Category: Background

  • Android Paranoid

    In “Theater het Kruispunt” in Barendrecht I experienced a fantastic tribute to Radiohead by Chicago-based formation Android Paranoid. The group of five played two intense and packed sets of each apx 75 minutes. The tidbits shared between the songs are condensed, witty and to the point, barely long enough for the excellent musicians to change instruments. Android Paranoid really captures the Radiohead vibe with the quirky stagedesign, behaviour of the musicians, the unbelievable voice of the lead-singer and the matching (not so easy, so hats off to the technical team) light show. 

    Thinking about you

    It was somewhere in the early 90’s when I heard a Radiohead-song for the first time. Internet wasn’t there yet, so we relied on radio, and promodiscs that came with magazines. Back then radioshows were still mostly about music, programmed by people (not by computers). A good DJ made you forget about time as he/she took you on a journey through uncharted worlds. One of my hero’s was Rob Stenders who ran a nightly show at Radio Veronica focussing on new music. He played two songs from newly released “Drill” and it was “Thinking about you” that made them live rent free in my heart.

    Stenders helped me through the night

    Back in those days I ran a security firm with guys and dogs, guarding construction sites and factories. We had an emergency-number that directed to our offices and that we picked up 24/7. You never knew who needed assistance or which customer might call our emergency-number. By working the weekend-nights myself I saved a lot of money as I didn’t have to hire people for the most expensive hours of the week. Music of Radiohead (and DIO, Iron Maiden and Van halen) and DJ’s like Stenders helped me through the dark hours. 

    Avoiding the funnel of mediocrity

    It was the conversation with my daughter (15) during the nightly drive home, that made me think of that past of being alone in that big office-building, while listening to the radio and discovering new music. How different things are these days. 

    Life has become a matter of swiping and scrolling, of barely tolerable endlessly duplicated content for quick likes. Internet and smartphones keep you connected for 24×7, while algorithms force-feed you realtime everything “the system” thinks you might like, or they want you to like. And before you know it you are caught in a funnel of mediocrity. 

    Something real

    Maybe that’s why I liked Android Paranoid so much. It was real journey guided by a great connoisseur, played by fantastic and hardworking artists. I greatly enjoyed those unique moments with my daughter. Android Paranoid is a close to Radiohead as it gets. Go see ‘m! 

  • Is the blog back?

    Yes, but differently.

    In one way or the other, I ran an active blog between 1994 and 2018-ish. It was a mix of articles (in Dutch and English) on things that triggered me: equality, history, philosophy, plays, books, politics, some hardware, education, jokes and activities around my companies. That blog is still there, but private.

    I chose to make it private because some articles generated heated discussions, which quite often continued on other social media platforms, meaning all context got lost. At first (with a lot of help) I tried to do some aggregation, but I simply lacked the time and the energy to keep doing it. And quite often someone engaging in a one-on-one talk/discussion/debate, didn’t want that discussion to be part of a daily (or weekly) roundup. I wrote a lot of summaries as I didn’t want those interesting discussions to somehow end abruptly. But the time I had to spent on it kept me from writing new stuff. So in the end I hid my blog (although I kept writing).

    But here I’m again. It won’t be daily, but will be frequently. It won’t be about current global affairs. My blog is about things that matter to me, mostly little things.