#and Katowice definitely sounds better with 'are'

[hl-obsessed]

Hi Shay. I saw your tags about the exclusive merch for Poland. I made this based on that:

I didn't know for if you prefer for Katowice with is or are, so I put both options:

Is not the best edit but the idea is what matters haha.

CC!!!!!! FUCKING HELL. THOSE ARE GORGEOUS!!!? 😍😭🥺

NOW I WANT THEM ALL.

THE COLORS?????

FUCK, I NEED!!! THEM ALL.

@/niallhoran here is someone you should give a job on you designers team like right fucking now.

@yourslarry come look!!!

[happy-retvrns]

Yoo, I just found your blog and I was also at the Katowice show, my first time seeing PT, came all the way from Budapest, and despite the sound quality it was still wonderful! It could've been way better and I definitely agree with what you said, but it was still a cool first experience!

Also, a lot of people have told me that concerts in Spodek are usually not this bad, I think someone said they saw Ghost just a few months before PT and everything was fine, so I have no idea what happened there.

Ooh, fellow PT fan! / waves

That's a long way to Poland but totally worth to see these guys haha

Yeah, that was kinda weird, i also heard about good concerts there, but i'm still happy that i got to see them! Maybe it's not our last time seeing them so we can also enjoy it in perfect quality one day -

[kalluun-patangaroa]

Suede at INmusic festival, Zagreb, Croatia, 25 June 2019

It's been 3 weeks since that fantastic night now and I've been back home from Croatia and Slovenia for a week (and I’m busy again...), but - as I promised - I'll be trying to recreate some of the atmosphere and emotions of that HOT night... The night was double special for me, 'cause right before Suede, on the same stage, as if opening for them and setting the mood :), performed iconic Garbage. I was overjoyed to have my favourite female and male singers, Shirley and Brett, share the same stage on the same night! My cousin who I was with has a rare and very useful ability: she can move forward through the crowd gracefully and skillfully enough so as not to disturb people. Whenever people standing in front of her make any moves, back, forth or to the side, she always finds a tiny gap opening for her, squeezes into it and gets in front of them. Nobody ever complains as she hardly touches or pushes anybody doing this. And then she repeats this move again and again, progressing slowly but surely to the front. So my job was just to follow her... When Garbage started we were right at the back of the crowd, and midway through the set we were here - just a metre or so away from the front barrier :))

That was, in fact, a tactic move, too - one thing was to get as close as possible to the stage to see Garbage well, the other - more important - to be strategically positioned to leap to the barrier the moment Garbage has finished and any 2 people from the barrier move away. Which we luckily managed to do! And as it turned out, it was absolutely the only possible way to be able to get onto the barrier for Suede, also because a lot of people who were on the barrier for Garbage, stayed there also for Suede, even if that meant having to hang on the barrier for the entire hour between the 2 gigs. It wasn't really that bad as we could watch Suede's technicians installing Suede's equipment on the stage. And we even had a bonus of seeing Simon some half an hour before the gig started, as he came to the stage to check something with his cute, glitter-pink (!!) drums. We cheered and clapped our hands when we saw him, so he waved back to us, which was lovely. I actually wanted to shout 'Simon' to him, but was too shy to do that - stupid me...

And then, at 11:15 p.m., the lights went out and we could hear the first sounds of As One. Being on the barrier, just a couple of metres away from the stage, even in total darkness we could see our boys emerge one by one, and it was exciting to see Neil count to five for Richard, to let him know when to start. Since we were almost in front of Richard (slightly more centred), we could watch his every move closely. And I did have eye contact with him a couple of times throughout the gig, which was thrilling! :) Shortly afterwards Brett joined them and that was the moment the gig really started. Following As One was Outsiders and at that point we still had right in front of us pro photographers taking photos for the press...

And some of them were still there during We Are The Pigs (on the left in the pic)...

...but by the time of So Young they were all gone!

