Berlin life, i've been two months here

Ola!
A post before the end of the year, this was necessary. Amidst all my delays this year I should direct my intention more to write consistently and regularly instead of scattered in periods.
But I don't know how active you reader are on the social media, but I am active in twitter/facebook/reverbnation/blogger/myspace/soundcloud/bandcamp and lots of others and that takes so much time!
It approximates to 5hours a week...so this is the hard truth. If you want to reach high you have to work hard. And in the music business this means even harder actually.
In these two months here in Berlin, I have indeed played live and met a lot of musicians. This is just the beginning,because I can see there are many more places where music is made that I have visited so I know the next few months are going to be full of happy surprises.
So, after moving here just before Halloween and quickly found a very very sweet room, which looks like a Barbie room I started to work as a volunteer for the Berlin Music Video Awards, which is a cool event that will take place in May. Through the meetings I met there a very nice group of people and we hang out also out of the meetings.
So yesterday for example I worked in the recording studio of Lunakid, on 4new songs ( In Italian) that I will present in the next few months to record labels but that I have already performed live.

I am very happy of how my songwriting has evolved in this 2013 and how lately I have managed more to make lyrics in my native language Italian, as well as express myself by singing more in Italian. The language you sing in, changes the atmosphere, changes the flavour of the song. No matter how exactly the same the words pronounced are, the sounds of a language and the way the voice comes out makes a different aroma. 
I love that. It is my fascination with languages, sound and music together.
And this last year 2013, started for me in Australia, with a swim at 2am Byron Bay time in New South Wales in the ocean, at the bottom of the world, thousands and thousands of airmiles from
where I was born. In 2013 I made one of my dreams come true: smell a gum-tree leaf while standing on australian soil. I did it. Then I challenged myself by leaving for another unknown continent to me: Asia. Travelling by myself for 5months and staying, volunteering and growing, for 3 months in the North of Thailand, in the town of Chiang Rai. A special place, because it's called " the golden triangle" for its position, a triangle between Thailand, Burma and Laos. A place which was famous for  opium trafficking and drug smuggling. Tropical weather for 5 months, sweet spicy Asian food for 5 months, looking like a foreigner no matter how local you want to sound for 5 months, meeting hundred of travellers and smart people from all over the world for 5 months.
I am a different person, I have played, improvised,cried, opened up, listened with love, cherished, hugged people that from strangers and citizens of parts of the world to me unknown, have become friends, like brothers and sisters. I feel different, i can welcome people even when we don't agree.
I see the value and worth in every leaf of the nature, a meaning in every tear of a kid, even the hurt and pain of others, I do feel it very strongly, but I let go realizing it too will pass and just leave a lesson to all of us, that will enrich us.

In 2013 I have finally realized how me and my songs could be of great service and use to the world, for its betterment, for our goodness, for real peace.
And I'm optimist, that this 2014 will bring betterment for everyone in the world, because I meet more and more loving persons and i feel this is the direction we are going!

WELCOME and HAPPY 2014!!!!

What I left

5 weeks ago I moved to Berlin, leaving my old friends, my dog and the town i had called home for the past 3 years: Amsterdam.

And i left behind things that i don't need anymore, because i am downsizing and appreciating more and more living life with LESS and MORE space.
In a charming neighbourhood in the south east of Amsterdam, i discovered some time ago this:

A shelf organized on the wall of a block of apartments, on the sidewalk.
A shelf for every one to donate or bring home.
Imagine my surprise when cycling one day i found this little " treasure" and i left a lot of things behind: cds ( YES BOUGHT CDs ...there was a time) that i used to listen to, pencils that coloured my agendas, some clothes, some art books that are enriching some one else's life with beauty.
Then i packed all the rest, took my car and came to Berlin:

Berlin has got lots of cool things, abandoned buildings, huge green parks, vast lakes and...lots of music venues and events.
I immediately jumped into the open stage on Thursday night at KUSSKUSS ( meaning: kiss kiss) in Nogatstrasse and loved the cosy small stage with custom built arena style seats:

So in the next few weeks i plan to explore Berlin more and more, I know i will stay here until end of April 2014 for sure because of the project i have started to collaborate with the BERLIN MUSIC VIDEO AWARDS and it is such a cool project! Soon i'll post about it so you know too!

