Donnerstag, 14. November 2013

Nice video slideshow from the last tour with My Sleeping Karma and Colour Haze

I have to post this group picture of the whole tour crew "Colour Haze/My Sleeping Karma" in September and October 2013!
...and this slide show on youtube!

Montag, 30. September 2013

Donnerstag, 26. September 2013

On tour with My Sleeping Karma and Colour Haze



Tour starts tomorrow in Karlsruhe!
Be there at one of following dates to meet me at the FOH at My Sleeping Karma's gig:

27.09.13

Karlsruhe

Substage

Ger

28.09.13

Balver Höhle

German Kultrock Festival

Ger

29.09.13

Paris

Divan Du Monde
F

30.09.13

Nantes

Le Ferrailleur

F

02.10.13

Barcelona

Razzmatazz 3

ESP

03.10.13

Madrid

Caracol

ESP

04.10.13

Lyon

Clacson

F

05.10.13

Pratteln

Up in Smoke Festival

CH

Sexy time...

I just finished the debut album of Darmstadt's new Stoner Metal band "Motor Mammoth". Usually we planned to make a 4 track demo, but when we decided to make a live recording in their reheasal room and they had even more tracks written, we wanted to capture this status of the band and recorded all they got at this moment.


So we produced "MMXIII", 7 tracks plus intro and interlude and an acapella outro. Better to say the band just played and I recorded, instead of "produced". It was a fun time and I really like the sound in the end. It fits to their sound and I like the idea that there are no overdubs at all. We only recorded the vocals afterwards at my studio. I had a lot of fun with the singer Daniel (we had the "sexy time" from the headline) and I wish that every singer, who enters my studio to work with me, has ball to do it right and still feels secure, even if I criticize a lot ;-)

After the recording I started mixing and then... I just started it all again when I got this analog desk from a friend to make the sound a little bit rougher with riding the faders up to the red LEDs. I loved the EQs of the desk. When you work analog, it's nice to gain some frequencies. It just fitted to their music so well
After mixing the whole thing we went to Marc Rückert at Lofthaus Studios for a quick master.
The record really reflects the sound and the skills of the band and so it feels good to me... and I hope to you too.

Enjoy "The Kraken"

Freitag, 13. September 2013

Sonntag, 25. August 2013

Postcard from Bristol

Greetings from England. Wight is on tour in the UK with Trippy Wicked and Bright Curse! Pic by Adam Reid

Samstag, 24. August 2013

Monster Magnet Tourdiary Part 2

07.08 - Haarlem
We arrived in Haarlem at noon and checked in the Ambassador City Centre Hotel. Haarlem is next to Amsterdam and very charming. It nearly looks the same, just a bit less people. Definetly a good place for an off day. I went shopping and found a second hand vintage shop called "the Irrational Library".
Clothes, LPs, tapes, comics... Everything you can imagine!! All cool stuff. Joshua, who runs the shop invited me and the crew to a party in the local park in the evening. Bassist Jim, Paco, Bärtchen and I went there later and had a lot of fun with Joshua and the electronic live act "Baptist" with live drumming and other additional percussions.
The aftershow party was at "Storing" venue with an all girl garage punk band called "Cheap Thrills". It was a blast! The Dutch know how to party on a wednesday.

08.08. - Haarlem
The next day we went to the venue "Patronaat" for the next gig. Same procedure like every gig.
The PA system was awesome, a bit strange was the stereo because on stage left side was a balcony and the house technician decided to turn the whole line array to the side, so the FOH wasn't really centred... That's the problems you have to deal with!! Next stop: Munich

09.08. - Munich
I've never been to the "Backstage" venue before. It is an areal of 4-5 floors and it was the Free&Easy Festival with free entrance and all different kinds of music. The local crew was really nice and fast. After our soundcheck we were waiting again for the support band Godsized, which already supported us in the UK. Sadly the had a delay and they couldn't make it in time. I feel sorry for them because the audience was awesome. They totally freeked out when Monster Magnet played! But Godsized weren't that sad so we had a nice party after. Cheers and we will see them in Heidelberg again.



10.08 - Feldkirch
Our next destination was only a 3 hour drive to the "Poolbar Festival" in Austria. In an old swimming pool and gym hall they built two floors. The crew was between 20 and 30 years old but really motivated and professional. The equipment was nice and they had a bunch of go-pro cameras on stage which they projected live on screen on both sides of the stage. I used a digidesign console, pretty similar to the one in Brighton. So after the daily process of soundcheck I went with the crew to the centre for a coffee.
Feldkirch is pretty small and next to the beautiful alps there is not much to see. So I spend most of the time talking to the local crew. For the next day they invited us all to their football cup, which I joined as the only one of the Magnet's crew.

