Library Music & the KPM 1000 series

Guess I have to thank my old buddy Wolf at World In Sound for once turning me on to stuff like this -- Don't let the boring covers distract you, this is awesome stuff from the time "when music still was music" ;) You'll find some of these sounds more at youtube too. I'll set it as a life goal to at least once produce an album that sounds that perfect.

SBB - Szukaj, Burz, Buduj

SBB in the 70s - now that's my kind of prog ;)

Here's an odd thing, I never liked King Crimson and wasn't a super big Pink Floyd-fan either although I like them much more than Crimson, but one band that really struck a chord in me was this odd Polish 70s Prog group that is still active today: the Silesian Blues Band a.k.a. Szukaj, Burz, Buduj (Search, Break-up and Build) or just commonly referred as SBB. They have traits of other big British groups of the era, yet something very different which I always referred to as some sort or Slavic melancholy. Well, or maybe it's just that they sing in their mother tongue which is Polish and some of my own ancestors are from Poland too. My grand-grandma's parents spoke no word of German is what I've been told. 

So I discovered SBB sometime in the late 90s in my father's record collection. Their abstract covers may have attracted me but I listened to every LP in his collection anyways. Back then we really lived in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in the East German woods of the Harz region. Our village comprised of a total thirteen houses and I was the odd kid with long hair and doing my odd things like handcrafting a bong from a beer can and sat there in my little room in the light of one lonely green bulb and listened to this old music from the 70s. And for some reason SBB had these weird sounds that always attracted me: I thought it was a guitar (!) but much later found out that it was a Moog synthesizer that they used excessively among other popular Prog Rock-keyboards of the era like a String Orchestra drenched in lush Phaser-sounds, a Fender Rhodes etc. 

Their 1977 album "Ze Słowem Biegnę do Ciebie" would probably be among my top ten of all times, or at least top 20. I don't have lists like that but SBB are very close to my heart and for some odd reason I never really liked King Crimson at all who may be like SBB's own big influences along with John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. While SBB is that type of band that has a kind of cult following of mostly old dudes from Poland or East Germany but never really made it much further than that despite even playing shows outside the Iron Curtain. I guess it's because of the (mostly) Polish lyrics but then these make a significant difference. Well for me most of their 70s albums are real highlights along with master Józef Skrzek's solo work and parts of the album "Geira" as a backing band of pop singer Halina Frąckowiak.

Early influences: Gas Giant

Gas Giant live 2005 by Scott Heller

I'm recently (re-) discovering the GAS GIANT-discography. They kindly provide us with all their studio releases on Spotify, quite a boss move if you ask me, every band should do that somehow ... and I know not nearly no one earns much at all from that, but at least these recordings don't get lost like so many, but so many from the "early days" of Stoner/Psychedelic-rock. So many 12inches and stuff that no one has ever heard of, yet a lot of cool material. For me somehow much more interesting than what you could find on any kind of virtual 'stoner meadow' these days ;) but maybe that's just some old dude's rambling because not many of the new groups really strike a nerve in me.

Not much hits me like Gas Giant for sure, who were one of these groups that really impressed me a lot while we shared a gig with them so many moons ago in a little town in the middle of nowhere East Germany (read here). And it's actually funny how after so many concerts with so many bands with SBE, many of the bands that I kind of worshipped in my adolescent years, it's still these early memories that shine the brightest. Gas Giant, House Of Aquarius, The Hidden Hand - these shows were so special in so many ways, or am I after all experiencing what everybody does at some point in his life: moaning the lost youth? Well anyways... Gas Giant, man what an amazing band they were!

Back in 2003 while watching their soundcheck I already felt like they were completely another league. Even though from Denmark, they could have easily been among those California heroes of the 90s; Nebula, Fu Manchu, Kyuss - Gas Giant totally belongs into that realm. And it made me a bit sad to see how after their brief comeback in the mid 2010s, it seemed people had almost forgotten or still never heard of them and you found them under the little names of the few festivals they played. But ofc these days it seems more important how many social media followers you have - at times it seems all about numbers - but then how can you not acknowledge these are the kind of forefathers of a whole scene?!

Cool shot of guitarist Stefan Krey who's now playing in Magnified Eye - Scott Heller, 2005

Interesting links

http://aural-innovations.com/issues/gg.html - has even old tour diaries - it's a trip! 

https://www.facebook.com/gasgiantrock - they occasionally reunite

https://thegasgiant.bandcamp.com - you can buy some of their releases

https://www.discogs.com/es/artist/733174-Gas-Giant - has also a brief bio

SBE in OZ & NZ

In 2018 we've actually been on a world tour.

Honestly if there was one continent on this planet that I have never thought I would ever visit in my life it'd most probably been Australia, not just because it's just so far away from Central Europe but also from what I knew before (Crocodile Dundee - means close to nothing at all) it wasn't even very interesting for me tbh. Well I am sorry to say, but I thought there's basically just a kind of desert, haha, and ... Yes, how silly and wrong was I?!

So in 2017 I came in contact with this guy Anthony in Australia, sort of a friend of a friend in my Facebook, where at that time I had around one thousand "friends". Honestly, at times I really like to interact with people but soon it became more kind of a burden, especially when someone thought it would be funny trying to mess up my private life. Anyway, thanks to this friend's friend it became possible to think about playing in Australia.

And from what I can tell, the guys who had just firmed under the name YOUR MATE BOOKING seemed to take things very serious and probably even more professional than us in SBE who despite all that travelling and playing abroad in a way still were just three dudes from Weissensee - if you know what I mean. Let's just say that at some point I thought it was rather ridiculous to pretend sth I was not. A fancy dressed "rock star"-personality couldn't be farther off tracks.

Carrying this in hand-luggage wasn't the best idea. Rather annoying after few hours of sleep ...

So we got things going for SBE's first Australia tour, and I even went through some awkward nuisances ;) like making promotion videos or Skype interviews, which I don't really enjoy because I think I always look as silly as I am. SBE really could have "made it bigger" I guess if we all knew better how to "sell ourselves" - well I don't know, sometimes it bothers me, many other times not. The music business is full of wannabes anyway. In the end we could not complain.

