This and that before I go to Germany again

Well its been sometime since i've really been that active musically, having spent most of the past few months in England, partly due to financial constraints on my part, and partly due to my mothers catalogue of health issues. It hasn't been so easy for her and she needed an extra pair of hands around the house.

Recently my ambition was to write a number of songs in German, and I have had limited success in writing about half an album full, although I am yet to get the text of all of them corrected. Many of those songs are about an old theme, but I decided that I really had to get them out. I also wrote a number of newer english language pieces which I recently recorded on a basic sequencer system which I set up in England. All I really have here is a Yamaha keyboard (which doesnt even have jack or midi outs), an SM58 microphone, my Takamine guitar and an open source sequencer on my computer. I dont have any monitoring to speak of, just a couple of crappy computer speakers, so the mixes are certainly rough and unrefined. People can get an idea of  these works on Soundcloud which I recently joined up to. The direction is very acoustic and mellow, like a lot of my stuff. And please forgive the corny keyboard drums on "Throwing Away What She Loves".


The truth is that while in England I have engaged myself only a little with music. I am trying to concentrate on bringing my translation business back up to par. I have done a hell of a lot of work updating all my websites, and wasted a lot of time making them look nice for Google, a very frustrating task indeed. Interestingly, however, I found a new way to monetise my websites courtesy of Amazon. I've put shops on all my websites where their entire catalogue of goods is available. I made my first commissions yeterday, courtesy of a replacement vacuum cleaner my mum ordered.


Affiliate marketing seems to be an interesting way of promoting yourself and your digitised goods, however, I cant seem to find a service where I can do this for my music. There were a few startups on facebook that offered these services but these were promptly closed down by the look of it. Whoever did that I have no idea. For those who don't know the idea behind affiliate marketing, its getting your friends to promote your music by offering them a commission on the sales they make. Nice idea, but the problem is setting up a reliable tracking and remuneration system, and that is what is hard to find.

Anyway for now I'll stick to selling musical instruments on my website, and textbooks and language aids on my translations website. I might sell everything on my networking website.

While I have been in England, I spent most of my time at home. I only really ventured out for Open Mike nights in Bromley (Thursdays in the The Railway Hotel and  The Barrel and Horn), Ladywell (Sundays in the Ladywell Tavern), and Fridays in a basic Polish restaurant at the Elephant and Castle (Mamuska's). I wasn't so impressed with the food there, but the atmosphere is very much like a working class cafe in the middle of Gdansk, and its like being culturally teleported when you take a walk into the place.  

As far as taking in culture I had an excellent night out with my brother and sister-in-law at the Betsey Trotwood in Farringdon.  Their future daughter-in-law (and I suppose my niece-in-law if there is such a thing) was playing violin alongside Michele Stodart, former frontwoman for the Magic Numbers. The gig was held in a tiny upstairs room where about thirty people at most were crammed in. It was a very laid back acoustic set and I was very impressed with Maddy's contribution, she played excellent hooklines on the violin and applied balanced vibrato. Hopefully one day I can have her play on a recording of my own....who knows.




On Tuesday as it happens I am returning to Germany, I have a few gigs lined up, notably with Hopsing in Sounds for the session night.


I am pretty glad for him that the whole sessions experiment has worked out so well. Although his nightclub always fills out on a Saturday, getting people in on Friday for bands can be a pain. It is very difficult to get people away from their trusted locations in Lübeck, as all my years of living there have shown.


One of my major musical ambitions now is to set up a band in Sounds with Hopsing and Lukas on guitar, Rudi or Christian on Bass, and an as yet undefined drummer. Material such as Metallica would be perfect, as well as many of my own tunes. I've always wanted to rock as well as soothe, and Hopsing is well set up for recording rehearsals there (he has a mixer that can record every track separately....quite a thing).