Happy New Year!

Ah the first blog of 2010! A new year is finally here, along with a good few inches of snow and many resolutions (one of which of course is to write more blogs!). First off, a very happy new year to you all! Myself and Eric have been thinking about all our friends and family this Christmas and wishing we could have been with you all to celebrate it.

We still managed to have a grand ol' time and to expand our waistlines. We also had a nice New Year's Eve, which was spent having dinner with Eric's American friend Thomas who is over visiting. We also had some sups of bubbly and played a few rounds of Rummy. Then our German friend Sandra called in and convinced us to venture out to see the fireworks.

Now for those of you who don't know Berlin, this city on New Year's Eve is completely firework crazy and if you are in the wrong area it can be like a war zone. After last year, trying to dodge missile bangers and wading our way through clouds of smoke, I had planned spend the countdown cowering behind our sofa.

However after some persuading at the last minute I decided to try my luck and ventured out. This was all made possible by my earplugs, which actually succeeded in blocking out much of the noise. (When it comes to loud noises I'm pretty much like a cat and tend to jump out my skin). Anyway we walked down the road to Hackescher Markt by the river and I was able to withstand the celebrations without having a heart-attack.

We didn't stay out long, just half an hour or so but I got some good video footage with my camera. I have to say I do like the colourful bright sparkly kind of fireworks and we were lucky to see much of it. I made a small movie below for you all, and I hope you get a taste of what New Year's Eve is like in Berlin. Lots of love!

New Album Teaser Video

First off, I have re-vamped my music website. Please have a look when you have some time - www.ericeckhart.com.

While my producer Fabien Leseure meticulously worked on mixing the song called "Big Lie" on Sunday, I walked around the studio and its grounds with my MacBook filming the surroundings with the built-in iSight camera.

The studio is part of the Funkhaus which used to be the main radio station for communist East Germany. It is located in old East Berlin along the river Spree. Built in the 1950's, it has amazing sounding rooms, untouched from that era, but the outside is quite run down and edgy.

Using the video I shot and photos from Dave Hingerty and Kusi, I put together this video to give you a sense of the flavor of the place where my new album, This is where it starts, was made.

I fully enjoyed my time recording and mixing here. The place is choke full of history and has a strong personality that comes through its peeling paint and beautifully crafted wood panels.

Lastly, I wanted to preview some of the songs on the new album. First up in the video is "Happy", then "I Saw A Light", followed by "Lost", "Open Up", "I'm Gone" and finally "From Whence I Came".

Here it is:

Lüneburg

As far as we know, in 1847 Henry Eckhard, his wife Anna Elizabeth and their five children left their town of Lüneburg, then part of the Kingdom of Hannover and got on a ship in the city of Bremen headed for a new life in America landing in Baltimore. Last Saturday, Joe and I took a three hour train journey to Lüneburg, the first time since 1847 an ancestor of Henry had returned to the city.

The city has a population of about 70,000 but it felt like a small town as the Alt Stadt or Old Town is the focal point of the city and was all we had time to visit. Luckily, it remained mostly unscathed by the bombings in WWII so much of its 13th-15th century buildings remain.

As we entered the town, I was struck firstly by the beauty of the Ilmenau river that flows through it, shaded by weeping willows and other trees.

Our first stop was in St Johannis church which was built in the 1300's and was stunningly beautiful. It is possible that our ancestors worshiped, married and were baptized in this, the largest church in the city.


It was a good deal of emotion and a sense of pride that we entered and walked around the Alt Stadt taking in one of the most beautiful and well preserved old town centers I have seen in Germany.

We went to the gorgeous Rathaus, the current city hall which is where the friendly tourist information office is located. From there we strolled the old town center and made our way to the main beer brew pub in the town.

The brew pub is only 10 years old, but the building was centuries old and again I couldn't help thinking that our ancestors might have drank in this very building. So, with that in mind, Joe and I hoisted our steins of locally brewed bier and toasted the Eckhards!

