Could you believe...

... in a dream, if I tell you that it's true?" as Al Jarreau so beautifully asked long ago. Hi y'all - the weekend's over and my, it's been a biggie. Lots of fun, quite exhausting, and one of the upshoots is I'm on my own for the week. No, C didn't leave after a fight - she left to go to Oxford with one of her classes from school. Lucky C will get to hang out with friends of ours in the evenings while hopefully having a great time with her pupils in the daytime. So, what have I been doing? Well, Saturday saw us (Billy, Hannah and me) play a trio gig as "Lawrence Goodman Scheck" at the Deutsche Missions Gesellschaft in Sinsheim. It was a lot of fun and I came away feeling blessed and privileged to get to play with such a cool bunch of musicians. Got home late, went to bed for a few a hours before it was time to send C off on her school trip. Prepared some stuff, wrote some e-mails, went back to bed. Up again at nine, led worship at church, then straight back to the car and headed out to Stuttgart where I had a two o' clock appointment to do sound here. Worked for nine hours flat, my first live sound job using a 01V96 digital mixing desk. Fun stuff, especially watching the motor faders jumping positions as you flipped your way through aux channels... Anyway, got through all of that, said goodbye, hopped back in the car (fortunately, I had good friend Becky along to keep me awake), came home, crashed (into bed). Okay, here's some exciting news; I finally got the first two copies of the brand new "Beatbetrieb" CD on which I played percussion today. And guess what; I think it sounds fabulous!(audio snippets are available on the band's site, www.beatbetrieb.de" We had a great time recording, and you can really hear that on the CD (it was a live recording). So, everybody, go out and and get the hottest new release of the summer, available, I trust, here and probably here, too. Buy, buy, buy!

When you get caught between the moon and New York City

Hey world *wave*. Its Monday again and things are looking up-ish here in Eppeltown. I spent the majority of last week doing not much, which has been very therapeutic. So, I feel kind of ready to jump on the bandwagon again - of course I'm reluctant to actually DO things again after several days of relaxing apathy, but then who wouldn't be?

(Image courtesy of www.laptop-laptop.de)

Cooked lunch for a small team of Texan missionaries on a short-term missions trip to Germany this morning. We served up "Maultaschen", something the Americans had never seen or eaten before (despite two of them having lived here for quite some time). It was fun - the picture above gives an idea of what Maultaschen are, while this link gives you a more detailed description and recipes how to make 'em. Ours, BTW, came out of a packet (courtesy of living in Southern Germany, where they mass-produce the things) and were not lovingly hand-crafted as the website suggests. It was fun to meet and talk to the team (they're with a program called "Let's Start Talking"), especially as one of the two couples are true globetrotters who have spent significant portions of their lives living and working outside of their home country. The following perception is definitely not limited to inhabitants of the US of A; I tend to find that whatever the nationality, people who've spent more than just their holidays living "away from home" tend to have a much broader horizon as well as a tendency to be less fanatical and one-sided about matters. Which, in my book, is a good thing. So, despite a mild aversion to use American -isms too much on this blog, we really did have a great time together. And that will have to be all for today. Cheerio!

You nasty boy

Hello everyone! For all you sad Monty Python fans out there, here's a link to a fair collection of MP3s and WAV files featuring several venerable film tunes, quotes, etc. Enjoy!

(Picture courtesy of sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/03/)

What else can I tell you? Had my first proper mini-breakdown (sort of) last week and am still recovering from it. Weird. A learning experience, I guess. No, I'm not going to harp on about it here - just to say I'm taking a bit of a break at the minute, so in case I've failed to answer the odd e-mail or respond to a message left, I apologise. And yes, things are looking up again, so there's nothing to worry about. Besides the World Cup, obviously...

(Image courtesy of the Beeb bbc.co.uk and yes, it is an old pic)

This whole patriotism/national pride thing may have been predictable, but the fun bit is how much satisfaction everyone I meet seems to be getting from the fact that Germany is a sea of flags for the first time since, well, over fifty years ago. It tickles all kinds of people pink, and not just the kind who, like myself, have been bleating about our lack of national pride for ages. Several friends and acquaintances have remarked on the topic recently, and every single comment was positive. So, there! Interesting Times indeed

I Was Lost in France

Tuesday, and here's a fun little link, posted mainly for the benefit of my (former) colleagues at Culture Click. This is the video I mentioned in my e-mail. It's about 4 megs big, in case you wanted to download it. For the unnamed millions reading this blog who don't work for CCC, just check this out anyway and feel free to let me know whether or not you found it funny - I'm really curious to hear what you thought! So, without further ado, here is... "Do You Speak English?" Watch Video Well?

Leave this long-haired country boy alone

Ahhh. Day's over and I'm sitting here as my wife indulges in a bout of ironing. She would hate if she knew that I'm writing about it, tee hee. Anyway, not much to say, except that there's a CD I wanted to pimp despite the fact that its lyrics have got to range among the dodgiest I have had the privilege of coming across in a lifetime's musicianship. Okay, they're not as bad as those written by a Romanian(I think) producer I once did some work for. Then again, this particular guy literally spoke no English (part of the reason he hired me). That didn't stop him writing songs, though - oh no; his "lyrricks" were cobbled together by the simple expedient of lining up random words and phrases he a) assumed were English and b) had picked up off other people's songs/newspaper clippings/"Denglish" advertising garble. Oh, how I wish I had kept some of his oeuvre for posterity now - alas, I was young and foolish and didn't recognise the kind of greatness which I now so treasure...

(all images courtesy of www.kashew.com)

Anyway. The CD whose virtues I wish to praise today was recorded by my good friend and fellow drummer Markus Kern a.k.a. KaShew. Please don't ask me what the spelling's all about or what the name means (else I might ruin the pimping bit by spouting a load of derisive tripe about well-meaning Denglishers) - what it is is a German country CD featuring the incredible PatMcGrath and a few other Nashville,TN, studio stalwarts. In fact, Nashville is where part of the CD was recorded, and the influence is clearly audible. So, what does good ol' boy charm and slide guitar playing do for German music? Quite a lot, in fact. Markus, who has spent most of his previous musical career playing with metal/hard rock bands ("teenagers banging bits of garden furniture together," as the wonderful Jeremy Clarkson put it), seems to have had a bit of a change of heart and has ventured out from behind the drum kit to record his first solo album with the help of a bunch of German and American buddies. And I must say, at least in this jaded lil' know-it-all's ears, the results sound really rather tasty. The singing has shades of Cash or Daniels in there somewhere, while the playing is fun in a distinctly two-step-ish, howdy-yeaawwl, sort of way. I like it! And so, I think, will you. So - go chekk it out! I'll say it again (a first, I think) - www.kashew.com has the country-flavoured, mellow-hued-if-a-little-odd-shaped bomb. Yeehaw!