The Ghetto's of Alkmaar

Saturday night was one hell of an adventure...



I was excited to hear that one of my favorite underground rappers, MC Epic, was performing in the Netherlands!

I've been in to him for a few years now. At first I kinda liked him for how funny and cheesy his style, delivery and a lot of his lyrics were (like "Straight outta Edmonton like when Gretsky was a rookie / My grandma makes quilts, and bomb-ass cookies"), but as I listened deeper it became apparent to me that hes actually got a lot to say. Slowly but surely I became a big fan.

He is just about as un-hip hop as a rapper can be, stereotypically speaking, from his nerdy voice, straight grey hair and zero interest in "hip hop" brands or commercialism. But his love for the craft and prolificness in the scene is unsurpassed.

He's just a regular guy from the Canadian prairies (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan originally, now living in Edmonton, Alberta), talking about regular things. Things I can actually relate to. Another appeal is his approachability (via the internet). This aspect relates to a lot of my favourite music at the moment.

When I saw on the tree-house (endemik music/clotheshorse records/shadowanimals) forum that Epic, Ancient Mith, Tullie and Pierre the Motionless were playing across Europe I was stoked. For whatever reason the closest gig to Amsterdam was in a small town about 30 K's away, called Alkmaar.

So I checked out the train times, packed a few supplies and headed out in the afternoon to have a look around the town a bit before the gig. Alkmaar is beautiful. Like Amsterdam, but with what felt like a little more order. Wider, cleaner streets, straighter roads and a nice friendly vibe. It was lightly snowing on and off throughout the evening and this added a bit of a fairytale feel.

I made it to the venue as it was opening at 8pm and looked around. It was the only building in a public park, and felt more like a youth drop-in centre than a concert venue. This feeling was based partly on the graffiti everywhere, and partly on all the young "youth centre" type kids hanging around. Oh well, they served beer and there was a stage for the performers, so everything I needed was catered to.

After a few minutes I spotted and introduced myself to a tall, unassuming grey haired chap called Erin (aka Epic). He recognised me as "shortcut kid" from the tree-house forum, and was instantly excited to meet another person there for the music and not just because that's "where everyone else was hangin' ". He was instantly open and talkative and introduced me to the rest of the guy's playing that night, who were also all open and friendly. I played it cool but I was pretty excited to actually be hanging out with people who I look up to musically. Fortunately for me when I get nervous I tend to talk more, not less, so pretty quickly it got comfortable.

I hadn't had dinner, and neither had Erin, so we went for a walk 5 mins back into the city centre and looked for a place to eat. Conversation came easily, mainly revolving around music, Our thoughts on Europe, the appeal of Australia (he's never been) and Canada (I've never been). We opted for a Sri-lankan restaurant, which was some of the best vegetarian I've ever had.

During dinner the weirdest thing happened! A few kids started running up the street out the front of the restaurant... then a few more.... then "holy shiiiii.....!" there were about 30 kids (I'd guess between 16 - 20 years old) having a full on gang fight, like 15 vs 15! Bikes were getting thrown, a shop window got smashed and a few punches and kicks were flying around. It was over (atleast what we could see) as quickly as it started, and police cars were rolling around shortly after, which made the idea of our walk back to the gig a little more appealing. Very strange though! I offered to pay for dinner, which Erin accepted after a bit of hesitation. I have downloaded his music, and while he realises this is how a lot of new fans hear his stuff at all, especially those across the planet, I still felt this was a nice way to pay him back.

On the way back we passed Alkmaar's red light district, which was surprisingly large. Erin had never seen a red light district like Holland is famous for, so we went for a tourist lap around. Funny stuff! He was amazed and I was amused! He couldn't get over the fact that a lot of the girls were attractive, as the stereotype of "women of the night" in the Canadian Prairies is a little rougher, with the districts being referred to more as "truck stops".

Back to the venue, it wasn't long until Pierre the Motionless performed. I had heard a few songs on his myspace page but didn't know too much. He was excellent! Very fast raps. Now I don't claim to be a rapper, but it does aways make me a little bummed when an english-as-a-second-language person just goes ahead and kicks my ass at it! haha! What impressed more was his beats. Talking to him I discovered that he makes a lot of the music and also performs with the group "Motionless", who incorporate a drum machine, a turntable, keys, a trumpet and live visuals. He was also a real nice dude, and I look forward seeing him again in a few weeks when he plays here in Amsterdam (with James P Honey and Thesis Sahib!).

Tullie the Rapper played next and pumped out a few tracks in fairly quick succession. Sort of strange mix of slow raps for the most part, then a blast of fast stuff. Pretty cool. It was kinda cool and funny also that all the music was playing through his mobile phone. Technology, eh?!

