Oh Sweet, Punishing Irony;

Sadly my close friend Jared moved back to Canada yesterday. I ended up with all his spices, some food and a BBQ. I had to go pick up the free BBQ this morning, but was in a rush. There was construction on the main street - replacing some tram lines or something - so I biked on the sidewalk. As I looked up, a cop was waiting for me. He pulled me over and issued a fine for €30 for biking on the sidewalk. The BBQ cot €49.95. Aw well. I'll call it a small victory.

Glad I added some cash to the pockets of one of the richest countries in the world. I love Holland.

Oh Happy Day... Well, Minus The Weather.

I got my residence permit today. After a year of wrangling, deportation letters, frighteningly governmental dutch people, bills to pay and crying, it arrived. I am legal. Till Sept 1st. Then I'll renew.. and it begins.

Rain, Rain, Rain.

I love The Rheostatics. That is all.

Well, actually I will write more, as this week is busy and this blog is not on my to-do pile, well, not at the top at least. It continues to rain, every single day. Thankfully there was a three-hour break which allowed us to play baseball. We won, beating the last place team http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif13-7 or something like that, bringing us into second. We play the best team next week at home; gonna be a doozy. For more info, visit our home on the web HERE.

A lot of people are leaving, moving away this week. Already I've lost four people, and two more leave this week. I guess that's life living internationally. People come in and out of your life more than usual, and friends come and go; the true friends are those who you keep in touch with, regardless of where you are. I don't have many of them, but I value every single one. People who don't travel crazy amounts enjoy stationary friendships more, obviously. There are good and bad things about traveling.

The new flat is great; come and visit it some time. My flatmates are wonderful, as it feels more like a family than a bunch of people living together. Being away so much, it's the perfect thing to come back to; a semblance of home. More trips are now being planned as well, including Aug 15-19 in Cologne, Germany and Aug 25 - Sept 6 or 7 in Toronto and surrounding areas. I have no idea when this thesis is going to write itself.

Ten more days in Amsterdam. Then, it begins again, the living out of a bag. I'll be taking ten flights in July - I am so the environmentalist - and then going intercontinental again in August. Plus, one of my best friends, the amazing Dave Osborne, is coming to visit me Aug 20-23, in b/w Germany and Canada. Gonna be a doozy.

Until then, the grind continues. and so on and so on and so on...

I also like Wintersleep.

And to end, some SHAMELESS self promotion. Three NEW Kae Sun songs are available on our MySpace. Go listen, comment and lemme know if you like them. We're taking over the world.

The work never gets finished...

Ah, nope, it never does. But thankfully, the weather here has been bipolar for a few weeks now, making it easy to stay in and do work. I was supposed to go to a party yesterday, but standing at home at 11:30PM having been rained on 3 times already in the day made me stay home. I slept well. It's nice to sleep to the pitter-patter of rain.

Ten more days in Amsterdam before I am off on the road again. I'll be all over the place in July, I mean ALL over the place, and I'm not complaining. Shall be tiring though, and by months end will be yearning for my own bed and coffee pot. July 5 - 31 is the time I am away.

So apparently it is monsoon season here. Like literal mon-fucking-soon season. So it rains really, really hard, for fifteen minutes, then gets sunny and repeats the process several times a day until you've given up on predicting or beating the weather. Been fun.

The trials of my life the last week have revolved around my bike. My back tire cracked in half, like the metal part, and it needed to be replaced. Not to mention the €60 cost to do this, it has taken nearly a week for the place to fix it. I finally went in yesterday and demanded the bike, and they gave me a loaner - with no brakes or accelerating power. Biking home last night after seeing Ted Leo at the Paradiso was fun. It was pouring, I had one hand on the bike and the on an umbrella shielding myself, praying I didn't need to stop suddenly. It was more than fine.

So next week I'm seeing a bunch of shows. You Say Party, We Say Die! Joan as Policewoman and Dinosaur Jr., all in three days and all for reviews. DiS is putting me to work, which is good. Being the only 'employed' writer not based in the London office makes me feel a bit out of touch, so I want to write as much as possible.

Baseball tomorrow - if it doesn't rain.. again. fuck this weather.

Quick Update...

My adoring fans would hate me if I didn't update this every now and again, right? I wish I had something interesting to tell you, an anecdote or funny thing that happened to me, but alas, no. I do like the word 'alas.' It is so Dickensian. Fun.

I've been giving tours of Amsterdam in my spare time for a company linked HERE. I've been making good money on these tours, and telling people lots of stories along the way. I know a shitload about this city now... not as much as other guides, but enough to bullshit my way through a three-hour walking tour. Come on one with me if you want.

My bike is also broken. Really, really broken. It needs to be fixed. The back tire not only moving like a wheel, but also side-to-side, as the spokes are loose and my gears are broken. Its an expensive fix. Thank god for tour guiding.

A long week...

I haven't had much time update, because I have been busier than Paris Hilton's parole counselor. zing. Oh topical humour. It's a lark. But I digress. I am sitting here in my new flat, watching the weather change every ten minutes from sun to downpour and back trying to catch up on some work. I moved on Tuesday. What fun that was. or was it Wednesday.

Well, when I arrived back from Canada, sans-sleep, I had a quick brekkie at the only cafe that was open at 8AM, loaded all my stuff into a cab and headed to my new place, on the other end of town. I live in Amsterdam East, or Oost as the Dutch call it, and all my other places have been in the West or South. This place is great though, albiet tough to describe. I live in the attic, but the rest of the flat is on the second floor, so I have to bypass another apt altogether to get to the bathroom and kitchen. It's more than fine, and my flatmates, both asleep beside me right now, are fantastic. I feel adopted into a little family, and I'm not sure if they read this, but I hope they feel the same way.

