Our Monday night show at Burgers in Eindhoven was a triumph. We might have peaked right out of the gate with Courage to Love, but wow what a peak. I dunno how many peeps came from Precious Plastic (Dreamboat aka Joseph's workplace) but combined with the Burgers crowd the place was pretty packed and it seemed like everyone was singing along to the na na na's.
The Precious Plastic crew were of course were there for Dreamboat, but we still had to earn it. And earn it we did, helped along by our new 88 year old friend who got up and danced to Hillbilly Hippie Haiku Heaven among other songs. That's him sitting at the bar checking out the Blind Uncle Harry poster.
There were quite a few folks taking pics and shooting video, but alas I wasn't able to get any of it before I had to fly out the following day. I should hopefully be getting a good chunk of it soon and will post and write more about the actual show then.
Burgers- burger is Dutch for person- was founded as a squat in the late 80's. Which means it was an abandoned building that activists occupied and rehabilitated into living space. It's now owned and run as a cooperative. It has 16 apartments, a recording studio, bike repair space, used bookstore, and of course the burgers venue, which perhaps can best be described for an american audience as a dive bar with a kitchen. Definitely Dreamboat and me's kinda place.
Every Monday and Friday there is a free communal dinner available to anyone, with live music afterwards. The really wonderful thing is that it's underground, in the sense that you have to know about it to go there. There's no website, no crapbook page, no instacrap account. If you do a google search for music venues it doesn't come up, nor does it appear on mapquest or google maps. And yet wondrously, when we got there at 6:30 on a Monday night it was filled to capacity with people enjoying dinner, with a full kitchen staff, and a bartender. Plus the wonderful Hans who served as a kind of master of ceremonies and who we coordinated with to book the show. That's him in the pic with Dreamboat. There's also a pic of me and Dreamboat in front of the Burgers poster with the squat symbol, and a couple of pics of the unique artwork.
I do believe I've found my musical home. Anita's, Dokhuis Galerie, the Patronaat and Burgers were all founded as squats and still operate on some level as collectives. Irrational Library came along more recently but was the most anarchist grounded of all the venues and certainly had the vibe of being founded as a squat.
Every show we got paid, fed, had nearly unlimited free drinks, and were offered accommodation for the night. The other wonderful thing is that the audiences were all ages. At so many shows in Bloomington I'm not only the oldest person, I'm often the only older person. But the shows we played and saw had teenagers through to the 88 year old
dude who got his groove on for Courage to love and Hillbilly Hippie Haiku Heaven.
Every show we played was free admittance, yet we still got paid. Why? Because many music and cultural venues are supported financially by the Dutch government. As in subsidized. This helps ensure they don't get swallowed up by bigger venues.It also helps ensure that creative people like musicians can achieve some level of livelihood, and helps ensure a society that isn't always exclusively subject to the highest bidder.
