Open mic Paris @Pop in and @Galway Pub

Hi everyone!
I have been to Paris last week and spent a really good  time up there with my eldest daughter.
We did some tourists stuff but mostly we walked and in the night we went to some open mics. I got these adresses from a site ( sent by Magali and Barbara) and when we were in our (très low budget)-hotel we discovered that Pop In was just 'round the corner!
In the night we walked from Place du Republique to Place de Bastille (rue Amelot - in Dutch "Ruu An me Hoela" ) , this street has lots of nice pubs and restaurants on Saturdaynight (on other nights pretty quiet) . We walked to the other recommended open mics, just to see where it was.

Here is the link to the document I used to discover live music in Paris: Brad Spurgeon's Blog
The open mic at Pop In was very quiet that night, but I met some really nice and friendly people upthere.
The open mic at Galway Pub was more busier, hosted by a nice guy called Romain Bretoneiche who is a good musician himself.
 There were some interesting songwriters playing up there. Good atmosphere, nice listening people. As the document says: a must go if you are a songwriter.
We did go by already in the afternoon, just to check how it looked like and the Pantheon is close to this bar, so we had a good walk. We liked the pub so in the night we came back to the area.  Late at night we were a little worried about catching a metro somewhere but we made it and Paris looked great at night!

 

Host at Pop In, gave a good sound

 

made some friends in Paris

Met rapper Guno Koese 

 At Galway Pub
 

Paris 'round Midnight 

Amsterdam - The End of The World - Einde van de Wereld

I have been playing several times on this lovely boat. The boat is called "Einde van de Wereld" and yes , it's somewhere at the end of the world... somewhere on the river (Het IJ)  in our lovely city Amsterdam.
You can eat there really good foot and... good music.

As I said, I have been playing there before, and this time I played  with Mario on bass and we played just one set, because there were also some other lovely songwriters playing that night. We did a good job together although Mario lost his head, hat I mean... it was too hot to wear a hat like that on stage :)))

Rei Satoshi is a great guitarplayer, she organized this guitarnight. She played her songs with Andries Zwart(guitar) and later on she played with  Marloes Klaasen. Marloes  is a lovely songwriter and she plays as a duo with Rei. They call themselves Cattitude.

Jim Marsdon, a very nice guy from Londen, living for many years in Amsterdam, got a great voice, and he played some covers with so much energy! Me and my friend Barbara sang with him (just as audience) and I had a great time. Of course I will tell you always how great and lovely and good my musical times are, but I am really serious about this one.

That is because I love the End of The World. This boat is a good restaurant. The people who work there are mostly volunteers and they are so relaxed, I can recommand everybody to come over.
Find out yourself!! Click here: Einde van de Wereld

Hope to meet you soon, I will come back there for sure!

Marloes en Axel

Rei en Marloes

Andries en Jim

Recording @Zozos

Last Friday-night I hardly didn't sleep so I was a little depressed when I woke up in the morning. I first thought I didn't have energy to make some recordings that night, and actually I wanted to cancel the whole thing,  but Mario was so excited and also Jannet wanted to come over so I decided to go and guess what,  I am so happy I didn't cancel!  I had a great night with my friends Mario and Jannet and Johann,the owner of the studio,  is such a nice, sweet and relaxing man! I really enjoyed being at Zozos!

I met Mario and Jannet at Central Station and we cycled to Studio Zozos, it was cold and rainy but at Zozos it was warm and cosy. Zozos is the studio of Johann Grunwald, a drummer and engineer. We asked him to record our music because he did last year when we played at Paleis Der Weemoed. I think he did a really good job that time,  so I asked him if he wanted to record us again and fortunallity he invited me to come over.

So last night we  played some of our music and recorded the music in just one track. Sometimes we had to start all over again because some trains passed by :))

We had a nice time together, very relaxing! We brought some red wine and played very concentrated our songs. The sound was very good while we were playing, in spite of the thundering trains...
So we played from 7 pm to 10 pm without taking a break and recorded 5 songs.
After that me and Jannet had fun by singing and playing with the turning chairs :)


Okay, I am singing competely out of tune on the turning chair, who cares anyway... but... I must say that I have learned already so much from Mathilde Santing her singing lessons. I have had only three lessons now and I had to think about her all the time when I was singing my song 'Those Words ' . I never sang that song so clear and in tune, I have no idea how I did it, but I was thinking about everything Mathilde told me to think about.

So, i came home a bit late but very satisfied and next week we will mix the recordings and i am gonna think about what kind of vid i will make.

Thank you Johann, Mario and Jannet! XXX

De Vorstin / Hilversum

Rocktempel De Vorstin in Hilversum heeft een heel mooi muziekcafé en daar worden maandelijks open mics gehouden. De open mics zijn er populair, de zaal zit meestal vol en de sfeer is erg goed.
Het is een heel mooi podium om te spelen, goed professioneel geluid. Er worden geluids- en filmreportages gemaakt van de optredens, dus zeer de moeite waard voor muzikanten om daar eens te komen spelen!

