rock'n'rill

Caroline’s Confession

Hi guys,

I haven’t posted a new song in a while. I have written a bunch but it feels a little unprofessional to publish an unfinished piece of work. But right now I’m in a what-the-hell state of mind.
I haven’t had much time to blog lately and to write about last week’s gigs wouldn’t be all that exciting (Thursday was great, Friday was fair-to-middlin’).

So here’s a new song I’ve come up with over the last few days. It’s inspired by
a) my desire to find an unsual point of view to write from
b) Elmore Leonard’s wonderfully evocative descriptions of his female characters and
c) meeting a very interesting, intelligent priest at a wedding last Saturday.

Mind you, the pastor I met was Protestant, the guy in this song obviously is not.

Hope you’ll dig “Caroline’s Confession”.

listen to ‘Caroline’s Confession’ on Audioboo

Caroline’s Confession

I’ve heard Caroline’s confession
now she’ll say her rosary
she’ll be granted absolution
just as simple as can be
she’ll be absolved of all her sins
what about me?

Just the slender curve of her calf
in her three-inch-heel shoe
is enough to make me wish I was a regular guy
just like any of you
but I’m the one she confides in
she’s the one that makes me think of sin

I’ve heard Caroline’s confession
now she’ll say her rosary
she’ll be granted absolution
just as simple as can be
she’ll be absolved of all her sins
what about me?

Just the way that her hair falls in curls
down to the small of her back
Leads my thoughts down a path of desire
That ain’t nothing but a cul-de-sac
I’m the one she trusts
she’s the one teaching me ‘bout lust

I sit in the vestibule
thinking of doing things I shouldn’t do
I sit in my lonely room
thinking and dreaming of doing things I shouldn’t do

I’ve heard Caroline’s confession
now she’ll say her rosary
she’ll be granted absolution
just as simple as can be
she’ll be absolved of all her sins
what about me?

words & music by Markus Rill, May 21, 2012

Thanks for listening,
Markus

22 May 2012 ·

Dead Flowers

Hi guys,

I’ve been too super-busy lately to blog much.
I’ve been enjoying hosting the Songwriter Night every month at Wunschlos glücklich in Würzburg. Some great guests have come through in recent months, Annika Fehling from Sweden in March and Nels Andrews from the USA in April. It’s very inspiring to trade songs with great songwriters and hang out and talk about different career paths and choices.

In January I shared the evening with what’s probably my favorite local band right now, Lick And A Promise. We came up with a take on the Rolling Stones’ Dead Flowers on the spot. Enjoy!

Next Thursday Camille Bloom from Seattle will be at Wunschlos glücklich. The first time she came over to Germany was four, five years ago. Since then she’s been coming over every year, working hard at it, extending her stay and her reach. We’ve caught up most every year sharing a show here or there or meeting somewhere on the road cause I’d be in Osnabrück the day after she played there or something like that.

I was very much looking forward to catching up with her. Then I got an offer to play a full-band gig at the Lab in Stuttgart, a great venue. I was asked to be paert of the For The Sake Of The Song festival, a songwriter-oriented concert series. Needless to say, I couldn’t turn it down.
So while me & The Troublemakers will be rocking in Stuttgart (May 17) and Augsburg the next day (at Hempels, May 18), Camille will be at Wunschlos glücklich in Würzburg with my bud Frank Halbig opening and acting as host.

Catch yourself some live music!
Markus

On Thursday I won’t be able to see her cause I’ve got my own gig in Stuttgart that night.

