I had the pleasure of spending 24 hours in Amsterdam this week, organising a dinner for Netherlands-based alumni of the school I work for. (The Apotheek room at the Pultizer Hotel, where we held the dinner for 14 people, was a perfect venue for this kind of thing. The food was excellent too.) It was so lovely to be back...
I’ve been an Irishman abroad for more than ten years now, and had already travelled a fair bit before leaving for Switzerland in February 2004. One big difference between being an Irish tourist and actually living overseas is that you tend to visit Irish pubs more often. It helps to keep the homesickness at bay and Irish pubs are usually...
Having lived in Amsterdam for a couple of years and witnessed the influx of really bad “living statues” on Dam Square, I’ve grown to dislike this form of street theatre greatly. (It annoys me even thinking about those con artists in Amsterdam. I know people are desperate sometimes, but they made life very difficult for legitimate artists.) So when I...
I’ve just made new recordings available as an EP called Highs and Lows. The four tracks, all featuring just acoustic guitar and vocals, were recorded earlier this month at DBR Studios in Lausanne. I also took this opportunity “repackage” the songs I recorded in 2008 as a mini-album called Distance To Go. You can listen to and download both of...
A work-related visit to Amsterdam (for IBC 2012) gave me an opportunity to catch a gig in the Melkweg. Even though it was officially sold out, I had a feeling I’d be able to pick up a ticket outside the venue. Sure enough, I met a very nice man who sold me his spare ticket for the face value of...
Amsterdam’s live music scene was one of the main attractions for us when we moved there from Geneva in June 2009. In the last two years I’ve been to around fifty gigs, mostly at the Paradiso and Melkweg, two of Europe’s great music venues. With our return now to Geneva I thought it’d be fun to take stock: certainly there...
And so two years, one month and twenty-eight days after arriving to live and work in Amsterdam, tomorrow I leave. It’s not a final farewell yet, as I’ll be here on and off for the next couple of months to finish off some work commitments, but as of tomorrow I’ll be living in Geneva once again. Before the memories start...
The Kleine Zaal at the Paradiso was packed to capacity for last night’s gig by these not-at-all scruffy young chaps from Reading. The lead singer is remarkably well-spoken: I could imagine him leading a delegation from the UK Foreign Office to the United Nations. He sings well too, a little bit Bowie, a little bit British-version-of-Brandon Flowers. They play pretty...
Last week on Facebook my friend Max Vanremmerden posted a challenge to members of the Amsterdam Songwriters Guild: “Cover and record a song you like from one of the members of the ASG and post the link to audio or video on this events page.” Challenge accepted! One of the ASG artists that impresses me the most is Lake Montgomery....
We cycled down to the south of the city today to have a look at the ArtZuid Sculpture Route, a collection of almost 60 works of sculpture dotted along the grassy medians of Apollolaan and Minervalaan. It was really nice to see works that are usually to be found in museums and galleries on display in the open air and...
