Music Monday: Family by The Cast Of Cheers

Hello readers,

It is Monday and thus time for my new music suggestions for the week. After a few listens of several albums I decided that Family by The Cast Of Cheers would be my recommendations by being the newest. I will not even review Good Morning To The Night by Elton John vs Pnau because that is something that unless you clearly have a problem with Sir Elton you should give a listen. The whole album too. But back to TCOC, this album starts very nicely. I would describe them as up tempo Indie. Many aspects of their style remind me of Foals with the interweaving guitar, direct bass and drums and the sometimes shrieking vocals. The tracks to look for are "Family," "Animals," "Goose," and "Marco Sava." Check it out as an album though.

Honorable Mentions:
Good Morning To The Night by Elton John vs Pnau

 Just listen to it. It's good. It's well played. It's smooth. It's funky.

Gossamer by Passion Pit
I generally do not listen to Passion Pit but I did like this album. They've been out for a while. "Take A Walk" is a great opener with a great message. It is a great listen alone. Most of the songs are up beat but some are slower such as "Constant Conversations" and "Cry Like A Ghost." It really feels like a narrative and that you are getting to know the singer. The beats are very good too but you expect no less from Passion Pit.

MTMTMK by The Very Best

TVB is an electro-Afro-pop consisting of Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya (who sings vocals in Chichewa, Swahili, Portuguese and English) and british DJ/production duo Radioclit (Johan Karlberg and Etienne Tron). They formed in 2008 but this album is the first I heard of them. The music from MKMKMT is a good for anyone that likes bounce in their music or is just a fan of Afro or Carribean influences in electronic music. The opening track "Adani" gives you a clear indicator of the direction of the album with loads of sound effects over a catchy beat. There are even a few guests such as K'Naan. The tracks "Adani," "Moto," "Come Alive," and "We OK"are good tracks to look at but the whole album is pretty even.

Weight & Glory by KB

Now I'm not a practicing Christian so lyrically it isn't really as relevant to me but this rapper KB is really impressive. If you are Christian or into strong Christian lyrics I highly recommended this album. His story is he basically moved around a lot, was involved in drugs and depressed until he was saved and introduced to Christian Rap. Some of the messages hit pretty hard such as in "Anomaly," "Mr. Pretender," and "Open Letter (Battlefield)." Not my cup of tea like I said but very respectable and why I still mention it.

Enjoy the rest of your Monday,
Daniel

Just Checking In

Hey everyone,

I am still alive. Just not a lot going on. I have been setting up a database of Sprachschulen (language schools) that I will be visiting to market the Verbwheels and just generally not being very outdoorsy. That will change next weekend since it is already almost August. In two and a half weeks my internship will already be over and I will be back in jolly old London. Time really has gone past. I am literally almost halfway done. I still need to put effort into going to some of the places like Museums and the Allianz Stadium tour. It is always weird though when you are time zones away from people you know. I find myself just not having a morning which is bad I guess.

Olympics have been mildly entertaining but outside of watching some football matches I haven't been tremendously bothered since the Opening Ceremony. So it goes.

Weather has also justified me staying in. Quite a bit of rain.

Lastly, I love cooking for myself and will miss it on my last year of being on a dining plan at school. I fully understand why some try super hard to get off the dining plan. It really is only for convenience that I stay on it. Well looks like time to watch Brazil play in the Olympics.

Tchuss,
Daniel

The First Week In Munich

As some of you may know, I have been in Munich for just over a week. I have been extremely lazy about updating here because sorting out work, doing the work, Chelsea Blog, and yes just plain not doing it. But with a bit of down time now, I am forcing myself to make this post. Here it goes:

Munich is a wonderful looking city. The public transport is very convenient (though some parts of the Metro are closed) There are ticket buying machines at stations and on the trams themselves. As with a lot of other cities, you aren't regularly checked on tram (especially for short rides). I just walk mostly because I am literally never in a hurry. The first few days I really only sorted out going to LiDL (on a budget here) for groceries, the slightly aggressive efficiency in this process, and the outlay of my general surroundings. After this and my trip to Nuremberg, my employer was gone to visit his kids in Cologne which meant basically a week off for me minus the tedious excel sheet making I chipped at each day. Admitedly, I did not do much last week but that is also because I don't really know people here and I had to make the money stretch a bit until I could withdraw more. I did got out with a friend from Munich on Saturday who had just gotten back to Munich last week. It was not what either of us expected but at least I was out and met another person who I can hang out with around here.

Today, after withdrawing money and realizing I had walked half way to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station), I decided I might as well check the city center out. I have made it a tradition since Barcelona that for any place I spend a decent amount of time, I will get their discount football jersey/shirts. Valencia was the exception (I got the official) because I like them and it was maybe 40-50 Euro, not the 80+ I have to pay for the other official shirts.  So being in Munich, I was in search for a Bayern Munich and Germany discount shirt. My hope was to get Schweinesteiger Bayern and Oezil Germany. In Barcelona, this search took 20 min tops. The stores by Sagrada Familia had these for giv ore take 20 Euro. Palermo, I went to a market and it took again maybe 20 minutes to find the shirt: 10 Euro. here in Munich, no-one even knew where you would find unofficial shirts. It wasn't like anyone even knew that there is a place where these are available. It really is official or bust here. I hope maybe by the stadium but I'm starting to doubt I'll find the Munich one but I did find a Germany one for 20 Euro (shown above). Unfortunately no name on it... Ah well.

But yes this is basically my week. I have become accustomed to this place and hopefully this coming week I will start being a bit more touristy and check out all the must-see sites and such.

gute Nacht,
Daniel

Music Monday: + by Ed Sheeran

Hi readers,

I know I've been getting a crazy amount of traffic from my recent introduction to the larger realm of Chelsea blogs but I still want to figure out how best to appeal to the other readers. So I'm not sure yet how I will schedule it but I want to add more music to this blog. Right now, I may make it music Mondays. Since starting Spotify, I now am a lot more up to date on recent music so I think I will just throw suggestions of albums that I have found worth looking into and why. Hopeful this will be a feature that people come to like.

Today I would like to suggest + by Ed Sheeran. I really enjoyed this album. For one thing, the guy is obviously very talented but what I found more important is how he avoids cliche so well. After a couple listens, you feel like you know him personally. It is a well paced album with good lyrics. The tracks to watch for in my opinion are "Small Bump," "Wake Me Up," "A Team," and if you listen to the deluxe edition "Sunburn." Obviously, no album is for everyone but it is definitely worth a try.

Daniel

P.S. For anyone that is into anything with even a hint of R&B and good lyrics, "channel ORANGE" by Frank Ocean is a must listen.

Good News Regarding My Chelsea Posts

Hey faithful readers,

Just posting to let you know that now I will be contributing to a Chelsea blog:

http://thechelseablog.org/

in place of my Chelsea posts on this one. There are some good posters at that level but it will be a fun opportunity to reach more people. I will still post about football in general and about travels and all the other usual but my Chelsea specific posts will more often than not end up there if they are taken. I will have the link at the top of my page to the blog. You should start to see a few things from me on there relatively soon (a few of my old posts included). I will notify you all when that is the case.

Stay tuned,
Daniel