Neil McKenzie - Solo - Cafe Del Mondo, 26.02.2011

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!!

Here's what I played:

Tamira and Co - 12.02.2011 - Sink or swim, Westpoort

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.

Talia Couch Jam

Last night I dropped in a new event in Amsterdam. The CouchJam at Talia. Talia is a great little Deli, come catering business, come living room, come small venue. I heard about it through Bernie who played in the mine a few times and was a regular at the Jam Sessions. The plan was to have a chilled unamplified Jam Session on couches - sounds like a good way to start the weekend.

I walked in a little apprehensivly, unsure if I was the only outsider attending. It was chilled right enough. Bernie was sitting on one couch and there was a guitarist(Tim) on the other sitting beside a guy(Mauricio) playing a snare and a set of hi-hats.

I wouldn't often just sit down and join in - but for some reason it felt right. There were various people mingling, eating great food and joining in with some random shakers and tambourines:

The evening passed in a blur. I had brought my Open Mike song book and some people sang a few songs from there. This worked pretty well. I also tried in vain to keep up with some Gypsey Jazz Jam's, but eventually I had to just tap out the rhythm on my guitar. Before I knew it - a few hours had passed and it was time to stop.

After everyone had been out the front of the place a for a photo - Nicola(One of Talia's owners) called us through to the back room and fed all the musicians a Tiramisu:

Perfect end to a perfect night.

Tamira's gig.

Yesterday was a pretty fun filled day. I was going to mix the recordings from the last open mike, but somehow I managed to delete all the files. It was one of those...

"Oh shit..... pooof gone...ah well... what am I going to do now?"

Tamira told me she was stressing a little about pulling her band together. No one is doing what they were told and she was worrying about that night's gig. She asked me if I would come along to her practice and give her some support. Karolina was on the way out the door to the gym, so I suggested she swap it for a bike run to Duivendrecht and back instead.

Before we left for MelodyLine - we had to finish Kenneth's birthday present. I'm racked with guilt. It just didn't make any sense to head over to Scotland for the big man's 30th, so we decided to film a sketch/birthday message for him. It was a roaring success - so maybe we're do that more often.

Anyway... it was a lovely cycle - Blue skies - but baltic cold. No matter how fast you cycled, your legs never warmed up.

When we arrived the band were already there making lots of noise. The only people I hadn't met before was the twin guitar team of Jelmer and Darren. Tamira was feeling the pressure of trying to get everyone to focus on their set-list and learn the songs. Part of me was really glad[Sorry Tamira :-)]. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that gets stressed about getting people motivated.

After a few songs I could see what her fears were. While there were plenty songs that went well, it was a big undertaking to bring together 7 people to learn 30-40 songs in a matter of weeks. Different people had different abilities more importantly different levels of effort were being put in. The main issue I could see was that Lisa and Tamira were getting frustrated with having to manage recognition of mistakes and how the group as a whole go about having to find a solution. I spent a lot of the time wondering what my bands sounded like when I was 16-17 and just starting out. We laughed and joked a lot, but we had much less patience for mistakes. We had probably got over the fear of admitting and recognising mistakes from playing in the more formal setting of a brass band.

Anyway - they were doing very well, and given time, I think it would really start to gel - but Tamira was quite rightly stressed about making it gel for the imminent gig that night. I tried to keep pretty quiet so that I wasn't interfering while at the same time letting Tamira know that I was there if they needed some advice.

We headed back and left them to it. We were babysitting Appie at night, so Karolina was going to stay behind while I headed to the gig.

I left for another cold cycle across Amsterdam at about 9:30. It was strange being in the bar and not playing or not having any stress or responsibility to set things up. I got a little worried when I realised I was about the 3rd audience member there, but it very quickly filled up and turned into one of the busiest nights that the Cafe has had.

Rene was on fine form and relishing being the superbusy barman. He was running around like a mad man all night but very successfully playing host to I guess around 60 drinkers at one time. I was avoiding the solo drinker mantel and spent most of the night trying to coax some photos out of my Camera. I think things are starting to go well.

For the band there were a few ropey moments in the first set - mainly caused by nerves and lack of preparation. From the first break onwards, they just got better and better. The audience really embraced them and as the drink flows the night really gelled. I was very impressed and proud of Tamira.

I left half way through the third set. I knew that if I stayed to the end I'd have to wait until everyone cleared up before I could leave.

I passed home via Coco's to see if Fraser was around - but it was far too packed for me to even attempt to head in...

A rare late night saturday for me - and no late night takeaway!!!

Thursday Tunes Jam - 27th Jan.

A great Jam last night. I'm finally managing to focus on the musicians and accepting that I don't have much control over how many people turn up to watch us. When I arrived, Fergus was there to play bass and I was pleased that Eoghan had come down to see what we were doing. Fico was also there - and he always has fun while he's playing, so it made for a good start.

We had a lot of fun running through various songs and and exchanging ideas. It was a very song oriented start to the Jam. Normally I throw out a few songs to warm people up before we try to bring together some jams, but we plays a number of songs led by either me or Eoghan. It was great to have Eoghan along to take the lead a little and also to sing some great harmonies for the stuff I was doing. The stuff I remember is Sympathy for the Devil, Talkin' bout a revolution, Man on the Moon, Whiskey in the Jar and Dancing in the moonlight.

We also had a new face at the Jam - Cecile - who started very well by getting us to Jam a version Glory Box by Portishead and then slotted in really well on vocals and guitar.

After that, Danielle arrived and I felt there were enough people who could play guitars and sing, so for the first time so far in our Jam Sessions - I took to the drums. It's been a while, and I get pretty self-concious about whether my bass drum is in time, but I'm pretty sure I coped okay and no-one noticed that I've not played in months and my brain disagrees with my arms about my drumming ability.

After this, I sat back with Karolina and let everyone do their thing. We had almost no audience, but around 20 musicians. Robert came along and Karolina even played(Zombie). The night closed with me playing Bass, Robert playing guitar, Bram playing keyboards and Den playing drums.

I had a great night. I think I'll branch out to Bass and Drums more often.

Cosy January Open Mike.

Last night we had a great Open Mike night. It was that great mix of having practiced, having an audience and having enough friends there to make it good fun.

When we started the bar was actually empty. We’d hit the spot between after work stragglers and late night drinkers. We decided that we’d start rather than hang around. We started with Goodnight Girl by Wet Wet Wet and by the grace of Marti Pellow the bar had an extra 20 people in it when we finished.

It was Burns Night and we had planned to give some Burns songs a go, but the preparation hadn’t amounted to any more than printing out the chords. We thought we might have got away with it when the bar was empty, but once we spied some strangers in the bar, we lost the bottle and plumped for a good crowd pleaser – Fat Bottomed girls.

We now felt we had sufficiently impressed to try the first of our new additions for the night – the boys are back in town. I think we did it justice. There were a few little stumbles in the vocals, but otherwise I think it was pretty good fun.

Onto the guests…. Andre was up first. He did some great original versions of While my guitar gently weeps, Moon river and one of his own about an island where it’s always raining.(The UK???)

After that we had Grandpa Death at our open mike for the first time. He must have been keen, cos he bought a new guitar for it. He added to the Scottishness or even the Ayrshireness of the event and gave us some amazing original bluesy tunes.

Gareth then showed us how it was done and knocked out some great cover choices – including Purple Rain and Take your Mama by the Scissor Sisters and Driftwood by Scottish band Travis. :

By this point it was clear that we had enough talent to sustain the night and there were lots of smiling faces and happy musicians, so my job was done. Fraser and I even managed to sit down for a pink of the black stuff:

The photo makes me look a little satanic, but I was really enjoying the night and even relaxing a bit.

Tamira, Lorenzo and Lisa had come along ahead of their Debut gig on Saturday at CC Muziek Café. The play some Tubthumping, some Natalie Imbruglia, and some Stealer’s Wheel(more Scottish music). Things are coming together and I think their gig should be pretty good if anyone needs anywhere to go this Saturday.

We then had a folk group, but I’m afraid I don’t know their names. They’ve been down before and they are a great bunch. Me and Fraser even got up for a jam for their last song:

We had now got to the stage where there had been enough drinkers to make the bar happy and enough musicians to remove our fear that we were going to run out of material. We could now sit back, relax and knock out a few tunes. The tunes included “Guess that’s why they call it the Blues”, Man in the mirror, the boys are back in town(again), and then I broke a string on Lola. So we finished with a 5 string medley of Pokerface, Kids and Zombie.

Here’s some of the songs that were played:

Jam 20th January

My second jam session of the year, and we’re starting to relax into the rhythm of the thing. People are turning up and know what’s going to be happening. We had a pretty slow start tonight. Our “house band” still consists of Devin Deen and I. Tonight we were pretty quickly supported by Andre Smoge, who is a Norwegian I had met by chance the night before. He’s a jack of all trades musician who I don’t think fully showed his full deck last night but he was keen to jam and play bass, guitar or jam some vocals which is always good.

We started with an extended Jam of Sympathy for the Devil to an almost empty bar. This gave way to some free jamming with Andre skat singing. I’m not convinced it’s the stage for free jamming. No one seems to be able to hear each other and it can drift toward a rabble at times. Still we persevered and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. After that the bar got a bit busier, I ran through a few songs with ted on Bass and then a younger guy on drums(Name to be added) joined us.

After a short break, some of the regular musicians(meaning they’ve been before) showed up. Dave, Robert and Coco’s own James started the inevitable blues jams to blow away the cobwebs. Slow minor blues a la Since I’ve been loving you and various other bits and pieces.
After that things went all Latin, José from Venezuela and Janan(sp??) from Cuba who gave us some great latino loungey music. Danielle Cornelissen and Will joined in on drums and guitar to and there was even some dancing:

From this point, I knew there were enough musicians about that I could have a seat and start to enjoy it without the stress of wondering if I’ll have to perform too much or if the bar will be totally dead.

While it all went latin up the stairs, I had discovered that Tamira and Lisa had sneaked in down the stairs:

Tamira and Lisa took to the stage backed by Devin, Deen and Alfons. The stage was getting busy and my previous plans to sit on my arse and take some photos were quickly thwarted by the dreaded decibel meter which seems to edge above 86dB every time anyone enjoys themselves or my arse hits something soft.

Okay. Rant over. Tamira and Lisa were wonderful, and the practicing is starting to pay off. They have a gig in CC Muziek Café on the 29th January, and it’s guaranteed to be a fun evening.

By the time Tamira finished everyone was ready for bed, but the diehards stayed on for around an hour of Danielle jamming with Robert, Deen, Andre, Dave and Devin. Very extended versions of Louie Louie, Ring of Fire and The first cut is the deepest made for a great close to the day and luckily it was during this that Andy Reeves from the Amsterdam Stun pooped in, so I can only assume that he thinks it’s always that coherent. Thanks Danielle.

All in all a great night which started with me unnecessarily stressing about no musicians coming; but it turned out to be a pretty good night. We still don’t have the audience numbers that we’d like but hopefully happy musicians is a good sign that word of mouth should start to take effect.

Here´s some of the songs that appeared during the evening:

Neil, Tamira and Sandra - Live @ Mollys 10th Sept.

Wednesday night after a fruitful writing session, Fraser and I decided that a celebratory pint of the black stuff(no… not Bovril) was in order. We headed down to Mollys where Matty asked if I could put a “band” together due to a last minute cancellation. At such last minute notice it turned out that both Fraser AND Eric Clapton were busy, so I put a call in to Sandra and Tamira and we agreed that Tamira would handle the first set with a little back up from me and then Sandra and I would do the rest of the night to allow Tamira to get home for work the next morning.

Friday night means little pressure to invite people, which means no posters and not a lot of Facebook action. I focused on trying to scratch together enough songs to get through 3 45 minute sets. Sandra and Tamira are both match fit due to travels and holidays that involved lots of guitar playing, but with flu’s going round and the need to pull out some crowd pleasers, I felt enough pressure to keep the adrenalin flowing.

Tamira and I started with “These boots are made for walking” as a sure fire well known song that we wouldn’t mess up:

Audio here

We then continued with Blue Suede Shoes, Sex on Fire and Blitzkrieg Bop, before play Use Somebody herself and then We introduced Sandra for a duet on Last Kiss. By this point Tamira’s cold was starting to play havoc with her voice, so we finished her stint with Randy.

Barely 30 minutes in, and one player out due to injury… I could see I was going to have to sing a lot more than I’d planned to.  I got up and sang, All along the watchtower as my goto for easy songs that I can sing. We still hadn’t had much feedback from what had become a pretty packed bar, so I took the mood down a little and did Wonderful Tonight and Wind Cries Mary, and then closed the set with Fat Bottomed Girls.

audio here

Set 1 was now out the way, but the bar was now absolutely packed and things were getting very hot and sweaty on the stage. I was beginning to feel real pressure to fill a set with crowd pleasers and not have to resort to Pearl Jam B-sides.

I started set 2 by having Sandra let her hair down a little with Yer Blues, but other than a few glances at the wonder that is Sandra, the bar still didn’t show us much love. Big Yellow taxi followed this, and then the crowd finally started to sing along when Karolina came up to play Lola with me(I never thought of Lola as that popular.) Since Karolina was on stage, we ‘knocked out’ Knockin on heaven’s door and then Sandra came and sang a version of Little Wing.

Audio here

I then let Sandra finish the set – safe in the knowledge that we only had one set to go. She managed to rouse the crowd with some Bobby McGee.

For Set three I started again……..

……….then Sandra played a little more. By this time, the bar was getting quieter, and people could hear us a little better, so we got a little self-indulgent and played a version of Seasons by Chris Cornell , before finishing the show with Thank You and We are the Champions.

All in all it was a good night and I’m happy with how it went, but without other guests to rely on it was quite stressful hoping that we’d not run out of songs and that I’d not have to inflict my singing voice on the Friday night crowd too much. 

Open Mike @ Mollys - August 2010

For the second month in a row, the Open Mike has been so busy that we’ve been turning people away from the stage. Everyone who has ever hosted the Open mike was there last night - Fraser, Sandra, Tamira and Javier. It’s just a shame that the night was such a success that we didn’t get to play more together cos I really enjoy jamming with all those guys. Fortunately we had some great talent on the stage and I got to listen for once.

 Fraser and I opened with yet more Queen(Fat Bottomed girls)

…then Tamira joined us for Boots are made for walking and Blue Suede Shoes. Craig Coe then played for his second month in a row(He must have enjoyed last month):

He did a good job of fitting in the with out vision of the Open Mike night, not only does he get extra points for continuing the Queen theme, but he managed to put together 2 impromptu pairings, firstly with Sandra on Nobodies wife by Anouk, and then with Fraser and I on Somebody to love. 

We than had some new comers: Andy and Mike from Cheshire who performed some very nice harmonies despite the ropey onstage sound:

After that Marco, Javier, Fraser and I jammed out a few songs with Mandolin, 2 guitars and Bass which was a lot of fun. For the remainder of the night; Lee Clark wowed everyone with his self penned numbers; Amsterdam “weel kent face” Cindy Peress classed up the place; Sandra showed us that a month on the road keeps your music skills at maximum potency and Fraser and Tamira fired out some gems that they had been sneakily practicing on the side.

To close the show, the extremely able Giovanni and James played us out with Fraser supporting on Bass and vocals. Thanks to everyone that came along, musicians, listeners, hecklers and drinkers alike. Does anyone have any ideas for next month? A theme? Suggested Covers?

The perfect Saturday

Today might have been my favourite day of the year so far.... except for our Easter Sunday.

The day started badly with finance problems fuelled by false requests for municipality taxes. Sandra soon brightened the gloom and doom by arriving with breakfast… so we has one of those breakfasts that lasts until lunch time. Sausages eggs, bread, fresh fruit, veg…. and South Park… with the sun blaring in through the window.

Oops…. This is a music blog.

We dragged ourselves from the Breakfast table about 1pm(told you), we then headed for Dam Square, where some film makers were recording footage of Sandra busking for a youtube magazine show that is starting…

 

from there the film makers joined our entourage of happy wanderers and we headed to Amstelveld where Sandra has been asked to play at wedding:

The wedding was at Café Nel, and the plan was to play for 30-45 minutes. We had prepared a set of songs and I expected it to be a fairly relaxed affair. Once the guest started to arrive, I was feeling pretty underdressed:

We played a great set sitting in the sun with the wedding party all very happy and the children perplexed by the multi-coloured musician that had graced their party:

We walked back from Amstelveld with “music earned” money in our pockets on a lovely day, so spirits were high. We found Tamira and Hanan and decided that white wine and Greek food was the perfect solution for the lovely day. Sandra serenaded people(and Lincoln Continentals) along the way…

We closed the night about 3 am with a burger after a night in the mine with Anna and Coco.