What’s inside Ms Stubnitz

The Captain’s Blog,  February 11th 2009.

There are some rumours in the steely belly of our Ms Stubnitz.

The year 2009 brings some effort with, mainly beneath the waterline.

Like every third year we’ll have to go to the dry- dock, just to see what’s left down there on the outer shell. Though the pretty old Lady Stubnitz is made of solid steel, she needs a make-up sometimes.

You know: rust never sleeps.

In addition to that she has to give proof of her ability to travel the seven seas again. Therefor the so called “GL” (Germanischer Lloyd) will stick his fingers deep inside the bowels of this technical monument.
Right know there are some preparations going on, as you can see in the pictures.

Our main technicians Günther and Rainer have plenty of years of expert knowledge due to their work on this ship whilst beeing in the former
East German fishing fleet since 1964. And they are mainly to blame that Stubnitz was able to go to all the different ports as a moving cultural platform from 1994 until now.

But as far as we can say the old lady is still in a good condition.

Well, there are other metal works going on right now in the ship’s belly.
We are looking forward to present you even more exciting projects on our
new stage in Hold 4.

Our ship’s welder Matti and his colleague Karsten make it grow bigger every day. The new platform will be a slighty smaller and lower, but more intimate reflection of the main stage. Located at the back of our most beautiful room, it will also offer an imposant view towards the stage in the front. But until that day, some more tons of heavy metal have to be moved.
You are most welcome to witness the next big change of Stubnitz’ visage.
And you can even dance on it, already.

Just watch out for more surprises in 2009.

Over and out,
Phalque / MS Stubnitz

Building the new emergency exit a.ka.: Mit Sicherheit feiern!

During our time in Copenhagen this year we made a new emergency exit heading from load 4 via the factory over to the deck. Heres a little video of the work:

enjoy!

OTV Cribs aboard MS Stubnitz

A few weeks ago we had a team from OTV (kind of an underground internet tv) aboard. They made a fake MTV cribs video including the Stubnitz and the crew. Unfortunately it’s dutch only but nevertheless worth watching. Have fun!

Steim & DNK – 27.11.2008

STEIM and DNK-Amsterdam Collaboration on MS Stubnitz

Mark Bain (NL)
Sebastien Roux (FR) & Kim Myhr (NO)
Manuel Chantre (CA) & Simon Laroche (CA)
Lukas Simonis (NL) & Goh Lee Kwang (MY)
DNK DJ Unit
Master fader
Mr. Fooo
DE VRIES BV

STEIM and DNK-Amsterdam will showcase an exciting evening on the legendary party boat MS Stubnitz. This will feature 3 adventurous duos crossing boarders between electro-acoustic, improv, noise, dubstep and robotics. Mark Bain will present a special version of his Archisonic which will transform the whole ship into a resonating chamber. And the DNK DJ Unit will party on with their eclectic DJ set. Don`t miss this special collaboration on the Amsterdam harbor!

Date: Thursday, Nov 27, 2008
Venue: MS Stubnitz
Time: 21.00 hrs.
Entrance: 5 euros
Reservations and more information: knock@steim.nl or 020-6228690

Note: the concert does not take place at STEIM.

Design: Kai-Ting Lin

Mark Bain (NL)
Archisonic (Maritime edition)
After two previous Archisonic performances at DNK Mark Bain takes the Motorship Stubnitz as a subject. He uses seismic sensors to detect the natural resonant frequencies of the ship and plays these back into the space creating low frequency architectural feedback. Bain`s sound / music has been compared to Pan Sonic at their most extreme and this is the first opportunity to hear the maritime architecture performance.

