Hello my friends!
I hope you are all well this somewhat grey autumn day. If you have had the chance to listen to my latest show from this week, then you will know that I went to Brussels for the first time last weekend and that this episode focuses on Release, the event that I attended and the main reason for my trip over to Belgium. However, I wanted to share my first experience of Brussels with you as well, mainly because I had the pleasure of meeting so many of you! So here it goes…
This Little Miss Sunshiine adventure started with that I overslept (due to too many Duvel’s the night before) and missed my train on Saturday morning, which I admit added a very “special” element of complete panic and stress to the beginning of my trip.
But after managing to sort out a new ticket for free (I lied to the lady behind the counter and told her I was attending a funeral…)
I checked in, boarded the train, and tried to keep all the bubbly & excited feelings inside of me in check. I was sitting on the train, looking out over the green landscape and grey sky, trying to imagine what my trip would be like. Would I get along with Alex, the person I was meant to be staying with? Would Release be successful or would I end up with a bunch of disappointed Belgians? Would people be friendly or would I feel like a complete outsider? Little did I know what great experiences and people I was about to encounter.
As the train was reaching the Brussels Midi station, Grazzhoppa’s “Vous Aller a BX” started playing on my iPod, and all I could do was smile, it was the perfect song for the perfect moment. I got off the train and my heart started racing. Julius was meant to come and pick me up at the station, but I had only met him once for an afternoon here in London in August, so I was a little a bit nervous… As I was walking down the stairs that takes you to the stations exists, I saw him standing at the bottom looking up and smiling. I felt a sudden rush of joy running through my entire body and an extreme urge to run down the stairs, jump him and give him the biggest hug in the world. However, I managed to restrain myself due to the thought of potentially crippling the poor man, so I settled for a hello and kiss on the cheek.
I was in a desperate need of a coffee, so we took the tram to Saint Gilles for some coffee and a catch up. We got to Maison du Peuple, sat down and the first thing I noticed was that people were smoking inside (which was a surprise since it’s not allowed in the UK). We stayed for about 40 minutes, talking about this and the other, and then walked around the corner over to Alex’s place.
Now, I just want to point out that I had never met Alex before, so I was very much looking forward to meeting this very talented young man who had been kind enough to offer me a place to stay despite the very fact that we didn’t really know each other. He was meant to be VJ-ing with Gunter at Release in the evening, and of course, they were not done with the visuals. Alex seemed a bit stressed out, which was understandable, and I told him not to worry as I’d happily spend the afternoon with Julius. So I left my bag and headed out on the streets of Brussels with my wonderful guide.
Im going to be honest with you, I can’t remember the names of any of places I saw… (Sorry Julius!) But it was a pleasant mix of nice areas and some parts that were a bit rough around the edges. I saw the peeing little boy, and I even managed to catch some kind of parade with traditional Belgian folk music and people dressed up like giants, spinning around on the street. (I’d like to pretend it was my welcoming party).
After a lot of walking and another coffee, it was time to head over to the Beursschouwburg to check out the preparations for the evening’s big event and also to pick up keys from Alex so I could go home and have a well deserved shower before the party. We got to the venue and I had the chance to quickly say hello to Bart from Onda Sonora, as well as having the pleasure of being introduced to LuiGi & Eric P from Infinitskills and wHo? (the very talented artist that has made some very cool editions of the Laid Back logo). Me and Julius ended up hanging out there for a little while before heading off home again to prepare ourselves for the exciting night ahead. After a shower and a huge dinner that pretty much put me in a food coma, we were finally ready to get our groove on and made our way back to the venue.
