Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Status alionsonny "Continuity" album

Since not all listeners of my music are on Facebook, and some are, but for some reason missed to subscribe to my news, I can not be sure that all interested folks are informed about the progress regarding the "Continuity" album. For this reason, and because it is also useful information for the monthly alionmind News Blog, I want to describe which 13 tracks will be on the album, and in which state of completion they are. Here we go:

Greenhills
From the pre-release version of this song is NOTHING left. It is the oldest title destined for the album. The first version was presented in 2010 . Accordingly, I had to improve a lot and it was a pretty intense task to make this old song a worthy part of the new album. But: DONE!
Current version : RELEASE

Nero d ' Avola
Despite the fact that, since the last time I worked on this song plenty of time has passed, quite a bit had to be improved here. A little work on mixing and EQing and a few small adjustments to the structure and everything was DONE!
Current version: RELEASE

Going Bonkers
On this item I am currently working and have just a few minor improvements to do. Again, MUCH has been changed here and the release version differs significantly from the pre-release.
Current Version: pre-release

Bulletproof
To do yet. However, I can not hear much that could be improved on this song. A little EQing and everything should be done. But let's see.
Current Version: pre-release

Drunken Joe In Love
THAT is still a real problem child! There is extremely much to improve here and I think in the end of this, there will be not much left of the pre-release version ;) .
Current Version: pre-release (awful condition!)

Madeira
Do not know what to make of it. Certainly a great song, but somehow something is missing ;) .
Current Version: pre-release

Talking Cat
Nice song, some improvements possible, but absolutely nothing I have to be worried about.
Current Version: pre-release

A Sunny Day
The absolutely exceptional track destined for this album in several aspects: There was ZERO suggestions for improvements or even complaints about this track for half a year the first version is now  on SoundCloud. On the contrary, I got an incredible amount of positive feedback about this song. And I can not find anything to improve at "A Sunny Day". So EXCEPTIONALLY the pre-release version was declared to be the release version. DONE!
Current version: RELEASE

Flight of the Butterfly
Okay. Minor improvements are conceivable, but definitely not a big job.
Current Version: pre-release

The Storm
A few obvious opportunities for improvement, but quite ok. Not much work.
Current Version: pre-release

Pirates of Madeira
I am tempted to declare the pre-release version to be the release version, but let's wait and see. I think it is perfect!
Current Version: pre-release

Ganja In The Jar
Absolutely fine, but I know a few things that can be improved. Not much work to do.
Current Version: pre-release

BrainForest Chapter II
Just finished ... and I think it 's perfect. Nevertheless ... let's see... ;)
Current Version: pre-release

Ok, that's it. I am again at work so that you pretty soon get your album :).

Saturday, November 16, 2013

"Brainforest Chapter III" - The last song for the album "Continuity" is here!

It is done! After 3 years, we finally have the, traditionally, 13 alionsonny tracks for a new album. If you now think, the album would be available tomorrow on iTunes & Co., I have to disappoint you. Now comes still a lot of work for me, because by just finishing the songs, only the biggest part of the work is done. What happens next? First I have to get the songs in an order (playlist) of course, so that everything fits together. Then there is the fact that the song versions you can listen to on Soundcloud are just pre-release versions and not really finished. This means that the songs were ok for me at the time they were completed. But as time passes, I hear but more or less minor "imperfections" in them, or listeners tell me about the one or the other thing that sounds not alright. The oldest songs, destined for the "Continuity" album, were completed 3 years ago. You can certainly imagine that one discovers many of such opportunities for improvement during 3 years. In addition, you learn a lot during 3 years and the own standards rise according to that. So I will take each of the 13 items completely under the microscope again and optimize.