Next in that string of classics were Metal Mickey, Flashboy and 2 of Us. Brett was being hyperactive all the time, leaping onto the monitors and then off them, throwing himself onto his knees, singing lying or on all fours, and doing his mic tricks - of course! While Brett was swinging his mic, it was funny to watch Richard subconsciously lean a bit to avoid being hit by it, even if he was well out of range of that swinging mic right then :)

And then it was time for Life Is Golden, and Brett finally decided to use the stairs leading down from the stage to the barrier...

When he got down he first turned to his right and went to The Insatiable Ones group who were on the barrier in front of Neil (which I only realized when Brett addressed them from the stage - I couldn't see them from 'our' part of the barrier). After he stayed with them for a while he left them and, all the time singing, started walking along the barrier, touching with his right hand all the hands that the fans were stretching towards him, and doing this he reached the other side of the barrier, passing us by on the way - so yes, that was the first time we had any physical contact with him! :) But that was just a prelude to what was about to happen next... He turned back at the end of the barrier and returned to us!! He jumped onto the metal step that was on the other side of the barrier right in front of us, and, towering over us, was literally next to us then. He stayed the total of 50 seconds with us, 2:42-3.32 on the video below (credits to Andre D. Keaton) . And yes, Life WAS Golden for me then... <333 That left hand (with a silver watch on the wrist) that you can see at the bottom of the picture starting from 2:42, first placed on Brett's waist, and then, having been overlapped by someone else's hand, moving onto his - ahem - bum, is MINE. And mine and my cousin's faces appear a couple of times between 3:15-3:30. too.

As I said, Brett was whole 50 seconds with us, but it actually felt shorter, like 30 sec perhaps - oh well, time flies when you're holding Brett in your arms! :)) And when he jumped off that step I suddenly felt the cord of his mic being wrapped around the back of my neck and realized I had to get rid of it right away or I'd get strangled, lol. That would be quite some death to get accidentally strangled by Brett Anderson during a concert, but since Life Is Golden, I decided to disentangle myself, which can be seen in another vid below (credits to Dragan Bralić). Brett is with us between 1:53-2:43 here, and I remove the cord from my neck in that last second, 2:43. But watch the vid till the end to see what happened next...

Yes, next song was The Drowners, and what Brett did then was just to go round the end of the barrier and get mixed into the crowd!! Just imagine how delighted all those people must have been - well, you can see their faces :) So he was among the fans, all the time singing, for as long as 1:45! (4:00-5:45 on the vid). But what did he do once he got back to the 'correct' side of the barrier?... He returned to US once more, jumped onto that step right in front of us again and stayed with us for another half a minute!! <333 (5:55-6:25 on the vid). OMG, I was half conscious after all that... ;))

While Brett was away in the crowd, Mat took advantage of the empty stage and came to the front, which I loved!

They continued with It Starts And Ends..., Lazy, Sabotage, Can't Get Enough, Trash and Animal Nitrate, and it was just ecstatic... :) Then came the time for Brett's solo acoustic, and partly even acapella, version of The Wild Ones.

Predictably, they finished the main set with The Beautiful Ones. Brett did get down to the barrier twice more for a while, during Lazy and The Beautiful Ones, but on those occasions he approached only the section right in the middle - oh well, you can't have everything, I guess... ;) And after a brief pause they returned for the encore. First, just Brett, Neil and Richard, to play a lovely acoustic version of She's In Fashion, with Neil and Richard on acoustic guitars. Fashion had turned 20 only 4 days earlier, and, to celebrate this, I posted a great acoustic rendition of it on tumblr that day, from a radio session in Amsterdam in 1999. Posting it, little did I know that 4 days later I'd hear LIVE another beautiful, summery, acoustic version of it...

The very last song they played was New Generation, electric and with the whole band again. And that was it, 90 minutes passed like seconds... The moment they disappeared I started counting the time till the day I'll see them again: August the 4th, at OFF Festival in Katowice, Poland - less than 3 weeks away from now... And I'm absolutely determined to be on the barrier then, too!!

