The new generation is taking over the music industry, step by step, sometimes slowly, but very surely! Many of us are sons and daughters of the dinosaurs, that still reign over their empire and others have started like our parents did, from the scratch.

We all have something in common besides the passion for music, we had to build our own empire up from the scratch like the dinosaurs did - little by little, step by step. We have different parameters that tell us, if a show will sell many tickets, than they did. They could rely on record sales. We have different media to use, we communicate via so many different ways in order to reach potential listeners of our bands or concert-goers. They had a telephone with one line and a telex if they were lucky. 

Anyhow, to get back to the subject, some started with an internship, or studied something with media, others worked with some of the well-known companies or just had a run with the band they started with in the first place. One might think that if you are a child of parents who started this business, that you just get everything on a silver platter, but to be quite honest, I do not think any of us did. We probably had to fight a little more for it too, well, or maybe just differently, but we got always compared to our parents and had to prove ourselves to them, the staff and everyone else in the industry. And sometimes this never stops.

Today I would like to mention one of the new generation´s artist managers in my post, whose work I admire. He has discovered artists like "Chima", "Tim Bendzko", "Alin Coen Band" and "Lary" amongst others and 2014 he started the Label "Jive Germany" together with "Universal Music". I met him, because one night I was watching TV and there was this band "Alin Coen Band" on a tv show about the "Popakademie Mannheim" and I just fell in love with Alin´s timbre, while watching the little sequences of her sing. I then remembered an email from a guy, stating that he was an artist manager representing Alin and that he was looking for a promoter. The next morning, I called him right up and said that I had watched the show and remembered his email and that I would love to see the "Alin Coen Band" play live. Lucky for me they were playing a show at "TV Noir" later that week in Berlin, so I flew right in. I met "Konrad Sommermeyer"  from "Guerilla Management" at "Festsaal Kreuzberg" and we watched the show together. Whilst listening to Alin and the band play, I immediately knew, I had to promote shows with her, so I told Konrad that I wanted to work with him. 

We then started working together, this was in 2009. On the 4th of November 2010, Konrad introduced me to "Tim Bendzko", send me his songs a couple of days later and I immediately fell in love with this artist too. His lyrics and his way of singing were something that was absolutely missing in the business and very special and German artists were still very rare. He did remind me of "Xavier Naidoo" at first, but he had an extra twist and he was still young. So, I signed Tim and introduced him to the office of "Peter Rieger Konzertagentur". We were happy to welcome this newcomer artist into our roster. A couple of years later, Konrad introduced me to "Chima", whom I had to sign for PRK as well after listening to his songs. When I listened to him, his combination of sounds and hip hop, his melody and rhythm triggered me. I love both of his albums and cannot wait for his third one to be released. After working with Konrad for many years, I can say: this man knows, if a band will become successful. 

Konrad has signed a new artist to Jive Records, who I believe will be very successful as well. Her name is "NAMIKA" and I just love her song about herself. And so did "Cro". Watch both videos here:

Her first Single "Lieblingsmensch" was released on the 10th of July 2015, the Album "Nador" on the 24th of July 2015.

Homepage: http://www.namikamusik.de
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/namikamusik
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/namikamusik
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/namikamusik

Don´t get me wrong, I love my life. I enjoy every bit of it, even when situations bring me to tears, I have lots of joy. Most joy because of my family, but there are also those little things, that bring you joy. 

In terms of work, it always makes me happy, if a band that I had discovered, found its audience. Lately „Sea + Air“ have started their campaign about the release of their new album. I have worked with them, since the band was still called „Daniel Benjamin“ and later became „Sea + Air“. They started out as a solo project and became what they truly were in the first place: a lovely couple in real life and on stage. 

Sea + Air are the German Daniel Benjamin and his Greek wife Eleni, who started making music together in the band „Jumbo Jet“ when they were still teenagers. They are both multi-instrumentalists, who play different instruments at the same time on stage. Their music can be described as pop with a Krautrock influence. Both have a very special timbre, Daniel has a huge range and Eleni sometimes sounds like Florence from "Florence and the Machine" or like "Marina and the Diamonds". They are not easily put into a category, their music can be soft and sometimes rough and at times even both at once. 

