AlionLive Return 2 Madeira - Day 7 - Santa Maria de Colombo is here!

Day 7 of my 2012 trip to Madeira could have been also titled a chaos day as day 6 was. Well at least the first hours of that day went somewhat chaotic. I seldomly have a clear plan for a hiking day, but I had a somewhat elaborated  plan for that day. I wanted to hike around Ribeiro Frio, and here especially to a place called Balcoes. There are balcones above the clouds at that place, giving you a breathtaking panorama on a day with good weather. And here we got into a problem: The weather was more than just rainy when I arrived at Ribeiro Frio allready, but it went more and more worse. When I arrived at the Balcoes, I had just some seconds to take out the camera, film a short scene in which one can barely see anything... and the hell broke lose. It is nor exageration if I say that again I was breathing water.

So first reluctantly and more and more willing, I decided to go back to FUNchal, spent some time to get all my stuff dried again and then thought about what to do with the big rest of the day. I could have done one more random hike around FUNchal, but I wanted to do a trip aboard the Santa Maria de Colombo also in 2012 at all. So, because it was sunny at the coast, I took the opportunity and went aboard.

This video will show you a lot more of the phantastic crew and other aspects of the ship aswell. Of cause, those of you who watched the 2011 video, will feel quite "home". The video has a runtime of 1 hour and 7 minutes, so you better reserve an evening with a good bottle of nice wine for this. For long passages I just pointed the cameras away from the ship to give you a bit more of the impression to be aboard yourself. But if you ever go to Madeira, you should of cause do a trip on the Santa Maria de Colombo yourself. It is an experience, you will never forget.

HERE IS THE WEBSITE OF THE SANTA MARIA DE COLOMBO, where you can get more information. You can book the tickets, either at the pavillon down at the marina, at their office at the Harbor, or book them at my friends of Book-it-here-Madeira.

The Soundtrack of the video is a colorful mix of (very) old and new songs by the alionsonny project, Willma Poppen, Cimelium and my baby project TUBENWURST. Here's the tracklist:

01 - alionsonny - Springtime 2009
02 - alionsonny - Going Bonkers
03 - alionsonny - A Sunny Day
04 - alionsonny - Talking Cat
05 - alionsonny - The Battle Of Aughrim
06 - alionsonny - Paddy Cronins Reel
07 - alionsonny - Drowsy Maggie
08 - Cimelium - Ribeiro Frio
09 - Cimelium - Pico Ruivo
10 - alionsonny - Never Born To Follow
11 - TUBENWURST - Fireworks
12 - Willma Poppen - Willma im Wunderland
13 - Willma Poppen - Strandspaziergang
14 - alionsonny - Gettin' old

And now have FUN aboard the Santa Maria de Colombo!

 

AlionLive Return 2 Madeira - Day 6 - A Chaos Day is ready!

Yes, it is done! The video of day 6 of my 2012 trip to Madeira is ready for you. Why do I call it a chaos day? Simple: Because nearly nothing worked as supposed. But I would not be me, if I wouldn't make to best out of it. First, we do a busride in timelapse mode (just 4 minutes) to Camacha and try to hike from there to Monte. The weather, some weather related obstacles and a near-death-experience forced me to abandon the hike and go back to Funchal. After a good meal and a full bottle of wine I started to hike towards Garajau to find Jesus. On the way to there streams of beer were flowing. In the end I didn't find Jesus and filled my spiritually emptines with good Poncha at a nice restaurant where I even made a new friend.

The Soundtrack:

1. TUBENWURST - Beatrice
2. alionsonny - Nibiru
3. Willma Poppen - Willma im Wunderland
4. Willma_Poppen_-_Madeira
5. TUBENWURST - 3 Kannen Kaffee
6. alionsonny - Tachyon
7. alionsonny - The_Scrolls of Alion Chapter 4 - Eternal
8. alionsonny - Alion Castle Theme

And here's the video. Enjoy!

What's goin' on?