And then this tour happened! After almost two days of plane travel I had the funniest cramps in my ass and our drummer Thomas got a little sick with his stomach but played all the shows like - well, like a professional. And to my own surprise not were almost all shows sold out but Australia and also New Zealand turned out to be quite fascinating countries with some of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. And of course after such a successful tour there were talks of repeating it, and Anthony had even come up with exciting news about adding shows in Japan, but then: 2020 happened ...

In hindsight I feel honestly blessed for having had such amazing opportunities and of course I worked for all this. I've never just sat in a corner waiting for some label guy or whoever to reach out for me. And of course it was also a matter of meeting the right person at the right time and taking chances as they presented themselves to us. There could have been more gigs but it also wasn't always easy to inspire my bandmates who had their day jobs and things going on.

My little 'Luvbug' had a bit of a heavy case as well. Not pictured is my synth bag and clothing, because boring. 

I still think that where there is a will there is always a possibility, and much to my own surprise SBE really was a popular group with gig requests from anywhere in the world. Still you gotta put things in perspective, in small scenes you can't expect that touring will always pay you a lot of money. In some cases these tours paid for travel expenses and a little extra, sometimes we spent much more than we earned at all (well, every time USA), but things have happened and wouldn't have happened if everyone insisted in earning sth. The bigger problem was time management. When you get older, especially when with kids, time becomes such a rare thing ... and then, you gotta feed 'em. 

So I have no solution for anything, but as long as music isn't valued much more than it is now in times of almost being sth that too many people get used to consume for free, it will be even more difficult to really do "crazy things" like we did. I guess. Think also that until the end, these tours have been vacation from work for two guys in our little trio, and not everyone is made to live an independent freelance life, ... although it's very much possible. It needs a lot of self-discipline and you'll have long droughts ... yet, money can't be everything.

Sometimes I could still get a bit jealous when I see how easy other bands may have it but probably it's all an illusion. There's always problems - or compromise to find - and at one time you gotta make a brave decision if you want such a life, the rock star stuff ;) Well, at least right now I have understood what I want from my "career" as a musician which is to create music in the first place. Mostly I just miss to visit some of those "exotic places", but then now I live in an exotic place ;) so I really can't complain. And really, life's there to be lived!

SBE OZ & NZ 2018

16/09/2018 Adelaide, Crown & Anchor
15/09/2018 Melbourne, The Bendigo
14/09/2018 Geelong, Barwon Club
13/09/2018 Melbourne, The Bendigo
11/09/2018 Wellington, Valhalla
10/09/2018 Auckland, Whammy Bar
09/09/2018 Sydney, Leadbelly
08/09/2018 Brisbane, Crowbar
07/09/2018 Perth, The Amplifier

SBE in Latin America

Meeting Felipe Toscano, who later founded Abraxas booking agency - Berlin, 2013

While writing this from somewhere in the middle of Brasil ;) anyone can easily imagine that the two Latin America-tours in 2017 & 2018 have been a life changing experience for me in particular. It all began after the gig in Berlin at Desertfest 2013 when after our show a more or less random fan from Brasil talked me up on the idea of playing there. While still knowing basically nothing about South America I replied sth like "Sure, just organise some gigs, provide a backline, and we'll come to play there." and we stayed in loose contact from there on. 

At that moment I had never been anywhere farther south than Italy, had not even been to Spain yet - which at that time was like "the father country" to anything South American (silly, I know - now!). So in November 2013 we went on a long tour, covering pretty much every Western European country from Norway down to Portugal and back to Germany with everything in between, pretty much the whole month of November and I got horribly sick from sth that I ate while the first time in Spain. Until this day not sure what that was, and in my head I really kind of build up a sort of paranoia towards Southern countries. And, I know how silly this may sound.

So no joke and no exaggeration, suddenly I was really sort of afraid of going to South America - while anyways after that Nov 2013-tour the Samsara-band had almost fallen apart. It was a very stressful experience for all of us to say the least. This was the time when the band was really more about discussing internal things than making any music at all. Subsequently our bass player Richard left, basically because he wanted to pursue his career as a sound guy and travel North America with another band. 

But back to topic ... Sometime in 2016 that guy from Brasil, Felipe Toscano, had build up a respectable booking organisation under the name Abraxas, not just in Brasil but many other Latin American countries. Remember three years before he really was just a random fan like every other, suddenly he had brought quite a few international bands there and build up an impressive network. Everyone there wore his company shirts with pride, everyone spoke about him as "a great friend". Very impressive, I have to say. 

But then of course things in South America work very different than in Europe or anywhere else. So after all my hesitation, and also because I saw that this had worked for other bands in the meantime, we started to seriously talk again in 2016 and put this first South America tour together. From our first gig in Santiago de Chile we all could see how special this was. There was not a lot of money involved for us to earn, it was basically just paying the transportation costs but then that's really not what matters.

Before the gig in Sao Paulo 2017 - some of the venues were impressive too, to say the least.

We played a full house in Santiago and people seemed to know every line of every song, singing (!) even the guitar riffs ... Complete 'insanity', in a good sense. And most of the rest of this first South America was very similar. A highlight of all these highlights was also the show in Belo Horizonte, after which I met my future wife and now am even living here on this 'crazy' continent. On a funny side mark: Before our first tour I took any possible vaccination and bought medicine for around 80 EURO just to be sure not to get any illness while - pretty much nothing - of that was necessary at all.

So this first South America tour in my opinion was nothing but a big success, not much in a monetarily sense, but I came back to Berlin a different person, listened to Tim Maia and Secos & Molhados every day, having Caipirinhas pretty much every evening, and suddenly really seemed to have understood that there is a lot more in life than just being successful in your kind of job. I have to say I guess I have a tendency to be a workaholic and never really learned to relax, or even just do nothing for some hours.

