Hello Ladies and Gentlemen
During my time offline, I got quite a lot of feedback about my blog. Some like it just the way it is, some think it should be more nitty gritty autobiographical, and one thinks it cut close to being back-stabby, but whatever the opinion at least it has created a little bitty world wide splash ;-) The vodafone persona is coming around tomorrow (apparently) to put me on 16mb for once and for all, and after that I hope to back on your screens launching my music toward you, and getting feedback and input in return (!). Since moving to the West side of Berlin, I've gotten this huge gust of inspiration and actually feel really inspired to share my experiences with you dear reader, and hope we can have regular fun in the next few months :-))
But I request lightly - please comment! Even if it's just a couple of words, or if you're shy, a little sentence in an email, let me know that someone's out there watching and listening in cyber space, otherwise it's just way too lonely!
The person who leaves the most feedback by the end of the year (you know who you are Martin B) will receive a personally knitted baby-scarf, to give to the baby of your choice as a christmas present. I AM SERIOUS!!!
So till tomorrow (new song!)
xxx
J
The note Steffen found on our car this evening ;-)
Hi Bloggees! Been away on sabbatical, but I'm back from Bavaria now and packing my entire apartment into boxes. Yes folks, Justine is moving to a bigger place! Main reason being that the doctor prescribed a lower number of stairs thanks to the massive baby, but a change is as good as a holiday!
As for the blog - sorry to my regular readers/listeners but I'm gearing up to go pro! My good friend Bea Jugert and I are concocting a wonderful photo shoot, we're organising a press kit, and my buddies at Filmlounge are planning music videos to promote this blog on a broader scale. I'm also going to try and get some funding from Initiative Musik, and maybe go on tour with an Israeli band (yay!). But my song archive is still a huge priority - just give me a minute to get my cookies together. I'd say a week or two.
And till then, stay tuned for photos of the new flat!
Originally "Calimba Song", I changed the name to "Kalimba" after I played it to some German friends of mine here in Berlin. Calimba isn't the easiest instrument in the world, but like most things, it gets easier with practice.
So 1/6th of the songs are up! Hmm... hope I can keep going! 365 songs is a lot more than I bargained for... anyway, here's a classic from 2006 - City Slang promoted it admirably on the radio and as widgets and on samplers all around the globe. And it is most certainly a favourite of mine. Question for a free mp3: who is this song inspired by?
Btw did I mention Schneider TM wrote and played the catchy guitar riff? It was originally played on the one - but it was my brilliant idea to place it on the off-beat ;-)
Juli Holz and I made this track in August last year, and we just resumed working on it last week... we want to release it as an EP - yes, on VINYL!
Question: who else has bass as dirty as this?
This song got 3rd place on a Pale Music Compilation Sampler, so I'm pretty proud of that. Steve Morell came over to my place while Mohini and I were recording the vocals and just went crazy for it. He was like "Finish that song and I'll put it on the next sampler!". Mo does the French stuff, obviously. She was in Sex in Dallas for a while. Nils Esdar aka Sline came around with a very sexy casio digital guitar and made up the main guitar riff. I love it!
Back in the early noughties i did one of my first ever tours. I went all the way to Hamburg! A friend of mine, Nicole, booked me a gig in "Astro Bar" and promoted it all herself. My good buddy Jan Hendrik Meyer drove me there, and invited his friend Arne Zank to come and watch. If I remember rightly I hoped that Arne would recognise my talent and take me to Toco-Stardom, but instead him and Jan ended up getting ratfaced. But they did stay till the end, to their credit.
I have a question for you: what is this song about? The right answer wins it as an mp3! Be sure to provide your email :-)
I have no idea where the idea for this song came from. Maybe Madonna? Sometimes I get in a mood and I'm like - "Goddammit. I'm going to write a HIT!" Then I get out my drum samples and attempt to come up with a "Catchy Groove". Sometimes it works, but usually my inner rebel takes over and forces me to make an "anti-hit", with a weird sexual by-line in it. This is one of them.
This song appeared on the B side of my Blues & Reds vinyl 7 inch. It's probably still possible to buy it somewhere, but I only have one copy so sorry not from me!
Good morning Starshine! If you, as did Caro and Martin, managed to stay awake through my last post, then you will be ready to for this.
It's called "Though I Like You" and is, like most of my songs, a somewhat witchy advertisement for a better life for myself. There are some interesting samples on there of boys I recorded on the street on one of my weird visits to an English-speaking land. Which reminds me: has anyone ever heard of "The Dictionary of Imaginary Places"? I seem to remember reading a hardcover version a long time ago...
