sorry for not writing during christmas holidays. too much food, too many appointments…;)
theres nothing I could write about lately so I thought I’d give you a list of songs I run on my ipod these days.
1. hitsville UK - the clash
2. sunflower - paul weller
3. where the heart is - prefab sprout
4. hate to say I told you so - the hives
5. tell the boys hello - extra
6. my sarah - thin lizzy
7. marcia baila - les rita mitsouko
8. highwayman - jimmy webb
Have a fantastic year 2008 you all!!!
Fatah leader Abbas said that its his goal to collect 5.6 billion US$ for the period of 2008-10 at the ‘donors’ conference in Paris.
On townhall.com I read:
Using the best population estimate of 1.35 million Palestinians on the West Bank, this comes to a staggering amount of money: per capita, over $1,400 per year, or about what an Egyptian earns annually.
In an accurate comment on german news program “tagesthemen” yesterday night a journalist stated that in 2007 a total amount of approximately 2,000 qassam rockets had been fired from Gazastrip onto israelian territory. He suggested to the Palestianan Authority to save that money and rather spend it on infrastructure, med-care or food.
There’s another point I read about on german blog lizas welt: all arab countries, which never get tired in showing their anger towards Israel (if they speak of ‘Israel’ as a country at all) and compassion for the Palestinian people, step back when it comes to showing solidarity to the people of Palestine in terms of financial support.
Saudi-Arabia, one of the richest neighbours, spent only 86 million US$ in 2007 to subsidize Palestinian Authorities. Other arab countries donate less or nothing at all. The Oil price increased since 2002 and the Gulf states (Bahrain, Saudi-Arabia, Kathar, UAE, Kuweit and Oman) will make a total of 400 Billion US$ this year. Why is it not possible for these countries to support Palestine Authorities the way the EU and the USA do, moneywise? Talk is cheap…
If I would be president of the Palestine Authority, having 5.6 Billion a year, I would make peace with Israel, buy all Hamas supporters a one way ticket to Iran, build a couple of five-star hotels and start a new project: “Come to the Palestine Riviera! - the last undiscovered resort at the mediterranean sea.”
But I fear that it’ll rather been spend on TV programs like this:
cheers!
Years ago I had a trip on a train and a guy suffering from the tourette syndrom was sitting pretty close to me.
I couldnt see him, but I could hear him swearing from time to time. I have to say, I really pity the guy and all but it was everything but an uninteresting train ride.
I didnt learn too many new curse words, though. It was pretty much the usual stuff. We germans are boring, I guess.
Since I dont have too much to write today I show you a funny scene from “curb your enthusiasm” that deals with that problem.
Have you recognized Michael York?
Julia recently sent me 3 new songs she wrote and produced at her little studio in LA.
Well, two were actually old compositions she wrote when we both still went to school. The new one is a very uplifting easy-goin’ song in the fashion of “shoulder to lean on” and features a rocking guitar and bacharach-like trumpet lines, both played by Probyn.
I can’t wait to lay down the bass guitar and work around these wonderful tunes.
By chance it happened that I found various live-recordings of the Groundlings, a Los Angeles based improvisational comedy troupe on Youtube. Go and see it - impeccable stuff! Barbara and me had the chance to see a live show last year, that was so much fun.
Probyn used to play guitar in the Groundling’s band. Now a friend of him, Will, plays this part. That very night after the show it turned out that Wills cousin is married to ex german team manager Juergen Klinsmann.
Have fun with this one:
Yes, really, nothing big happened the last week. Its getting cold here in Germany and I am happy to sit here in our living room with the heating on, writing this.
Before I’ll go to work at the music school I will try to solve level 11 on P.N.03, the game I am playing these days. On sunday, Barbara and me plus our friend Coskun played Mario Party, that was fun:-)
Today I will work with a group of youngsters on some rock songs. The kids are around 10 years old, I started working with them a year ago. At that time they had little to none experience with musical instruments. I will try to teach’em how to play ’satisfaction’ by the Rolling Stones since I think its a song thats easy to play. I’ll try to make up some funny german lyrics:)
I started reading Marks new script and found it very entertaining. Its like you really like to know who’s doing what next and why people behave like they do. I guess Mark will need some money to get this movie done, this time.