What i learnt from South-East Asia

I learnt that a smile is a better tool for navigation than a map.

And that you don't need to achieve something to enjoy the feeling of happiness.

I learnt to stop thinking about doing but just jump in the moment and do it.

I learnt to stop and just enjoy the landscape around.

RE- Discoveries: meditation

Also said: re-discovery. My blog posts are seriously challenged at the moment since my pc seems to be infected by a virus and my permanent internet connection is down....
So i'll speak quickly and with images:

(>>>>delicious fruit longan)
Those are instances from my vipassana meditation silent retreat for 9 days in Chiang Mai, Thailand, a few weeks ago.

My weeks of.....I'm the queen of blog delays!

I realized lately  my blog posts always start with mentioning that i haven’t written for a while…and this was, seriously going to start with the same…with the difference that I have made a record this time…. 6 Weeks without a post….! I can be crowned the queen of bad blog administration….or of blog delays...
If you follow my twitter account www.twitter.com/debbje or facebook page www.facebook.com/deborahdinauta ( that I do update more frequently….lol!) you would know that I spent some time in a recording studio in Chiang Mai and recorded a cd with 4 of my original songs, just me playing my guitar and singing. I have chosen 4 tracks for the cd: Not afraid, Children of the sun, Raise your love and “Hundred things”. Being a perfectionist I  took my time before I was satisfied of the final result…but the experience of recording in a studio for the first time was not only super exciting( I was there, I was really doing it!>> that’s what I was thinking) but also a very important learning experience. 

Before entering the studio in fact I spent 9days in a monastery, learning and practicing vipassana meditation, and one of the rules we had to attend to was: no music, no sound, no instruments, no mp3 players, no computers…nothing except meditating ( not even talking!).
( I am going to talk about my meditation retreat experience in the next blog post)
So these 9days of no-practice really had an impact on my preparation while in the studio….or I should say not-proper-preparation because I had to record the tracks many more times than I thought I would, before getting the accurate playing and singing. As a musician, ( lesson learnt) you cannot really afford long breaks in order to keep a good level of quality in your music.
For the cd that I have produced therefore, mastered and ready to be packed in nice sleeves, I have different plans. One is to use it as a demo to send to music publishers all over the planet, starting with Europe first, secondly I plan to sell it while busking/performing in the next few months and I am evaluating if I want to sell it online maybe on itunes.

My week of discoveries, on the go, My new life!

It's been more than a month since my last post but  i have not stopped once to do something, live or make music.
I have spent june at New Life Foundation in Chiang Rai until June 27th and then I have started to travel in South East Asia, starting from the North of Laos and I am now in the South of Laos, in a charming island called Don Det.
I wrote an a amazing new song just the day before my departure from New Life, the song is called "I am out of here"and it kind of summarizes my discoveries about the world/life and myself of the nearly 3months i spent at the foundation.

>>Me and Ashton in the making of "I am out of here"

I feel really blessed, lucky and grateful for the life that I am leading at the moment. Being able to see so much of the world, meet so many new personalities and see the world also from their eyes.
It is so true that in this world we are millions of people and these millions of people they all have different ways to live, and there is NOT one fixed, righteous way. This is one of the endless beauties of this planet, there is no fixed rule.
This is one of the biggest change that I have seen happened in me: months ago, before going to the New Life Foundation, the simple fact that there was not a fixed rule to follow in the world, seemed chaos to me, seemed imperfection, seemed WRONG in itself, was making me unhappy and unsure.
Now, the same thing, the fact that the world is made of so many different opinions, ideas, rules that there is no OBJECTIVITY, makes the world a fascinating creature in itself and the journey to discover it amusing,exciting and challenging. Welcome to my NEW LIFE!