Things are busy as all hell with work. In addition to writing papers, or faking the writing of papers, I am booking a tour for Kae Sun, organizing an album release dealing with shitloads of legalese, writing for DrownedinSound - well, not that much cause Mike does everything - and trying to have some semblance of a social life. It's good fun. Today I took a break and went food shopping, one of the many things I have to do to fully 'move in' to this place. I went to a few Turkish places, got all sorts of fun things, like Plantains and Pumpkin and delicious things like that... dinner is planned tonite. I'm going to make pumpkin soup; or at least try.

Lots of things on tap until July 5, when I leave Amsterdam again for a few weeks. I am back in Holland for a few days, including July 12 to go to North Sea Jazz, before leaving from July 13 - 31. I'm going all over, and will update the blog. Until then, I have to make soup and forget how behind I am on my work.

much love.

My Primavera Sound Review along with Mike Diver and Kev Kharas...

http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/2061026

enjoy
Shain

Been a while...

I can't believe Professor Robert Hamilton, probably the sole person responsible for my move to Holland reads my blog. I am amazed at the amount of people who actually read this verbal bullshit I spew. Really. I feel horrible for not updating it all that often, nor reading much of anyone else's blog. I mean well, but I'm super busy and lack proper internet access sometimes on my travels. Well, here goes with another blog entry, and I promise it to be a doozy, as I'll explain my week covering Primavera Sound in Barcelona.

Low cost airlines have the craziest flight times. I was due to arrive in Barcelona at 12AM on WED May 30, or early THR morning, whichever suits your fancy. We were twenty minutes late, so I arrived around 12:30AM. I met a lovely Greek girl on the plane who lives in Barcelona, and she helped me take the night airport bus into Catalunya Square, where I took the N11 bus to the last stop to meet my friend who lives in Badalona, which is way the fuck in the suburbs. What he didn't know is that the last stop changed, and I was taken up this mountain and dropped off at a hospital, alone, at 3AM. I called him laughing, and he couldn't believe where I was. I walked in, asked for a cab and took a €10 ride back down this black mountain to his house, where he was standing outside in hysterics. I passed out immediately.

Another guy was staying at his house, Chabby from Austria, and I spent much of the next day with him until I was to meet up with Mike and Kev from DiS to begin our Primavera coverage. We went shopping in the morning, explored Badalona and then took the Rodales city train into Catalunya and floated around the old town, stopping for a Durum Kebab. We strolled down La Ramblas, got some juice at the Boquiera market and went to the beach. It was nice.

Around 5PM I headed off on the metro to Selva De Mar to meet Mike and Kev. We had a few beers and strolled to the Forum, where the festival was. I then waited in line for two fucking hours to get my ticket, as we picked the wrong line to wait in and the pace was slow. It all ended well, I had my ticket, and we spent the rest of the night drinking, seeing live music and floating around the festival site. That continued for four days.

I met up with a fellow writer, Claire, who lived much closer than Badalona from the festiva (even though I found out Badalona was the next suburb over) and I went back to hers at 8AM it seemed and fell asleep. She has to go to work the next morning so I was back out, exploring Barcelona.

I had to move house that day, from Badalona to the centre, so I meandered through trains and subways and four hours later I was in the centre at my new couch surfing home, Nick. His place was fantastic, and he proved a gracious host. Then I was back to Primavera for another night.

At Primavera there was a seperate area specifically for press that had free booze, sponsored by Estrella Dam and Red Bull. The thing was, the area (which we called the island at that is pretty much what it was) was only audible to the main stage and was restricted, so we couldn't bring beer out. That meant a lot of hanging out on the island, including seeing The Smashing Pumpkins, the Fall, Sonic Youth, Patti Smith, Wilco and Maximo Park, among many others. The festival itself was great, tons and tons of music, average food, 5 stages, a music bazaar... Saw many a bands, in which will be published tomorrow, so I won't talk much about it. I will say that the venue was a concrete wasteland, quite postmodern, right on the sea, so a few stages actually backed onto the sea. It was beautiful and ugly at once, and there was a nice breeze filled with saltwater that made my glasses foggy. They also had tons of handicapped porty-potteys, so I peed pretty for four days. I hate those open urinals.. just not for me.

Saturday involved some beach time. I went to the beach near Mike and Kev's hotel, which happened to be a nude beach. Ah, when in roam right... It was a bit odd being completely surrounded by naked people, but it felt kinda free and in some ways, right. It was like people weren't hiding who they were, at all... Forty minutes of naked sun-burning and I was spent.

Back to the hotel and back to the festival on Saturday, which ended extremely late, so Sunday was a late day. I did a bit of sightseeing - but I reserved much of that for Monday - and had a fantastic dinner with Nick and his friends, in which I cooked up a storm. I made daal (thanks Alan), basmati rice, stuffed tomatoes with Okra and drinks and appetizers. Dessert was provided by two amazing French girls and some kickass chocolate, and we drank like freshman. It was truly an amazing experience, one I'll remember for a long time, and one I thank Nick for. After that, I went to see Malajube and Of Montreal at the Apolo, which for a lack of a better word, was AMAZING.

On Monday I went to Parc Guell, which is a park designed by Gaudi. It was glorious. Then I met another friend (Katie) and strolled around Gracia, her area. We had beer, got soccer balls kick at us by rowdy kids and ate falafel and gelato. well I had gelato. After that it was a lovely dinner with my friend Nick and bed, before I headed off to the airport for a 6AM flight.

Yesterday I flew back to AMS, went home for an hour, moved some stuff into a storage room and then flew to Toronto. NXNE and Joe's wedding in tomorrow. lots of work to do this weekend. more updating later. here are a few pics :)