Dorpsjuweel 2008: Sounds of The Netherlands

In between installing our Library & Librarian, we try to keep agoin'on our Digital Audio Archive project: recording the sounds of the cities, countries & people we meet. We just met [again] the wonderful Ruigoord community [Amsterdam] in the Netherlands, and have been helping run Ruigoord Radio. We're not sure if there is live a stream up yet, so we've whacked up some of the audio we've been recording [see links to stream below] via The Internet Archive, so you can listen to it almost as soon as we have done gone recorded it! Enjoy!

"The artists enclave Ruigoord has now been flourishing as a cultural freeport for exactly 35 years. For so many years there has been a big summer festival on the fields surrounding the village inspired by the Amsterdam Balloon Company, the Landjuweel. But now around Ruigoord the march of industry draws ever closer and it’s time to give a new twist to the festival. So we have a whole new concept in mind: the Landjuweel comes to the village! This year the Juweel (meeting) will take place in the heart of the village and that in itself is an alchemical transformation."



Ken Parsons and [some of] the Bucket Boys [stream], recorded live on Saturday afternoon, 16th August 2008 at Dorpsjuweel Festival, Ruigoord, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Taking a Walk Around the Sounds of the Site [stream]: Saturday afternoon at Dorpsjuweel, Ruigoord, 16 August 2008.

The Low Budgetarians [stream]: reggae dub live set, Saturday evening at Dorpsjuweel, Ruigoord, 16 August 2008.

The Bucket Boys [stream]: live set & mini-interview, Saturday afternoon at Dorpsjuweel, Ruigoord, 16 August 2008.

The Library returns to Amsterdam [proper] and re-opens next week: as long as we survive the festival weekend intact [it's already midnight and we've still gotta lotta recording to go!]

Just before we go. If we can figure out how to leave.

. . . as it is still raining, we are still in the radio tent, and just going to quickly upload some more audio before we head off site and realise that probably we are too late to get a ticket back to the UK to arrive er, oops, tomorrow, so perhaps we will end up staying in Amsterdam a little longer. Taking a wild guess I wonder if this happens a lot to people when they get here. Quite possibly. Right, we are going to brave the rain . . . have some Landjuweel festival sounds to see us off site:

javascript:void(0)

It’s the Alpine horn woman who we saw at the poetry festival here back in June! AKA Her Divine Mistress of Craziness. Photograph by Herman Kolkman, who has more pictures on his site here

It’s the Banjo man, playing in the Groovy Movie tent at 4am on Sunday morning (August 13th)

How to wake up to Reggae . . . (and don’t forget we are STILL live on air in Ruigoord, Amsterdam)

. . . the easiest way is to fall asleep in the Radio tent and wake up with the JourneyMen Soundsystem at full blast on the decks, booming out some Reggae man to the Ruigoord site. Not that anyone necessarily is taking any notice, as it seems that quite a few people, who we bumped into last night slash this morning, on our recording travels, had no idea there was a live radio station broadcasting (on 90.3 fm) and streaming live from the Ruigoord site. Nevermind. At least the radio DJs are having a good time. So, well, we have had erm, maybe six hours sleep, and have already been out capturing August 13th sounds . . . which included bagpipes, a saxophone, and a visit to the cosy corner where some accordion and singing was taking place. We also need to work out how the hell to get out of here as we are supposed to be installing The Poetry Library at The Poetry Society Cafe at 22 Betterton Street, in London, on Wednesday, so we need to find out how to move our librarian, and library, back to the UK. . . we’ll figure it out. In the meantime we are going to take advantage of some audio editing which provides us with desk space in the radio tent and access to the wi-fi, so here are some more sounds from the site recorded by our trusty librarian. Here we go:

The end of a children’s theatre show

A Dutch poet in the Dichtertent on August 11th 2006

The Fake Scottish McBastard clan member1 – we thought we heard the sound of Bagpipes somewhere on site . . . August 13th 2006

We also heard this dude on saxophone when we woke up and went to find some coffee on site . . . August 13th 2006

And finally . . . last night in the bar tent we stood by the mixing desk and heard this . . .

Mud. Solar power. Radio. Rock on!

. . . well. We have made it through the last 2 and a half days, and survived the floods, which have covered the Ruigoord site in mud, mud, and er, mud. Oh, and an ice cream van which drove up, parked in a bog and started serving. We brought our toothbrush, some pre-made cous cous, and of course, the poetry library. What more do we need? Nothing. We have already signed up 7 new members, most of whom, we have to admit, were fellow Radio DJs like us, hangin’ out in the Radio Ruigoord tent. But hey, who cares. It was wet outside and our librarian is precious about her books. So we had a private Poetry Library installation inside, in the warm, next to the mixing desk. Our trusty librarian cum sound editor cum DJ has already done 2 shows, one special ‘Europe ConVerses’ programme, where we showcased some of the best sound clips and poetry we have recorded over the last ten weeks of the poetry blog, podcast and library tour. We then also did a special report from the site, which we will try and upload right here now. However, bear in mind we are still sitting in the radio tent with solar powered electricity for the laptop, wifi, and stream, which has a tendency to disappear at any point . . . but we shall have a go. Enjoy!

Awesome. Wi-fi uploaded audio from a tent in Ruigoord, Amsterdam, recorded live at Ruigoord August 11th 2006 by DJ Babybarb

These are the dudes who are making this sound

The Spiritual Jam people DJ Babybarb recorded at 2am on Aug 11th, this is them when we met the next day, doing another mini session for us . . .

And this is how the electricity is powered. Pedal power!

On site at Ruigoord

Ruigoord tee pees. Good to sleep in when it doesn’t flood

On site at Ruigoord2

The squeaky cloudbus

Ice cream in all weathers

A flamenco dancing poet

It’s a Journeyman. He was chopping wood for the stove, inbetween playing his Jamaica reggae radio show. . .

Ever seen a mobile solar-powered cinema. No? Here you go . . .

A Dutch poet on stage on Friday night in the bar tent

A Ruigoord boat. Handy in this weather