From: me
To: indiepop-list@eskimo.com

From several recent posts to the list, I understand that I am supposed to be an expert on the Dutch indie/tweepop scene. While I understand where this assumption comes from –I possess a Dutch passport, happen to like indiepop and, especially, like to brag…– I am afraid I have to admit I am not. Which is partly because I haven’t set foot the Netherlands for almost seven months now. Partly because it’s even longer since I’ve made a proper effort to keep up with what’s going on in the Netherlands, music-wise. But mostly because one can not be an expert on something that doesn’t exist.

It’s not that there aren’t bands that could be labeled ‘indiepop’ at all. Ben gave a list of bands of which most are still around (and some are quite good, actually). Archie mentioned The Nightblooms –a band that I started listening to after I had discovered they were the only Dutch band mentioned on TweeNet– of the mid 90s, while around the same time, The Pooh Sticks had two Dutch members as well.

Of the bands the are still around, Safe Home should definitely be mentioned: a couple that makes sweet, dreamy bedroom pop and have releases on, among others, Sunday Records. And there’s Persil, an electronic duo whose albums wouldn’t look bad next to Stereolab’s and who can count David Gedge and the late Jon Peel among their fans. If you’re into AGSFB, you’ll probably enjoy Damer and The Cuties while Furtips, although more lo-fi than indiepop, are the only Dutch band I know of that claims to be influenced by TVPs. YouMeElectricity, finally, is a girl that makes happy electropop.

But an indiepop scene is more than just a list of bands whose music could be filed under indiepop. There is, to my humble opinion, no Dutch band that I would put on the map whose first outlines were drawn by the Television Personalities and Orange Juice, that was coloured in later by The Pastels, Talulah Gosh and the Field Mice and was given its final shape by the likes of Tullycraft and The Tidy Ups. I don’t think there is a single Dutch band that really thinks of itself as being on this map either.

I have often wondered why. It might just be a coincidence. After all, the indiepop scene in most countries consisted of 20 people, or less, that just happened to be in ten bands, have three labels and two club nights. It might just be that the Netherlands never had twenty such people at the same time, or that they never found each other. I have, over the years, probably met ten Dutch people who got happy from Pipas, loved the Cat’s Miaow and admired Pam Berry.

On more cynical moments, I think there’s something in Dutch culture that makes people afraid of showing that they’re happy, that life is good and that they love small things. Dutch films, at least the ones that are supposed to be good, are mostly very grey, very depressing and usually quite experimental too. It’s the same with books. I’ve seen reviews of indiepop records where the author really liked the band, but then felt uneasy with the idea of liking something that was ‘just so simple’.

But I suppose I’m drifting off now. Also, the other idea I stumbled upon a Dutch person on last.fm that had listed Pipas and Heavenly among her favourite bands. And someone else had been listening to Watoo Watoo. I hope that one day, such people will show me wrong.

I stole the ‘20 people in 10 bands’ from Dimitra’s description of the Greek indiepop scene. The grumpyness is all mine.

Song of the day: Miou Miou – 360°

A quick one, for the weekend, by this band from the Czech Republic. Four boys and one girl, and of course it’s the latter who does the vocals. She usually sings in French, and those songs are quite enjoyable as well, but this one’s in English. An mp3 clip can be found on the bands’ website, but a full version is featured on Miouspace.

Thinking of mathematics always makes me feel overwhelmed by guilt of an unfinished business. Well, let’s face it, there is some Ph.D. business that is yet to be finished. And, if it wasn’t for ‘circumstances’, would have been finished ages ago. Really. But sometimes I wish I could just forget about it all and concentrate on the future instead.

It doesn’t mean I’ve completely lost my appreciation for mathematics though, or that I have a reason to blame maths itself for my lack of enthusiasm for it. Actually, it seems to be rather cool these days: a Dutch blog my two Ph.D students (‘maths girls’) won two important blog awards, while some 17-year olds, with some help of some of my former colleagues, solved an age-old problem about magic squares. It been has been on TV, my granddad just emailed me. (Both links are in Dutch, sorry. We Dutch people like to keep the geeky stuff for ourselves. Even when it’s about something as universal as mathematics.)

In an attempt to misguide people about global warming, Mother Nature thought it was a good idea to let some snow fall in southern Oxfordshire. So even though spring officially started in the very early hours of Wednesday, I was glad I had bought some gloves the other day and less glad my hat is still somewhere in the Netherlands. Perhaps She just prefers the Oxford Bus Company about my nice yellow bike.

