Month: May 2010

The members of Bettie Serveert are alt-rock survivors. They have been performing in various incarnations since 1986, and they released critically acclaimed debut album Palomine in 1992. Joining the core lineup of vocalist/guitarist Carol van Dyk, guitarist Peter Visser and bassist Herman Bunskoeke on new album Pharmacy Of Love (Second Motion) is drummer Joppe Molenaar (of fellow Dutch band Voicst). The group recorded the LP in relative isolation in Waimes, Belgium, in order to better concentrate on honing its sound, and the result is a mix of the classic Bettie Serveert vibe with new modern-rock flourishes. Van Dyk, Visser and Bunskoeke will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with van Dyk.

Carol: From left to right, that’s Peter Visser (guitar), Reinier Veldman (drums), Herman Bunskoeke (bass) and Joost Visser (guitar and vocals). Let’s get one thing straight: Peter and Joost are not related to each other. Visser is just a common name in Holland, like Smith or Jones in the U.S. In the early ’80s, Peter, Joost and Reinier met each other at the art school in Arnhem. Herman was a part-time nude model (not kidding), and they all had basically the same taste in music, art, books and movies. None of them was a really good musician, but after a lot of practicing and cooking meals together (Herman was already a great cook) and sometimes squatting in empty buildings, they derived a sound that was quite unique: a monotone meandering cross-over between the Velvet Underground, the Fall and Joy Division, with bits and pieces of Television Personalities and Daniel Johnston. Their concerts were enigmatic: They either sucked or were brilliant. It was at some party when they decided to call their band De Artsen (“the Doctors”), because Peter was wearing a white doctor’s jacket. I was one of their biggest fans and their live mixer, and why they ever stopped is beyond my comprehension. But they made two records; one is called Conny Waves With A Shell, recorded by Edwin Heath (who used to be the live mixer of Nirvana back in the day and also one of the two mixers of Bettie album Palomine). You might be able to find that one on CD somewhere. The other one was a limited vinyl edition of home recordings and practice-space stuff, Out Of Sack. They still have a demo and a live recording of a great German concert, both of them unreleased. Don’t look at me: I already asked them several times 🙂

Video after the jump.

The members of Bettie Serveert are alt-rock survivors. They have been performing in various incarnations since 1986, and they released critically acclaimed debut album Palomine in 1992. Joining the core lineup of vocalist/guitarist Carol van Dyk, guitarist Peter Visser and bassist Herman Bunskoeke on new album Pharmacy Of Love (Second Motion) is drummer Joppe Molenaar (of fellow Dutch band Voicst). The group recorded the LP in relative isolation in Waimes, Belgium, in order to better concentrate on honing its sound, and the result is a mix of the classic Bettie Serveert vibe with new modern-rock flourishes. Van Dyk, Visser and Bunskoeke will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with van Dyk.

Peter: Marcel Duchamp is to blame for everything. There’s this photo of him, tied to a chair and kicked in the stomach by the New York avant-garde artists of the ’60s. And they were right! Every art movement, and almost every thought about art, can be traced back to him, though he never was part of dada, surrealism or any other movement. The French artist, raised in a family of art lovers (one brother a painter, the other a sculptor, and his sister became a painter), abandoned painting at early age for it to be too “retinal” (to please the eye instead of the mind), moved to New York and went underground. He worked eight years on his The Large Glass (part of it by waiting for it to collect dust) and abandoned art altogether (as people thought) to play chess and secretly work on his piece Given for the last 20 years of his life: a shocking scene behind wooden doors that you can see at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I read a lot of books about him (as you can see in the photo below: the Duchamp cabinet in my room, or “shrine,” if you will), but still don’t fully grasp it. Maybe he’s so interesting ‘cause every way you try to understand it (or him) is a reflection of yourself. Check out this site about making sense of Duchamp.

Video after the jump.