March 1, 2019

Religious party object to ‘satanic’ metal festival

Filed under: Music,Religion by Orangemaster @ 12:12 pm

Religious political party SGP (Protestant reformists) are collectively clutching their pearls in disgust, knowing that black metal festival ‘Helvete Festival’ is coming to their town this weekend and would like the event to be cancelled. Held at music venue Estrado and organised by heavy metal fan volunteers, the Helvete Festival is the town of Harderwijk’s first black metal festival and I would image they are pretty excited about it.

The SGP is taking aim at local band Sator Malus ‘with their satanic and misanthropic lyrics’, but not the other four bands, which is odd, making me wonder how much of it they listened to and where before they decided to be outraged.

The complaints about ‘the youth should not be exposed to this’ are first of all, way too late, as the promotion was doing the rounds on social media for months, but apparently the SGP missed it. Secondly, do you really think kids won’t find anything they want on social media? You’re the ones who apparently act like social media doesn’t exist – again, where did you hear the band?

The city council is wondering what they can do against the festival and if they even want to because they have no legal leg to stand on. Usually music venues are subsidised for many festivals, but not this one, which means hurting them in the wallet is also not an option.

As opposed to the luddites, the organisers say it’s not about the lyrics, but more about the music. They even explain that the artists are also people with houses, families, pets and normal obligations, not satan worshippers. It’s all an act.

The SGP are the people who recently brought us the very hateful Nashville Statement and got called out by most of the country.

The SGP have clutched their pearls over ‘swearing’ at a previous metal concert in 2007 even though it has fuck all to do with them.

The SGP complained about paid parking on Sunday, but had no issues letting others pay for it. Again, go visit on another day than Sunday.

The SGP tried and failed to hinder the start of the Tour de France in 2009 on a Sunday.

(Link: ed.nl, Photo: treehugger.com)

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October 16, 2018

Mayor of Heerlen to DJ a metal set

Filed under: Dutch first,Music,Weird by Orangemaster @ 6:09 pm

Mayors in the Netherlands are appointed and not elected, and it’s not uncommon to see well-known national politicians, such as Ahmed Aboutaleb in Rotterdam (Labour Party), Ahmed Marcouch in Arnhem (Labour Party), Femke Halsema in Amsterdam (Green Party) or Emile Roemer in Heerlen (Socialist Party) step out of national politics to become mayors of a big Dutch city. In the case of Emile Roemer, he became the first ever mayor of the Socialist Party in March of this year, in a town that regularly votes for his party.

My sources tell me that Roemer enjoys being addressed informally and is a fan of heavy metal, the right kind of soundtrack to a city filled with empty buildings where the youth leave to find jobs and a more stable future. As for Heerlen, Limburg, a former mining town of some 87,000 residents, it is the rock and roll answer to the more conservative and tourist-savvy Maastricht some 30 minutes away.

And I don’t know if this is a first, but it’s most probably a first for Heerlen: on Sunday, 23 December, Roemer will be DJing a thrash metal and hard rock set at De Nieuwe Nor, the city’s only pop club. He’ll be opening for Amsterdam band Death Alley who apparently won’t be playing for a while after this.

And if Facebook is any indication, people will go because the whole idea is kind of amusing.

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March 14, 2018

Sepultura’s bassist opens rock bar in Amsterdam

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 10:47 am

Cimbal-BR020

Bassist Paulo Xisto Pinto Jr of world famous Brazilian metal band Sepultura has opened a bar in Amsterdam called BR020 (BR for Brazil and 020 for Amsterdam’s landline city code).

According to his bar staff, Paulo had always wanted to own a bar in Amsterdam even though he doesn’t live there. The bar staff play vinyl records, so you can ask to hear something and even pick from the wall (see photo below). My party went for some Motörhead, AC/DC and Pink Floyd.

Sepultura is finishing off a tour next week and the entire band is scheduled to attend the private opening of the bar although BR020 has been open for business since January. They serve one type of beer as their regular beer, a lesser known choice in Amsterdam purely because another beer from the same distributor is the beer the band has on their rider: Czech beer Pilsner Urquell.

BR020 also has a small stage that I’m sure will be put to good use soon enough. They also have a very nice collection of signed cymbals on the wall (see photo).

Guitar-Sepultura

Wall-BR020

See also:

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March 11, 2014

Supportless, magical 3D printing of metal

Filed under: Design,Technology by Orangemaster @ 7:42 am

3D-printing-robot-by-Joris-Laarman-draws-freeform-metal-lines-_dezeen_8

The Joris Laarman Lab, located in Amsterdam, is known for experimenting and tinkering with the new possibilities of upcoming technology alongside craftspeople, scientists and engineers. Their latest feat includes a technique for large-scale 3D printing of 3D objects made from steel, stainless steel, aluminum, bronze or copper on any work surface that does not require any additional support structures. “The MX3D-Metal method combines a robotic arm typically used in car manufacturing with a welding machine to melt and then deposit metal, to create lines that can be printed horizontally, vertically, or in curves without the need for support structures.”

Back in 2010 we wrote about Joris Laarman’s solo exhibition in New York featuring ‘bone chairs’.

Watch the video to see how it is possible to create metal structures in mid-air, as it has something quite magical to it.

(Links: phys.org, www.dezeen.com, Photo of freeform metal lines from dezeen.com)

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August 12, 2013

There’s a Metal Bible for lost Frisian metal fans

Filed under: Music,Religion by Orangemaster @ 8:00 am

Here I thought fighting music containing satanic messages had long been given up as a futile pastime back in the late 1980s, but that was before I went to my first Frisian metal festival and found out that Bible thumpers still want to convert metal lovers. In all fairness, the guy running the stand looked pretty normal with a black t-shirt and shorts (and is apparently a metal fan), with the exception of his stand full of bibles and using God as an excuse or explanation for his life choices.

The Metal Bible was being handed out right at the entrance of the Into The Grave metal festival, a small one-day event in downtown Leeuwarden, fantastically located at the foot of the leaning Oldehove tower and on an actual burial ground. It featured eight bands, local, European and American ones of different styles and was quite cheap (6,66 euro early bird price, 10 euro afterwards).

The Metal Bible started in 1996, with a ‘metalhead’ who wanted to share his love of God with metal fans, but finally kicked off in 2002 when said guy realised that the Bible was being used to approach other notoriously God-hating groups, such as bikers and footballers. The first edition of the Metal Bible was published in Swedish in June 2005, then a Dutch version was published in 2007. In 2011 it was published in English and German and 2012 in Spanish and Polish.

Regardless of its content, which reads like brainwashing to me, it is nicely made, with testimonials from metal bands and other people whose lives were turned around by reading the Bible.

If the good book was such a good read (I was forced to read a lot of it back in Catholic school), then you shouldn’t have to ‘metal it up’ to get your target group to read it. Sexing something up must have some connection to the Devil, but then every good book needs an antagonist.

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November 27, 2007

Animal sculptures from rusty old tools

Filed under: Animals,Art by Branko Collin @ 11:48 pm

Joshua Pennings is an artist from Grave, Noord-Brabant who makes animal sculptures from rusty, discarded tools and parts. The size of these works ranges from a couple cubic decimeters to a couple cubic meters.

Via BoingBoing.

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