Catching Up

Wow! What a week this has been. I feel like I've not had a seconds rest (which is a not true, but that's how it feels) and now I'm very much looking forward to a quiet couple of days before heading to York on Monday.

It all started last Thursday when we went to Utrecht to see our good friends Dewolff playing their Album release show at Tivoli Oudegracht. The show was stunning and then we had a great time at the afterparty, with plenty of dancing, catching up and drinking (maybe a little too much of that for some!). Finally, we trundled back in the wee hours of the morning and engaged in some drunken kebab eating.
Early Friday afternoon we all were in some state of consciousness and spent a few hours just relaxing at Pablo and Nikki's (our hosts). They have an amazing little house that is actually on the canal in a wharf cellar! It's so nice sitting outside in the sunshine watching little boats go by.

On Friday evening my band, Southern Sunrise, was booked to play Cafe Stathe in Utrecht, so we hauled all our gear through town, got set up and having revived ourselves a little, played a really fun show! The audience was great and we were really pleased with how it went. Remco, our keys player, also lives in Utrecht so his girlfriend Anna came to see the show and took a couple of pictures.

Remco's famous dancing during 'Elspeth'

We had an earlier night on Friday as we had to have a relatively early start the next morning for a photoshoot with Nikki.
To give ourselves a good start to the day, Pablo lead us to a cafe with promises of breakfast for only €1.50. I was dubious, how good could a breakfast really be if it only costs that little?! I had images of grotty little places serving watery coffee and stale bread. However, upon arrival at our destination we were pleasantly surprised! It was actually a La Place, a Dutch restaurant chain with locations up and down the country that has a a wonderful selection of 100% fresh, sustainably produced foods. I'd never actually eaten there before, but I'd stared longingly at their fresh juices more than once in passing.
The breakfast offer was incredibly good, for just €1.50 you could choose 5 items from a small selection amongst their regular meals. This included an assortment of mini bread rolls and croissants, ham, boiled eggs, freshly-made herby cream cheese, hazelnut spread (with actual bits of hazelnut!), cheese, fruit etc and with that you also got a large glass of freshly squeezed juice and a cup of coffee.

Breakfast! (excuse the picture quality, Arjan's in need of a new phone) 

After eating up and resisting the urge to go back for seconds, we headed back to the apartment and got ourselves ready for the shoot. Utrecht is a beautiful city, so we weren't short of locations to use for pictures. Nikki was shooting with an old analogue Praktica so we haven't seen the results yet, but judging by this iphone picture she took we're in for a treat!

Later that day we bid farewell to Pablo, Nikki and the lovely Utrecht and headed North for Haarlem, where we had our second gig of the weekend at Bar Wolkers. The event was put on by Musicspotter and again we had a lovely gig with a really nice audience and it was a very pleasant Saturday evening in the sun.

On sunday we slept, got up for some food, said hello to Oma and then slept some more.

Monday came and it was back to business! The 4th and 5th of May are holidays in the Netherlands, the 4th is a day of remembrance for the casualties of WWII and the 5th is a day of celebration of the liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi Germany. On the 5th there are 'Bevridingsfestivals' (freedom festivals) up and down the country and we were asked to play the one in Heerlen. The weather was perfect and the setting was very cool. The stage was in the main square in Heerlen and was set at one side so that the audience could enjoy the music from one of the many bars surrounding it. It was incredibly chilled and we had a really great time.

Sadly, that was the end of our mini-tour, but we've been keeping busy since then! Yesterday we spent the whole day helping a friend with their garden, "oh some light relaxing work" you might think, but we were digging up tree stumps and redistributing a huge mound of earth. I am currently in a world of deep muscular burn but it was good, satisfying work and it always feels nice to help out friends.

Today has been assigned a pyjama day and it's already starting to help a little...

Opening of SMAAK

Yesterday we played a gig at the opening of a family friend's clothes shop, it was a beautiful day and we had a great time. The shop is amazing and I fell in love with a few of the clothes but my pocket was empty enough as it is.

