(Note: Local rapper Amsterdam and his crew, The Garden, are on a short tour through California, Arizona and Idaho, and the guy knows how to tell a tale. So Frequency asked him to spend a few minutes each day writing down stories from the road and his observations about life on tour. Below is the first installment, with more to come in the next few days.)
Monday, June 22, 6 p.m.
Our week-long adventure started on Friday night at The Crown Room in Portland. Fresh off work and armed with the knowledge that we would be responsibility-free for 9 days, everyone in the group wanted to let loose a little bit. The turnout was pretty good (packed by the end of the night) and the crowd was filled with a lot of old friends, hook-ups and of course other supportive Portland rappers. I thought that everyone who performed pretty much killed it.
Portland duo Levelheaded started off the night with a dope set, then Top Shelf and Wright Family did their thing. A cute girl from the crowd was even nice enough to bring me a shot of Patron while I was up on stage, which was sweet because I really don’t like paying $10 for shots of Patron. Although that scored her major points in my book, I spent most of the night catching up with a bunch of Portland friends I hadn’t seen for some time. The Crown Room is unusual in that there is never any security in front of the green room, so you never know who’s going to pop their head in. Gotta stay on your game.
Mr. MR and Tope finished out the night with solo sets. The sets were pretty interesting to me because both emcees are a part of a larger group (Gray Matters and Living Proof, respectively) yet are trying to make their mark as solo artists as well. Since he was taking part in the Grind Time Emcee Battle the following night, I’m pretty sure MR was saving his sobriety for Saturday. (Editor’s Note: He went on to beat rapper IAMe at the battle). MR is hilarious though, and he’s definitely going to host my next birthday party. Anyone that knows me knows I’m a fan of Tope’s work. I even wear a Living Proof T-shirt from time to time. Color me supportive, I know. Middle and I (aka Top Shelf) are going to be working with Tope on a few tracks later this summer, so stay tuned.
We got up early the next morning and drove to Bend. Everyone met at my house and then headed to The Bite of Bend event downtown. Great food, decent weather and of course Bend’s thriving cougar scene were all simultaneously on full display. It was a great way to kill time before the show.
The Bendistillery Martini Bar is one of our favorite spots to play at and they always show us a lot of love. The bar was pretty crowded all night and the girl to guy ratio was as good as I’ve seen it in months. Highlights included playing truth or dare with a bachelorette party (that’s all I’ll say about it, no need for dry snitching), debuting a new song called “Jesus Pleasers” and a hilarious dance-floor catfight between two overly hostile and territorial women.
We were all up and in the car by 9:30 Sunday morning, courtesy of JG the Human Alarm Clock. He is not a guy you want around if you have any intentions of getting rest. It’s actually worse now that he doesn’t drink, but I digress. We then proceeded to drive 15 hours straight to Los Angeles. Shot out to Espi for manning the wheel for the entire duration. It was all sort of a blur, but we got to DJ Hit n Runn’s parents’ house around 2 a.m.
Make no mistake about this, we are not on tour. We are on vacation. There’s a big difference. While I don’t feel the five out-of-Oregon dates we have scheduled over the next six days qualify as a “tour,” I do expect to have a whole lot of fun and experience a part of the country I haven’t spent much time in. I was born in Southern California, lived there the first six years of my life, but have failed to make it back since. We slept in and then piled into the van. Hit n Runn’s dad works for Universal Studios and got us VIP passes for the entire day. We went on all the rides without waiting in line and basically acted like 12-year-olds for the afternoon. We’re about to head to The Londoner for our show tonight, then hitting the road to Arizona. I’ll be updating the blog tomorrow, and check out twitter.com/amsterdamallday in the meantime.