I played in "Team Logan" hahaha!
So after a nice show and day off we crossed the boarder to Switzerland.

12.08 - Luzern
When I entered the "Schuur Konzerthaus" I couldn't belive how the FOH looked like! It was a spaceship.
It had a perfect shape that no one could disturb you and it was also movable. Very nice! The venue had a capacity of 300 people, I love clubs like that, because it's very intimate. Again there was a Soundcraft digi desk which I like a lot. The local crew was awesome, just 3 people for lights, sound and monitors but highly professional. I wanna play here too one day! Between the soundcheck and the gig I killed the time with drawing. I didn't had paper so I drew with a Sharpie pen on the "wall of fame" in the backstage were already some bands did some nice pictures.


13.08 - Heidelberg
Here I was born and it was also the closest show to my hometown. Again we will meet God Sized this day, who supported us on this show. I was also glad meeting family and friends after being on tour for 2 weeks already.
So I woke up at 10:30am in front of the venue "Halle 02" and inside the local crew was already active setting up the sounds and lights. We had a lot of time this day so everyone of the crew spread all over the city. Bob went to the castle, I went to the city centre for chilling in a café and Bärtchen went to the media store to buy all episodes of the A-Team and Miami Vice for our 50h drive to Norway starting right after the show. For a tuesday the show was packed and with the Midas pro digi console it worked quite good handling the boomy room of Halle 02.
Sadly Paco needed to leave the tour at this point to leave for a US tour where he is playing guitar.


16.08 - Bodø
After 2 off days of driving mad on alcohol and being bored to death, we reached our destination in north norway after over 50h! We already passed the polar circle so I expected cold weather. Actually we had about 17 C and sunshine... Nice!
The host took care of us and brought us first to a Spa where we could take a shower (steambath and sauna included but very exhausting after hanging for 2+ days in the bus). At a festival there is no time for a sound check so again a day with a lot of free time. So we went on a boat trip which was really amazing!
 With a small boat we rode through the fjords watching sea eagles and jelly fish. The landscape was more than beatiful.
Directly after the ride we had to load in and set up our mics. Again we left the festival area for having dinner. The show was pretty good, the setup was nearly the same like in Belgium: Open Air, big, analog Midas console etc.
After the show we had a geat time in the backstage area with a lot of arcade games and the band Kvelertak, which joined us already on the boat ride.

17.08. - Trondheim
Again a long ass drive back to Trondheim! On the "Pstereo" festival there should be our last gig for the tour. It was also a mixed line up for this Open Air. We shared the stage with Wovenhand, Dizzy Rascal and Motorpsycho. There where two more smaller stages and the whole area was along the riverside, right at the cathedral in Trondheim. Like the day before we had no soundcheck, so after load in a lot of time. I walked a little for checking out this beautiful Norweigian city with it's old houses st the river.
Also the cathedral was really impressive and massive!
Main topic for the crew was the question if Monster Magnet would play at all. Dave got sick the day before and needed to leave later in Bodø with the last plain. The tourmanager Bobo was constantly on the phone, solving the situation. In the end a big smile was in his face when he knew Dave was on the plain and ready to rock the show!
... One more time with love. The tunes flew over the festival area  through an awesome soundsystem and working with a Soundcraft Vi6 after all these days was quite easy. Then I was free! We all finished our job and had a reson to party. The backstage was with a ping pong table and a cocktail tent. We hung out with Goat (who played another stage) and Motospsycho. It was a sleepless night and we went to our hotel for two hours before leaving to the airport.

After two days of just sleeping in my bed I have still Monster Magnet stuck songs in my head. All impressions and experiences are coming back to my mind and I have to say: It was an awesome time and the best way improving in what I do!
Thanks to Bobo and Dave for hooking me up! Thanks to Phil, Jim, Bob and Garret for giving me the chance working with great musicians like them! Thanks to Tim for a light show I wanna have every gig with my band aswell (this is true light art)! Thanks to Paddy and Bärtchen for playing "the three musketeers" with me! Thanks to Dirk for driving and entertaining with his sarcasm! And last but not least thanks to Paco for helping us all everyday in every form, as a friend, as a stagehand, as a therapist and merch man aswell!!