And then of course I wanted to return to South America as soon as possible ... for someone who lives in any Central European city, just try to imagine that there is a place on Earth where in a way it's always Summer, and people in general seem much friendlier - the whole opposite to Berlin, especially in all these grey months from November to May. So 2018 saw a second tour, this time even including Mexico, but a lot of the things were different. Not sure why, it seemed our agent Felipe had put a bit too much on his shoulders.

We co-headlined some of this shows with a US-american band, so ticket prices were probably significantly higher, while also we had just been there one year ago, so some of the shows were not what we had been "used to" from our first visit. None of the shows was really bad or sth, just more a kind of "business as usual". We played some good shows in Brasil again and Buenos Aires too, and then Mexico City brought back these intense 2017 flashbacks, when people really freaked out as hard that there was sweat running from the ceiling. 

But to be honest, this second tour was very exhausting with often not even four hours of sleep in between the shows. And I began to seriously question myself for how long I would want to continue like that, also with a growing tension among the band members. Not to blame anyone, touring like that is just a lot of stress and you have to remind yourself that the other two guys in SBE still pursued a day job after all this madness, and one even had two small kids at home. In a way for that kind of "advanced hobby band" that we were we really tested the boundaries of what is possible. It's an exciting life, but maybe at one point you have to decide what you really want.

Latin America - Tour 2018

20/10/2018 Monterrey, Musicantro

19/10/2018 Ciudad de Mexico, Multiforo Alicia

17/10/2018 Montevideo, Bluzz Live

16/10/2018 Buenos Aires, Lucille

14/10/2018 Rio de Janeiro, Cais da Imperatriz

13/10/2018 Sao Paulo, Fabrique Club

12/10/2018 Brasilia, Sujo

11/10/2018 Palmas, Festival Bem Ali

South America - Tour 2017

12/03/2017 Rio De Janeiro - Cais da Imperatriz

11/03/2017 Sao Paulo - Clash Club

10/03/2017 Belo Horizonte - Stonehenge Rock Bar

09/03/2017 Florianopolis - Celula Showcase

08/03/2017 Porto Alegre - Riffe Bar

05/03/2017 Cordoba - Refugio Guernica

04/03/2017 Montevideo - Bluzz Live

03/03/2017 Buenos Aires - The Roxy

02/03/2017 Santiago de Chile - Espacio San Diego

Talking synthesizers

A strange attraction ...

My modular synth journey began in around 2014 when I first saw one and had been wondering how you play that thing without a keyboard. I'm not sure why these attracted me so much but I had a thing for synthesizers for a long time already. I remember the first time a synth fascinated me has already been in 2000 when I first saw a 19" sampler and such rack things but never really got deeper into it until 2005 when I got Reasons from a friend and made a few shy excursions with a sequencer and their emulators.

A good example for early days synth exploration would be SBE's "Midnight Boogie" from 2012, in the second part the Moog Little Phatty is just all over the place, while I still had no clue about anything tbh ...

In 2008 while recording the first Samsara-demo I've been introduced to the wondrous world of VST, bought Native Instruments Absynth in the same year, and shortly after a Moog Little Phatty that had been used quite much on SBE-records like "Revelation & Mystery", "Midnight Boogie" and "Waiting For The Flood". I had also stumbled upon the synthesizers.com website but that was completely out of reach until I saw the first Doepfer-stuff in stores in Berlin in around 2014.

Modular craze came to its first peak with 2020 Modular Synth Jams EP. I also played a short live set in Berlin @Tief Ostkreuz, was an interesting experience yet very much improvised ...

After that it took a long time to really find out what I want/need as one can see throughout recent years. It's easy to develop an addiction and I owned a lot of modules throughout 2015-21. Long story short, there's still synthesizer stuff on the coming music. I'm really excited about the long track which is really kind of a modern Pink Floyd or sth I guess, but I still gotta finish with the lyrics and mixing. Guess the album comes out around February 2021. Until then, I'm anxiously waiting for VCV RACK 2.0. And btw if I learned one thing it's also that sometimes less is more ;).

Modular craze reached it's peak in 2019 ;)

New Merchandise Shop

I have opened up a new merchandise store with lots of goodies from all projects; shirts, posters, stickers and finally even mugs :) Probably I will add even more merchandise in the future. I love to create stuff.

Go here if you'd like to support: https://electric-magic-merchandise.creator-spring.com

This is awesome!

Well, the truth is that I have been searching for a good distorted guitar sound throughout most of the last twenty years. I haven't been happy until just very recently. And I guess some of the purists now say "ah it's a f**in' program, it's not real" and I will not try to convince you if you are happy. Fact is that on four out of the five Samsara-Albums I have never been happy with the guitar sound and there it was all analog, expensive tube amps, microphones etc. And then this little program came along ... just maybe add a Tube Screamer up front and BAM - That's the sound! By the way in these two decades I now have been checking out various tube amps, the Helix (not completely bad), the Kemper (awful handling), Amplitube (it's okay, until you want to play a solo), Neural DSP (Nolly is not bad) - but - none of them comes even close to Scuffham. Instant happiness for me. Thank you: https://www.scuffhamamps.com

SBE and the USA

Somewhere in the desert, California May 2015

You know there's something really funny about all that USA topic. In the end of SBE's career we had much more fans in North America than anywhere else in the world, more than half the records sold there despite that we didn't have a proper distribution there, nor had we ever really played a lot over there due reasons that I maybe will try to explain here one last time, because actually this is sth that still kind of bothers me until this day ...

Our first big tour ever had been along the US Westcoast in 2009, after being contacted by two guys out of Redwood County, North California who dug our twenty minute two track Demo EP enough to invite us to play concerts there in the "promised land". And, this was all kind of ridiculous tbh. Yes we were young and cocky and didn't care much about anything but our band and our music I guess. And if I could I'd probably do it all again just like that, only maybe with a bit more planning and also: playing experience! You have to imagine that at that point in history this band had existed only a few months.

