Beards and bands and sold out venues

The other day whilst drinking my daily dose of beers at the Beirhuis, a tour poster above the urinal caught my attention. I had never heard of any of the advertised bands, but dang yo that was one good looking band (Great Lake Swimmers). Nice photography, I thought. Nice beards. Beards say a lot about bands as of late, I thought. Nice. I am going to go home, sober up over a period of days, and damn well listen to these bands and very much consider going to one of these shows.. That was what I thought, before drowning another Trappist.

Having sobered up this morning (exactly three days on), I ventured over to the venue website and found that it had already sold out. After seconds of disapointment, I opened up Spotify and found that with beardness comes a certain degree of musical blandness. Whilst I appreciate Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes and all the other well-groomed bands that popped out in 2008, sometimes I can’t help but think that there is a line to draw in the sand. A line I am quite content calling “December 31st 2008″.

Anyway, if you’re in Gent, still in a pro-beardy mood, and already have a ticket for the gig, I suggest you click play below and have a listen to Great Lake Swimmers before I totally move on and listen to some more Peaches, or, something.

Ghentleman Project: Milk Inc.’s Race

For the past twleve months I have been bluffing my way through biweekly Dutch-language classes in the hope that one day I’ll be able to ask my non English speaking grandmother-in-law for a beer. I have found my progress to be pretty slow on account of missing most classes from being in France/Italy/Wherever, and that whenever I actually speak with a Dutch-speaking soul (that isn’t my grandmother-in-law) it’s most certainly in English. Generally speaking, a Dutchman/Flemming is just too practical to waste time with linguistic difficulties and will only speak in a language that both parties can speak. I wouldn’t be surprised if people learn seven or eight languages here just in case.

Recently I have been trying to find the drive to actually get off my arse and learn some of the language outside of the compounds of my classwork. When I was in Italy I did a lot of this by ordering pizza and attempting to talk to my local supermarket employees, however here in Belgium this all happens quite smoothly in my dear Australian mother tongue. As such – I am resorted to other measures.

And this is where my dear super-hero Regi, of Belgian super-90s-trance-pop-but-not-from-the-90s group Milk Inc, comes in. I have been listening to his darling music for the good part of this weekend, and have concluded with a superbly bad idea: I am going to cover these perfectly cheesy English-penned songs in Dutch. My calculations all lead to maximum success and extreme wealth. This concept can not fail. The songs are painful, the lyrics are laughable, and I may learn as many as three new Dutch verbs.

My first project is Milk Inc’s 2008 classic ‘Race’ from their critically (Belgian Critically) acclaimed fifth album ‘Forever’. It is also their thirtieth single. These vocal trance bands just never quit.

Epic film-clips courtesy of Youtube:

Ghentleman vs. Benevolent Blogging

Dear subscriber/Google-Indexing-robot,

My last update was in July 2008. The last time I visited this site was in July 2008. I must be frank here – I am a terrible blogger. Stinkingly terrible. I open my computer every day of the year, spend more time taping at the keyboard than I do talking out of my own mouth. Yet still I don’t have the drive to actually tap something of any significance about anything. I just tap.

I find that unless I have some sort of driving force to make me do something, I generally don’t do it. I don’t study unless there’s an exam. I don’t send an email unless someone is waiting for a response. I don’t make a cup of tea unless I damn well want one and I certainly don’t blog unless someone has asked for it. But who asks for a blog? From me? The most unreliable blogger this side of the equator?

So this is where Benevolent Blogging comes in.

For the past few weeks I have been experimenting with a system – a brilliant system – that takes the necessary self-motivation out of blogging. Every week I get a nagging automatic email asking me to write about one of many topics. It’s a simple concept, but so far it is working.

The concept is currently being tested by me and a few of my good super-internet-pals, and for what it’s worth I think we’re all having a dandy time with it.

For those curious (there are currently three readers of this website – I am one of them), the new benevolent blog is here:

http://www.matchingtowels.com/stfu/

From Flanders Fields: Lemonade

In Flanders, Lemonade does not necessarily mean Lemonade.

In the classical sense, the word typically indicates a mixture of water and lemon juice. In the delightfully bland industrial sense, it may indicate sugar and carbonated water.

However in Flanders, Lemonade can be anything from Coke, to Orange Syrup.

AMAZING DISCOVERY.

Late night in Creully, someplace in Normandy

/* START OF DISCLAIMER.
I started this blog with the anticipation of posting my day-by-day discoveries of my new-found hometown  – Gent, Belgium. However since starting the blog in February, I’ve actually only spent *two* full weeks there.

Two. Weeks.

So whilst I have a boat load of Gent based nonsense to write about, the reality of the matter is that I spend nearly every day, night, and weekend in often more interesting cities. Though ironically I spend those days, nights, and weekends, wishing I was back in Gent.

END OF DISCLAIMER */

/* START BLOGGING ABOUT THINGS */
This week: I am in Creully, a delightfully quant French town a few kilometers from the French coast, exactly four hours, thirty six minutes drive from my undiscussed and unexplored Belgian home.

Creully, through some act of world-war-miracle, managed to stay fairly intact through both world wars, rendering the town significantly more fairy-tale than the majority of cities I have camped up in over the past few years.

The town is home to 1400 people, many of which work at the Nestlé factory of which I am currently working at, and is specifically famous throughout Normandy as it was not blown up by zee Germans fifty years ago.

