If President’s Choice ever comes out with an Amsterdam addition to their “Memories of…” sauces, I highly recommend some of this stuff here.

So I have returned home and am doing a final recap of my trip to buy time while I get the music part of my brain back online. Some of you may find it interesting, some of you may not, but either way, we should be back to normal tomorrow. But until then…

I think the thing I found most surprising about Amsterdam was its modernity. While respectful of its history, it doesn’t seem beholden to it. There’s no attempt to preserve the past in a time capsule – tram lines are laid down cobblestone streets hundreds of years old and 17th century canal houses are just as lived in as they were 400 years ago, with clubs, restaurants, shops and homes. The central part of the city is also incredibly dense and no friend to right angles – there are so many small streets, canals and bridges that trying to make use of any as landmarks is kind of futile, or at least I found it so. Much of my time was spent just wandering aimlessly, looking at stuff that I may well have already looked at before, but couldn’t really remember if I did. I also found everything especially grey and drab, but that’s surely a consequence of my being there in mid-February, when most of the northern hemisphere is grey and drab. I’m sure it’d be a much more striking and colourful town in the Summer. And less cold.

I’d been told before I went that language wouldn’t be a problem, that everyone spoke English. This was true – however, their signs were all in Dutch. And their menus. Which is why I subsisted mainly on a diet of french fries with mayonnaise and shwarma for the past week – besides the fact that anything fancier is pretty damned expensive, those were about the only things I could reliably understand what I was getting. the Dutch people were generally very nice and understanding when I didn’t realize that you have to push the button to open the tram doors. They’re also incredibly tall, every last one of them. Maybe something to do with growing up below sea level (less gravity?). I dunno.

I’d like to thank Blogads and Holland.com for putting together this Bloggers In Amsterdam junket and for sending me on it. I was pretty much left completely alone while over there, so I hope they got what they wanted out of it. I certainly had a good time of it, wandering, museum-hopping, catching some shows and meeting other bloggers. And ingesting way too much starch.

And one final question – why, when the country’s flag is red, white and blue, is their national colour orange?

np – Beth Orton / Comfort Of Strangers

Learned some interesting things about the Dutch last night – they do love a rock’n’roll cliche. They love to mosh, crowd surf, throw the three-finger devil salute and scream with approval whenever the artist shouts, “Hello Amsterdam!”. It’s really kind of charming, unless you happen to be in the middle of the aforementioned mosh pit… But I digress. They either have a hyper-developed sense of irony or none at all, but either way they’re willing to get smashed in the face or get kicked in the head, and for that I salute them. And get the hell out of the way.

Since Clap Your Hands Say Yeah didn’t happen for Coolfer and I the other night, we got tickets to last night’s show featuring The Subways and Jeff Caudill as a consolation prize – I didn’t know much about either act, but the rock action must be maximized. Some promo people have been agitating for me to listen to The Subways for a while, so naturally, I haven’t. Teenage OC-approved pop-punk Brits doesn’t really imply greatness to me, but there’s no reason they can’t put on a good show and still be fun, so that’s where I set the bar for last night’s show. Entertain me, and it’s all good. Impress me and it’s gravy.

Opener Jeff Caudill seemed a bit of an odd choice for the audience, with his plaid shirt, acoustic guitar and faux-twang tunes, but it may have had something to do with his history in SoCal pop-punk band Gameface. He may well have had some fans in the audience, but most seemed a bit impatient with his strummy tunes, even despite the mandolin accompaniment. When a mandolin can’t win over a crowd, you know it’s going to be a tough room. Caudill’s stuff didn’t do much for me at all – pretty standard coffee house material, though maybe that’s novel in a town where coffee houses aren’t so much about the live music.

I’m pleased to report that as a live act, The Subways totally brought the gravy. Boasting super high energy and crowd-pleasing stage moves (see above), they got everyone moving whether they wanted to or not (you were either moshing or being mashed). The bubblegrunge tunes were reasonably catchy though it helped if you didn’t listen to the lyrics – they totally reveal the band’s tender age – but got rather samey after a bit. The London band, comprising two brothers and one’s girlfriend, smartly kept the focus on the live performance, whipping the crowd into a fervor whilst running around onstage and just generally seeming to be having a blast. It was hard not to like these kids who’re up there onstage, rocking out and living the dream.

I discovered the burst mode on my camera last night, and it’s a glorious thing. All these shots were taken in the first third of the show or so, before the mosh pit just got too outta hand and I had to flee for safer ground. The Subways were easily the most energetic subjects I’ve had to shoot lately. And Melkweg is a pretty nice club – about the size of Lee’s or Mod, but rather a bit fancier. It’s one of only two decent venues in the city, so they get the bulk of the touring acts. One scam they have that I hope doesn’t catch on across the pond is charging a club membership to see shows – I had to pay 3 euros on top of the 10 euro ticket price (and 0.50 euro service charge) for a “membership” that apparently only lasts a month. Over the course of a year, that’s an extra 36 euro for the average punter. Gross.

