Blog/News

Just a final heads up, I am playing a gig on Friday June 18th at the Moabit Kulturtag Sofa Sessions. This festival takes place in people's houses and should be a great night.

This will be an "unplugged" with no PA, so it should have a great itimate vibe.

I will have some wonderful musicians and singers performing with me - Tom Fanore on Cajón, Mr oCean on guitar and backing vocals, Jessica Roth on bass and backing vocals and Ms Sam on vocals.

The festivities start at 8pm and finish at 10:30pm. Children welcome.

Here are the details below:

Moabit Kulturtag Sofa Session
Friday, June 18, 2010
8:00pm - 10:30pm
Rathenower Str 44   
Berlin, Moabit 10559
Closest S-Bahn station is Westhafen

Sofa Sessions showcases Berlin's best local and international indie pop, folk and rock singer-songwriters, pairing them with great poets and visual artists.

Sofa Sessions debut for the Moabit Kulturtage festival Juni 18-20, 2010. All sessions are 5€. Drinks available. Children welcome.

To reserve your place, please email sofasessions@gmx.de with your preferred date.

Freitag 18. Juni - Eric Eckhart (USA), Simon Eugene (UK), mr oCean (Aus), Gaby Bila-Günther (Aus) and Mesalina Trio (De/Aus/Swe) um 20 Uhr.

Samstag 19. Juni - Wasp Summer (Aus), Kiki Brunner (DE), Bocage (Fra) and more... 14 Uhr.

Sonntag 20. Juni - Miranda Gjerstad (Swe), Christina Maria (Ch), Grand Salvo (Aus) and Daniel Hoth (De) um 14 Uhr.

In a collaborative project, I teamed up with three rock bands made up of students age 10-13 years-old from the Berlin Cosmopolitan School to perform three songs from my new album, 'This is where it starts'.

Together, we played the Family After Work concert for students, parents and the public at the Grüner Salon in the famous Volksbühne in Berlin.

Many thanks to Educators Tom Fanore and Jessica Roth, the bands - Chinchilla Pearls, Square, Rockers Paradise, Berlin Cosmopolitan School, Graeme Pearce for filming the video and Kusi Okamura for the initial idea.

Last night, I had the pleasure of playing songs from my new album with three rock bands made up of students age 10-13 years old from the Berlin Cosmopolitan School.

Students and parents from the school plus the public came out to the Grüner Salon in the famous Volksbühne to support the kids and to celebrate music. There was Beat Box training, Salsa lessons, a cool DJ and then me and the kids rockin' out.

The all-girl band, Chinchilla Pearls, began the gig playing "Happy" with me. Mia, Luna, Antonia and Sophia did a wonderful job and looked like rock stars. We missed Charlotte, who was to sing lead, as she was in Paris with her family.

Next up was the all-boy band, Square, playing "Bring Me Down". The boys really rocked this song up with Milan, Max, Linus, Vincent and Joshua doing a super job, even coaxing me to change the lyric at the end to "Bring me down to Chinatown". Our inside joke.

Finally, we closed the show with Rockers Paradise, made up of 2 girls and 3 boys, playing "Lost". Theresa, Antonia, Freddy, August and Vincent knocked this one out of the park. They were true professions and gave it loads of rock star attitude.

We filmed the gig and hopefully will have a video for you before too long. Thanks to Graeme Pearce for coming along to film.

Thanks to Tom Fanore and Jessica Roth for organising me doing this project and for their excellent job teaching the kids. They have done an outstanding job with the kids.

Thanks to Kusi who had the original idea of me playing my music with kids and contacting Tom about working with BCS.

Most of all, thanks to the kids for playing my songs with me. We practiced for an hour, one day per week, for four weeks. They embraced the project and brought loads of enthusiasm and energy to the songs and worked very hard learning their parts. I was so impressed by their talent, courage and willingness to take on new projects. Hats off to them!

