de portables (topless is more!)

Last friday de portables played a pretty good live show for a small audience in Belgium s finest independent club 4AD in Diksmuide. We shared the bill with the dodos , an excellent little band from San Francisco. We re very jealous of their garbage can and we were very impressed by the guy who played that particular object. The entire portables show can be downloaded right here, right now; especially for those of you who missed and that were quite a lot of people actually! And we could have used your support for the afterwardly World Championship of World Soccer we played against those silly birds from Frisco! The setlist was: 1 The Never Ending Song 2 Camper 3 This Time Of Year 4 What Would Djenghis Do? 5 Poisonous Fishy 6 Aradub 7 This Is A Song 8 Vegetarian BBQ encores: 9 Chariots Of Surf 10 A Waltz download mp3 Enjoy and never mind the bindteksten!

Another lost portables track turned up while I was checking an unlabeled tape. What first seemed like a typical 1999 self-made post-rock and electronica compilation tape turned out to contain a disregarded portables track. Nothing happened with this track anymore, I bet not a single portable even remembers it in his random recollections of glorious recording spurs memory (RROGRSM). In the end, isn t that what archeology is all about: uncovering the forgotten? The track itself was actually recorded by only Hans and Jürgen. You can clearly hear a funny evalution discussion at the very end of the track. The track itself is a 10 minute droney guitar epic that resides somewhere in between Pink Floyd s Welcome to the Machine and Village Of Savoonga. It features an old 78-rpm record player in the intro and was recorded @ Zon i Bos on a Digital 8-track. download mp3

Whereas diamonds are supposedly girls best friends, guys tend to express their amicality more likely towards the female breast. De portables are not any different. In the past we have already expressed our admiration for God s pillows in titles such as Boobies , Breasts Topless Is More and that s why this refreshing remix of our song Breasts was made. Enjoy! download mp3

De portables en Gofind have a long history of rich musical friendship. Hendrik s legendary Toothpick Records (later bought by wio to become part of the Studio Muscle Emperium) released Dieter s first songs back in (i think) 1995. Dieter s band was called Napkin vs. Soda (Soda being Dieter s nick, Napkin is Kris of the famous Zoo Records), and the first songs appeared on a split cassette with yes, our own wio :-). That must have been the start of what became a decade of symphonic symbiosis between Bruges and Kontich s best kept secrets: de portables and Dieter Sermeus (more )

Going through my tape archives I discovered this epic Ed Nolbed track. It s called Scapegoats , and it dates back to 1996 or 1997, shortly before the first Köhn album was produced. You can clearly hear that it s a transitional song. It s typical Ed Nolbed, Nolbedlam -style, rocking out in the beginning and then goes into to this droney, loopy middle part before introducing unambiguous Köhn elements: analogue bleeps and beats and simple repetitive melodies. The absolute ending is a sudden bombastic tail of the unexpected. Not very tasteful maybe, but it made me smile. For those who care, a list of material I used to make this 18 minute gem: Roland MKS-100 Sampler, Sequential Circuits Pro-One, Yamaha QY-10 Sequencer, Pink Warlock BC Rich Electric GTR, Ibanez Bass GTR, Boss Metal Zone Pedal and some cheapo microphone for the voice. It was recorded on a Fostex X-26 Analogue Four Track Tape Recorder. God bless em machines. download mp3

Dieter from the Go Find asked our help. The Go Find was invited to contribute a track to a New Zealand music compilation and Dieter queried us for our favorite New Zealand songs. Not a simple task! download mp3 Peter Jefferies and Robbie Muir - The Fate of the Human Carbine Beautiful song and probably the nr.1 influence on the lofi Leffe drinking bastard Wio from de portables Long post but keep on reading! (more )

Studiomuscle s yearly tradition continues as we present a compressed podcast of some of the highlights of 2007. Listen, enjoy and feel free to post your top of the bunch of 2007! download mp3 Read more for tracklisting (more )

Noone could say it better than Wesley Willis (May God have mercy on his soul) download mp3 sing-a-long!

