to celebrate life. It is worth it. It really is.

It would have made a whole lot of sense if, like I guessed at first, at least one of the members of the Magic Whispers was in Les Escarlatinas. I would have written that O Todo Color reminds me of that cover album the two Spanish girls released last year, this new one being perhaps a tiny bit less great, but still far better than average. Les Escarlatinas are four different girls though, that just happen to sound a lot like the Magic Whispers – or Would-Be-Goods or Pipas, to throw in some other names. Sweet and tender, subtly arty, ear-stroking. Pop, very pop. The songs are sung in Spanish, but that only makes it better, as it adds to the South-European feeling you get from this sort of music: life lived at a more moderate speed, but enjoyed twice as much. Good for me, good for you. Some special attention for A Beatle Song, my personal favourite, though that might be my weak spot for English words sung with a Spanish accent.
In case you consider buying the album – the point of this post is that this wouldn’t be such a bad idea – you might want to know that it was released somewhat earlier this year on Siesta.

Now that I’ve restricted myself to writing in English, it doesn’t mean I’ll stop deciding for the Dutch readers how spend their nights. So read the following out loud: ‘Tomorrow, I will go to the k-tsjoem club night in Amsterdam’s Paradiso to go and see The Clientele (and some other bands as well). If I go early, I might see Broadcast in the main hall of the same venue.’ And now repeat that three more times.
No, you don’t have to say thanks, I just like to make your life better.

And yes, if I wouldn’t be in Athens, I would go myself too. Of course. That new Clientele album doesn’t sound half bad after all. Athens, in case you wondered, looked pretty again, though six hours in a Greek train were quite exhausting: the train was packed and finding the seat number corresponding to your reservation is a habit that is not quite common here, but we survied.

We’re done. We, that is me and the girlfriend and done, that refers to the exams we had to take. Okay, to be honest, it was the girlfriend who had to take those exams, while I could work on the laptop in the sunny university gardens – did I tell you that being able to do this makes me job the greatest one ever? –, but still, I think I am allowed to be happy they’re over. Dealing with stressful situations isn’t exactly a quality I can be characterised with. (Yes, I should work on that, thank you for suggesting.) Also, I am happy for the girlfriend, who did all the hard work after all; at the same time, I feel sorry for the poor Greek students who happen to live in a country where having a university degree is so important, only because people think it is.

We’re off to Athens tomorrow. I haven’t been there since the middle of June and I have missed it.