Listmania: the music of 2009, Herko edition!

It’s that time of year again, where you look back and –well basi­cally, make lists. So, in keep­ing with this won­der­ful tra­di­tion on the inter­webz here’s my list of music related good­ness of 2009.

Award shows on TV keep the best for last in order to keep their audi­ence hostage and their adver­tis­ers happy, but the web appar­ently doesn’t work like that. So,lets get this show on the road! Read more…

Tags: music

RAW rhythm festival FTW

This week­end is the first edi­tion of the RAW Rhythm fes­ti­val, held at the West­er­gas­fab­riek in Ams­ter­dam. RAW Rhythm is the sequel of the Drum Rhythm fes­ti­val, a pop­u­lar fes­ti­val a few years ago, that had to cease its aciv­i­ties due to a new law that pro­bibits tobacco-advertising in The Nether­lands. Now it’s ‘back’, as the organ­is­ers found a new spon­sor in G-star RAW jeans.

I attended two or three edi­tions of Drum Rhythm, and saw some of the most mem­o­rable per­for­mances I have ever expe­ri­enced there. I saw Lamb per­form a truly mag­i­cal and ener­getic set, I saw Left­field give one of their last per­for­mances, I saw Aus­trian lounge-duo Kruder & Dorfmeis­ter get­ting a crowd jump­ing, and many many more.

So I was very happy to dis­cover that there will be a new edi­tion of this fes­ti­val, and even hap­pier when I found out that my favorite band Lamb had actu­ally reformed itself (after split­ting up for solo projects a few years ago) and were going to per­form there again! I cre­ated a Last.fm event for the fes­ti­val, as there wasn’t one yet, added all the acts to the ban­dlist, and saw it grow and grow.

My brother, who is a pro­fes­sional con­cert and event pho­tog­ra­pher (he’s 3voor12 Ams­ter­dam’s phtog­ra­phy coör­di­na­tor), has now arranged for two pho­tog­ra­phers wrist­bands for the whole fes­ti­val! This means that we’ll be able to go back­stage and go every­where! So this is going to be a very mem­o­rable fes­ti­val for me.

I’ll post a review and photo’s after the weekend!

Tags: festival, Lamb, music

What does it all mean?

Today I bought the Stein­ski album ‘What does it all mean? 1983 – 2006 ret­ro­spec­tive’ (itunes link). This is an album by hip-hop leg­end Steve Stein, on which he col­lected some of the mixes he and Dou­glas DiFranco (also known as Dou­ble Dee) made back in the early days of hip-hop. Read more…

Tags: inspiration, music

Partying with Róisín Murphy

Róisín Mur­phy (by Den­nis Stempher)

Yes­ter­day we went to a con­cert of Róisín Mur­phy in Amsterdam’s Heineken Music Hall. Róisín is the for­mer Moloko singer. We saw her before twice: once as part of Moloko, and once as part of a Groove Armada con­cert. Both times she brought great energy and a tight per­for­mance to the stage, so our expec­ta­tions and hopes were high.

The show started a bit slow and tame, like she didn’t really feel like per­form­ing but was doing so any­way. Still, her voice is flaw­less, her band is incred­i­ble, and her back­ground singers are awe­some, so even then it was still a good con­cert. Not great tho. Read more…

Tags: music