octoberf___fest

 [from the archive, 2010]
(there's the man...)

One of the last things that I will ever think of before I die is: thank God for Derek Ligget. For background: He's one of the founding members of the HUMAN ADULT BAND / HUMAN ADULTS and the guitarist for F-IN' PISSED currently, and this guy is still punk rock as f- ; all swear words omitted as this is a "clean site" , lol... I don't even mean punk 'rawk'; I am saying he is also a bit metal as f- perhaps. And he's a super nice guy ontop of all the musical enthusiasms - for several days he has hosted us in his home, as we are back in Amsterdam, drinking great beer, rocking the various LP's and others music; making the band (us) Hollander crepes or pancakes or what-have-you, and we are hiking all over the f'ing place with him. Aside from the other awesome town(s) and people we have visited and vacationed with whilst on the Netherlander excursion, this guy really makes us feel at home, very much. AND, on top of all this we got rigged with one of the best last-minute shows I have ever played. Seriously.

An old firehouse and, what appeared to be, a bank got squatted yesterday amidst a citywide 'squatters rights' bombard on the outskirts of Amsterdam. At this point in the trip, we americanos were pretty used to the european squatter's humble generosities of well cooked food, good conversation, couches, beds, friendly dogs, clean floors, etc, etc - I'd trade cheese with them ontop of the donations we more than over-paid for their kindness. I mean, how friggin' nice of them? For real. It was all there, a festival in an abandoned building. The event needed some live music and we had been invited earlier in the week to play with F-IN' PISSED with Han on drums (also, my husband to be?). However, in the beginning of the day we had no idea where the f- this place was. It was only through coming across various other squatter's that we picked up on a place, an 'old firehouse' they called it, that was having live bands, maybe one from america? Oh yeah. As soon as we got there we were treated like royalty, to my standards . Really friendly gals and guys; "Andria would you marry me? Oh wait, this is your boyfriend? Can I marry him too so you can come to america? Oh shit, I have to get a divorce from Han?"

And as soon as we started a rocking, the police came a knocking - but we played probably twenty minutes of the best shit I have ever done with these brother New Englanders, Josh and Tahler, the whole time we've been banging it out. I felt pretty bad about closing down the eve with our lousy noise, but then again it was a rare experience to perform for such a great group of people, in a rattling skeleton of of a living space.

Thank you for the smiles Han and Derek, friendly anarchist ladies, and love-lorn dogs. Oh and the potatoes and beer, I think that saved me too. It was really loud and great to hang out.