Hey All,
Periodically, my super cool job requires me to travel to Europe where I've been for several days now taking meetings and covering different Cherrytree-related events and activities.
My trip kicked off with a visit to Berlin for some quality time with the topnotch team at Universal Germany. Frank, Tom, Cornelius, Dirk, Milli, Sven, Alex, Sarah, Michael, Jochem all treated me like family and we went over a lot of exciting new ideas. For those you wondering right now: Yes, we did discuss potential Tokio Hotel single and album release dates but nothing's been confirmed just yet. The good news there, of course, is that we'll all be able to hear about TH developments directly from guitarist Tom Kaulitz himself now that he's launched his daily blog. As those of you who witnessed its debut know, Tom announced his blog with an exclusive video message for us right here on www.cherrytreerecords.com (still up on the main screen now).
Also while in Berlin, we shot the new video for "I Came to Party" Cinema Bizarre's collaboration with Space Cowboy. I can't wait for you to hear the song. It's a glam-fueled club banger about unity, inclusion and gettin' your party on, of course. The video was shot in the outskirts of the city in an old mansion in the forest and involved party-goers with bizarre animal masks, miniature robots, gallons of paint, a synth axe, a DJ table made of ice cubes and, of course, plenty of unbelievably arresting glares from Strify. In short, the video's gonna be colossal. Both the song and the video are like the coming-together of two beautiful musical scenes: the glam-rock-goth-pop heads and the club-dance-pop crowd. The feeling at the shoot reminded me of when I first saw the culture-shifting "Walk This Way" video from Run-DMC and Aerosmith.
After Berlin, I headed to London for meetings with everybody at Polydor and Universal. Thanks to my friends David, Ferdy, Karen, Nick S. for a great time including the excellent show from La Roux at The Forum. Traffic lights on steroids, dancing drummers and hairdo's that defy gravity were gloriously in full regalia as La Roux's blistering rendition of "Bulletproof" confirmed the song's well-earned, no. 1 single status in the UK this week. ( Side note: I also got to introduce Elly to the ingenious American fist-bump greeting - don't know that she was that impressed though!).
From London, I had made my way to Manchester where I saw Lady Gaga & Haus hold court at The Academy just a few days after her chest-exploding set at Glastonbury. It was future-pop meets rock-dance framed in sequins, bubbles and a scarcity of pants, of course. The Mancurian crowd, 2,000 strong, swayed and sung to all of the words in "Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)."
Next stop for me was Amsterdam (talked with Pharrell on the flight there - he's got some serious plans for the new N.E.R.D. album. Just wait.) where I saw Norbert, Case, Fred and the whole team at Universal Holland. Man, they have some sweet offices. No Cherrytree House of course, but we could hold a kick-@ss concert in their "Basement" for sure. Norbert very kindly drove me to Werchter in Belgium - with a key stop at Laura Jansen's place where Laura herself played us some moving songs on the piano.
The Festival at Werchter was a ton of fun. Met up with RedOne and watched Lady Gaga destroy! Lady Gaga's heartfelt words about Red from the stage made us a little misty before she launched into her "keytar"-fueled version of "Money Honey." Gaga even shouted me out with more than a few "Cherry Cherry Boom Boom's" just before diving into "Eh, Eh." After the show, Lady G and her Haus laughed and sang some more giving thanks to everybody at Werchter - a tremendously warm and welcoming audience.
I'm back in Amsterdam now and preparing to return to London for Lady Gaga's two Wembley Stadium shows with Take That.
Improvisational blogging right before my flight leaves isn't probably the best time-management idea now, but I wanted to get some of this down as well as milk my "Blame it on the Schi-i-i-i-i-i-i-phol" joke.
Will try to blog again from London.
Keep on cherrytreerec'ing everybody.
With love and gratitude to my gracious European hosts,
Martin
http://www.cherrytreerecords.com/profile/Cherryboom
Cherrytreerec'ing it in Europe!