So after a few weeks of sorting things out we decided to do that tour. None of us had more touring experience other than a few days in Germany, yet we had already flown to a show in Rome and seen that things worked just like that: bringing guitars and necessities while local bands provide the rest of gear. This was also one of the main points in my own philosophy at that time, try to play as much shows out of the ordinary as possible. Guess I was tired of playing little shows for gas money in youth centers somewhere in Germany, I wanted to see the world. So I contacted musicians in Italy, Holland etc trying to exchange gigs and knowledge. Myspace made it all possible ;) 

But then the first tour in the states was of course not paying much at all, and that was not even any of the main concerns. We knew there wasn't much to expect and just being there was an only gratification. The story of how we managed to play that tour actually helped to serve a s a kind of "PR-gag" for years to come after that, because yes it was very unusual and yes, maybe we got even a couple of fans over there from these early days on.

With the years after that, the internet and youtube helped to make the band popular. We owe a lot to the fame of the group to debut album, and maybe the naked girls on the cover or just these weird long songs, I don't know what it is ... it was the perfect fit for that scene I guess, and no it is not all calculated. I totally immersed in that scene, ran my own webzine, made posters for many bands, and really dug the hell out of it. Wore my flares with pride, a long time ago ...

So with the years we got more and more fans, particularly in the USA and North America. They don't even bother about the accent in my vocals, which seems only a problem for some Germans. However, in about 2014 I started to write long mails with an "agent" in Texas. I don't want to name the guy and I am not interested in personal bs but he turned out the biggest disappointment in my whole career as a musician. So the tour that we had tried to get organized for 2015 turned out a disaster really.

There is a difference also from many other musicians in general I think, and that is: SBE was not always about having to "make it" (money, success or whatever is not in the very first place for me) - and I also don't want to say that every American band would be like this: but we all know that the whole system there is very much "money-based" and that is a big problem, plus: it is not easy to even enter the states when you want to play there. Although some say: JUST DO IT! despite that thing about (having to) get a visa, which for me is about the weirdest thing in that country. Why are they so closed?

So the years went on, some in the band got kids and commitments apart from the band while I for myself at some point decided to live an "artist life", not being dependent more than necessary (also from hoarding possessions that I don't really need etc) which probably helped me live here in sunny Brasil ;) but then it became more and more difficult to do "crazy things" that don't pay money, while tours in Europe got very well-paid. It's all a bit fucked up, and my best advice would be: when you're young and free, take all chances you get - even the craziest one, where you have to pay to play, if it's worth the effort - and then try and stay free from bs that you don't need.

But then what I also don't even really understand is WHY there is such a bad treatment for bands in the states. I can tell you there were ridicolous experiences that we haven't had in any other country: for example at one of the BIG festivals we played they didn't even provide a sleep place or decent feeding. At the other BIG festival that we played they didn't even provide anything of a backline at all. This is just so weird. And when you play the smaller venues, it is common that you get no food (few exceptions) and no place to sleep. Nothing. On the other hand: We played in a lot of squatted houses in Europe in our early career and food was the first thing they offered.

There is much more to say about all this I guess, and maybe I should really try and structure all these things for a book ... sometimes I feel like I have a lot to share, other days I am in no mood for nothing, because these times have a lot of other stupid sh** going on in the world that no one could foresee. But anyways here are all the dates:

SBE - USA-vacation 2015

15/05/2015 Santa Ana - Psycho California

10/05/2015 Austin - Psych Fest Levitation

I call it vacation because it turned out just that, with the exception of these two festivals we stayed for almost three weeks in the US and visited some state parks and scenic areas. Was actually good for the band climate, also because we just went through a line up change and had always a bit troubled times after November 2013.

SBE - Krauts in the USA - Tour 2009

27/03/2009 Seattle - The Josephine

26/03/2009 Olympia - Le Voyeur

25/03/2009 Seattle - Comet Tavern

24/03/2009 Bremerton - Winterland

23/03/2009 Salem - The Space

22/03/2009 Eureka - Aunty Mo's Lounge

20/03/2009 San Francisco - Bottom Of The Hill

19/03/2009 Los Angeles - The Echo

Concerts before first US-tour, just to show how ridiculous this was:

14/02/2009 Berlin - Linse

13/02/2009 Wuerzburg - lmmerhin

18/01/2009 Rome (IT) - Traffic Club

04/12/2008 Berlin - Wild At Heart

29/11/2008 Magdeburg - Heizhaus

09/11/2008 Kiel - Rathausbunker

08/11/2008 Berlin - Red Rooster

07/11/2008 Luckenwalde - Alhambra

SBE over Europe 2008 - 2019

Hey, I'm touring in North Germany and my parents are far way ;) Kiel 2008

Following up on the last little post about Terraplane's live history, here's a map of shows that I played with Samsara Blues Experiment on European ground from 2008 - 2019. I will follow up to post the concerts on other continents later. Actually I could really write a book about all the memories I have. And maybe I should, before I forget it all ;) 

It was kinda funny to reminisce the progress from the first self-organized shows, mostly through contacts that I had from working as a poster artist or old Generated X (my stoner webzine) - buddies, later though connecting with bands from other countries like Pater Nembrot or The Machine and a few also with the help from other band members. I don't want to play things small, everyone had his part in the band, and only towards the later years things drifted in a bit a strange direction for me. Maybe it's also a natural progress that people want to have their say on everything, even things that never bothered for a discussion before. Let's just say that in the early days we'd all been on the same page which made things easy even while working through a 40hr day job besides the band, and not even earning a lot of money in all the early years. 

I still vividly remember a lot of the excitement from just finally playing cities like Dresden or Hamburg which, believe or not had been hard to enter before the times of social media. A few of the musicians who had actively played in that time may remember when we had to send out demo CD-R or even cassettes. But anyways, later on an old contact to Matte Vandeven (Sound Of Liberation) became one of the most important anchors to the career of SBE. I met Matte first in 2004 after a self-organized show in our hometown Wernigerode for his band The Great Escape, who were touring with House Of Aquarius (awesome band from Sweden - you should know that already). I don't even remember talking more than two or three words with him back then, but somehow a connection had been made.

