New music video for a classic and more!

Yes, currently I really put the pedal to the metal to make all my old works available on YouTube. And since still images are rather boring, as announced, one or the other real music video is created. For example, for the title "Victory Dub" from the debut album "Reggae Xperimental WorX". Yepp, a really old track, which back in the days made the purists go berzerk and also still triggers the WTF? Effect for not just a few. Yes, quite unusual. As "Xperimental Reggae WorX" is none of the free downloadable albums, I've decided to give this track a real music video instead of a still picture of the cover art. I have been experimenting a lot lately with audio visualization and by a friend was made aware of the fact that I already own a great tool for this: With FL Studio ships a plugin with the strange name "ZGame Editor". Yes, some time ago I already came across this thing, have played around with it for a while but then forgot it pretty quickly. Why? It was buggy and that is actually an understatement. Let's rather say it was dysfunctional. Moreover, it swallowed such an amount of CPU time that you could actually only see jerky still pictures... until the thing either froze FL Studio or crashed it. So I was somewhat skeptical when my friend told me that he could well imagine, given my love for experimentation, I could get something good out of it. And indeed, although the ZGame editor is still anything but stable, not just sometimes surprises with difficult to understand behavior and is still quite resource hungry, you can actually work with it quite well. One just needs to save often and from time to think outside the box. With that in mind, it is a fantastic visualization tool with almost unlimited creative possibilities. Well, after all these words, here it is: My latest music video! Have fun!

And since, as I said, I want to get all the old chestnuts up on the alionmind Youtube channel as quickly as possible, I have also uploaded a still picture video for an absolutely dusted creation today. On that occasion, I also want to clarify something: One or the other asked me if it wouldn't be embarrassing for me to present my early works, which of course do not match my current quality standards. My answer is clearly NO! These are my beginnings. This is how everything started and I think not only I have a wide grin on my face when listening to those old tracks. I'm not ashamed that I had to learn a lot. Everybody who wants to get somewhere has to start at some time and also has to learn a lot. Also, there are not just a few, who remember the "good old days" (eg the original Versionist Reggae community) when listening to these old songs. Yeah, nostalgia. So, now that this is also clarified, have fun with a real beginner part of my works. If you want it, it is available on the, now free downloadable, Album "Excursions in Time & Space":

2 new video channels and more!

Not much is happening regarding to music recently here and I know that one or the other dislikes this a bit ;). But currently I want to try some stuff I always wanted to try. And since I test whether you really can make money with Youtube lately, currently just about anything circulates around Youtube and videos. But promised: New music will also be created again soon. Look at it this way: Right now I just have a little time off from being a musician. Constant change keeps the brain fit ;).

Sonny is gaming! My Let's Play Channel AlionLiveLP
You do not know what a Let's Play is? You can be helped. Just click here! I am with my 46 years certainly the oldest Let's Player of the multiverse and in the way I'm doing the whole probably also otherwise unique. Currently, there is just one video on my channel, but that will change very soon when I have time for an extensive gaming session. As the first game I have chosen the old classic "The Elder Scrolls III - Morrowind" extremely modded. Unfortunately, for the people who do not understand German, my first Let's Play is in German. Sorry, but my version of Morrowind is in German language. But I will for sure do some English Let's Plays also, because I also have some English games. In the future you will not read any further information about the Let's Play channel here, as it is part of the AlionLive project. It is therefore advisable to either subscribe to the AlionLive blog, like the AlionLive Facebook page or to subscribe to the Youtube channel if you want to stay up to date. Here is the first video. And I was indeed as nervous as it seems ;).

Life long learning ... and teaching! My Tutorial Channel "Multiversity of Alion"
I was asked several times if I could make a video tutorial about this or that. Mostly, these questions based on my activities in the area of ​​3D graphics in Blender or making music in FL Studio. And so it is not surprising that the currently only video on the new channel is a Blender tutorial. A fairly modest one, but it is also only the introductory part of a series on audio visualization using Blender. More coming soon. And it will not only be Blender tutorials: I will also make tutorials about making music in FL Studio, Web design, programming in various programming languages ​​etc. My repertoire is quite extensive ;). However, news concerning the tutorial channel will be posted for the time being here, because I do not have plans for an independent "web identity" for this project yet. Certainly one day there will be a separate blog and a Facebook page, but currently I have simply no time for that. Have fun with my first tutorial. Nervous? Never! ;)

The alionmind records video channel
This one (LINK) I introduced already in the last two blog entries in detail. However, also a lot has happened here. 22 pieces of music are now already available and there will be more. Today I have just uploaded an old classic from 2006, which is also on the free album "The Alion Archives". You find more information about the track in the video description on Youtube.

So, that's it so far. Stay tuned, because it will always get more interesting ;)

New music video "alionsonny - Message To Planet Earth"!