We arrived at the Beursschouwburg and there were already quite a few people inside. DJ Azer had started playing and we were cruising around the room trying to spot people we knew. First person I bumped into was Lefto, who I hadn’t seen since his visit in London this summer. He seemed a bit tired from the night before, but his spirits were still high and I was very happy to see him again. After meeting Lefto, everything seemed to be happening rather quickly, and I felt like I was attending a big family reunion. Lots of people were coming up saying hello and I was a bit overwhelmed with how friendly and open everybody was. Julius seemed to know most people there, and he was introducing me to all kinds of lovely people, who to my big surprise, had heard my show and apparently really liked it.
i-Sa kicked off the live performance part of the evening and never having heard of them before, I was very pleasantly surprised by the sounds I was hearing. When they finished, it was Infinitskills turn to take the stage and by that time, the venue was packed and filled with a great atmosphere. They started their show, and the only word that springs to mind in order to describe it is WOW. I had heard a couple of tracks from them before that I liked, but I also knew it was their first ever live performance, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. But in my personal opinion, they absolutely SMASHED IT. Their music, the performance, and accompanying visuals were the perfect combination. I remember standing in front of the stage, dancing away in my own little world, thinking “Damn! These guys are fantastic, why have they never performed London!?”.
After a way too short set, Infinitskills handed over the stage to the one and only, JToTheC. He was the one I had been looking forward to the most all night, and words cannot describe the excitement I was feeling. bHe and his crew took the stage and literally blew us all away. JC has one of the most dynamic personalities I have ever come across in my entire life, and his stage presence and persona is incredible! You simply can’t take your eyes off him because you’re afraid you will miss something. They were very tight considering it was their first show and extremely entertaining, not to mention that the music was good as well. Everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves, dancing, laughing and joining in with the madness that was happening up on stage. I loved the idea behind the visual concept they had, having people sending in their own videos, and editing it to go with the songs. It gave the entire performance that little extra, and it felt very fresh. I know how much Alex and Gunter had been working on the visuals, so big ups for pulling it off!
I won’t deny the fact that it became slightly messier after JToTheC’s show since the Belgian beer finally started to have its effect. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed Dyno dropping the somewhat unexpected dubstep, it made me feel right at home (I am a sucker for a bit dirty dubstep).
All in all, Release was one of the best nights of my life, and I am still a bit overwhelmed by it all. It had pretty much everything: amazing music, great art and visuals, an enjoyable atmosphere and lovely people. I think the normal beer ran out at some point during the evening for a short while and there was even a queue to get in. Now if that isn’t a sign of a successful night then I don’t know what is… Much respect to all parties involved who made Release happen, you did an incredible job!
Sunday didn’t start until around 13:30 in the afternoon, but then again, we did go to sleep around 07.30, so the rest was well needed. After a quick shower, I found out that I was going to be kidnapped and taken to an exhibition by the two lovely girls, Shaerin and Vanessa, who I had met at the party the night before. But I couldn’t possibly be kidnapped on an empty stomach, so Alex decided to take me to a lovely traditional little Belgian bar around the corner from his flat. We had some nice lunch and managed to finish our second cup of coffee before the girls showed up to pick me up. Me and the girls rushed off and whilst sitting in the back seat of Shaerin’s car (who by the way was playing some wicked music!) I realised that I kind of miss having friends like them here in London, girls who are into the same type of things as myself. Nevertheless, the exhibition they took me to was really interesting, but unfortunately I had to be back at the flat by 18:00, so we quickly had to made our way back to Alex’s place, where we said our goodbye’s.
“Alex Deforce @ Release” by Peter Forret.
Back at the flat I started preparing my new Little Miss Sunshiine show whilst listening to the premier of Gav’s new show here on Laid Back. However, after some technical difficulties, I decided it was best to leave it for later, and we took a break so Alex could show me his amazing art. Before we even realised it, the time had come to have some dinner. We had decided to meet up with Julius for a last meal, and made our way to the restaurant. When we got there, the restaurant turned out to be closed, so we started walking towards Julius place, in hope that there would be a restaurant open near his place. A 30 – 40 minute walk and 6 closed restaurants later, we ended up at a little Italian pizzeria. We ordered food and wine, and I remember sitting by the table looking at the boys, and feeling slightly sad that I would be leaving them in the morning. After having filled our bellies with pizza, we started walking home again, and a couple of blocks down the road, Julius had to go his separate way so the time had come to say goodbye. I really felt like a little stone had been dropped inside my heart and all of a sudden it felt 100 times heavier. But I told myself that it wasn’t a real “Goodbye” and more like a “See you later” in order to stop crying. We parted, and me and Alex carried on walking.
