fredag 30 september 2011

Under the stars in Hendrik Ido Ambacht

30 Sept 12.37 A basement in Ridderkerk
Yesterday evening we had a gig under the stars in front of 50 people in a garden in Hendrik Ido Ambacht. I would actually prefer to say secret garden since it was pretty hard to get in there, or even to find it. A group of people from the festival we played at in Hendrik I. A. the other day, break free festival, arranged this garden party and gig. Thank you Laurens, Benjamin and Bernd for arranging this night in a very short notice! 

It's hard to describe the evening, but I think the closest you can get is magical. Even though it's practically October, I don't think the temperature dropped under 18 degrees even at midnight. It really felt like the summer's last sigh or something (even though it's the same weather today!). So, lit up by open fires, torches and a few spotlights we had one of our most intimate and memorable concerts ever.

photo: Marije Valster


photo: Rosa Vrijhof


Besides us, Laurens Collee (one of the organisers) and Franc Timmerman from Blaudzun also did an acoustic set each. 

Our 2nd livingroom gig is tonight in Middelburg together with Simon Karolis (also known as Arend Jan from LPG). Check the event link if you would like to come, I think there are still a few tickets left! 

Our last gig on our tour in the Netherlands is tomorrow in Bergen Op Zoom at Gebouw T as opening act for Marike Jager.


//Markus

onsdag 28 september 2011

Interview with Joel and Markus (in english)

Here are two videos I couldn't embedd before. Now like then + an interview with Joel and me from 'relidaily'.
We've had 25 degrees in Ridderkerk today on our 2nd day off on the tour this far. Summer is still here in the netherlands!
/Markus




Alibi Tom from ReliDaily on Vimeo.


Alibi Tom Interview from ReliDaily on Vimeo.

tisdag 27 september 2011

Caravan sessions

A month ago we shot this video of 'holes' in a small caravan at Flevo festival in Holland. I just thought of it now and I remember that I couldn't really embedd the video on fb, so I might just put it up on our blog now. Better late than never.

Tonight we have a gig in Nijmegen at "cultuur op de campus" together with Mensenkinderen.

//Markus

måndag 26 september 2011

3am 3fm


26 sep 3am. The car, finding our way out of Hilversum.
Me and the Gps have unfinished business. Whenever there are road works we end up guessing where to go and get 0% help from the machine. Thank you. We missed our get in time at the radio with 20 minutes and almost didn’t get there because of that. It was even worse on the way out, but we ended up at the right street after all.

Tonight we did a revisit to Xnoizz and the One hour song writing-thing we did 3 years ago (it’s weird how time flies).  We got to pick among 6 different song titles and the most interesting one was “the others” from the mystical anonymous who turned out to be Irene. Erik had a chord progression in mind that he showed us earlier today and Joel G had another one that was kind of weird, but could work if we only were to get weird song titles. The hardest thing was the lyrics, but we came up with a theme that we liked. We went with the idea that you/we are always a part of someone else’s “the others”.

Check out the video!

creativity in the middle of the night.
 26 Sep 13.55 A basement in Ridderkerk
Tonight we have a gig at Dwaze Zaken in Amsterdam, maybe the gezelleg place there is in A-dam. We've played there in the past with our previous band but we've been there after that just to have a coffee. We love the place! 

Hej då!
//Markus

söndag 25 september 2011

Sjonge jonge jonge jonge


24 Sept. 12.08 In the car.
Yesterday we went to Utrecht again for a 2nd gig in one of Hollands most gezelleg citys. This time we played on a small café by the name of Averechts. It was a great evening with a mixed audience at all ages that even included two dogs that barked on occasion. Cool. We planned for a 45 min set, wich is pretty normal for a gig, but after doing one encore someone said –ey, you know you have another 40 min set to play, right (He was from London)? Nope, we didn’t know that. We dug out a couple of old earrings that we didn’t play for a while + a new song we never even rehearsed acoustic and for some reason the 2nd set turned out to be really nice! Anyway, we are on our way to a festival gig in the town of Hendrik ido Ambacht.
"backstage" @ averechts

25 sept 17.09 A basement in Ridderkerk
Summer is still in Ridderkerk! I took a long walk outside and it’s still 22 degrees, which impresses a Swede like me. Not the walk though, the temperature.
We’ve had our most intense part of the tour this far yesterday evening in Almkerk we did our 3rd gig in 24 hours.
Before the gig at Break free festival we shot an acoustic version of 'now like then' 
preparing for an acoustic version of now like then



/Markus


torsdag 22 september 2011

Motorways


We have spend between 5 and 9 hours on the road each day this week and by and by a certain Swedish-Dutch cross culture between ours and that of Jeroens has started to develop. There have been a lot of useful language lessons in both our native languages. I’ll list the most common topics below:
1.       Things that has to do with travelling by horse
2.       Explaining ones love for lorries
3.       Gezellig vs mysigt
4.       Kan du typ passa min häst medan jag tar en dusch? And other common questions for the everyday use.
5.       Unlistable Swedish (on request)
 Today is the first day off on the tour this far and we only had 300 km to drive which meant that we could actually sleep a bit longer in the morning. The theme on great breakfasts has been intact during last few days as well. Yesterday we had a nice breakfast together with people from lokomotor a band from Hof and today we had a great bagel and coffee at Teilchen und Beschleuniger in Münster. 