The song "Message To Planet Earth" is somewhat old ... well ... somewhat is a total understatement. In fact, this work is from the year 2004, ie the year of birth of the alionsonny project. And it was one of my first works published. Therefore, the sound is "somewhat" dusted ;). A few days ago I decided that this song deserves its own music video. After all I have my new, sparsely attended, Youtube channel on which I want to slowly upload my complete repertoire of about 300 songs. I do not mention the video editing software I used, because without compensation, I do not advertise any commercial products ;). However, I like to mention that a large part of the visual effects were created with the help of the free 3D graphics software Blender. The video footage is from my travel reports from 2012 and 2014 about the island of Madeira. The full video footage can be viewed (for those who do not know) on my Youtube channel AlionLive. If you like the music, maybe you should think about purchasing the album "XperiMental Reggae WorX", which is available on the following platforms:

• iTunes
• Amazon
• eMusic
• Routenote

I would be happy. Alternatively, the album is available as a free stream on Spotify:

And now have fun with the video!

The end of the alionsonny music video channel!

Now you have to be very brave: The alionsonny music video channel with the old SD videos will cease to exist. It was somewhat hard for me to kill this legendary institution. Thank you for 7614 views and the 26 subscribers for almost 7 years of loyalty. Why is that now? The reason is a very good one, and I am sure you will like it: There is a brand new alionmind records Youtube channel, on which you will from now on find the music videos of the projects alionsonny, Cimelium and Willma Poppen. This is mainly because of "organization reasons". On this channel you will be able to watch all the old videos in one place. But the best is yet to come: I'll try to upload videos for all released tracks of the 3 projects. Is this guy now completely insane? To create elaborate videos for the whole repertoire is a work that takes forever! Yes, absolutely right! And that's why there will not be elaborate videos for all the tracks. Most so-called music videos on Youtube are on the  ​​visual side just still images and no one seems to care about that much. For the very old tracks, especially those on the free albums, I'll do exactly that. For the newer ones, I will decide depending on the case, whether I will create a simple visualization or an elaborate video.

So, these are the news. Please don't forget to subscribe to the new alionmind  records channel, so you are always not up to date. This is especially true for those who had already subscribed to the old channel. See you on Youtube!

AlionLive Return 2 Madeira - From Camara de Lobos to the Lido

And here it is already: The second part of day 11! This went quite quick this time. Ok, but to achieve that, I had to pause working on the new album during the past days. Don't worry: I'm already back on it, but more on that later.

The story: As already announced, this video shows a little "hike" from Camara de Lobos to the Lido, filmed using my inimitable "shaky cam technique". This video is especially recommended for those who plan to visit Madeira, because it shows the way from Funchal, along the coast to Camara de Lobos... but just in the reverse direction. And almost all newcomers to Madeira make that one mistake, that they think, that down at the beach it does not go further. The secret is the tunnel shown in this video where my camera did it's best to compensate for the bad light conditions , but once again failed miserably ;).

Größere Kartenansicht

The video shows also wonderful impressions of a sunny day on the promenade, accompanied by a few songs from the, hopefully soon to be released, album "Continuity". The soundtrack contains this time, except for one song, almost finished album versions (release versions). The soundtrack in detail:

00:00 - Madeira (Release Version)
04:55 - Bulletproof (Release Version)
9:58 - Green Hills (Release Version)
14:38 - Drunken Joe in Love ( Release Version)
19:03 - Going Bonkers (Release Version)
23:57 - A Sunny Day (Release Version)
28:55 - Flight of the Butterfly (Pre-Release Version)

As you can see, the video is once again a little longer, but 33 minutes is not too long, right? While we are at it: What do you think actually about the video lengths? Every now and then, there are people who write to me, that certain videos are too long. What do you think: Should I split such long videos generally into smaller parts? If so, what would be a good length? The good old 15 minutes? But I also want to point at the fact, that there are people who like to see things as a whole and they would complain if I split the videos into parts. Well, again the good old quote from Wilhelm Busch nails it perfectly: "To all people fairly done , is an art that no one can" (I don't know if this translation is even remotely correct).

Finally, I want to tell you of course a bit about the status of the album "Continuity". Slowly but steadily, the whole thing comes to an end. The song "Talking Cat" was transformed into the most probably final version yesterday and currently I'm working on "Flight Of The Butterfly". Don't worry: I know that the song is almost perfect and will not change too much. I just think that some things get too much presence and others do not ;). When this song is done, there are 4 songs left to work on, but all of these were produced in the period between August 2013 and now and therefore are quite up to date. So I would say very carefully, that there is not much left to do.

Ok, but now have fun with the new video . I am already working on the next one.

Finally: A new AlionLine Video! Come with me to Camara de Lobos!