My weeks of discoveries: jam sessions by the pool and photoshoot for album/website

Life continues in the North of Thailand where i have been for the past 2months.
New songs have seen the light here and last week i completed a new super cool song, for which really i am undecided on the name ( i struggle to find interesting titles for my songs)but which has 3different parts and a kind of MUSE-ish chorus, which was really what i wanted to do, creating a kind of Muse song, full of pathos and triumphant.
Also i have started to work on a song, whose chorus only i had made while in Brisbane, Australia, waiting for a bus at the bus station. The chorus idea was very catchy but i had no idea on how to develop the song itself or how the verses could be. So the melody of the chorus has been buzzing around my head from time to time for the past 5months, until last week, i picked it up and played it on the guitar and i am starting to figure out the rest...the title for this song may be easy to find instead, it may actually be "it seems to have gone away".
Many things here in Thailand have increased my creativity level: the mindfulness and meditation training of New Life Foundation has given me more energy, meeting other talented musicians, like Sinead from London

( here in the picture of one of the jam sessions i organized at the pool) and hearing many emotional stories from people around the world, and feeling more than ever connected to other's suffering or happiness and life. We are all one, so connected, connected because we have the same human nature, even if we try to cover it up with lots of things, we do come from the same place, go through the same issues/struggles and go towards the same place.
It is often so easy to feel isolated, our own ego make us feel different and really think the others do not know how hard certain things are for us, but it is all an illusion of our mind, we do are so much closer than we have ever realized.
The clarity given by meditation and mindfulness made me take the decision to record a debut album here in Asia, which i'll do in the next couple of months, while i am investigating on where the best place to do that will be. I am quite excited by the whole thing, i have now 16songs i can perform on guitar but i'll only choose the best 7 for the album.
Last week i was very lucky to have the help of a good photographer, guest of New Life, Mukhia from Nepal. We took 70 pictures in a great setting perfect for the concept of album and the atmosphere i want to give and i can't wait to see the final results.

My weeks of discoveries, biodanza and Koh Chang

I am struggling at the moment to keep the blog up-to-date with regularity because I am really spending most of my time just living in the present, meditating and keeping my eyes open to see and experience all that life is giving me at the moment.
Finding reliable internet is sometimes time-consuming also.
I am spending a few days in the wonderful tropical island of the Elephant, called Koh Chang, 5 hours drive and 50minutes ferry from Bangkok.
I was pleasantly surprised to see wild monkey near the hut that i rented, and for 15minutes i couldn't help but staring at them,in total love and amazement. Those little hands catching coconuts and their movements while eating, so human-like. Their ability at balancing on branches and letting themself fall down or pull up the lyaenas.
But exciting 2 weeks ago was our session of biodanza and dance mandala at New Life Foundation, an experience in letting go of emotions and using the music and dance as healing power.
One of my favourite exercises/dance was one where you stand on one leg and use one hand to create what you want ( left hand) and with the right you cut away what you don't want. So you use the right hand as a sword and at the same time you scream "ah ah"and you increase the rhythm and screams.
I loved it, and felt very relieved and happy after i did it.
In general I certainly went out of my comfort zone since many parts of the dancing required quite close contact or eye-contact with people. I loved dancing barefeet, it is so much me!
And this is us at New Life Foundation, moving to the sound during our Sunday morning biodanza which also meant: drinking circa 3 litres of water....so hot and humid!>>>>

My week of discoveries:Jam sessions,impermanence and new songs

It has been a hectic two weeks here at New Life Foundation in Chiang Rai, Thailand. I have been working so much on self development, through daily mindfulness, yoga and meditation and i feel i am doing huge discoveries on myself, there is so much we are not aware of about ourselves.
So much we hide even to ourselves or we have never been used to admit or never been allowed.
In the past 2 weeks a few people i really liked, volunteers or residents here have left for their next adventure, most of them still travelling in South Asia. The atmosphere here is strange because you feel like being back at school and also at the same time on a school trip...you meet at daily community work, then at breakfast, lunch and dinner, then we have workshops where we speak about ourselves and really talk in depth about emotions, feelings, situations.
We are literally people from all over the world,lots of English people and Americans,some from other countries but i have never ever felt so close and so much alike. It almost brings tears to my eyes because when you let your prejudices fall and really listen and ask people you find that under the conventions of the society they come from or the habits given by the environment where they were raised or live, we are really the same and we CAN understand each other truly deeply.
Here at NLF we talk daily about the impermanence of things/situations and how that affects our sufferings because human beings tend to attach and not want change which is the normal process of life itself. So the fact that you meet and like people here and after a while you have to part from them is a lesson on impermanence in itself and make you constantly have to check how you feel inside, it makes you ground on yourself.
While processing all these thoughts, listening to people, asking them opinions about my issues and meditating i have had lots of inspiration for new music and i have finished writing one song called "Been a while"and another one called "Wake up in the morning". The first one talks about deepest moments of sadness, so deep that you do not feel a link with the outside world, so close you feel in yourself, but the chorus sparks the seed for change into happiness.
The song "Wake up in the morning"is a good hymn to making every day a new day, realizing every day is a precious gift and that everyday you are born again and have endless chances.
I particularly feel connected to these 2 songs.
I have also organized jam sessions every week end, and given "concerts"here at the Foundation receiving much appreciation from everybody.
The following is a picture of a jam session last Friday in a club in the centre of Chiang Rai.>>>

