Foodspotting: Funky Soul Potato

Always nice to find some awesome food hotspots! On the Zuid ("South"), Antwerp's fashionable neighbourhood, you can find the Funky Soul Potato. As its name suggets, this restaurant is serving.. indeed.. potatoes.  The menu already makes your mouth water.  The jacket potatoes dance on your plate under the aliases such as 'Boogie Wonderlamb' 'Green onions' and 'Mustang Sally'.  I chose the 'Funky fish', the potato with smoked salmon, spinach and some delicious creamy dill sauce. Mmmm njammie, but a calorie bomb for sure.  You won't leave hungry! 

Funky Soul Potato
Volkstraat 76
2000 Antwerpen

Walvis

Wet wet wet.. another rainy evening in summer time.  I planned to go to Brussels on Thursday evening for some tapas and to have a drink on the cosy terraces in the Dansaert street, one of the most lovable places of Brussels.. yes, even with the rain.  Lucky us, each bar has a shelter to hide.  We went to a really nice hotspot called 'Walvis' or translated the wale...  At the end of the trendy quartier this is one of the hippest bars.  A must go if you visit Brussels! 

A low quality picture.. blame it on the rain!

 Walvis

Rue A.Dansaert 209

1000 Brussels

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Festivalitis: Pukkelpop

The plan:
- going one day to the Pukkelpop festival
- trying to see 12 artists of the more than 60 ones who were on the line-up on Saturday
- take my camera and shoot some people

Reality:
- went one crazy day
- saw 10 of the 12 things I wanted to see
- walked like 100 miles
- enjoyed the sunsine

- brought my camerea.. but.. don't laugh.. forgot my SD card!!! aaarggh so, no shooting at all and I rented a locker to store the cam during the day..

Instead of the expected festival photo shoot, this will be a small report of the nice concerts I've seen..

1 o'clock at the hot hot Chateau..Toro Y moi:
Woowzie, the guys on stage brought a laid back show with seventies and eighties sounds.. I'm a big fan!! (online set on Red Bull Music Academy Radio)

1.45pm running to the Dance Hall for some rave rap of the South African band Die Antwoord.  I know this band since a few months and at first I thought it was a joke.. but it's just so funny to see them performing.  At the end they came back dressed up like some teletubbies for an encore.  One word for the show: funny

2.25pm back to the Chateau (too bad I didn't had a step counter with me...) for some glitch-hop Nosaj Thing beats.  Pronounced as Nosuchthing the young Jason Chung made it even more hot in the Chateau.. no lie.. but it felt like 45 degrees!

3.10pm fresh air and food were calling..  Under the blazing sun in Kiewit I enjoyed some pretty good festival food. Probably enjoyed it too much as we were too late for the Caribou concert.  The sign at the Chateau told us: closed..  noooo .. really wanted to see this.  My tight schedule was mixed up.. but heey no stress.. music enough. High Contrast in the boiler room was the substitute.  Fine Drum and Bass tunes.  

5.10pm Feet were heading towards Chateau again.. Martyn on the line-up, a dj set, not bad at all,but nothing special..

6.40pm dilemma time.. checking The Drums with their summer anthem Let's go surfing or checking mystical rapper/singer Gonjasufi .. Unfortunately I chose Gonjasufi the first big letdown of the day.  I like his album, but this concert was totally not done! Afterwards I heard the Drums were great.. arrrghh..

7.40pm at the Wablief tent the sister of the famous Belgian singer Tim Vanhaemel performed with her electronic music band the Vermin Twins.  She was dressed in an amazing beautiful glitter jumpsuit! Besides the glitter I enjoyed 30 minutes of her show but than we had to run to the Club tent.

8.25pm Au Revoir Simone at the club.. These 3 ladies from Brooklyn brought electronic dream pop.  They filled the Club with melody-laden loveliness.  In the middle of the concert it was time for another dilemma...Flying Lotus was programmed at 9.20pm but to be sure the Chateau wouldn't be closed again we had to be there on time.. I wanted to finish the Simone's show as well...ok, but I didn't want to miss Flying  Lotus at all, so I left the club.

