You Are Not Alone

it's been over a month since Michael Jackson has moved on
and i still can't let go....... this mashup brings me joy:

MJ & Bag Raiders - You Are Not Alone



and here's the new video to the original Bag Raiders song:

it'll be featured in my next playlist..... enjoy & share the wealth!

Major Lazer: Pon De Floor

Eric Wareheim kills it with this video for Major Lazer...

L'Indépendance (playlist)

the 21st of July is the famous Belgian Independence Day...
in 1831, Léopold de Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha takes the oath as the first king of the Belgians... i know i know, you can barely contain your excitement. i can tell!!! alright, lets spice this up...

since the tiny kingdom of Belgium is often overshadowed by its more famous if not larger neighbors (France, Germany, Holland), here's a little Belgian treat:

BELGIAN DANCE REVOLUTION - 23 free MP3Z



most of my extended family is still in Belgium, where i grew up from 1980 to 1990. there i attended the preppy as shit & super elitist Lycée Émile Jacqmain nestled in le Parc Léopold, right in the center of Brussels (some recent pix here). by the time i was 14, i was escaping my rigorous latin humanities & sneaking into clubs or garage parties where the not so preppy New Beat was taking over the m.d.m.a. fueled dancefloors of the 80s; aaaah the good old days!!! here's a playlist loaded with New Beat & a bit of EBM which preceded the New Beat revolution, along with some classic 80s pop ballads from Lio & Bernthøler who dominated the Belgian airwaves in the late 70s & early 80s...

check out these 2 Lio videos from the early 80s:
• Sage Comme Une Image (amazing video at bottom of link)
• Amoureux Solitaires (posted in this playlist)

her cover of Billie Holiday's "You Go To My Head"
at the end of this playlist should win you over!

i couldn't pass up this opportunity to also throw in the mix one of the tracks from the most famous Belgian band since the late 80s: Technotronic. not everyone knows they're made in Belgium, but everyone knows them... i recently posted
"Pump Up The Jam" on this playlist (track #19):

101's "Rock To The Beat" (#5) dates back to 1988 & pretty
much sums up my early days of rocking the dancefloors.
#s 9, 11, 13, 15 & 19 are other big New Beat tracks
of the day....... here's how we dance to this shit:


i remember being able to listen to such beats for hours. i can't do that anymore, not even 2 of them back to back, so i broke it up with more current tunes from other Belgian artists such as
NID & SANCY + MVSC + BUSCEMI + DAS POP.

the latest clip for Nid & Sancy is posted HERE at the bottom.
these pins rocked our Chevignon jeans jackets back in the 80s:



and now on a more sensible note,
here are my favourite Belgian designers:

♥ ♥ ♥ MARTIN MARGIELA ♥ ♥ ♥


here are some pix taken at his LA store opening.



♥ RAF SIMMONS ♥



♥ DRIES VAN NOTEN ♥



♥ BERNHARD WILLHELM ♥




♥ ANN DEMEULEMEESTER ♥



♥ TIM VAN STEENBERGEN ♥





♥ DIRK BIKKEMBERGS ♥



♥ WALTER VAN BEREINDONCK ♥




♥ ♥ ♥ N.D.C. ♥ ♥ ♥



more on Belgian fashion here.

in LA, the only Belgian flag i've ever noticed
is the one discreetly flying by the Belgian consulate on Rossmore Avenue:

fun coincidence is the Belgian consul in LA was the Belgian ambassador to Venezuela when i lived in Caracas; it's good to have family friends around.
further up Rossmore Avenue is my favourite apartment building in all of LA:

John Kennedy lived in top floor penthouse when in town...
here are more pix of this classic Hollywood area called Hancock Park:





here's JACQUES BREL's ode to Belgium:



here's a picture of my mother as a child
dressed in white on the lawn (very front row), just
outside of Brussels where my grand-papa was born (he's the 6th
from left on the front seated row, to his left are my great grand-parents):

the castle was occupied by the Red Baron during World War I and is now rented for special occasions (weddings, banquets, etc.). the domain is open to the public as a recreational park... while my grand-papa & grand mama lived in Cape Town during World War II, my great uncle's gross caricatures of the Nazis were found here & he escaped Belgium under my grand-papa's name and started the Argentinian branch of our family in Buenos Aires; the family has since then expanded to Rio as well... regardless, we all eventually return to Belgium to get back to basics & catch up. i have a few more pix from Belgium previously posted. just type in Belgium in the search window.

Summer Love (playlist)

SUMMER LOVE - 51 free MP3Z

aside from Neil Young's "On The Beach" & a few others such as
"Good Love" by Bat For Lashes, this one's pretty much loaded with thumpers to get nasty on the dancefloor. everyone else
is credited properly so i'll leave it at that. here are videos of some of the songs in the mix. enjoy & share the wealth:

Le Summer Mix (playlist)

(this was my 4th of July uniform over the weekend)

LE SUMMER MIX ••• 50 FREE MP3Z

to celebrate our great nation, i'm kickin' off this new playlist with John Wayne's ode to the United States Of America!
John Wayne & i actually graduated from the same college:
the University of Southern California!

since my 2 brothers were born in Lyon, France's capital of gastronomy, and all 3 of us suffered rigorous primary & secondary educations at French international schools between the old & new continents, celebrating "Le 14 Juillet" as well with Serge Gainsbourg's rendition of the French national anthem is de rigueur!

i also love France Gall's "Musique" at #14.
check out the dancers that join her into it:

anyhew, here's another photo i took with my phone
this 4th of July through my bedroom window:



as the playlist moves along, you'll enjoy mostly new tunes or remixes of today with a few oldies thrown in at random.
of course, there are a few more Michael Jackson remixes
or covers i haven't posted previously...
i especially like Allure's "Remember The Time!"


all in all, it flows quite nicely.
ENJOY & SHARE THE WEALTH!



i'll let you go with this fun new clip by
LRR for my Belgian compatriots NID & SANCY:


yeah, growing up on french bottled water was totally like this: