Crossing Border

The British music magazine Q recently listed Crossing Border as one of the eight not-to-be-missed winter festivals from across the planet. Rightfully so. Since its start in 1993 under the impulse of the charismatic Louis Behre, the festival has been offering an always interesting mix of – in the broadest sense of the word – pop music and literature.

But hey, hold your horses - that's the Dutch edition of Crossing Border Q is praising, a festival that lasts several days and fills several rooms. Trying to start up a Belgian edition in 1998 in Ghent's Vooruit went awry: Due to disappointing ticket sales, it was cancelled only a few days before showtime. It wasn't difficult to find an explanation: Flanders already had its Crossing Border, called De Nachten and taking place every winter in Antwerp.

Weirdly enough, the year after De Nachten moved from January to November (in 2008), the Belgian edition of Crossing Border finally saw the light of day...in November. Both of them kept their dates this year, which means that two weeks after De Nachten in deSingel, you're invited, next Sunday, to the Arenbergschouwburg for a collection of concerts, performances and readings. Although Crossing Border is organising two Friday and Saturday night concerts, of Rufus Wainwright and Mercury Rev respectively, the real festival happens on Sunday.

I'm especially looking forward to the American slow-core band Low, who will preview their 2011 album. Rumours are they're using electronics and loops nowadays, so I'm wondering how that'll alter their sound.

More inventiveness from America: Spoon (pictured), a critics' favourite for more than a decade, before their indie rock crossed over to a mainstream audience. Their last record Transference even debuted at number four in the Billboard 200. That's a success Brit Ed Harcourt can only dream of. "I'm a recipe for disaster / I'm a has-been no good bastard", he likes to sing. But that certainly doesn't apply to his music: subtly arranged pop songs centred around a piano.

No idea where they found him, but Crossing Border managed to snare John Cooper Clarke, the performance poet who used to open, 30 years ago, for all the major British punk acts. Since the Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner declared his love for Clarke's poetry, Salford's man in black is hip again.

Guest of honour of Crossing Border is Michael Madsen. Yep, that's your Mr Blonde from the cult film Reservoir Dogs. Mostly known for his acting, Madsen has been writing, for 15 years now, beat poetry, influenced by Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski. He'll bring some of his work and will be interviewed on stage. And if you ask it nicely, he might be repeating his memorable "Stuck in the Middle with You" dance from Reservoir Dogs.

But our favourite literary guest is DBC Pierre, famous for his debut Vernon God Little and infamous for loads of other stuff. A man, too, whose books are filled to the rim with breathtaking, wonderful prose, like (from Ludmila's Broken English): "A radio hit blared across the road, featuring an electric guitar that plinked and plonked like a handful of bullets tossed into a pond." And then we haven't told you about his crazy, delirious stories. Buy, borrow or - he won't mind, no really! - steal his books. Bur first, let the plinking & plonking begin!