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.

My week of discoveries

Well well...my posts on the blog have been scarce in the last period or so...First i was travelling to Australia, so i had little time to update the blog. When you travel you do not have much time and much chance to get online...no matter how much you try to stick to it!
I have been now back in Amsterdam for 3 weeks and I have been in the process of " getting over my jet lag, moving all my stuff into boxes, moving out of my old place, finding a new place and  rehearsing for my band's upcoming gig THIS SATURDAY (check link for event and COME JOIN and CHEER). "
Plus lots of things are cooking, including more travelling...because i really cannot get enough.
Then, as if I was not busy enough and in full change of life...last week i got the flu so i was literally in bed for 5 full days and I am still slowly recovering.
So for the past week i have been taking care of my health, using natural remedies and some ayurvedic recipes. I am staying at this friend of mine who is studying Ayurveda at the moment and therefore she was preparing some ayurvedic dinners,syrups and herb teas for me.
Two things i will never forget how powerfully healthy and incredibly common: garlic and onion.
Then I had lots of eucaliptus tea and honey.
My 2013 in general has started healthy. I have not made any New Year's resolutions but I just did...actions!
I quit smoking cigarettes ( already i was only a seldom smoker, bad habit i got 4years ago by living with my ex-boyfriend, never before had I smoked!), i started a routine of daily running ( until i got sick last week...so I have not stopped until I' am fully recovered) and started to meditate daily again, even if just 10minutes.
I plan on increasing the time spent on meditating. I feel so many benefits.