But well, spring… flowers… marsh marigold… ah, Marsh Marigold, the German record label. (You knew I was going to write about music, didn’t you?) The label tends to take long breaks between their releases –probably due to label owner Oliver’s rather original job– and just when you start to wonder whether they’ve perhaps stopped business, they come with some fine new records. Well, not that I have heard The Province Complains, the debut album by Turku, Finland’s Cats on Fire or Result, the debut album by their colleagues Love Dance of Bergen, Norway, but given both bands’ early singles and the label’s reputation, I’m happy to believe the indiepop list. The former, by the way, play in London next month, just before the next Exeter Goes Pop! which would be an ideal warming-up, wouldn’t it?

These weeks, it takes me until Saturday afternoon to realise that life isn’t a Perl module. And then until Saturday night to realise I’m actually quite stressed from the constant changes between the lonely life in Abingdon throughout the week and the life-as-a-married-man during the weekend. And by that time, the damage has already been done.
Really, I do have a great job and an even greater wife and working away from home during the week isn’t as bad as it might sound at first. At least not for me. It’s just that I keep, erm, calling a buggy subroutine in the program called life… Which isn’t good for anyone.

So now it’s Monday morning and I dearly wish it was still Saturday and we could spend some more time together. Or, since that’s not possible, that the week would go by fast and it’d be Friday afternoon soon. It probably will, but so far I’m not even getting much closer to Abingdon. There’s a fault in the train and while the train is progressing slowly, so is the delay (35 minutes… 62… 73 and still counting). At least it’s a good opportunity to think.

  I want to go I want to go
  To the green fields with you baby
  C’mon let’s go wo wo wo…

Song of the day: Shonen Knife – Cycling is Fun

There weren’t any green fields between Wootton and Abingdon this morning, as the full spectrum of colours had been absorbed by a thick layer of fog. I almost got lost a few times, even though it is almost one straight road. But what matters is that I’ve got a bike. A yellow one with 15-or-something gears. It’s old and a bit rusty but it still does what it is supposed to do pretty well: take me to work in the morning and after work, save me almost ten quid a week on bus tickets, save me the fuss of having to catch a certain bus, and give me some exercise every day. And it makes me happy on top.

(No mp3 available, sorry.)

Because you will be able to go and won’t be stuck in bloody Oxfordshire. Because you can go without having to worry about what to play and whether people will come. Because it will be good, again. And because spring is coming closer and summer will be really nice.

Tomorrow. From 8pm. At the Phoenix. In Exeter. Just be there.

Song of the day: Durgango 95 – En el futuro

It’s really good that the people over at the Argentinan/Peruvian Mira el Péndulo blog always make a proper effort when writing their posts. They always write long stories rather than just link to a couple of mp3s. That’s what it should be like, of course. But since they only write in Spanish, I always find myself scrolling down to the mp3s a the bottom of the post straight away. Which is kind of sad. But at least the mp3s, of both new and old bands, are usually pretty good.

Durango 95, that they wrote about the other day, makes the sort of simple, indiepunkpop with Spanish lyrics that remind us of the likes of Juniper Moon and Vacaciones (speaking of soft spots…) and that always work so well in morning when I can’t get the thought of my warm bed out of my head. The band is named after a Ramones song and started back in 1995 in Albacete, in central Spain. The lack of relevant results on Google makes me assume they’re not around anymore. And that’s all I know. Oh, and they’re quite good.

Song of the day: Liechtenstein – Stalking Skills

You’ve probably heard of them already –and if not, you might want to update your bookmarks or rss-reader– but Liechtenstein have hit my soft spot labeled 1988-style indiepop with female vocalists with the title track of their debut single Stalking Stills. The band is from Sweden (duh) and the single is out now on Fraction Discs, which has an mp3 of the song too.

A heartbreaking work of staggering genius (started at least three times), The old man and the sea (had to read it for school, was supposed to be easy, as it’s so thin, but went on to read a summary), the bible (very bad style), books on the history of both England and Greece (got to 1300 and 1930 respectively, though, technically, I’m still reading them) and most of the books by Belgian writer Herman Brusselmans (who probably doesn’t deserve better).
Today, The Guardian had an article about the books that were unfinished by most people*. It’s quite amusing to see Harry Potter so high in the list. But it’s also embarrassing to think of my personal list (which is much longer than what I posted above) and quite worrying to see two books that are high on my to-read list appear in the fiction top five.
As for the non-fiction list, autobiographies of former cabinet ministers, spouses of future American presidents and overpaid football player no doubtly deserve their place on this list. But Lynne Truss’s brilliant Eats, Shoots & Leaves?? The publisher is not overreacting when he says that “these people must have the intelligence of plankton not to be able to get through 204 pages of a comic, readable book.”

