The members of Bettie Serveert are alt-rock survivors. They have been performing in various incarnations since 1986, and they released critically acclaimed debut album Palomine in 1992. Joining the core lineup of vocalist/guitarist Carol van Dyk, guitarist Peter Visser and bassist Herman Bunskoeke on new album Pharmacy Of Love (Second Motion) is drummer Joppe Molenaar (of fellow Dutch band Voicst). The group recorded the LP in relative isolation in Waimes, Belgium, in order to better concentrate on honing its sound, and the result is a mix of the classic Bettie Serveert vibe with new modern-rock flourishes. Van Dyk, Visser and Bunskoeke will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with van Dyk.
Peter: Marcel Duchamp is to blame for everything. There’s this photo of him, tied to a chair and kicked in the stomach by the New York avant-garde artists of the ’60s. And they were right! Every art movement, and almost every thought about art, can be traced back to him, though he never was part of dada, surrealism or any other movement. The French artist, raised in a family of art lovers (one brother a painter, the other a sculptor, and his sister became a painter), abandoned painting at early age for it to be too “retinal” (to please the eye instead of the mind), moved to New York and went underground. He worked eight years on his The Large Glass (part of it by waiting for it to collect dust) and abandoned art altogether (as people thought) to play chess and secretly work on his piece Given for the last 20 years of his life: a shocking scene behind wooden doors that you can see at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I read a lot of books about him (as you can see in the photo below: the Duchamp cabinet in my room, or “shrine,” if you will), but still don’t fully grasp it. Maybe he’s so interesting ‘cause every way you try to understand it (or him) is a reflection of yourself. Check out this site about making sense of Duchamp.
Video after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsnvSZFFP8A