A leisurely walk towards the end of the Alt Stadt was capped again by the sheer beauty of the buildings we gawked at and a double scoop of some of the best gelato ice cream I have had in Germany. Then it was back on the train for the trip back to Berlin.

It was a great experience and one that I was very happy to have shared with Joe as we both had visited the village in Sicily where Mom's father and his family came from as well.

There are many unanswered question about our German ancestors so Kusi and I plan to visit Lüneburg to do research at their extensive records archive to try to find more definitive information on the Eckhards of Lüneburg. Until then...

34

Yay! I, somehow, managed to sort out a video uploading problem so am now able to present my birthday blog. Yes, ladies and gentles, I am now officially 34. I knew that this day would come and it turned out to be a very pleasant experience. On Sunday morning myself and Eric indulged in one of our favourite activities, Sunday brunch, in a middle-Eastern restaurant we like just up the road from us. For those of you who are interested we had a choice, from, an all-you-can eat buffet (we were thinking of you Steve!), of different roasted and marinated vegetables, different dips, meats, cheese, bread, eggs (scrambled, boiled), as well as fruit and cake. It was, according to Eric's official food grading, very delicious.

Eric with Niko

Then we rested up before our main event of the day - a football match (that's soccer to my American relatives), Hertha BSC Berlin versus Freiburg, at Olympiastadion. We met up with our friend Tom and his son Niko (4). Tom is from the south of Germany and his team is Freiburg so we were there to cheer the minority. Both Hertha and Freiburg are bottom of the Bundesliga (the German first divison) but being a home game for Hertha, Tom didn't have much expectation.

The Olympiastadion is pretty impressive. It is the original building from the 1936 "Nazi" Olympics where Jesse Owens angered Hitler by winning 4 gold medals. The building's architecture has a real Nazi feel to it with some strange statues of presumably Ayrian athletes around the place.

Anyway, to the match. There was a good sized crowd there considering it wasn't a major game. Tom got us great seats, right in the middle and down near the pitch. We were right beside the area where the hard-core fans were (see video at bottom) so we could enjoy the atmosphere but not have to be near any of the ruckus. The fans have a good enough reputation, though Tom was pointing out some flags of local fanclubs as being facist, basically skinheads in Hertha gear.

Tom and Niko and lego set

However as you can see our section was nice and safe. I think the game was a bit much for Niko, but he played happily with his lego and was particularly excited about getting an ice-cream at half-time. We had a great time as the match ended up being pretty thrilling. Freiburg scored easily in the first 5 minutes and went on to thrash Hertha 4-0. It was the worst beating that Hertha had for a long time. For some reason though the hard-core fans were not deterred and continued singing for the whole match.

Which leads me nicely to the video. I really wanted to capture the atmosphere of the place - the sound from the fans was pretty amazing. Two things to look out for - first the kid bopping away and second the scoreboard. These fans are cheering away while their team is down 2 goals!!! Anyway, enjoy this taste of football in Berlin. We certainly did. It was a great way to celebrate turning 34.

PS Sorry, put up the wrong video the first time.

Lost in Translation

Staying on the theme of language, one of the most frustrating, and also most funny things, about being an English speaker in a non-English speaking country are the regular misunderstandings and miscommunication in our daily conversations. With our muddled German and with German people's muddled English, often with some kind of muddled sign language mixed in, we find ourselves regularly having strange and wonderful conversations that leave us scratching our heads.

The instances have been so many that it's hard to think about it now. The first that comes to mind is the time we went to a friend's gig and got talking to a woman who I thought was the hairdresser of small dogs. She was in fact in a hairdresser, but she had been trying to excuse herself from the conversation by telling us that she didn't like 'small talk'.

Often there is just misunderstanding through mispronounciation. When the weather was hot here during August I learnt a new German word 'schwül', which means 'humid'. Which can be very easily confused, if your lips aren't puckered enough when pronouncing it, with the word 'schwul' which means 'gay'.