* Britons. Which are people too.

Song of the day: The Lucksmiths – Fridge Magnet Song

It’d be so nice if there was an mp3 of this song somewhere on the web, but the Lucksmiths are probably one of the most undermp3blogged bands around. Especially considering the fact that they are one of the world’s best bands. Ever. At least reading Marty Donald’s witty lyrics (and imagining that, being a very early one, this song is very ska) might give you most of the desired effect.

So it’s weekend again. It’s been a long week, as there was a Threat Protection Workshop on Monday morning, which made me have to go to Oxfordshire on Sunday evening already. The workshop was quite interesting and now I know a lot more about viruses, trojans and workms. Quite useful stuff in case you’re working in the antivirus world, which I am. I also wrote my first mod_perl module, which seems to be working quite well so far.

And I’ve finally started to read a book. I had thought that, being away from home during the week, I’d be able to read new a book every week. (Which would mean it’d take me only two years to mark the bookcase with Dimitra’s books as read.) It took me eight weeks to only start a book and still, I’m having a really hard time at nights to get the perl out of my head and the book into it. It’s a book about someone who doesn’t have a clue about what’s going on around him. Hmmm…

Have a good weekend.

(What I’ve been wondering for quite a while: when Tullycraft sing about ‘sick of sticking ’round just like those magnets on the fridge’, in Twee, is that a reference to this Lucksmiths songs?

I always assumed Last.fm did not have to pay for the music you listen to through their site. After all, they only broadcast music by small bands on small labels, that have given explicit permission for that, and those generally do not really care about money. Apparently, I was too naive. Add it’s only getting worse.

I was also naive enough to believe that when Amazon says: ‘buy this book and that book together for this many pounds’ that it is actually an offer. Only now did I find out they just add up prices of the two books.

Song of the day: The Lodger – Many Thanks For Your Honest Opinion

It’s election time in the Netherlands. Again. Regional elecions this time and since, although I am still a Dutch citizen, I don’t live in any of the Netherlands’ provinces anymore, I am not entitled to vote. Fair enough.
Although I still follow the Dutch news rather closesly, I thought the elections wouldn’t be until a few weeks from now, as there’s only been sparse media coverage. It is not an overstatement to say that no one really cares. But I care. A bit. Though this time, it’s only because I like all these diagrams and statistics they show afterwards.

To still take part, I went to this website where you have to answer 30 questions and then it tells you who you’d best vote for. I decided to answer the questions for Gelderland, after all, I’ve been living there for almost ten years. 23 of those 30 questions were not specific to the region at all. Most were about whether something should be decided by the state, the province, or the municipalities. Very important. Three others did at least mention the name Gelderland, but were still non-specific to the region and three others could still be easily ‘translated’ to any other region.
Which left me with exactly one Gelderland-specific question: whether all of the Veluwe should become a national park. Apparently, only part of it is now. It sounds like a reasonable idea to me to extend the park, so I said ‘yes’ to this one and ‘I don’t know’ to the others. Of course I do know in most cases, but I’ve given my opinion on national topics in November already, haven’t I?
The website was kind enough to still tell me who to vote for. NVU, it said. Which is a very small party who inherited most of their ideas directly from Adolf Hitler. I’m so glad I’ve moved.

The music? Ah, yes, the music: Many Thanks For Your Honest Opinion by Leeds-based The Lodger can be downloaded here.

More Swedish pop. In fact, Swedish pop from an era when Sweden was just another country on the map of indiepop. Delicatessen is probably my favourite song by Girlfrendo, that band that has evolved into Love Is All. Love Is All are quite okay, but they shouldn’t have stopped making songs like the ones on their early singles, because it makes me feel such a snob. Girlfrendo were still better by a mile or so as they were a lot sweeter and more poppy too (my taste is sooo predictable). At least they were on their 1998 debut album Surprise! Surprise! It’s Girlfrendo, that this supermarket love song if taken from.

There you go: Girlfrendo – Delicatessen [mp3].

Kissing Mirros are a new Swedish band. So what. There’s a new Swedish band every day and a new good one every second day. Except that Kissing Mirros have Mikael Carlsson (of Dorotea-fame), Sarah Nyberg Pergament (of Action Biker-fame), Patrik Lindgren (of Hormones In Abundance-fame) and Hanna Fahl (of Hanna Fahl-fame) among their members.

Sometimes it’s just too frustrating that I can’t listen to music here, let along download new songs.