Some of you already thought , I would have given up on the AlionLive channel, but did you really believe that? No, the reason for the fact that nothing went no further lately on AlionLive is much less spectacular. Anyone remembering the album "Continuity"? Yes, it has still not been released. But I can assure you that is not a musical "Duke Nukem 4 Ever". So the album will come and it will come soon. Well, and the work on this album occupied my whole creative energy recently. A little progress report: 5 of 13 songs have been "transformed" into the final release versions. The rest is pretty up to date and therefore it is unlikely to be much work.

But back to the video: When I decided shortly before the turn of the year to finally continue with the work at "AlionLive Return 2 Madeira", I noticed that a fresh intro would be quite appropriate. And as you know me, of course I once again went over the top and wanted a real Blender 3D intro. The ideas were blooming like a flower meadow and in no time I found myself in a whole lot of work. This then delayed the start of the actual video editing for a few more days.

The plot: As mentioned in the credits of the last video, on the evening of 10 Day, a little high-proof festivity took place. On the morning of 11 Day I felt absolutely unable to start serious ventures, namely hikes. As the weather was surprisingly sunny, it made ​​sense to insert a day of rest. And to not make things unnecessarily complicated, I decided to spend the day in Camara de Lobos. And this, with just under 15 minutes of run time unusual short video, is about that very stay in Camara de Lobos. It features, aside of the new intro, beautiful views of the picturesque fishing village of Camara de Lobos, the coast, Cabo Girao and there is a little "Sunday Sermon" - because it was a Sunday - from me also.

The whole is accompanied by three songs from the above-mentioned album "Continuity". Two are still in the pre-release version state and one in the final release version:

• Nero d ' Avola (Release Version)
• Pirates of Madeira ( Pre-Release Version)
• Ganja In the Jar ( Pre-Release Version)

This nearly 15 minutes of video is by far not everything that was filmed on day 11. I have decided once more to split the video material into two parts, because it fits thematically. The rest of the video material is about the somewhat long walk from Camara de Lobos to back to Funchal / Lido. I have captured large parts of that walk using my incomparable shaky cam technique and want to share this pleasure just do those who really want to view it. So it made ​​sense to separate the more quiet and short part about Camara de Lobos from the shake-o-rama, which will be soon available as part 2.

Yeah, what else to say? Actually nothing ;) . I am off to work again on the album and because of that, it may take some time until part 2 is ready. But now have fun with part 1.

AlionLive Return 2 Madeira - Day 10 Part 2 is finished!

Well, this time he took his time, eh? What? You saw that the video is available for 2 days already? Well, that surprises me ;). The rather very small number of views of my latest videos force me rather to suspect that almost noone visits this video channel anymore ;). In fact, I consider to abandon AlionLive in favor of music production. The channel initially was intended primarily as fun and secondarily as another way to promote my music. But both, however, does not work, if noone is watching the videos. So I probably, after the completion of the ongoing video series, will abandon the whole thing. I'm very sorry for the few people who like Alionlive, but I have to set priorities and keep an eye on what works and what not. Alionlive seems not to work. For this reason I have this time delayed the usual promo for the video waited a little, to see how many of you watch the video, if I just mention it briefly on Facebook... and do nothing else. And, well, the small number under the video says it all ;).

Never mind: Here is the promised second part of day 10. You remember: After a bus lottery, the choice fell on a bus to Camacha. Then I did a reasonably steep climb (it's Madeira) until I reached the beginning of the Levada. And here I stopped the first part, because I know not many people would love to watch a more than a quarter hour long shaky camera walk with me talking most of the time. The now avaliable second part is now really hardcore. For a total of 47:05 minutes: Shakycam on the Levada with me as a commentator. On the, quite interesting, trail I meet interesting people, I will tell you about some interesting and less interesting stuff and the technical planning to avoid the Shakycam during my next visit to Madeira. It has something to do with a cat and tape. During the entire path I had secretly suspected to be somehow not quite on the right track. This turns out to be 100% correct at the end of the video. Yes, at the end of this video you will experience good old Sonny absolutely destroyed and really indecisive ;) I indeed was lost and had hiked into the completely wrong direction. But you know: Before I really give up, the end of the world is coming! So there is a short and crisp part 3 of day 10 left in which I solve the problem with some effort. But that's currently still top secret ;).

The soundtrack of this video is again entirely from the new, old album "The Alion Archives", which is available for free download on alionsonny.com. The soundtrack in detail:

1. Heart Attack
2. A Banquet at Elvenwood Castle
3. Alion Smoke Signal
4. Midnight Summerdream Dub
5. On the Rocks (feat. Scott Durfinger)
6. Babylon DC (feat. Ital Roots Players)
7. The Scrolls of Alion - Chapter One - Desert Storm

...and here's the video. Have fun, if possible ;)

AlionLive - Bike ride to the Lüneburg Heath - Here we go!

