A Night Out on the East River

What a month it's been so far, trying to juggle everything at once - the UK/Canadian promo of "Thinking of Someone Else", preparing new club remixes of the song as a bonus track for the single, researching and following the ever-so escalating conflict back home which has gone way beyond a Geo-Russian dispute, in fact, covering the news at the UN with a a particular focus on this issue, and so on.... So much to do, and since the summer is almost over - there's only so much time for a bit of fun!

Last night was a perfect opportunity to escape the reality of a political world - sailing across NY's Eastside with live music and a great company of friends and colleagues - what more could you ask for?

Well, it certainly didn't help waking up this morning with a piercing pain in the throat - no singing for me today, that's for sure! So what do you do instead on a beautiful Thursday afternoon with a sore throat and a bit of a headache (no, no, I only had a couple of glasses of Captain + Coke) - right on the verge of getting sick? I spent an hour or two in the heart of Central Park... reading today's newspapers and preparing for my radio show! Not glamorous, perhaps, but so relaxing, nevertheless. Oh, and my iPod helped immensely as well - new ideas on the way and all that.... Not as good as a proper holiday, but still rather soothing for the soul!

I've spent the last few months reading so much about Russian history and particularly the Soviet era, I realized the other day that I've been neglecting entertainment and fiction for a while now, so I just picked up a funny book called "A Waiter's Rant" - absolutely hilarious. So this book, alongside my other current read, "Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?" (doesn't sound too entertaining, does it? Haha) and the iPod - can't complain!

Here's to the upcoming long weekend!!!

Will have to keep an eye on the politics, though, so you will forgive me if I write a paragraph or two about the current events and the news from home and beyond... Hard to be ignorant about it when it is so obviously close to home and is increasingly affecting all of us not only in Eastern Europe but pretty much everywhere else..... More on that later :-)

Songwriting on a rainy day

What a miserable, grey day today. I spent the day at Billy Stein's working on our new song - we tried to come up with some lyrics but nothing seemed good enough for the melody that we had previously written (such a cool hook!) So ultimately, we decided to finish the song on a different day altogether, but I will have another crack at it over the weekend.

Writing is a much more "inspirational" process than I thought before - it's not easy to come up with something if it's not "there" at that particular moment. Some songs can take an absolute forever ("Innocence" took almost 8 months, on and off - honestly!) whereas, others write themselves so naturally, such as "Connected", my very first attempt at songwriting. It was inspired by Kate Bush's "Mutual Understanding" - I first heard the song whilst wondering around Holland Park in London, and had an odd "cyber" idea for a song but couldn't figure out exactly how to make it work. Peter Adams and Jane Ryall came up with a great hook (we initially called it "You and Me" but later decided to switch over to "Connected".)

I still remember desperately wanting to give songwriting a well-deserved shot, but couldn't find the right partner right away. The most obvious names popped into mind (they shall remain nameless here!) but the ego factor was certainly an issue - "has she ever written before?", "could I be bothered to experiment with her?", "I'd rather just writer her a song myself!" But Pete and Jane agreed to give it a try right away! It really turned out to be a musical match made in heaven - we very rarely come up with something that doesn't immediately fit me like a glove. Although, we've had our strange moments, such as our "Dracula" lyric idea for "I Pray"...! Chris Neil came to the studio to have a listen to our new idea and he said, "It's a great commercial hook, why are you making it so obscure with that horror theme?" We then decided to have a good think about the song and what we really wanted to say.... Et voila the final take!

It's a quiet Friday night here tonight: it's so wet outside (not particularly cold) you barely want to be out and about. Should really try and work on my monthly Billboard Russia column, but can't get myself to feel too inspired. Would rather have an unusually calm evening...for a change!

Next week should be fun: shooting a promotional video for "We the Peoples", UN radio show (haven't even started scripting it!) and also my producer, Chris Neil is in town most of the week so we'll try and do some writing in-between the meetings.

Just praying for the weather to get better and feel more inspired!

Billy, forgive me, I will be more "active" next time :-)