I am assuming that I'll be able to keep this brief (ish…). Also, I am sitting in Berlin Schoenefeld airport waiting to catch the plane to London, having had about 3hrs sleep after my show last night – not the type of circumstance that lends itself to the most articulate or informative musical travelogue… Plus my battery is running out. So moving on…
Farewell Scotland, Hello Amsterdam.
Well I'll be damned. (Maybe even Amster-damned…. Oh dear did I just say that? I think I did…). This is actually a really great city. I like the way it's laid out along the various canals and waterways, I love the slightly crooked traditional Dutch apartment buildings, I can enjoy a good coffee (rather than whatever it was they were giving me in the UK and Ireland), and I can get EVERYWHERE on my bicycle. Ah yes the bicycle – ruler of all the earth – the bicycle. How nice to ride around for a few days knowing that with the "tink" of a small bell you can exert a power greater than the forces of Communist China. Awesome.
Now in fact I had been to Amsterdam before, but the last two trips had been with Rugby tours from London. Rugby tours that departed – with a great many cases of warm beer – at 7am in the morning. So as you can imagine, my previous impressions of Amsterdam were somewhat blurry… There wasn't a lot of time to "take it all in" – I was too busy being marched off to the next bar in between brief moments of running onto a football field and attempting to play for 20mins (it was a 10-a-side tournament) without touching the ball or tackling anyone. (As a Fly-half, I had mastered the no tackling part very early in my career…).
This time around I am happy to say I managed to last 3 days without going to a club in the red light district and without getting plastered, stoned or any other derivation of the phrase "making a mess of ones self". Yes I hear you, I hear you – not very Rock'n'roll of me to have a sober, clean 3 days in Amsterdam, but I never said I was cool, folks. I never said I was cool. And instead of feeling like crap each morning, I was able to check out a lot of the city on my trusty two-wheeler. Even got to and from my gigs each night using good old pedal power with my guitar tucked under one arm! Had a great time.
THURS 21/8 – CAFÉ 'SKEK
I was intrigued by my initial invitation to play at 'Skek. Any place that puts an apostrophe before the start of the name is surely a little strange… Is this the reverse of the plural for I wonder? What would that be? Half a café perhaps? Well obviously we are dealing with a different language here yes, but thanks for pointing it out. It turns out that 'Skek is in fact a whole café, and it even has a nice little upright piano on the stage – an unexpected but very welcome surprise.
Good little crowd in for a Thursday night, including a few people I knew from back in the homeland. In fact, there was a table FULL of Aussies who had all made the trek down from The Hague that night especially for the gig! (Thanks Kate). And wouldn't you know it, they weren't on a fanatics tour, they didn't have their faces painted with green and/or gold zinc cream, and not once did they ask me if I knew the words to "Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi". Thank Christ for that. In the world of patriotic national war cries, I do believe Australia can lay claim to having the most boring, uninventive, and down right annoying of them all. New Zealand, for instance, have The Haka – an ancient tribal tradition passed down through generations in which participants are required to perform a carefully choreographed routine, demonstrating timing, agility and precision. We have a song with 2 words, each repeated 3 times, usually led by the dumbest person available, preferably the person with the biggest mullet who is more often than not selected because he is also the most intoxicated, and therefore the one with the least chance of saying anything else. Failing that, somebody pays John Williamson a lot of money, and 80,000 people try to sing our rugby team to sleep with an old folk song before the match kicks off. And we wonder why we keep losing the Bledisloe cup!
This was my first show in a non-English speaking country, so I was never entirely sure if half the people in the bar actually understood what I was singing about, or indeed what I was saying in between songs. And as I may have mentioned, or as you may have picked up, I don't mind a bit of a ramble in between songs. (Much like when I am putting together tour blogs in fact). That's how I keep myself amused anyway, for better or worse. Fortunately as I looked around the room I did notice a few heads nodding here and there, so I am assuming that for those that didn't have any idea what I was talking about, there was at least someone nearby to translate what I was saying. Be that a literal translation, or one which made me look like a complete muppet. Come to think of it, there were a few more laughs than normal…. Hmmm….