Now  barely 2 months have passed since this bike ride took place. But you know that there are still other things to do and I'm never really idle. But now finally the first part of the video series is ready for you.

What do you get to see? First of all: This first part is by far the most boring of the series. At least I think so. It's just only the ride to the destination. I had to get the, because of months of sitting behind a computer, rusted and dusted bodything going again and really wanted to get quickly to Lüneburg. In addition, unexpected problems, caused by the absolutely insane road design near  Geesthacht caused some real trouble. You can learn more about it in a, on the AlionLive channel up to now unpreceded and unusual, rant at the end of the video. Yes, I think the next parts of this video series will be by far more interesting. I hope that this introduction part is good entertainment for you still.

The video starts on the morning of August 25th, even though I already started the night before and rode the first kilometers to a quiet place near Glinde. There I built up my tent and that is where the video begins. After a more or less long opening speech ;) I get on the way, tell you a bit about the kind of food I eat during bike rides, am forced to a considerable detour because of the lack of braincells in the skulls of some road planners in Geesthacht. Nevertheless, I manage it in the end to get to the front gates of Lüneburg... just as planned. However, the video ends already before this in Bardowick where I am celebrating the above-mentioned little rant.

The soundtrack is completely from the upcoming album "Continuity" by alionsonny :

1. Talking Cat
2. A Sunny Day
3. Nero d ' Avola
4. Pirates of Madeira
5. Flight of the Butterfly

Have much fun!

AlionLive Return 2 Madeira - Day 10 - It goes on!

Now it's been almost 1 1/2 months since I have uploaded the last ALR2M video. For those who follow my activities, I must not say why it was. For the rest I say just: 2 other AlionLive Videos (bike ride Hamburg-Mölln-Ratzeburg) and loads of new music. Also the video footage of day 10 gave me some quite unexpected problems. The uncut footage had a run time of about 1 1/2 hours, and I 've learned that videos with an unusual length like that one scare away some viewers. Not everyone always has tons of time available to watch a full-length video completely. So you mark the video for viewing  later on... but I also often simply forget about it later on. A much bigger problem with the video material of day 10, however, was as follows: Inspired by quite a few requests of some viewers regarding to long hiking sequences in which I point the camera to the front, I filmed a sequence of approximately 45 minutes in length, in which I did just that. In addition, of course I talk most of the time. This calls for complaints. So I have both problems solved as follows: The video is divided into 3 parts. Part 1 shows you everything before the "boring" hike, Part 2 is for the diehards and should not be enjoyed without being intoxicated if possible, and Part 3 will show everything after I got lost on the Levada and therefore left it. So everyone is free, to skip part 2... although that of course will ruin the complete AlionLive Experience.

So now for the first time since a long time, I upload a video with less than a quarter hour run time. The story: It already begins with a beautiful chaos. Actually, I wanted to take the bus to the Parque Ecologico do Funchal that day and walk from there to the Pico Ariero. Unfortunately I forgot some important stuff at the hotel and thus missed my bus. After the well-known buslottery I decided to simply go on good luck to Camacha, where I actually arrived in bright sunshine. Here I discovered a couple of signs that told me that I was close to some Levadas . So I followed the signs and found myself soon, and after a hard one hour climb, at the Levada. I followed the Levada through a surprisingly urban area (THERE ARE BUS STOPS!!!), until it really started... and here is where part 1 ends. Yeah, but look for yourself. Short, crisp and hopefully entertaining ;)

It is done! " AlionLive - Bikeride Hamburg Mölln Ratzeburg " is complete!

Yeah, the fifth and final part of the video series is now available for viewing. What awaits you? Of course, we catch up where we left off last time, just before Ratzeburg on the western side of the lake. Then we ride to the center of Ratzeburg, where, to my disappointment, I saw historic buildings than I expected. Maybe it was simply due to the roaring heat of the day, that I overlooked something. This heat "inspired" me then to pay the cathedral a visit. You know : In this old stone buildings, it is always nicely cold. Here is a little message to my atheist and agnostic friends : NO, the reason that I'm filming churches , is not that I am a religious guy, but that I like old and interesting buildings. And churches are (unfortunately) usually the only well-preserved historic buildings. After I left the cathedral, and the burning sun hit my skull directly, I had even less desire than before to wander the city streets sweating with a camera and a well-filled backpack filming. So I went slowly on the way home. Just before I left Ratzeburg, I enjoyed a quite price intensive, but delicious, ice cream. After refilling the beverage stocks (no AlionLive without beer), I appear on screen for the first time after about 14 minutes. I think that's a record! It never took that long in an AlionLive video, until I appeared live on the screen. The spoken message then falls quite short, because the location, where it was recorded, was a very unpleasant one: A lawn between a McDonalds and a gas station. Next on the way home was an annoying "How to get across the canal"-game, which forced me to a rather long detour. So it is no wonder that at the end even arson fantasies took shape inside my wrinkled skull. Nevertheless, I managed as planned, to reach the home base around 21:00 o clock and tooke the long awaited bath. Of the latter event. there are no video recordings because of minors and aesthetic reasons.