One of the hardest things for a German speaker is the pronounciation of the letter 'w'. I was once talking to a German friend who has had bad luck in love and was feeling cynical about men and meeting Mr Right. I was saying how hard it is to make oneself vulnerable and open to another person when one is feeling wary. She said 'wunerable, wunerable. Agh! I can't even pronounce this word.'

Or sometimes the translation just comes out sounding funny. I was commenting on the full moon to my new friend Sibylle and she said 'oh yes, I feel so furry'!

Anyway, this is all par for the course with living in Berlin. And very entertaining it is too. I will leave you with a popular ad here in Germany for Berlitz, which shows the perils of mistranslation.

New old video

Hi all. Sorry for the slowness in blogging lately. I was digging through some of my stuff here in Berlin and came across a video that our friend Emma had done for me a few years back. It was used for some of my gigs. I would have it projected behind me as a played a couple of songs for added effect.

I decided to edited it down as it was 10 minutes long and use it as a video for "This Long Goodbye" from my last CD. I posted it on Wednesday on YouTube and Facebook and good a lot of lovely comments. It is meant to tie people over until the new album is ready, hopefully at the end of this month.

Emma shot this video on 8mm film in four locations in Dublin including Heuston Station which is the main train station in Dublin if you are traveling to the West and South of Ireland.

So, here it is - drum roll................

Back by popular demand

Word has reached me through the grapevine that a new blog is long overdue, and well, yes, how true this is! After 90 or so blogs I was needing a bit of a break. But I'm back now, not with a blog on our summer in Berlin (which was busy and fun), but with a blog on something that has been on my mind for the last while - linguistic lubricants.

Let me elaborate. Basically in the last year or so, on our travels and in my attempts to learn a new language, I've discovered that every language seems to have a phrase or word that the locals use more or less all the time. It's usually sprinkled in among the conversation, not quite as a filler as much as to help the conversation along.

In my cultural investigations I have come up with three examples of this, from Germany, Japan and Ireland (but of course!).

EXAMPLE No. 1 - The German 'Genau' (pronounced 'ge-now')
This is something every foreigner who comes to Germany seems to notice, the German use of the word 'genau'. If you eavesdrop on any conversation here in Berlin (which I kind of like doing) you are bound to hear this word at least once, if not ten times. They absolutely love it. The literal translation is 'exactly'. Germans when speaking English will often say 'yes, of course', which is the same thing. It can come across as sounding condescending in this translation, but it's not meant that way at all. It is really an affirmation, a way of saying 'hey, we are on the same wavelength', kind of like 'you, got it!' or 'right!'

EXAMPLE No.2 - The Japanese 'Ne'
Japanese people really use this word alot. When we were in Japan in April I pointed it out to Eric, he really was amazed by how it was used. The meaning changes depending on how you say it. If said with an upturn in tone at the end it means 'isn't it? or 'right?' If said just normally it means 'right'. So, for example, you might mention how hot it is by saying 'atsui, ne?' and to agree with you the person will nod and say 'ne!' And this can go on and on so that in the end you get a lot of 'ne'ing, which is kind of funny. But hey, it works!

EXAMPLE No.3 - The Irish 'Janey Mackers'
Actually this isn't really a conversation lubricant as much as a really Irish phrase. In fact, I think it might be a country-Irish phrase, and I, for one, love it! It also comes in the shorter, plainer Janey Mack form, though I have been known to lengthen it to 'Janey Mack Attack'(!) I actually didn't realise that I used it that much until my German friend Sandra asked me one day 'what is this Janey Mackers you speak of?' For those of you who don't know, it means 'wow!' or 'gosh!'

So next time you want to sound like a local (from Germany, Japan or Ireland) or you just want to bring a little multicultural flair to the conversation why not try one of the above? If someone surprises you, give a good old 'Janey Mackers!' or if want to agree with someone just nod and say 'genau' or 'ne'.

So those are my thoughts for today! Hope all of you are well!

Also, if any of you have any other examples, thoughts etc, please post in the comments section.