His name is Erik de Jong. His name is Spinvis, Dutch for ‘Spiderfish’. This is his alias, his nationally famous one-man band. iCrates takes a look at the life and musical career of Spinvis, the “Dutch Bob Dylan”.
At first glance Erik de Jong seems to be quite the ordinary man, aged 50 and living in a small town near Utrecht, in The Netherlands. But his looks – much like his music – can be very deceiving. For nearly thirty years, Erik de Jong worked as a mailman and factory worker, until, at a remarkable turning point in his life, he started recording music down in his cellar at home. These recordings led up to his self-titled debut album Spinvis (2002), which took only a few months to receive rave-reviews and a proverbial gold status. Now, this album is widely regarded as one of the best Dutch albums ever made. What makes this album so extraordinary? And where does Spinvis draw his inspiration from?
While listening to one of his most expressive songs “Smalfilm”, the motives of his music and poetry become instantly visible. Spinvis is able to immerse himself into other characters and personalities, an ability which makes the lyrics very surreal at times. All of this is sung in Dutch, but the translation of the first lines to English still shows its absurdity: “I am a forty year old woman with a cigarette / I’ve got an alien substance in my blood / Last year I was abducted by a spaceship / and I haven’t felt too well since / I know exactly where they live / you can see it when you turn the letters of their name around / The truth is a riddle / it’s a good friend but always arrives too late.”
This verse is a good illustration of the extraterrestrial qualities of this Dutch artist. His debut album is full of strange stories, combined with spacey lo-fi melodies and textures. Another prime example from the album, is the song “Astronaut”, which draws comparisons to Belgian rock like dEUS, and also plays with the idea of being someone else, somewhere else. Basically, it’s about an astronaut who gets lost in space and doesn’t know how to find his way back. This might be autobiographical or it might be another of Spinvis’ great fantasies.
Spinvis – “Astronaut”
In an interview with KindaMuzik, a Dutch online magazine, Spinvis says he likes the abstract characteristics of his songwriting: “You don’t know exactly what’s going on. That’s what moves me the most. Everything that isn’t said, everything freezes, pure suggestion. Like blurry photographs, you suspect a lot, but you can never be sure.” That is exactly the kind of effect his music has on the listener – the beauty and mystery is in the vacant.
After the all the praise for his debut, Spinvis started touring extensively. He played in every small village in The Netherlands and Belgium, and primarily to audiences who could understand his lyrics. Never one to dwell on his achievements, he began a theater show, a experimental album with the Dutch poet Simon Vinkenoog and his second album Dagen van Gras, Dagen van Stro (2005), or Days of Grass, Days of Straw. The title refers to the change of seasons, but also to getting older and more lonely. One of the best songs here is called “Lotus Europa” which, once again, has a very alienated sound to it. It’s an epic tune, lasting over 11 minutes, about dying in a swimming pool while they are playing Britney Spears on the radio. You can hear Spinvis crooning and whining about time and space and why his memories are fading away. This earned him the status of the “Dutch Bob Dylan”.
Now, after quite a long wait, Spinvis has made his third studio album, called Tot Ziens, Justine Keller (2011), or Goodbye, Justine Keller, building on the success of the last two. Here Spinvis deals with his main obsession and loneliness. Being lonely in the club, being lonely at a party, being lonely on the Belgian seaside (“Oostende”) and being lonely while being alone. After the release, a lot of people wondered: who is Justine Keller? She can’t be found on Google, nor Facebook. Spinvis gave the answer himself in another interview: “Justine Keller is the alcohol and drugs of the protagonist. He invented her, she’s an ideal that doesn’t exist. It is his Valhalla, and so he becomes obsessed with her. Until he tells her, in the last song of the album: so long, I wish you well.” This might just be the ultimate form of loneliness, talking to a figment of your imagination. And that is exactly Spinvis’ genius: the ability to create various personalities, to write, sing and compose as they would. In that sense, Spinvis is like a modern astronaut, venturing into unknown space, looking at the Earth and its strange inhabitants from above. Can you hear him soaring through the cosmos?
Illustration by Data Rusty.