Well, everthing which is not going off ;) Dunno if that "joke" makes sense in English language in German it does ;) So, there were no news posted on this Blog for quite a time. And because most of you do not read my news on Facebook, Twitter etc., it is most likely, that by now some of you ask themselves if everything is going smooth here at the alions den. Well, it does. Since my last post indeed some stuff happened. Not as much as I would have liked and some stuff happened not the way it was supposed to. Well, here's the story. I try to keep it short...

On New Years Eve a wonderfull friend (and even bigger Willma Poppen Fan) remembered, that she did not give any gifts for Christmas to me this year. You know: I do not give much attention to all that gifting stuff, even tho I like to receive gifts. But gifts aren't a must here. Well and that amazing lady has also a very amazing memory. And so she remembered that recently I answered her question about what I still want for my computer with "SSD and 8 GB of RAM to upgrade it to 16 GB". And so she dragged me to my trusted hardwaredealer and we bought the components. Now the experienced PC builder asks himself what troubles may lay ahead when installing those components... and the PC builder, experienced in trouble knows: "A lot!". And so it happened: After installing the components, my former system disk (which was to be replaced by the SSD) was no longer recognized by the system. This caused a little loss of data, which... well .. complicated some stuff. A rather lengthy data recovery process and some secondary problems with the new system also stole some time from me. Well, so far the decription of that little desaster, which caused quite a slowing down of my work at the start of the year. And still I got some stuff done, of which I simply forgot to report some here in this blog also:

1. Most of you will surely be happy about the fact, that the introduction part of "AlionLive Return 2 Madeira" is finally finnished and online. Ok, it is just an introduction, which consists of 99% me talking into the camera, but a start has been made. Now the rest will go rather smooth. There was not much of an opportunity during the hollidays and new year to turn my small flat into a videostudio and this, amongst a few other things, kept me from getting further with this. For the upcomming parts of ALR2M I must ask for your patience again, because the ammount of raw video material is gigantic and I will put more effort this time in the cutting and postproduction. But here's the introduction part for now. Have fun!


2. The "ghostproject", how friends call it, also did a big step forward. Which "ghostproject"? Well, TUBENWURST of cause! That project, which is, so to say, the sequel of the album "Electronic Spacerock" released it's third track so far. And this one is dedicated to a very special person I met on my next-to-last day in Madeira. And because of that the track is named after that person "Beatrice". Want to hear it? Of cause...


3. Around Christmas the first track of Willma Poppen after the release of the Album "Heroes of the Popp-Culture" was released. So, this is the first track for an upcomming second album by Willma Poppen. You can read more about that in the official Willma Poppen Blog. Wanna hear the track? Here it is:


4. Around New Years Eve I startet a sweepstakes, where you can win one of five free downloads of the Album "Heroes of the Popp-Culture" by Willma Poppen. Due to the IT-desaster described above, the promotion of that event was nearly completely trashed. Because of that, i decided to delay the drawing of the winners to the 30th of January. So you still have the chance to participate. Read the details in the official Willma Poppen Blog.

5. And what about the relaunch of all alionmind websites? Simple answer: Currently nothing! Due to the IT-desaster described above that got...complicated. Once everything is again up and running here, I'll work at it with full force.

So, what did I forget? Of cause something. Once I remember everything I forgot to write here, there will be an update. Until then: Be well and heads up, this winter will also be over one day ;)

Win a download of Cimelium's album "Mesopotamia" & more!

It is time again to let you know what is happening here currently. A great occasion for that is the fact, that the music project Cimelium is giving away 5 free downloads of the album "Mesopotamia". That's something for those who have allways no money, eh? All details about your chance to win one of those free downloads, you can read at the official Cimelium Blog. You can take part in this until 23rd of December.

For all those who are waiting for "AlionLive Return 2 Madeira": Patience! I have a little creative mess regarding to the 3D intro and a small but powerfull sickness kept me from filming the introduction. But however: AlionLive Return 2 Madeira will start before christmas.