My week of discoveries, Music books and others

Lately i have been investing most of my time in myself, and one of the things i am taking my time to do is reading. While living in my friends living rooms or spare guest rooms for the past 3months
( before my departure to Thailand in end March) i learnt so much from them, from their way of living and got cool tips or had the chance to be introduced for example to Ayurvedic cooking, since one of my good friends in Amsterdam is studying that. ( Really worth getting deeper into it, what is better for an Italian than recipes that are both tasty and have medical properties? I have in my mind a fantastic dish with only plain rice, lime juice and cinnamon, so simple but yet so delicious and i was quite surprised by the way cinnamon and lime combine gracefully in the mouth)
So inspired by her i also made strange and colourful food combinations like this one >>>

While living with my friend Charlie, who plays guitar in my band in Amsterdam, he lent me his book "Summer of Love"by George Martin. The book is  centered around the Beatles and the production of the album "Sgt Pepper Lonely Heart's Club": how they made each song, which ideas where behind it, all their musical research, new instruments they used ( even the toilet paper of their recording studio, considered "too hard for the conventional use"was used by John Lennon in one song!), That book was so inspiring, absolutely eye-opening on the world of songwriting.
But it also gave me hunger for more music books, to read more about other musicians stories, biographies, mindsets....So  after that, i wanted more...and by chance the next book to read came to me. One Thursday i read on twitter of this Dutch band presenting their debut album in the music shop Concerto in Amsterdam. It was just the Thursday before my flight to Thailand and i arrived to late for the concert, while i cycled under the snowflakes ( yes it was still snowing) so i reached the place and the concert was over....but i then had time on my hands to check the place out, which i had not done yet and there, the book called me from the shelf, so i bought it, right when i wanted one, and right before my departure. I am reading it now: the biography of the Rolling Stones, which is quite a thick book and actually it is too much focused on their "sex, drugs"life and too little on "rock n'roll"and songwriting for my taste, but still i plan to continue to read it until the end.
And then since i have landed at the New Life community centre in Thailand, i have taken advantage of their library of self development and buddhism books and i have just finished "How things exist"by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, which i admit, was a bit too hard for me to really grasp much of the buddhist philosophy it deals with....

My week of discoveries, in Thailand

It has been 9days since my arrival on Thai soil and the experiences and people met have been already amazing.
Seeing a small crocodile swimming next to the boat that was bringing me on a temple tour in Ayutthaya was unexpected but not scary and the locals did not seem bothered by it ( even kids were swimming just 50metres from the croc).
I tried all types of tasty food from local stands and finally for the first time in my life drank young coconut juice. I can't complain at all about the high temperatures, even if we reached 44degrees and i had to learn all the ways to keep my body hydrated and not fainting, i do not miss the cold snowy weather that i left in Amsterdam on the day of my departure.
Last Thursday night i landed in the North of Thailand, near the town of Chiang Rai, at the New Life Foundation where i'll be spending 4 weeks. I'll write more about this place in my next post, but it is an incredible place which has given me already a lot in these few days!
I can't wait to see how much better i'll feel going on, here and how i'll feel when i'll leave this place.
The last 3days i had a great chance at songwriting thanks to Simon, one of the guests here, who is also a songwriter and living in London. He had a task for this week, to write a flow of consciousness by making a song and i offered to back him up with my guitar.
It was a big learning experience for me, to be just backing up and listening and working on some one else's song, and it was so interesting to see his style of songwriting, which to my ears was really "British" because it did remind me of the style of British songwriters. I think the British have a talent for inventing catchy melodies, kind of stories in melody and having several catchy melodies in one song, kind of switching and surprising you by totally changing the pace of the song. If that makes sense to you, i cannot explain more clearly than this what i mean.
So we performed his song today at the 8am morning meeting in front of the other guests and they were so enthousiastic that we were asked to play again while they would be filming.
The video will go on the NEW LIFE FOUNDATION official blog and i'll put a link here.
Following are some pictures of the New Life Foundation.