After excessive cutting work, the video is crisp 30 minutes short. It is suitable for the extended coffee break ;). Yeah, I was actually made aware of the fact- that so many view my videos in the work break. We live in funny times ;). This time I played around with a new video coding

1. to reduce the upload time (processing by Youtube also)
2. to optimize the image quality , especially at very fast camera moves
3. To minimize conflicts with the Youtube encoder (you know the enemy ;))

So, if you should notice a change in video quality negative or positive, please inform me about it. More than two eyes are always good. Personally, I think the improvements are achieved. At least I have reduced the size of the video file by about 50%.

The soundtrack this time is by alionsonny and Cimelium. All songs are destined for the upcoming albums of both projects. In case of Cimelium it is the Album "Madeira". I start the video with rather calm tracks of this album, because I wanted to place the very "churchy" sound of "Nossa Senhora do Monte" during the visit to the Cathedral of Ratzeburg. After that, I had a hard time to create a somewhat reasonable transition to the "alionsonny part" by using "Cais do Sardinha". However, this is only approximately achieved. A transition from the Cimelium sound to the brand new alionsonny track "Pirates of Madeira" is very difficult because of the characteristics of the track. Still, I wanted to showcase "Pirates of Madeira" urgently in this video. And after all the "organ tooting", I also thought it would be quite appropriate to put the pedal to the metal just a little bit ;).

Here is the complete soundtrack :

1. Cimelium - Ribeiro Frio
2. Cimelium - Nossa Senhora do Monte
3. Cimelium - Parque do Lido 6:30 am
4. Cimelium - Cais do Sardinha
5. alionsonny - Pirates of Madeira
6. alionsonny - Flight of the Butterfly
7. alionsonny - The Storm

So, after all the words, here's the video !

AlionLive - Bikeride Hamburg-Mölln-Ratzeburg - Part 4 - All around the Ratzeburger See

Here is the fourth part of this video series! We start exactly up where we left off in part three: On a very cold morning on the Himmelswiese at the Ratzeburg Lake. After the morning sun had warmed the weary bones somewhat, we make our quite long way around the lake of Ratzeburg and stop just before Ratzeburg. On the way we experience a lot of finest nature, beautiful views of the lake and island view Ratzeburg, but also a supernatural encounter and my first teleportation experiments.

The soundtrack is entirely by Willma Poppen. All tracks, except "Strandspaziergang" and "Holy Arpeggiatorus" are destined for the soon (Fall/Winter 2013) released album "Willma im Wunderland". "Strandspaziergang" and "Holy Arpeggiatorus", are from the previously released album "Heroes of the Popp-Culture".

The Soundtrack:

1. Strandspaziergang
2. Holy Arpeggiatorus
3. RaumZeit
4. RaumReise
5. Karussell
6. Apocalypso

 And here's the video:

AlionLive - Return 2 Madeira - Day 9 - Santana

...and on we go! I have now spent exactly one month, enjoying the rare beautiful summer weather, but still was not completely idle. The delay of the release of this video was mainly caused by some problems with the 3D intro. Therefore, a new, simpler intro sequence was used in this video.

The Plot: On the ninth day of my trip to Madeira, I decided after the weather looked promising to make the long bus ride to Santana on the north coast of the island. Do not worry: I have not filmed the entire bus ride, but only 6 minutes ;). When I arrived in Santana, I explored the area a bit, got to know the local weather phenomena and decided to hike a little further west along the coast. Here, I got lost a bit and was allmost convinced to follow a rather desperate "backup plan". However, this was not carried out because I reached a saving bus stop just in time.

The soundtrack is completely from the soon to be released album "Continuity". Yes, exactly: The new alionsonny album has a name and will be published soon. But that's another topic ;).

1. Flight of the Butterfly
2. Nero d' Avola
3. Talking Cat
4. Green Hills
5. The Storm
6. Bulletproof
7. A Sunny Day
8. Madeira

And here's the video:

AlionLive - Bikeride Hamburg -> Mölln -> Ratzeburg part 3 is online!