I brought to Creully a truck load of work, though also packed my guitar and recording gear with the intention of ignoring said truck load, and writing a few Normandic tunes – this, like my blog, has also been quite neglected.

Instead, I’ve been eating like a madbitch, making the most of the delightful Raclette cheese, an incredibly heavy, melted mess best served with nothing but potatoes. Drink wise, it’s all about Gewürztraminer wine and avoiding Nestlé branded bevredges.

From my dear super-pals booking.com I found this chateau for 110 euro a night, where I’ve been living it up in the JUNIOR SUITE of all places, being as la-di-da-formal as I possibly can.  My mastering of the French language has barely passed the “I can not speak French, Frenchy.” status, though I just know that any minute I’ll crack.

With every wheel of Raclette consumed, I believe I am digesting another 20 years of French history (and/or heart disease), so no doubt before the week is through I’ll have changed my name to Jean-Marc and will insist that you stop reading this website in favour of something of the dot.fr category.

Dot.com is so freakin passé.

I drive back to Gent tomorrow, and then trip out to London on Sunday with Annelies. Then maybe. Just maybe, I’ll be back in Gent for my ever-impossible-to-attend Dutch lesson for Monday.

Ik sprek heel goede Nederlands! See!

Back to Creully. I should post pictures, however the snazzy web 1.9ness of WordPress is making this seamingly simple task a little difficult.

AND THIS IS A MOMENT THAT I TOOK A PHOTO OF A COLLEAUGE! IMAGINE THE FUN:

Awerty; I love you; I ,iss you: The Q is supposed to be q A:

Everytime I come back to my dear office in Belgium, I am confronted by a painful argument between my computer and my keyboard. It usually goes like this:

Keyboard: “CTRL+ALT+DELETE plz”
Computer: “aight. Login!”
Keyboard: “Username is ‘Be326753′”
Computer: “What? Be”é§è(”?”
Keyboard: NO. NO. NO. NO.

Repeat process, though blinded, for the password. At least twice. On the third attempt, passwords are blocked.

The frightening truth, is that this has been the highlight of my day. It’s now 2pm I have been back in Belgium (working) for nearly six hours now, and have yet to actually have any reason to be here. I have a list of random Dutch messages for me to ignore/badly-translate, though ultimately it comes down to me sitting at a desk, waiting to find out why I am actually sitting here.

I have a post covering my previous week in Switzerland, I should probably work on that!

Belgium vs. Italy vs. Belgium vs. ?

I started this blog in the opening hours (days) of 2008 with one intention: To blog my path from ‘Australian-Living-in-Belgium-But-Really-Living-In-Italy‘ to ‘Australian-Living-In-Belgium-And-Sometimes-Holidaying-In-Italy -Or-Going-There-For-A-Meeting-Or-Something’.

Unfortunately though, my plans of personal transformation came unstuck, as I have already spent a half of what has already been 2008 working my way through dear Italia.

Alas.

I have worked on a few draft posts, most of which revolve around the ‘would-have-if-I-could-have‘ theme of the amazing things here in Belgium, such as:

• Skiing: I went snowboarding! I was Bitchen
• Stoofvlees met Frijes Frietjes: an amazingly Flemmish Flemish variation on a simple ‘Stew’
• Belgian Beer of the Day: There is a bottleshop within vomiting distance of my apartment that sells 2001 Belgian Beers. It is currently my mission to consume every last bottle.
• Road trips: Music required for, food required for, and methods to handle a 2000km road trip once a week
• Live Gigs in Belgium: I saw Enon a few weeks ago, and was absolutely amazed at how different live shows are here in Belgium. The doors opened at 8, the band walked on at 8:30, and by 9:30 they’d finished and the venue was closed. There wasn’t even a bar in the venue – I saw a pseudo post-punk band in the LAND of beer, and didn’t even manage to have one. Madness.
• Hitz o’ 2007: It’s already 3/24ths through the year and I haven’t uploaded my obligatory “I Listened to More Obscure Music Than You Last Year” post. Yee gads.

Maybe, just maybe, I’ll keep you informed. I’m going back to Italy tomorrow, so there’s a chance I won’t.

Hitting the slopes..

This morning the Ghentelady and I are embarking on a glorious 936km road trip to Les Deux Aples, one of but many ski resort towns in the French alps.

Whilst our dear Ghentlelady is without doubt competent with all things ski-related, this will be the first time I have attempted strapping two pieces of wood to my feet in ten years, and even then – it was on the Australian Alps of all places.

I’ll be sure to report back any discrepancies between the two national skiing-treasures, eh.

GM.

Hello Wereld!

For the past six months I have been itching behind my computer to start typing my random, and frequently stupid, thoughts. This morning I finally cracked, and am now slurging the internets with my musings once and for all.

This blog is to document the increasingly more and more bizarre life of a young gentleman living in Gent, the third largest, and arguably loveliest, city of Belgium.

It will follow his musings through Belgian cuisine (it exists!), beers (there are over 2000 of the damn things!), music (he imports most of that) and other cultural oddities (this will be a little too frequent), as well as his travels through other countries (though probably just Berlin, he likes that place).

Happy reading, hopefully there will be many happy writings!

V.S.

FLANDERS FIGHT