GERMANY & THE NETHERLANDS

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Hello Everybody.

I am experiencing a very busy and exciting time at the moment and wanted to share some of my adventures with you. Over the last Six weeks I have toured extensively in Northern Germany as well as gigs in The Netherlands and Malta. I've played more live concerts in the last few weeks than I have done in years and have not toured with such an intensity since the Strangelove days. Much has changed since then but I still love to sing and play live as much as I ever did........ if not more.

I arrived at Bremen airport, January 17th on OLT Flight 888 and was met by Heiko Grein the promoter of the tour. A middle aged man with a great sense of purpose about him who helped me carry my suitcases and instruments. Myself and Heiko were to become great friends as the tour went on. I immediately felt at ease in his presence as we drove to the station where he put me on a train and the three week tour began. So much has happened in this time that it would be impossible to recount it all here without writing a novel but here are a few memories off the top of my head.

The places I played on the whole were small venues. There are people and cooperatives of people who run these clubs and bars. They don't seem to earn a great deal of money out of what they are doing and yet they work really hard to put on music events that are not necessarily main stream. I've met many such people over these last weeks. They are the ones who keep music alive and they do it out of Love and because they believe in the Spirit of Music. It was a truly inspiring and humbling experience to meet such selflessness over and over again and I felt blessed on this tour by peoples continued kindness. This is the power that keeps most of our music going in the world today.

On the first night in Osnabruck the sound man was called Dirk. Over dinner he calmly told me in articulate English that scientific research predicts next year there will be a huge solar flare from the sun that will rearrange the electrical flow within our brains and humanity will enter a new epoch. We then discussed that everything when you break it down is infact sound vibration and if you are able to really tune into that then life starts to take on a new perspective. I liked Dirk and our talk was a great way to start the tour. He introduced me to a German phrase that translated into English means....."You are in need of Harmonics". `We had a good laugh and I played an extremely successful opening night. On reflection it seemed to me like the solar flare had already happened.

The next day I met Robert. Robert Carl Blank was the other artist who I was traveling with me throughout the rest of the tour. He had kindly offered to take me with him in his van. Robert later told me that when he first met me at Osnabruck station he thought I was a total weirdo who was totally off the planet and he was thinking to himself 'What good is this guy to me.. he can't even drive ?'. I could sense it as well. However by half way through the tour there was truly a real connection between us. I can say now that I consider Robert to be a brother to me and I have deep respect and Love for him. Meeting him and the rest of his band was a real blessing. I watched Robert every night and his music grew and grew on me until I came to really feel I understood him through it. I heard his songs playing on a loop through my head as we traveled around and he had mine on a loop in his. We had such a great time as our friendship deepened. Andrei (double bass) Tomas (Drums) and Christian (guitars and melodium) joined us one by one over the weeks and they were honestly some of the coolest people I have ever met. The friendship and connection I felt for Robert extended to the band and it was like we were a kind of family. We all crammed in to Robert's camper van as Robert drove along at break neck speed doing his accounts on the steering wheel looking up every few seconds to alter the direction of the van as we hurtled down the autoban. I never quite got used to that.

The gigs were so fantastic and I received many many generous compliments from people of all ages. In Germany and Holland the audiences listen very deeply to the music. It was a far-reaching experience to hear people talk to me with such passion about their reaction to my performances. As the days went on I felt the spirit of my shows deepening and it was so exciting and inspiring for me. People quite often told me how they had cried whilst I was playing and I came to understand that many people have reached a point in their lives where they are undergoing a profound change. I came to see that the tears they were crying were as a result of a place they had reached in their lives and that the music I was playing somehow recognised that within them. It was not that the music alone was making them cry it was because they had arrived somewhere in themselves. To be a part of someone's life in this way was truly special. Beyond my wildest dreams in fact. I noticed that I did not feel embarrassed when anyone came up to speak to me about these things, neither did I feel that it was as a result of just me that they had been so moved. I realised that in some way we were sharing something of an inner change together. I was able to be there with that person in total equality and I started to feel that I was really growing as a person and as a musician, singer and songwriter. I want to thank those people now for the gifts they brought me through their honesty.