9.20pm Flyloooo time... ooooh god (no, I'm not a believer) but the best tent of the festival had the best names: Flying Lotus!! This music producer with the biggest grimace ever dropped some amazing dub-step, hip-hop, free jazz and even Detroit techno beats sometimes combined with great soul voices.  The whole Chateau loved this guy and partied so hard on his tunes, the tent was almost blowing away!! Need to say more?

10.20pm So impressed by Flying Lotus I forgot the rest of my planned program... I missed The Yeasayer and Jaga Jazzist, but I was still on another planet..  Coffee coffee I was in need for coffee.. ok ..back among the livings..

11.30pm Temperatures were still pretty hot, so partying in a tent was no option.  The whole day was like taking an amazing music bath in a nice atmosphere.  To finish the festival we went to the main stage for the Dewaele Brothers aka 2 many dj's.  The show closed with fire works.

3 hours later, tired but satisfed me and my black festival feet came home.  Pukkelpop, you were great! Happy 25th anniversary!

None of the photographs are mine.

hellooooo business cards

I proudly present you my own business cards.  They came out ok, but next time I wont choose the budget type of paper.  The quality of paper doesn't give the result I expected, but it's ok and heey.. I have business cards!!

 

Festivalitis: Lokerse Feesten

It may seem a shame not to take my Nikon or Yashica to a festival to capture those amazing moments, but losing the camera or having it stolen would be even worse.  Two weeks ago I decided to take a disposable cam with me to the Lokerse Feesten (in Lokeren, of course...)

Line-up?  Yes yes, M.I.A. and her lil' pupil Rye Rye were on the program.  Rye Rye, 19 years old 'shaked it to the ground' in only 45 minutes! 

In between the performances of the two Bollywood chicks, it was time to calm down with Moon Safari guys of Air. After Kelly watched the stars, it was time for M.I.A. to pump up the party vibes.  Although a bad sound system on stage and the bad reviews in the newspapers the day after I really enjoyed the show of this Tamil tiger lady!

Soundset

In the MSK (Museum of Fine arts, Gent), the oldest gallery of Belgium is an exhibition of the contemporary artist Stijn Cole.  The artist uses new technologies to create an abstract reality and invites the audience to question their environment.

Soundset is a music project in the context of this exhibition.  During some workshops, participants will have the opportunity to learn the basic of Ableton Live.  Together with Stijn Cole they will search for the perfect sound that fits with his work.

On the nocturne you will hear the result of this project.  This takes place on October the 1st, the workshops take place on September 11th & 12th and 25th & 26th.

Workshops are conducted by professional producers and dj's:

San Soda (We Play House Recordings)
http://www.myspace.com/sansoda
Simon Hold (Pitch & Hold, Love Triangle)
http://soundcloud.com/simon-hold
Roebin De Freitas
http://soundcloud.com/rdf
...

More information and registration can be found on the facebook page of Soundset.

i-Viewmaster

iPhone, iThouch, iPad.... but iViewmaster!!! iKnow it's a digital world, but a small old-school revolution can't do any harm right? 

Eureka!

A little eureka-feeling is in the house! Remember I bought some new polaroid film (px 100 silver shade) from the Impossible Project.. the pictures were too blurry as the film is so sensitive to light and temperature.  However, after soms research on the net I found a way to reduce that blurriness.. Here it comes: shield the photograph from light  and keep it warm (read: wrap it in a sweater and sit on it).  

This is the result:

To click or not to click ..

'De Standaard' a Belgian newspaper organises monthly a photo contest evaluated by Jimmy Kets.   The theme of  August is 'summer', you know.. that season with sun and fun and blablabla..  Anyhow, I was thinking: let's try this baby!  So I've sent 'the old ladies on the beach' picture from last holiday.  The question is yours now, to click .. or not to click.. up to you!  You can do your thing here.

Le Fab Marcel de Bruxelles

Singlets are hip!  A fashion label in Brussels knows this, so they made their own fabulous collection of these essential basic singlets, or a Marcel as they call it!

It seems 'Marcel' is a real success, the collection is for sale in worlds most famous boutiques: Colette’ in Paris or ‘Isetan’ in Tokyo..

Take a look at their website www.fabuleuxmarcel.be and see how lovely this fashion brand is.