The Berlin Cosmopolitan School is an international school that has a number of afternoon clubs for the kids to join including yoga, cooking, ballet, Chinese, football (soccer) and rock band.

I want to give you an update of what I have been up to since my new album was launched last month in Berlin.

Kusi and I have been busy contacting traditional and new media (mostly music blogs) asking them to review the album and do interviews, trying to get some radio airplay, using my social network sites to get the word out and booking gigs here in Berlin.

This all requires a lot of research, planning, emailing, snail mailing and a big mix of patience and persistence.

We are doing all of this ourselves at this point and not being professional music biz people, we are learning loads of stuff everyday.

We have no record label financing and opening doors for us yet, so we are working with our microscopic budget and doing our best to open our own doors. The challenge of being a DIY independent musician is a huge, huge uphill task.

The flip-side is, there has never been more opportunities to get your music heard or more paths to having the type of music career you want.

I have such enthusiasm and pride in my new album that I want to share it with as many people as possible. We feel very positive and excited about the future and are enjoying seeing this creation beginning to take root and grow.

I have a number of shows coming up, a number of new videos coming out and other goodies on the way to share with you.

As always, you all are at the heart of this project. I am deeply grateful for all your support, encouragement and energy. So, massive thanks and a hearty pat on the back for yourselves.

Eric Eckhart talks with Nick Ilott about how he wrote and recorded his new album, 'This is where it starts' and how living in Berlin has influenced his music.

After seven months since recording commenced, numerous mixing and re-mixing and mastering and re-mastering, my new album is finally done and has been sent off to be pressed into CDs. We celebrated in good fashion.

The mixing and mastering proved to be very vexing because although we had a clear idea of how we wanted the album to sound, there were still so many options and angles to go at the songs. Plus, both Fab Leseure (my co-producer) and I can be perfectionist and had a hard time letting go of the project.

Also, for those of you who don't know what mastering is, it happens after mixing and is the last process that the music goes through before it is pressed into CDs. Basically, a mastering engineer takes the songs and runs them through both analogue and digital equipment trying to give the album an extra sheen, spit and polish and also to make sure the recording will sound good whether you are listening to it on your laptop speakers or through a hi-fi stereo system.

Sounds simple enough, but it is a real art form that requires a great deal of expertise, especially if you want your album to sound as good as any commercial release out there. We ended up having the album mastered 6 times with 5 different mastering companies involved over a 5 week head-melting period. The good news is we learned a huge amount and got the album to sound the way we wanted.

In the end, we chose mastering engineer Simon Davey who works at The Exchange in London. He has mastered albums for the likes of Amy Winehouse, Depeche Mode, Bjork, Scissor Sisters, Bad Company and yes, Spice Girls. Simon was a great help and guidance to us and needless to say, extremely skilled at his job. If was a pleasure having him master my album and working with the team at The Exchange.

So, the CD Master is now on its way to America where Oasis (not the band) will manufacture the CDs in about 3 weeks time.

We are now moving into full promotional swing and will be rolling out some new videos and previews of the songs and asking for your generous help and support in spreading the music as far and as wide as possible over the next few weeks.

Until then...

A man gets on a train and sees the woman of his dreams. Exciting, huh!!? Except, when he thinks about how to approach her, all he sees is how he will probably screw up this relationship even before it even starts. After he has beaten up his confidence in his mind, he finally decides what to do. What does he do?? Well, you'll have to wait to see the video for "Lost" to find out.

We had a great day yesterday filming this video for "Lost" from my new album, 'This is where it starts'. Under the direction of fellow American and Berlin resident  and artist MaryBeth Volker, filming commenced in the Prenzlauer Berg area of Berlin and the S-Bahn train ring route.

We had two fine actors playing the part of the love-struck, but lacking in confidence, man and the young woman who he is instantly attracted to. Many thanks to the full of energy, native East Berliner Hagen Geburzi and the multi-talented, excellent opera singer and fellow American Lauren Lee.