Brainforest Chapter III
... is the third part of a song series which was started in 2004 with the first part which can be found on the first alionsonny album "XperiMental Reggae WorX". The series was continued with part 2, which was released on the, now downloadable for free, album "Excursions in Time & Space". When I worked at the first part, it was already clear to me, that this would become a series of songs. For an album, which claims to be a part of a continuity in it's title, a continuation of Brainforest is just a logical step. Again everything sounds "latin american"-ish and also the somewhat mystical and gloomy jungle feeling is back again. The new part, however, is far more complex than its predecessors. There are also no sample loops used it and, the reggae purists will stone me for this statement: There's far more Reggae in "Brainforest Chapter III". But what do I tell all the time? Hear it for yourself:

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

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 ;)

Sunday, October 13, 2013

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!

Thursday, October 3, 2013

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 ;)

Sunday, September 29, 2013

...and another free album: "The Alion Archives"!

I know that soon the "Don't give everything away for free"-folks will show up and tell me, that I am too generous ;). But in my opinion the recordings in this package are not suitable for a commercial release. And before the stuff rotts on the hard drive, while not just a few people ask where you can download the old stuff, I prefer to give it away for free. It may be of interest for the "make money from everything"-folks to know, that there were listeners who, when I released the other two free albums, advised me not to do it, as the quality of the old crackers would be bad advertising. You see, so everyone has their own opinion on what is sellable and what is not.

So, after I already made "Excursions in Time & Space" a free album and put the commercial (in my opinion) not usable tracks of the (no longer available) albums "This is not really Reggae" and "Early Experiments in Dub" on the free album "Free", I now compiled another 13 old tracks for another free album, titled "The Alion Archives". And this time, you get some, as some would say, legendary pieces of alionsonny history. This blog is really long because I want to tell you a little something about each featured song. After the big break with my "everything free, donate what you want"-strategy in 2009 and the decline of ReggaeDubwise.com some things disappeared completely from the Web, not just a few people would be happy to get their hands on again. Well, clever ones, who downloaded the whole stuff when it was still online. And so requests for certain songs didn't stop coming in. And every time I asked myself, how I would get this sorted. For a few songs the decision was simple: I did not have the original sources and the existing MP3 file was encoded in less than 192 kbps, which made a commercial release on the usual sales portals impossible. In other cases  certain plugins for my audio software did no longer work, resulting in that a revamp would have been very complicated. The rest of the songs, from my point of view, would have required a major revamp, which I do not think is advisable because of costs and benefits. And that is good for you because now you get, just before the release of the new commercial album "Continuity", a little gift again. Following, I would like to tell you more or less about each song :

01. Fiesta (first published March 18. 2006 )
This is my first and only version of the famous "Lalabella"- or "Ghetto People" riddim . This Riddim is my favorite riddim, right after the "Ali Baba" riddim. The version on this album was actually scheduled for one of the infamous "Dubwars" on Versionist.com. However, this did never happen due to the decline of this community. Really a pitty. I would certainly have won again ;).

02. Midnight Summer Dream Dub (first published January 20. 2006)
This is a reggae cover version of my favorite song of the rock band "The Stranglers". It was produced during just one night. The idea was actually to transform ANY song by ANY rock band into a dub reggae version. And since I had the melody of "Midnight Summer Dream" in my head since a New Year's party anyway still, it was clear which song it would be.

03. Language of My Reality feat. Colin Mutchler (first published March 18. 2006 )
Actually, I was just looking for drum samples ... yes , at that time my collection of free samples was not really large. And so one day I was once again on the hunt. An online friend recommended me CCMixter. Why that? Because after some browsing , I noticed that I was at the completely wrong place for collecting drum samples. I was looking for one-shot drum samples, but here I found mostly more or less complete tracks and acapellas for remixing. This was a community for remixers. But while I was there, I looked at what I could find. From the beginning I found the Acapellas very interesting. The possibilities to do voice recordings inside my flat were even more unsuitable than today and I found it a good idea to use something like vocals, at least a rap as an element of a new song. And so I stumbled across the Acapellas by Colin Mutchler, which were superb in both, recording quality and the very appealing topics. After a first contact I have also noted that Colin is a really nice person. Once more a "Versionist.com Dubwar" was on it's way, and the chosen riddim was the Skylarking Riddim. So I created a suitable version of that riddim and Colin's Acapella fit  excellent. I don't know whether the aforementioned "Dubwar" ever took place, and if so, what position the song reached... well, who cares? ;).