And yes, we have picked up the Bass in Utrecht!!!

//Markus

onsdag 21 september 2011

Wir haben die bass in Utrecht vergessen (don't worry Martin).



19 Sep 18.30
Ok, first minor problem of the tour. The bass guitar is still in Utrecht at Ekko. I think I´m the one to blame because I put the case aside since it was broken and I didn’t want the bass to be dropped on the floor. It’s not even ours you see, its Martin’s (our old friend/member). Funny thing is that we actually even brought an extra bass on tour, but that’s still in Jeroens apartment. What are the odds?
Hoffentlich können wir ein bass leihen.


19 Sep 01.10
And yes, thanks to a rental shop we had a functional squire precision bass for the show. Jeroen has also organized a bass for the remaining 2 gigs in Germany. Next gig in Holland is actually in Utrecht, so that’ll make the picking up convenient.
The Pony bar had a livingroom-like live room and we did an acoustic gig. To our surprise we heard someone call out for encore’s in Swedish. It turned out that one man in the room had a Swedish mother who seemed to have taught him fluent Swedish. I do believe she was from Stockholm based on his dialect, but I might be wrong.
The promoter that put on the show, original ton, had a band flat we could sleep in. That’s one of the best solutions I’ve seen so far!
Morgen wil ik op mijn paard naar Hof rijden.

Peace love and wienerbröd,
Markus

20 se 09.18
We just had the best breakfast on the tour so far. Park café in Hamburg, check it out!



21 sep 08.19 Hof
Today we woke up in a record label’s office in Hof. It might sound strange, but it’s actually the 2nd label office we’ve been sleeping at. We’ve spend several nights at LEON music art fashion’s headquarters in Oxfordshire as well J. Yesterday on the gig at das Loch Joel changed language into German in the middle of ‘remind me’. Refreshing!  
//Markus 

söndag 18 september 2011

zucchpumkin


Ridderkerk 18 sept 15.09
On this tour we have the pleasure of playing together with Jeroen van der Werken as bassplayer. Not only is he a good friend, a great tour manager and musician, but apparently also a very good gardener. He and his wife Esther grow tomatoes, Zucchini and pumpkin in his parent’s backyard and for reasons unknown the pumpkins and zucchinis thought it was a good idea to crossbreed. The outcome was beyond weird.
The “vegetable” on the picture weights 18.9 kg!!! Rumors have it it answers you right back if you knock on it…

Yesterday we had our 2nd gig with Marike at Atak in Enschede. This video of Botanisten/Dew at Atak was shot by a girl named Sharon. Thanks!

 


It’s time to get ready for tonight’s gig at Volkoren Festijn at Ekko in Utrecht.
//Markus

lördag 17 september 2011

Finally wi-fi


Peter Pan 22.20 15 september
We’re getting pretty used to ferries. This is the third trip from Sweden to Germany by sea during a month but it’s the first time we’re using this ferry company for a while. Erik’s working on the tour budget and I’m sitting here trying to write something, but I get frequently disturbed by a cheerful bunch of seniors already getting in to their 2nd round of tax free beers -the ferry culture. Is that why the named the ferry Peter Pan?
The biggest difference between this ferry company and the one we’ve used the most is that this one doesn’t have wi-fi…


Den Haag 23:58 16 sept
We woke up this morning at 6.30 to arrive in Travenmünde an hour later. We had a good 600 km trip to The Hague ahead  of us, which take some time since we’re travelling with a trailer for all of our stuff. We need instruments for acoustic sets as well as 'full on' ones, so I can tell you it piles up…
 In the Hague we played at the venue “het paard” opening up for Marike Jager, who managed to sold out the place. Marike and her band makes well arranged popsongs that made me think about the Beatles, Feist and Emiliana Torrini –and the audience loves her! We couldn’t get a better start on the tour: Friendly staff, good stage sound, great food, fair-trade bananas in the dressing room and they even had a Swedish guy in their staff :-)

I’ve never been in the Hague (den Haag, pronounced “den hach”) before. The city has both small picturesque canals as well as an impressive skyline with asymmetrical building under construction. A friendly advice though: Don’t trust your gps in this city…

//Markus

torsdag 15 september 2011

This sleeping tour!

First of all, welcome to our new blog! We're going on tour! Yes!
Tomorrow we have the first gig at Het Paard in den Haag as support for Edison Award nominee 'Marike Jager'
Check out the tour poster below for all the dates.





Well, I have to finnish packing my bags because we're soon leaving to catch the ferry.
cheers,
Markus