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Care for Nature...
We care for nature... it's not just something we say.... I know that SOME bands just like to talk a bit about nature and spiritualism during fake interviews and possibly hint at "saving the planet" etc... while they strut about in front of teevee and press cameras ,basically just exercising their tiny little ego's by trying to look "cool" and "alternative" ... "nature love" as a marketing strategy!... bweeeeurgh!!!... But nature love is not something you talk about, it'ssomething you DO...
We don't just pose, (although we are obviously as cool as a fridge stacked with cucumbers and as alternative as a UFO full of Martians) because we're very practical pagans (like Granny Weatherwax***) so we actually get down , roll up our black sleeves and try to do something usefull in this world (even if it seems just a "little" thing like trying to save some teeny tiny birdies) What is the life of one baby-"Tit" worth in the greater scheme of things? what is it worth? who will care if it lives or dies?... is one life more important than another? is it a matter of kilo's?
Well WE CARE!... let me tell you that even the life of the smallest little natural critter is as least as important to us as the lives of a busload of mutant monkeys... (erm... actually MORE important to us... I should say) So we care, when and where we can... a very large part of the money made by OMNIA and her recordlabel "PAGANSCUM" (100% self-owned and 100% INDEPENDANT)
is spent on animal welfare and educating/changing the world of humans for the better... we don't advertise this fact because it's just something that we do...because it's "right" (as Buffy would say)... So now Stenny (who are two of life's natural "late-risers") get's up at sunrise every morning to feed the babies... by hand... every hour... untill sunset... we'll keep doing this till these four cute little feckers are big enough to fly away... (now I know why parent birds look so shagged out all the time)They are growing like anything! (ze groeien als Kool...meesjes! ;-)
BUT tomorrow we must drive all the way to Abenberg , which is about a 6 hour journey minimum) in the Black pearl! what to do?... we can't take them along!... luckily our really sweet neighbours Ans and Sylvia, here in the forest are also birdlovers who care an enormous amount for the wild birds... they spend so much of their time on bird wellfare...happily they have agreed to baby-sit our little foundlings untill we return from the Feuertanz festival! So we can go out to Rock you people with 100% pure OMNIA PAGANFOLK at Feuertanz!!
See ya there! Greenthingz on tiny wingz! Stenny (picture by Jenny birdmum)
***if you don't know who Granny Weatherwax is try reading some Terry Pratchett books!... you'll thank me for it later!
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Let's have a big hand for nature!
Summer seems to have arrived in our forest... the air is thick with the squeek, squawk and screech of thousands of little critters that have arrived new on the planet this season. It's like a forest "comedy central" out here when you see all the young birds (great tits, blue tits, woodpeckers, blackbirds etc etc etc.) clumsily exploring their living enviroment and demanding food from their over-worked and completely shagged-out parents! It's soooooooooo cute and endearing to see them all discovering what they can eat and finding out how to fly properly!... gosh!... nature is really beautifull and so fecking ALIVE! wow! We already had to rescue a young thrush and later a young woodpecker that had wandered into our house by accident!... And now it seems we have a few little lodgers to take care of! We were out for a walk yesterday with our friends/family Renso and Marjolein (the wild-life artists who made all the bird drawings on the OMNIA album "Musick and Poëtree") when we came upon a small group of teeny tiny baby-Tits scattered on the ground below a huge old tree. They had fallen out of their their nestingplace, which must have got damaged by the storm-winds of last weekend. and they were very exposed and in bad shape. It was only a matter of hours before they would all be dead (one had already had it's head bitten clean off by some predator) and there was no way of getting them into their original home anymore.... so we took them home with us. After getting some brilliant advice from the animal rescue centre :" just leave them where you found them" , we decided to try and give them a chance at life instead and that's what we're doing now. feeding them with baby-bird-food every hour from sun-up to sunset, keeping their little surrogate nest clean and warm... they are still so young that basically all they do is sleep, eat stare around a bit with bleary eyes and ofcourse, poo.... (a bit like most humans actually, but then smaller and without the use of any televisions or computers)... and now three of them are looking very strong and really have a will to live... but sadly one (the smallest), doesn't seem to want to eat at all, he just lies around and sleeps and sleeps , we think that the trauma of falling from the nest, accompanied by the stress of near death etc. has damaged the little fecker on the inside somewhere and I don't think he/she will last untill tomorrow... but such is life (and death) we'll do our best for them and see what the future holds... Take good care of all you see and praise the earth on bended knee! Greenthingz! Stenny (picture by dr.Doolittle)
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Rock on MPS! First SUNNY festival day of the year! YEAH!!!
