2014 - Year Of The Horse

Christmas has been sort of rough. I'll admit I don't like it very much. It's nice to see the family and eat and chat a little, but on Christmas it all seems so forced. Like I'm expected to be all cheerful. Well I'm not, not all the time anyway. Full Moon in two days, and I'm not sleeping well right now. Strange and confusing dreams about the past. Who knows. I think when we're past Full Moon, it'll change. It usually does. This may sound like a negative start for a Blog, but I'm actually feeling quite good. I've felt focused and in good shape for a while, probably as a result of picking up the Aikido training again (I've let it slide in December, too much sh*t to get done). So here we are now, starting again. Take it as another chance. The things you didn't like about yourself or last year, change them if you can. 2014 is a spiritual one, and there are a lot of chances to be taken. If you recognize them. 2014 is the Year Of The Horse. 

Have you ever seen this movie? It has nothing to do with the chinese year, it's just a coincidence. It's about a tour that Neil Young & Crazy Horse did in 1996. An interesting view behind the scenes mixed up with a couple of awesome live cuts. Like A Hurricane. I recently watched it again and realized how deep into the friendship and energy these four guys share it actually goes. It's no secret I'm a big fan of their music. I've seen them in Stuttgart, Germany last year and I will see them in Ulm, Germany this year. I'm feeling quite lucky these guys are still around, as good as ever, and still on the road. My brother Patrick will join me on the way to Ulm. I'm looking forward to that, I love roadtrips and concerts. Do you? Ever travelled far to see a show?

Speaking of road trips and of my brother, in December we jumped into his car and went to Prague. We heard the mighty Black Sabbath would play the O2 Arena there, so we decided to go. When I was 15 and had just started out as a Bass Player, Sabbath were my favourite band. Geezer Butler's sound is just about as good as it gets. I learned a lot from him. Same goes for my brother, who plays the electric guitar (and damn well too, if I may say so) and Tony Iommi. One of his idols. His daughter, Toni Marie Iommi, is a singer too by the way. I talk to her now and then and she's an amazing person. Her single "Parade" is on heavy rotation in Finnland, where she lives now. Go find that on Youtube! My brother plays in a band called [HELL INC.] by the way. Check it out if you like harder metal music. No question we had to go see them. I had never been to the Czech Republic before, so I was eager to travel and see what it's like. Prague itself is an adorable city, so many wonderful buildings, it's almost dreamlike. The city has quite a vibe about it. I sort of felt set back in time a little bit, but comfortably so. Lots of hills too, the roads go up and down, up and down. It was interesting to just drive through all the parts of the city and walk through others. We did a lot of walking, which I don't mind. I like walking. There was a museum of torture hidden in the middle of prague. A small place, but once you bought tickets you'd be taken down into the huge basement where all sorts of cruel torture methods, bones and swords, stories, woodcuts and pictures were ready waiting for you. 

This is an old one, I don't know what year , but it's from an old book about the witch trials and the burnings. Makes you think about how easily all rational thinking can be pushed aside by fear, greed or other emotions. Anyway, Prague was well worth travelling there. I had good company, saw some amazing things and the Sabbath show was really good. 

I also spent a couple days before Christmas with my friend Chris to work on some music. It's more of a Gothic-Rock thing with a bunch of hard cutting guitars and synthesizers. Which is fun for me to do 'cause I've always been doing very organic music. It shows some other options. Some of them I like, some of them I would use on certain projects, not on others. Anyway, we've got about 8 songs finished. Everything recorded but the vocals. We will hopefully get around to doing that early this year, and then get some of those songs mixed and out there. I'll leave it up to Chris. We started this together, but the project is in his hands mainly. The songs will be out when he wants them out there, and that's alright with me. I'm in no hurry.

Talking about getting songs out there: My new single is called "Some Hearts" and it should be on iTunes, Amazon MP3, Spotify and all those online retailers on January 31st 2014. If you'd like to keep in touch, please look at my Facebook and Twitter pages.

It's the first taste of what I'm writing on, a simple song on acoustic guitar with a nice melody. It's also the first new song I wrote in a while, so it stands for a new beginning of sorts. By now, I've got about so many songs written which might see the light of day sometime this year. I'd record them (just acoustic guitar and vocals, mabe a little solo or mouthharp) and then think about arranging them. Some I like to just leave as they are, others might sound better with a little bass, piano or strings on them. I'll see. What I can say though is that I'm proud of the songs, I think I wrote good ones and I can't wait to finish this and maybe even travel and play live for a while. 

You've heard it in the news. You must have. We're slowly gettin' there. It's gonna be good. Less fighting, less hangovers, less accidents. More enjoying the moment, more peace, more laughing. I probably sound like an old hippie right now. Well maybe I am. 


Have a great start into the new year everyone, thanks for reading! 

Dani A.