Well friends I am taking a complete leave of absence from the internet for 40 days and 40 nights.

It hit me like a flash last night and I need to do this for myself.

I have to learn to get out of my own way so I can move forward and the only way is to completely change my daily routine.

I will start May 1st and will not be back until the first Monday in June.

ides:

• spring cleaning
• rake the leaves
• prepare the garden for the first time in years
• learn French
• stay away from cafes and head to the forest
• exercise
• take long walks
• spend amazingly spirited time with the kids
• keep a daily journal of the whole thing
• learn to see
• learn to hear
• learn to touch
• be mindfully in the present and out of my mind
• keep moving until I drop
• read at the old people’s home a book
• visit a cemetery and ask them if they could have one more day how would they spend it?
• dance when nobody is at home
• listen to rock music yeah Kev.
• listen to classics too and blues and jazz
• read as many books as I can
• the rest will reveal itself to me as I go along

Why? It hit me with such force as to shake me to the core. As if an angel with strong arms hit me on the back and zapped me with so much passion to do this that I could not dismiss this. Today people go to the North Pole or climb Mount Everest or Trek in Nepal. But I figure I can withing a certain walking radius of my house in the mountains achieve the same thing and the cost is nothing. I know this is the right thing to do and I have a feeling it will change me. For the good I hope.

I couldn’t just disappear so I decided to inspire instead and not make you worry. I have deep gratitude to Miki with Kev’s support to thank because Miki made me see the anger, the frustration the hopelessness in my eyes in my birthday video — she said to paraphrase her it was as if I was not there mentally and she was right. I know I have many years ahead of me and have to learn to get out of my own way and to learn how to get to where I want to go. I want to leave a legacy for my children and to set an example and although I would love to take the Pilgrimage in Spain its out of the question so I am doing it right here from my front door. There’s a whole world across from my house a massive forest with lakes and rivers and trails nobody ever walks on. I have never seen this but here the wolves at night and see the dear come out on the cul du sac at night and am in awe. I have never experienced absolute silence where I can hear myself breathing and my heart beating.

Yes I also got this image of a world we live in where we are all so busy we never take an exploration of the self like this. I may be poor but that sets me free you see to do this from here.

As of tomorrow I will begin and see you all in June. I will have stories to tell and sketches and photos so wish me luck break a leg hahah.

Don’t give my spot away Miki and Kev. I won’t be gone long but long enough to find whatever. The mystery of discovery is what is so damn exciting.

Lots of Love from a fellow Cafe Cremer,

Michael

tracked back to my blog

Hi everybody!

I have just changed my profession and opened a new factory… is somebody here interested to get some of the stuff I produce? It is free for all Cafe Creamers, so don’t be shy and contact me if you want some!

PS: it works, I have tested it this morning by a Spanish lawyer!

By Miki

Still trying to get caught up after being on vacation for 10 days in the WAshington, D.C. area. A great trip and you are invited to follow along with my sketchbook blog for the next few days. To gain re-entrance to the Cafe Crem club I am sharing the most recent addition to our cup collection, purchased at an art museum. Since I do not have the sophisticated photoshop skills of some members here, I had to take three pictures to show all the faces of the artists on the cup.

Plaza de la Constitucion, Turre

One of our Cafe Cremers, a certain Madame Monet, suggested that we post photos of where we all live, to give an idea of our surroundings to the rest of us, a little like sending postcards to a friend, I suppose. So, from the far edge of cyberspace, I’m hurling a few photos across to you all of where Miki and I are establishing our Studio and Art Gallery. They are taken in and around the Plaza de la Constitucion (every Spanish village has one!) in Turre, where we live. The benches beneath the trees provide a meeting place for the elders of the village, where they can swap the gossip or criticise the Mayor!

View towards fountain

I’ve also included a little of the surrounding area, including a view of wonderful Mojacar village, birthplace of Walt Disney (no, really)
The wild landscapes of Almeria have played host to numerous films, including Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti western trilogy. all his Hollywood mates thought it was a bad mistake to make these budget movies in Spain, so following his success, he named his production company Malpaso!
I have several acquaintances who played extras in Raiders of the lost Ark, one key scene was shot in the ravine at the far end of our village!

Fountain in Turre square

Turre itself was founded over 400 years ago in 1596 by Philip ll, as part of his repopulation order. At the time of its 400th anniversary, the population numbered just 2000, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find that it now exceeds 10,000.

View of Mojacar village

We’re just 10 minutes drive from the beach and have stunning views of the Sierra Cabrera mountains. This is where we live, and we love it!

The Parque Commercial - Home of Cafe Masko, where Miki’s sketches take shape!

Words and photos by  Kev Moore

In the spirit of discussing our lives here in Cafe Crem, I wanted to share with you some plans for the future which led to memories of the past……

There are great plans afoot in the sleepy Spanish village of Turre. Unbeknownst to their neighbours, Kev and Miki are in the process of creating a new Art gallery and music studio right under their very noses!
exciting, if busy, times lie ahead as we plan our new life down here.  A not altogether inappropriate analogy would be to describe it as a blank canvas, awaiting our ideas.  …and ideas are something we’re never short of around here!