Moreover they state that their music is inspired by the melodic beauty of the baroque music by „Johann Sebastian Bach“ or the „architonic soundscape of The Scorpions“ and underline this by using a harpsichord on the record and on stage. But you will have to listen for yourselves.

In the past they have supported bands like the "White Stripes", "Flaming Lips", "The Soundtrack Of Our Lives", "The Devine Comedy" or even "Whitney Houston" and have started building their fanbase because of this. But also because of playing hundreds of gigs in front of small audiences. For almost 3 years, they had played any given opportunity, on weddings, in living rooms, on city festivals, supporting other artists, paid, unpaid, whatsoever. They cared about live experience and building a solid fanbase, one by one. And it eventually started paying off. The venues had gotten bigger and bigger and are still growing.

Recently being a couple with German and Greek roots, resulted into an article at the German newspaper „Die Welt“, which all of you German speaking people will understand, to the others out there, I hope google translate will help you here.

My work as a manager for them resulted in several support slots, like the one for Whitney Houston, or helping them to find themselves on and behind stage, guiding them by asking the right questions or answering to theirs. I put them together with the photographer „Tim Dobrovolny“ who also helped them finding their appearance. Every little step brought them closer to what they were in the first place, but sometimes it is hard for an artist to actually see, which potential lies within him, or what his true identity is for the outside. Probably just because they are just too close to everything and cannot step aside in order to look at themselves from another perspective. But I think this applies to everyone in their own special way. It makes me proud to see that artists, who have consulted me for advise, develop a career and stay friends all along this bumpy road of this music business.

Their new album „Evropi“ will be released on the 21st of August 2015 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and on the 4th of September in the rest of Europe via Glitterhouse.

http://seaandair.net
https://www.facebook.com/SeaandAir

Please find a video from their last album and their new album below.

and from their new album

I have to add this video to my last post! It does fit somehow and somehow it doesn't. I am not quite sure either if I like the song at all, but what is for sure, is that the radio plays will be massive, if summer will come back. Petite Meller is a french singer, who reminds me of a Barbie doll by her looks, why it does somehow fit to my previous post. Also her song does somehow remind me of "Barbie Girl", as the melody is indeed very hooky and a great summer tune. Although the lyrics do not go well with a summer tune, I guess. Anyways, enjoy listening to this track.

Today it arrived, the eagerly awaited "Barbie" doll, that does not look like a Barbie at all. In fact, it looks like a kid from next door and I believe, that our daughter will love her.

Whilst scanning the Internet for toys or dolls for my daughters 3rd birthday, which is coming up in July, I came across two different brands, who do exactly the same thing. They upcycle old Barbie or Bratz dolls and make them look natural. In order to do so, they remove the original face paint with acetone nail polish remover and then paint a new face. Also they see or knit new clothing for the dolls. 

One is called "Tree Change Dolls" and the other "Playful Child Dolls". I wanted to purchase one each, but unfortunately the "Tree Change Dolls" were sold out after just 1 minute. But I am so happy to have this little doll from "Playful Child Dolls" with us now and cannot wait for my daughter to play with her. The dolls are handcrafted by artist Michelle Conn and craftist Rochelle Griffith from Australia. So please, meet our new family member, who has not be named yet:

When I was pregnant with our first child, many friends told us, we should still sleep, go out more, watch movies at the movie theatre and go out for lunch or dinner, while we still can. They were right for the most part, we could neither go to the movie theatre, nor could we have a good sleep, nor could we go to clubs/ bars,  for obvious reasons, although I never missed that. But we never had any problem going out for lunch or dinner with Zoë. 

Maybe it was because we never made any fuss about it, were relaxed about it, maybe it was just because she was easy with it. We went out for lunch for the first time, when she had been only a couple of weeks old. Since that we have been to restaurants at any time and any place. Simply when we felt like it. We never chose the restaurant for it´s family friendly characteristics either. We chose what we liked. 

And thankfully our baby boy Jarle is exactly as easy about it. So we can still enjoy, what we love most besides our tv series and movies - food!