04. Ali Baba's Psychedelic Breakfast (first published: December 31. 2005 )
A long, long time ago on a long gone website (Versionist.com) with a unique community consisting of more or less crazy Reggae musicians, dubbers and reggae lovers, there was a beautiful tradition: Since the assembled musicians had a certain tendency to verbally go for eachothers throat the ritual of the so-called "Dubwars" came to life. A well-known Riddim was chosen and until a set date all participants could produce versions of  that riddim and showcase it on Versionist.com. Then the winner was determined in a democratic vote. At my suggestion my favorite riddim, the Ali Baba Riddim, was selected for the Dubwar at the end of 2005. And it would have been a shame for me if my version would not have won. And I won, despite the fact that I could produce the version on New Years Eve 2005 just shortly before the deadline, due to a severe flu.

05. Alion Smoke Signal (first published:  July 14. 2006)
There is actually no particular story behind this. I found the original "Baffling Smoke Signal" by Lee Scratch Perry always funny and I had the idea to craft an instrumental cover version of it for quite a long time already . The choice of ​​an accordion as main instrument had to do with my, at the time, very strong tendency to anger the reggae purists. ;) And so it was done .

06. Heart Attack (first published: July 09.2006 )
As for the 5th title there is only to say that I always liked the original "My heart is gone" by John Holt and because of this wanted to release an instrumental version. Said and done ...

07. Dinner Time for the Cats (first published: May 31. 2007)
Mid 2007, the open verbal war between me and those who wanted "their reggae" free from any alien influence was at the absolute peak. This was due also to the fact of the decay of the Versionist.com community, the process of the creation of the alternative plattform ReggaeDubwise.com and my choice of side. This created some well-deserved hostilities against me. Skilled by the previous Dubwars, and learning the versioning of classic riddims, I directly strove for provocation with the release of "Dinner Time for the Cats". Daring to version the classic Sleng Teng riddim in my own (perceived by the purists as blasphemy) style was actually reason enough for an outrage. However, it was a much greater provocation to do that version using the melody of a well-known children's song. The response was accordingly: FYAH ! ;)

08. Babylon DC feat. Ital Roots Players (first published: May 16. 2006)
The Ital Roots Players and me, during times of Versionist.com and ReggaeDubwise.com, were connected via a kind of "love-hate" relationship. At least the two Ital Roots Players, as well as I did, enjoyed excessive flame wars in the forums. How surprising it must have been for the "bystanders", who always perceived our flame wars as some kind of a total war, that I accepted the offer of the Ital Roots Players to use their Acapella "Babylon DC" in a song. Countless versions using this Acapella were published back then. However, mine was most likely the one which most surprised the audience.

09. Everyday Choices feat. Colin Mutchler (first published: May 15. 2006)
After the unexpected success of "Language of My Reality ", it was no question that I would produce another song with an acapella by Colin. This time I decided to use a genuine own riddim creation instead of a version of a classic riddim.

10. A Banquet At Elvenwood Castle (first published : 18.08.2005 )
Some Versionists really loved my first songs in which I joined a "Dungeons & Dragons" theme with reggae-ish music very much, such as "The Knights of Dubwood Castle" from the album "Xperimental Reggae WorX". The idea behind this, very early, production was to make it more suitable for a movie soundtrack. Whether this was successful, everyone should judge for him/herself ;) .