Bye.

Mittwoch, 7. August 2013

Monster Magnet Tourdiary Part 1

02.08 - Tilburg
With a delay of 120min my train arrived in Tilburg, NL where I should meet the whole crew. I was glad that I already had Paddy (Stage left) travelling with me, because it was a long, boring ride even without a delay.
We all had a nice welcome at the hotel and one Magnet after another showed up in the lounge trying to fight their jetlag.
It's always cool meeting new people and realize that we all share the same passion for music... 
5 of us went later to the "013" venue to watch Five Horse Johnson from Detroit. We crashed out with the guys at the Little Devil Bar afterwards and we had a great start and FHJ a great ending of their tour.

03.08 - Tilburg
It was really nice to meet the Five Horse Johnson guys again in the morning at the breakfast buffet. All were a little bit hangovered and exhausted but ready to start their last tourday.
Let's get it started with Monster Magnet! At noon we drove to 013 venue to set up everything. It is the first time for me with MM and also for the backliners Paddy and Bärtchen, so the musicians took a lot of time for an introduction. We had a good soundcheck with the band and the gig turned out like the whole crew did it a hundred times before.
And it was fucking hot! You could cut the air, wow! Now after an ice cold shower we're on the way to Bristol, England. Bus call 1am

04.08 - Bristol
The first day in the bus. We drove during the night and I had a good sleep with a short interruption at the border control in Calais at about 5am. The coffee machine in the bus and I will not become friends. Looking forward for a cup of black brew I needed to go through a cleaning process of 10min including water refill every 30 seconds, fuck you Saeco! But if this will be one of my biggest problems on tour, it's going to be easy.
We arrived at "the Fleece" venue at 1pm and started to load in immediately. 
I heard a lot of stories about English venues: Bad equipment, shitty beer and food and it's all true! But it was really charming. It was an old building with a stone floor and a wooden ceiling. It looked kind of medievil. Mixing that night was a hard fight. The PA system was at it's limit and some compressors were broken. We needed to change some mic cables which were also broken already at the soundcheck. Everything was very instable but I won the fight in the end.
Next to all the stress, Bristol is a nice city with old buildings and a lot of water, it reminds me somehow to Hamburg... Just smaller and english.

05.08 - Brighton
At 2.30 in the night we hit the road to Brighton. When I woke up I was right at the beach with sunshine! That's a nice start for a day.
The "Concorde 2" venue is an old greenhouse with coloured windows looking like a peacock tail. Again very charming for a location.
So first I had a coffee at the beach and I took a walk with merch guy Paco to the city of Brighton. We passed the Brighton Pier, an amusement park with rollercoasters, arcade and gambling machines and all that shit... I felt like in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas this morning.
Back in the venue we started setting up the backline, ready for line check.
Today the equipment was way better than in Bristol. There was a Digidesign Console which was more complicated than any other digi desks I used before. So... I learned something new.
Between the soundcheck and the show I had some free hours. That is the only time you can check out the town a little bit. Bristol is a touristic place for the English right at the seaside. Even the Royals came here for holidays and built the Royal Pavillion back in the days in an Indian style.
After a nice walk and an Indian dinner it was time to work... Show was nice. Loud guitars and psychedelic lights by Tim, what shall I say more? Off to Belgium!

06.08 - Lokeren
Benelux productions are mostly highly professional and the "Lokerse Feesten" in Belgium aswell. This was the biggest stage I've ever worked on. It was monstrous.
We unloaded our backline very fast with 10+ stagehands from the festival! Next to Alice Cooper's and Deep Purple's backline we set up everything. We had only a line check during the changeover, but working with the backliners Paddy and Bärtchen is getting to a routine after some gigs. The sound was like HD, clear and defined through the line array system. There was a big analog Midas and good equipment for delays and compressors, the stuff you find everywhere, but open air and with a professional system it makes working much easier. After the show we met Alice and Deep Purple in the backstage. 
Paddy and Alice, what a couple! Time for a day off!