"Lost" is one of my favorite songs from the new album and was one of the funnest to record. That spirit carried over into the video shoot. Huge thanks to MaryBeth who brought loads of enthusiasm and creativity to the project. Also, major thanks to Kusi for her support and help throughout the shoot and Julie Freedman who again took great photos while we filmed.

This is what I believe videos should be. Easy going, fun, fluid, creative, taping into the spirit of the song and feeding off the gathering of artist and friends.

A giant roll of scrolling paper, paint, pastels, markers, feathers, a live single frame continuous shot, amazing food and a final frenzied attack on me. Not bad for a day's work.

Thus was the video shoot for "Happy" that happen yesterday in our apartment in Berlin.

Director Graeme Pearce dreamed up this mad idea and with a quickly assembled group of friends and artists it all came together.

We started off with über delicious food prepared by Kusi. Then with a quick chat and a bit a preparation by Graeme, we were off.

The idea was to play the song and draw, paint or write whatever you feel from the music and the lyrics. Most of the people involved had never heard the song before so it was a fresh experience for them.

Our friends Roula  and Julie scrolled the paper while I wrote lyrics and Graeme, Kusi and Gordon Raphael provided their artistic magic. Our friend and Julie's partner Nijin was kind enough to look after the two children.

We did 4 live takes and it was done. Except that Graeme asked me at the last minute would I lie on the floor and let him, Kusi, Roula and Julie cover me with paint and feathers, while I sang along with the song. It was art, he told me.

So, with only one take possible they had their fun and I did too, I must admit. Except for the feather that went down my throat while I was singing a long note.

It was an extremely fun, supportive, easy and laid back experience. I really enjoyed being surrounded by friends and having everyone join in.

A mighty thanks to everyone involved!!! I couldn't have asked for a better experience to kick off the first of a number of videos for my new album.

Beware, crazy chicken man!

While Fabien meticulously worked on mixing "Big Lie" on Sunday, I walked around the studio and its grounds with my MacBook filming the surroundings with the built-in iSight camera.

The studio is part of the Funkhaus which used to be the main radio station for communist East Germany. It is located in old East Berlin along the river Spree. Built in the 1950's, it has amazing sounding rooms, untouched from that era, but the outside is quite run down and edgy.

Using the video I shot and photos from Dave Hingerty and myself, I put together this video to give you a sense of the flavor of the place where This is where it starts was made.

I fully enjoyed my time recording and mixing here. The place is choke full of history and has a strong personality that comes through its peeling paint and beautifully crafted wood panels.

Lastly, I wanted to preview some of the songs on the new album. First up in the video is "Happy", then "I Saw A  Light", followed by "Lost", "Open Up", "I'm Gone" and finally "From Whence I Came".

I had a great time on Monday with the surprise addition to my new album of the violin. A French one even. With all the mixes nearly done, it is hardly time to be adding to the recordings but as fate would have it, my producer's brother Ben was in Berlin visiting from Brussels and as always, he was traveling with violin in tow. Since one of the ethos for this album has been to let our instincts guide us, we decided to set up the microphone in the sitting room and see what we could come up with.

I had a counter melody in mind for the 3rd verse of "Better Way" that I thought would sound great on violin and give the song yet another colour and mood. Fabien had an idea of recording Ben playing many violin parts on the outro of "Better Way" creating a string section.

Ben is a top notch player and a lovely fellow to boot. It was wonderful hearing him make that violin sing. An make it sing he certainly did. I kept thinking, this is either entertaining the neighbor upstairs or driving him batty.

Ben also played some violin for the last part of "From Whence I Came" which sounded really cool, but not sure if it is needed. We will decide this weekend.

Speaking of which, this weekend is the final full days of mixing. Any tweaks after that will be super minor tweaks. No more full on sessions. It's time to let go and let the children fly.