11. On the Rocks feat. Scott Durfinger (first published : March 11. 2005)
At the height of my experimental phase I encountered a young rock guitarist who presented quite high quality recordings of his art in the forum of SoundClick (not to be confused with SoundCloud ...did not even exist back then). I asked him, if I could use one of his solo recordings for remixing just for fun. He agreed and now I could try to mix rock guitar with reggae. If I succeeded doing this? Well ... judge for yourself

12. Astral Travel (first published:  July 11. 2010)
There is not much to say about this: I was in search for public domain video material on Archive.org and stumbled across a spoken meditation instruction. I had just finished an instrumental track... and something was missing. A little bit of work and this is the result.

13. Everyday Choices feat. Colin Mutchler - Alternate Version (Previously unreleased)
This is an alternative version of "Everyday Choices". I can not say anything specific about the origin. The thing was somehow always somewhere on the hard drive and was always ignored until a girlfriend found it and said that this version is better than the other one. Hmm, I do not even think that this is a final version. But, hey, it's free ;).

Ok, I hope I did not forget anything. And finally: You can download the album from my website, FOLLOWING THIS LINK. There simply click on "FREE DOWNLOAD". The album is available in RAR format. Actually, everyone should know how to unzip something, for example using the free software 7-Zip. ENJOY!

Thursday, September 26, 2013

The sound of the islands: "Ganja in the Jar"!

... and you thought I was joking when I announced on Facebook that I would marry the good old Sleng Teng riddim with THE popular song of Irish folk, "Whiskey in the Jar". Well, those of you who hear alionsonny not just since yesterday, will actually recall some Irish folk / Reggae experiments I did in the past. To the newer listeners, they are probably unknown because none of the tracks is on any album currently available . This will change very soon, as I plan to release another free album with ancient song releases.

Style
But back to "Ganja in the Jar" . When I additionally also announced that this piece of music would include the Christian song "Lord of the Dance" as a "secondary melody", some of the folks thought, this would not be possible. Well, I have truly accomplished already by far more complicated style blends. Both "Whiskey in the Jar", and "Lord of the Dance" are not composed in any exotic time signatures. There are truly difficult candidates in the (Irish) folk music for Reggae interpretations. The difficulty in Reggae interpretations of Irish folk music is, that Reggae is played in 4/4-time. Irish folk often uses quite "exotic" signatures . The only flavor of Irish folk songs which are in 4/4-time I know of are Reels. Jigs, for example, are in 6/8, Slides in 12/8. Besides there are plenty of other time signatures such as 3/4 and extremly funny ones like the Slip Jig in 9/8. In the end it is of course all just mathematics. With a little work one can "convert" any signature to a 4/4. However, it is not done with just pure mathematics. Both, Irish Folk and Reggae is very emotional music. A simple mathematical transformation would be like Kraftwerk performing the "Moldau" by Smetana... well... that would be interesting ;). Another not to be underestimated, factor in making Reggae versions of Irish folk tunes is the emphasized offbeat in Reggae. A melody, which fits well to a 4/4 Rock song, can sound extremely different on a offbeat emphasized Reggae rythm. Finally I would say that a healthy mix of mathematics and feeling always leads to the goal.

History
As mentioned, I have already "married" Irish Folk to Reggae a couple of times in the past. I even messed before with the well-known Sleng Teng riddim. In 2007 I published "Dinner Time for the Cats", a Sleng Teng riddim version with the melody of the famous nursery rhyme "Three Blind Mice". Somehow many well-known tunes fit with he Sleng Teng Riddim... well, at least if you mangle it properly. On that cold, gray September morning, I had not really planned to produce music . The plan was actually working on the long overdue videos. And so I announced it on Facebook: Dear people ! No music today. Now I'm working at the videos. I do not remember exactly how I got the idea to do a new version of Sleng Teng, but somehow I was suddenly in the middle of the production of a new track. After some time I had a standard Sleng Teng, but with more "punch" and some (still) small modifications. As so often, I sat down at the keyboard and just improvised along. I have no idea how exactly the melody of "Whiskey in the Jar" sneaked into my mind. I have not heard that song in ages, but it fit quite well. As I noted before, there were some who, after I announced on Facebook, that I would make a Sleng Teng version of "Whiskey in the Jar", thought that now I would finally become permanently insane. They had no idea, what was about to come ;). After "Whiskey in the Jar" fit perfectly, I improvised a bit further and found that the old melody of "Lord of the Dance" also, maybe even better, worked with my version of the riddim. At least one Facebook friend stated that this would NEVER fit . "Well, Sonny, you've already done a lot of crazy stuff, but a Reggae version of 'Whiskey in the Jar' ... and then also a Christian hymn as a second melody? That doesn't work!". Doesn't work? Works! ...as you can hear... ;). Do I need to explain the song title ?