When we got back to the flat, the food coma had once again kicked in. We decided to have another glass of wine together before heading off to bed, and when I had finished my glass, I could hardly keep my eyes open. So I said goodnight and went to sleep. I woke up 05.30 the next morning, got dressed and packed my remaining bits and bobs. Alex woke up to let me out, and as we were saying our goodbyes, I could feel how that little stone in my heart was becoming heavier and heavier by every beat. I got outside and it was still dark, people had already started making their ways in to work, and I was having a hard time realising that my journey had almost come to an end. I walked the couple of 100 meters to the metro, and had a quick cigarette in order to try to calm myself down. I took the tram to the Midi Station, arrived just in time to check in, and even managed to buy a coffee and an almond croissant. I got on the train, and as we were leaving Brussels, I was amazed by the fact that I had managed to fall in love with the city in such a short period of time.
As I look back on my trip now, I honestly feel like that weekend was one of the best love stories of my life so far. The way I was welcomed by you all, and the love you showed me, combined with your great company and incredible music, resulted in so many mixed, but heart warming feelings. I wish I could slice my heart up into tiny little pieces and give each and every one of you a small part. So thank you once again, I had such a memorable and fantastic time, and I can’t wait to see you all again. Much love! xxx
Orsii + Guinness + Hoop + Beer = LOVE
Oh How I adore these two boys!
xxx
Hello!
Here you have it my dear friends, my first official radio show that aired last week on Laid Back Radio. Feel free to have a listen and leave a comment with your thoughts and opinions, all feedback is welcome! The new show aired yesterday and will be on all week and available as a podcast after it has stopped playing at the end of the week. The times for my show are as follows:
LONDON TIMES:
Monday: 09:00 – 10:00
Tuesday: 20:00 – 21:00
Wednesday: 12:00 – 13:00
Thursday: 21:00 – 22:00
Friday: 13:00 – 14:00
Saturday: 02:00 – 03:00
Sunday: 18:00 – 19:00
STOCKHOLM/BRUSSELS TIMES:
Monday: 10:00 – 11:00
Tuesday: 21:00 – 22:00
Wednesday: 13:00 – 14:00
Thursday: 22:00 – 23:00
Friday: 14:00 – 15:00
Saturday: 03:00 – 04:00
Sunday: 19:00 – 20:00
Enjoy! I hope you’re all well by the way! Thanks for all the lovely comments & for the support. It means the world to me, don’t know what I would do without you guys! Much love to you all! x
Hello my friends!
I have the pleasure to announce that my own show on Laid Back Radio will go live Monday next week! I am so excited and I hope you all are too! This is truly such an amazing thing to be part of and I cant show enough appreciation and love for the Laid Back crew for giving me the chance and opportunity to do this! And of course, to all of you who have been reading my blog and listening to my podcasts and giving me so much support and inspiration through out all the good and bad times.
THANK YOU for being such wonderful people! Whenever I have a shitty day, I think of you guys and how amazing and truly inspirational you are, and it always puts a smile on my face. I feel so blessed to have you in my life (virtually & in real life) and I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have made it this far without you.
Right, here are the days and times my show will be playing:
LONDON TIMES:
Monday: 09:00 – 10:00
Tuesday: 20:00 – 21:00
Wednesday: 12:00 – 13:00
Thursday: 21:00 – 22:00
Friday: 14:00 – 15:00
Saturday: 02:00 – 03:00
Sunday: 18:00 – 19:00
STOCKHOLM/BRUSSELS TIMES:
Monday: 10:00 – 11:00
Tuesday: 21:00 – 22:00
Wednesday: 13:00 – 14:00
Thursday: 22:00 – 23:00
Friday: 15:00 – 16:00
Saturday: 03:00 – 04:00
Sunday: 19:00 – 20:00
Make sure you tune in! And if you have any music you’d like me to play, or an event you would like me to promote, just give me a shout. Im always happy to help if I can.
