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spotify

Diversity, schmiversity (my reservations about the CCD Award)

by Jaïr Tchong
16 February 201730 March 2022
5 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Brief summary. On Wednesday afternoon, I went to the presentation of the important award (actually two: audience award and jury award) called Code Cultural Diversity Award. I did not see a single fellow journalist(s). What I did see were lots of professional advocates speaking on behalf of people who were barely present themselves in the Galaxy. NB: the author is of Aruban-Chinese-Dutch descent and in no way wants to undermine the urgency of the issue of diversity...

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LGW, which is listening in total, focused fraternisation

by Sven Schlijper-Karssenberg
16 November 201630 March 2022
10 min read
For members only, MUSIC, PODIUM ART

It is around 11 o'clock on Sunday evening. Jlin taps a rattling beat in the air with her index fingers. When the relentlessly sucking bass kicks in, she accompanies it with an elbow down. Her grin from ear to ear is met with cheers from the audience. Le Guess Who? 2016 (hereafter LGW) is coming to an end, but that's what these...

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Art is not: 'If you're hungry, eat. Measurable result: toilet visit.'

by Brechtje Roos
9 March 201630 March 2022
5 min read
For members only, LITERARY, MUSIC

The stupidest question I come across all too often is THE question: what is the tangible result of your projects for audiences? Or more broadly drawn: what can art & culture measurably add to lives? Add that question together with the current clamour for 'utility in art' and I get accutely red pimples from these non-answerable questions. And I...

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David Bowie's Blackstar: Pop music becomes high art

by Wijbrand Schaap
21 November 201510 January 2016
5 min read
MUSIC, PERSONAL

There is usually no 'master plan' behind the best and worst things in life. Of course, 25-year-old Adele's 'come-back' has been carefully orchestrated, from the tentative release, to the title of the first song, the wave of spontaneous covers around the world and the announcement not to go on spotify (for now). In fact, the orchestration is so obvious that...

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How data saved music (and can help other arts)!

by one of our members
5 May 201530 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, MUSIC

The power of data The arts sector in general is little 'tech savvy'. Sure, nobody can do without a website and a Twitter account will hardly be lacking anymore either. But there are few examples of groups, theatres or artists making the most of the power of digital. Setting up a good 'client relations management system' (crm) with profiles of all visitors or buyers, to keep those...

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Brian Ferry, Send in the clowns: don't bother, they're here

by Henri Drost
25 November 201429 March 2022
2 min read
For members only, MUSIC

Brian Ferry covers Stephen Sondheidm's Send in the clowns on his new album Avonmore. But his version above all else illustrates the sigh that follows 'Isn't it rich? Isn't it queer?' follows: 'Losing my timing this late in my career.' It seems so easy. You don't have to write a good song yourself, but you take one from someone else....

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Bowie turns his career around. And it works

by Wijbrand Schaap
14 November 201430 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, MUSIC

Starting with the most recent issue. And then chronologically go back in time to somewhere deep in the 1960s. And then titling it 'Nothing has changed'. Brilliant move by David Bowie. All biographers can immediately throw their work in the bin. After all, anyone who grew up with David Bowie's music chronologically could not help but be continually bewildered...

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The Speech Doctor reviews: Hans de Zwart of Bits of Freedom

by Hannah Roelofs
12 November 201430 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

" Dear friends of Free Knowledge," With these words the president of Wikimedia Netherlands, Frans Grijzenhout concludes his welcome speech of the Wikipedia conference. In a conference venue at Hoog-Catharijne, I am surrounded by some 120 ' Wikipedians', as they call themselves. As in any subculture, it is clear to see who belongs to the regular incrowd. Wikipedians look like...

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Book becomes radio: Thea Derks presents Panorama De Leeuw on Concertzender

by Henri Drost
30 September 201429 March 2022
2 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, MUSIC

For seven years, Thea Derks worked on her biography of Reinbert de Leeuw. And it did not go unnoticed. Except for the reaction of the person portrayed, unanimously rave reviews and soon a second printing. Rightly so, because the book offers an indispensable description of modern music in the Netherlands, with many composer portraits and an understandable leading role for Reinbert de Leeuw.

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Prince makes five-star record and hides it from Warner

by Henri Drost
27 September 201429 March 2022
5 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, MUSIC

Two new records in one day? Thirty years after Purple Rain? That involuntarily evokes memories of the days of Guns 'n Roses and Bruce Springsteen in the early 1990s. Back then, Prince was still under contract to Warner, but his quarrels with that company were notorious. Four records in a single year went way too far for Warner at the time, as did triple albums....

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Sell! Sell! Sell!", says Gorilla. Four reasons why the culture index is a useless toy

by Wijbrand Schaap
9 December 201330 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

ABN deletes text.

We still have the text of the ABN/AMRO message available for those interested. Click on the plus at the bottom.

We have a culture index. Today, it was presented by the Boekman Foundation, a cultural research firm. The culture index, actually an AEX for culture, is meant to provide insight into the state of culture. Problem is, though, that the figures are a bit old. So thanks to the index, we now know that culture in the Netherlands was doing quite well in 2011. But yes. That was two years ago.

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'Content creators' will unite globally

by Wijbrand Schaap
14 October 201330 March 2022
2 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

A lot of money is made on the internet from the distribution of text and music, news, photos and films. That money comes in to internet providers, services like Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Spotify, and to the big record companies and film producers, who are almost always also shareholders in the aforementioned organisations. Virtually none of that money reaches the people who make all those films, compositions and books or articles.

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Orchestre El Gusto lets sounds of Kashba Blues blow through @hollandfestival like warm desert wind

by Madeleine Red
3 June 20138 July 2016
4 min read
Holland Festival, SPECIALS

Holland Festival

They are gentlemen of age and therefore with a history. Grey or bespectacled or bald - or with a combination of all three. Their music has taken them everywhere. And now they are in a packed Carre: the Orchestre El Gusto. To their own delight, as they thank the audience for coming. The musicians from the kasbah of Algiers play the music as it is

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"Characteristic of the book trade remains the endless chatter, but this evening I wouldn't have wanted to miss." All tweets from #evdu, with video.

by one of our members
26 January 201114 August 2023
22 min read
ACTUAL, LITERARY, APPRECIATE & DONATE!

Interesting things are happening these days. The digital revolution is beginning to have traces of a real revolution. No one has yet set themselves on fire, as in Tunisia, but more and more people are taking to the virtual streets to overthrow the old powers: after the record companies, which let themselves be overwhelmed by people downloading, and the newspapers, which let themselves be overwhelmed by people searching freely for information, it now seems to be the turn of book publishers.

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