My week of discoveries, Project one picture a day

I landed in Bangkok on Saturday afternoon and i am enjoying this wonderful country and the very hot weather(touching 44degrees celsius!).
I had started thus also a project on twitter called #onepictureaday but for some reason, twitter does not always let me upload...so i have decided to upload here the pictures of the last three days!
And later this week i will write a long post on my experience in wonderful Thailand.

 >

>>>So much new food to discover in Thailand...what is this stuff? still have not tasted it!

Long journey- My week of discoveries

I write this post from Ayutthaya, the ancient capital of Thailand where I am since yesterday.
My final destination is a place called Chiang Rai, where I'll spend 5weeks in a special centre dedicated to meditation/yoga and mindfulness.
I have much to say and i don't know where to start.
Yes first: I love the sun, i love the heat! Going from a snowy Amsterdam with 2degrees Celsius on Friday to this 33degrees Celsius, and incredible heat is quite overwhelming for the body but i still prefer to be sweating than to be freezing. It is just this thing that SUN makes me smile, makes me feel in a good mood, healthy, full of life.Maybe it is more contact with the environment around, the wind, the sun they all touch one's skin more, with less clothes on. Same thing for walking with open shoes or flip-flops, you feel a better contact with the ground.
So i have started the project of "one picture a day"on my twitter and have uploaded the first picture
(today indeed).
Thai people inspire me for their easiness and joy, they smile often, they laugh and joke often.
Even if they don't speak so good English, they manage to communicate and make you understand and understand quite well what you are saying.
And I finally tried that fresh coconut juice today, aaah delicious!

Myspace please change? ( My week of discoveries)

So the neverending story with myspace, they do not change the website and it is heavy. heavy to navigate. And they have a very ANNOYING PLAYLIST SYSTEM, because even if you select your music, once your selection ends,one of their random tracks start playing and believe me some STAFF out there is not NICE to the ear.Or maybe it is the way the sound is processed...it does not equalize...
i do not know and frankly i have to investigate and give serious feedback to myspace, because i try to be on the site the LEAST possible because of the ANNOYING random playing of that STAFF. Ok sorry i stop the ranting.
But i was on myspace to check the website of this lovely singer songwriter that i spoke about last week from somewhere in Australia and touring Amsterdam. I went to the intimate concert a few days ago....she made a kind of partnership with the company BMO which sounds like a record company but it stands for Blue Mountains Originals which is a brand of shoes and boots originary of the Blue Mountains Region in Australia. This is an interesting form of advertisement, where music and other products meet. The company BMO had sponsored the venue for the launch of her debut album, a cosy place with pianobar in downtown Amsterdam.
This is a picture of last Tuesday at the concert of Coby Grant.

Castor Oil,( my week of discoveries)

Since I have discovered the website of the Australian radio TripleJ dedicated to emerging artists from OZ, their website is a bookmark that gets clicked at least once a week and listen to their new charts and often comment and rate when i find something worth saying good things about or also advices...
Then there is my weekly check of the world of Couchsurfing to find there also pearls of indie-everything from news, to artists, to things to do and way of life.
So the band from Western Au. #Needingcherie deserves some attention. I twitted them. I played them a lot and their sound is quite unique. Makes me think of those blue and red parrots that i saw flying on my head while i was trekking to a waterfall in New South Wales, just 2 months ago...

>>>That's me indeed at THAT waterfall. But i can't find a picture of the bird and i have now realized for the first time i don't have those pictures.

