the bearded masses: flickr site of the yr award

Jona is posting flickr photos of his European tour with Luckey Dragons, Devendra Banhart, Electrelane (a band which features HIT IT OR QUIT IT #18 contributor MIA CLARKE), C*** Ros**, Sonic Youth, Joanna Newsom, Wolf Eyes and other of America’s modern-day Jodorowsky ensemble cast, including Rahzel (the human beatbox and sixth or seventh wonder of the world–seen here posing with Jona, who is WEARING ORANGE PLASTIC WAYFARERS AND A CROCHETED FAKE BEARD). It is idyllic like you are there, getting wide-angle perspectives on cartoony Eurocandy and store signs in slightly non sequitur English (I understand the impulse, papi chulo, I named my blog after a thrift store in Berlin). Also here peep Jona trying to “act normal… act normal” while posing with Shirley Manson of Garbage. Ha! Ha! And you get to see Devendra driving a boat and wearing NO SHIRT but TONS OF EYELINER.
PS. That last photo reminds me of this great artist I used to date who got purposely bad tattoos as a living performance art. As I recall, he had a misproportioned tattoo of Texas on his chest, a heart with a misspelled word (sorry, I can’t remember what it said, something like “MOM FORVER”), an india ink-and-needle (aka “prison”) tattoo on his knuckles that said something like “KOBRA,” some awful line drawing of like, a UFO dropping bombs up and down his arm, and like, a crucifix on his palm. It was terrific and made me laugh although it was also very lonely act–He presented it as a series of permanent visual body gags, but anyone unaware of his intention to art/humor would react with the same pity or sympathy they’d reserve for you know, a three-legged chihuahua.
Anyway here is the video for the song Jona said was a Dutch summer jam, the song “Watskeburt?!” by De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig, who are deemed on the site as “Hiphoppers uit Amsterdam,” but is more like three dudes chatting while driving a Techno Mini. Note “fa shizzle” lyric in first verse (woo American pop culture global export woo) and what sounds like the wobbly bending of dutch to approximate new yorky/ eminem-ish accent, or rather something in between. The beat is kinda fresh but the language barrier is bumming me out. Why the FUCK dont’ I know Dutch?!