9 May 2012 ·

The beauty of traveling

With Heinz Rebellius. Foto: Angela von Brill, www.angelavonbrill.de

Last week was a good one. It’s weeks like this that I’m a musician for.
After a nice long Easter weekend with my family I set out on Tuesday for a solo gig at the Majik Lounge in Bad Kreuznach (near Mainz). The Majik Lounge is a cool venue run by local songwriter/sound aficionado Majiken (that’s Magic Ken). Kenny is an American musician who has lived in Germany for many years now.
Every other Tuesday he hosts a show at his venue and runs great sound. We had an alright crowd and Vanessa Novak from Darmstadt. I met Vanessa a few years ago when she opened a show for me and she got in touch about opening this one. I gotta say, she has gained a lot of confidence on stage since I last saw her. She’s also a real good fingerpicker and good singer with a lot of nice songs. She sounded real good.
I had a good time playing a solo set (which I hadn’t really done in a while [except for the Schweinfurt gig]). I brought in some songs that we don’t usually do at band gigs and felt good playing them. The audience was right with me. One music lover brought along my first album from ’97 to sign, another told me he enjoyed my version of Townes’s Pancho & Lefty better than the original (that’s ludicrous but I liked hearing it nonetheless). I think I played a good show and I went over well. A good night.
I also enjoyed hanging with Kenny who put me up for the night.
On Wednesday morning I was off to Bockenem to work on our upcoming album’s mixes. Integrating our overdubs (backing vocals, piano & organ, a cello and a fiddle track) went very quickly. Good work, Achim!
Thursday took me to Osnabrück for the Grolsch Song Night, a monthly meeting of three songwriters run by my friend Heinz Rebellius. Markus Rohmann from Hannover and Johanna Zeul from Berlin shared the evening with me. Both of them sing in German.
Markus opened with some very nice guitar playing on acoustic, dobro & Weissenborn and songs that seemed influenced by Stoppok, perhaps Germany’s finest folk-influenced German language writer/performer. I played the second half-hour slot, felt good, sounded good and had Heinz join me for two songs. That went very well.
After a short break, Johanna Zeul took over. I gotta tell you, her performance was so unique and original that I have trouble describing it. I understand she’s a trained actress and she stayed in character throughout her entire performance. The songs were cool, her performance was extraordinary. Check her out.
Here are a lot of cool pics from that night.

Friday was a day off which I spent making my way up to Driborg in the north of the Netherlands to hang out with my friends Peter & Leni van Zeijl. Peter & Leni are music lovers of epic proportions. Not only does Peter host a radio show and book gigs for artists he likes. He even started his own radio station, Songcraft Radio (it’s a cool deal, check it out). Most importantly, perhaps, they provide a home away from home for traveling musicians. Not a week goes by they don’t host a musician or a band from the US, from Canada, from Sweden or from Germany at their home. They also feed them extremely well and provide them with massages (the female guests, at least). You see, Leni is a trained masseuse.
At any rate, I loved catching up with them, showing Leni our daughter’s newest pictures, discussing recent Americana releases with Peter. I also loved having a bed to rest on to listen to our mixes or continue reading Jeff Shaara’s Gods & Generals, a wonderful novel with great historical accuracy on the American Civil War.
On Friday night we went out to catch a house concert in Bad Nieuweschans by Kirsty McGee & Becca Williams who were also staying at the Peter & Leni Spa For Touring Musos. I met Kirsty about a year ago when we shared two gigs in Munich. Her songs are very carefully crafted gems of folk music with a jazzy influence. Intriguing.
I had never before met or heard of Kirsty’s collaborator on this trip, Becca Williams from Manchester. Becca totally won me over with her very fresh sound, nice finger-picking, and great vocals. Her interpretation of folk music may be leaning more towards a pop sound than Kirsty’s. Becca’s song “Maria” brought me to tears (I’m not kidding). The introduction to the song was mesmerizing already, the song delivered. And she has more gems than just this one. Strongly recommended!

It was a wonderful night and I admit it set the bar high for my own house concert in Delfzijl on Saturday.  It turned out to be less of a living room concert, more like a gig in a party room with a nice house bar. We had a good crowd and they were very appreciative from the get-go. I played two sets and went over fabulously. A lot of people complimented me on Sarah Stein which I chose to do since the Dutch certainly saw their share of Nazi cruelty in the 1930ies and 40ies.
Roel, the radio DJ on whose show I was going to be a guest the next day, asked me to play that song again in his show.
His son, Eric, a great roots music lover, gave me a great compliment after my gig. He said he can think of only two people who can move him the way I had just done with only an acoustic guitar and some songs, Johnny Cash and Chris Knight.  
It always feels great to play to an audience that listens and actually understands the lyrics (more than your average German audience does). It gives me an extra kick to be able to stick to English between songs. Anyway … a great night.

