Funky town

Last months I have been working on my songs. I decided that I only want to play when I really believe in what I am doing on that stage. I mean, I got tired of being insecure all the time and I started thinking of what I want with my music. ( It's for me almost the same question as what do you want in and with your life)  I think I change my mind a lot, my point of view is not really steady and sometimes other people need to tell me where I am heading for, cause I can be totally unaware of many things. Anyway, what I wanted to tell me and you is that my heart goes to funk these times, good steady funk, and that's why I had a great experience in the Waterhole last night.

I think it was the houseband which was playing:  there was a drummer and two pretty good bass-players ( one of them played with Danalyze earlier in the evening; I started the night at Backstage Hotel with the Amsterdam Songwriters Guild.) 

The energy of the band in the Waterhole reminded me a bit of Jan Kuiper, a guitarist from Groningen. I once heard him playing with his band the Jungle Warriers in Utrecht and - wow, man - the music really makes me crazy !
Back to my own music. What I like is folkmusic, I like the voice of Sandy Denny very very much. And I like funky stuff. Now I wrote two songs about hookers; and one of the songs got this groove I like to play on my guitar. I always felt a little ashamed to play that way but I decided to go for it. I mean, this is what I like to do: bamming on my guitar. And if I really like to do that, I should go for it. So now you know :) 

So watch this vids and you'll understand what I mean:

singing and playing RED

Okay, let me tell you about last night. It was a very interesting night because I spoke to some people while watching and listening to other songwriters.

It was the first time that I played in the Backstage Hotel; a nice place where the ASG (Amsterdam Songwriters Guild) have an open mic every Tuesday night. You have to go there early because the list is already full at 8 pm. Unfortunally there was something wrong with my guitar, so I played on the guitar of Paul Bond, another songwriter. Playing on guitars of other people is sometimes a bit hard, but this guitar was great ! ( I'll ask him what kind of guitar he has.) I got confused only one time: this is a weird experience what sometimes happens to me and that is that I sometimes become alienated; I don't recognize the world around me anymore. -Okay, this is pretty weird to tell you, but I don't suffer from it - unless I don't recognize chords and strings.... and this perfectly happened when I played the song Schizophrenia. 

Actually I first wanted to tell the people what happened to this song, but the timing was not good last night, so now I write down here that  a year ago I played this song on a session and I played the song together with Glenn Hayes. He is a bass-player and he told me he liked the song very much and  he recorded the song. I was very surprised what he did to the song, he changed the structure,  but I liked it very much ! Now this musician suddenly died a few months ago and last night it was the first time I sang the song again after he died, so I had to think of him all the time. 

And  while I was playing this song, I forgot how a guitar works... but my authomatic pilot saved me. 

You can listen to the recording of Glenn right here: 

Nomad Remix of Schizophrenia

There were a lot of people at Backstage Hotel last night and I had a nice time with Otto. Otto playes his songs on the guitar in a beautiful way and he's also the guy who encourages me to write on my blog again.

The conversation I had last night with Otto reminded me of Dana, a very important man in my life who encouraged me two years ago to start making music again. It's actually because of him I started singing again after 13 years not making any music.

I was surprised to meet Steve Cline at Backstage, he was a friend of Glenn and he did the sessions in Lijn 10 for a while. 

I met two women from France, and they were staying just another night in Amsterdam. They enjoyed the music of all songwriters and I liked to watch how they had a good time.

Leonie is a songwriter from Amstelveen and I must admit, after we left the hotel they didn't sell any red wine anymore because we drank it.

This is Danielle, she took a nice bassplayer with her, later this guy played the bass in Waterhole, I really enjoyed it. The guy with the hat is a songwriter called Sjoerd. 

With Max, de host of the ASG nights in Backstage Hotel

It was a pleasure to meet Lily Kiara

After the ASG-gig we left the Backstage Hotel and danced and had a good time in the Waterhole, Dzuana, Danielle and Leonie even got on that stage again ! 

Today I will work on my songs again, I have to work out Schizophrenia and theother song about the hooker ( "the Prostitute"). Yes, my songs are sometimes very weird indeed, I am not always aware of that actually, so please tell me ( in a friendly way) what you think about it :) 

Next gig is Sunday October 27, on the Pekmarkt in Amsterdam-Noord, and in the night at The Voices; I will write about that gig on this blog because the date is a very special day for me. 

drummer in de Waterhole