It wasn't always all like this though. I played probably the most challenging gig of my life one night in Oldenburg. We set up in a bar inside a complex that included a sports centre. Robert played first and he played really well. After he finished most of the people left and I went on stage in front of about 10 people who were sitting on a table right in front of me. They were steadily getting more and more out of control..... all obviously on cocaine and drinking heavily shouting and shrieking with laughter.. Totally wrapped up in themselves. I later found out from Heiko that these men owned most of the brothels in Northern Germany and they were there on a night out with some 'high class' hookers. As I began to play they did not acknowledge me in any way and continued to spiral into their party. When you are a solo artist and people are drunk and talk through your show it can be really difficult although I have to say that over the years I have learned to accept this and to not let rage take over my performance. However this was different. These people weren't just some oblivious drunks out on the town, they had a proper BAD BAD vibe especially the men. There was nothing to do but to try and connect with the depth I find in my songs if I can get out of the way. The drink and drug fueled cacophony raged on literally inches from where I played as I tried and then managed to find something within myself. Then I started to almost enjoy the strange experience. I played my most sad and fragile songs as the pimps and hookers got louder and louder and more and more obscene. Then I finally noticed that one of the men amongst the party was very slightly tapping his thumb on the table to the music. It was the only recognition of the songs or of my presence that I received. I played the rest of the gig to his thumb and it was like a blessing to me or like in some strange way it was God's thumb. I felt I really connected with that thumb. I finished after I told them at the end over some improvised chords exactly what I felt about them. I had done forty minutes without loosing it but right at the end I snapped. However they were too involved in their own shenanigans to even hear me but I like to think the words went into them somewhere. This however I have to say was the only difficult gig in comparison with all the rest which were filled with really beautiful people and you could hear a pin drop on every other night.

After the weird night in Oldenburg Heiko, Robert and myself drove home in the van. As we reached our accommodation in Bremen we stayed outside talking in the van. I spoke to them about my time in South Africa with Madosini and how deeply I had been affected by this experience and as I told the story I felt a very powerful sense of spirit arise with us. It is hard to put these moments into words but all I can say is that as I told the story something happened and afterwards we all sat there in silence for what seemed a long time. Then I said " I suppose we'd better just carry on then" and Heiko said "What else can we do". Robert however, now back on his internet phone, had found the 'Time For The Rest Of Your Life' video and we all stayed a few more minutes and sat there watching it. For the first time in my life I realised that it was a really great song. I went inside and wrote down in my journal 'Something has Happened'.

The next day we traveled by train to Hamburg  to be on Balcony TV. You can see that video upstairs on this post.  I will never forget being at Bremen station that morning.  Robert was getting the tickets and I was looking after the instruments. Robert had pushed all the guitars my way and told me to look after them as he was going to the ticket machines and off he went to get  things sorted out as usual. After a while I instinctively let go of the guitars and they all balanced together standing up like some strange wigwam and I saw how myself and Robert were already beginning to rely on each other as I contemplated this strange makeshift work of art. I then turned around and hundreds of people were walking towards me coming off trains in the busy early morning station. I looked at all the faces as they came towards me. They were not the faces you see in magazines or the photographs young people put up of themselves on social network sites. It was normal people with their so called imperfections and I noticed it. I saw that everyone of those people was carrying a weight on their shoulders and seemed in someway slightly uncomfortable with themselves and I knew that feeling well, and I saw that everyone was afraid and a little ashamed and I knew that feeling too. I was thinking about this and then suddenly something happened and it switched and I saw how beautiful everyone was and how wrong they were about themselves and how the world we have created somehow seems to bring us all down and how unnecessary it all is. I was suddenly filled with so much love for every one of those people and I felt joy pouring through every cell in my body. I wanted to shout out and tell everyone how beautiful they were and that that I loved them all so much. I really wanted to shout it out. It was an incredible rush of power. I stood basking in the hustle and bustle of that station. I was Free. Truly Free in that moment.  I felt I was deeply connected to everyone I could see and everyone in the whole world. I don't know how long it lasted with that intensity but it was truly truly amazing. Eventually Robert came along and said.. ' Come on brother get a move on we've got to get to platform 13 in a couple of minutes mate, Come on ! ' I followed on behind him as happy as I have ever been. 