Questionable
In the case of this song, I am a lot more sure that the final album version will sound a lot different than the, now available pre-release version, than for any other song destined for the "Continuity" album. Meanwhile, I have heard some details, I would like to change somehow. At the beginning of the song, the harmonica resonates far too long. I'm not sure if the bass and snare drum should sound that much "in the face" or rather a bit softer. On one side the track has a hell of a punch, but somehow it seems a bit too much for my taste. Maybe I will make two versions: The "In the face version" and the "laid back version". We will see...

Almost there
This is now track 12 of 13 for the album "Continuity". Almost there! And the long announced track number 13, "Brain Forest - Chapter III" is almost finished. This means that I will soon start  transforming all 13 tracks into the final album versions. In this step, I will also ensure that the whole album sounds coherent in itself. This will take some time, but I guess that it can be done in one to two weeks.

Ok, that was a lot of text again . But if I write less, some complain I could tell some more . So now: MUSIC !

Monday, September 9, 2013

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 !

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

New song " Pirates of Madeira"!

Oh, that's complicated to explain ... or not? Well, let's sinply get started:  I guess quite a few of you will think " Oh no, not the island again", when they see the term "Madeira" in the song title, or maybe "will that EVER end?". "No!" is the correct answer to the latter question. However, it doesn't matter very much, how a song is titled. What matters is the sound.

And especially our beloved "genre fascists" will once more break out in weeping , gnash their teeth or will break out in open contempt for my person. I already know that from absolutely sufficient experience. Should I do it? Should I say the song "Pirates of Madeira" has just a minimal similarity or even IS some kind of REGGAE? Should I? No, I do not want to be responsible for deaths. And precisely for this reason, you, dear reader, dear listener, should  follow my example and refrain from a more thorough discussion of the subject of genre localization of this musical piece, if possible . Since "there is no blessing in this" , as a very wise old lady often used to say . And do not think you would escape the judgment of the genre fascists if you simply choose a different genre to locate this musical piece. Well, for example the techno fans (Goa / Trance) will not threaten you with "Fire & Brimstone" because of the genre blasphemy, but you will not make yourself popular either.

With this kind of a piece of music it is like with so many typical foods of different regions : Do not ask what's in it as long as it tastes ;). The song has, during it's extremely long development from a simple loop to the now available prerelease version, undergone some rather turbulent conversions . If you, like a friend of mine , are of the opinion, that this song would have suited the Willma Poppen project more than the alionsonny project, then I can tell you, for the general amusement, that the song was at least once temporarily destined for each of my 3 major projects. Fact is: The song started as a typical alionsonny song idea. One of those "bouncy, funny reggae-ish" thingies, which make the Reggae purists freak out. Then the song transformed so much into the direction of pop techno, that I had to call it a 100% Willma Poppen Project track. In between, albeit in questionable mental constitution on my part, the song was once also a candidate for Cimeliums "Madeira" album.

