Live8 yesterday. I couldn’t remember much from the last one, only the Queen performance looked familiar when I saw the highlights from the one 20 years ago. I hadn’t really follow the Live8 build up this time, just heard that many big names were participating, Michael Jackson would maybe appear as well and the Spice Girls were reunited for the occasion. So I was a bit surprised I didn’t see a bank number on the screen with big capital letters asking me to donate money. They didn’t want my money, just my support. Fair, but who wouldn’t support ending poverty in this world?!?! Well… apparently a lot of people, as we still have poverty in this world… So I think it’s great they did this.

But will it really help? I sure hope so, but am not to positive about it… I truely believe it’s fair to drop the debts, have better trade rules and give more and better aid. No discussion about that, again, who wouldn’t support that? But I do wonder… As long as African countries are “managed” in a wrong way by their governments, or have totally corrupt governments and governments that are treading their own people very badly, what will be achieved by all this? Will a global statement have direct effect on a local bad government? I fail to believe so. The future of Africa won’t be decided by rock concerts nor the G8, but by African politicians making the right decisions.

Still, the initiative needs to be praised. At least now there is global attention to the problems again and just that will hopefully bring a lot of good. Not just for the people in Africa, but for the poor people all around the world. As there is probably a lot of poor people in Asia, South America and even the western world as well who would love to see their debts cancelled! But I think they will have some problems convincing their local bank of that… “Yes, didn’t you see uncle Geldof on TV? I thought you dropped my debt?” :-)
Probably not…

The music was also something special. A great start with U2, a disappointing Coldplay trying out their new single, Elton John trying to promote one of his toy-boys, Björk… well… Björk…, Good Charlotte rocking in Tokyo, Dido clearly having a jour sans… Then I bailed out for the Tour de France (holy shit that Lance was fast!!!) and my brothers birthday party, only to return for what should have been the last hour… I was not so lucky… I only got the 2 last songs with Paul McCartney… But those were good! As well as some of the highlights I saw later on the BBC from Robbie Williams and Sting. I guess you can’t like every artist… but Bob… honestly… please ask everybody to just stick to their hits next time! :-)

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Do you know the feeling? Let me paint the situation. You are driving in a car. Listening to a CD. You feel the urge coming up to listen to a particular song on the CD. You get the CD cover. Look on the back to see what track it is and… NO TRACK NUMBERS! *Arggggg*
Why dear music artists? Why? It ain’t that much trouble to put the track number before the track… or after… or at least close to it for all I care… but give us something! Now am handling the steering wheel with my knee, holding the CD in one hand and going down the track numbers with the other hand… and when I am looking at the CD cover, I ain’t looking where I should be looking, the road (!!!), so a dangerous situation could occur! If something would happen and I was living in America, I could probably sue the band and become a millionaire… but I ain’t, so I just have to be friendly and ask… Please! Please put some numbers with the songs!!!

Oh, the CD that caused the problems this afternoon was the new one from Kane, Fearless. A Dutch rock band, but as I was told, “every country has it’s own Kane”, so not well known around Europe… But they make quite ok music. Their new CD is reasonably good, but I must say I expected it to be a bit better after reading some reviews about it… So I wasn’t jumping about it, and the missing track numbers didn’t help much! ;-)

PS. For all you people out there who got their driving license today, please know it’s NOT ok to drive with your knee, NOT ok to play with CD’s while driving and NOT ok to pay attention to anything other then the road!! Experience is required there, and even then it’s somewhat stupid! But that’s what you get when they don’t put on the track numbers! ;-)

Update (June 24, 2005):
Ok, I must say the CD does get better and better if you listen to it more often… My first opinion wasn’t correct. The CD is actually much better then just “reasonably good”!!

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Anouk’s latest album: Hotel New York. I finally bought it 2 weeks ago, and have been listening to it quite a lot now. So much that it must be said: it’s good!!!! No, not just being patriotic here! ;-) It’s actually really good! I can really recommend it to all you people out there! But I do think it might be a bit hard finding it in your local music store… Not sure how fast an album gets distributed all over Europe. I guess they usually would first release a single, before going wild on the distribution of the complete album. So finally this whole Internet-idea is starting to pay off! :-) It took a while, but now we found some real useful usage! As there must be some online shops where you can find the album, if your local Swedish, Danish, Polish, English, Norwegian or “wherever you are from” music store hasn’t got it yet, or is to lazy to order it for you! This is your chance to be the first sheep in your country to go over the dam! :-)

At Anouk’s website you can listen to parts of the songs, if you got curious!

Anouk - Hotel New York

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The Shell internet connection doesn’t allow people to listen to webradio. A pity. All local stations are therefore blocked. So alternatives are required. People bring in MP3 players or listen to CD’s. Options, but I prefer the radio. So today I remembered my Swedish favorite! Bandit Rock 106-3. What kind of music they play can’t be a surprise, as it’s all in the name. And, as I rightly expected, they are not blocked by the Shell internet connection! :-)
Funny detail when I surfed to the Bandit website, they use a custom cursor for the links on their website. Tonight when I opened the website in my preferred browser Firefox, it turned out the custom cursor doesn’t work in Firefox (only in Internet Explorer 6+)… Little disappointment, which only grew bigger when it became clear the whole online radio thing doesn’t work in Firefox… but anyway, that’s besides the point. The point that I liked their eye for detail!

So for you out there who don’t like using Internet Explorer either, but are curious, this is the cursor they use and where you can listen to their music:

Bandit Rock 106-3

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My brother is making a list of popular Dutch songs. Not just in Holland, but ones that were also well known abroad. I recognise the game, as I have had similar discussions with foreign people (often after a couple of cocktails) and unfortunately the list is not that long… Well, we are a small country, so it must be a bit harder to score a world wide hit, or at least it will make a little excuse. Today I was able to add a couple of winners to his list, as there are: “You” from Ten Sharp (who still knows them?) and “Better off alone” from Alice Deejay (gotta love her! ;-), but the list stays rather small…
But how could I forget the best of all! Or at least one of my favourites! :-) 2 words sum it up: Reservoir Dogs. Great movie! I think anyone who has seen it can only agree. But the thing not a lot of people know, is that the title song is Dutch! Brought to you by the George Baker Selection! Yes, “Little green bag”! That one should definitely make the list! George, or Hans Bouwens as we also know him, even had another big hit with “Una Paloma Blanca”, making him a 2-hit-wonder and someone we can be proud of! ;-)

For you who haven’t seen the movie, or can’t remember the song, I got some of the tunes here for you. I really liked the tune, so I just made it my new ringtone! ;-)

George Baker Selection - Little Green Bag

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