So here's the setlist from Zagreb, but they didn't perform The Invisibles after all:

And here's the recording of the whole set - credits to Mo Gruesomm whom I am infinitely grateful to for recording this. Please don't be put off by not the best quality of the picture, especially at the beginning. It gets better later on, and the whole recording does convey the excitement and emotions of that amazing night, and is definitely worth watching from start to finish.

Note: All the photos are mine, of course, which is pretty obvious taking their hopeless technical quality... :( It was partly my crappy Samsung phone, but also, I was just more into enjoying myself than bothering about taking photos. Sorry, but I could hardly think of it while holding Brett or watching him singing, jumping and wallowing onstage mere metres away from me... :))

@sauveandelegant, @shabbydoll I’m tagging you ‘cause I know you’ll be interested to read this... :)

[coffeebreakstatement]

Poland Summer 2017 #1: Arrival

There’s this thing that happens when you travel long distances. There’s a sort of stopping of time. Or maybe prolonging it. You lose track of time. Your phone switches between time zones more naturally than you. One day drags into the next and you don’t even realize that it’s gone. You’re in the sky flying away from the sun when it happens. Or maybe you’re flying towards it. You forget what day it is. You forget that you’ve only slept 4 hours. You forget that only 25 hours ago you were walking out your front door. 

My trip had a slow start. It took me 4.5 hours to get from my house in Edmonton to Calgary by plane (what is a 3.5-hour drive on a good day). Some blessings come in disguise though because my 7-hour layover there gave me a chance to see two of my sisters one last time before I left. My little sister was the last person to give me a hug. I don’t think she saw me starting to cry when I hugged her.

There was a shift as I went from a Canadian airline flying to a Canadian city to a German airline flying to a German city. All of a sudden you were just as likely to have someone speak to you in German as English. Thankfully “danke schön” was sufficient German since all the flight attendants spoke perfectly in both languages. My seatmate was Canadian and also didn’t speak German. We enjoyed the safety video together. It made Air Canada’s seem very bland. Ours starred Marilyn Monroe with a mini me and an astronaut.

The part of my travels I was most nervous for was the layover in Frankfurt. I didn’t have a lot to be afraid of. I had 3.5 hours. The Frankfurt airport and I unfortunately have a rough past. Last time I came to Poland, everything that could have gone wrong went wrong in Frankfurt and we missed our flight. Thankfully, this time when all the non-EU citizens were milling about customs trying to figure out which desk to go to, I knew exactly where to go and got through before the throng of people. When I had to check my bag again, I knew where the Lufthanza counters were because that’s where we had to beg them to get us on the next flight last time. By the time I got to my gate, I had well over 2 hours before boarding.

I felt so comfortable in that airport this time around it was kind of a shock to remember how overwhelmed I felt when I got there last time. The Frankfurt airport was the first place in Europe I ever went to and the first place I was ever immersed in an unknown language without a guide. There was German everywhere and I didn’t understand any of it. But, there was always English written in smaller print below. People would speak to me in German first. But, on seeing my blank look would switch to English. It is times like these that I empathize with people who move to Canada without speaking very much English and I remember how privileged I am that when I’m in the same situation here, I get a safety net because people will usually be able to communicate with me still.

I got to Frankfurt with 3 euros and 12.41 złoty in my pocket. Leftovers from my last trip. My plan was to exchange money when I got to Poland. I forgot that the Frankfurt airport has no concept of a water fountain. Water was 3.15 euros. At least I had dark chocolate from the Calgary airport to get me through.

As more and more people arrived at the gate, there was another shift. This time it was a German airline flying to a Polish city. I heard a smattering of Polish, German, and English as people milled about.

There was a family that was sitting at the table next to me as we were waiting for the plane. The little boy, Ryan, was maybe 5 years old. He reminded me a lot of a little Polish boy I met when I used to run day camps in Calgary. His dad sounded American or Canadian, but his mom was definitely Polish. He would speak to Ryan in English and she would speak to him in Polish. Ryan would always respond in English. She would speak in English to her husband. I liked listening to her talk to Ryan because she was using simple vocabulary so I could understand some of it.