Ok, this isn't directly about music, but I have to sing the praises of the Berlin Shawarma. In Berlin, the Turkish Döner Kebab is far more popular and don't get me wrong, I love a good ole Döner but, the Shawarma is a step up in my book.  

Shawarma is based on chunks of chicken or turkey meat marinated in a spicy yoghurt sauce. Some fresh lettuce, onions, cucumber, tomato and the can't-do-without scharf (spicy) sauce all resting in a lovely warm pita bread and you have one heck of a hearty meal indeed.

I am also known amongst friends for my frugality and the fact that you can get a delicious Shawarma for 2 euros and 50 cent makes it taste all the more amazing.

My favourite Shawarma in Berlin is Luxa located at the corner of Torstraße and Schönhauser Allee.

So with mouth watering, I wish you all happy eating!

We are at the final, final stages of mixing This is where it starts. 9 songs are finished with 3 left to go. One week left of tweaking and giving the last listens and we will be ready to send the album to be mastered and printed.

I have to admit that I am getting super antsy right now. I have so loved the process of recording and mixing but I am dying to get the CD out and get the next stage of my career up and running.

I am in the process of shooting two videos as well. One for 'Happy' and one for 'Lost'. Two different directors and two very different style videos.

After that comes the launch of this site and the initial round of publicity.

Then, on December 1st, the CD will begin shipping. This is a Special Edition CD mainly for my friends, fans and family who have been so supportive over the years. This is a way for me to say thanks by giving them the first taste of This is where it starts before the formal release in February.

Following two weeks of listening to the rough mixes, I am back working with my producer Fabien Leseure on doing some last minute clean up, fixes and additions before the final mixing starts in two weeks time. We are working at his apartment for this as he has a small studio set up in his sitting room at the moment.

I like the casual setting and relaxed way we are going through each track to make sure we have captured what was intended for each song.

Mostly, we are adding some harmonies and backing vocals. I will be playing electric guitar on one song today and this weekend we will add some percussion to a few songs.

The only song to get a bit of work done was "Better Way". We had always planned that this would be much more of an experimental track for us. In keeping with that idea, we dropped one of the choruses and bridge riffs and put two of the verse together which used to be separated by the extra chorus. I really like this new arrangement as I think it keeps the surprises coming throughout the song and gives the verse and lyrical story time to find it's groove and unique voice.

I made my first recording 24 years ago at the age of 17 and many, many recordings since then, so this process is not new to me. What is new to me and why this feels like my first real album, is this is the first time I can honestly say I went into an album wanting the songs and the production to be a true reflection of me. All sides of me - good and bad, nice and nasty, folk and rocker, safe and experimental. I wanted all the ugliness and beauty that makes oneself real to show in how I sang, how I played guitar and most importantly in the lyrics.

Also, I finally allowed myself to fully soak in the writing and recording process and allow my producer to pull and push me in directions that I might not have gone myself. I was able to do this because Fabien and I had built up a strong level of trust before we ever went into the studio.

We had met repeatedly ahead of recording to allow me to talk about my vision for the album and for him to share his ideas and advice on how he heard the songs. It was clear from the first meeting that we were on the same page. I knew in the end, the thing he wanted most was to do the songs justice. And that, he most certainly did. I was able to step back and allow the songs to evolve under Fabien's direction while still do a bit of steering when I felt strongly about one thing or another. It was the best of both worlds for me in that respect.

I must also mention the helpful and creative contributions of my drummer for the album Dave Hingerty and bassist Peter Cheevers. Besides being great guys, excellent musicians and true professionals, both men offer suggestions and ideas on arrangements and production that improved the songs and sound of the album. Notably, Dave's help on "Open Up" suggesting to shorten the song and do the last verse as a quiet coda and Peter's suggestion for re-working the ending to "Happy" to make it punchier and more forceful. For me the album is a true collaboration.