Here's a few pictures of the afternoon:

On Being A 'Musician'

I have been really bad at posting regularly for the past few days, but I swear it's with good reason. My band, Southern Sunrise, is just getting back into the swing of things after the Christmas holidays and we've got a pretty busy February! This week we spent the day in Rotterdam doing a radio show on Thursday, yesterday we had a gig in a theatre in Heerlen and tomorrow we're playing the music cafe of Mezz, Breda.

I never dreamt that I would see the day I would say "I'm with the band". I thought the closest I would ever get would be that time my god-sister and I performed for our parents at the ripe old age of 6.
I was always someone who sang in the shower or when I was drunk, but never thought I was any good, so when my (at the time) new boyfriend, Arjan, asked me to assist him with a performance assessment for university because he was too ill to sing, I was a little taken aback. Could I do this? Would I freeze on stage and only emit a strange croaking noise? would I pee myself?!
It took almost a whole bottle of wine for me to even be able to rehearse the night before, so at 9am the next morning in the cold, sobering light of day I was a little nervous to say the least.
Anyway, I got through it and Arjan got an ok grade and I put it behind me, thinking that would be the end of it.

When he came to me a few months later asking for help writing and recording a song in the style of Laura Marling (one of the artists they were given to choose from) I was a bit surprised, but reluctantly agreed to do it.
It was fun this time, writing our own song, thinking up all the other parts for instruments we could use, recording in a friend's studio. There was less pressure than the performance and I felt much more at ease. I realised that I enjoyed this and I'd quite like to do it a bit more.
Arjan and I started playing with the idea of writing more music together and eventually decided to give it a try.
We struggled through a couple more songs and recorded demos for them, played them to some family members and friends to see if we could give it a shot.


Fast forward 2 years and here we are, competing to open one of the biggest pop festivals in the Netherlands, having played some of the most prestigious venues.
I still don't quite believe it sometimes and I think the adrenaline rush I get from going on stage is the closest I will get to sky diving.

It's amazing fun, we always have such a good time with the boys in the band, but it's also incredibly hard work.
Writing songs can be such a frustrating process, I always find that the first verse is really easy, something will come to me and flow really naturally, but then it can take me a month to think of something to follow it and complete the song.
And gigging! Oh my gosh is it draining. Most of the gigs we've done recently are at least a couple of ours drive away and before that there is the game of car boot tetris as we try to squeeze everything in. Then there's the drive, the unloading, the setting up, the sound checking and finally the gig, then you have to do all that in reverse before getting home.
I'm sure it gets easier when you're famous enough to pay people to do all this for you (it would be nice to reach that stage) but for now we just have to struggle on and do the best we can.

I had no idea how fulfilling doing this would be, now I can't imagine not doing it. I've always been a fairly quiet person so it takes a lot for me to get up on the stage in front of a crowd but I think every successful gig we have is building up my confidence little by little and I think I'm becoming a better person because of it.
Moving to the Netherlands has been a big part of that, in the UK the new music scene is so saturated with artists trying to make their mark that it becomes impossible for bands to get gigs outside of local pubs, bigger venues even ask that you bring your own audience and they'll only pay you if you bring X number of people. It was quite shocking for me to see the difference in treatment that new bands get in the Netherlands compared to the UK. Here you are treated like real musicians, everything is organised on such a professional level, most venues have trained sound technicians, make sure the band gets fed and watered throughout the evening, promotes the night and pays the band a pre-arranged fee!
At several UK gigs we were lucky to get a can of beer each.


Because Arjan and I are in a relationship as well as the band, we have to be very careful to try not to let one interfere with the other. I suppose it's the same for any couple who works together. It can be really tricky at times, if we have a big argument at home before a gig, I have to work hard to get myself out of  my mood to perform. Luckily a couple of beers and chatting with the guys usually helps that.
I find it is especially testing writing songs together. I write a majority of the lyrics and tend to get an idea of how a song should sound in my head, but because I can't play any instruments and don't know any of the notes it's a tricky process trying to get Arjan to understand what I want. It can result in a LOT of arguments that end with me sitting their pouting and refusing to do any more (yes, I am very childish sometimes).

All in all, I love this band. I have a great time doing the gigs and I'm lucky to have such a brilliant group of guys to do this with. I hope it's something I can do for years to come.