On Sunday I visited Roel’s radio show for a half-hour interview with three songs performed live. Some of the house concert guests visited us in the studio – that was fun. Listen to the entire 30-minute segment here:

And off I went back to Bockenem to continue working on our mixes. I think we’re 95 percent there now. Just some fine-tuning on a couple songs and we’re ready to have the album mastered.

Had a great week! Thanks everybody!
Markus

19 April 2012 ·

The curious case of Sarah Stein

Hi guys,

today I read something that gives me a most curious mix of feelings.

There’s a novel out named “The Stranger Within Sarah Stein” by a writer named Thane Rosenbaum. The novel deals (at least partly) with the Holocaust; its central character is a young Jewish girl named Sarah Stein. Here’s a review from the LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-book-20120324,0,6332847.story).

As you may or may not know I wrote a song named “Sarah Stein” that was released on the album The Things That Count in 2008.
The song is about a young Jewish girl emigrating from Europe in the 1930ies to escape the Holocaust (and how her life continues). You may find the studio version of this song at markusrill.bandcamp.com, here’s an acoustic version:

Am I to assume that this is simply a coincidence - a girl of the same name, the same age, same background, and a similar theme to his story and mine?
I admit, I invented the name because of the connotations that it carries and because it has the right kind of sound. And it’s not that far-fetched. It’s certainly not inconceivable that the same train of thought led novelist Rosenbaum to come up with the same name for his novel’s protagonist.

Then again, it’s not inconceivable either that the novelist heard my song somewhere in the ethers of the interweb. The song was a finalist in some songwriting competitions (and available on the net), it’s also one of my most-played videos on Youtube.
I can imagine that the author came across the song and remembered the name subconsciously.
I cannot imagine that he ripped me off.

Firstly, I really don’t know enough about his novel to make such a claim. And secondly, if my song actually inspired him to write this novel, I believe it would’ve been quite easy to come up with a different name for the novel’s heroine to mask any plagiarism.

So, again, I don’t think I’ve been plagiarized. I don’t assume such self-importance.
But I can’t help but feel - against my better judgment - that this is a curious coincidence.

I have tried to get a message through to author Thane Rosenbaum through his website. I wonder if I’ll be hearing back from him - it would be nice.

What do you all make of this? Tell me honestly if I’m imagining things or if you find this curious as well.

Thanks in advance,
Markus

26 March 2012 ·

Bruce Springsteen’s SXSW keynote address

16 March 2012 ·

Busier than thou

A potential cover pic for an acoustic EP with Annika Fehling. More on that below.

Hey guys,

the last few days have been crazy busy, three gig nights followed by two days in the studio with my good friend Annika Fehling.

Here’s what happened:

On Thursday, March 8, we played at Red River in Heilbronn. A special gig for us since it’s our record label Blue Rose’s hometown and there’s always a bunch of knowledgable music lovers. Also present was label head Edgar Heckmann and since most of the Troublemakers hadn’t met him before, we were eager to perform particularly well. Joining us on that mission was fiddle & mandolin ace George Bähr from Aschaffenburg. Also joining us that night were my new favorite Stones-ish rock’n’roll band, Lick And A Promise. Lick opened with a blistering 30-minute set. They really are an extraordinary band with chops and songs and charisma.
We played a good show, I believe, with great sound provided by Detlef Zasche (thank you!). For the encore we were joined by Lick And A Promise and jammed on Chuck Berry’s Nadine. I gotta tell ya, when Jochen sings right next to you, it’s a powerful experience! We had a real good time.

At Red River in Heilbronn with the Troublemakers, our guest George Bähr, Lick And A Promise and their guest Andi Kümmert.