Epic was on next, and did his thing. No gimmicks, just him on stage rapping to a backing CD. His style definitely does not appeal to everyone, and those there that were just hanging out quickly decided they were happy sitting up the back or wherever. This didn't seem to bother Epic too much, and it sure didn't bother me, I was up front with Braden (Ancient Myth) singing along, loving it! He played a fairly quick set of about half an hour, but still managed to tick off a few of my favourite tracks - Dave Steib, Another Left Wing Peace Song, Midnight Run, Thought Process - and a few new tracks.

Ancient Mith was last, and dude puts on a hell of a show! All over the stage, up on a beer crate, sitting, laying on an in front of the stage, and even UNDER the stage! He did a good job of getting the crowd into it with a lot of caller-response and sing along choruses. He uses a lot of microphone effects and got me thinking about my own music possibly incorporating some of the same processes.


Overall the evening was great. I picked up Epic's new CD "Aging is What Friends do Together" which is awesome, he has definitely stepped up his quality level and lyrics, and the beats are great as ever. Because I paid for dinner earlier he gave me a copy of "Local Only" as well as a few copies of the new CD. Plus I made a few new friends across the globe, and I am now welcome and have a place to stay whenever I visit Edmonton!

The evening reinforced my love for the underground rap scene, appreciation of the community spirit, and has recharged my musical drive. Yay!

House Hunting

Sorry people, I have been a little distracted from posting lately. For the past few weeks I have been house-hunting.

Ben gets back on April first. When he's back in his place, Dan and Shelle are back in their place, and I'm....

So about a week and a half ago I thought I should start looking. Thought I'd go with the soft approach of emailing anyone I know and asking them to email anyone they know who may have a room. A few days later, no word. I needed to step up my game a bit, and with a bit of advice and help from Dan, I put together some notices for the public noticeboards at various Albert Heijn grocery stores.

The next day *ring ring*! A call from somebody who saw a notice and had a room at the right price and in the right area! Yay! Checked it out. Boo.... What a dive! A mouldy, dirty, gypsy squat-like dive. Oh, and the "2 rooms" I would be getting had a total floor space of about 6 feet x 10 feet or so. Ha, as nice as it all was, I graciously said no thanks.

A few more notices went up around the place but no calls came my way. So I hopped online and searched out a few more places that sounded o.k, and YAY, I got several calls the next morning - all from the real estate companies that apparently put the adds up online disguised as "real people", and that would happily rent me the rooms if I pay them a months rent as a commission for finding the place for me! Thank guys!

Then I came across another website that actually did have real people putting up real adds (strange as it may sound). I went and checked out a place that I found via this site, which would have been fine, if perhaps a bit expensive.

But in the meantime I had placed a free classified in the Amsterdam weekly - The local English language street press. That resulted in a few more calls and I have now agreed to move into a BIG room in an old house off the back of the Vondelpark (huge public park - great place to relax in summer). The room is an ex artists studio, so has a nice creative vibe, and the live-in landlady was very nice. I haven't met the upstairs house-mates yet but I think they will be pretty easygoing hippie types, judging by the incense in the air and the lentils in the fridge.

More about this place no doubt once I move in next week.

maxcap

Ben, Ryan and Myself have been pretty busy working on some of the initial behind the scenes stuff, in anticipation of setting up a website to house both our joint and individual creative output.

The name of the collective is "maxcap" - a name Ryan came up with I think years ago, but the idea is basically a catchy way to say Maximum Capacity - the level at which we like to work on whatever it is we are working on, and present whatever it is we are presenting...

I will be housing my design there, we will have music up, writing and video production samples, and, well, whatever else we want really.

It's our house. The beginning of our empire!

Quarter Century in Dublin

I turned 25 on the weekend. I didn't really do anything out of the ordinary... You see, international travel, seeing new places and things and enjoying the company of good friends has become sort of the 'norm' for me!
About a week or so before this one, Me, Dan and Michelle decided we would go to Dublin for the weekend. Dan lived there 8 years ago, Michelle was keen for a trip to an English speaking country for a change, I have often thought Ireland would be nice, and am always up for whatever is goin' down.

So we booked our cheap flights and off we went on Thursday afternoon from Eindhoven. We arrived and started down Dans memory lane. It was cool to have somebody familiar with the area. We got to our hostel, dropped off things and turned right back around to hit the town.

We made it to our first (of many over the course of the weekend) pub, and it was about as stereotypical and perfect as you could imagine. Friendly attentive bar man who knew everyones order, and had your new Guinness poured and settling before you've finished the current pint. A guy singing cover songs with his acoustic guitar, and the older women up dancing around the place singing along. 2 drunk older local men having stern words and threatening to take it outside, but the situation being calmly defused by the bar man. We watched it all happening from a nice perch at the bar.

