Where the cool kids are

Dirty Pretty Things

Nintendoom – a chiptune festival

I’ve finally found some people here in Belgium who seem to be my people! I’m ecstatic! While I did see a little bit of coolness at Nintendoom 3.0, where I live is so very clean and soothingly ordinary that I was wondering if all the wild nights and hazy days were confined to Germany or what the deal was.

This being said, I’ve long heard that people in Antwerp are giant pretentious hipster losers but in fairness, that’s been coming from people here in the province outside of Antwerp aka culchies. And we all know what culchies (people who live outside of Dublin in Ireland) have to say about Dubliners…

If it was a bag of heroin you’d catch it ya jackeen scumbag ya

–via

The great stuff in Belgium

 

My happiness began when I stumbled across The Word Magazine. All of a sudden it was like I was back in Dublin again and knew where the, uhm, alternative (?) action was.

In their own words, the Word Magazine is:

A neatly-packaged and constantly updated account of the best Belgium has to offer: best for food, best for weekend getaways, best for hidden greenery and much more.

It’s full of a good load of great stuff. Not as extensive as it could be (I’m guessing) or updated as often as it could be (maybe) but there’s enough in there to keep me occupied for a good while to come. One of the posts introduced 1980s Belgian New Wave music to me. And, unlike the music today, it’s actually good.

11 iconic new wave tracks from Belgium

This fantastic collection includes 11 bands I’ve never heard of and music that made my ears orgasm (or something less gross).

This is RED APE, described as “Classic new wave band with singer/performer Peter Slabbynck, active again under the name Ex Rz.”

This is Aggression, from an A-sided single of the infamous 1980’s and Belgian new wave band Secret Life.

Cool events in Belgium

                                                                               (and one in Amsterdam)

From finding The Word Magazine, it was off down the rabbit hole of the internet that I went, and found myself finding not only reports and publications but events with real live people (dear Lord).

I’m very happy.