• Peter van Driel

    NO LIFE WITHOUT PEOPLE
  • Peter van Driel is the name of a true friend whom UB Boy met in the early eighties. How the two met is told in the song Let's go crash cassette recorders. They found each other in humour and spirit. As UB Boy, Peter creates and records beautiful music mostly instrumental. His skills to write and also manipulate language though are outstanding and have his major interest. The song ‘The Stranger’ he did give words. A song about true love. Listen to it further on this page.

  • Let's go crash cassette recorders

  • While UB boy was scanning the schoolyard for colourful girls, a friend slid in his life. As the Oxford English Dictionary defines: “slide (slid, slidden) Move smoothly along a surface”. And so Peter smoothly slid his motorbike along the asphalt. What an entry!

    Full Picture

  • December 5th 1980, Medemblikstraat Den Haag   On my way to school, not far away from where I then lived, I noticed a group of bystanders when I turned into the Medemblikstraat. An accident had happened. A heavy motor apparently hit a car and scorched the asphalt, it’s knight impacted the road meters away. I didn’t join the group and cycled on. When I arrived at school I overheard people talking about some guy that didn’t make it to school that day.

    Three years later when I met Peter at a game of chess in the schoolyard,

  • I found out it was him lying on the street that morning, a bit further away from where he lived. That explained my memory of him having these sticks to walk with back then. From then on we recognized each other as schoolmates. As it was my last year at school, it wasn’t clear yet we would continue seeing each other.

    A month after I left school I got on bus 14 at the Valkenbosplein in the direction of the beach. Working my way to a seat I met Peter by accident. He invited me at his place and that sealed our friendship.

  • When the stranger comes along

  • Let Peter take you by the hand in this song of pure love. Where man is a stranger and God is the stranger. And love transcends death.
    words, music & performed by Peter van Driel

  • A shock in life can challenge the mind to think out of the box. It happened to me when I was 15 years old and my family fell apart. And I see and saw it happen around me. Friends, family, schoolmates, they all coped differently with similar or different situations. Some responded in anger, some fled and others drew themselves back in some form of isolation. If the challenge was to overcome, they came out stronger. And if the challenge was too great, part of them was crippled for good.

  • Now Peter is a guy that certainly can think out of the box. The man is exponentially witty. He and my youngest brother supported me at a karate exam. My brother had to snicker at something, Peter didn’t know at what, but he instantly pointed to a Japanese symbol and said to him: “That must be a good joke.” A challenged mind. At some point in life he must have had to come up with smart interventions, he had to push himself to keep going in the right direction.

  • Coming out stronger is the good part. Experiencing anxiety, sadness or whatever negative feeling for an unnaturally long time also makes you more sensitive. Also more sensitive to moments that feel like the ones that inflicted the wound in the first place. Negative energy as Peter calls it. Now that is why I am extra happy that he found not just a love in his life, but the Love with a capital L.

  • He really can be with his girl without any need to give each other attention. That may sound indifferent, but it actually means that they feel so safe and natural together that it evaporates any trace of life-threatening gas that is after their happiness. Carbon monoxide will not be his cause of death.

  • Ode aan Zoutzuur

  • An ode to Hydrochloric Acid. What an expressive poem this is! Every word is visual. You can literally jump from image to image. Follow this aggressive liquid slide in the man’s body, deeper and deeper, until it evokes the last and liberating light. I never asked if this once was a deeper wish.

























  • And what a pity it is if you can’t understand this poem..! I so wish you could understand Dutch, if it were for just this handful of words. As a poem is incarnated in the language it is written in, a translation that catches all the wit, rhyme and metre is hardly impossible. If you do wish to know what the poem tells about, you can always type the poem in one of the many translation options on the web. And when you are really stout and courageous, you can always teach yourself the beautiful language of the Dutch, Flemish and West Indian people.

  • Peter van Driel 1985 + 2012
    Let's go crash cassette recorders
    Peter, listen to me. You're my friend, aren't you. There is something I never told you, I'm sane! Long ago I saw you throw a spear. Not bad at all. It's just sad that no-one cared. Even the spear did not return. Let's go crash cassette recorders one for you and one for me. Let's go dying, just for fun, me a few times, you a few times. Hanging in curtains, like Edward does. He's still looking for the spear you threw away. A dark morning by accident, I glimpsed you scattered all over the street. A lot of eyes spearing you, though no-one cared. So let's forget it. Let's go crash cassette recorders one for you and one for me. Let's go dying, just for fun, me a few times, you a few times. Peter, pass me the coffee. And let’s drink the morning away. Peter, listen to me. You're my friend, aren't you. Don’t you worry, cause I know: We’re sane! Let's go crash cassette recorders lots for you and lots for me. Let's go dying, just for fun, me a few times, you a few times.

    When the stranger comes along
    When a stranger comes along. You tell him about me. No one loves you just the same. Within Eden I shall plea. Oh my Love. He’s just a stranger showing off. Oh my Love. He’s just a stranger showing off. When the stranger comes along. You tell him where I’ll be. He will take you by the hand and leads you towards me. Bye Bye love, I will wait for you above. Bye Bye love. We’ll meet again… Above.