Trier

Ohay from Trier! Yesterday I took the suitcase and my guitar aka. Baby back on the road.  After an 8 hour travel with interesting people and broken trains I arrived in the beautiful - but rainy - town of Trier. For all the people who are interested in history: Trier or Augusta Treverorum was one of the most important Roman towns north of the alps. There are still a lot of Roman buildings left. The Romans also brought the viniculture to this area - the famous Mosel Wines.....  Anyway... Back to now... On the train I had an interesting talk with a woman who works for scientific charity projects in Kenya. Unfortunately there were a lot of people joining the compartment, so I went on reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Finished it right before arriving in Trier. I knew the figur of this "monster" before, but I alwayd thought that the monster was Frankenstein, but actually just the doctor who created him is Frankenstein. Some weeks ago I read Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde - it's pretty interesting to compare these two books as the actually approach the same topic: How to create evil and how to deal with it. I once started to record a cocept album about the dark side of a human kind. After reading those books I feel like continuing on this project... Let's see. After arriving we were having some coffee and cake, then I surprised someone who had birthday the day before. He had tears in his eyes and wanted to invite me for a drink. Unfortunately I had to leave for the soundcheck in the venue.  The first thing I saw, no, smelled, in th venue was that smoking was allowed inside. I'm not used to that... a) I don't smoke and b) there are no music venues in Switzerland where smoking is allowed.  I started short after 8pm, most people were still having diner, so just a few were listening. The second set was much better and I met some cool jazz musicians who were singing with me. Had some drinks with them and a fun jam session afterwards. We left the venue at around 10:30pm and went to another town where a friend was singing at a birthday party. When I was there she invited me on stage - not only a surprise for the audience, but also for me... I sang a few songs and I saw that some people were crying. When I walked through the audience with a glass of Mosel Wine a man poked me and asked me to play a song for him at the table. His wife said he was an amazing guitarist and singer - he denied. I sang a traditional Irish song and tried to encourage him to play and sing. I gave him the guitar, he played a chord, sang a few lines and tears went down his face... We sang a Beatles song together and he immediately looked so happy. Those are the moments that make me love what I do... Chris de Burgh one said that he would have the best job in the world, because his job is to make people happy. After a lot of Mosel Wine, Whisky and other weird stuff I finally got something for dinner at 2am.  Tomorrow I'm heading to France, then across the british channel to England. Looking forward to playing in Ipswich on the 17th.  I actually wanted to write about the show in Klosters and the recording session, too. Next time... That's it for now! Off to some Roman History!! Salve, Gion x