SONGWRITING, MUSIC, ART, CREATIVE EXPRESSION, PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY, SPIRITUALITY, SEXUALITY, SELF REALIZATION, NATURE, CONSERVATION, FAIR TRADE, THEOLOGY, RITUAL, HISTORY, POLITICS, SCIENCE, TRAVEL, MEETING NEW PEOPLE, LOVE, LIFE...
I'd like to meet:
Others who are interested in uncovering and following their own truths, and pursuing their dreams, musical and otherwise, especially songwriters interested in sharing their works for consideration of co-writing, participation on the Listening Room Concerts & Retreats. Other music lovers and makers, artists, seekers, ecstatics, creatives (WE ARE ALL CREATIVES!) and celebrators of Life and Love.
Music:
The Beatles still rule the musical universe as my personal Big Bang beginning, while other early influences ranged from my first two albums (The Carpenters 'Close To You' and Black Sabbaths' 'Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath' - which should explain my musical confusion/or diversity, depending how you look at it :-) Other early musts were Led Zeppelin, ELO, Jackson Browne ('Doctor My Eyes' remains an all time favorite) Elton John, and later, specific albums like Boz Scaggs 'Silk Degrees', 'Frampton Comes Alive', Rush 'All The Worlds A Stage' Cheap Tricks' 'In Black & White', most of BTO, etc. In the 80's Joe Jackson, Squeeze, The Pretenders, Human League, OMD, New Order, Depeche Mode and The Cure had my full attention, to mention only a few. (In 1990 I went out and bought up most my old album favorites on CD - and ended up returning the majority of them as no longer of interest. Bostons' 'More Than A Feeling' remained, Thin Lizzys' 'Jailbreak' had to go, etc..
Since 1990, most of what I listen to is indy singer/songwriter artists making their own way.
Over the years, I've also had the honor of meeting and presenting most of my musical heroes, as well as extending a helping hand to more hundreds of emerging voices through the Listening Room Concert Series and International Songwriter Retreats.
MUSIC FANS: If you know of an upcoming songwriter in Denmark or beyond you think I should know about, please let me know!
SONGWRITERS: Feel free to contact me about hearing your work, for performance and/or consultations.
Ultimately, give me any type of music, as long as it's played and/or sung with soulful conviction and abandon of pretense or defense. From garage bands to techno, Bach to Bulgarian choirs.
Movies:
The only movies I don't do are the slasher/psychotic/Fiday the 13th variety - too close to the discord that can be found in society, and while I understand the validity of acknowledging and understanding sociopathic behavior, I don't feel the need to expose myself to it under the auspices of 'entertainment'.
Television:
Not much - but my favorite recent shows when watched were 'West Wing', 'Enterprise', '24' and 'Lost'.
Books:
Books! Such a wonderful way of developing your mind, vocabulary, imagery, expression...I'm usually reading two or three at a time, for variety of place and mood, and spend an hour or more a day on average. I'm an avid 'notation maker' - underlining, exclamation pointing and question marking - agreeing and arguing freely with the author in the margins - and also enjoy re-reading a book several years later, to see how my perspective has shifted.
A Cross Section of Books Currently On My Bookshelf :
Who Dies?/Stephen and Ondrea Levine, Embracing The Beloved/Stephen and Ondrea Levine, Little Black Book of Songwriting/Michael Anderson, Andean Awaken/Jorge Luis Delgado, The Four Agreements/Ruiz, The Way Of The Superior Man/David Deida, The Different Drum (Community Making And Peace/M. Scott Peck,/The Road Less Traveled Revisted/M. Scott Peck, Merlin/Deepak Chopra, The Collected Works of Rainer Marie Rilke,
God I Am (Peter O. Erbe),
'The Course of Irish History' (Moody/Martin) ,
The Seat Of The Soul (Gary Zukav),
Sacred Sexuality (Mann/Lyle),
Going Within (Shirley Maclaine),
The Wisdom of Insecurity (Allan Watts) (One of my all time favorite titles),
The Teachings of Krishnamurti,
Jealousy (Nancy Friday),
The Transformation of Intimacy (Giddens),
The War Against Women (Marilyn French),
Sidharttha (Herman Hesse),
Wandering (Herman Hesse),
Angela Davis (Autobiography),
Callings (Gregg Levoy),
Journey Of The Heart (John Wellwood. Ph.D.),
When We Pray (Spiritual Practices From Around The World),
The Female Unich (Germaine Greer),
Conversations With God (Neale Donald Walsh),
The Aim Was Song (Robert Frost),
We've Had A Hundred Years Of Psychotherapy -And The World's Getting Worse (James Hillman/Michael Ventura),
Paths Beyond Ego (Walsh & Vaughan),
The Coming Of The Cosmic Christ (Matthew Fox),
The Gospel According To Jesus (Stephen Mitchell),
Boundless Energy (Deepak Chopra),
You Can Heal Your Life (Louise L. Hay),
Soulmates (Thomas Moore),
The Celestine Prophecy/The Tenth Insight (James Redfield),
The Artist's Way/Thew Vein Of Gold (Julia l.Cameron - Whom I had the honor of presenting in a workshop back in '96 in L.A.),
A Path With Heart (Jack Kornfield),
Men And The Water Of Life (Michael Meade),
Fire In The Belly (Sam Keen),
In The Footsteps of Ghandi (Catherine Ingram)
Heroes:
I don't believe in hero worship - the projecting of our own power onto an idealized other - but I do believe in and have experienced inspiration from aspects of other's lives and deeds, including Yeshua, The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Mohatma Gandhi (his philosophy of non-violence for political change), Bill Clinton (loved no less for his faltering than for his finesse as a statesman) and Ruth Aikman Miller (1909-1979), my grandmother, who was a true light in my early years and the first enlightened person I ever met.