That the song then still developed to what it is today, is due to the fact, that I once again enjoyed a delicious Madeira wine 3-4 nights ago. And while doing that, I watched the video of the day on the Santa Maria de Colombo in 2011, aswell as the video from 2012. I constantly had this accordion melody and the next day it was clear to me that:
  1. I would like to dedicate a song to the Santa Maria de Colombo and the crew.
  2. why not this one?
Said and done ! And so I worked the last 3 days almost non-stop to get done what you can listen to now . By the way, is the track 11 of 13 for the new alionsonny album "Continuity". The next song is already pretty much ready for pre release. Especially my "old time fans" will love to read what it will be: Chapter 3 of the the popular "BrainForest" series! Continuity ;)

And now have fun with the Pirates of Madeira!

Friday, August 23, 2013

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:


Sunday, August 18, 2013

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:


Wednesday, July 17, 2013

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!

Sunday, July 14, 2013

New song "The Storm" available!

Exactly, the song was actually released already 2 days ago, but I had to do something else meanwhile and no time to write the blog. Yes, that happens too. On the topic: Yes, for the second time within a week a new track for the new alionsonny album was completed. No one would have expected this, after the project has paused for quite a long time, in favor of Willma and Cimelium. Thus we have 10 of the 13 tracks for the album now and this puts the release date of the album into a timespan one can call "foreseeable future". Although I do not suppose that the album will be released before my birthday on July 19th, but at least I can say with certainty that it will be relesed still in 2013.

The current song, titled "The Storm" is, is as "Flight of the Butterfly" was, on the one hand a flashback to the early days of the alionsonny project, on the other hand a big step forward. The sound might remind many of you of the time around 2007, when songs such as "Photosynthesis", "Revolution Now" or "Individuality" shaped the alionsonny sound significantly. I currently enjoy working with old concepts in new "clothing". A few new tricks in conjunction with traditional tastes and favorites can certainly provide a quite nice result. And I think that "The Storm" is a good example. The idea may well come from 2007. It also deals quite rude with the underlying musical genres Reggae and Ska, as it was the case in the days of "This is not really reggae". Parts of the song have rythm patterns fitting the played genre quite well which quickly change to patterns from totally different styles of music. Does this remind any one of the days of Polka- or Waltz-Reggae-Mashups? Well, some things do not change..

Conclusion: "The Storm" is absolutely nothing for Reggae or Ska purists, especially if they understand a mashup of their beloved genres as a sacrilege. Friends of varying experimental musical experiences with a preference for psychotic sound  episodes should be served well.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Finally a new alionsonny Song: Flight of the Butterfly!

Photo: User Beentree Wikipedia
Some thought again, the alionsonny project would be dead and buried, although the release of the last song "A Sunny Day" took place about just 3 months ago. Yes, some of my listeners are still living in those days in which pretty much I everything I created was released as an alionsonny release. And since I do no longer publish information about the releases of the projects Cimelium and Willma Poppen  at this Blog (as announced by the way) since quite a time, some even said I do no longer produce music at all anymore. Updates to the releases of these projects are recently announced in the  Cimelium Blog and the Willma Poppen Blog. The ultimate source for news about all alionmind records releases  will be the, recently not very well served, alionmind records Blog in the future. It is also recommended for Facebook users to "like" the alionsonny, Willma Poppen, Cimelium and alionmind records Facebook pages to immediately get news about the projects.

So much for the long preface. Yes, the alionsonny project is alive and there are already several songs in progress to complete the long-awaited new alionsonny album. The reception of the last  alionsonny release "A Sunny Day" was absolutely stunning. So many listeners wrote me that they like the song, and even more stunned me, that some amongst those people were not really lovers of my music before. Longtime listeners even believed, as a Facebook friend nailed it, that the alionsonny sound "finally grew up".  What a slap in the face must the latest release "Flight of the Butterfly" be for those who thought so? This song once more is a very experimental creation, which certainly allows comparisons with the early early days of the project. Why does he do that? Well, I just was in the mood for a experimenting again. And since I had just completed a rather experimental piece for Willma Poppen shortly before beginning work on "Flight of the Butterfly", I was still in the ultra creative mode, so everything went not just a bit experimental again.