There was another family that I was standing next to on the bus out to the plane. The two parents and the two kids would switch mid-sentence between English, French, and Polish. I couldn’t tell what the native language of either parent was. I liked listening to them too. Maybe even more so because I could understand all of the French and English, though I struggled a bit when they switched to Polish. The kids were older and the little boy talked really fast.

Ryan had a theory on the bus ride to the plane. The bird on the plane’s wing must mean it is an Italian plane. He was very confident about his theory. His mom told him that the bird meant it was a German plane. He moved on quickly when we saw a plane starting to take off right beside us.

On the plane, people were still speaking Polish and German mostly, but the flight attendants didn’t speak Polish. The young Polish girls in front of me spoke English to them. The older man beside me spoke German to them. I knew he was Polish because he asked me in Polish before we left what row we were in to make sure he was in the right spot. He saw me thinking so he spoke again in a different language (German, probably) and then English. He was surprised when I responded in Polish.

By the time I got to Katowice, it was very similar to the last time I landed in Poland. The airports were very alike and there was even the same advertisement on the buses that took us to the arrivals wing. It took 40 minutes to get to the centre of Katowice from the airport. I was glad I had ridden in a car in Poland prior to this. There is no concept of “waiting for the dotted line to pass a car especially when there is a car fast approaching in the opposite lane”.

My Airbnb reminds me of the first house I stayed in in Poland. It is an Instagram paradise. Poland also has a very distinctive smell that I really love. Last time, after I washed my clothes in Poland, they all had that distinctive smell, even for months after I got home.

I still had only 12.41 złoty so I went to a Bankomat to get some cash (all the exchange places were closed) and went to Żabka (the convenience store on every street in Poland) to get mint apple juice (the real priority) and some fruit. I had walked to a park and there were two girls at an ice cream stand. They asked me in Polish if I wanted ice cream across the walkway and I decided to forget I was lactose intolerant for 5 minutes because it was a good chance to practice Polish with vocabulary I know (just kidding, it was all about the ice cream).

I should rewind and say that Katowice feels a lot smaller than Kraków. And it is. But when I was in Kraków and trying to speak Polish, everyone would switch to English immediately. Not so in Katowice. The ice cream stand girls could tell pretty quickly that I didn’t speak Polish fluently because I had to ask them to repeat themselves several times. They asked if I spoke English (in Polish) and knew a few English words to explain what they were trying to say when it took us a few tries to get on the same page, but my Polish was better than their English so we stuck with that. After they told me all the flavours (thank goodness for the food unit in Polish class) and I made my choice, we chatted a bit more. They asked where I was from and I said I was from Canada. They asked if I was a student here and I was able to communicate that I was going to be a student in Cieszyn, but only for a month. They told me that I had “really pretty” Polish. That made me feel really good about all the time I spent working on my pronunciation when I was first learning Polish.

I’m looking forwards to having more conversations like this one where I have to improvise more than I do in Polish class. One trick I have is if I don’t know the declension of the word I am trying to say, I just say it in nominative case and trail off so they finish my sentence with the correct case for me. The ice cream stand girls helped me finish this sentence: “Będę uczyć się polskiego w Cieszynie.”

[jessicakmatt]

How Sound Diplomacy is Improving Cities and Their Music Communities Worldwide

How Sound Diplomacy is Improving Cities and Their Music Communities Worldwide: via LANDR Blog

Music communities don’t exist on their own—they need cities to live.

Some cities are famous for their music scenes: London, Chicago, Nashville, Berlin… What is it about these places that makes their scenes thrive? How do governments and businesses affect music?

Sound Diplomacy is answering these questions. This is an international initiative that gives policymakers, business owners and musicians tools to make music communities thrive.

