Pfaff reads, sings, speaks, plays and shouts. For this Pfaff utilizes a voice, a guitar, something to hit and his head. This usually happens quite loud, but intimate and cosy is also an option. Most of the planned living room tour this fall is cancelled, due to lack of time (because he opened his own shop for art and culture in September). Some intimate performances remain. This is one of them! Oh… and entrance is completely free, don’t miss it!

Some time ago, I was asked by Kunstenlab to give them advice for the final edition of their Landtonen project. They were looking for artists in the field of experimental and/or (modern) classical music and language/poetry. Artists who could respond to the rural environment of Okkenbroek in music. Either in a specially made composition or in improvisation.

I recommended (and booked) Paul de Jong (The Books), Bram van den Oever (Gluid) and MiaMia. Kunstenlab came up with Hans van Koolwijk (Bambuso Sonoro), Karel van der Eijk, De Flageolettes and Uutsprèken. All of the artists perform works specially written for this occasion. This makes for an excellent and unique line-up in my book! Really looking forward to the 15th of November now! More info in this invitation (pdf).

I’m exploring recording possibilities right now. It might be interesting to make an esc.rec. release out of this…

In addition to their request for advice, Kunstenlab also commissioned me in another area of expertise; the design and production of a special Landtonen leaflet dispenser and four outdoor benches. I’ve got some good ideas for this, but they (luckily) don’t have to be finished on the 15th, so more on this later.

Yesterday me and my Rockin’ Chair were guests at Blog-art in Theater aan het Spui,The Hague. A festival by and for bloggers. Although organizers Marco Raaphorts and Karin Ramaker obviously worked hard to pull this off and got plenty of well deserved media attention, it still wasn’t quite what I expected… First of all there were less people than I had imagined and secondly many of the lecturers sometimes didn’t seem to realize they were dealing with an internet savvy audience or just weren’t conveying there ideas all that well. Or maybe I’m spoiled, could be.

One other thing I should have realized beforehand (but didn’t), was the nerd factor. Blog-art sometimes felt like entering another world. Physical and virtual weren’t that far apart. Weird (but not unpleasant).

Having said that, especially for a first edition it had a good variety of things to offer. Like John Dear Mowing Club. Even in the late afternoon, in front of a blogging/twittering audience, they still managed to impress me. Even though Erwin Blom said basically nothing new, his enthousiasm and rhetouric is extremely infectious. After a pleasant talk with Miriam Reeders and Eva Meijer, I know I should have taken more time to work through their entire blog-wall. I didn’t. I’ll probably have to go see their next performance to make up for that.

And than there was Matt Harris playing my Rockin’ Chair. He did good. Although he himself concluded that his half hour rehearsal went better. But I guess that’s inherent to the unpredictable nature of the Rockin’ Chair’s effect bank. Matt suggested I should make a more mobile version of it, like a cajón. Could be a good idea.

I also met some online aquaintances in the flesh and was treated to a tasty Chinese take-out. I left before Blog-art was over (having to drive all the way back to Deventer), so I can’t say if more personal highlights would have emerged later on…

All the way during my long drive back I somehow got me an uncontrollable craving for this song (despite the abundance of other good music in my van). There’s something magical about this song… anyway, here it is.

Like I said earlier, I will be participating in Blog-art, a special event by and for creative webloggers on October 9 in Theater aan het Spui in The Hague. My Rockin’ Chair is going to be played by Matt Harris on this occasion. Really looking forward to a surprising performance! Check the complete programme here (looks interesting enough, doesn’t it?). Tickets can be ordered here.

Next Friday September 25th Lost and Found will take place in the Theatrum Anatomicum in de Waag in Amsterdam with a heavily laden lineup. In between and after Ron van der Ende will play a choice of music from his Studio Playlists project. This is a yearly cycle of blog posts done since 2006 on Artbbq (and later The Stray Voltage) questioning artists about the preferred music for their workspace in the past year. A slideshow of photo’s of these studios and workshops will run during the DJ sets varying from kitchen table to immense factory spaces and from clean office cubicle to paint smeared barn.

Since I am one of the artists featuring in Ron’s Studio Playlists, my playlists and studio photo’s also feature in this performance. Should be a fun experience!