One thing tho that always had made SBE special would be that from early on we have started to play shows in other countries. After only six concerts in Germany we already flew out to a show in Rome which in hindsight seems more a kind of nuts if you'd ask me. At that time we could hardly play through a tight 40-minute set. It was all kind of funny, and shortly after that we headed off to the US Westcoast which of course added a lot to the "mystique" of that band. Which other band could you name that just with their first two track demo already toured on other continents LOL. But most of these shows were more improvised than professional, but then maybe that is not what matters so much at all anyway.

Sometimes in the early days we even brought out that old Sitar, Berlin 2008

You've got no chance - take it!

Screaming life - yes, it's hard - Wernigerode 2007 by Robin

From the lost memory of the world, information that no one needs and few people may be interested in: Here's the complete live in concert history of TERRAPLANE (not the 80s group). It's the middle of the night here somewhere in Brasil and the nearby bar doesn't let us sleep. People drive by in their tuned up cars and blast weird and rather obnoxious Brasilian Funk (has not nearly anything to do with groups like Funkadelic).

If anyone is wondering why the strange title - well because it was just like this in that period, if you chose to play old-fashioned 70s Rock back then you were labeled "old dude music" and some of the "cool folks" who now may pretend they'd always listened to Black Sabbath (just the first six albums ofc) may have even laughed at you or wrote some shitty review. It's funny how things changed. Anyway, I remember all of these shows except for one and can't figure out why ... 

It was all very small, the clubs, the stages, us ... the "Stonerrock scene" itself was tiny and most of the interesting venues seemed to have been in East Germany. We mostly played for gas money or sometimes no money at all and I can not tell a lie some of these shows sucked because we were not any professional at all. Many times we wanted to present new songs that we barely could play without mistakes, but then we were young and stupid and didn't have internet tutorials. Some of the shows however stay deep in my memory, maybe just personal impressions but then sometimes nothing else matters more than having a good time. Right?

These days sometimes I wonder if I will ever enter a stage again and tend to thinking that this is all history now. As much as I enjoy playing guitar again, I feel like I either lost something or maybe gained a new insight, which is that I don't need to show off anything that I don't have anymore. I may be profoundly wrong there. I know there's a few people who'd even pay money now to see me play, but tbh I don't feel it yet and with these weird regulations and stuff now ... anyways, here are these historical dates ...

2007

16/06/07 High Ace Festival/Halsbruecke
12/05/07 Holzschuppen/Grossliebitz + Monokel
28/04/07 Linse/Berlin + Widow People's Pub
24/03/07 JG/Wernigerode + Marogreen
10/03/07 Kanonenhaus/Altenburg + Dukes
01/03/07 Ars Vivendi/Wernigerode + Marogreen

2005

25/12/05 Jungfernsprung/Arnstadt + Stonewedge
17/12/05 Cafe am Heizhaus/Ilsenburg + Succubitch & Abrogation
19/08/05 Schiefes Haus/Wernigerode + Jonny'n And The Cosmic Rollercoaster
28/05/05 Doktor K/Schwerin + Electro Baby
20/05/05 Mannifest/Wernigerode + Buffer & On The Rocks
22/04/05 JG/Wernigerode + Taid and others
16/04/05 White Pig/Bad Frankenhausen + Magnified Eye
15/04/05 Hafenstrasse/Halle + Magnified Eye & Neocracy
14/04/05 Exil/Wernigerode + Magnified Eye
12/03/05 Jungfernsprung/Arnstadt + Jonny'n And The Cosmic Rollercoaster
26/02/05 Jam/Bad Segeberg + Die Donuts and others

2004

17/12/04 JG/Wernigerode + Methadon
30/10/04 Hafenstrasse/Halle + Rotor & Darediablo
09/10/04 Church Rock Open Air/Rofllau
06/10/04 Fachhochschule Harz/Halberstadt
03/09/04 Schiefes Haus/Wernigerode + Taid, Methadon & The Daredevils
07/08/04 Indy Open Air/Deersheim
17/07/04 Stoned From The Underground Festival/Erfurt
10/07/04 Sylvestrikirche/Wernigerode + Methadon, Entrada & Silent Passenger
26/06/04 JG/Wernigerode + Taid, Alba and others
24/06/04 Rosenkeller/Jena + Ostinato & The Hidden Hand
18/06/04 Young Part Open Air/Wernigerode + Entrada, Silent Passenger and others
05/06/04 Slaughterhouse/Gotha + Jonny'n And The Cosmic Rollercoaster & Gorilla Monsoon
04/06/04 Jungfernsprung/Arnstadt + Jonny'n And The Cosmic Rollercoaster
29/05/04 Temple of Cult/Gotha + Hollywood Conspiracy And The People Of Djibouti and others
15/05/04 Cafe Canape/Halberstadt + The Great Escape
08/05/04 Wassertormuehle/Aschersleben + Comaluna
22/04/04 Mikrokosmos/Magdeburg + Dozer
16/04/04 Cafe am Heizhaus/Ilsenburg + Methadon & Psykra
03/04/04 JG/Wernigerode
27/03/04 White Pig/Bad Frankenhausen + Gas Giant
17/01/04 Last Cathedral/Berlin

2003

21/11/03 Schiefes Haus/Wernigerode + Mian Bao
24/10/03 Wassertormuehle/Aschersleben + Mian Bao
18/10/03 Center/Wernigerode + The Great Escape & House Of Aquarius
27/09/03 Bikerfest/Danstedt
20/09/03 Sputnik/Thale
06/09/03 Sputnik/Thale + Mian Bao
16/08/03 Reichenstrasse/Quedlinburg + Adequade, Down On The Roof & Disaster Area
10/05/03 JG/Wernigerode + Mian Bao and others
04/04/03 Schiefes Haus/Wernigerode + Mian Bao
03/04/03 Engelsburg/Erfurt + The 1's
28/03/03 Forsthaus/Blankenburg + Polizysten & Bleen
24/01/03 Forsthaus/Blankenburg + Polizysten & Lunalone
06/01/03 Haltestelle/Quedlinburg + Bleen

2002

06/12/02 Salzbergtal/Wernigerode + Bleen and others
10/08/02 Reichenstrasse/Quedlinburg + Bleen & Engrained

Music is holy - my musical diary

Sometimes I really think that throughout the last year's I have kind of created a musical diary - and I just looked back at this album from 2016 as one of the darkest years I remember. Although in hindsight some things seemed very unnecessary I somehow feel as if now I can relax more and even kind of laugh how silly I had been at times. It's also a bit crazy when I look back at my own development over these last five years and how little after little I have lost insecurities and maybe also kind of silly "illusions".

