Time for some music again, I think I must say, again a band introduced to me by Blondie, whom I think must have the biggest resource of Indie music available (and luckily shares it with me). The song’s called I will follow you into the dark and the band Death Cab for Cutie. If you ever come across the country cover by Amy Millan, that’s certainly also a recommendation!
Vorig weekend, vlak na mijn terugkomst uit Innsbruck, ben ik op aanraden van mijn vikingbroeder Stephan, naar de opera Cendrillon in het Parkstadtheater in Heerlen geweest. Hierbij liet ik me vooral leiden door mijn vorige ervaring met Opera Zuyd, toen Stephan in de opera Carmen speelde. Deze heeft toen een zeer goede indruk op me gemaakt, en deels daardoor, deels door de korting die Stephan kon regelen en vooral door nieuwsgierigheid mijn vikingbroeder nogmaals op de planken te zien, werd ik in mijn besluit gesterkt. Naar het schijnt, wordt er elk jaar door Opera Zuyd een sprookjesopera uitgevoerd; dit jaar was Assepoester(Cendrillon) dus aan de beurt; vooral populair bij de vrouwen vanwege de prachtige jurken en kostuums, ook te merken aan de reacties van de vrouwen in mijn gezelschap: Olivia, Deborah en Dominique waren redelijk lyrisch over de Opera…
Ik was er echter iets minder enthousiast over, en ik moet zeggen dat dit waarschijnlijk zal komen doordat a) ik geen vrouwe ben en b) ik de opera vergelijk met twee eerder geziene opera’s: La Bohème en Carmen, die als ik het goed heb tot de wat betere, zeker meer bekendere opera’s behoren. Toch was ik niet ontevreden over de voorstelling, in tegenstelling, het was een leuke avond, en zeker geen tijdverspilling, één scene was zelfs behoorlijk mooi, maar de muziek en zang waren toch minder mooi dan twee bovengenoemde opera’s. Ook jammer dat mijn vikingbroeder niet al te veel in ‘beeld’ kwam. Nu moet ik zeggen dat ik vooral benieuwd ben geworden naar andere opera’s, niet in het minst omdat de combinatie tussen een toneelstuk en zang me boeit, maar ook omdat ik als muziekgek toch vooral nieuwsgierig ben naar andere werken, hoe deze in vergelijking staan tot de voorgaande die ik nu al gezien heb. Hopelijk kan Stephan dus gauw weer korting regelen 
One of the best songs by the Beatles I think, but now also a movie with only Beatle-songs in it, it turns out. Last week, I watched this film and still I am not too sure what I need to think of it. The film portrays the story of a young fellow Jude moving from Liverpool to New York in the late 60s, getting involved in the hippy community, student protests against the Vietnam War and finally, how could it be different in the ‘All you need is love’ spirit of the Beatles, falling in love with one of the hippie women, Lucie.
First, I thought the film just used Beatle-songs performed by John, Paul, George and Ringo themselves as background music, but it turned out to be a musical-like flick with the actors singing the songs, backed up by new compositions of the music. In my opinion, trying to portray the songs in a similar or better way than the Beatles, is one of the most difficult things one can do in music. The vocal lines and the music itself, especially in their later period, is just of a genious quality. Additionally, Beatles songs are still played every day, and thus very much established, therefore changing them too much might lead to critiques easily.
So when I found out the actors where singing themselves, my feelings about it were immediately mixed, although I must say the creators of the film (and the new compositions) did quite a good job with a lot of songs; trying to modernise the music a bit, but still adhere somewhat to the original atmosphere or style of the song. Conversely, some of the songs were a complete disaster. Really, one thing that I realised after viewing this film is that they should forbid Bono to sing Beatle songs, if not forbid him to sing altogether…arggg I was just outraged by his feeble voice trying to sing one of the lyrics; he provided the perfect example of the fear I wrote about above. Another thing I wasn’t to sure about was the musical-like quality of the film, song after song followed and this might have been a little less dense, some more normal conversations, a bit more attention to the story, and a lot less cheesy musical dancing choreography. However, I would still advise you to go and see this movie, just because the Beatles and their songs, in what form their songs are put, are just awesome. Oh and one last thing…all characters in the film are giving names from beatles songs, quite nice
…when listening to this version of Teardrop, simply beautiful. Already some weeks, maybe even months old, but a recent live session of Newton Faulkner on my favourite radio station reminded me of this one. So enjoy!