After 14 days in the studio, the new album is finally finished recording. We will begin the final mixing in August. But, we had done rough mixes of each song as we finished them over the last few weeks. I had passed on taking the rough mixes home to listen to, waiting instead until they were all finished to then take them home and listen as a whole album in the track order I had in mind.

So on Saturday night, I sat with my MacBook and headphones and had a good listen. Keep in mind, some of these songs I haven't heard in nearly three weeks and had forgotten exactly how they sounded.

My first reaction was lots of smiles and a sense that we had achieved something very special for this album. It was more than I could have hoped for and a joy to listen to. These songs are my babies, so It was with a lot of pride, a good dose of humility and a huge nod to my producer that I was so thrilled listening to them take off and fly and come into their own. Can't wait to share them with you!

Hot Press fave Eric Eckhart has been in touch from Berlin where he’s just started recording his new album with Fabien Leseure, partner of Nina Hynes and member of The Husbands. Ex-Frame Dave Hingerty is helping out on drums and another Husband, Peter Cheevers, is on bass duties. The location for all this creative mayhem is Fabien’s studio in old East Berlin. The building used to be an East German radio station and apparently the acoustics are top notch!

Eric reports that the songs run the gamut from roots, blues and folk to all out rockers and some exquisite ‘60s pop. Will keep you posted on further developments…

We finished our 10th day yesterday and have booked a few more as we still have some work to do. I am heading to the studio this afternoon to help Fab comp the last two tracks which were the first two we recorded with the band.

We have fully finished and rough mixed 7 songs. I have to say that it sounds fantastic. I am thrilled with the results. It is much more elaborate, adventurous and surprising than I had expected – all in a good way.

We did 3 that the band didn’t play on. It was hard work with just the two of us but I think we pulled it off. They are real moody landscape movie soundtrack sounding tracks.

We have finished 4 songs that the band played on. “Better Way” and “Lost” being the most adventurous. “Lost” is the one the band just played the ending on with Dave playing a stipped down drum kit in the stairwell. When we finished tracking and rough mixing that one, Fab and I were both humbly saying it sounds like a “hit”. “Better Way” is a tour de force swinging from the Manchester druggy drum and bass dominate riff to the verse which has a desert southwest Hispanic ultra mellow vibe and my favourite vocal so far which Fab had me sing nearly lying down in a looped trance. The chorus switches to a pure Sgt Pepper area sound with the ending sounding like a race to the depths of hell.

The two rockers - “Open Up” and “Happy” came out great with loads of heavy guitars and are loads of fun. I think they will be a good balance to the album with “Happy” standing out as a poppy single.

We will finish up the final four this week which are the four the band together live with me on acoustic guitar and vocal.

On New Year's Day the resolutions and great promise for the year ahead takes centre stage. I want to take this opportunity to say thanks to everyone here for listening to my music and joining this fan site.

The new year finds me working away on what has become 2 albums worth of new material. About half are shaping up to be rootsy, edgy, swamp rock stompers. The other half are very stripped down, quiet, dark and a bit eerie acoustic numbers.

I am planning on recording in May here in Berlin at a recording studio in an old East German radio station. The vibe of the place is a wonderful mix of communist institution hallways and beautifully crafted performance rooms. All sitting in a lovely, tranquil location on the banks of the Spree.

I look forward to sharing these new songs with you all.

Thanks again for your support and guten Rutsch ins neue jahr! All the best, Eric

I am in month 7 in Berlin of my one-yearish creative break to finish writing and recording my new album. The new songs had been coming fast and furious before the U.S. election started to consume my time. I'm a politics addict. So, after tomorrow's vote and hopefully with Barack Obama as President-elect, I can return to the music.

I plan to keep a record here of how the songs are developing both in the writing stages and the recording stages.

The first six songs are nearly done except for some lyrics. The lyrics are always a harder slog for me. The songs for the most part are more edgy and rootsy.