I control, I fly

A little peek inside my cockpit while I'm almost done recording the musical parts of my debut album, and am only left to do the vocals - I don't want to promise too much honestly but in a way this will be the successor to SBE in many ways and I am happy that finally I found a way of painting the picture without the dependencies in a band or working in somebody else's studio - where I'd never been half as relaxed as working from home can be. Much grateful to the universe, I am.

Early recordings

Early Fuzz Sagrado-recordings have just been released. These and Surya's "Lost Transmissions" EP build the bridge to what I'm about to do in the near future: more guitar driven, synthesizer-drenched rock music. New old school -- I still tend the analyze things too much, actually I need to leave all that behind too ...

My love, my inspiration

Baby Bee - I just wanna thank you for everything that you've brought to my life. I don't know if you can imagine how much you make me feel alive. We've had an ocean to separate us, had to wait for such a long time, but now the dream, that once we've shared, has become real ...

EHX rarities + lovely nerd jams

Sometimes I regret selling my one Russian Muff, also throwing the wooden box in the trash -- how could I? Yet when I look at collectors like this I feel like the most humble musician person on earth LOL

Surya "Lost Transmissions"

I just released a couple of tunes from a selection of what was supposed to be a 2021 full length album which I scrapped because that old guitar & rock music got in my way and I may have overthought these tracks anyway, but they are too good IMHO to only sit in a lost folder on my hard drive. To be honest I have no clue what kind of genre this is LOL -- it's synthesizer music with guitar, modular bleeps but not that cheesy stuff, I hope.

Surya's Solarstriker & The Long Return

I reinstalled Surya's "Solarstriker" and "The Long Return" to bandcamp because they belong there and I don't know what's gotten into me when I thought they weren't good enough, also next week I will release a few new tracks that I recorded this last Winter here in Brasil, before I decided that in the future I will get back to more sort of traditional kind of Rock music. It may all be a bit confusing I know, I guess that's what happens when you give too much time to a weirdo musician like me, and even though I don't see myself on any stage anymore (never say never tho), I promise I will try to be a bit more mentally stable ;) ... what a strange time it is, I hope these songs provide a bit of distraction.

Back at Bandcamp

Terraplane in August 2004, by Rene Mente

Recently added TERRAPLANE's "Into The Unknown" incl. bonus tracks and graphics, the lo-fi years compilation "Low Tide And Shockwave" with a new cover and extras, and also my early solo project SOULITUDE's "So came restless night" back to the Electric Magic Bandcamp collection. Feel free to check them out, donation always appreciated ... Thank you!

Electric Magic Archives

I will upload some demos, rare stuff, and hopefully interesting things from more than 20 years in music with Terraplane, Samsara Blues Experiment, Surya Kris Peters, and recently Fuzz Sagrado. If that's any interesting for you, feel free to follow: https://soundcloud.com/electricmagicarchives

SBE - beginning of a long story

I'm going to re-upload some of the historic SAMSARA BLUES EXPERIMENT - material, starting with the earliest documentation from a rehearsal which was the 3rd or 4th get-together with Florian Furtner on bass and Robin Niehoff on drums, and me for the 3rd (or 4th) time in my life on vocals - yet much worse than even the worst LDT-vox LOL - sorry I had to cut that out, but the rest is kinda nice and has a lot of that early 2000s vibe, when everything in "the scene" was still very underground, naive and pure. You may even spot the Tascam tape recorder in the middle of the room, which is kind of hilarious when you think that only ten years later this early necessity became a kind of fetish for some people (I have never sold sth quicker than my old tape recorder in 2017 LOL). Btw the song "Singata (Mystic Queen)" had already been written in our days with GREEN MONKEY (which was  just a temporarily confusion in our days as TERRAPLANE - not sure why we decided to wear another name for some months), and to this day I guess this is the most popular song ... funny, right. Video btw was taken by Flo in Summer 2007, at our rehearsal room in a Christian community center in Wernigerode/Germany. I think we had one more rehearsal in that line up - which is kind of a shame but the move had already been decided for months - before I went to Berlin, where it took about one year to find the line up with Thomas and Richard, and later Hans. I will continue to write about the band history later ...

This crazy life

Creepy Chris at old Mac Oelke's "Kinderzimmer" ca. 2001

So I've recently turned 41, forty one, years of age, pretty ripe on life experience, and all I come up with is this silly old pic - for one just because maybe it's a good thing to reminisce on the long way I walked since there. Around the time this picture was taken, which is roughly twenty years ago, I just had decided to quit the first psychotherapy I went to, which I voluntarily began after a period of feeling kind of lost, indistinctly sad, maybe even depressed: I had also just quit my first studies because I couldn't handle the stress of studying informatics while for the first time moving quite far away from my home area (not as far as Brasil though), the band and friends I had just found after the more or less turbulent years of being a introvert teenager (I had my fair share of silly things ... like being a Graffiti sprayer and a 'stunt-skater'). Plus, the still very actual trauma of losing my mum at a young age. Yet all of this was a kind of a landmark in my biography, for the first time I had taken kind of brave decisions to better my life. Not nearly anything of it had worked out, yet these had been the first shy steps. On a side note; the day I quit therapy was September 11 2001 and we all know what was happening that day too, all TV-channels repeated pictures of the crashing twin towers even through my parents TV-set in the middle of nowhere Germany, and in a way this was also the end of naivety for many others around me.