I work at new music at various fronts. The next you will most probably get, is a new song of the project "Tubenwurst", which did not really release much since it was declared to be the stylewise heir of alionsonny's "Electronic Spacerock". I have a track for that project allmost ready, which perfectly fits into the concept of electronic rock, synthpop and 80s music, which is actually the main genre direction of Tubenwurst. For Cimelium, I work at songs for the second themed album, titled "Madeira". I allready did some quite good work for that during the past days. And REALLY great progress can be reported from the progress of new works for the Willma Poppen project. Some people allready warn, that it may be confusing for the audience, if Willma Poppen releases a second album in 2012 ;) You see: Some great stuff is happening!

I also decided to give the websites of the alionmind records empire a new kick into a new direction. "Inspired" by a recent hacker attack on all of my websites, I found out, that some of the internals of the core content management system must be cleaned up. Also the overall handling and design of, especially, alionsonny.com is not just a bit dusted. It still breathes a touch of the old "I give everything away for free" era. That must be changed ;)

Ok, so far for the news and don't forget to participate in the Cimelium sweepstakes!

Creativity strikes hard!

Hi friends! This time there's just good news, because there's a real creative mood going on the kingdom of Alion. Everywhere something is going and not just a bit. If you watched my activities during the past days, you'll have noticed that the recent creative block has vanished and made way for a quite fruitful era.

Yesterday, the 10th track for the album "Sumeria" by my project "Cimelium" has been released and that means, that there are just 3 tracks missing, until I will release that album. And, what a  coincidence, I have about 6 song projects in different states of completion, which fit on the album beautifully. So it is more than just possible, that the album will be released prior to my birthday (July 19th). And once the concept album "Mesopotamia" is released, I have two more album ideas for "Cimelium". Yeah, the beat goes on and on...

A new sideproject, a new facette of my musical schizophrenia, is also in a state one can call it a concept. Because my musical origins are in the metal and punk genres of music, it was a wish from the heart all the time to do such music too again, besides all the other musical styles i cover. The concept for my new project is titled "Greifenberg" and under that name I will release Folkmetal, Viking Metal, Blackmetal etc. And because the whole concept is not just a bit about Dragons, Knights, Sword and Magic, this project is also a great new home for the successors of the "Alion - The Original Soundtrack" album.

You will be surprised at all, which new facettes of my creativity I will unveil to you soon. For example I will put more focus on guitar and vocals in the future. I expect that, aside from the alionsonny project (Reggae Dub), there will be 10 to 15 projects for particular musical styles in the end. Some of those projects are more or less alive allready:

• Cimelium - Electronic Ethno, Chillout, Meditation -> formerly AlionMeditations
• Willma Poppen - Techno Pop of the most commercial kind
• Tubenwurst - Electronic Rock, Wave, Avant Garde -> successor of the album "Electronic Spacerock"

Scheduled for the future are the following projects so far:
Greifenberg -> Folkmetal, Viking Metal, Blackmetal, orchestral stuff
WOLTHER -> Singer Songwriter and Progressive Rock

And what about AlionLive? AlionLive Madeira? YEAH! This will go on too! Currently I am cutting the longest part so far, which is about a day at the botanical gardes of Funchal. This part will consist of twoo separate parts. No this time not because of upload issues, but because when we were getting back from the botanical gardes, we took the bus and I was able to sit in the front of the bus and could film the whole busride from Funchal botanical gardens to Funchal center from nearly a drivers perspective. And because riding a bus at Madeira is allways an adventure, I make the busride a video part on it's own to not let it drown in all the flowers & stuff at the botanical gardens.

This will be part 10a and 10b of AlionLive Madeira then. And so you know what awaits you still, here's a little outlook on the comming parts of the series. These are the parts comming up next:
Part 11 - Hiking on our own to the wild heartland of Madeira
Part 12 - The day after hiking and the return.
Part 13 - Another day at the beach and more
Part 14 - Departure -> extremely short.

Maybe I will do a part 15 for an aftermath with tips & tricks, do's and dont's. This could be very useful for your own planning of a trip to Madeira. Please let me know if you would like me to do this.

Well and after this is done, other stuff from AlionLive is to be done. I have loads of ideas. Well, and that's the report so far from here. I'm at work for you again!

AlionLive Madeira - Part 6 is online! (UPDATE: Complete!!!)