As I said more alionsonny releases and the completion of the new album (still without a name) are planned for the near future. But for now, here is the new song:

Sunday, June 30, 2013

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!

Sunday, June 23, 2013

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:

Monday, June 10, 2013

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!

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

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:

Saturday, April 27, 2013

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!
 

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

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 ;)

Sunday, April 7, 2013

I give up... or not?

I thought for quite a long time, if I should write this posting and if, in which form. I allready see the feedback: There will be the ones who are honestly sorry about it all happening, but also folks who with intention get me wrong. I hope, that the experience I gained so far in the communication process with you out there over the years, helps me to avoid the worst misunderstandings. Well, on the other hand, I could handle it like a friend suggested it yesterday "Never mind! You are giving up! What do you care what people think about you now?". Well, I am not that way.

I also am unsure about, if I should describe it all to you in detail, or just keep it crisp and short. I pretty much know, that each and every bit or negative information about me, my life etc. I give to you makes you flee in masses. The media consumer of today wants no bad news. You want the happy, funny Sonny and not his reallife problems. Most probably each of you out there has their own and doesn't want to be bothered with those of others. That's why I will try something in the middle and hope it works.

What happened? Inspired by an exceptionally positive mail regarding my AlionLive Madeira Series (hello Isa!), I realized, that I possibly waste my time. What I somehow ignored so far and didn't really realize is, that the ammount of work and effort I put into my works is absolutely disproportionate to the reception I get for my works. And NO, I want to set this crystal clear: This is no possible stupid form of some kind like a "revenge", like "You do not subscribe to my channel, and buy not enough albums, so I quit!". I pretty much know, that the rather bad minded folks out of you will presume it all in that way. And this while it is quite easy to understand my real motives.

Each human has a limited ammount of time and uses it preferably for a usefull purpose. Sure: One can do many things in form of a so called hobby, just for fun and to make others happy, and that's great... as long as the ammount of time put into a particular activity is not too overwhelming. Because then it turns into a job and a job should be preferably paied. Here we have to use different aspects of "does it pay". And that is not neccessarly connected to money. I still remember the first gig of my first Punk band very well. The audience was 3 people who had free tickets. If it went on like this, I think the band would not have existed as long as it did. Nobody wants to play gigs at empty houses.

Regarding to my activities, currently every thing is quite questionable, when it comes to the topic of "Does this make any sense? Does it pay AT ALL?". I sell a laughable ammount of albums, my Youtube channel is most probably the least viewed and subscribed channel in the known universe and the ad-revenue is because of that rather not mentionable. This would be completely ok... if there wasn't that gigantic ammount of time I put into my works. People like Isa, who told me in precious words about how she experienced and liked AlionLive Madeira know how much work is put into making the music and the videos. Well and that's by far not all. But many people still think that my work is something one could click together in just a few minutes.

What is happening now? I plan to for at least a month put a halt on all projects. This regards AlionLive, alionsonny, Willma Poppen and Cimelium. I am very sorry for those who allready wait for the next AlionLive videos and also the albums announced allready. I again emphasize: This is not some kind of "This is what you get from all that". Such kind of thinking is no part of my agenda at all and you, as loyal fans, should know that allready ;). In that month, I will put it all to the test and view all aspects of my work rather regarding to sustainability, reasonability, possible ways to go further and of cause also the financial part of it all. I will look if there is anything I can possibly do to increase the proportionality between the work, time,money i invest and what I get back. And at latest at the end of the month I will decide if the projects are continued or completely abandonned.

