Booktunes at Zwarte Gat Festival

Friday October 28th: Zwarte Gat Festival 2011. DJ Dirk Diggler will carry the Booktunes flag and get the people dancing after an evening crammed with words by Sterre van Rossem, Martijn Simons, Renske Jonkman, Pepijn Vloemans, Olga Kortz and Lotte Hoogzand.

If you happen to be in the Amsterdam Area, pop in at De Kring to enjoy free literature & music. Hosted by Booktunes favourite Maurice Seleky!

Planning :
1. Literature
2. Live Music
3. Party

Personnel:
Early: Sterre van Rossem, Martijn Simons, Renske Jonkman, Pepijn Vloemans, Olga Kortz and Lotte Hoogzand.
Late: Steyne
Later: Dirk

More info:
Start: 20.30
Free: Entrance, Drinks
Facebook: Zwarte Gat Festival

Fresh Writers Night 2011 – Jonge Schrijvers Avond 2011

Friday October 7th: Fresh Writers Night 2011. DJ Dirk Diggler will carry the Booktunes flag and get the people dancing after an evening with promising Dutch talents such as Daan Heerema Voss, James Worthy & Anna Drijver. A perfect Amsterdam get together in the beautiful Stadschouwburg, hosted by Booktunes’ favourite Maurice Seleky.

A few years back I was at Daan’s place and had a look at his amazing Dylan collection. We all know James Worthy is backed by the Top Notch family. Anna Drijver put a lot of Doors & Jackson in her debut novel Je Blijft. And Diggler is Amsterdam’s No.1 eclectic alternative hiphop dance rocker avant la lettre.

Have fun tonight guys, cheers from Brighton!
Veel plezier vanavond jongens, groeten uit Brighton!

Readin’ & Rollin’ – Ziggy Marley

What do you need when you want to expand your horizon? Ganja. After a full year of having an untouched Booktunes List of Graphic Novels, an Amsterdam visit by reggae singer Ziggy Marley fires up the Booktunes Family and puts di Griff to work.  

Marijuanaman, the graphic novel telling Ziggy’s story just got released through Image Comics. Expect an article on the Booktunes website soonish… our biggest reggae lover Sjoerd Blankevoort – dj at Wazari Sound and blogger at Dutch Reggae dot com – is now working for the biggest Amsterdam newpaper Het Parool, only to polish off his writing skills.

Free Ziggy Marley tracks here, more info on the musical artist here, grapical artist here.

Booktunes DJ gigs

When starting this new venture it never occurred to me that I would probably end up at the same spot I tried to move away from: Behind the decks. With vinyl. At the party.

I am not too worried about it though. Always thought it was cool, it pays some bills, plus I am good at it. And when I get hired as ‘that Booktunes guy’ people expect me to play tunes completely different from the ones I used to play (and of course still do). Not that I could battle with Jules Deelder, but nowadays I play some decent jazz – a pretty new genre to me. Dirk Diggler backs me up when pop or rock songs fit better.

Last week Booktunes played music at Selexyz Scheltema during the Amsterdam Book Night, this week I will represent at the Nerd Nite in CREA. Since there is no real book & music connection here I am at a loss here and don’t know what tunes to play!

Featured speeches are:
Weekend Heroes – about role-playing games
How do you weigh a neutron star using a clock?

My contribution:
A book geek playing tunes with a laptop and controller only. No vinyl or CD’s.

Which reminds my Jahtarian friend Jan aka Disrupt… hey I could play his tunes for geeks who liked this previous post! But do let me know if you have any nerdy suggestions.

See you at CREA!
April 21
Nerd Nite

Friends with Records – DJ’s with Books

Last week saw the NL release of the Serge Gainsbourg biography by Sylvie Simmons. Of course DJ Guuzbourg – known for playing French tunes and making great compilations – was playing at the release party. To my surprise he also wrote the foreword to the Dutch edition of the book. Très cool.

The week before I was eating at Damir’s family home. We had delicious pasta and shared our thoughts on his club called Stalker and my Booktunes project. Later his wife DJ Kriz joined the table to confess she would love to write a piece on some musical Penguin Classics!

This week it will be a round the table with Mark Soest aka Mataklap. Intended as a soirée de dj’s to exchange the latest ruffest choons I guess we will be talking books too: Mark already sent me a link to this promising title and promised to write an article!

I am a DJ myself and, after a year of full time booktuning, I must say I am happy to be back behind the decks! According to myself I guess one thing can’t go without the other. According to all of us I guess we know what a good friend really is: a friendly person with records, laptop, books and a boombox.

Fresh Writers Night – Jonge Schrijvers Avond

Friday the 17th of December 2010, in fact the perfect Friday for a Christmas drink, CREA Amsterdam presents the new generation of Dutch writers at their Jonge Schrijvers Avond. A fresh writers night, hosted by Maurice Seleky, deejayed by Booktunes.

Of course I already knew which records to bring to a Seleky party since his Ego Faber features on the Booktunes website. Interested in the musical taste & thoughts of the other authors I asked them some questions. Now I know what they like, why, if and how music is being represented in their work. Plus I know what tunes to play.

Most young writers have favourite tunes that make them happy. Rachel Visscher enjoys ‘The songs that we sing’ by Charlotte Gainsbourg, Maurice likes ‘Someday’ by The Strokes because of its happy melody and cynical text, and points out that the reader of his debut novel can find similarities in subject matter.

Olga Kortz thought it was strange to ask writers about the relation between their musical preferences and their work. Maybe she took it too serious, claiming that when a writer tells that Pete Doherty is of a big influence it would say that she is a genius too. Could be. I didn’t agree but we ended up joking because of her sudden change of music she would like to hear on the 17th:

11 Dec:Me: ‘What tune would you like to hear?’
OK: “Rude Boy’ by Rihanna because I guess I could use one’
Me: Ok!
12 Dec:
OK: “Children’ by Robert Miles’
Me: ‘Ok?’

Martijn Simons listens to Coltrane while writing and is clear about the relation between jazz and his work: It is not there. His favourite tune changes like the weather. This week: Coltrane’s ‘Syeeda’s Song Flute’ because it is playful, surprising, thrilling and funky – like a good jazz tune should. Cool, but our hope for some Friday nite dupsteppaz starts to fade away with the echo of the sax.

Iris Koppe has a favourite new Roots track called ‘Now or Never’. She would definitely like to hear this band on a young writers night too. More hip-hop by Kanye West is found Martijn’s more modern playlist, the up tempo rock stuff comes from Rachel and Maurice.

We were ashamed when Anna Drijver herself had to tell us that she published a complete playlist in ‘Je Blijft’. The debut novel of this promising actress will be discussed on Booktunes soon; she showed some interesting insights about literary references to The Doors, Satie and Michael Jackson. Again we ended up joking about Michael Jackson. In a good way. She challenged you and me to stand still while his tunes are on. Quite impossible on a Christmas get together.

Download the favourite tunes of the fresh writers here.

See you at CREA!