Earlier, the last couple attractions I hit on my final full day in Amsterdam were the Stedelijk museum of modern art and the Oude Kerk “Old Church”. Stedelijk was a very different experience from the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum yesterday. It was housed in a very temporary home in an old postal building while the museum itself (located on Museumplein with the others) undergoes significant renovation until 2008. The temporary space was rather small, housing only a few exhibits but a couple of them were quite striking. One was a series of video installations from Iranian filmmaker Shirin Neshat contemplating the role of women in Islamic Iran, another a series of portrait by Dutch photographer Rineke Dijkstra.

The Oude Kerk was an old 13th century church in the heart of the Red Light District that’s notable for being the oldest monument in Amsterdam and really, there wasn’t much to see. It’s not a consecrated church anymore so it’s just kind of a big empty room with lots of dead folk buried under the floor slabs. Cheery. After popping in there for a bit, I went for a final wander around downtown Amsterdam and – true to form – got lost again. Perfect.

And now it’s bags packed and ready to head back to The New World. Closing thoughs on Amsterdam tomorrow and then back to regularly scheduled programming after that, but for now, check out the rest of my holiday snaps. See you in the EST!

np – Belle & Sebastian / The Life Pursuit

Run-down of day four: First stop was the Museumplein district, home to the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum – both of which I had to get into yesterday or my free admission card was going to expire.

The Rijksmuseum was first, an imposing structure that was actually mostly undergoing renovation – the open galleries were really quite small, hence the sizable lineup to get in. The cat in the picture was a stray wandering in and out of the crowd, eventually choosing to perch in the archway to the museum. Despite the renovations, the museum was exhibiting their entire collection of Rembrandts in addition to pieces from other Dutch masters. Rembrandt’s works – including his most famous piece “The Night Watch” – were all very impressive, but I think I preferred the displayed works of Johannes Vermeer.

It was interesting to go from the very formal and realistic works of the 17th century masters to the decidedly more intense and emotional works of Vincent van Gogh, appropriately housed in a much more modern building than the Rembrandt collection. Despite the massive crowds in the museum, I was still able to view some legendary pieces and get a decent basic education about van Gogh.

De Poezenboot is a houseboat in the Jordaan quarter that has become a home to stray and unwanted cats, and is a bit of a low-key attraction. I had thought it might be like some crazy old lady’s living room overrun by felines that would make my head explode from allergies, but it was actually more of a proper kennel (or whatever the cat equivalent of a kennel is) with a modest number of very comfortable and generally friendly cats holding court. Very cute and furry.

Attempts to go shopping on Westerstraat were foiled by the fact that everything was closed on Sundays (and Mondays, so I won’t be back today), so I swung by the Huis Marseille photographic museum to see an exhibition of works by Isidore van Kinsbergen who documented temples and royalty in Java, Indonesia in the 1860s.

That pretty much wrapped up the daylight portion of things, and the idea for the evening was to catch Clap Your Hands Say Ja at De Melkweg, but apparently indie kids are the same worldwide because it was plum sold out. I did get tickets to see The Subways with Jeff Caudill tonight, so at least there will be some more rock before I depart The Low Countries.

But there was a contingency plan – something called Wordscape, which was a cross between spoken word and instrumental improvisation and was fairly interesting to witness. Musicians with a variety of instruments including piano, clarinet, trombone and vibraphone would flank a poet/performer and play alongside his readings whilst taking direction from a conductor in the middle of the room Certainly different, it probably would have been more engaging if I could understand Dutch at all.

More photos of the day at Flickr.

Billy Bragg’s Volume 1 box set has been delayed until March 7 due to a “manufacturing error”. Which makes my MP3 of the week now completely without context. Boo.

Channel 4 presents a live video of Mogwai performing “Glasgow Mega-Snake” from their new album Mr Beast, also out March 7.

Bradley’s Almanac presents a recording of the Undertow Orchestra show in Boston last week.

The Sounds and Morningwood team-up tour will be coming through town to the Opera House on April 16.

np – Rob Dickinson / Fresh Wine For The Horses

Well, I’d been warned that I might see all sorts of odd and kinky things in Amsterdam, but I don’t think anyone expected that that’d happen not in the Red Light District, but at the Artis Zoo. I was having a wander through the reptile house I noticed one of the giant tortoises (exact genus/species unknown, sorry) actually moving. That in and of itself was exciting, since they’re not really the most mobile of creatures. Well it turns out Mr Tortoise had some good motivation to move as he (slowly) mounted the other tortoise and went to town, makinig really loud bellowing noises all the while. It was really something to behold, not only for the zoo guests but for the other tortoises as well – even the kids came wandering around to watch the commotion. I played animal pornographer for a couple minutes and then left before the lowered the curtain over the display and made us pay again to see more.