I want to be honest as allways: If I do not discover any blatant error in my promotion strategies, it looks rather dark for a continuation of my projects. But I would not do that "month of truth", if I had no hope. In all events, something has to change drastically. I MUST become more professional. The last time I said this, it resulted in the loss of a majority of my audience. It was back then in 2010, when I decided to no longer give away my music for free. Let's hope we can handle this more in an adult-ish way this time ;)

As allways I am interested in your opinion and welcome each form of constructive discussion (preferably via mail). The Blog comments stay moderated, because I expect some folks to run wild here ;)

Thursday, March 21, 2013

...and there it allready is: AlionLive Return 2 Madeira - Day 5B!

How many of you thought, that there would be a rather big time gap between 5A and 5B, eh? I have put pretty much effort into letting the 5B video follow as soon as possible. It was not particularly hard to get this done, because the video is only 18 minutes long. I have done that, so to say, as a byproduct ;). I made a little mistake during that. The intro of the video still says "Day 5A". Some very attentive viewers informed me about that. Sorry, I overlooked this and I don't want to re-uploaad the video.

This part of AlionLive Return 2 Madeira takes us to the most eastern part of the island. We hike from the most eastern point, accessible with a car, to the Cais do Sardinha. The video is that short because of the following reasons:
  1. The hiking path was far more challenging than I thought and at many parts it would have been practically suicide to play around with a camera instead of taking care.
  2. My footwear, sandals, was a additional source of hazard. Often I slipped out of them sideways while hiking on steep parts of the path.
  3. 3. The weather was changing all the time very quickly and so I again had to protect the camera.
  4. Especially up on the cliffs, the was a strong unpredictable wind blowing, which would push one off the cliff, if one doesn't pay a bit of additional attention. Also the wind was shaking the arm holding the camera quite heavily. This brought some additional shaking of the camera.
  5. I simply had to get the hike done and get back to the bus station in time. Because I started the hike quite late, I had to hurry up. Video filming costs time.
  6. At some parts, the heavy wind pushed the spray water from the oceans waves up the cliffs. This was another danger to protect the camera from.

Personally I think, that this part of AlionLive Return 2 Madeira, despite it's short runtime, is the best one so far, and that because of the quite great quality of the nature vistas. The soundtrack consists of cause of the brandnew alionsonny track "A Sunny Day" and three more tracks, not featured on any album so far.

Here is the tracklist:
  1. alionsonny - Dinnertime For The Cats
  2. alionsonny - A Sunny Day..
  3. alionsonny - Springtime 2008
  4. alionsonny - Summertime 2007

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

AlionLive Return 2 Madeira - Day five - Busride from Funchal to Canical is here!

I decided to divide the video material of my fifth day in Madeira 2012 into two part, part 5A and part 5B. You allready know that from the 2011 "AlionLive Madeira" series. On that day I took the bus from Funchal to Canical and it was rainy weather. The destination was the most eastern point of the island one can get to by bus or car. The nearer I got to my destinatio, the better the weather was and at the end I got a real good dose of blue sky and sunshine. The part I present here is part 5A and is all about the busride. I did not completely film the busride, because I think you know the center of Funchal from a bus view quite good by now. And this is why I started filming later. Still a whole hour of video is the result. The complete busride took about 1 1/2 hours. In the next part, 5B, I will show you the hike.

The soundtrack is partly from the 2009 alionsonny album "Reggae?" and partly tracks destined for the new alionsonny album. Of cause also the brandnew alionsonny track "A Sunny Day" is featured.

Here's the tracklist:
01 - alionsonny - Madeira
02 - alionsonny - A Sunny Day
03 - alionsonny - Drunken Joe In Love
04 - alionsonny - Dr. Funkenstein (Album "Reggae?")
05 - alionsonny - Bulletprrof
06 - alionsonny - Springtime 2009 (Album "Reggae?")
07 - alionsonny - Going Bonkers
08 - alionsonny - Behold The Crest(Album "Reggae?")
09 - alionsonny - Nero d' Avola
10 - alionsonny - Talking Cat
11 - alionsonny - Life goes ON!(Album "Reggae?")