Wow! Crazy weekend! It was awesome at Chief Gisi's travelling time-machine fest! The MPS Dortmund Rocked with a record amount of visitors!! WE had a beautifull Medieval stage set up under the protecting arms of the huge, ancient and gnarly trees which surrounded us... we got to share the resonant wooden planks of the festival buhne with our old and dear friends of the Celtic folk band Rapalje and Faun, as well as a fantastic audience of smiles, cheers and energy! It's always wonderfull to meet so many of YOU who tell me that you like to read my blogs because then I can relate more to YOU when I'm typing these words... simply because for every reader that reads these words there is a chance (no matter how small) that YOU are some body I spoke to about THESE BLOGS when we did a signing session after a show somewhere or just walking around on the festival areas... anyway, excuse me I'm rambling a bit (tired)... anywhaywhatsitallaboutagain? ... oh yeah!...
the sun beamed down upon us all from way up high in the sky... The Musick flowed like celticpaganmittelalter honey... the day passed blissfully into a campfire-lit night as hundreds of bonfires and torches were lit to give the whole place a flame enlightened atmosphere of times gone by, times that lives in our dreams, possibly a time that there never was... but still one which we are making real together every day... When I walk around on these summer festivals, then I realise that Together we can keep on fighting for our freedom to live like we want to,fighting for the Earth , her children and for each other!
Greenthingz and PaganPeace XXX OMNIA
(picture by Jasper van Gheluwe)
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OMNIA Shirts back in the shop and on the festivals!
Finally the "Heart of Celtic Gold" OMNIA tee-shirts have been reprinted and are now back in the online OMNIA-shop (sizes S, M , XL , XXXL ), as well as the Lacy-girly top , also with "Heart of Celtic Gold" print and available in the sizes (S,M,L)
Ofcourse we'll also be selling them at our Big Black Pagan-Merchandise stand during our live-gigs like at the Amazing MPS Festival in Dortmund tomorrow!
(we're really looking forward to seeing all the beautifull fans, all our music-friends and of course Gisi and his crew again!... and... we'll be trying out yet another NEW SONG called "EARTH WARRIOR" tomorrow!
So ....we'llgonna be there! how about you!? XXX greenz dr.SteveSic
(picture by Marcel Bakker)
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Do YOU want to be part of the next Raven-Times Newsletter?
Hi there! It is almost time for the next OMNIA newsletter ( Raven-Times Midsummer ).
Do you want to know more about OMNIA or look inside the life of a pagan musician? Do you want to read about the latest news around OMNIA? Sign in for the News-Letter and make sure you don't miss a thing from the World of OMNIA!
Subscribe HERE ;-)
We also need YOUR help to make our Raven-Times complete…
As always there will be a OMNIA Fan-Art page and a OMNIA-Shirt World Tour.
Do you have a nice tattoo inspired by OMNIA, a lovely painting or some other form of Art inspired by us? You can send it to: email@example.com and maybe I will choose your picture, so a lot of Freaky people around the world of OMNIA will see your Art!
For our OMNIA-Shirt world tour we need nice pictures of fans wearing an OMNIA shirt, sweater or top on a nice place on earth.
Send it to: email@example.com if you want your picture to appear in the upcoming Raven-Times. Don't forget to tell us your name and where the picture was taken ;-)
Stay up to date, be part of our PaganClan, be part of the World of OMNIA!
Greenz DaphydCrow
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How about a Pagan-Reggae Song?, here's a sneak peek at "EARTH WARRIOR"!!!
We're practicing at Dreamharps again on this beautifull day, it's part of our job you know... working on all our new material for the upcoming OMNIA Album we'll be recording this winter...Today we're finalising the live version of our latest baby called : EARTH WARRIOR... it's a Pagan-Reggae song which The Reggae-police forced us to write, due to the enormous amount of dreadlocks in our band at the moment...(it's a union thing) .. also we are very much into the music of mr. Marley, mr.Tosh and mr.Ciao (to name but three) and it is amazing fun to play a cheery battle/protest-song like this... it's almost like musical THC!... If all goes well today We will play Earth Warrior LIVE as a special gift to the audience this weekend at the MPS festival in Dortmund!