We often played in record shops in the daytime and that was quite a meditative experience. There was usually no-one there except the owners who were always guys in their fifties and sixties with long straggly hair. On the walls were faded pictures of The Beatles and The Stones and framed pictures of Elvis with dust all over them. Ray Davies with a crease down one side of his face. Kurt Cobain on the street staring out of his smacked out eyes with his roots showing. Jimmy Hendrix in a series of multi-coloured Andy Warhol type posters which turn him into a kind of Hindu icon. It was almost a religious flavour you got entering these shops and lots of these places really were like old churches or antique shops in the sense that they had that silence which comes from a place being open to the public and yet virtually unoccupied for long periods of time. A sad and beautiful  sense of the faded glory of bygone times infused into the walls and the furnishings. A pride about the place that still tries to raise it's head and tower over you as you enter and yet secretly you both now know its time is over. You feel compassion and love for it rather than awe, and the sense of awe you do feel is because it is gone and yet it was once so powerful. You don't really even want to be heard thinking just in case you upset the God that you still love and revere so much. You feel almost angry at how great things have been in comparison to today. Today just seems so gaudy and desperate for attention. The guys who ran these shops were always really lovely people but they were more like collectors of records rather than people who actually sold anything. When you met them their eyes seemed to lead you down a corridor that you knew you should not go down.  They served a God who had it seemed had 'left the building' and this time for good. Boxes and boxes of old vinyl and c.d's. gathering dust were all that was left. Occasionally some quiet person would come in as we played but they didn't really seem interested in music that was happening now. I never saw anyone buy anything. I wondered how these guys who ran the shops ever made a living and I'm sure these places were more like a strange ritualistic duty for them. The old God still somehow owned them. Outside thousands of people poured in and out of the same old shops we all know so well in all our city centres but these record shops we played in were empty. OK more people buy their music online now of course but I got to feeling it was more than that.    I got to feeling after playing in a few of these places all covered in pictures of dead mythical rock star archetypes that in some way Rock n Roll is dying. Maybe it's already dead. The icons on the posters will probably live on in some way but I don't think there will really be many more. We don't need them anymore because the ones we've already got have become archetypes in our collective unconscious and there's no more room for any more. I mean who needs another Jim Morrison when you've got Jim Morrison...... immortal on a poster like the God Pan or is it Dionysus. For me it feels like freedom to know it's all over but that it still swims on in me because it went in my bloodstream when I was a boy. I don't mind and I can accept it and still be happy to keep playing my songs till I die myself. Anyway I've been intuitively tapping into even older traditions in my music for a long time now and will continue to believe and trust in whatever way the muse takes me forever.      

The concerts on the circuit continued to get better and better in the sense that I felt my playing and singing were improving each time I played and I realised that I really really really Love playing live. There was a real sense of belonging in the world for me when I was on this tour. Then sadly in Gottingen I caught the flu and had to miss the last six days of the tour. I lay in bed and watched a box set of videos about Vincent Van Gogh and then flew home on February 6th. I'm going back though as Heiko has already invited me for more gigs in Germany. There were some beautiful people I met called Laurens and Wouter who are bringing me to The Netherlands. Also  I have also made contacts on facebook with people from Bulgaria, Russia, Italy and Portugal who have all said they will try and set me up some gigs. A new time has begun for me because of the internet and because people are able to contact me so easily and set gigs up for me in other countries. I'm so happy and excited about this.  Next time I will write more about this and about my adventures in beautiful Malta....... coming soon on this website.




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