Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Cheery! How Little Musicians Make Online

Click on the title or this link. This is a fascinating infographic that indicates what musicians selling their music have to sell in order to make the (USA) minimum wage. There's debate as to how accurate the data is (if you read the comments) but even as a rough calculation, it's pretty telling stuff.

Our first review

Thanks to mr oCean, inaugural Sofa Sessions poet, for this fine, comprehensive review of the weekend's three Sofa Sessions shows for Moabit Kulturtage. You are very kind, sir! Click on the title for the link to the review.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Sofa Sessions success

Oh! The first three Sofa Sessions were a complete blast! Three days of intimate, warm and soulful performances from some of my favourite Berlin singers and songwriters. Our fantastic, attentive and supportive audiences. Performers and audience chatting in the breaks. Contacts made. CDs sold. Art appreciated. Tablecloths burned.

Amongst the many highlights, here's four images strong in my mind:
* A roomful of people sang harmony with Eric Eckhart and Miranda, Lotta and Floyd
* Daniel Hoth's incendiary poetry readings really affected the audience with his intensity, truth and flow
* Claire from Bocage danced on bare feet and sang her heart out
* The many kitchen conversations, hugs and connections made after the shows

Several people cried at the music, including me. I am buzzing that we made something so relaxed, so simple and so warm that gave some community energy back to this beautiful city. I say "we" because the Sofa Sessions happened and ran so beautifully due to the efforts of many. I would like to publicly thank the following:

Cosima Diehl, Lena Tjäder, Dr. Claudia Beelitz and the Moabit Kulturtage crew, Frau Rosinov, meine nachbarn, Neil Leslie, Christina Fischer, Leena McCall, Cameron Wilson, Craig Thomson, Gaby Bila-Günther, Daniel Skornicka and all the performers and artists. Please click on the links, go to their MySpace pages and websites, support them and see more shows.

I will post photos and video in the next week or so. Keep an eye out here for the next Sofa Sessions gig, join my Sofa Sessions E-Mail Liste and tell your friends.

Live music is the shit!

Much love,

Ms. Sam