So, the day before yesterday, we tried out the first real family friendly restaurant, that also calls itself a family restaurant, which goes by the name of "The Kidchen". It had its opening about two weeks ago and it is still brand new. 

The restaurant has a special chef de cuisine, namely Jens Dannenfeld, who has owned two Michelin stars during his career and has worked at "L´Escalier", a very well-known top french restaurant here in Cologne. The extraordinary thing about this restaurant, besides good food, is the indoor playground for kids. The concept implies, that parents should have a relaxed dinner, while the kids can play. 

The indoor playground is about 600 m^2 big and consists of a playground for babies until the age of 3 and a bigger playground. They have build a big kitchen, so the kids can play like mice in between food (obviously not real food), juice and the like, climb and build towers, play with big pieces of cake parts. I really loved that playground and so did our big girl. 

I have to say I was a bit disappointed by the food though, neither did I think it was set up really nicely, especially not for the kids, so my daughter did not have any reason for eating and would rather go on playing, which I thought was not the general idea of the concept. I think it should also stand out for its wonderful and appealing food for the youngsters. Nor did the food for us really satisfy or convince me. I chose the cod fish, which had been served with overly-roasted grains, so I could not eat any of the grains, because they had become bitter. And my husband chose the "Wiener Schnitzel", which had no special twist, nor a perfect potato salad and was not decorated nicely either. It was simply a boring, yet very delicious and tender Schnitzel. The desert was nothing extraordinary either. We had the "Kaiserschmarrn" and the chocolate mousse, both was good, but not extraordinary food. 

The staff was really nice, they tried convincing our daughter to eat, so she could have her desert. They were helpful and attentive.

They have also put a lot of thought in the needs of parents with children, so you can find a special nursing space, a changing table and kid´s chairs in different heights for babies and kids at the restaurant. Also they have a great selection of lemonades.

Furthermore there were only two families besides us visiting at that time, so I think you could kindly expect the chef or sous-chef to come out after dinner, if they were only open for two weeks, in order to ask personally, how we had enjoyed our dinner. But it is of course not a necessity.

So, will I go there again? Zoë really enjoyed herself and I think they will definitely improve themselves, so yes. I would go there again. But next time, we will bring some friends.

My original plan was to release a new blog post at least every week, yeah, like that worked. 

I just have to explain myself first though. I am more of a perfectionist, than I am willing to admit. But when you have two kids, life becomes unexpected and you just have to bow out on perfection. 
I thought this would bother me, but to be quite honest, it is probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I am happy with little things I achieve, I do not take everything as serious anymore and I definitely became more efficient.

So, please do not expect any regularity on postings, sometimes I will manage to post once a week, maybe once a month, or every day. 

Many things have happened recently, I had a contest on designcrowd for the design of my logo - hope you like it as much as I do, and I have been on a short trip to Julianadorp in the Netherlands with my family. We stayed at a house directly at the beach, so we had our feet in the sand all day long! 

It was lovely. And our daughter made many new friends, as we were surrounded by a lot of families in the other houses. They played on the beach all day.
You would imagine, your kid becomes tired with this beautiful weather, sand everywhere and playing with kids all day. But our big girl decided vacation was all about being awake. So she went to bed at 11 pm. and got up at 6 am. You can probably imagine how happy we were about not having the possibility of watching one of our favorite tv series or just the wonderful sunset. Bummer. 

Still, I would always go there again! So my recommendation clearly goes out to Landal Beach Resorts in Julianadorp aan Zee.

Because of the weather at the north sea, mostly being very windy and sometimes rainy, I thought it would be a great idea of having a rain jacket or windbreaker of some sort. I do however carry our little boy in a sling most of the times and so I searched for a jacket, that gave me the possibility of still carrying our baby and having him and me covered. 

So, I found this perfect jacket:

It is the outdoor all weather jacket rain from Mamalila, a brand, that designs jackets especially for carrying your child in a sling. Although it is quite expensive, it was great for the beach life. I did not feel the wind nor did I get wet, when it poured cats and dogs.

I just came across Jack Garratt, love his timbre and energy!