Much love! x
These pictures made me cry a little this morning… God I miss my girls from back home in Sweden. We used to have so much fun back in the day, and now we are all spread out in the world, which is nice, but I haven’t seen this crazy bunch for over a year! I think we need to plan a party weekend in London! Ill have enough space in my new house. Love and miss you so much! x
Good evening!
Hope you’re all well and enjoying the weekend. I got home half an hour ago and managed to swallow a hole bag of microwave popcorn in 15 minutes… Now I am enjoying a glass of wine and trying to organise my life. It has been one of the most stressful days ever. I am exhausted and it feels like I haven’t slept for weeks!
As some of you might know, I am meant to be moving this weekend. But we have been having problems with the money transactions due to the stupid way the banks operate here in England, and also because of the fact that our new estate agents don’t take cash AND seem reluctant to let us move in this weekend. The whole situation is really stressing me out as we need to hand over our place Tuesday morning, and if we cant move this weekend, I have to take a day off work Monday, and obviously move into new place as well as clean this place on the same day… But enough about that!
Apart from the moving madness it looks like I have a very busy, but extremely exciting Autumn ahead of me. I am in preparations of launching my own show on Laid Back Radio which I am overly excited about. The whole Laid Back crew are such an amazing group of people, and I feel so blessed and privileged to be able to get involved with them. I don’t think there are enough words and love in the world that can express how I feel about it. I promise to keep you in the loop of things when it comes to the show. Obviously, I have never done a radio show before, so I have a big learning curve ahead of me, but I am hoping you will all tune in and kind of grow & learn with me, seeing as ultimately, I am doing it as much for you guys as I am doing it for myself. (one Love…)
And if the show, my normal job, and this move wasn’t enough to keep me busy, I have also been asked to be involved in a very special project. I don’t really want to give away too many details, as Im not sure how much I am allowed to say & share at the moment. But that is also another amazing thing that I feel extremely lucky to be part of. So yeah, stay tuned as I will reveal all of it in due time.
In addition to all this, I am also planning a trip over to Brussels that will hopefully take place in October so I can see my Belgian fam. Will be great to see the peeps from On-Point, Onda Sonora, Laid Back, catch up with Lefto, and of course, get the opportunity to meet some new interesting people. Actually, I have to give mad props and love to all of you from Belgium who tunes in and reads this blog. You have passed my home countries Sweden AND Hungary/Romania in terms of visitors. I am genuinely thrilled to be going over and check out the scene. It seems like an amazing place (no matter what Bart says haha) and you all seem like such lovely people. So yeah, THANK YOU for reading and for visiting, it truly means so much to me.
Right, I should get back to recording my show… Hope you’re having a great evening. Much love! x
Thanks to everybody who made this summer memorable!
Much love xxx
I’ve been wanting to go to Dour Festival for quite some time now and never really had the chance. So when I came across this amazing little video over at Laid Back, I figured I had to share it and spread the love. They have done a great job and included some rather cool cats like DJ Day, Exile & DJ Mitsu The Beats. Big up Lefto & the Laid Back crew for posting it and for always sharing quality stuff! Much love! x
Laid Back Radio
Hello my friends!
I have some very exciting news to share with you! I have had the honour to be asked to do a guest spot on Laid Back Radio! For those of you who have never heard about these amazing guys, here is a little introduction I “borrowed” from their website:
We focus on everything urban related be it music, art, lifestyle or whatever topic we feel like to discuss. While music wise, we play everything from Soul, Funk, Jazz, Psych Rock, Disco and Latin music to Hip Hop and much more.
Everything has started in March 2002 with a FM radio show broadcasted in the Brussels area (Belgium). In order to get in touch with a larger audience, we launched the Laid Back website in January 2005. In addition to our radio programs, the Laid Back website also provides articles and visual galleries related to the vibes that we are trying to spread.
