on the 6th of may we have shipped all the performance setups for our artists, merch, signing cards, posters, banners, and other equipment to moscow (see my blog about that).
today i got the message that it has cleared customs and has now safely arrived at our distributors warehouse there. on the 05th of june we'll move everything to the venue. it all comes together now.
- norbert

as our drum festival in moscow comes closer and closer, we are getting into the final stages of the plannings too. i spend almost all of my time right now with detailed festival preparations. i've been on the phone this morning with julia, who is the responsible and executing partner in moscow, discussing airport shuttle, load-in and curfew times during the set-up day, lighting, video transmission, press conference, and many other details for next week. besides that, i've still been working on some russian visa issues, foreign health insurance coverage for our team and artists, and audio recordings for the festival webvideos. still so many things to do, and only three more working-days left before i fly to moscow. all seems to be going according to our plan though and i am looking so much forward to finally kickin' off the festival on june 06 at 3pm moscow time.

and if this wasn't enough, i have made some first notes already this morning about a possible line-up for our 2010 meinl drum festival here in gutenstetten, germany :-)

- norbert

yes, you've read correctly.

normally us artist-relations guys welcome new artists, which is a nice and satisfying job to do. this time however, for all of you who care about it and are interested, i would like to tell about one of our artists leaving meinl.

christoph schneider, drummer of german band rammstein, has signed his endorsement deal with meinl cymbals on september 10th, 1997 and has played our cymbals ever since. about three months ago he emailed us and terminated his endorsement. he has decided to play the cymbals of a canadian company now.

we have really enjoyed working with christoph, rammstein's management, and his tech rossi rossberg very much. those guys are some of the most professional and hardest working people in the business. from day one i've been a fan of the band and christoph's playing. rammstein's live shows are unlike anything i've seen before. their lyrics to me are fascinating and deep (provided you're mother language is german and you're able to fully understand and feel them). i will continue loving rammstein regardless of which cymbal brand christoph plays.

why do artists change endorsement companies? well, there is no universally valid answer to that question. the reasons are always very individual. bottom line is that all major cymbal companies make great sounding products.

in our case, christoph has been happy with our sounds for the last 12 years. rammstein's new record for example, which is going to come out later this year, has been recorded on our cymbals. i have personally handpicked, boxed and sent them to the studio in los angeles in october of last year. i have received nothing but great comments from christoph and his tech about how the cymbals sounded during the session and how they ended up on the recording.

what i am trying to say is that i think it is not about better or worse sounding cymbals. i think that sometimes it's about getting inspired in a different way. artists want to stimulate their creativity and try different things. there's nothing wrong with that at all. but really, there is no universally valid answer. the reasons are always very individual and different in every case.

why am i telling you this? my job is called "artist relations". and after having worked with an artist for 12 years, a relation has definitely been formed. i feel that sometimes occurrences like this one should not be left uncommented or go unnoticed to those who care about them. given the fact that a blog is a personal communication platform, i felt that here is the right spot to tell about it.

we wish christoph and rammstein the very best for his personal future and musical career.

- norbert

last saturday i've been at a sold-out beyonce concert in zurich switzerland. it took place at the "hallenstadion" which is a huge venue holding about 13,000 people.

due to the nature of the music, the average age of the audience has been very young. at the same time however, the sound volume of the music has been very high. usually those two "young audience" on one side, and "high volume" on the other side, create an auricular conflict.

suffering from tinnitus myself, i was gladly surprised to see that a swiss initiative called "stop tinnitus - earplugs.ch" have handed out free earplugs to every concert visitor. i strongly support initiatives like this and would like to encourage everyone to be responsible and protect your hearing. especially us drummers are in danger of suffering from tinnitus real fast. once you have it, there is almost no healing possible.

- norbert

we are currently hosting our "perfect ride tour" in various german stores where we display all of our signature rides. many people there have asked us:

"why's there a snake on derek roddy's signature ride?".

here's why:
first of all, a serpent (derek's ride is named "serpents ride") is another term for snake. that's why we laser engrave a snake into his cymbal.
secondly, derek's current band is called "serpents rise". he wanted his ride to be named in the style of his band.
and last but not least, derek loves to breed snakes and has various serpents at home in his terrarium.

coming back to the perfect ride tour: we are currently visiting stores in germany and austria. more dates are being planned for the netherlands, belgium, france, and england right now. details about the exhibitions are on our website perfect-rides.com. check'em out at a store near you.

- norbert

our conference room is being renovated right now. one of my workmates, thorsten halfter, who used to be a professional painter, has been working on the walls today. the room is only 15ft away from my desk and i can smell the paint very strong right now. normally thorsten is responsible for polishing all our brilliant finish cymbals.

i hope that the new look of the conference room will inspire our meetings we're gonna have in it.

- norbert

many shipments leave our factory every day. a specially precious delivery has been loaded today heading to russia. it includes the performance setups for wolfgang haffner, benny greb, mike terrana, snake, and thomas lang for their appearance at the meinl drum festival in moscow on june 06.
besides that, meinl merch, signing cards, posters, display material, banners, and tons of more necessary equipment is included in it. it's going to be on the road for the next two weeks until it finally reaches our disbtributors warehouse there.
i hope it all will make it there in good condition. see you again on june 06 :-)
- norbert