Hey peeps!
The first reward to you is in the end of the post! But take some time to read the rest as well XD
Took me a while to get down to writing. Sorry for that, had some things going on in my life. And mainly the nice thing – I have finally found myself a flat that I like and which I don’t have to share with anyone. I have moved there on the 3rd of December and all the time after that I was organising some comfort in there. Still a lot to do, but it already seems quite cosy! Here’s a first photo with my brand new favourite wall in my new apartment –
And no, I am not sad there, I’m just a bit tired. And no, the dog is not mine, she is just my new patron who was invited to check out my new flat. All of you are also invited!
But moving is always chaotic, so it kind of kicked me out of my balance for a while. Coming back to normal now.
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Another major thing that has happened – 12th of December was my last official day at work. From now on – no, I am not unemployed – I am now a self-employed artist! This is a very interesting moment in my life and here is why.
Basically, I’ve been creating music since I was 12 years old – this is when I wrote my first song. And I’ve been doing it all my life with short breaks. But I have never been officially AN ARTIST – meaning, registered as one, paying taxes (oops.. but in Russia my work as an artist didn’t count as work, so fuck off Russian authorities).
And now – finally! – I am a functioning and registered artist. Universe help me, haha…
By the way, would you be interested in reading the details of how German bureaucracy works for an artist? It’s not an easy process to get into the system and I thought it might be interesting for some of you. Though some of you, I know, already know how it works 😉
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And, oh shit, the news from the UK elections just hit me hard on the back of my head. What a f*cking nightmare indeed… But there is still hope, I am sure. I will have to process the news..
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So, did you have a chance to listen to my old song ‘Pure Dirt’ from my previous post?
Some interesting stuff is going on with this song!
My friend Masha Zelentsova visited Berlin a couple of weeks ago. She’s a designer and creator of animated films. We were sitting at my place and I showed her the song. Then word by word we came up with a concept of video for this song.
The idea is – we want to make a video that looks like an old-school arcade game (think Mario, for example), where the main character is running through life, bumping into traumas, making mistakes and then nevertheless going forward. There will be alternative endings – in one scenario he would fail in the end, and will have to start again (more or less, re-incarnation thing). In the other scenario he would manage to deal with all the stuff and manage to get out of the cycle of re-incarnations).
Here’s why I think the concept works well with the song. The thing is I wrote it when I was 14 and I was completely confused about my sexuality. By that time I have already got acquainted with the concept of sexual abuse and anything sexual seemed to be pure dirt to me. Later, though, I managed to overcome this trauma and get to good terms with my sexuality.
Here’s the text of the song. Disclaimer: I feel extremely embarrassed at the moment, cause I find the words somewhat naive and some of the lines are very silly in my opinion now. But I must be brave and show it to you just as it had been written. For the new version I would re-write the lyrics with the help of my wonderful friend David (about him I’ll tell you more a bit later down the post today).
Here it is, the text *facepalm*
PURE DIRT
I CREEP CREEP CREEP CREEP
INTO YOUR DIRTY DREAMS
I CRAWL CRAWL CRAWL
OUT OF YOUR MIND
YOU COME COME COME
INTO MY VIRGIN BRAINS
YOU ENCROACH ENCROACH
UPON MY PURITY
PURITY
PURITY
I SHRINK SHRINK SHRINK SHRINK
IN YOUR DIRTY
I CHOKE CHOKE CHOKE
ON THE THOUGHT OF YOU
YOU SUFFOCATE SUFFOCATE
MY LONLY HEART
AND THE ONLY THING YOU GIVE TO ME
IS JUST DIRT, PURE DIRT
Oooof, did it.. Anyway, it’s important to be honest about your own mistakes and be ready to work on those mistakes. This is a very important principle of any development.
So, I am we are working on the new lyrics and I will show you some process of re-recording in my next post. Meanwhile I offer you to become the co-producers of my new video. Watch a walkthrough of Mario on YouTube for inspiration (here – https://youtu.be/rLl9XBg7wSs) and please think of metaphorical ways to express the concept of traumas and overcoming them in the arcade reality. Everyone who comes up with ideas is getting into the credits of the video! Can’t wait to hear your thoughts, darlings!
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And last, but not the least.
It’s the time of my first reward to you, peeps. This is to show how, much I do appreciate you faith in me.
Let’s celebrate the New Year of 2020 zusammen!
This NY night I will play a DJ-set back to back with my wonderful talented friend David Whiting aka Vitling, who’s also a promoter of wonderful Sunday Club party. So, we are set to play at Salon zur wilden Renate on New Year’s morning (timings coming soon) and here’s the link to the event – https://www.facebook.com/events/512679545951000/
We are going to play some fun music and David is creating visuals, so we call it an A/V show. Wanna come? Of course I have reserved free tickets for all of my patrons! Please let me know if you can make it!
Love you!
Talk to you soon
Gene xx