Three days of bronchitis! Yuk! But I dealt with it in record time... My approach to illness has become "holistic" over the years, partly because of learning from my own medical history. Since I was three I had an annual tonsilitis problem, which would have been practically fatal if my parents hadn't given me antibiotics for it, but as you may know "antibiotics are often overrated". They caused some long-term side effects with my physical well-being, one being a constantly weak immune system. Around 6 years ago I got sick with tonsilitis on a weekend and didn't have health coverage anyway, so I went to see my friend's most amazing homeopath, Georg Kindler. He lives in P-berg, Berlin, and at first I thought it was all bullshit, but I had to go along with it cos I was dying like a dog. He gave me some crazy snake bite essence, and bee sting whatever and I swear - within 12 hours I was back on my feet! Literally! Then I went back to him for other long-term complaints of mine, but there was alas no quick cure. I had to teach my body to be strong again, and to heal itself.
So over the years I gradually changed my diet to be less sugary and more grainy and vegetably (pretty much according to Georg's guidelines), and I only eat meat from the wholefoods supermarket (bio laden)... And also I REALLY BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF TEA! That's actually Georg's main rap. He's big into concocting special teas for your ailments... But anyway, it's been 6 years since I took my last antibiotics! I had some kind of an internal infection a few months ago (diagnosed by the hospital post-partum), and went straight to him - he gave me a bottle of mixed homeopathic liquids, some homeopathic balls and of course - a lot of tea! Since my body had been trained to look after itself instead of relying on antibiotics all the time, it took immediately to the treatment. I was tested a week later and the infection was gone! So thank you Georg!
One thing I also learned through the experience was this: an infection isn't necessarily something completely foreign and evil marching through your body. It is often just "higher levels" of this and "lower levels" of that. I found that out from the hospital lab ladies. So in the end all you have to do really is to stay calm and try and get your levels balanced. I hope that doesn't sound naive!
I am however a true believer in giving yourself a chance to take control of your own body's chemistry and health. It's not only the doctors who can cure you.
But also, if you don't succeed with natural healing the first time you get hit with a disease, then leave it till the next time. The second time around you will start noticing the symptoms a lot earlier, and know what's coming. Then use natural medicine to nip it in the bud. And if you beat it naturally once, then the chances are high that your body will build its own healthy immunity to the problem!
If you know any mountain climbing babies then you will like this little scratch track from this morning - and Jay Romeo loves singing along!
I must apologise to my regular readers for the space between songs, but me and magnet man have been battling with babysitting vs timeshare vs household responsibilities issues. As you can imagine, if you have or know anyone with a kid. It can be intense sometimes, and add to it a bout of bronchitis and a spontaneous getaway to the parents-in-law, and you have a "blog? what blog?" situation. At the moment any spare time I have is dedicated to bathing or watching Nurse Jackie.
Good news is that Magnet Man got his elterngeld erlaubnis this morning, so looks like he can take time off work soon to help look after the little tacker, and then this blog will really take off!!! I'm already organising a photo shoot with Bea Jugert, my amazing artist friend, and Juri a great photographer friend of a friend, and my Dad has agreed to help out with the "e-marketing". Some may say "nuts and bolts ain't sexy", but I know you, dear reader, care about that kind of stuff and find it interesting.
Enjoy this track! Play it on repeat!
It's hard to talk about a song when it relates to the person you're with at the moment. If you are really curious, then ask me about it sometime in person :-)
There's a lovely guy called Michael Henk who lives in Neukoelln. He has an amazing 2 room apartment which is just filled to the brim with fancy equipment. He's the kind of guy who can solder his own anything. He got a whole lot of eqs from the old Hansa Studio (David Bowie anyone?) and soldered them together to make a mega-mixdesk which nobody can deny. He's also a multi-instrumentalist - plays bass guitar, normal guitar, e-guitar, keys and sings real sexy too.
We got very high on champagne one night and made this little diamond:
If you're an avid Schneider TM fan then you will agree with me that he is an excellent harmonica player. I wrote this song while I was going out with him (there's a bit of ancient history for you!) and he went for a tour around the U.S. I knew that he could have called me if he'd made more of an effort, but "he was touring and he didn't have time.." and you know how girlfriends get when you don't call them except when you're drunk like twice..
My mac is back in the shop again..! Due to too much crashing and banging me and the mac doctors (imagine in guertel strasse - highly recommended!) decided to get me a new harddrive and update to 10.5.6. So if you are regularly reading me (Martin Busse in particular :-)) then I hope you'll accept my apologies and tune in tomorrow to hear three (3!) new musical updates.
Good night!
Do you know what an Omnichord is? If you are inspired by music but can't really play an instrument (like me, no jokes) then I seriously recommend you buy one of these on ebay. They are around 50€ but well worth it. Just touch a key, any key, and you are in Heaven playing a sonnet to an Angel. Really! Did you ever see/hear a musician called Cortney Tidwell? She played in the Schokoladen in Berlin-Mitte one night and her song with the Omnichord and the Drumkit just blew me right away. So I borrowed one for a few months and made a small series of songs with it. This is one! And a little video of my boy Jay Romeo reading a book, with the bizarre bilingual parental units mumbling in the background. Enjoy!
This is the official Justine Electra website. For all news and info this is where to start. You can get all my music in my shop if you scroll to the button!
