All Things Holland

It's the wrong Holland but still. Holland MI is city located on the coast with Lake Michigan settled by Dutch colonists in the 1800s. I plan on visiting someday, maybe in time with the Tulip festival like we talked about before, and posting pictures. I plan a post on this city soon. In the meantime, check out this song by Sufjan Stevens. It's kinda sappy and slow but neat, especially set to pictures of Holland. Sufjan Stevens is from Detroit MI and loves all things Michigan.

How to begin...Yesterday while listening to "Afdwaalt" again I decided to check out the rest of Eefje de Visser's artistry. "Man, all of her music is pretty good!" exclaimed a certain surprised person. So, naturally this surprised person decided then and there to buy her album called "De Koek" (The cake). Everyone knows that buying the hardcopy of a CD feels so much better than spending less for the MP3 downloads, so I searched and searched for this CD. It goes to say that very few of these CD's were made, and those that can be found are over the cold salty ocean. Finally I found a website which was recommended by her own official website, bol.com. Here I began digging my hole. Of course it was going to be a tad bit more expensive to buy a CD that was being sold using Euros but I didn’t mind too much. What did worry me was that the website was positively, absolutely, completely written in Dutch. So I may now proudly say that yes I do k...

The search is over. I have been looking for a band (that I have actually heard of) who are Dutch for a long time. This band I found almost by accident. I heard their song on the radio, used an app on my phone to identify who it was, then looked at their bio. Low and behold they're dutch! Who am I talking about? Golden Earring Founded in 1961 (A little before my time) in The Hague, Netherlands. Their big international successes were 'Radar Love', 'Twilight Zone', and 'When the Lady Smiles'. I've only heard the first 2. You're probably thinking, "I've never heard of this band." Listen to these songs and you'll say, "Oh, those guys." Here's Radar Love (My favorite of the 2) And Twilight Zone The band members include (very Dutch names); George Kooymans, Rinus Gerritsen, Barry Hay, and Cesar Zuiderwijk. They're still performing today with the hopes of releasing a new album soon. Obviously, they're...

Lets look at the Netherlands outside of the Netherlands, shall we? Well sort of... Now we all know that the Netherlands and France have something in common. They are both amazing. Now what would ever happen if someone mixed these two cultures? WHAM! BAMM! I give you "The Narcoleptic Dancers", a Franco-Dutch brother sister indie duo, comprised of Melody Van Kappers & Anton Louis Jr. Yes, you might say "this is too good to be true!" until you have heard some of their songs. I like the description that Music Week gave of them, " Should Juno ever be re-made in France, Narcoleptic Dancers will have a shoe-in for the soundtrack...»" Now you might ask how is the brother French and the sister Dutch? Well, it follows a pretty complicated family dynamic. Their father was a famous Dutch soccer player who was nick named the narcoleptic dancer for his hairstyle and his soccer skills. This famous father, while playing in France, had a passionate mee...