Recommended to watch

I stopped watching TV about 11 years ago and even while occasionally checking on some of the news headlines out of little curiosity I really don't think that most of the sensationalism is something that anybody needs in his life. At least I for myself had realized early on that watching corporate news-channels or getting deeper into politics does not contribute anything positive to my life. For those who are curious about what's really going on in this world and it's many microcosms, I'd wholeheartedly recommend to watch Peter Santenello's channel and for more also check out his older blog entries (here). Oh and of course the dude took Ayahuasca LOL

Five Horse Johnson

These days I am kind of rediscovering almost everything that made up my rocking world in the early 2000s. Five Horse Johnson are very much one of these bands that would deserve a lot more attention. I mean look at that guitar player alone. I drew quite some influence from this when writing stuff for Terraplane's "Into The Unknown", if you want to compare this with songs like "Once I Was You" or "Lower" from that period. Anyways, Five Horse Johnson, awesome band ... for some reason never made it bigger than being an insider tip mostly within the "old dude Blues Rock-scene" ;) not really big for the stoner crowd. Kind of strange if you ask me, but maybe they've been a little too early with that sound.

Interview for The Obelisk

Blogmaster JJ Koczan of THE OBELISK asked me for an interview, and even though I hesitated a bit - believe or not I am still insecure about speaking (english) in public - this was a request I couldn't turn down. 

After all I enjoyed this talk, as it was also the very first time speaking in person, after knowing JJ from E-Mail and chat for more than ten years now. We talked about the new project, which probably will remain rather low key and of course had also to talk a good bit about SBE, why it had to end (or to be paused?) and the unavoidable nostalgia about the "legendary" US-tour etc. 

Recently I have watched a lot of the other interviews JJ did, it's quite new to me to discover the mindsets of fellow musicians. I guess for most of my 20s and 30s I've been a little too busy on building up my own legend ;). Yet it was interesting to hear about LOWRIDER recording in a way the way I do now, including the use of amp simulations and synthesizers occasionally replacing bass. But anyway, one day after our interview my mind kept wandering, asking myself if probably I'd lifted too many "secrets" ... 

By the way I am a bit clearer now about what the next FUZZ SAGRADO-release will be, and it may very well be a full album. I will select ca. ten songs that include a few SBE-like tunes, but also kind of a crossover between my SURYA-stuff and back-to-my-roots Rock. It may take a while though as I still have to write some lyrics and need to finish all these basic tracks that I already have. I'm a bit lazy these days and mostly enjoy just "noodling" along to my Spotify-playlists LOL.

Collaborations

I wanted to mention some of the collaborations from the recent past, as there are PATER NEMBROT as one of the most underrated bands I know. Been a fan since their earliest release (Mandria EP), when they still sang in Italian. They were one of the oldest friend bands of SBE with several shared gigs. They are on hiatus at the moment but their main songwriter, singer/guitarist Filippo has a solo project and also a new band.

I also have contributed a little synth atmosphere to my friend Alex'-solo project OCCULT STEREO. He's also been part of IMPURITAN (check em out) who had been a cool band out of San Francisco. God stuff, and definitely different from most "standart psych"-bands these days ;) ...

And then I added a bunch of instruments on the first MUDDY ORCHID-EP which is one of the latest outfits of my old buddy Robin, who was also the first drummer in SBE when he was not much older than 16. He's a very talented guy and I think on the following full-length album played every instrument himself.

Oh, and I just remembered that in January 2018 Alex & Pepe of IMPURITAN and I almost had played a spontaneous jam-gig in San Francisco, which would have been kind of *hilarious* for me since it seemed impossible for SBE to return to the USA due a bunch of reasons / limitations  --

Making music in 2021

Okay this may be a nerdier kind of post but I figured it may be interesting for some people. In recent years I learned a lot from electronic music producers whose approach to making music in my opinion is a lot more efficient in than being in a band and having to discuss like every little step - which really was one of my bigger dilemmas in SBE btw. 

But often it may also be a problem that you want to make music and there's just not the right people around or whatever, and I somehow believe that in the future probably more people will come up with solo projects and again the technology provides with a lot of amazing tools, many of them even for free. All you gotta do is research, ... I think in the end that is every creative artists dream to produce his music the way he wants, right? 

The guy here explains very well, of what is possible nowadays, and you can adapt this to any kind of style. I'm not the biggest modern prog fan, this is more about the whole technical aspect of producing ...

Another world

A few impressions from my life in the new world. Funny when I remember how much - due all the prejudice - I'd been hesitating before finally coming to Brasil for the first time in March 2017, and subsequently fell in love, not just with the country ;) 

It's a bit difficult for me to understand what's going on in the rest of the world and how they present this amazing country often in a bad light. I mean we have our difficulties and a rather unpopular president in the rest of Western media, but then that's that and just a small part of reality in everyday life within this country. Just from my humble point of view, I probably have never been to a greener, friendlier country.

And I'd still recommend to visit Brasil at least once in your lifetime, if you have the possibility - well, our borders are open ;) The following pictures were taken in January 2021 at my in-laws farm in the heartland of Minas Gerais, where life seems simple and pure.

Samsara Blues Experiment - reprinted

News for fans and record collectors of SAMSARA BLUES EXPERIMENT, we have decided to reprint the last album "End Of Forever" on LP & CD, as well as "Long Distance Trip" on 2LP & CD. These records can be expected by Spring 2022. Please be patient and as always; thank you!

Sunday vibes

I just stumbled upon this beautiful video ... music is kinda nice too. Never heard about this guy before. Sometimes I feel like I've spend a lot of time under a rock LOL ...