Friday was spent walking the city, finding our next few nights accommodation (ended up about 25 mins bus ride from the centre), having a MASSIVE counter meal at a big pub (lamb roast, my first taste of lamb and my first roast since being OS - sooo goood) and then more drinking Guinness in the evening.Saturday we had a typical Irish breakfast (including black and white pudding, sausages, bacon, eggs and toast), went to the contemporary art gallery, an then headed out for the afternoon to Howth, about 20 mins on the train to the coast. What a lovely little town. So close to the city, but had the feel of somewhere like Bateman's bay. We went for a bit of a walk out along the cliffs and watched some porpoises in the sea as the sun was setting. Then back into Howth town for a birthday dinner at the local - yep you guessed it - pub. We watched the Gaelic football on the tellie and drank a few more - yep - Guinness', then worked our way back into Dublin to catch a bit of music and check out a few more of Dan's old haunts.Sunday we went to an area called Smithfield, because Dan remembered that on the first Sunday of every month there is a horse sale on, right in the main square surrounded by shops, houses, and the old Jameson Distillery. Pretty crazy, all the farmer types buying and selling horses for whatever reason, and people racing horses up and down the narrow streets.We had a few more hours of kicking about the city before making our way to the airport and could not have timed it for missing our plane any better. Ryanair have "the highest on time rate" for any Euro airline... and that must be cause they close their check-ins earlier than officially specified, and even though our flight was delayed by 30 mins, they still refused to let us on. Jerks. So we had to book another flight back (with another company) and apart from the extra cost, all was fine in the end, with us flying straight into Amsterdam and getting happily home for some well needed rest about 8pm.

Dublin was a great city, but it was also great getting back to Amsterdam. Riding my bike back to my apartment really reminded me that it is the smaller town pace I like, and I'm still very happy with my decision to call this place "home".

The Dillinger Escape Plan

Last Wednesday I went to see The Dillinger Escape Plan, one of my all time favorite bands. Judith scored 2 free tickets, one of the perks for working for a newspaper.

My less than subtle "OH MY GAWD you have free tickets..?! AWESOME! You are so lucky! You know If I had a free ticket I'd definitely give it to you....." assured me one of those tickets. I would have bought one anyway if I had to, but it is always nice to save a dollar where you can, and with the money we "saved" (?) we did go out and have some tasty mexican food beforehand.

The gig was opened up by "Poison the Well". I have a few of their album's and don't mind them at all, but have to admit the live show was fairly ordinary. I guess mainly the singer's performance. The screaming was fairly weak and he seemed always a little out of breath, and his singing was terrible. I think his voice was shot, so in that case I'm sure he did the best with what he had. Oh yeah, his between song banter was pretty bad too. I've only been to a few gigs here in Amsterdam, but I'm pretty sure that the locals must be pretty sick of the weed smoking stereotype. No. Just because we don't find your jokes funny does not mean we are all 'high or somethin'.

Anyways, Dillinger on the other hand were not suffering from any ailments, and did not need to rely on pointless banter to keep the crowd well entertained...

From about 3 seconds in (coincidentally the exact point in which I lost Judith in the sea of flailing arms, legs, hair and NOISE!) until the end, it was chaos! Great, epic, smile inducing, head nodding, air punching, amazing chaos!

The band, for those wondering, play a type of hardcore (with a good dose of screamed vocals and distorted guitars), mixed in with I guess jazz (strange complex timing signatures, jazzy breakdowns and super technical instrument playing). And across the past 2 albums they have incorporated more and more "accessible" melodic rock as well, with plenty of singing and more restrained music. There is also a lot of electronic music (glitchy stuff, in the vein of something like Aphex Twin) spliced throughout the current release, "Ire Works".

The (sold out) gig, in all its glory, focussed primarily on the more "up tempo" (read HEAVVVYYYY) songs, and the crowd were more than happy with that! The singer and 2 guitarists spent atleast half the show up on the barricades supported by the front few rows, and if not there the singer, Greg Puciato, was IN or ON TOP of the crowd, up on the speaker stacks, or at one point swinging from the water pipes running along the ceiling! And the rest of the time when they were playing in the more traditional "on stage" sense, there was a steady stream of stage divers running across and jumping from the stage around about them.

This went on for a full hour or so while I was nestled in to a tight little spot in the middle of the room, propped up by the barrier in front of the mixing desk about 10 metres back from the stage, just behind the mosh pit (aka danger zone).

The new drummer, Gil Sharone's performance would have silenced the few remaining "Chris Pennie can never be replaced" critics (if there are any left at all), and Greg has now I'd say shaken most of the "b-grade Mike Patton ripoff" comments. As if sounding like Patton is a bad thing anyway, but his delivery of "When Good Dogs Do Bad Things" was definitely a highlight of the set, and easily as good as Patton could do.

Overall the gig was amazing, as I've come to expect over the the past few years seeing and enjoying this bands music. My ears were blocked for days after, I assume that is just my body's natural attempt at keeping the music inside my head for as long as possible!