Jon Roniger

Tails from The Road #8 – Sponsored by Digital Rodeo

Life on the road, chasing your tail, in the search for some luck and live, sometimes you find that you barely have a moment to organize your thoughts and your bags much less take the hour or so to write about the day’s events. That being said, I am sorry to have had to take a couple of days off of my tour entries here. I’ve enjoyed sharing them with you.

Amsterdam was a fantastic place for me on this trip. There were so many great things in a two day span, that it is going to be hard to get them all into this blog. I was honored to be a part of The Amsterdam OBA LIVE Radio show. This is a nationally broadcast show that is about arts, culture, entertainment and politics. It was a listenership of somewhere near 50,000. It was pretty cool of them to have me on as the “entertainment” for the show. There were several authors and journalists and activists and local leaders on the show. I only wish that I had the slightest clue about what they were saying, as it seemed at times to get sort of heated!

The next day I was on another locally broadcast radio show about culture and “outside the lines” type of learning and culture. I was again honored to be the entertainment part of the show. There were several different hosts for the show, each with his or her own area of interest. I was interview by a woman named Gwen who’s area of interest was alternative learning and culture. I am not sure how I fit into that segment, but I was glad to answer questions about my thoughts on life, love, the soul and their effects on my music and songwriting. She decided not to translate my answers into Dutch, so I am very curious to know how my opinions were perceived by the listeners. I am not sure how more metaphysical topics translate since I don’t even know what I am talking about, I wonder how others can know what I am talking about…..in Dutch…no less!

I came home from a double gig night on Thursday to find a group of drunk Germans on my boat. They were very suspicious of me when I walked in at 2am with my guitar and looking rather spent. I, of course, was suspicious of them as they had taken over my boat with flags and cheese and empty beer cans and were smelling like cologne and getting ready to head out for a night of hash and singing of German Beer-hall songs. They thought they had rented the entire boat and I had to produce my key and unlock the door to my cabin and show them my stuff for them to leave me alone. It was rather annoying since I had been there for two days and they had come in for one night and taken over the place. They all came home at 4 or 5 in the morning and started throwing things around and being generally loud and obnoxious. The funny thing is that they were all in their late 30s or early 40s and were acting like college kids on a weekend bender in Amsterdam.
Needless to say, I got about 1 hour of actual sleep that night and was up at 7am to get on the road for my 10am radio interview at Radio Emmen. I was totally burnt for the interview and arrived in Groningen at around 1pm felling like a bag of shit! Fortunately for me there was a nice hotel next to The Café de Hertog Groningen and I checked in without much hesitation and went right to sleep!

It’s amazing what a few hours sleep will do for you! Followed, of course, by a triple cappuccino! Which, in Europe means that you have a double cap followed by a single cap. It’s just not possible to order a triple…..maybe they don’t like to get as jacked up as I do!

Let me take a step back and talk about the two shows on Thursday in Amsterdam. I played at Skek for about an hour and a half. This place is one of the coolest little café/restaurants that I’ve seen in a while. It’s full of young, hip college age kids and serves a very eclectic menu. They feature singer/songwriters a few nights a week and I was followed by an open mic. So, there were a lot of anxious musicians waiting for me to finish so they could get up and play a few cover tunes.

I finished my set at Skek and went around the corner to Molly Malone’s wehre there was another open mic going on. I was basically there for a live audition for a future gig. The owner, who is a very nice man named Mathew explained that they mostly like cover tunes. I had to say that I rarely do covers and was out promoting my new record and would be playing my own material. He allowed me to play and I ended up being very well received by the Thursday night locals and played for about 40 minutes. I guess I passed the audition as Mathew handed me his contact information and said “we’ll talk about a fee for a gig when you come back”. I actually ended up selling a few CDs to some German tourists who described the music, in a brilliant way I thought, as “hand made”. I love this expression and I intend to use it for myself as often as possible.

Keep this in mind as you remember the drunk Germans back on the boat. I’ve now done a 2 hour radio show, a 90 minute gig and a 40 minute gig….it’s 2am and I need to get some sleep for a 10am radio show. Then come the Germans!

OK….so I’m back in Amsterdam to finish the tour in style. I am back on The Piccolo and I have no gig tonight. I am basically a tourist waiting to leave to go home. I have no intention of reflecting on the gig until I am back at home and have a few hours of peace with my family. I can say that I’ve had a wonderful time and met some fantastic people. I’ve been to places that I’ve never seen before and I have filled my soul in ways that only travel can do.

I’ve included a bunch of pictures from the last few days……I hope you enjoy them;

Happy Bar Owner at Café Steils in Haarlem