On Friday we were at Harry’s in Mespelbrunn. This place is remarkable for one of the smallest stages known to mankind and the best catering and coolest hosts anywhere. George once again joined us on the first two sets. The place was packed, people were having a good time. For most of the night and a good part of the audience, though, that didn’t seem to have a heck of a lot to do with our playing. Then again, a bunch of people had clearly come to hear us and enjoyed our gig. Still, all things considered and truth be told, not an ideal night.

On Saturday we drove up to Schlitz to play at the Musik-Pub. I’d played a solo gig there a few weeks ago and it was good but the owner kept telling me it was a slow night due to some major carnival festivities elsewhere in town. On Saturday I found out what he meant. The place was packed. A big part of the audience were students from a local music academy out to have a good time. They started dancing early on and were having a great time and their enthusiasm affected everyone else in the pub. By the end of the night, we had almost everybody dancing in there.

The Troublemakers enjoyed being back to our core four-piece lineup for the night. It allowed us to dive into some cover or another on a whim (Dead Flowers, Can’t Help Falling In Love), to stretch out and play some songs we hadn’t done in a little while (three sets) and even to incorporate requests into our original songs (Me & Bonnie Parker morphed into Country Roads and back – you had to have been there). We really had a glorious night!
A very attentive audience member turned out to be a journalist for the BBC. He bought all our CDs so I think he enjoyed himself.
Both our recent Thursday to Saturday runs followed the same pattern: a good start – a Friday gig we all felt could’ve gone better – and a great Saturday gig, both in terms of audience enthusiasm and our performance. Interesting.

Got home and into bed very late on Saturday night – actually closer to Sunday morning – at 3 a.m. Up bright and early to pick up Annika Fehling at Frankfurt airport. There we met with Anke Budde who is organizing an Acoustic Music Cruise that Annika and I will be a part of in October (Infos at http://www.akustik-kreuzfahrt.de, more in a later blog post). From there we drove to a studio just outside of Würzburg.

Annika and I have have toured together a number of times and people keep asking to buy a CD of both of us. There is none yet. But since we’ve written a bunch of songs together and have the acoustic cruise coming up, we figured we could record some acoustic stuff together – and that’s just what we did all day Sunday and Monday. I think this will be coming out good.

We’re hugely indebted to Troublemakers bass player Chris Reiss who engineered our sessions and guided our performances like the pro that he is.
On Tuesday night Annika added some beautiful background & harmony vocals to the upcoming Troublemakers album. On Wednesday night she will be playing live at Ludwigs Bar & Café in Nürnberg. On Thursday she’ll be the featured performer at Markus Rill’s Songwriter Night at Café Wunschlos glücklich in Würzburg (early start at 7 p.m.!).

See ya,
Markus

13 March 2012 ·

Things coming together

Left to right: Jan, Aggi, Felix, Mac, Chris. photo by Winfried Zang

Whew, last week’s sure been busy – but it’s also been very rewarding.

A long rehearsal on Wednesday, gigs on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and a recording session with Robert Oberbeck on Saturday afternoon.

A short recap:
On Thursday we were at Beavers, one of my favorite venues. Opening for us were Lick And A Promise as an acoustic trio. I’ve known these guys now for a little over half a year and I think they’re as good a rock’n’roll band as they come.
After their half-hour set we took to the stage with Jan Reinelt on keyboards. This was Jan’s second gig with us after joining us at das boot in November. We had some new songs in the set we were gonna play for only the first or second time and with Jan on piano & organ we were also able to bring back some older songs we hadn’t gotten around to learning yet or that – truth be told – simply sound better with a piano in the mix (Future Memory, Out Of The Cold, Sarah Stein).
The first set went over very well (I sold a ton of CDs during the break) and the second set came together even better. Felt good.
For the encore we asked LNAP back on stage and a fun mixture of the Troublemakers and Lick performed their hit “Come Together In The Morning” together. Memorable. If you were there, you know what I mean :-)