Because of the extensive musical activities of the past few weeks I hardly got to work on the videos. Yes, day 9 of "AlionLive - Return 2 Madeira" is already in the works too. And now that we really have plenty enough new music, it's video time. But this new music is not used in the third part of the report on the bike ride from Hamburg to Mölln, Ratzeburg back. I found simply that a visit to the historic city center of Mölln is suitable for a rather more serious form of music than a Pop-Techno and funny Reggae-ish stuff. And that's why I this time used once more music mainly from the album "Alion - The Original Soundtrack". This, plus a fitting track from the album "Reggae?" and one quite old chestnut and the soundtrack was perfect. The new music will be used somewhere else then.

Thematically, we start where we left off at the end of Part 2: On reaching the city sign of Mölln. We visit the picturesque historic city center of Mölln first for a time, and to then go on a little alcohol influenced Odyssey northeast. Here we have some quite humorous moments. At the end, and just minutes before nightfall, we end up at a peaceful place at the Ratzeburger See called "heavens meadow" to successfully end the first day of the tour.

The video is not completely free of shaky shots directly from the bike but this time these are extremely rare. But this time I was very communicative and am therefore quite often to see and hear. And now, end of the preface -> Here's the video!

AlionLive - Return 2 Madeira - day 8B is here!

An attentive blog reader alerted me to the fact that I actually forgot, to announce the new part of "AlionLive Return 2 Madeira" in this blog. Well, I am currently very busy creating music, so something like this can happen. Yes, also for the project alionsonny new sound material is being produced again. Due to some unexpected and also unpleasant events you had to wait quite long this time for the continuation of the video series "AlionLive Return 2 Madeira". In addition, I wanted to get the new 3D intro done, which also needed some time to calculate (render). Now it is finally done: The second part of day 8 is ready for viewing on Youtube. And what a part: We walk from the picturesque mountain village of Santo da Serra along the Levadas to Ribeiro Frio. There it "traditionally" begins to rain. During the walk there is plenty to see and to hear, because I did also sing a unique original song creation ;).

The soundtrack is, as for the recent hike videos, once more completely by Cimelium. It introduces two brand new songs by the Cimelium project, namely "Iacta Alea Est" from the previously announced album "Ad Hominem" and "Parque do Lido 6:30 am" from the album: Madeira. The other titles of the soundtrack are from the albums "Mesopotamia" (available on iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, Spotify and Routenote) and "Madeira" (published in 2013). The soundtrack in detail:

1. Inanna (Album: Mesopotamia)
2. Rabacal (Album: Madeira)
3. Lilith (Album: Mesopotamia)
4. Pico Ruivo (Album: Madeira)
5. Alea Est Iacta (Album: Ad Hominem)
6. Parque do Lido 6:30 am (album: Madeira)
7. Dumuzi (Album: Mesopotamia)
8. Ribeiro Frio (Album: Madeira)

So, here's the video. I wish you much fun!

AlionLive - Bike ride from Hamburg to Ratzeburg and Mölln - Part 2 is here!

Yes, of course: "Madeira AlionLive Return 2" will be continued. However, due to organizing "stuff", it was somewhat more favourable to first get the second part of the tour finished. We start exactly  where we left off in the first part and go from Luetjensee all the way to Mölln. This time there is even more shaky filming from the bike, but since this mainly took place on a more or less developed routes this time, the camera should not be still shaky, but somewhat less than if you go offroad. The soundtrack consists this time of a colorful mixture of songs from alionsonny, Willma Poppen and Cimelium. Even Willma Poppen's latest release "RaumReise" is featured.

The soundtrack in detail:

1. Cimelium - Cais do Sardinha (Album: Madeira)
2. alionsonny - Flowers (Album: Electronic Spacerock)
3. Cimelium - Pico Ruivo (Album: Madeira)
4. Cimelium - Cimelium - Parque do Lido 6:30 am (Album: Madeira)
5. alionsonny - Versionist Dub (Album: Dub Antiquities)
6. Willma Poppen - RaumReise (Album: Willma im Wunderland)

If somebody likes to buy the music:
The albums "Electronic Spacerock" and "Dub Antiquities" by
alionsonny are avaiable on iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, Spotify and
Routenote. The album "Madeira" by Cimelium and "Willma im Wunderland"
by Willma Poppen are to be released in 2013.

And here is the video:

This time Germany instead of Madeira! A new small AlionLive series is here!

After I recognized, that some viewers, Facebook friends etc. are allready quite annoyed when I only mention the word Madeira, there is now a little break, regarding those travel reports. Additionally, some  people from the most beautiful island in the world asked me to show them a bit of Germany. Why not, especially as the great weather, which outright encourages to do some biking tours?

So I jumped on my rickety bike early last weekend and ate a few kilometers, 150 km in two days to say it exactly. The route was from Hamburg to Mölln, then once completely around the Ratzeburger See to Ratzeburg and then back to Hamburg. The weather was great, but it was also somewhat hot. I again got a nice sunburn, and returned home exhausted but happy. The bike tour was wonderful and I've seen a lot of beautiful things and captured some of them for you on video.