Here s an old mellow wio xmas song, which was recorded back in 2001 for the on christmas day - volume 3 hometapers xmas comp Light up that xmas tree, fix yrself a hot gluhwein and listen to Never on my Mind in May : download mp3

Last week we received the not so memorable recordings of a not so memorable gig we did on the 3rd of November 2007 @ La Posterie in Courcelles. Wio wasn t there because of the possibility-of-becoming-a-dad-paranoia. Dieter joined us on cello and that s how the west was won. The fact that 3 other bands played before us and that the band before us, namely Apse, played way too long should be enough of an indication concerning the shape we were in by the time we had to play: a little too much beer-pressure, a little too much political satire with locals outside the venue and a little too much waiting before playing. Still, by the end of the gig we played an encore, being Hawaii . In the beginning you can hear (well, actually you can t ) Bert searching wtf is wrong with the electric guitar while Hans and I are grooving where no-man has grooved before. Somewhere in the background you can also hear Hendrik Mercury Dacqueen getting inspired by Da Groov and barfing out: Another One Bites The Dust or was it: Antoine, gef mie bier, kendust! . After Bert finally managed to plug in the cable in the right hole and I succesfully identified the microphone we got the song going and by the end it turned into a steaming meltdown of the very song itself. Enjoy! download mp3

The topic christmas has always been a taboo in the Belgian postrock scene. Christmas is one of those phenomenons that might easily ruin a rocker s career. Just try to imagine what a leaked family picture around the xmas table could do to your indie-credibility. But every taboo needs to be broken sooner or later. Yes, the time has come for an honest outing Well, de portables do care about christmas. We countdown days until the 25th, drinking beers (whilst making xmas trees out of the empty cans) and recording christmas sing-along-songs. Here s one of those gems: download mp3 Any other postrockers out there want to break an indie taboo? Feel free to out yourself in our online studiomuscle biechtstoel!

Yesterday Radio1 did an interview with Hans en Bert which turned out quite nice and honest. It explains why the album took so bloody long and why the next album is going to be released early next year. It s in dutch so if you want to practice your dutch, now it is the time! Enjoy duderino s download mp3

Yesterday s session and interview for the best - yet saddest - Belgian radio show Duyster. We played acoustic carton box slowcore versions of What would Djenghis do (featuring ze mighty violinator on cello) and Bulletbabe. Enjoy! Update! If you re wondering what a carton drumkit looks like (or a mighty violinator) check our Duystr-set on Flickr. What would Djenghis do? download mp3 Bulletbabe download mp3 Interview with Wio and Jürgen (in Dutch) download mp3

Wio shows off his superb interviewing skills once again! Good thing Jürgen was there for backup (interview for Brussel Vlaams on Studio Brussel November 4th 2007) download mp3

The bad news is: Bert skipped our weekly rehearsal yesteday. And he knows the Codex Portabili prescribes that this behaviour must be punished! download mp3 The good news is: we didn t really miss him!

Bekie, the genius behind the Indian Mahowhow , just sent us this nice spherefull delay-overload-remix he did of Op Safari Met Jean Michelle Jarre to congratulate us with the new record. Thanks Bekie! download mp3

By our reporter, ANTWERP - Sometimes a man has to stand up for what he believes in . It are the words of Dieter Sermeus, singer and leader of indiepop sensation The Go Find. Disguisted with the easy and gratuitous criticism on behalf of the Belgian christiandemocratic and liberal negotiators trying to form a new federal government, Sermous wanted to bring his former band Orange Black back together under a new name: Orange Blue . Out of respect for these hardworking politicians and their parties. (more )

Artist Steve McLaughlin compiled all the Beatles albums and compressed them to 1 hour. The end result takes you on a trip that s far surpasses the hallucigenity of the gay strawberry fields. Even better, one person recompressed several tracks to the original length and they even sound scarier. Kraak3, eat your heart out, the beatles invented psychedelic free noodling way before it got hip ;-). If you have time you can get the complete Beatles discography played at 800% of the compressed speed version. For free. It s a revolution! download mp3

Just rediscovered this old portables instrumental from the Cenneth era. Funny how the title of this song all of the sudden finally sort of gets a meaning after Hendrik s previous post :-). download mp3

Update 13/09/2007 Petition is featured on Radio 1 National Radio download mp3 Sign the petition I was born in Eeklo and I spent the first 5 years of my life there. Last monday Eeklo was in the news for the most silly and, at the same time, upsetting reason. It turns out that the mayor of Eeklo (yes, the one with the red circle around his head) wants to have the two frietkoten on the marketsquare removed permanently for esthetic reasons. The motivation he gave himself was that people who passed through Eeklo or visited Eeklo said that those frietkoten were so totally unesthetic and a shame for the marketplace. Now, let me tell you a little bit about Eeklo. Most people who have passed through Eeklo on their visit to Maldegem or even Brugge or Knokke know that Eeklo is hardly more than one long and boring shopping street that has ugly and unesthetic written all over it. So, let me thus conclude that it s all gotten to the head of the mayor and that power has driven him mad (or just insane?). It is for that reason, dear lovers of Studiomuscle, the Free Spirit and n kleintje mé stoofvleessauwse en majjonaize en nen viandel , I would like to request the following: let s write some message to Mr. Koen Loete (CD s that simple). What you say and how you say it is up to you, as long as it has the words frietkoten , op , de , markt , in , Eeklo , sluiten , is , totale , onzin , en , getuigt , van , op , de , spits , gedreven , kleinburgerlijkheid , en , machtsmisbruik or something like that. Or you could sign the petition: Sign the petition I m normally not all that into chain letters or petitions, but this fact I find rather disturbing and a frigthening omen of what s to happen once CD Frietkoten on the marketplace in Eeklo. Note: the Frietkoten date back from the 1920 s and the Belfry in Eeklo dates from 1932.