Music communities are complex ecosystems—everything matters and works together, for better or worse. A good policy or business move might mean more venues and rehearsal spaces for more musicians. A bad one could kill an entire music scene. With the importance of gigging for independent musicians, there has never been a more crucial time to nurture the relationships between cities and their music communities.

Sound Diplomacy has consulted with the Mayor of London, advised governments in Cuba, Brisbane, Armenia, Costa Rica and St. Lucia, contributed to Katowice’s successful UNESCO City of Music bid and helped over 500 artists and companies break into new markets.

We spoke to Lucas Knoflach, responsible for Market Development, Innovation and Tech at Sound Diplomacy to discover some of the most exciting projects and policies affecting musicians in cities across the world today.

What brought you to Sound Diplomacy, what is your background?

I have a degree in International Business & Media Management. While studying I also worked in the music industry—first at an independent record label/agency in Vienna (Austria) and then managing two Canadian artists for some years.

I started at Sound Diplomacy around two and a half years ago, after moving to Berlin to freelance and curate the speaker program for the conference Tech Open Air.

What is the link between city policy and music?

The link isn’t obvious. But good city policies support development across the music ecosystem—from live music, to music education, to music business.

It’s important to take a holistic approach. When we look at music in cities, it’s important to define or understand how music creates value in our communities.

Overall, music increases the quality of life for everybody.

There is the economic side—a healthy music scene creates sustainable economic value, increases tourism, leads to higher retention of talent.

But music also creates more intangible values—such as social inclusion. Learning an instrument improves memory, sharpens concentration and raises IQ. Overall, music increases the quality of life for everybody.

What are some examples of laws that hurt the development of music?

Planning frameworks in cities often favor economic return and profit for its stakeholders. The people who get left out are often those in need of affordable housing, or places that don’t generate immediate profit for its stakeholders: concert venues, rehearsal spaces, community centers… Spaces that are important for a music community to flourish.

There are examples of policies that single out certain communities, or that don’t support development of music across different scenes and genres equally. Just last month the London Metropolitan Police abolished something called the Form 696 Risk Assessment, a document some promoters had to submit. The form was accused of singling out certain groups and disproportionately affecting live performances within grime and garage genres.

In October, New York City scrapped the cabaret law. Before the law was discarded, dancing was only allowed in places that obtained a cabaret license. This law put pressure on venue owners and was accused of being arbitrarily enforced and discriminating. In Sweden such a law still exists and has been in place since the 70s. It aims at preventing “spontaneous dancing,” so if you expect people to dance, you better have a dancing permit there!

What can be done to reverse or change those laws?

A lot of positive change can be achieved through communication, and translating between the needs of the music community and politicians. In Berlin, the Club Commission has been lobbying for the city’s clubs and venues since 2004 and has affected a lot of positive change and understanding since then.

A lot of positive change can be achieved through communication, and translating between the needs of the music community and politicians.

In London, we have been working closely with the Mayor and were instrumental in the development of the Mayor of London’s Music Board and the Night Time Commission and are the acting Secretariat of the London Music Board. These positions and structures have been created over the past few years to secure the development of London’s music scene and reverse the closure of grassroots venues in the city.

What is the Music Cities movement?

The idea of Music Cities has existed for quite a long time. Traditionally the concept has been connected to Nashville, but in recent years the term Music Cities has gained more traction. Today the term Music Cities reflects cities that proactively support the development of the music ecosystem.

In 2015 we organized the first Music Cities Convention in Brighton and Washington. Together with the Hamburg Music Business Association, Sound Diplomacy also created the Music Cities Network, which fosters collaboration and knowledge exchange between its member cities. More and more cities are starting to understand the importance of securing and developing their cultural and music scenes—Sound Diplomacy is here to help with that.

What does a healthy music ecosystems look like?

For cities it’s important to think in terms of music ecosystems—taking a holistic approach. That means everything from supporting music education, venues of different sizes, to music business and understanding how public transport affects nightlife throughout the city.