If you want to know more about the route, here is it on Google Earth:

and here's the elevation profile:

I decided to divide the video footage (uncut 3 1/4 hours) into several parts, for the following reasons:

1. Few viewers want to watch a 3-hour video in one go. One can watch small chunks easily during a coffee break, and if you like a full-length, you can watch the playlist ;)
2. Youtube, or some display devices seem to have some problems with long videos. They stop in the middle of playback etc.
3. I can divide the footage by topics

So, now the first of the (estimated) seven parts has been cut and edited. It is a bit longer than 22 minutes and covers the first part of the tour from the north-east of Hamburg to Luetjensee, a picturesque small town in Stormarn / Schleswig Holstein. IMPORTANT: Please excuse the shaking of the camera, especially during the parts that were filmed directly while riding the bike. Filming from a bike creates shaking at all, but as a plus, the de-shaking feature of my camera somehow doesn't work anymore.

The little soundtrack consists entirely of songs by the alionsonny project, namely:

1. alionsonny - A Sunny Day
2. alionsonny - Fear No Evil
3. alionsonny - Summertime
4. alionsonny - Forest
5. alionsonny - Life Goes ON!

The songs 2,4 and 5 are from the album "alionsonny - Electronic Space Rock", which you can purchase at iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, Spotify and Routenote, if you want to help me buy a new and better camera or a long-needed replacement for my old bike.

And now have fun with the video!

AlionLive Return 2 Madeira - Day 8A is done!

...and so am I. Phew, that was quite some work. This didn't get better by me catching a quite heavy flu. How was that video causing more work than all the others? Well, I do not really love to write subtitles. And this time a lot of them needed to be done. Why? You will know this, after you read about the special kind of video this one is a few lines below. ;) Also because of the kind of video, I had to manually place loads of fades between the moderation (me speaking) and the soundtrack. And before some "specialist" shows up, and says, that this could all have been done automatically by using sidechaining: No, this would have not worked, because the background noise would have "ducked" the soundtrack all the time. And no, a noisegate would have also not helped. Additionally I tried some funny new tricks this time. And now the attentive audience at Facebook knows, why it all took that long. But, thanks to me: It is done! Ok, what is the video about?

This is the first part of two for day 8 of my travelogue about my stay in Madeira 2012. I split day 8 into 2 parts because it starts with THIS long walk through Funchal and continued with a also long hike from Santo da Serra to Ribeiro Frio. It would have been a rather bad idea to "force" the audience to watch a allmost 1 hour long city walk, to be able to watch the Levada walk. Also a allmost 2 hours long video would scare some viewers away.

This video is about a walk from the hotel "Residencia Vila Lusitania" in Funchal Ajuda through the heart of Funchal to the central bus station near the cable car station to Monte. It features me describing quite a lot of things on the way in my own unique style. Please excuse my lousy English once again, which didn't get better by walking through a city, holding a camera, keeping track of the traffic, pedestrians AND speaking in a language, which is not my mother tongue.

I learned quite a lot, while producing this video: The facts described above taught me, that it is not really a good idea, to moderate that kind of videos in English. This is why I will never do this again in the future. This means, that future sightseeing ;) videos will be moderated in German and subtitled in English. Despite of the fact, that the multitasking lead to some funny moments (musician for electricity), the result was rather embarrassing... or what do you think? I also learned some new tricks of editing video which make this video more fun and also kept the time I worked at it at a reasonable level.

The soundtrack is completely taken from the first album "Heroes of the Popp Culture" by my music project Willma Poppen. It is allmost the whole album... and the "rippers" will be angry about the voice moderation ;) But why not buy the album? Where? There:

Amazon
iTunes
eMusic

And this is the playlist of the soundtrack:

1. Willma Poppen
2. Popp-U-Lism
3. Popp-Corn
4. Heroes of the Popp-Culture
5. Poppin' on Heavens Door
6. Popp-Eye
7. Mrs. Von Poppen's Funny Mushroom Omelette
8. Poppin' All Over The World
9. Strandspaziergang
10. Joyriding in Popp-Town
11. Childhood Memories

And now this is REALLY enough words. Here's the video:

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!

The alion conspiracy - A game of thoughts

I promised some folks on Facebook to post that. I myself found it a rather bad idea, as there's enough people allready out there, who think that I am nuts. But, well, what damage can some more do?  So be it: Let's play a game of thoughts:

1. Conspiracy theories are for nutters. This counts especially if there are other and better explanations for what happened than a conspiracy.
2. Conspiracy theories are especially nutty, if an individual suspects a conpiracy against himself.
3. It is a special and very nutty case, if 2. is done by a relatively unimportant person.