Mittwoch, 31. Juli 2013

On tour with Monster Magnet


















On tour with Monster Magnet. See you maybe at one of these dates:

 03.08.13 Tilburg 013 NED
04.08.13 Bristol Bierkeller UK
05.08.13 Brighton Concorde 2 UK
06.08.13 Lokeren Lokerse Festival BEL
08.08.13 Haarlem Patronaat NED
09.08.13 München Backstage Free and Easy Fetsival D
10.08.13 Feldkirch Poolbar Festival Ö
12.08.13 Luzern Konzerthaus Schüür CH
13.08.13 Heidelberg Halle 2 D
16.08.13 Bodo Parkenfestival NOR
17.08.13 Trondheim Pstereo Festival NOR

Dienstag, 23. Juli 2013

CD Cover for Black Metalheads Fallen Tyrant

After producing the record, Peter asked me for doing also the cover based on an idea by the band.
It's a three page gatefold booklet and I hope we can release it on vinyl!

 

Freitag, 28. Juni 2013

Wight live album for download

Finally we released the first live album of my band Wight, which I finished already in January 2012. The album is free for download on http://wight.bandcamp.com or the player below.




In August we will tour the UK for a couple of days with our friends of Trippy Wicked. More infos soon!

Montag, 24. Juni 2013

Hellfest France 2013

A really amazing and colourful festival even if 99% of the people are dressed in black!

Proud Boris with his 25 year old Midas.

All analog créme de la créme!

My Sleeping Karma on stage.

A good gig needs to be celebrated!




Samstag, 22. Juni 2013

Postcard from France

Greetings from Clisson, France. Having fun with Karma Seppi at Hellfest and watching Immortal!

Donnerstag, 13. Juni 2013

nic demasow's album "scattered"

I do not only act as a sound engineer. My jazzy friends Denise, Martin and Nico have an awesome combo called nic demasow. This is honestly one of my favourite bands. You should check out their music on bandcamp! klick here

For their latest release "scattered", they wanted to use one of my paintings, so I started creating a logo that fits to it and also looks scattered like the name of the album. I designed a gatefold cover and also made a collage of their faces for the inner sleeve and a poster. enjoy!



Mittwoch, 12. Juni 2013

Still good Karma

In may I went to Russia for the first time with My Sleeping Karma. It was a hard weekend because we really had not much sleep at all. Arriving in Moscow, playing the first gig, driving to the hotel at the airport, sleeping two hours and taking the next plain to St. Petersburg. So I didn't had a chance to see anything but the venue in Russia's capital.
But St. Petersburg is a really awesome city. It's old and beatiful, the audience is really nice and all Russians are friendly and hospitable. We stayed in St- Petersburg for two gigs. The first one was on Solar Systo Festival. It it a Goa-Psy-Trance-Live Music Festival in the forest north of St. Petersburg. This was a crazy experience. It was 11pm and still day light, we started the show at about 12, when it was finally dark. The whole area was really huge and the stages were far away from each other and the people came from all directions out of the forest. We called them friendly "Liquid Acid Hobbits"!
The day after we had a final gig in the centre of St. Petersburg in a nice club. The Rock scene in this city is really big, 6 bands were playing as support!

After a few month the documentation of last years tour with "Monster Magnet" ist finally online. You can check it out on youtube. Thanks to Tim for this entertaining movie.


More gigs with the Karmas:

23.06.13 - Clisson - Hellfest - F

26.07.13 - Johannesberg - Mühlberg Festival - Ger

28.09.13 - Balver Höhle - German Kultrock Festival - Ger

Dienstag, 9. April 2013

Fallen Tyrant - Black Metal album production

This was the first time I made a music production with a style of music, way heavier before anything else I did. After recording a rehearsal demo already in 2011 we planned recording a whole album in one weekend. They played live in the living room of the bassist's home, a wooden house with nice acoustics. In the upper gallery we made a studio direction. The room had a good size to build up all instruments with sound barriers to reduce crosstalking. We had very nice RME preamps and a good collection of Jorge's microphones, who engineered this project with me.
If you listen to Black Metal, most of the time the production sound like every instrument gets a small specific range of frequencies, like a bandpassfilter... then you mix them all together and you got a so called "necro sound". I would never say this sounds bad! In the aesthetic view of Black Metal it has a charme that makes the concept complete. On the other hand there are productions, that just sound like metal. Less reverb and triggered drums with a lot of attack.
If we just recorded angry music live in a room, it should also sound like that! Sure I didn't wanted it too clean, but also no necro sound. In the mix we tried to find a good balance. Check out this snippet!

Mittwoch, 6. Februar 2013

Robotnik vocal recording

I just recorded Eike, the singer and guitarist of Darmstadt's heavy punk-metal-hardcore band "Robotnik"! They will release a 3 track tape on Fat&Holy Records soon. Check out Robotnik on facebook and their website.

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