Posts Tagged "music"

“I’m just gettin’ started, bitches!” – Dave Chappelle, from his legendary impersonation of R&B icon Rick James After reading through my last few blog posts, I came to realize that the tone of my writings had become somewhat negative when describing my experiences of the past few months. Based on the feedback that I received, many people seem to have gotten the wrong impression from my post “Game Over”; some assumed that I was going to completely give up making music. Let me assure you: nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I’m about to become more active than I’ve ever been. One of the most important realizations I’ve had in a long time occurred at the time that I wrote “Game...

I HATE carnival. Maybe I’m too old. Perhaps I’ve experienced too many of them here in Germany, or maybe the notion of getting obnoxiously drunk while looking like a complete idiot singing soccer hymns and ‘Seven Nation Army’ is no longer my idea of fun. This year’s Fasching Torture Tour is different, though; this time, people armed with cameras want to take pictures with me. There are double (often triple) takes when I walk down the street. Total strangers call out to me, “Are you him?” or “I called for you!” People, even in a state of drunken semi-consciousness, recognize me. What do I do with this new-found notoriety? It’s been six weeks now since I last appeared on television. I was only on...

[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...