And tonight i go to the concert( i am actually on the guestlist) of a singer,songwriter from Perth named COBY Grant and i am quite excited. She was advertising her show on couchsurfing and i felt connected to her, as she is doing in reverse what i want to do. Go to the other side of the world and with a small budget do a promotion tour of my music.
So tonight i go to see her play live.
The castor oil is the oil i bought to repair my skin from really shitty cold weather in Amsterdam, which i got just this morning, on a cold rainy day at 10am near the canals...and i did not have gloves on.Castor oil is really soothing and well....musicians don't just live of music.But also of cakes...as i write this i am enjoying the nice chocolate cake that a friend of mine baked for my return at her place after my 10days in Copenhagen...How sweet, her and the cake itself!
So i discovered today that castor oil is translated into "olio di ricino"in Italian.But "castoro"in Italian is a beever....and not the plant. In the translation world, these type of words are called "faux-amis". Castor oil, a very dense consistency, very  different from the much lighter almond oil.
BUT last week i wrote a new song, called "hundred things"and it does NOT talk at all about castor oil, or shitty weather or cakes. Nothing of that. But the song is still in process,i feel i want to add a 3part to the song and experiment in adding layers of music. I may work on it with a friend this week and the song will be born!

Inner discoveries 12.3.2013, My mind and its quest for perfection

I am living, you are living in a particular time of history: 2013. The Pope abdicated, the Dutch Queen Beatrix abdicated and this is a big thing for the Netherlands where I am living.
Their national holiday called Queensday, by decades fixated at the date of April 30, will CHANGE into Kingsday and moved to April 27.
In Italy, my home country, we had elections 20days ago and the political and economical situation is still not clear and unstable.
I wrote a new song last month called "Children of the sun"and it is a song full of hopes and positive vibes for this world.
In this period of my life, several things have changed and i have lived in a nomadic way, without a stable home for the past 3months. That has been both unsettling/stressful and also interesting as i have lived with different friends and their flatmates and that gives you and leaves you something, a trace. Everyone has different habits/uses/priorities and it is so fascinating to see these differencies...but i also end up trying to find the "right"way, and this is when i don't like the workings of my mind and i realize i want to work on my mind to be more relaxed and flexible.
But as of now, my mind is still very uncertain, trying to find rules for everything so that she is not unsecure, so that she can be sure to do the right thing all the time, without hurting others.
I realize my mind has been working like that forever, building inside of me tons of rules and expectations that i had to fulfill, making "life"in itself a static process with lots of deadlines that i had to comply with. Criticizing everything and wanting perfection in everything....wanting one only way for everything....
And all this of course, has finished for stressing me like crazy...for making my life unpleasant.
So slowly i'm going through this journey,trying to calm my mind, trying to find a new definition of life, making her understand that lots of people live happily without the same stupid rules that she/it thinks she should comply to.

Inner discoveries 02.03.13

I have been playing since October with Charlie,Dave and Sahiela, in our band called "D. and the Badhouse"and in the time of a few months we have created a really compact group with a lot of energy on stage, open communication and lot's of engagement from everybody.
I have felt really lucky to perform with them, and feel their love and enthousiasm for making music together. I have to thank them, for the 4concerts that we had had in the small amounts of time and rehearsals often until midnight.
I have loved every second of it. Every repetition of the same song again and again,
the constructive chats on how to ends or attack songs and the making setlists for the concerts while having a quick bite all together, in a cosy cafe'somewhere in the winter of Amsterdam.
The video i linked to, is our last performance, a gig a Cafe'CCmuziek in February. 
The only downpit of the place is the non-existance help in adjusting the volumes....so in both the two times we played there, we had to do sound-checks during the first 3songs of our gig, asking the public if they could hear our microphones or if some instrument was too loud. This interaction with the audience is actually quite pleasant, it creates some compliciy with the listeners and i sincerely liked that i had to do it. But it may be hard along the gig, to still have a good sound if someone is not constantly adjusting it, which may mean a complete change in the quality of the gig.
So, i would say of all the videos of the night, the performance of the video above is the one with the best sound quality and we had an awesome gig with a great atmosphere( as you can hear from the screams of the audience)  and lots of friends. A long night, ended with spaghetti with garlic at 3am and a long bike ride home at 4 am, with a heavy snow storm. Yes a real snow storm, so heavy i had to cover my eyes with one hand, because the flakes of snow were hitting me and i could barely see.
Nevertheless i could not help from cycling home, in the storm, in the cold, avoiding to slide my bike on the ice and i was realizing how lucky i am to be living this.
To be sharing with people the miracle of music.