Sebastien Roux (FR) & Kim Myhr (NO)
Sebastien Roux (electronics) and Kim Myhr (guitar, objects, simple mechanics) play electro-acoustic improvisations that operate within a large textural and harmonic area. The poetry of the small sound and gesture is important for both of the artists’ work, and a myriad of these small events make a complex whole. The music shifts quickly from dense to sparse or from pitch to noise. Myhrs´ often simplistic approach to sound and pitch merges with the treatments by Roux, and the difference between acoustic and electronic sounds is blurred. The result is a positive and soft-edged music, where the dynamic and spontaneous interplay between men and machines seem to take the focus.
http://www.myspace.com/kimmyhrmusic

Manuel Chantre (CA) & Simon Laroche (CA)
Manuel Chantre and Simon Laroche presents an audio-visual performance inspired by the deconstruction of the body-robot. The performers deploy a heavy, brutal and medical atmosphere by generating audio-visual material by manipulating dolls. They use custom software and operate a dialogue between the two machines. They will perform an improvised audio visual set moving between Laroche`s Robotdrummer playing dubstep and Chantre`s electro-grime-8 bit songs for Game Boy, laptop and modified Christmas cards.
http://www.projet-eva.org/popcoreduo.mov
http://www.myspace.com/taxinouveau
http://www.projet-eva.org/laroche.htm

Lukas Simonis (NL) & Goh Lee Kwang (MY)
Lukas Simonis has his roots as an instrumentalist and musical ‘activist’ in the industrial music and noise rock of the Eighties (Throbbing Gristle, the Residents, Pere Ubu, Sonic Youth and beyond). Being a part of the Rotterdam jazzbunker scene (a collective that consisted of heavy drug induced punk rockers, freejazzers, early electronic musicians and pre-postrock combos), he discovered the delimited world of improvisation. Goh Lee Kwang (family name Goh) is internationally recognized sound artist from Malaysia. He has created sound installations, sonic-visual interactive installations, single channel videos, multi channel videos, electro-acoustic improvised music performances, tape music, works for radio broadcasts and soundtracks for theater / dance / independent movie. Goh is also the founder of the music label Herbal International, one of the founding members of n desir studio and one of the founders of Experimental Artists Co-op Malaysia (EMACM).
http://www.xs4all.nl/~lukas/
http://www.myspace.com/gohleekwang

DNK DJ Unit
The DNK DJ Unit plays the best music from almost every genre; going from cheesy weird stuff through cold the hague electro through drony metal through abstract electronic music through extremely dance-able retro to a musical climax that will make everybody dance, all night long. The highlights of 50 years of music and all it`s extremities.

Last Pick Up meets Stubnitz yesterday

While the ship has been moored in Amsterdam Noord for the past ten weeks we had several concerts in cooperation with the Pick Up Club. Nearly every Thursday there have been local and international bands been playing aboard ranging from simple rock to experimental stuff and psychedelic shoegaze.

Considering this a nice look throughout Europe’s guitar based music scene we had quite a contrast program for the last Pick Up meets Stubnitz. While the band iThAK from France played their very own  interpretation of post punk which has been a nixe mixture between postrock, jazz and psychedelic rock, there has been a nice decoration at the factory made by the Galerie Schaap.

It’s hard to describe but i guess thats where pictures come in handy. Make sure to check this out:

As you may see we also had various acoustic projects playing in the old factory aka mostly known as the bardeck. This happens pretty seldom due to the lack of good acoustic there but recently we installed a few new components to the soundsystem there.

Hernán Romero – Flamenco Fusion Latin Grooves at MS Stubnitz

On Wednesday November 19th Stubnitz saw the likes of Hernán Romero and band live on stage.

Romero is well known for his legendary, groundbreaking guitar-duo with Al di Meola and his collaborations with top-level musicians Paco de Lucia and John McLaughlin. Furthermore he has produced and recorded the Grammy winning Alicia Keys album.

At his very first gig in the Netherlands in 2008 he played at the Motorship Stubnitz together with pianist Rodrigo Pahlen from Urugay and Babak Maddah on percussion. Their hot mixture of Gypsie feeling, Flamenco rhythms and Jazz filled the room with warmth, at least as hot as the appearance of Flamenco dancer Nuria Manglano during their songs.

For the New York based Hernán Romero it was the first time performing on a ship.

Hernan Romero and band at MS Stubnitz