Yeah, today a lot of stuff is going on, here at the lions den. Just after I presented my latest music project TUBENWURST, part 6 A of AlionLive Madeira is online. Yeah, you got that right: Part 6 is again in fact 2 parts: Part 6-A and part 6-B, just like part 4. What is part 6 about? Surprise: A hike! This time to Monte, the highest point in Funchal. And the hike is also the longest so far. Have fun, and don't forget to ask for some TUBENWURST at your local supermarket. This video also features the first song of the TUBENWURST project!

Here's part 6-A:

and here's part 6-B:

Musically schizophrenia is FUN!

I warned you! Because of the perpetual moaning and groaning about my musical style escapades, I was forced to think about a solution and now I got it nailed. Huh? Don't worry: You will understand it soon enough .. or maybe not ;) Those who thought that Cimelium was already the end of the story about what could be achieved, and that from now on nothing particularly new would happen, will now be shocked: Here is TUBENWURST! Let me translate this to English: It means something like saussage out of a tube, like toothpaste. Tasty and not always agreeable, but Nutritious! Decades of work at the Alion Space Labs have created a marvel of musical spacefood, which sets new standards. A good mix of influences of electronic music from the recent decades, coupled with the confused mind of the Creator of TUBENWURST give a flavor of electronic sound art, which is appreciated only by true gourmets. YOU belong to? Just try it. The handy sample pack of TUBENWURST, can be enjoyed just at home, traveling, doing sports and games, or maybe at work. It provides energy, but also mental confusion in a matter of seconds.
WHAT IS THAT SHIT? Quite simple, my dear friends: I am talking about my latest music project. As I already mentioned several times, I am ,due to the fact that my sheer repertoire of various styles of music not only confuses people, but also makes some people angry, forced to split my artistic identity alionsonny into many. So far there are Willma Poppen known for merciless candy-pop-techno, Cimelium for the calm & spacy sounds and of cause still alionsonny for everything that is reggaelike. But what about the kind of music, for example, you find on the very popular album "Electronic Space Rock"? The demand for an album with music of this kind is certainly not just small and it is fun to me to mix influences from rock and pop music of the last 4-5 decades, with a dash of 80's feel and a good shot of crazyness and let the result do it's devastating job to the the synapses of my defenseless audience. Yesterday, I consumed 3 jugs of ultra strong coffee and then flew with my loved one through the warm spring air while enjoying some beers. I was looking for a music project title, under which I could publish my latest musical work. So we did what is called brainstorming and had probably hundreds or even thousands of fully stupid ideas, until we came up with one that was so profoundly stupid that we had to just love it: TUBENWURST!
Fine! Since you now know the fascinating history ... HAAAAALT! What did Sonny just say? New musical work? Yes, my dears: There is something new and it has what it takes. It is a work that is truly worthy of being the first song of the project TUBENWURST. There's an interesting story behind this: Imagine a raw electronic beat and Sonny sitting in front of his studio computer, heavily tired, because he gets up very early in the morning in solidarity with his girlfriend, who has to get up very early to work. And there he is now and has promised his audience to create a new song for each part of AlionLive Madeira. The raw beat on the screen ... thoughts and creativity do not seem to want to flow at all ... IDEA! A STRONG COFFEE! Said and done: Sonny made a coffee that was so strong that others would instantly get a heartattack from just a looking at it and drank it. And voila: The creativity machine started to work. The beat became a verse, arpeggios were building upon it, effects were softly placed like silk sheets over it... Crap! Not enough energy! One more coffee! Said and done: Another energy drink suitable for for elephants! Now the notes flew just like that of the vibrating skull into the computer. Yikes, almost finished! ANOTHER COFFEE? ALWAYS! Well, after this third pot of nuclear coffee I felt as if I was going to explode soon ... But suddenly the song was finished. And it also had a title allready, namely "3 Kannen Kaffee" (Three Pots Of Coffee). My girlfriend thinks it is good title, because that's how it sounds. I recommend not trying to dance to it, because cardiologists always look forward to new customers ;) And here, after all the words .. FINALLY! The project TUBENWURST, and it's first song "3 Kannen Kaffee"! A web site for the project is also coming soon!

3 Kannen Kaffee by TUBENWURST