Those facts are the basis of me not drifting into the "twilight zone" and usually I am quite proud about it. But there's another rule I have:
If you investigate a certain incident and eliminate all profoundly impossible claims: Whatever is left, how irrational it may sound: It must be the truth.

So far the rule codex we will take as a basis of this "little experiment". Let's set the stage:

There is a well known video publishing plattform, called Youtube, which has (Youtubes own statistics) more than 1 billion unique visitors each month. Many of them randomly surf the site and are not looking for anything special. It is like TV Zapping in the internet age. Youtube does quite a great job, entertaining those people by providing them with more or less random video recommendations, based on their previous viewed videos. This makes it possible that EACH AND EVERY video uploaded to Youtube gets some views. If you now count in the usual random factor of mistakes, misspellings, misplaced clicks or simply curiosity, each video should get a good ammount of clicks. Ever wondered how a video with a boring guy talking about boring stuff in a boring environment got 40.000 view in just one month: Here's your explanation. It is his share of the gaussian distributed randomness of all existing things. It is the white noise of the very populated internet. The more people are at a certain place/website, the more likely it is, that even profound bullshit atracts some of those people.

Am I boring you allready? Ok, then I will make it a bit more interesting for the male audience ;). Let's imagine a central place in your city. Would you imagine, that one day a nice female would showcase her boobs to the public there? Well, if your city is in fact a small town, this will most probably not happen in ages. BUT: The more people are visiting that place, the more possible it is that some day a young, good looking lady is up for some fresh air around her boobs. This is called PROBABILITY.

Let's get back to Youtube (*yawn*). Let's imagine the following: You upload a video without any content, let's say pure black screen for one minute, give it some random tags, title etc. If my assumptions above are correct, your video should attract at least your share of the "Youtube White Noise", right? And this should of cause happen without you promoting the video anywhere. A simmilar experiment I did recently, just out of curiosity, generated 74 views in one week. If I had chosen a clever title such as "You will not believe this! Alien invasion on its way! Prepare!", did tag-spamming by filling in tags like "free,sex,porn,money"... you name it and spreaded the video viral across the web, I am sure it would have generated a lot more views. And remember: All without any interesting content.

What would you say, taking all of the above into account, if you uploaded videos to Youtube (quality and content still doesn't matter here) and even one of them gets no views in, let's say, a day? What would you say, if a whole Youtube channel, existing since about 2 years with 50+ videos on it doesn't get ONE view in a whole week? And now imagine that the people you personally know who watched the videos say, that they are interesting, entertaining, beautiful etc.

Wouldn't you say, that this is against the rules of probability? Wouldn't you say, that this is "twilight zone"? Yes? Well, then I am in the "twilight zone", because exactly that happened to me. I have a 2 year old channel with 50+ videos with (i think so) quite entertaining content. If I tell you now, that often my channel gets no view in a whole week... is that in compliance with the rules of probability? Each video uploaded adds to the probability of somebody watching one of the videos by accident etc. For this it is absolutely unneccessary, that anyone is really interested in my videos. And if you now count in the fact, that I am not just uploading my videos to the "great video dump", but promote them heavily all over the web... Something is not right here, or am i wrong?

Let's set this clear: I am not whining here about too little views and/or subscribers. It is just the reaction of a human being, confronted with... well weird things happening, and trying to find a LOGICAL explanation. I am a very stubborn guy and I will continue uploading videos even if they get no views, and if it is just to laugh about this crazyness happening. So, no moaning and groaning here, but just pure amazement.

Let's wrap this up: There are countless folks out there, who would. if they were experiencing the same, love the thought, that there's a conspiracy against them. NOT ME!

1. I don't have a logical explanation for the facts described above. In fact noone of the people I talked about this with has one. So rule number one from the top of that posting does not apply, right? So, this is a point for the "twilight zone" team.
2. I am not important in any way (at least as far as I know ;)). So why should anyone put up a conspiracy against me? Point for the "logic & reason" team.

So this ended up in a draw, as I think. One point for "twilight zone", one point for "reason & logic". I just talked with a Facebook friend about me writing this blog post, and she thinks, that there is in fact no point for the "logic& reason" team. I simply quote her: "How do you know you are not important in any way? Everybody is important in some way, or he/she wouldn't exist". Well, that's too esotheric for my brain. Would I think that way, I could join all the other online nutheads, observing conspiracies all over the planet. I am a player in the team of "reason & logic" and I love it.

But what about the inevitable facts? I think for the sake of my leftover sanity, I simply ignore them and keep uploading videos. Even IF there is a conspiracy: People are watching and hopefully enjoying them. It is just that the conspiracy manipulates the view counts *snicker*.

Be well and allways remember: THEY are after you ;)