For cities it’s important to think in terms of music ecosystems—taking a holistic approach.

A healthy music ecosystem (or a healthy music city) understands the effect of city policies and music policies have and how stakeholders—from musicians to consumers—can be supported through every step of their musical journey.

We recently released an infographic about becoming a music city. It explains a lot of the things I mentioned and also give you some insights into our approach:

The concept of night-time economy is gaining some traction. Explain what it is and how is affects artists and cities.

There is no strict definition of when daytime economy stops and night-time economy starts, but generally the concept refers to business that happens outside of traditional business hours, which includes culture and nightlife, but also covers evening transport, restaurants and sports.

In response to this interest in the night-time economy, cities such as Amsterdam and more recently London have created the position of night mayor (or night czar) which liaises between nightlife, residents and the government. In Amsterdam the night mayor negotiated 24 hour licenses for a certain number of clubs outside the city center. In London, Sadiq Khan released a 24 hour vision for the city, where culture and music play a big role.

These initiatives react to changes in lifestyle, needs and working situations in cities. For musicians this means that there are more possibilities to perform, more space to experiment and generally more freedom, while making sure that other stakeholders are not negatively affected.

Learn more about Sound Diplomacy. Follow Sound Diplomacy on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Spotify. 

The post How Sound Diplomacy is Improving Cities and Their Music Communities Worldwide appeared first on LANDR Blog.

from LANDR Blog https://blog.landr.com/sound-diplomacy-interview/ via https://www.youtube.com/user/corporatethief/playlists from Steve Hart https://stevehartcom.tumblr.com/post/168333465914

[happy-retvrns]

Okay, time for a review of the Porcupine Tree concert in Katowice -

It's gonna be long so I'll put it under read more.

It's the first time I got to see Porcupine Tree as a whole band, I already saw Steven 3 times before on his solo tour, and sadly I have to say that this was the worst SW concert that I've been to. As much as I love PT, the sound on the concert was too bad and too loud that I couldn't fully enjoy the show. I had no idea what happened there with it and I know it's not the band's fault but the sound technicians but that was sad. I didn't take the earplugs bc the previous solo concerts I've been to had wonderful sound easily to enjoy without them, but here I regret it so much, my ears still hurt. And I know I was not the only one who felt this way and it wasn't the issue just in this specific area as I've read comments of other people on this concert (some of them even saying that the concert should be titled 'How to screw up all the legendary PT songs in 120 minutes'). But well, back to the actual concert, other than that it would have been perfect, I loved the setlist from the start so much. I mean what could have been a better start that Even Less. They played the whole new album which is really cool but they also played their older stuff, like Last Chance to Evacuate.. which Steven dedicated to their long time fans. They also played tracks from FOABP and In Absentia. I'm especially happy about FOABP which was the starting song of the 2nd set, with the visuals in the background it just hit me so hard with feelings. I was super hyped for Anesthetize but something was off during this song, i couldn't really hear the guitar solo ?? So i was kinda sad but it was still good. Anyway I think the highlight of the night was Buying New Soul --- I could cry how wonderful it was, definitely my favorite of the concert. Now back to In Absentia, before the Sound of Muzak Steven made some joke, which - maybe i'm stupid - but my ears were deafened and i couldn't hear what he was saying. But i think that most people couldn't hear it cause no one laughed at it and later Steven mocked us for not understanding it - like, maybe if you could repeat it, more people would understand; also Steven said that we were the quietest audience of the whole tour, maybe we were too confused by the loudness but maybe that's just me. Well that's why i mentioned earlier that i had VERY mixed feelings about this concert, cause i LOVE THEM, but it was how it was. Anyway I'm happy i could see them, I missed Steven already. I like how they ended the show with Trains, and how Steven said that they don't have any greatest hits that they play every concert but Trains can do :D totally agree, to me Trains IS that greatest hit haha. Could be also Arriving Somewhere which I'm sad they didn't play and i think it's also their most popular, but Trains is totally cool <3