Fuzz Blues Jam

Featuring Kappa Electronics Kremlin Fuzz, which is a surprise, a very well made pedal. Here in Brasil available for the equivalent of only ca. 60 US$ you get a neat Fuzz and LPB-1 booster in one box - sounds great on bass too. I'm also happy with my Quilter Labs Overdrive 202 which sounds very nice even without any pedal in front, neat crunch sounds, very 'natural' to my ears. The backing track is just the quilter with little OD. And then the Tube Modulator from Audiority has way more possibilities than any other kind of dejavibe / univibe-pedal could have ...

Second Birth

I never spoke a lot about this but somehow felt like I should, especially in these weirdest of times we all still live through. This following story may explain some of the decisions I made throughout the last year, and then maybe it's a bit of an inspiration for you who reads this ... at least, I hope so.

My little car after the bigger accident, Organ Pipe Arizona 2018

So I wanted to write about what really happened to me in that desert. Some may remember when in 2018 I was still in Samsara Blues Experiment, and everything was still "normal", nonetheless we had to cancel our tour and in a way this was the first of two events (or actually three, when you include the still actual restrictions) that subsequently lead me to leaving "the rock circus" (means not playing concerts anymore).

It was a long time dream coming true for me when in January 2018 I headed off to a solo USA-trip, after being heavily affected by US-life style as transmitted through movies and series from the 90s and two prior tours with the band. I wanted to further explore the country. And after a long period of hesitation (I'm still a sort of "shy guy".) I finally decided to do it, thanks to the help of my good friend Jabal in San Francisco who'd lend me one of his cars to take off on that big adventure.

So the first two weeks of my trip were amazing, just me alone in that car driving across California - the redwoods, the deserts, the ocean - visiting friends here or there, living this kind of dream that I had for such a long time. The turning point came only the second day after entering Arizona. For me who'd never been there before, I was completely overwhelmed again. The natural wonders are really sth that I can not praise enough. But I was too naive, too much overwhelmed and not paying attention at a point that needed the most precaution. 

Being alone in the desert I randomly stopped the car and went nuts to take pictures of every cactus tree I'd see and actually had more than just one opportunity to cause an accident while even taking pictures behind the wheel ... at one point I climbed a pile of rocks to take a picture, ... and fell. I broke my wrist in two points. All I saw was blood but the pain wasn't that bad, so I decided (there was no other other option anyway) to get back into the car and drive back the 30 miles to my hotel in the little town of Ajo, AZ. 

Five minutes after that though the worse accident occurred when I passed out behind the wheel and the car took off from the road, hitting a huge cactus, and whatnot else ... I wasn't aware and only woke up some minutes later, like from the weirdest of dreams. I only remember hearing a Emmylou Harris-song in my head ("the darkest hour is just before dawn...") and a lot of light coming through the broken windscreen. Was this dream or reality? I pushed back the broken door and went a few meters to sit down on the desert soil and finally saw the heavily damaged car: OMG what strange reality was this?!

Just to give you an idea, also about the distances ...

It just slowly occured to me that this wasn't just a dream while also the hour before was only a somewhat blurry memory. Luckily for me, I've been on the only road in that area (Interstate 85) that connects Arizona with Mexico, so there were other people who went down that way and found me sitting in the desert. After a while there'd been like 15 people around me, not sure which authority to call as this is very close to Mexico, but after ca. half an hour the ambulance from Ajo arrived and took me all the way up to Phoenix. There, or in Tucson, were the only hospitals who'd been able to do all the kinds of checks to ensure I'd be okay.

At that time my body was one big pain and honestly I had no clue if there was severe damage or not. I had been tied to a stretcher, just as you see it in the movies. Luckily after spending the rest of that day in hospital doctors told me that everything was okay, except for my broken wrist, which came as a big surprise as still I had not realized that it was so bad. Because of this, of course I wanted it to heal the best possible way, I booked the earliest flight back to Germany and subsequently cancelled that Samsara-tour.

Gladly I recovered from all this with not much more than the distant memory to which was one of the more significant, life changing moments. Prior to that, SBE had even played when we had a flu, and even when one of us fell ill and could not enter the stage. Yet I'd already been struggling for a while to find out what I really wanted to do with my life. Then in 2019 I went through another troubled period after severe problems with my intestines, and another hospital visit, this time in Brasil, I ended up in an emergency operation and for a second time had to cancel a tour.

The last picture before I fell and broke my wrist. // Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument AZ, Feb 2018

Honestly I am glad for all that the band had brought me and we all worked hard for this success, but in the end I was happier to not being obliged to tour anymore. The craziest moment though still had to come ... after another Winter in Brasil in February 2020 I returned to my old apartment in Berlin. There'd been rumors of a new kind of flu coming from China that was much stronger than all anybody had known before. Already on the airports I'd see a few, primarily young people wrapped in face mask and gloves, while all I thought was ... WTF?!

I had come back earlier to Germany basically to record the, now final album with SBE which at that time still had the working title "Second Birth". Yet it seemed to become impossible to rehearse. And I, at that time living only ten minutes walking distance from the rehearsal room was not able to meet up with the two other guys, blame it on the overall confusion at that time, but also on the infamous "German Angst"- or, when your need for security makes it impossible to be flexible.

Still, I don't want to blame anyone in particular, we all need to find out what is best for us, and these were not the only problems that we had in that group. In my humble opinion, we all live through some of the weirdest of times, where at its peak fear ruled over reason. 

I've been raised in a small socialist country and already experienced a lot through the last 40 years, lost my mum at a very young age and had been a kind of hypochondriac most of my life... but do we want to live our life dictated by fear? But then this is my personal blog and I make it one of my main purposes here to inspire people to live their own lives - responsibly - but free from indoctrination and media madness.

Namaste -- and seize the day, in a good way.

Flashback Friday

Someone from Orange amps took this pic at Desertfest London 2017. They never supported me other than that tho ;)

Actually this page is a kind of therapy for myself. It may be hard to believe but at times - especially in these weird period that we all live now - I have moments of feeling a bit "useless". Although I have achieved a lot in my so far live, from being a shy, introverted small town kid to becoming a man that has travelled the world with just his music. So, I began to write down a more detailed kind of biography under the part *influences* which will be continued by time, up until this very day ...