It was actually decent weather yesterday, which made for good zoo weather as the animals were out and frolicking. Something about Amsterdam must be conducive to animal sex because there was no shortage of baby animals – the baby monkeys, chimps and lions were especially precious. They also had penguins, which wouldn’t be so noteworthy if not for the fact that the Toronto zoo no longer has penguins. Apparently we traded them to another zoo for something. Hockey pucks? I don’t know. And it was kind of funny to see raccoons as zoo animals. One continent’s vermin…

After the zoo I moseyed up to the Waterlooplein open air flea market, which offered a good selection of junk and crap, and then got lost again in the city centre. My usually decent sense of direction is totally messed in this city. The canals are poor landmarks since they’re everywhere and run concentrincally from Centraal Station, tram lines run in all directions, often on the same route, and really – everything sort of looks the same.

And an interesting thing about traffic in this town – though it is sort of pedestrian-friendly, there’s a lot of pedestrian malls and walkways, those of use on foot are definitely at the bottom of the food chain and those higher up aren’t shy about reminding us of the fact. Sidewalks are often incredibly narrow, and if you happen to step into a bike lane, God help you. Cyclists may ring their bell, but they’d just as soon mow you down – slowing down or stopping does not seem to be an option. Throw in cars and trams and buses all sharing the same the same space, top off with a deficit of traffic lights (and the ones that are there are confusing as hell) and street signs in a foreign language and you’ve got a recipe for dead pedestrian. Serves 8.

Last night turned into something of a blogger summit amongst some of those in town on the Bloggers In Amsterdam ticket. A bunch of us went out for dinner and ended up seated next to, well, a table of overweight, ill-dressed superheroes. And one villain. Truly the damndest thing.

Photos from the day at Flickr.

No music news to report today, but come on – tortoise sex. You can’t beat that.

np – The Zephyrs / A Year To The Day

Seeing as how I am on this trip ostensibly as a music blogger, it seemed appropriate that I would do some actual local music blogging. In this case, trekking down to Utrecht, about 30 minutes by train south of Amsterdam, with Coolfer to catch Swedish troubadour Jens Lekman at Ekko, a small cozy club in town. Lekman and his band were their own opening act, performing some instrumental jazzy numbers led by the horn section. By the time Lekman took the stage as headliner, the club was pretty packed with punters.

It’s been almost a year since I saw Lekman last, and I’d almost forgotten what an entertaining performer he is. He played a mix of new songs and old and interjected them with charming little bits of storytelling, including stopping “Do You Remember The Riots” halfway through to ask the crowd if we knew the story behind the song, telling it, and then picking up right where he left off, and explaining why the t-shirts he had on sale said only “2006” on them (“it’s going to be the best year ever – the shirt is for the optimists, and in the future, the nostalgists”). It was also especially nice to see him playing with a horn section, as it really helped recreate the album arrangements (“You Are The Light” just isn’t the same trumpet-less) and bring out the Motown-ish feel of a lot of his songs. The set was a little brief-ish at just an hour, but even though he suggested he might continue playing songs out on the sidewalk, we opted to grab the train back into the city.

My first transoceanic gig photos! I have to say, I was amazed by the cameras at the show – at home, everyone is wielding little pocket digicams but last night, it was DSLRs all around – some with some pretty intimidating lenses. I guess people on the continent take their photography a lot more seriously.

So you’d think that commuting to another city to catch a late night rock show would be the most adventuresome point in the evening, wouldn’t you? Not so much, as it turned out. The Amsterdam trams stop running at around 12:15AM, and since I opted to grab some shwarma after getting back into Amsterdam Centraal, I missed the last one. No problem, they run night buses, one of which appeared to pass through my neck of the woods. Well funny thing about being on a bus at 1AM in a city you really don’t know at all… I thought I knew where we were, but after about 20 minutes of riding in relative silence (no stop announcements from the driver or onboard PA, just over-loud cackling from kids in the back – teenagers really are the same the world ’round), I asked the driver if we were going to be passing by the Lloyd Hotel anytime soon, pointing out my destination on the map. He just stared at the map bewildered for a few moments. Never a good sign. As it turned out, the bus had made a hard left right before it would have hit familiar territory and I was now on a bus bound well out of Amsterdam to points unknown.

The driver told me that he’d be circling back after he finished the route and I’d get back eventually. The end of the line, however, turned out to be way out beyond the boondocks. Like a construction site along the water where they were just starting to build the middle of nowhere (or where I later learned was called Haven Eiland). Needless to say, I was the last one on the bus and as it tried to make a fifteen-point turn through the dirt and sand to get back on the road heading into the city again, it occurred to me that this would be an ideal place to rob/murder/dispose of a solitary Canadian tourist. They’d never find me. Who would think to dredge the IJ Canal? Not me, that’s for sure, and I’d be at the bottom of it. But Mr Bus Driver was as good as his word and eventually got me back to within a couple blocks of the hotel and I got back, safe and sound – but what would have been about a 3-minute ride if the trams were still running turned out to be an hour-long trek into terror. Okay, not so much terror as agitation. But still. Gonna have to pay much more attention to where that night bus is going, if I ever end up on it again. Which is entirely possible.

Mogwai bitch about this and that to Gigwise.

Metric have completed a second video from Live It Out for “Poster Of A Girl”. Watch it at Muchmusic and read about it at Filter. Via For The Records. Metric are doing a two-night stand at the Kool Haus next weekend.

np – My Morning Jacket / Z