I'm still here!
Well, sorta, anyway. For a while I've felt bad for leaving my small group of followers high and dry last winter by suddenly stopping posting overnight, but there is an explanation, and here it is:
Since the early ninetees I've been a guitarist and singer with various bands with - let's call it "moderate" success. However, 4-5 years ago my last band imploded, and I didn't have the energy to start all over again. Instead I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands to indulge in my general interest in music and to search the web and elsewhere for all the great music that's being made by other artists - and to pass it on through new technology to other music lovers that perhaps didn't know where to start looking for the pots of gold that's out there.
Then one day, completely out of the blue, I received a request to join a new band as a guitar player. After going a few rounds with myself, I decided that this project sounded too interesting to let slip away - and accepted the challenge. With two-three days a week suddenly occupied by rehearsals, gigs and band marketing there simply wasn't enough time left to keep the Clever Eleven blog up to the standard I felt it deserved. There is a lot of research and of course listening required in order to be able to post a handful of detailed entries every week, and sadly I couldn't prioritize this lovely activity any longer. So, Clever Eleven as we knew it reached an end after two and a half years.
But dispair not! All this time since the blog was put on hiatus, I've managed to keep an eye on new releases through a handful of my favorite sources. And I have been able to maintain playlists in the streaming clients that are about to take over the music industry - at least in some countries.
Spotify has quite recently been launched in the US, in addition to the 8-9 European countries it has previously been available in. For those of you lucky enough to be aboard this ship, you can enjoy my monthly playlist or the best of the year (so far) playlist.
Those of you living in Scandinavia have another (and, in my opinion better) offer, the "new guy in town" called Wimp. They make up their present lack of availability a little bit, by offering worldwide browser previews of the songs. Check out the regularly updated 50 song Clever Eleven (well, couldn't change the name, could I?) playlist, or the best of the year (so far) playlist!
I hope these playlists can help to quench your thirst for new tunes, at least a little bit.
And of course, you should all wish for great success for my band, so that I can quit my dayjob, so that I'll have lots of spare time to restart the blog again! The curious of you can check out our new EP on Facebook or on our official website.
Rock on!
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