And Seven Ran …

Last night was Quiz Night again at the Potdeksel. As I’ve mentioned before, the quiz is in Dutch, unlike some of the other quiz night’s in town, although we’re fortunate that René is the quiz master, so he’s kind enough to translate when we don’t quite understand some of the questions. We can sometimes get [...]

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Chawsome!

They Ryan Prebble show on Wednesday was fantastic. Truly impressive and I’m so glad I got to see him perform live. He’s crazy talented and really throws himself into the performance, even in a small venue like U Rock Café. He did two songs from his album Fruits, but the rest were new (at least [...]

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Picture Perfect

It’s such a beautiful day here in Utrecht. See? Look at those fluffy white clouds and that beautiful blue sky. Doesn’t that make you want to come into the city center this evening and listen to some lovely music by Ryan Prebble? U Rock! Café is located just off the main street running through the [...]

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Dutch Twang

The title sounds quite naughty, doesn’t it. But get your minds out of the gutter — they’ll drown from all this rain — I’m talking about accents, particularly when singing bluegrass music. Friday night we went to the Potdeksel, as we’re wont to do. When we got there, I remembered that it was Utrecht’s night [...]

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Music With a Kiwi Flavor

If you live in Amsterdam or Utrecht, or anywhere remotely near the two, go see Ryan Prebble this week and next. He’s a fantastic musician from New Zealand, playing a blend of blues, funk and experimental. I’m definitely going to see him next Wednesday here in Utrecht when he plays U Rock! Café, and I [...]

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Tempo!

After my last post about the sounds of Utrecht and my recording of the Dom Toren chiming the noon hour, it seemed appropriate to post the following video, since it has double relevance.

Thanks to Kay’s informative comment about the prevalence of carillons here in the Netherlands, I learned a bit more [...]

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Plus Ten

after the show
Last Saturday, 10 of us (René, Merian, Guy, Willianne, Edmar, Eric, Lip, Giovanni, his mother and myself) went to the Bimhuis in Amsterdam to see The Bad Plus. They’re a modern jazz trio from the US, who also had a guest vocalist with them who joined them for the second half of the [...]

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Scotland in the Netherlands

As I’m sitting here as the clock moves close to 4 p.m., the church bell chimes that play a variety of different songs before each hour is currently playing Auld Lang Syne.
On a similar train of thought, we watched some of the Military Tattoo from this year on TV the other evening, followed by [...]

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