We realise that most of YOU who read these words will not be there, so to give YOU an idea of the 'feel' and meaning of this new song, so it won't be too weird for you when it is finally released on an album, I'll give you the lyrics here to read:
"EARTH WARRIOR" (Pagan Reggae song)
lyrics and musick: SteveSic and Jenny Evans van der Harten
arrangement: OMNIA
©2013-Paganscum records
I'm a Warrior! Earth Warrior!
True-born Pagan Yeah!
I'm a Warrior , Nature soldier fighting for the Earth
This is my home, it's where I belong
from the clouds in the sky to the roots an' stones
I see the Sun in the sky , make me feel so high
I see the full moon shine, make me feel so fine
Her river my blood, Her rock my bone
Her earth my muscle, her heart my soul
Her children my children, their freedom my goal
I'll be fighting fighting fighting fighting fighting for them all!
I'm a Warrior! Earth Warrior!
True-born Pagan Yeah!
I'm a Warrior , Nature soldier fighting for the Earth
I'm a Warrior! Earth Warrior!
True-born Pagan Yeah!
I'm a Warrior , Dreadlock soldier fighting for the Earth
People breed disassociation
Industrialisation of elimination
a million mutant monkeys making mutilation
deforestation from nation to nation
the Earth and her children, no they cannot hide
from pollution, confusion and genocide
but I will protect them, yes I got the right
'cause I am a Soldier, I fight the good fight!
I'm a Warrior! Earth Warrior!
True-born Pagan Yeah!
I'm a Warrior , Nature soldier fighting for the Earth
I'm a warrior! Earth Warrior!
True-born Pagan Yeah!
I'm a Warrior , Dreadlock soldier fighting for the Earth!
Greenthingz! Folk Musick is also Protest Musickand so VIVA la GREEN REVOLUTION!! XX Shaman SteveSic and OMNIA
ps: coming saturday should turn out to be quite an old-fashioned party on the "festival buhne" of the MPS Dortmund because apart from OMNIA's PaganFolk you'll be treated to loads of pure Scottish, Dutch and Irish Folk by our old friends of Rapalje as well as the thumping electronic Mittelalter beats of Faun! because they will both be sharing the same stage with us! Rapalje,Faun and OMNIA together on one stage for the first time in like...8 years?Yeah! I'm looking forward to it!! how about you?! ;-)
(picture by: "the Dread Boys")
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less tattoos... more hair ;-)
This is me... quite some years ago... in this picture I seem to have more hair and a lot less tattoos and other decorations ... I also seem to be wearing only a loin cloth and some leaves, so the summer weather was warm and groovy ;-) ... Jenny and me had just started helping a nice young couple to set up their very own little medieval festival in Holland by lending them our fan-club as volunteers and doing their band-bookings and creative management for a while (they wanted a modest medieval event in wijk bij duurstede ,a small town in Holland, but we managed to convince them to think bigger and make it more Fantasy and Pagan on a bigger location with a castle or something ... "Castlefest", maybe you've heard of it? , of course we'll be playing there again this year :-) ... anyway... this picture was taken at the 2nd Castlefest I think?... Daphyd the Crow (a skinny dreadlocked teen-ager we had met) had tried-out as one of our new merch-babes on that festival ... but sadly I had to ask him to stop within a day because he was such a crap salesperson, he was just playing a didge and mucking around most of the time!... I remember telling him all those years ago that he didn't belong NEXT TO a stage but ON a stage not realising that it would be OUR OMNIA stage he would be standing on some years into the future... wow! Tempus Fugit doesn't it? Times change, people come and go,but the mountains still stand, the earth keeps on turning and I'm still smiling in the sun!
Pagan Peace and Greenthingz! Shaman SteveSic
(picture by dr.Senseless aka Daphyd the Crow)
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testing testing... "Three musicians ,three fingers"
I thought it might be nice to share some of the rough test-photo-shots we made , to scout the locations , before we started on the 'official" photoshoot to make the new OMNIA promo-pictures... (a process which will still take a while yet... no... the last one in which we were "flipping the bird" wasn't a real promopicture...it was a joke...something which we pagan freedom fighters like to call "humor")... anyway...
I kinda liked this one, which was taken in our "singing tree" (a very friendly tree-friend of ours in which a few of our new songs have been written)...