The night over, there was time to catch up with a few old friends and meet a few new ones at the open mic night, which runs each Thursday after the "feature artist". If you could call me that. Really I was just the bloke who kicked it off and played for the longest time…
FRI 22/8 – CAFÉ BLIVERTJE
Ok first of all, I have no idea how to pronounce the name of this café. In fact, I really can't pronounce anything in Dutch at all. It's like the alphabet has been thrown into one of those big lotto barrels and someone has drawn and re-drawn hundreds of thousands of times over to create the national dictionary. It seems quite common for the average Dutch person to sound like they are choking on flem as they order a beer, or a coffee, or anything really. So I give up on "Blivertje". Say nothing of the fact that, like 'Skek the night before, the "café" advertises itself as 't Blivertje. Again with the random pre-word apostrophe mark. I don't understand, but I was happy to run with it.
The astute observers amongst you will notice that I put the word "cafe" in inverted commas. This is because it is not a café in the normal sense of the word. The Blivertje – say it again, Blivertje – is in fact a squatters house! Yes, you heard me correctly – a squatters house. Someone had mentioned it to me the night before, but to be honest I hadn't really taken much notice, and when I arrived I was, to be fair, a little surprised. I think the same could be said for my friend from Australia, who last saw me play at the Hopetoun or the Cat and Fiddle or some other Sydney venue of that nature…. A slight contrast here…
Apparently squatters are fairly common in Amsterdam, and this is not the only place of this nature that exists. The Blivertje more or less serves as a headquarters of sorts where the various squatters in the neighbourhood gather together to eat dinner and catch up over a beer or two, as well as check out a bit of live music. The venue itself changes location roughly once a year – whenever the owners reclaim possession of the property. But after speaking to Hank, its seems that they are usually able to find a new spot fairly quickly.
I felt uncomfortable for all of 5 seconds, but I quickly began to feel like part of the family, and part of the furniture. It turns out that Hank, the man in charge, is a big supporter of independent music, and a number of the local singer-songwriters in Amsterdam often come through here to play. He's also an artist of sorts - so there was a great little cartoon of me that he had prepared for a flyer. I will have to post it in my tour photos when I can work out how to scan it in - very cool. Apparently they also have bands here – the last one was a 10-piece! I don't know where they would have put them all to be honest in between the old couches, computers and whatever else has been accumulated over the years, but Hank tells me it was an awesome show. And I believe him. At any rate, a bloke who's willing to give a random Aussie his own show on a Friday night at a week's notice is alright by me! I should add here that whilst the Blivertje didn't pay me any money, they did provide the best vegetarian curry I have EVER had, and beers were also on the house. Not that I would have minded paying – turns out they were selling them for the princely sum of 1 Euro.
The show itself was quiet, but really enjoyable. Potentially a slightly bigger language problem than Café 'Skek, but people clapped from time to time so I am assuming that was a good sign…. Also performing that night was a guy by the name of Frank, originally from France, who had recently moved to Amsterdam to be with his girlfriend and was just getting started on the local scene. Frank was an exceptional guitarist, and after speaking to him later that night it turns out he had toured Europe as a bass player several times over with a well known French artist – Yanne Matis (www.myspace.com/yannematis). These are two of the things I like most about music – you never know where it might take you, and you never know who you might meet. Apparently Frank has set up a "Rhythm section for hire" with a local drummer, and when I return to Europe next year with my new album finished, I may even be able to arrange a couple of full band shows in Amsterdam! Now that would be cool. (This is assuming of course I still can't afford to take my own rhythm section from Australia, who I wouldn't replace for the world. One day fellas, one day…).
Left to head home with a pretty good feeling about the Blivertje, particularly Hank who had booked me the show. So often it seems to be the case that the people with the least in this world are also happiest. Sydneysiders take note (myself included). I will definitely be stopping by again the next time I am in town.
So after one more day in Amsterdam, and a hell of a lot more cycling, it was time for me to bid farewell. Onwards to Paris, the city of love, or at least the city of "love"ly things…. if you're travelling solo like me… Oh Molly Mae, where art thou?
Time for a new blog I think.
(Turns out that wasn't so brief after all... What a surprise!)
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