I really made the most of my day off work this week. Tamira has been asked to appear on the radio - Amsterdam FM. She asked me to come along for a little moral support and to add a second guitar to some of her songs.
We were appearing on the 'literature hour'. This meant that several authors had come along to be interviewed about their music and Tamira and I would play songs in between. We started with Randy - one of Tamira's own songs. They asked Tamira about her album etc.
Between songs we had to quietly sit and listen to the interviews. Tamira was pretty worse for wear from the night before, so I think her lasting memory of the evening will be an hour spent stifling coughs. We also played Crazy Train which we'd been practicing.
I think it went pretty well. The hosts were pretty happy.
Last night was a special occasion. It was my first ever solo gig. I've had lots of opportunities to prove to myself that I can do it, but this was the first time that it was only my name on the bill and I had no one to hide behind.
I swithered as to whether to take the gig or not, but I knew I had enough material, so I went for it in an attempt to take new steps and grow a little.
Cafe Del Mondo is a great little bar on the Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam which itself is full of terraced bars. By day these are full of coffee-ing tourists having a well earned rest on one of the most picturesque squares in Amsterdam. By night the place opens up to a nightlife that is a little more respectable or older than that on Leidseplein or Rembrandtplein. The Proximity to the red light district means there is also a steady traffic of tourists wandering around.
I'd been in the bar before for coffee on a saturday to recharge the batteries during a morning market session, but I'd never been in at night. The bar is quite small as a music venue, but let's call it "intimate". This is good news - I'm not expecting a big crowd.
Karolina and I introduce ourselves to the owner and set up a makeshift stage on the mezzanine level at the back. It creates a lovely homely atmosphere:
I play my first set(see below). The audience are unresponsive but seem pretty happy, The odd person sings along and people slowly trickle in which at least tells me that I'm not scaring punters off. A few times, big groups of English tourists in track suits pass the door and I pray that they don't come in. Luckily they don't.
Before I know it the first set is over, which lets me know that everythings gone fine, the owner is happy and all the equipment works. I am able to relax over a beer and talk to karolina about how it went. By now it's about 10:30 and the night is in full swing for most people. Everyone has had a few more drinks. The rain has started which means we're unlikly to get many new audience members but it also makes the ones we do have less likely to leave.
I kick off the second set, and the crowd are clearly far more responsive. The singing is geting louder and I think they are enjoying the laid back but well known songs that I'm playing. Before I know it the set is over and it's time to go home... All in all - another mountain climbed!!
Tamira and her band had a gig to prepare for, but at the last minute they were guitar-less, so I foolishly agreed to learn their songs on top of my already stressful workload.
The gig was at Sink or Swim which is a studio rented by one of Lorenzo's mates. It's out past Sloterdijk Station, so it was quite an adventure to get there. Lorenzo, Deen, Tamira and I cycled out there in about 20 minutes...
When we got there it was all very "anti-kraak". We went through a garage door and left our bikes in a warehouse and then climbed through a little door to get to ante-room off a small stage. When you play in the same venue weekly, it's great to have the feeling of working out how you are going to sound in a new venue. The opening band were already soundchecking, so we weaved through them to get to a kind of lounge area.
The gig was a cross between a show and a hosue party. Very loungey and relaxed. There was a small bar selling cheap beer and we all kind of mingled and prepared for our gig until it was time for us to go on.
I don't know much about the first band. Good effort - great drummer and bassist supported by two girls singing and one girl on keyboard. I missed the guitar, but it also meant that I felt quite good about not being outclassed and the little audience that was collecting would be chuffed to here some Kerchunk-a-wang...
We went on and played through our set. Amazingly it went by without any noticeable hitch, which for me was surprising considering I had never played all the songs in one go correctly before.
We came off stage just about 10 minutes before the last tram left, so I didn't get to ride the post-gig euphoria very much. I don't have any photos, but Lisa's friend Sebastian took some, so hopefully I'll get a hold of them later.
We were going to practice tonight -but the cafe was double booked. Petra Jordan was recording a few songs before playing that night. I finally get Fraser along to a rehearshal and it falls through... oh well. We had a nice evening wandering through the city on one of the first dry evenings of the year. We stopped off in Bazaar on the Albert Cuypstraat. It's truly wonderful.
Last night was the first Jam of the year at CC Muziek Café. Devin has been holding down the fort while I was in Scotland for Christmas. From now on I expect every Thursday to be filled with the trials, tribulations and joys of hosting a Jam Session.
Devin, Deen and I had a practice the previous day before opening to run through a few things. I’m hoping these Wednesday sessions give us a chance to build a semblance of a house band, but I was a bit disappointed that it was just the three of us running through my Open Mike chords, maybe I tried to do too much on my first week back at work. The mood lifted when Marcel Gorski came in and I ran through a few old classics with him. Sadly he couldn’t be there last night.
Anyway… I was there nice and early to get things set up, and was glad when Fergus came in. I met him through Fraser at a drinking session few months back and remembered that he said he played the bass. It was good to see a new face. My on-going fear of the Jam Sessions is that it’s just me stumbling through songs, and I don’t yet have a core group of people who’s talents I know; I miss Javier, Fraser and Sandra.
Before we even had things set up, we had a band of Devin, Deen, Höskuldur, Fergus and Me. It was enough to run through a few songs and blow off the cob webs. Fergus made a great difference to our Bass-less practicing the previous night. I think we probably did Angie and Dancing in the moonlight. Pretty soon a quiet guy named James joined in with some wonderfully improvised acoustic guitar over the top of everything. We continued like this through another several songs, before I eventually was able to take a break and leave the band to a few jams.
It was sounding pretty good from off the stage. The bar was still pretty quiet but it was good to hear a jam still continuing while I wasn’t playing. Ted and Mathew were there to talk to René about making a promotional video(watch this space).
After a while I returned to the stage and we ran through some more Jammy songs now that I had a feeling for our Ad-Hoc band of the night. If memory serves me correctly we ran through Knockin on Heaven’s door, All along the watch tower and Battle of Evermore with Marco now adding some acoustic guitar. By the time I finished that lot, we also had Dave Harmonica Hulks, Geert and Robert waiting to play. The combination suggested blues was the order of the Jam, and I left them to shuffle away for a good 20 minutes.
Tamira had been chilling in the smoking area down the stairs waiting for the band to go on. I was quite jealous of the coziness down in the smoking area, while I was upstairs being paranoid that everything wasn’t running smoothly. Eventually her Bass player(Lorenzo arrived) and we put together a band to do Tubthumping, Boots and MGMT… before we returned to some blues Jams until the end of the Jam.
All in all it was a pretty good jam. It started slowly, but eventually there was lots of happy musicians playing away who seemed to be really enjoying themselves. We still don’t have enough audience members braving the tough January weather and Winter Depressie to come out and see us, but hopefully with the number of musicians we have that will slowly come.
Below is a list of some of the songs that cropped up during the night:
