'My ears and mouth collaborate'

“My ears and my mouth collaborate very well”, a singersongwriter told me last night.

I wish I could say the same. My mouth never listens to me.

It is even worse: I don’t ever listen to me. For that sake I am the enlightened borderliner.  (Which means nothing, of course.)

It seems as if I make decisions in life but I’m only running behind consiousness, just watching what’s going on. I need time to handle many external impressions because there’s already happening a lot in my inner world.

This I tell you because when I hear you talk or I see something happening it seems as if I forget this already the next moment.    My short term memory really sucks and no, it’s not because of the wine., it’s a matter of time. When I am totally on my own and there is silence around me just then I can start processing the chaotic life in my head.

So I write stuff down and I decided to write more on this blog. (Unfortunately I decided to write in English so sometimes it’s a little hard to make myself clear..:) )

This is what happened last night: I went to Zaal 100 and if you play there you get some free drinks and a good meal. I had my dinner together with some other musicians. Having dinner with people you don’t know can be hard sometimes, but this night I am glad I met Marius and Heather. Heather is a very good cellist and for sure a lot of people like to work with her. (Actually I would like that myself  too, and after Frank pushed me a lot to ask her I finally got her emailadres. )

Marius is a songwriter, he plays flute and he rides a bike. A very special bike: a taxi-bike, which means he brings tourists in Amsterdam to places where they want to be. By bike.

After a weekend recording the song ‘By My Side’ I really appreciated it that Danielle showed up to sing the song together with me for the overcrowded room. 

Rufus and Marius

 First we listened to Rufus Kain, a Dutch singersongwriter who is always carrying a notebook ( I always wonder what he writes down, I tried to peek, but I only saw the curls of his handwriting). He told us he’s got plenty of plectrums but he never can find them. (I lose them always too, but I know where I can find mine: they jump into my guitar while I’m playing.)

Anyway, Mick came with me and he had to work today, so he didn’t want to play that late. So we were following Rufus and when we started I immediately forgot the lyrics of my song “Like a Bird’. In the second verse I remembered them again but it was a bad start of the performance.

Paul, the guy who organized the gig, did a good job with the sound. I could hear myself very clearly and I also liked the sound of  Mick's bass, so we had a good time together.

This night I had a special guest: Okke, my lover J and the father of my daughters,  came and listened. As usual he is very critical about the music, but he had a great night because of the pint of beer they sell at Zaal 100.

(Today he has go to the dentist and he hoped he would still be drunk. )

Marius and Heather

After our performance we listened to Marius and Heather and we were drinking together at the ‘musician table’.

I am still on that mountain and tonight I will fly like a bird to Jet Lounge to play some of my songs.