As Miki got to wandering around the recently purchased adjacent apartment, getting a feel for how she wanted her gallery to look, my thoughts turned to my new sound studio, and what i would need to do to shield it from prying (and probably complaining) ears.  My mind drifted back to our pioneering days with Tubeless Hearts, and the enormous project we undertook to build a studio completely from scratch in the keyboard player’s cellar, and begin work on our new CD.

I wanted to share these photos with you to give you an idea of the care and attention to detail we invested in this project. it was a labour of love, and when the keyboard player left, we did it all over again in my basement, shovelling tons of rubble out by hand to create the necessary space. It’s one of the reasons I’m so proud of the Tubeless Hearts album, it was all our own work, in every way possible, quite literally, built from the ground up. I want to tap into some of that inspiration and determination when I create my new studio here.

The studio you see in the photos was christened “Crushed Frog Studios” due to the inadvertent slaying of a hapless amphibian as we were laying the floor. i hope he is in a better place.

It consisted of a control room, where everything came through the mixing desk, and was recorded on an 8 track reel to reel, before being mastered onto the 2 track next to it. As you can see, keyboard parts were laid down in here as well. There is a bank of effects and patch bays reaching up to the ceiling, which gave us control over manipulating everything that came through the desk. There was a double-paned window with a large air gap that looked through to the totally soundproofed drum room, which in turn looked through a similar window to the guitar and vocal booth.
As you can see from the”before” picture, we had to build new breeze-block walls, fix a wooden framework to them, fill them with loft insulation, and then cover that with high-density fibreboard, finally finishing off with acoustic tiles. The gap between the joists in the ceiling presented a problem. we affixed fibreboard to it, leaving a small gap, and using a specially made plunger, packed sand into the space, then closed it up. The effect  being that one could sit in the lounge above watching TV, and be none the wiser to the din being made below!

Of course, nowadays, everything you see in the control room, indeed, the whole studio, is neatly tucked away inside my iMac.this is something that never ceases to amaze me. I would still prefer the old fashioned way though, if I was recording with a band, and in fact, when Graham Oliver and I do our next album project, that’s how we’ll be doing it, but the modern way is ideal for songwriters or solo artists.

I will design my new studio along the lines of the control room of the old one, though there’ll be little need for banks of effects, as they’ll all be in the computer.  But the soundproofing will continue to be an important factor. most of what I do can be monitored through headphones, but there are times when you have to sit back and listen to the thing cranked up through the speakers, or mic up a guitar amp to record the characteristics of the speaker on the sound.

The inescapable problem however, will always be my voice.  I was demoing a song by my late friend Keith Webb here in the kitchen a few years ago, and when I’d finished, he said “you’ve got an audience”. I looked over the balcony, and an entire family of gypsies stood and applauded!

When I’m recording vocals, I can’t be constrained by worrying if people can hear it. I need to be able to really let loose, so most of my efforts will be put into stopping the sound leaving my chosen room. If I can sing my head off at 10 o’clock at night and not have the Police round, my work will be done.

Silent Night, anyone?

Kev Moore

Made in China? Police believe some flags may have already been shipped

Police in southern China have discovered a factory manufacturing Free Tibet flags, media reports say.

The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Workers said they thought they were just making colourful flags and did not realise their meaning.

But then some of them saw TV images of protesters holding the emblem and they alerted the authorities, according to Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper.

Tibet independence

The factory owner reportedly told police the emblems had been ordered from outside China, and he did not know that they stood for an independent Tibet.

Workers who had grown suspicious checked the meaning of the flag by going online.

Now, I don’t know about you guys, but perhaps if the Chinese authorities had spent a little more on actually educating their seething supressed masses, instead of just subjecting them to outdated, anti-humanitarian doctrine, then they might have noticed they were in fact “helping the enemy”.

It would be funny, if it wasn’t for the fact that Tibet has been at the mercy of the slavering jaws of Chinese Expansionism for far too long. This case just illustrates that the people there are too stupid to even recognise their so-called enemy. I know who I trust more, I know who is wiser, and I know who are trying to protect a way of life that is nothing short of miraculous. and it ain’t the Chinese.

FREE TIBET. It’s not a slogan. It’s an imperative.

Kev Moore

This is still a work in progress. The medicine wheel is showing the 8 surrounding sacred sites where concurrent ceremonies will take place. These locations, along with the one in Australia, will enhance the global effect of the healing intentions of the ceremony.

I will try to come back to tell you about the symbolic importance of the Thunderbird, but I have to get my son to school now.

Have a great day, everyone!

Shelley

Hello Cafe Cremers, I’ve just returned from my musical adventures back in dear old Blighty, and would like to share some photos with you. for the full story of my trip, and more photos, please visit my blog

Kev couldn’t help noticing the dressing room lacked a certain charm…..

Backstage, no expense was, er…spent on making sure the artistes were comfortable…

At this level of the business, artists can get anything their hearts desire, plus these sandwiches….

Kev spent several moments idly wondering when the seven dwarves would return home to claim their beds….

I’m not playing that, it hasn’t got OUR name on it!!….Pete contends with more drums than sense.

by Kev Moore

“it all boils down to choices & chocolate”