The new year has begun and it’s the perfect time for hatching new plans and setting things in motion. It seems I can set myself one big goal to achieve for each year. 2008 was for making Minutia, 2009 for starting my label and getting the album released. Last year was all about getting a somewhat financial stability for me.
So what’s the plan for 2011, you might ask?
One thing I have not managed yet is touring. My publisher had the idea to send me on the road as a tour support. I was already getting really excited. But then he became unsure if I was ready for it. Yet, he has never seen me play live.
So… I’ve booked a wee Berlin tour for mid February with Vibeke Falden from Denmark. The idea behind this is to play four or five concerts in one week to get a routine and lose my stage fright.
Just because I can’t make it out into the world right now, doesn’t mean you can’t see me live these days. I’m also going to play a first internet streamed concert in mid February. If you live in Italy you might not have to wait much longer to see me in the flesh. My friend Nicoleugenia who I visited last December in Sicily is putting together a tour for me for March.
When I was there in December I was supposed to play gigs. I got a Bronchitis, had completely lost my voice and wanted to cancel. They really wanted me to play so I agreed to play a shorter instrumental set. The first gig at Lomax in Catania didn’t happen because there was no power. And that after I had been nervous all day long. For the second one in Caltagirone I was hardly nervous and the concert happened and went well. Admittedly it felt very strange to improvise and not sing at all. It made me get out of my comfort zone and I needed the experience. In Berlin the market for live music is totally oversaturated and it makes you feel unappreciated. Playing in Sicily is so different. They’ll tell you repeatedly how much they enjoyed your concert. They want me to come back to Catania and so I’ll return for a week of touring.
Depending on how all this pans out I might just continue doing little tours in different European countries. Possibly with a little help from you. I have some ideas, but I’ll get to that later. Enough rambling about ideas now. It’s time to start making them happen.
The Berlin Tour Dates with Vibeke Falden
February 15: East of Eden Bookshop
February 16: King Kong Klub
February 18: Die Fabrik
February 19: La.D.I.Y.fest
You might have read my tweets when I prepared for my gig at the watertower in Bernau and wondered why on earth I would spend so much time sorting out the live setup, troubleshooting and rehearsing for one single concert. No one can have sooo much stage fright! Nope, but it wasn’t just another performance. It was my longest one so far. 14 songs so over 90 minutes. My parents saw me perform solo for the first time. And last, but definitely not least, it was to be recorded and filmed with 4 cameras. I also set up everything so I could record the songs internally for better sound quality. Unfortunately I forgot to hit record on the last 3 songs so I’ve made a live recording of them in my living room/studio, dubbed The Ivory Tower Sessions (which I may continue in the future in some way or another).
I didn’t want to announce the plans beforehand because surprises are nice, I was afraid if I did I would jinx it and things would go wrong and the pressure was on enough. Now that things went well – very dramatic drum roll -:
The audio download of the gig will be released soon (mid July, TBC) including 4 videos (In Unison, Zero Tolerance, The Tide & A Little) and a booklet. 50% of the proceeds will go directly to the charity Father’s House that helps underprivileged children in Berlin.
When Ruben, a friend, who works for this charity heard about the upcoming concert in this unusual location (a watertower) he suggested the live recording in cooperation with Father’s House. The gig was on May 27 – exactly half a year after the release of Minutia. Everything seemed so neat and fell into place so easily… who could say no?!
I’m currently in the process of mixing and mastering the live concert. Just now I got back from going through the videos of the 4 songs with Tom who did not only do the shoot at the watertower he is the one who made the fantastic dumentary “Letztes Jahr im Sommer” (Last Year in Summer) of OMP, the band I’m part of as well. The videos are gonna look great. One camera angle is a slanted view from above showing an overview of my gadgets.
Photo by Oliver Köhler
The set list on May, 27 at the watertower Bernau:
In Unison
Unspoken
Zero Tolerance
Paperheart
Euphoria
The Tide
Stealthy
Hearts First
A Little
Breathing Underwater
Moody
Scaredy Cat’s Lullaby
Unknown Territory
Webs
Thursday was the – for now – last day I worked on ‘The Tide’. I wrote some more bits for the string arrangement and added a great middle 8 that adds perfectly to the dramatic sound of the song. Then in the evening a good friend of mine who I hadn’t seen for some time came round to listen to my songs. He hadn’t heard much of the new songs, actually only knew the first two. So I bribed him with a nice dinner I cooked for the both of us. And he got pretty excited when I played him my songs. His favourites were ‘Webs’, ‘Unspoken’ and ‘The Tide’. We didn’t get around to all the songs since we got a bit drunk and then another friend came by who – believe it or not – doesn’t really like music.
In the last two days I started rearranging some of my new songs for a gig I’m playing next Wednesday. So far I’ve done ‘Webs’ and I’m on ‘Hearts first’ now. Pretty tricky what I want to pull off live, doing my One-Woman-Show. It takes a lot of preparation, rehearsing and thinking how each song works best because I definitely don’t want to do some sort of karaoke. Admittedly some parts will just be done by play back, but I’m trying to play as much live as possible. Since I’m writing and producing on Windows XP, but play live with my Macbook Pro, I have to find some work arounds for the VST instruments and plugins that only work on XP. Quite time consuming, but at least this time I’ve hopefully started early enough to be well prepared on stage.
That’s how ‘Webs’ as an instrumental originally looks. Quite something going on in there, right?!
Off to a little gig I was asked to come to tonight. I’ll try not to stay out too long nor get too drunk… fingers crossed!
