Chez Natasha

There’s nothing like some silly, harmless entertainment. I used to go to this dusty warehouse in my native Montréal and buy stacks of 45s for a few Canadian dollars. I once read an article about American visual artist/robot maker Mark Pauline in which he said he grabbed a bunch of records at a garage sale and that became his collection. I basically did the same thing, although I never realised what kind of weirdness I owned. This canary record is one of these weird 45s.

I started buying vinyl again, albeit a little more seriously. I find second hand things here in Europe at markets, but I have also bought a few things recently that are more expensive than CDs. Since I started DJing again, it was about time I had a decent vinyl collection and not just stacks of CDs or weird canary records. This record is part of a ‘collection’ of truly odd bits I have lying around. The rest is worse!

Time flies by when you’re either having fun or really busy. First, the French night of the Amsterdam Beat Club at the Hotel Winston was a smashing success. I played a set there once back in 2003 to an unsuspecting crowd. But that was then. This weekend I get to DJ as well, although this time it will be French jazz at cafe Festina Lente instead of the usual ye-ye music. As for being busy, well, setting up a new business is very time consuming and energy consuming. Being overworked is something I have to always watch out for, no matter how much I like my work. And DJing on Sunday nights requires a lot of effort come Monday morning.

(Photo: Yuri Vorontsov)