Posts Tagged "music"

[EDITED: Repost for Facebook] It took every bit of strength I had in me to contain myself. Knowing about it has been killing me since the beginning of the summer. Now I can finally come out with it: I’m a contestant on the German version of the most successful new music competition in the world: The Voice! How did it come to this: me taking part in a television format that I’m actually not such a big fan of (to be blunt: I HATE casting shows!)? The short version of the story: I was convinced by a very good friend of mine who is also in the competition. She was asked if she knew anyone who might be interested in trying out for the show, and the first person she thought about was me. We talked about it for a while , and it was when she said to me,...

As a child, I always dreamed of traveling to great European cities. I’ve had the great fortune to visit most of the cities I’ve dreamt about, and this weekend I performed in one of my greatest childhood dream cities: Athens, Greece. My road trip started on Thursday, when I spent two days in Mannheim, Germany teaching at the Popakademie. It’s getting close to semester exams, so I spent the time preparing my students for their big day; a 45 minute live looping performance. After my time there I travelled to Aschaffenburg for rehearsals and a gig in the evening. The gig itself was fine; I performed with a talented up-and-coming singer named Jennifer Washington. After three hours of sleep in my hotel it was off to the airport and my highlight gig of...

The first single from “Elements”, my cover version of the Rick Astley song, “Never Gonna Give You Up”, is now available online! It was one of my favorite songs from the 80s (don’t laugh!), so I’m happy to have finally recorded it. In addition to the album version of the track (played by my extremely AWESOME backing band WATERPROOF), there are 3 club remixes, from Niels van Gogh & Daniel Strauss, Noll & Kliwer, and D-Cade (aka Charles Simmons ) You can listen to the single (and purchase) and all the remixes right here: Album Version Remix Radio Version Remix Extended Version Niels v. Gogh + Daniel Strauss Remix Noll & Kliwer Remix Let me know how you like the single: Leave a comment, and most of all, TELL YOUR...

The Eurovision Song Contest, the world’s largest music competition, is now over. The hype in Germany surrounding Lena’s performance is now died down, the amazement surrounding the choice of Azerbajan as the winner will continue for a while (I still don’t get that one…) As an American, I’ve always been fascinated by the spectacle of the ESC; the drama, the politics, the overall cheesiness of the whole thing. This year though, I was “lucky” enough to get a free ticket to see the show live. I’d always refused to watch it on TV and it’s not every day that one gets such expensive tickets for free, so I said, “what the hell” and I went. I must admit, though; I really enjoyed myself. No kidding. Here are...