Het was het spannendste optreden ooit voor mij en bassist Mario. Waarom? Nou het eerste liedje liep nog wel, al had ik per ongeluk tijdens de soundcheck alle laag uit mijn gitaar gehaald ( er waren problemen met het gitaargeluid, en ik had na verwisselen van kabels mijn gitaar niet meer bijgesteld, en ik dus mijzelf niet zo goed kon horen via de monitoren omdat mijn gitaar nog te schel stond). In het filmpje hieronder kan je zien dat ik tussendoor heel snel probeer mn gitaar bij te stellen - maar, hoe dan ook, het eerste liedje verliep redelijk, maar het tweede liedje... ging perfect totdat we aangekomen waren bij de laatste vier maten. De LAATSTE vier maten, zeg ik je.... geen idee wat er gebeurde, maar ik sloeg gewoon een verkeerd akkoord aan, compleet out of de toonladder en dus wat doen je dan? Juist, het complete NU ervaren... Dus je helemaal suf improviseren totdat je de boel weer op de rails gezet hebt.... ik riep tussendoor naar Mario: laten we Blue Sky gaan spelen! Okay, knikte Mario en we gingen over naar E groot ... toen dacht ik: Maar ik wil helemaal niet dat liedje nu spelen... We moeten terug naar A mineur.... hoe dan ook, we eindigden precies gelijk en natuurlijk dacht ik dat ik totaal de boel verziekt had .... tot ik hoorde dat dus gewoon niemand het gemerkt had... pffff.... we hebben er wel om gelachen later, en ja... volgende keer dus net zoals deze keer gewoon stug doorgaan en net doen alsof het er allemaal bij hoort....
Het was een hele leuke middag, het was een gevarieerd programma. Mijn lieve collega Marloes heeft ook gespeeld met supergitariste Rei en al met al gingen we met een goed gevoel weer huiswaarts.
We komen snel terug! En wel zondag 27 maart! Nu alweer zin in!

Café 't Suisje in Amsterdam-Noord

Really. I  had a nice little gig in Café 't Sluisje with some other musicians!
This café is close to my house and yes, it's a nice place! The night was organized by Cindy Peress and she invited me and some other musicians to play there.
I played there before and I wished I could tell Hanie, my neighbour,  about it. Hannie has passed away a few years ago, but he always went to that café (and played there on his accordeon) .
 He promised me that I would play there some day ... ever... So now I did and I played with Mario on the bass.
 I just listened to the recording Mario made and I think we played a good set. The last song was dedicated to Hannie, I think he listened from heaven :)
Hope I can play there again because it's such a nice place. Thanks everyone for being there, thanks Cindy and audience and other musicians, i think i am still drunk ( or again :)) and i just go on with what i am doing: expressing my heart.

new blogs and next gig

Hi everybody,

I have been working all week as a teacher and a very busy time will start right now. Lots of important tests will start and all that kind, but still the music is going on. Tomorrow I will sing a Dutch song which I wrote for this Dutch songwriter Jos de Rooij from Amsterdam-Noord. He sang the song on his CD but asked me to sing this sing tomorrow somewhere in Amsterdam-Noord (still have to figure out where exactly).
Next week I will sing at Café Het Sluisje, a very nice café near my house. There will be some other songwriters. We will start at 8.30 pm. I will play with Mario on bass and Auke on vibes.
Look at my site for dates and places: www.annettevogel.nl www.annettevogel.nl

What I want to tell you is that I started a new blog, some of you already noticed. It's not a blog about music, but a blog about Being Me. I am very interested in the vision / philosophy of the Advaita Vedanta.
Advaita Vedanta is a school of Hindu philosophy and means not- two, it refers to the idea that the true Self is the same as the hightest Reality. To be honest, I don't understand anything of this definition, given by Wikipedia. I just write about my own experiences, like I do in my songs.
Anyway, if you are interested you can read the English version and the Dutch version right here:
www.absurdenlightenement.blogspot.com
www.absurdverlicht.blogspot.com

Saturday night I will play a little set at Café 't Sluisje (Amsterdam-Noord)  hope to meet you there!

Happy New Year!

Hi folks,

It's already a few days ago I had a really good time with Mario and my loyal friends and fans!
First we went to Castricum and played there in the house of Frank Boske. We had this little New Years party up there and there were also some other great songwriters. You can go to the site of SWAN for some photo's. (Link below).
Then the next day Mario and I rehearsed very early in the morning, because we had a gig in the night and didn't have much time to rehearse last week. So we rehearsed without coffee! Two hours without a break and then we had some coffee at the tennisgarden nearby. Then I went to my family to have a lunch and then I took my bike to go to the centre of Amsterdam. I played there some of my songs in café The Waterhole; there is an open mic, organized by my friend Dzuana Bakker. She and her husband always give the songwriters a very good sound.

With my best friend Gianni we had some dinner together and then we went together to café De Doelen in the centre of Amsterdam.
I didn't think anybody was there, because on facebook I made an event and there were 18 friends interested but only me was going ... But guess what, it was very busy and my really loyal fans and friends showed up! I was very happy and I think Mario and I played a very good set that night.

I hardly didn't sleep that night because i was still excited and I had to get up early. I had to go to school again, like everybody here in Holland. Is always a little bit difficult to get up early after two weeks holidays....;)
Anyway, right now I am at home spending my time with my family, having a good time together in these dark days, I wish everybody much love and happiness in the New Year and especially those who just lost somebody they loved so much.

Here you can find the link for SWAN @Castricum: 

SWAN at Castricum