Andrew Dubber     

Groningen

I’m in the North of Holland this weekend, giving a presentation at something called Lopend Vuur. It’s a music industry thing, and I explain it a little bit on my New Music Strategies website.

It’s a part of the country I haven’t been to before. I’ve visited Amsterdam a number of times, and I’ve been to Hilversum and the Hague, but I haven’t ventured north to Friesland before.

After the usual shorter-than-my-bus-ride-to-work plane trip from Birmingham to Amsterdam, I took a train from Schiphol to Amersfoort, then another from Amersfoort to Groningen, where I met Lykle (pron. Lee’-kler) from Lopend Vuur. The event itself is in Leeuwarden, actually in Friesland (Fryslân) but I’m staying one city over in Groningen.

Lykle – looking a bit Dutch

Lykle’s instructions for finding him must have something to do with the Dutch sense of humour. He said he’d be the one in the black coat, with a black bicycle. Of course, so was everyone else.

We went straight to the local student television station (Groningen’s a university town), where I was interviewed about the pitch (like I knew anything…) and Ard who had set the whole thing up got a chance to explain the whole deal.

Ard explains Lopend Vuur

The student TV studio was also a bar (good way to get them to turn up, if you ask me) and so we hung out and enjoyed the acoustic set by one of the bands from this weekend’s event, AudioTransparent.

Two members of AudioTransparent, live on the sofa

Popped back to keyboardist/vocalist Gijs’s place to use his studio setup. I’d promised to do a voicejob for a friend back in New Zealand. So there I am saying ‘Welcome to XYZ Insurance company, please press 1 to be placed in a priority queue…’ and I’m in the living room of someone who could quite conceivably be the next big thing out of Europe on the world pop music stage.

And every now and then, I have to stop because a motorcycle went past on the street outside.

Then a few of us, Ritzo (AudioTransparent’s assigned expert mentor/coach for the Lopend Vuur project), Lykle, Gijs and I head out to get me into the hotel and get a bite to eat. It turns out we nearly lost the hotel booking because we should have checked in by 3 – but after a bit of to and fro, I dumped my stuff in the room (basic, but more than sufficient) and headed to the restaurant.

I ate rabbit for the first time in decades. It bit back. I managed to chip one of my two fake teeth on a bit of bone, and I’m a bit worried I’ve got a big dentistry bill coming up. It didn’t fall out, but it’s shredding my tongue, and I wouldn’t mind getting that sorted out soon. Serves me right for eating cute and furry creatures, rather than the big, ugly ones everyone else seems to prefer.

Ritzo & Lykle

We followed it up with a trip to the local Irish pub, on the grounds that they had good Scotch whisky (Lagavulin, in fact, so I was happy…). There was even a traditional Irish pub band playing – so we didn’t stay too long…

True to its name, the Friesland Hotel (to my ears, the ‘Freeze-land’) was cold. I hardly slept. Just as well, really — because the presentation I gave this morning needed some serious panelbeating to get it into shape.

People liking my presentation

And so I gave my presentation, and it seemed to go well. People said nice things about it and made the right noises at the right time.

I’ve picked up a large number of promo CDs and I’ve been interviewed by media outlets big and small and now it’s time for a drink.

Tagged: Music, Personal, Travel, Whisky