On Friday we were at Glattbacher Mühle in Glattbach near Aschaffenburg. Our second time there and again the second double header with local heroes Magic Ed Combo. Magic Ed being Marcus “Ed” Staab who taught me many things about the blues and played and recorded with me between ca. 1999 and 2002. Ed, Fleyb & Detlef are a real tight, groovy combo and we enjoyed listening to them.
It was past ten p.m. when we hit the stage. Sound was a little difficult for us as a five-piece on this slightly cavernous stage. We were joined on a few songs by fiddler George Bähr from Aschaffenburg. George will play on our new record and join us in Heilbronn on March 8 and some more gigs this year. He’s a pro and sounded great.
We sold a bunch of CDs, received lots of compliments and a great newspaper review (here) for our gig but I guess we all felt we could’ve had a little more fun and consequently sounded a little better if we had been able to hear ourselves properly. Like when I looked over at Jan, I could see him sitting there with his hands moving so I assume he was playing – I just couldn’t hear him.
Oh well.

Onward on Saturday. I would not have minded sleeping in but my good friend Robert Oberbeck was coming to town to not only open our show but also to record backing vocals for a bunch of songs on the new record. We were off to a slow start in the studio until Troublemakers drummer Aggi came by. He invigorated us with his great performance of backing vocals on “Free To Fly”. Robert then got another two songs done before we headed to Bronnbachkeller for our gig. We got there a little after 6 p.m. with doors to open at 7.30 p.m.
I found out there had not only been a change in the club’s booking manager but in pretty much everything. Pretty much everything except for selling drinks was up to us. Wish I’d known about this sooner. So there was an hour of setting up tables, carrying chairs, wrecking cars in order to pick up some mic stands and general mayhem (which, once again, did not include a soundcheck) before the room started filling up to the very last seat right around 7.30.
Robert started at 8 sharp, playing a fantastic set with an unexpected cover of Bob Seger’s “Against The Wind” as my personal highlight. He really is a wonderful performer, great singer, great musician and great guy.
And it sure felt like he was a tough act to follow, especially considering that due to the car wrecks and mayhem we hadn’t had a chance to run through a single song together. So we figured we’d start out with just Felix (on guitar) & me to see how that sounded and build it from there. We opened with My Rocket Ship which is going to be the next album’s title track, followed by For The Stars. Those felt pretty good so we navigated through the first set picking up steam and realizing that things were rolling along just fine. The audience was right there with us making us feel good. The first set ended with Sarah Stein. My best friend Chris, who is usually a tough critic to win over, told me it was “probably the best version” of the song he’d ever heard.
The second set followed the set list (mostly) because we found it had worked very well at Beavers. Some country songs, then some rockers, ending with Not Yet Shipwrecked, another unearthed track we hadn’t played in a while.
And a rousing finale with Robert joining us on “Out Of The Cold”.
And there it was: a beautiful night in my hometown, a wonderful audience and a great gig. And, yes, after these three gigs, Jan is now a bona fide Troublemaker. He knows now how we roll, that we like to stretch some outros or bring it down mid-song. That all felt real organic by Saturday night. I hope he’ll be able to join us on many more gigs!

And I hope you’ll be coming out to see the Troublemakers soon. We’re a good little band :-)

28 February 2012 ·

“Rauchig, kratzig, knatternd”

Aus dem Main-Echo vom 27. Februar 2012

»Glad-Bag-City« hat den Blues

Doppelkonzert: Starker Auftritt von der Magic Ed Combo und Markus Rill & The Troublemakers in der Glattbacher Mühle

Glattbach Was für ein Abend: Am Freitag wurde Glattbach zu Glad-Bag-City und mittendrin stand die Gladder-Bagger-Mill - die Glattbacher Mühle. Denn bluesig-rockige Klänge hielten Einzug in das Glattbacher Traditionsrestaurant: Mit Markus Rill & The Troublemakers und der Magic Ed Combo waren gleich zwei herausragende Bands im Ort, um das Publikum auf eine Reise durch die amerikanische Musikgeschichte zu nehmen.

