AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

DAY 1, WEDNESDAY
We leave LA. Mike takes his guitars; I take my wurlizer electric piano, and with some extra socks and underwear we're on our way. It's a long flight from LA to Brussels, with a 3-hour lay-over in London. My keyboard never arrives -- they tell me it should be on the next flight which will arrive in a couple of hours, they hope. The show is in 4 hours... Chief, a Belgian Booking agent who we met through AMP, meets us in the airport and takes us to his house in Kasterlee, 90 minutes away, where we chill for a bit before playing a local bar gig. The countryside is amazing. The man has horses in the back yard... The keyboard arrives an hour before the show by rush delivery from the airport. We're completely dazed and confused. There are no more than 15 people at the place but the vibe is good and we get a lot of love from the locals who don't want us to leave the stage. Temporarily cures the jet-lag but we crash hard as we get of stage... Chief offers us a big van for the rest of the tour but there's no way I can drive that wobbly orange thing. We'll have to manage by trains for now.

DAY 2, THURSDAY
We take the train back to brussels for a show at VUB - the local university. They take care of us with nice accommodations and feed us omelettes. The show itself is lack-laster. I play a grand piano rather than my electric piano and the sound is round, fat and polite rather than bright and punchy. The crow too is polite (almost none round and fat), with faint clapping and a lot of silence in between. We feel like we're being judged in an olympic gymnastics event with the cards reading anywhere between 5 and 7. My voice is off. Probably way off... Not our brightest moment honestly. We hang out with some of the more social locals after the show at the bar. Everyone is super nice and almost apologetic about the crowd energy... A couple of whiskeys and some Stellas keep us on our feet but ultimately we crash back down again... Let's get some sleep.

DAY 3, FRIDAY
After struggling to find a cab driver that is willing to take our heavy load (my keyboard+case weigh over 100 pounds) we finally make it to the train station. Amsterdam here we come. The apartment we rented for the week is cool. Found it online. Nice, quiet neighborhood, with a tram station and a supermarket right around the corner. Amsterdam may be my favorite city in the world to visit. Beauty all around. The only people who are ever rude to you here are taxi drivers. My 5.10" frame borders on midget territory over here. Damn these people are tall. The show at Fantasio is fun. Mike Berry, who we met online via a recommendation from Kim Chandler (also an AMP member) at the local radio show, sits in on drums. It's a loose set but still feels good. The crowd is an "art" crowd and the energy is still somewhat tame but the place is beautiful and it's a huge improvement over last night. No post show mingling - straight back to the apartment to catch some sleep.

DAY 4, SATURDAY
We finally sleep in... Our first day without trains. Still jet-lagged but starting to snap out of it. The show at Bax is great. Awesome crowd packed in a small bar. Gotta do some covers since we don't have enough material for all the encores... Mike Berry sits in on drums again. We're feeling some good adrenaline flowing for the first time and make some friends after the show. Mirco and the rest of the crew at Bax are good to us. I'm definitely coming back to this little joint next time we play Amsterdam.

DAY 5, SUNDAY
We wake up early and take the train to Den Haag where we do a radio show at Midvliet Radio. Nice & mellow. This keyboard is breaking my back. Chief, by phone, promises to get us a car that's more manageable than the initial van offering by no later than Tuesday, when we have a show in Germany. The night brings on our best show yet - Cafe Struik. Another small bar. We decide to leave the electric guitar & amp in the apartment and go a bit more acoustic for the night. The crowd is alive. We feel good, play well and everyone is happy. Thank you Mark. Thank you Kim. We meet some good people and hang out til the wee hours. We'll have to get up at 7AM for another radio show but until then the drinks will flow. We get a lot of video footage on this trip so far but won't be able to edit til I come back to LA, so in the meantime here's one of my songs "Stop Go" live. More swingy, swaying than the usual rocking version we do (thanks to the clapping and acoustic guitar) but it's all in good fun. Really, it wasn't as much of a hootenanny folk-fest as it looks... I'm just saying.

(If you can't see the html video link please click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pxa5KOHe7c for the youtube version.)

Until next time,
Holmes