Tuesday night Jurgen shakily handed me the final mix of the new CD. The final product, mastered, mixed, edited, sequenced and what s more. Due for release mid-October. Any opinion, bad or good, is welcome by mail . I might as well do it on our blog, de portables v2.0. I have listened to the CD non-stop at work, a welcome change from the hours of free-folk and non-stop talking at wfmu, so here it is, my unsalted opinion on the new CD. (more )

“De portables in Denmark”: it’s been more than a week now. After some intense hypnosis sessions with Rasti Rostelli and a close examination of the photo’s we took, it’s all slowly coming back. (more )

Spice up your vegetarian bbq s with de portables trance remix of Vegetarian BBQ. Next year de portables at iLoveTechno! download mp3

The mysterious winner of our become-a-portable competition has been found! Luc Lambrechts sent us a catchy tune (hell of a bass line!) which we ended up using as a basis for a popsong called Haut Gay . Stilll is about to release Haut Gay as a single real soon, in the mean time you can listen to the original melody, think of it as a preview :-). Congratulations Luc! download mp3

As we announced earlier, the soon to be released single Haut Gay was created using the winning melody of our become-a-portable competition. Unfortunately, all data that might lead us to the identity of the mysterious author of this wonderful piece of music has accidentally been erased from the studiomuscle archival servers. So please, pleeeaase help us find who sent us this funky melody. Or even better: dear anonymous winner, if you read this yourself, contact us, this is what you sent us: download mp3

These pictures were taken in the winter of 2002, when de portables performed Poisonous Fishy with 20 guitarists, during an exposition of Pieter Vermeersch s art. Pieter invited us to do the same thing again on June 20th for a new exhibition. Of course we are very happy with this invitation, but we d like to do it a little differently this time (more )

Good news! Stilll will release Haut Gay as a single for the forthcoming album with the still mysterious name T.I.M. . With this news, we are also very happy to finally announce the winning tune of the become-a-portable competition we held last year. Haut Gay is a summerish popsong based on this winning melody: download mp3 There s just one tiny problem: our mailbox crashed and we just can t find any information on who sent this amazing winning tune So please winner - contact us! A lot of people sent us contributions, thanks for that! One oldschool portables fan called T. Vangheluwe even managed to crash our mailbox by spamming us with hundreds of improvised guitar riddly-diddlies. But his arbeit ist belohnt: Mr. Vangheluwe wins second price, and this recording was used in Coll Philins , the dark and epic opening song for T.I.M. Congratulations to you too! download mp3

On popular request we present Wio s cover version of Sabrina s Boys (Summertime love!) . Ripped off Wio s first solo tape (95-96 94 95)lo-fi noise galore! Probably the gayest song Wio ever did (well maybe after I peel the banana ) but of course what did you expect when lyrics go like this: Boys, boys, boys I m looking for a good time Boys, boys, boys Get ready for my love Enjoy the summertime love download mp3

From the mythical and well protected Wio unreleased back catalogue we found this perfect summer tune for this weekend.Wio goes Bossa Nova with Antonio Carlos Jobim s Corcovado .Sync your iPod and enjoy that Diabolo cocktail while sexy wio hits you with his quiet chords download mp3

De portables’ new album T.I.M. is set to be released in September. We know that’s a long time to wait. Therefore every now and then we’ll be posting outtakes, alternate recordings Postrocken met den Dirk . Another song you won’t find on the new album is Op Safari met Jean-Michel Jarre . It’s quite an old song, really. In fact, this one dates back to the summer of 2001. To be able to record it, we had to listen very carefully to a live recording of our Pukkelpop set that year (which we’ll probably post one day as well). If you’re wondering what the title is all about: we have no idea. It must have something to do with Jürgen’s keyboard skills. But the ‘safari’ thing? We forgot. But you know what they say about the summer of 2001: If you remember it, you weren’t there! download mp3