Inner discoveries 25.02.13

Dear blog and readers, i have been writing this blog for a while, speaking about discoveries online/offline and promoting young bands and my work on Radio cicada.

 >>>Passion fruit cheese cake in Byron Bay,NSW, Australia!
Now i feel like i am ready to add to my blog a more personal side, a part about my life as songwriter.
I hope with that to get more in touch with other people, to communicate more to readers and fans about the philosophy behind making music for me.
I have noticed how hard it is to get really in contact with bands and musicians online, not because people DO NOT reply to me( or to you in general), they do reply
But the amount of data and emails is so overwhelming that we do not have the time anymore to understand much of what counts. We get sucked into lots of information and visuals and sounds.
So much we have forgotten how to stop and focus on little.
This realization in the last period of 2012 brought me to start to change my life.
I have downsized my belongings from an apartment of 80m3 to a room of 8m3. I have given away as gifts to friends books, board games, appliances. I have organized a clothes swap party and made lots of women happy with my two full bags of clothes.
The thing is, years ago, i was attached to things and i had a hard time throwing away things. I used to keep receipts, memories of days with friends, souvenirs of lots of things. In general lots of things that i thought "i may one day need"and lots of clothes that "I may one day feel like wearing again".
What i realized, is that i never had the time to actually look at those memories or souvenirs.
That many of those garments were still in the same box after 8months and i had not felt the need to wear them.
And i also realized that at a certain point, it was easy to give away things.
And that later i felt lighter, and not less. I also was surprised to find in myself a feeling of serenity and peace when seeing the reaction of people to unexpected presents.
In the last weeks i am downsizing even further, going from 18boxes of belongings, into living with only 5boxes of belongings and in 10 days i'll go down even further to 1 backpack and 2 bags because i will start travelling for some months and busking and playing gigs where I can.
In this blog part i plan on sharing my journey around the world.
I will probably pause the other parts of the blog as I will not be working for radio cicada for a while, but the blog will be very active.
So, that was a short( long) introduction...

My week of discoveries

Rose leaves and ginseng tea: warming discovery of the week....and very useful to me in these last weeks of snow in Amsterdam, here the winter does not seem to want to end...but luckily I will go somewhere very hot soon....i will tell you more in my new blog post, which will be also more personal and the beginning of a series of blog posts about my JOURNEY.

>>>Food that got my attention at the airport of Seoul, North Korea, can you guess what it is? ( hsifyllej) < read viceversa and you'll find the solution


Everyone has a journey to accomplish, a journey into life, full of experiences to make us learn things.
My journey last week made me go to the website of sellaband to check the latest bands and projects and see who to invest for,(for those of you that don't know it, sellaband.com is like an online record company, where fans/listeners can invest money in the album of an upcoming band) but i have not found anything that drove me so crazy as to invest in them.
So i checked their charts( they publish weekly charts) and gave a deep listen to several bands i had plucked within. And i listened to all the songs they were enlisting on sellaband.
The following are my humble opinions, as a music lover, a fan and someone who appreciates every form of art and as a musician( and a very critical one!but the Muse music is a perfect creation and we have to strive for beauty and justice in music!):

Lischkapelle: they do a kind of pop and folk, you can clearly hear nice ideas in their music but they need to be developed further. Like an unripen fruit also some work is needed on the vocal skills which really have potential.

Mr Oskar Schutser plays in clearly a folk style,without vocals( at least in the tracks on sellaband) his music could suit perfectly  instrumental music for movies. I see lots of gipsy influencesand most of his songs are very pleasant.

 The last,also suggested by sellaband in their newsletter disappointed my expectations...I am talking about Anne Height. The style of Anne is also pop and folk and DON'T get me wrong: there are some very nice ballads but it isn't much new or original,it is pleasant to listen though.

But an awesome discovery was the website of TripleJ Unearthed where to listen and create playlists and rate upcoming bands from all over Australia,i am addicted to the website.