William Elliott Whitmore was in Amsterdam to play a show at the Paradiso and also to perform an instore at Concerto Records. He is on ANTI Records, so we hung out then headed to the instore. Instore was great - I think there ended up being about 50 or more people packed into the small room. After that we headed to the Paradiso and drank some beers. William was opening for Alela Diane - big deal I hear... Room was packed, and William destroyed. Sounded fucking amazing and filled the whole room. We had planned to all go out for dinner after he played, but decided to hang out and talk about farms and Off Minor touring Australia and Swedish black metal. Dude has a very Southern gentile personality and was very obliging to share his bottle of Jack. A great night ensued that ended with us all at De Zotte paying a little man a few euros to take polaroids, and then eating felafal at 3am.
Listen to William Elliott Whitmore here!
Thursday 9th April -
I go to work and have a regular day, then I leave early and meet up with Gijs and his friend Kevin as well as Jovka who works for Epitaph/Kings Road Merch - Jovka hired a car to drive to Arnheim to catch up with 50 Lions who are on tour with Reign Supreme from the US. The show was pretty good. Dutch dudes like to crowd slay. A band called Bun Dem Out played - holy fuck, thought I was going to get shot... Kind of like a slower Brujeria. Heavvvvvvvvvvvy... Listen to them here. Seriously heavy.
Reign Supreme were fucking awesome but their drummer was having issues with the kick he borrowed so there was like a minute break between each song where they would normally flow into each other... Kind of a bummer, but their singer is a funny dude so it wasn't so bad. The show ended with a bit of a ruckus, and a bunch of Dutch dudes yelling at each other. I think Reign Supreme are going to Australia later this year. Didn't take my camera to this show - so no photos.
Friday 10th April -
The Blackout are a band from Wales who just signed to Epitaph. I hung with them a few times when I used to work at Atticus/Macbeth - good dudes. They came to Amsterdam to have bit of a welcoming party to Epitaph on the Friday and then to play a show on the Saturday.
Friday consisted of lunch at the Epitaph office - a bit of tennis on the roof, some beers at a nice pub, a boat ride for a few hours around the Amsterdam canals on a private boat with more booze than an Amity rider, pinball and gnarly Belgian beers at another pub, dinner at a Japanese restaurant, strippers and lap dances with highly skilled women taking 20 euro notes off our faces without using their hands... then finally to the Melkweg to see some (apparently) huge DJ/s named Boyz Noise (?) and more beer and dancing like assholes until stupid o'clock...
Saturday 11th April -
Met up with Alma and got a tram to the hire car company. Alma, her sister Jasmina, Carolina, Anders, his sister and her boyfriend and I drove to Paaspop Festival in Southern Holland. What a party. Very strange festival... 20,000 (?) people (farmers and strange fancy Dutch people) drinking beer and wearing funny hats in the middle of a field surrounded by farm land. The Blackout played twice, an AC/DC cover band played, a band that sounded like the Dutch version of the Dropkick Murphys played, The Tenement Kids played (though we missed them), and a bunch of Dutch DJs played... I got shit faced on free beer and Jack Daniels, found a bottle of wine for Alma's sister Jasmina, had a blast, ate a shit tonne of traditional and not so traditional Dutch food, drove back to Amsterdam and woke up feeling like shit on Sunday!
Sunday 12th April -
Easter Sunday! What better way to spend it than hung over and helping Carolina move house (the cute Colombian I work with - featured in a lot of these photos). Got up early, got a tram to her old house, carried a shit load of boxes, a washing machine and a large leather sofa down two flights of stairs, into a truck, drove truck to new house, loaded heavy shit onto an elevator/cherry picker contraption... Load shit on, shit gets lifted up to 5th floor of building, we then step out onto the window ledge and try to lift said heavy shit in through a window while trying not to drop it or fall off. Hung over, hadn't had breakfast, not super keen on heights, not in any sort of physical shape... Cool combination. Shit sucked. Good news was, Carolina bought us all Mexican for lunch from my new favourite restaurant in Amsterdam - The Taco Shop. Came home and slept after that enjoyable day. Didn't take camera.
Monday 13th April -
Easter Monday - Jesus and a cave and that... I went to Independant Outlet with Gijs and bought some records. On credit. I got Artimus Pyle, Jason Molina, 7 Seconds, Blank Stare, Dead Stop, Violent Minds, Mid Youth Crisis/Sommerset split, Case For Jefferson (Yes! Two Australian records in one Dutch store) and maybe some other records I can't remember.
