A big part of being a college student is to socialize with other students, and how do we do it? Last time we talked about the fun things you and your mates can do for a weekend in Groningen and today, we are going to talk about another major part of students’ life here: how to host a party. So be prepared with pen and paper for writing down some party ideas and hosting tips.

While we are on the topic of students’ life in Groningen, as many of you may know, there is a university election going on at the moment. We are glad to have a guest from SOG to talk a bit more on this topic. Check the website for more information: http://www.rug.nl/studenten/nieuws/actueelNieuws/2012-universitaire-verk...

So are we really to celebrate our student life in Groningen? Tune in tonight’s Happy hour FM to hear all about it!

Tune in at 6PM via radio at 106.6FM if you're in the city or if you're anywhere else in the world via our Livestream!

Subsonic behind the scene

March 31th, 2012 22.30 p.m.

Grote Markt 21A has experienced much failure as many clubs went bankrupted in the past few years. To break the trend, a new multimedia club Subsonic has shown strong potential of becoming one of the leading businesses in this area.

Currently studying Music Management at Pop Academic Hanzehogeschool, Merlijn Poolman, a 24 years old, Dutch entrepreneur was compassionate to tell us the founding story of Subsonic.

With an initial idea of creating a relaxation habitation for open-minded people, Merlijn together with Juli ë n and Rico started the club in just 2 weeks with a limited amount of 3000 euros. They came up with a drink called Lemonbounce, and interestingly, visitors can become friends with Lemon Bouncer on Facebook.

Good news arrived right on the Valentines Day last year. Merlijn and his partners were informed that they could take over Pin-up Club, which was the previous club that went bankrupted. After two weeks of intensive planning, organizing, and renovating Subsonic officially opened on the 10th of March 2011.

Since then, in this relatively short period of time, many major events have taken place at Subsonic such as Eurosonic, Bassement parties and Submerge parties, furthermore, a great amount of well-known DJs have performed at subsonic. The list range from Joris Delacroix (deephouse), Marc Romboy (techno), Gtronic (electro), Dodge & Fuski (dubstep), to Noisia (drum & bass) and more!

The Club name Subsonic came from the sound terminology, which describes a frequency less than a sound that people can feel but not hear. It opens four days a week (Wednesday to Saturday) and provides different verities of music but mostly electronic music, which ranges from techno to drum & bass, dubstep to electro. From time to time experimental music is also presented. Nevertheless, Subsonic welcomes all types of people with passion for music and brings friendly and cheerful energy to the club.

Merijln expressed the difficulties in the club business is to keep up with the most current trend of music and to prevent unfriendly customers to entre the club. The future of subsonic does not mainly focus on development of the nightclub but more on the development of music platform and concerts. Merlijn also mentioned the idea of opening up different clubs in other cities outside the Netherlands, for example Hamburg.

An Interview with German student filmmaker Julian Hölgert

March 31st, 2012. 14.00 p.m.

He is from our neighbor country Germany. He has 7 years experiences in filmmaking. He is likewise the founder of Be Movie Team company and the director of Cheers auf das Studentenleben. Julian Hölgert, who is 23 years old, studying International Communication Management at Hanzehogeschool, recently premièred Cheers auf das Studentenleben.

Cheers auf das Studentenleben is a music video captures student life on a non-posturing level. It illuminates the amusing part of studying in Groningen as well as the troubles that might come cross to a newly arrived freshman such as bikes are frequently stolen, having noisy neighbors, and finding to a room in Groningen is always an issue for international students.

With 9 month of handwork and only 150 euros budget, the film is finally premièred at De CAST cafe Hanzehogeschool on March 22nd at 4 p.m. The results are exceedingly positive, not only the students like it but also the parents who come and visit gave it a big thumb-up.

It is accurately a film that “displays the students’ life in Groningen and students feel the connection with the film and could even identify their student life from the film” said Julian, “when parents see it, it recaptured their memory of being a students.”

In total 25 people are involved in the production of Cheers auf das Studentenleben together with actors and actresses. They are students who live in Groningen, age from 20-25 years old, studying various programs. Julian told us the fix “project room” is his own living room.

According to Julian, filmmaking is an interactive process, and improvisation is the key to success. The production of this film took 9 months, it is for instance hard to retain the hairstyle of each actor. Thus, Julian mentioned, “During the shoot, we sometimes used hats to cover the hair changes.“ Furthermore, there are other difficulties during the production such as actors not showing up for filming sessions, changes in the verse of the song due to improvements, troubles with recording different verses and editing different pieces of audio together.

The film is broadcasted in German language, the meaning of the lyrics is:
[father]: “Studying? Why my son? Sleeping, being lazy? C’mon, go working!”
[son]: “Well, I can go my own way, dad! Getting up, taking a shower, having a coffee,
going to University, puking the rest-alcohol from last night into a bag”.
“In the morning, my bike is still complete, at noon my saddle is gone, and in the evening in front of the Irish Pub just a wheel is left.
[Chorus]: “Cheers on student-life, that’s why we clink glasses, books are ready, beers are at hand, a cheer for the three-day beard. Cheers on student-life, that’s why we clink glasses, more groggy than being a thinker, we are always ready, we celebrate to this good times.”

Also note that: In German, poets mean “Dichter”, which, when you use it as a verb, has also the meaning for being drunk. So “Mehr Dichter als Denker” literally means “More poet than thinker, but can also be understood as “more drunk than being a thinker”.

Julian indicates that there are definitely opportunities in Groningen for people who are interested in filmmaking, but he senses the lack of Internet channels or platforms for filmmakers to present their works. Some advice for the filmmaking newbies from Julian, “always be passionate with your project, have a clear goal before you start working on the project, vigorously use your network and try to seek for sponsor opportunity, USVA and De Puddingfabriek is a nice way to expand your network!

Links:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/BeMovie-Team
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQreXWV7myQ

With 2012 upon our heads and the numerous theories about the end of the world, is it time already to say our goodbyes or just embrace our lives and have fun until we can? A giant asteroid? A bunch of zombies? A deadly pandemic? Hostile alien takeover? It doesn’t really matter in the end. However, tonight on Happy Hour FM we will make sure to give you some tips on how to survive various end of the world scenarios...well, at least for a while.

Tune in at 6PM via radio at 106.6FM if you're in the city or if you're anywhere else in the world via our Livestream!

What do you do when you fall off a bike after a long night out in the city? What should you think of Kony 2012? Who died on the toilet while reading a book*? How to win a pubquiz?
How can the new financial situation of students in the Netherlands be handled?
And finally: What to do while we have some awesome weather?

All of these questions and more will be answered during our show tonight!

Tune in at 6PM via radio at 106.6FM if you're in the city or if you're anywhere else in the world via our Livestream!

*P.S: It was Elvis Presley