First off: thanks for coming to the shows. More thanks for the people who listened to the quiet songs; most thanks to people who rocked the fuck out. Here’s a picture:
(For more pictures, check Facebook.)
Haha.
Personally my week has been the best in a long time, due to the people at the Bond tegen het Vloeken. I have been cursing all the way to the bank and back, and it’s re-established my belief in the strength of language, and the beauty of cursing in particular. It’s fucking great, if I may say so, and reminded me of the great Timothy Chase song ‘It’s been a good fucking day’.
Anyway, there may be some videos coming soon. Hoorah! There are also shows next month. More hooraah! There is a competition and a picknick. Poetry!
Oh and me and Port of Call are still looking for (unique) locations for our house-show tour in the summer. Here’s a work of art:
For those who could not make on January 14th (because maybe it was their birthday or some such good reason), and those who want to know what a real rock and roll band sounds like (when they’re sedated), here’s a video from our show in the Qbus last month.
Thanks Marcel Boere for the video and Rob Meere for audio. It is appreciated.
Exactly one month from now, we’ll finally be playing the long awaited Broedplaats Sessie in the Qbus. For this occasion I’ve added a few more instruments to the party, and we’ve been rehearsing like it’s 1993 for about two months now, so it’s bound to be interesting one way or the other. (By some ’twas already described as “an aimless river in folk[-music]” — which I think is perfect. That’s exactly what it is. Who needs direction anyway?)
The show will be recorded for by the good friends at Leiden Virtueel, so it’ll probably look somewhat like this:
Or, you know, different. Anyway, tell your calender, write it on your friends; put a big X in your mental planner for January 14th (which, as it happens, is also my sister’s birthday, so all who bring a present for her, I promise hand on heart, will get a free copy of the new EP).
What idiot would release an album on a Monday night at 12:26?
So here it is: Tuesday, November 15, 12:27am, “I’ll Be Drunk When You Call”. Six songs, recorded by yours truly, with help from Edo, Basti, Tim Chase, Pieter van Vliet (PORT OF CALL!), Migggg, Mart on tambourine, and that one lady from Canada whose name I’ve forgotten, but who played a couple of beautiful violin parts. Thanks everybody for your cooperation, thanks Mart (again) for the effort you’ve put into mixing this; and Jochem for putting your ear way too close to the speakers.
Everyone else: grab a beer, have a listen, read some Bukowski and Ginsberg (and Kerouac, of course, Holy Kerouac), while you’re at it. And don’t forget, downloading is free; sharing is sweet. I hope you like it.
Want a physical copy for your collection? Here’s the torture you’ll be putting me through, but I love doing it:
shoot us an email at longconversations@minderbinder.nl for any questions, comments, or for links to your favorite cat videos on Youtube. We’ll be forever grateful.
Now here some poetry:
Loud as my piss in the bottles, clinks the city with itself. Loud as my piss in the bottles, sing the girls that are passing by. Loud, as the piss in the street, falls the garbage on the night, and then it goes, waiting, and then picked up.
Picked up by men who were pissing in bottles, pissing in alleys that hid all their faults. All the women they touched, and should not have known, Women they knew but should not have seen – They love them because, their hands are in love with themselves.
Horror it strikes with the returning of home, The mothers that smile in the morning.
Horrible the caskets of grandmothers, sailing towards a new home.
Horrific the thought of you in your cage, and dying and laughing no more.
Hymns for the lonely and hymns for the dead, the ashes and cigarettes land on the floor.
Loud as I piss in the bottles, and nothing is seen and nothing is heard. Nobody cares if you were ever here, nobody watches you when you sleep. Nobody waits for you to wake up and nobody listens and nobody grieves. Loud is the piss and loud the awakening, and silence is all that we fear.
Perhaps at the moment I saw my ten-year younger ghost, and laughed at him; mocked him for his dreams, showed him my place, showed him where the station was and where I lived now, showed him the museum next door and perhaps give him a tour of Leiden at night, where the silence is the most beautiful silence you will ever hear and the streets and alleys are like insatiable hookers whose arms you can just fall into at will.
To be frank — can I be Frank? — I don’t know where to begin or where it ends. I imagined a place where Central Park is right next to Penn Station and the MoMa. Where Berkeley is actually in San Francisco. (And also, where your mind isn’t a collection of other people’s minds processed by a mastermind who cherry-picks from your memories.) I thought of a tiny place (smaller than an island) where you can walk everywhere you need to be. Where people only buy cars for stature and not because they need it to get some place they think they’ll be happier. You’ll never be happier than you are now.
And then I saw it filled up, suddenly. Filled up with memories — where you hit me, where I hurt you — and perhaps one day getting too filled up to the point that I would have to leave because it’s just too damn fucking much to deal with. If you’ve never walked around a dark town with just headphones and your arms spread wide, you’ve never been alive and I don’t wish to talk to you.
No, it’s not writing, it is typing, and still typing isn’t fast enough to capture what we see and do. I’m sorry Truman, but you haven’t seen the 21st century and this is just how it goes today.
Leiden, city of my life, love of my loins, I will not depart. I cannot leave this, even though I know I will. I would rather walk these streets listening to music on my phone than return to the 18th century to invent electricity. Tomorrow I will smash the McDonalds and all shall be perfect. Good night.
“Long Conversations” is de band van Olaf Caarls, waar hij (zoals voorbeelden Ryan Adams en Neil Young) folk muziek koppelt aan een meer rock en indie geluid, begeleid door zijn zogenaamde “Closet Orchestra”: bas, piano, cello, trombone, mandoline en percussie kleden zijn nummers subtiel (en minder subtiel) aan. Begonnen in 2007, verovert hij met zijn eerste EP (Groningen) een plaats in de finale van de Grote Prijs van Zuid-Holland – die hij ook meteen maar wint – een plaats in de line-up van het rondreizende Popronde festival, en dringt, uiteindelijk, door tot de finale van de Grote Prijs van Nederland.
Met de door de Grote Prijs van Zuid-Holland geboden mogelijkheden nemen Long Conversations and the Closet Orchestra hun debuut-album, ‘The Getaway’ op, een in alle opzichten adolescent album, dat wordt geprezen om de sterke teksten, en melancholische sfeer. Opnamen voor een nieuwe EP — I’ll Be Drunk When You Call — zijn inmiddels afgerond. Voor deze EP riep de songwriter de hulp in van Elliott Smith’s “Dead Soldiers”, die de band begeleidden bij het schrijven van de nummers, en tevens de lay-out van de EP verzorgen. I’ll Be Drunk When You Call komt in de herfst van 2011 in beperkte oplage uit, waarna de band doorgaat met de opnamen van een tweede langspeelplaat.
De band speelt sinds 2008 vele shows, groot en klein, waaronder voorprogramma’s voor onder meer a balladeer (ha, dat rijmt!) en Damien Jurado; het Bevrijdingsfestival Rotterdam; het Ontzettend Leiden festival en in Desmet Live op Radio 5. In 2010 volgen met deze band ondermeer twee tours in Duitsland, Zwitserland en Italië, en begin 2011 gaat de band nogmaals op tour in België en Duitsland.
Long Conversations is niet te boeken voor feesten en partijen.
