Nils Rurack

I'm back. I found my old blog by coincidence after a fan told me I didn't keep my fans updated with new projects and maybe I should start a blog to inform people. Well I guess I didn't have to start a blog but I'm definitely reworking the existing one. I created a few pages and am in the progress of updating the content. I have plans for a mailing list and will highlight all my publications. Best of all I will keep people up to date of what's to come.  On the agenda are additional pages for music, media, pictures and bio. The music page will have links to all the projects for purchase with information on inspiration, players and random tidbits.  So stay tuned for more...

What if or what would have been are not questions that I ask myself very often. In general, these questions refer to choices we have made in our lives where we are in control. When looking back, we can reflect on the choices we made because we see how they turned out. Even though I can think of a lot of significant moments in my life where it could have gone left or right or green or blue I am very happy with where I am at and what I do. Although I sometimes ask myself what would have happened if I had started gigging with X or played with Y I usually stop myself pretty quickly because I wouldn't have met my wife or we wouldn't have had our kids. So even if I spoke of choices earlier I do believe in destiny. Last week, a very prominent figure in the music world died. Les Paul had probably more influence on the shape of modern popular music than Elvis and The Beatles together. Although he made numerous inventions, there are two that overshadow everything: the development of the ...

Sometimes great things happen. For example you write a CD review and the band that recorded the CD reads it. And then they ask you to leave the past behind and focus on their latest release. Who am I to turn them down? I feel honored. The band I'm talking about is 24-7 Spyz and the topic of today's review is their 2006 release Face The Day. The band was separated for several years between 1998 and 2003 when they reformed as Jimi Hazel on guitar and vocals, Rick Skatore on bass and Tony Lewis on drums. They released a DVD in 2005 before recording and releasing Face The Day in 2006 with new member Tobias Ralph on drums. Bare the title in mind when this CD hits you like a brick wall with the high-energy punk-rock opener Unknown Wellknown. While it makes sure you are awake for the rest of the 14 (!) song album it also teaches 24-7 Spyz history. Heavy Metal Soul 4 Life is the description coined by the band itself for their music and I think it reached a new level of perfection on Fa...

Music is an important piece of my life. Only my family takes priority over music. Sometimes it means that working to support my family comes before music. But in my mind, there is always music playing. It can be a song I started to write, the brand new song from fill-in-name-here or an old album from my collection. Music is a language and full of stories. Last weekend I was blessed to share some of these stories with someone who was involved in making the music of those particular stories. As I probably pointed out one too many times already, the early 90s were a very active musical period for me, playing as well as listening. The rock music scene was alive with bands that were blending all kinds of different styles. Those were challenging and interesting times. While the industry was busy finding labels like crossover, funk-metal or rap-rock to categorize (and market) these bands and there music the bands were busy finding their own way to earn money and spread their music. One of the...

When MTV started broadcasting music videos in the 1980's, a lot of people cried foul because it was going to kill the radio star. Someone even wrote a song about it. But did it really? Was it not just another revenue channel for the artists that were already played on the radio anyway? Or did the radio stations fear loss of income because of the new competitor? It could have been the perfect opportunity for them to redefine themselves and distinguish themselves from their visual counterpart. It could have added to the diversity in our media landscape and increased the exposure of lesser known bands and artists. Video didn't kill the radio star. Marketing kills music and it keeps chipping away at it until today. Advertisers bring in the money. In order to get advertisers you need many listeners on the radio. To accomplish this, most radio stations play the same music by the same artists that are popular. Record companies supported this model because the return is greater if you ...

It was sad to see Farrah Fawcett lose her long and strenuous battle against cancer yesterday. I was shocked later in the day when I heard of the death of Michael Jackson. My first reaction was disbelief. Surely, he wasn't done yet. He just booked 50 shows in London. They were all sold out and the king of pop was going to do what he does best, perform his music. When I realized that the news story was real I felt sad. Sad about the loss of a true and great artist that has influenced music and all of us in so many ways. There are few people who had such a huge impact on music as we know it today. Michael wrote and published such ground-breaking songs in the 80s that changed the musical landscape forever. His greatest hits are timeless and I cannot say that about many artists from the past 30 years. My thoughts are with both Michael's and Farrah's families. Every death is a tremendous loss. Unfortunately, in recent times Michael was more in the spotlight for his alleged behavi...