But still beautiful I think…it’s by the former singer and headman of 16 Horsepower, Dave Eugene Edwards.
Was browsing youtube for some videos of yesterday, but unfortunately did not find anything, however I found this, apparently recorded for vpro’s 3voor12, nice!:
Entschuldige dass ich diese Post nicht ganz in deutsch schreiben kann, weil man, wenn es über Wir sind Helden geht eigentlich nicht anders machen kann oder soll; aber ich denke dass ich es nicht schaffen werde alle meiner Gedanken ins Deutsche zu übersetzen.
Wir sind Helden rocks! wow! Yesterday, Olivia and I, in the kind of logic that can only come out of our joint brains went to the “Effenaar” in Eindhoven (while they first visited much nearer halls in Geleen and Aachen) to see a live performance of Wir sind Helden. And one day after, I’m still enjoying the performance and currently listening to “Aurélie” of their first Album 
The gig started off with a band called Polarkreis 18 “aus Dresden, Germany”, which I think, is an awesome band name, and although the music was quite good they heavily suffered from what I call the Dire Straits syndrome: the music is nice, but the lead singer can better keep his mouth shut… During this first gig two Helden (the basist and the guitarist) were actually standing next to us, maybe enjoying their not-so-knowness in the Netherlands.
Then, finally, at 21:15 Wir sind Helden started and damn what a performance! halfway through they already had the entire hall of people totally crazy, singing all the songs together with the band, much to the surprise of the band themselves. Judith Holofernes was utterly amazed by the number of people that had shown up in the Effenaar and repeatedly had comments like “wie kennt ihr uns eigentlich? werden wir hier im Radio gespielt?” (No) also continuously mixing up a Leftenant Gruber style of English with German; they knew they could speak German just as well and be understood, but according to the guitarist, “all rockstars should talk English”. One of the best songs was a song of their last album So und so called Die Konkurrenz, when Judith had our side of the hall singing “Die Konkurrenz” and the other side “schläft nicht!”. After that, the atmosphere was just brilliant, everyone went just crazy when they played (in my opinion) their best songs Aurélie and Nur geträumt. Aurélie was perfect and they had a seamless transition of that song into the Cure song “Why can’t I be you?” 
Anyway, needless to say, I’m enormously enthousiastic and currently suffering from a major post-wir-sind-helden syndrome. Next time they come anywhere near, I certainly will go to their performance again! Oh…and by the way…guess who went home in a brand new “Guten Tag” T-shirt
Another band I discovered via last.fm and which I really start to like. This song also appeared on shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Scrubs, and well, it’s title is often oh so true…enjoy!
Last week I watched parts of a brilliant music show called “taratataa” on French television, which had a couple of very nice bands. One of them I really liked and was called The John Butler trio, it reminded me a bit of the old days of The Old Firm, a brilliant trio from NL which we enjoyed many an hour and simply adored. The John Butler trio looks like a band that could be their equivalent on a live stage, so here’s a bit for your enjoyment:
Last Friday our colleagues and I watched the Simpsons movie over at the Namesake’s…While I could not really be impressed by the movie itself (maybe it was the amount of alcohol still in my blood from the afternoon) , one song has been haunting me ever since. It’s just brilliant, and probably I also drove Rob and Christian crazy singing it all the time on Saturday…This was the best version I could find on youtube:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2uZkae8ra8]
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