At the moment I’m doing a lot of things at the same time again, so I decided to give you a short update.

First of all, I have finally made a good start with the organization of quality events for Havenkwartier Deventer! Most of these events originate from esc.rec. (my record label) and go by the name ass-crack stage-hack. Basically the ass-crack stage-hack can be anything that involves a stage, but will mainly be more or less esc.rec. related.

My first two ass-crack stage-hacks are (almost) set to go:

- February 28th, ass-crack stage-hack #1: live performance by Greg Haines + extensive Osman buffet (link).
- March 7th, ass-crack stage-hack #2: guitar duel/duet with Eugene Chadbourne, Lukas Simonis and Gitbas Jodel + dinner.

More ass-crack stage-hacks are in the making: two more exciting guitar duel/duets, a minimal techno party (by esc.rec. & DDS) and ‘The best of… Almelo‘ (by esc.rec. & Jeroen Diepenmaat). More info on the ass-crack stage-hacks soon!

I’m also assisting in the organization of Transmission, another event in Havenkwartier Deventer, which consists of a large Gerrit van Bakel exhibition, a complementary exhibition at SIED and some very, very(!) interesting lectures and performances. Transmission starts on the 1st of March and ends at April 13th. More info later.

The fourth edition of DIF is also in the making. It will probably take place somewhere in october and will be a completely different format from the other three editions. Looks very promising so far!

Besides organizing events I’m also building on several websites at the moment. On two of them I’m working together with Arthur van Beek for the first time. Nice designer!

And if all this wasn’t enough, I’m also designing and constructing some of the new Havenkwartier interior. I’ll show you pictures when it’s finished.

Three high quality free esc.rec. mp3 releases especially for you! Just in before the end of the year:

slo-fi – ‘s loot (esc.rec.17)
Yoshimi! – II aka The Cheshire Rat (esc.rec.18)
Toxic Chicken – Make My Day (esc.rec.19)

Thank you slo-fi, Yoshimi! and Toxic Chicken for doing such a good job (again) and for providing these superb releases for free! I designed the cover of slo-fi’s loot. Oh, and of course I designed three new (or renewed) esc.rec. microsites to go with the releases:

www.escrec.com/slo-fi
www.escrec.com/yoshimi
www.escrec.com/toxic-chicken

I guess esc.rec.‘s New Year’s resolution for 2008 will be to offer more free mp3 releases like this. I will try to focus more on a better balance between limited (cd-r) releases with unique artwork, ‘regular’ cd-r releases, online sales (which don’t exist yet for esc.rec. releases), free releases and maybe some ‘specials’ for my esc.rec. subscribers.

Anyway, hope all keeps going well for esc.rec. in 2008! And the very best wishes to you ofcourse!

Linksopdebus.nl is a small website. Or in fact, it’s nothing more than a small collection of links… or no wait, please let me explain…

‘Links op de bus’ can be translated as ‘links on the van’, but in Dutch it also reads as ‘on the left-side of the van’. I just had to find out how this combination of clever advertising and silly word joke would work in reality. That’s why I now drive around with ‘linksopdebus.nl’ on the left side of my van. All the links on linksopdebus.nl are directly related to the users of the van.

Update: I’m looking into advertising possibilities of linksopdebus.nl, because of Jeroen Diepenmaat‘s enthousiastic response…

Update 2: It is now possible to advertise on linksopdebus.nl.

Recently I decided to plant some flowers in the hallway outside my studio in Havenkwartier Deventer.

… the ‘restoration’ of this original Thonet chair. It misses one leg and is a bit shaky. Bert Kramer gave it to me a long, long time ago, hoping I could make something good out of it. He saved it from destruction after he saw it flying out of a window in Paris, France.

Although I had started on the re-design several years ago, it never became what I had hoped. The unfinished result surfaced again when I moved my studio to it’s present location. I recently started from scratch with a new (and better) idea.

I hope to get it finished before September 28th, just in time for the expo in the Stamacon building in Havenkwartier Deventer. Check my previous post for more info about that.