Tuesday 14th April -
Back to work. Had to hand stamp 5000 bags on both sides for Groezrock Festival giveaway bags from Epitaph. Stamp place fucked up and took two weeks which meant I had to do the stamping myself instead of the hired goons they normally get to do menial tasks like that. I got through 2000 of the pricks before my right arm felt like it was going to beat the shit out of me. In the time it took to stamp both sides of 2000 brown paper bags with a stamp that required you to basically smash it into the table for the ink to stay, I watched A Clockwork Orange, Iron Man, Serial Mom, The Godfather Part I and several episodes of the Might Boosh. We then stayed at the office until 10pm filling the bags with free shit.
Wednesday 15th April -
Worked - more packing bags - listened to a lot of Wu Tang Clan and Trash Talk.
My $900 from the Australian Government came through! I took Gijs and Santina out to dinner at Waggamammas. We are all leaving for Groezrock Festival tomorrow. Lots of old friends will be there and lots of fun bands to watch. I get to see The Get Up Kids. Super fucking stoked.
Cheers Kev. Top bloke.
Met up with Alma and got a tram to the hire car company. Alma, her sister Jasmina, Carolina, Anders, his sister and her boyfriend and I drove to Paaspop Festival in Southern Holland. What a party. Very strange festival... 20,000 (?) people (farmers and strange fancy Dutch people) drinking beer and wearing funny hats in the middle of a field surrounded by farm land. The Blackout played twice, an AC/DC cover band played, a band that sounded like the Dutch version of the Dropkick Murphys played, The Tenement Kids played (though we missed them), and a bunch of Dutch DJs played... I got shit faced on free beer and Jack Daniels, found a bottle of wine for Alma's sister Jasmina, had a blast, ate a shit tonne of traditional and not so traditional Dutch food, drove back to Amsterdam and woke up feeling like shit on Sunday!
Sunday 12th April -
Easter Sunday! What better way to spend it than hung over and helping Carolina move house (the cute Colombian I work with - featured in a lot of these photos). Got up early, got a tram to her old house, carried a shit load of boxes, a washing machine and a large leather sofa down two flights of stairs, into a truck, drove truck to new house, loaded heavy shit onto an elevator/cherry picker contraption... Load shit on, shit gets lifted up to 5th floor of building, we then step out onto the window ledge and try to lift said heavy shit in through a window while trying not to drop it or fall off. Hung over, hadn't had breakfast, not super keen on heights, not in any sort of physical shape... Cool combination. Shit sucked. Good news was, Carolina bought us all Mexican for lunch from my new favourite restaurant in Amsterdam - The Taco Shop. Came home and slept after that enjoyable day. Didn't take camera.
Monday 13th April -
Easter Monday - Jesus and a cave and that... I went to Independant Outlet with Gijs and bought some records. On credit. I got Artimus Pyle, Jason Molina, 7 Seconds, Blank Stare, Dead Stop, Violent Minds, Mid Youth Crisis/Sommerset split, Case For Jefferson (Yes! Two Australian records in one Dutch store) and maybe some other records I can't remember.
Tuesday 14th April -
Back to work. Had to hand stamp 5000 bags on both sides for Groezrock Festival giveaway bags from Epitaph. Stamp place fucked up and took two weeks which meant I had to do the stamping myself instead of the hired goons they normally get to do menial tasks like that. I got through 2000 of the pricks before my right arm felt like it was going to beat the shit out of me. In the time it took to stamp both sides of 2000 brown paper bags with a stamp that required you to basically smash it into the table for the ink to stay, I watched A Clockwork Orange, Iron Man, Serial Mom, The Godfather Part I and several episodes of the Might Boosh. We then stayed at the office until 10pm filling the bags with free shit.
Wednesday 15th April -
Worked - more packing bags - listened to a lot of Wu Tang Clan and Trash Talk.
My $900 from the Australian Government came through! I took Gijs and Santina out to dinner at Waggamammas. We are all leaving for Groezrock Festival tomorrow. Lots of old friends will be there and lots of fun bands to watch. I get to see The Get Up Kids. Super fucking stoked.
Cheers Kev. Top bloke.
No comments:
Post a Comment