Latest news on Matutinal Reverie: Mark plays with the idea to give the whole movie a new title. I dunno what to think about this, since I got used to the title over the past 1 1/2 years.
I’ve spent the weekend in Berlin, meeting our friends from L.A. - Anita and Jim. Barbara had an appointment with a danish couple who runs a fashion showroom.
At one night, we met Jims friend Michael, who is a graphic designer and a Berlin resident since before the days the wall came down.
The location we hung out was an italian restaurant with anti-capitalistic graffitis and a huge pic of Che Guevara on the wall that almost made me turn around in order to leave this place immediatly in disgust. Anyway, it later turned out that the place wasnt anti-capitalismn at all since there was a large variety of pizzas with different prices and the very friendly waiter accepted our tip with a happy smile on his face.
Later at night we learned that Michael was responsible for loads of album covers of metal bands like Halloween, Celtic Frost or Creator.
He told us funny stories of label meetings, where both Band and A&Rs spoke about their ideas on a new cover artwork. There was the spirit of Spinal Tab hanging over our table.
The whole weekend was packed wih appointments and things to do that we almost missed our train back. Its a little sad that there wasnt any time to visit some other people I happened to know who live in our capital. Maybe next time?
Yo Folks,
its been a while, I know. I’ve been pretty lazy lately, lets not beat around the bush.
I will try to write into this very blog every bloody tuesday I promise!
I know that some people really read this stuff, although I hardly get any responses to my writing, at least not in this blog. (Hey folks, don’t email me or tell me on a party, its this blog I’d like to use!)
As much as Riviera is concerned, there’s no big news right now. Songs have been recorded, I still mix a little here and there (although friends told me to stop) and it feels like new songs should be recorded soon.
My girlfriend Barbara opened a fashion store which looks so neat I could cry.
At the opening I played along with my friends from early autumn break and our guests from L.A. - Extra. That was a lot of fun! Go and check the blog on Extra’s myspace site to see some pictures. You can watch a 2 min. Movie on the Riviera myspace site if you like.
We played a mixed set, plus two cover versions (me and my arrow - Harry Nilsson/ Cinammon Girl - Neil Young)
I finally oploaded four tracks that belong to the Matutinal Reverie soundtrack I composed together with my friend Jörg Lengersdorf. You can check it out here. Please feel free to add us to your list of friends in case you have a myspace account yourself. Overall we produced about 12 songs or so, maybe I’ll replace these four by some new stuff later. Its too bad, but its only 4 songs at a time.
Yesterday VfB Stuttgart won the german Bundesliga title. Its the first team with a portugese captain (Meira) and mexican players (Osorio, Pardo) to win this title. Next saturday they can also win the DFB-Cup and call it a double.
Julia will arrive in Germany on the 8th of June and it looks like we will play a show in Dusseldorf at the 4th of July:) Isnt that funny?
I remember last years 4th of July: we were all sitting on the tar roof of Wendy’s and Jim’s house at the outskirts of L.A. watching the fireworks from the nearby Highschool, still mourning about the result of the semifinal against Italy at the same day. Wendy and Jim are close friends of Julia and Probyn - Jim is Australian, so he could share our pain. (Australian got kicked out of the WC by Italy as well)
That helped a lot:)
not that they continuely speak about erasing Israel off the map, kidnapping british soldiers and going for nuclear weapons. At the same time Iran targets its own population.
check this out:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/avdb/news/world/video/91000/nb/91557_16×9_nb.ram
and this:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/29/iranian.haricuts.reut/
this is spooky…
Wow, the weather is awesome these days, its around 24-30 C since a week or so. the forecast says that these weather conditions wont chance before tuesday!
another great news is that we’ve just returned a signed contract with chilimusic/t-entertainment that makes it possible for them to release our latest album “us, together, now!” on the territory of korea. an official anouncement will follow:)
for those who dont live in asia: when you google our latest albums, you will by chance find a copy of it somewhere on ebay hongkong for a very fair price. I recently found a sealed copy of “wake up wonderland” on ebay.hk for around 9 € (+4 € shipping costs)!