Foto: Harald Schreiber

Den Anfang machte das Blues-Trio Magic Ed Combo rund um den Glattbacher Gitarristen Markus »Ed« Staab. Mit Gerhard Philipp am Schlagzeug und Detlef Schmitt am E-Bass entführte das Trio die Zuhörer in eine Vergangenheit, in der Größen wie T-Bone Walker, Wes Montgomery oder Nat King Cole ihre Erfolge feierten. Mal in einem lässigen Texasblues swingend, mal cool im 6/8-Takt groovend oder im treibenden Bluegrass- oder Countrystyle spielend, überzeugen die drei Musiker mit ihrer Darbietung. […]

Americana aus eigener Feder
Nach der eineinhalbstündigen Reise durch die Geschichte des Blues durfte Markus Rill mit seiner Band The Troublemakers das Publikum in amerikanische Songwriter-Gefilde entführen. Die Troublemakers, bestehend aus Markus Rill an Gitarre und Gesang, Jan Reinelt am Keyboard, Felix Leitner an der Gitarre, Chris Reiss am Bass und Aggi Berger am Schlagzeug, spielen weitgehend eigene Songs aus der Feder von Markus Rill. Der in Goldbach aufgewachsene Rill reist immer wieder nach Amerika, um sich dort mit Americana-Musik zu befassen. So nahm er schon Platten in der »Music City USA«, in Nashville im Bundesstaat Tennessee auf - es entstand unter anderem das Album »Hobo Dream«.
Dass Rill immer wieder zu den Wurzeln dieser Musikrichtung zurückkehrt, merkt man seinen Songs an. Wie seinen Vorbildern Bob Dylan und Townes Van Zandt gelingt es ihm auf bewundernswerte Weise, Folk-, Country-, Blues- und Rock‘n‘Roll-Einflüsse in seinen Songs zu vereinen und jedem Stück einen persönlichen Charakter einzuhauchen.

Von Ganoven und Gangstern
Wenn Rill mit seiner rauchigen, kratzigen, knatternden Stimme von Ganoven und Kleingangstern singt, wirkt das nicht so, als würde er irgendeine erfundene Geschichte erzählen. Der Hörer bekommt vielmehr das Gefühl, eine Geschichte zu hören, wie Rill sie erlebt hat. Auch beim Song »The Edge Of Nothing« schafft Rill es, Bilder zu erzeugen: Das Publikum spürt förmlich, wie der Protagonist des Stücks am Rande des Nichts lebt, seine Familie kaum ernähren kann, die Situation schlicht ausweglos erscheint.
Wenn Markus Rill mit seiner Band auf der Bühne steht, werden nicht nur einfach Songs gespielt. Es werden Geschichten erzählt, die mal ergreifend traurig und dann wieder komisch sind. Da stehen keine Musiker auf der Bühne, die einfach nur gefällige Lieder präsentieren. Das ist Lebenseinstellung, was man von diesen Jungs zu hören bekommt.
Auch einen Überraschungsgast haben die Troublemakers mit nach Glattbach gebracht. Bei einigen Country-Songs durfte Geiger George Bähr sein Können zeigen und das Konzert mit fetzigen Soli bereichern. Die Geige wird in der Countrymusik als Fiddle bezeichnet und was George an seinem Instrument herunter-fiddelt, ist einfach beeindruckend. Wie besessen wirbeln seine Finger über das Griffbrett; er spielt, als gäbe es kein Morgen mehr. Das Publikum belohnt das mit tosendem Applaus. Bleibt zu hoffen, dass die Glattbacher Mühle solche Konzerte auch künftig anbietet und sich so ein weiteres Musiklokal im Kreis Aschaffenburg etablieren kann. Schön wäre auch, wenn das nächste Mal etwas mehr Glattbacher den Weg in ihre Mühle finden würden, um solch einen tollen Abend zu genießen.

Ingo Krenz

27 February 2012 ·