The Laid Back show is currently broadcasted every Wednesday between 10 and 11pm (GMT+1) on FM Brussel (Belgium) and on 057 Radio (Croatia). Next to our FM activities, we are also running LBDK an online radio station playing the best in urban music from the last 40 years and hosted on the Radionomy platform.
Apart from the Laid Back crew, they also have shows from the mighty and wonderful Lefto, BlastKid (the oh so groovy jazz kid), Onda Sonora and many more. They have had guest spots from the guys over at MOOVMNT and Radna, who is one of the co-founders of Future Vintage (to name a few). All pretty cool and very talented people if I may say so myself.
As you can imagine, being asked to do this is a very big deal in “Orsii World” and I almost fell of my chair when I read the email. I am a bit nervous, but I really hope people will like my humble little selection of tunes.
The show will air tomorrow
Friday 7th August 2009
2pm LONDON time
3pm Stockholm/Brussels time.
However,the guest spot will be played over a three week period, so if you can’t tune in tomorrow, check the grid to see what time it might be on another day. Will let you know when my guest blog post is up on their blog too. Much love! x
Morning my friends!
Sorry it has been a while since I wrote something, but it has just been a bit manic over here lately. As some of you know it was my birthday this weekend and I’d firstly like to say thank you so much for all the birthday wishes! It was absolutely overwhelming and I wasn’t expecting it at all.
The weekend as a whole was absolutely amazing, and it actually started off on Thursday night. I went to Vibe bar to meet up with some music friends, and then rushed off to celebrate Ravi who was turning 35. I didn’t have a very messy night (like some of the others…) but it was very nice to see some of the Airlock crowd again.
On Friday I had my friend Colin, who runs cubikmusik, visiting from Dublin. It was his birthday so we met up after work, headed down to the southbank to see one of his DJ mates, and then hurried over to Plastic People to check out the launch party of Beat Dimensions. I didn’t really know what to expect, even though I’ve heard their stuff, I wasn’t sure if it would be my cup of tea “live”. But my oh my was I wrong. Safe to say that the brilliant soundsystem at plastic always aids the experience, but I was literally blown away by the heavy beats & sounds. Cinnaman took my breath away… I remember sitting by the speakers, having a breeze of pure bass caressing my face and the only reaction I could produce was a silly little grin of pure satisfaction on my face.
On Saturday we went for one of the best steaks I have ever had at this tiny Argentinian restaurant on Broadway Market, and after filling up our belly’s with some heavenly meatness, we strolled over to Victoria Park to attend the one day festival called Field Day. We started drinking around 1pm, hiding from the rain, and enjoying some fantastic music from the likes of TOTALLY ENORMOUS EXTINCT DINOSAURS, DRUMS OF DEATH (you seriously need to check out those two!), Rusko, Santigold (although the sound was shit), Skream (big disappointment that they cut his set short for Mogwai, not impressed!) etc. And after approx 8 hours of drinking and dancing, we fled the festival and ended up at Plastic People again, this time to enjoy the legend that is Theo Parrish. I can honestly say that I could not have wished for a better way of starting my birthday than with Theo. He was playing one great tune after the other, and you were left there thinking “Damn…this man is fantastic”, and when you thought he couldn’t possibly beat the tune he was just playing, the next song would be even more amazing, and yes. An absolute pleasure.
Sunday we were feeling like death. Managed to get out of bed around 2:30pm, basically crawled down to the Breakfast Club in Shoreditch to have some hangover brekkie. And when our energy levels were restored and we felt semi-human again, we walked up to Korsan Bar for a chilled out afternoon/evening with some tunes, drinks & a bbq. I had the pleasure of being joined by James (check Space Invader Radio), Graham (check Grey Matter Beats), Adam (check iyrie), Rob (check Soul-Identity Music) and of course Colin, and I have to admit that it was the most perfect chilled out birthday Sunday you could wish for. I had so much fun and the boys were lovely.
So once again, THANK YOU to all of you who made this weekend one of the best birthday weekends of my life! Much love! x