To carry on with the "finger-theme" that we set last week... you will see even yet more fingers in this one too (a subject which delights as well as horrifies many readers of these blogs ;-)
Greenthingz on Nature's wings! XXX OMNIA
(picture and irony by SteveSic :-)
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OMNIA PHOTOSHOOT Great SUCCESS!
We had a great photoshoot today and we've tried to incorporate as many of the great suggestions we got from all the people on the internet… Well I think we really hit the jackpot with this amazing shot made by our Belgian friend Jasper… it took ages to climb up into this 30 foot tree, and the crane set-up for the photographer was expensive, it took a whole team of photoshop experts to have it ready and online within mere hours of shooting the pic (but in the end we really think it was worthwhile)… We feel this photograph really expresses all the positive and diverse emotions that OMNIA and THE EARTH feel towards Humankind in general! beautiful isn't it?
XXX Greenthingz and Peace to the Peacefull! OMNIA
Picture by Jasper von Sarcasm
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HURGH! ... Now we SHOOT!
We make great PIC for make fans glad now... go out in wood and shoot with pic box ...urgh... make us look good!... yes! ... onga!
Green! US! (pic by Sic)
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We're still trying new poses for the photo shoot on saturday.
Apparentely not everyone like's my finger……..well…..how about my ass :) ?
greetings Rob (et OMNIA)
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Preparing for the photoshoot…
So...What do you think of this pose?
Picture by A.Morricone
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MPS Dresden moved to 2nd weekend of August 2013
The MPS show goes on (even if we have to wait for the water to go down)... so the MPS festival in Dresden which was cancelled due to flooding will go on but at a different date later in the year! So OMNIA will happily be able to play a show for all the lovely people there on Saturday 10.08.2013!
In the meantime the waterlevels are still rising all over the place to unprecedented hights ... the normal summer level of the river in Dresden should be around 2 metres but today it has gone over 9 metres!!! something that's never happened before... this is nature showing us how much "in control" we are... check out this quote I lifted from the internet:
"This is ghostly and frightening," said Falk Herrgott, a Dresden resident. "It's sad what's happening to our town, but this is nature. It shows how unimportant we are."
It shows how unimportant we are!.. now there are some words of truth and wisdom! Remember that Oh Human being, with your arrogance , your ego, your technology and your God... this planet is NOT ours.. we are just unimportant little monkeys who stare in awe and wonderment at the universe that surrounds us... maybe one day humankind will come to understand its place on this world.... in the meantime we wish Falk and all the other people and animals in the flooded areas courage, wisdom and strength to make it through the coming days... Greenthingz! Shaman SteveSic et OMNIA (cool picture of Sic at Worms by Saskia "Sasquatchstyle.de")
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Stormwinds Blow on the golden Barley... and the Rain will wash away all our sins... (our world is dying... but does anybody out there care?)
So it finally happened!... a whole festival has been cancelled due to CLIMATE CHANGE! We just heard from our friends at MPS (Gisi, Ede, Igor and the whole MPS Tribe) that The Mps festival in Dresden has been CANCELLED because the festival terrain has been flooded by unseasonally high rivers (just like the rest of Germany, Switzerland, Austria,Czech Republik,Norway, etc. etc.etc.) It's JUNE and rivers are flooding! Does anybody at all find this ODD!? I was just out shopping and I checked the Dutch newspaper headlines in town... nothing... not a fecking thing about the EXTREME changes in our weather... WTF? When another government-made bomb goes off somewhere in the USA all the media screams "TERRORISTS!! BE AFRAID!!! THEY WILL KILL US ALL!!!" when another bank collapses due to international corperate fraud the headlines scream "ECONOMIC CRISIS! BE AFRAID!! YOU WILL LOSE YOUR HOUSE AND STARVE TO DEATH!!!" ... when another sad fucked-up loser drinks himself to death while also holding a joint in his hand the media yells "EVIL DRUGS!!! BE AFRAID!! JUNKIES WILL RAPE AND KILL YOU AND TURN YOUR KIDS INTO DRUGFIENDS!!!" ... but when the actual fucking world we live in is in actual fucking serious trouble... the media is all kind of: "oh yeah.. dang that weather eh?.. but oh well, what can you do about it?... it'll probably all be fine!... don't you worry about a thing... here is some stuff about royalty and hollywood film stars to distract you with... oooh look at the pretty sparkles!" .... humph!... grrrrrmbl.... bunch of fecking wankers..... sigh!.... sometimes it really sucks to live in this world of mutant monkeys with both eyes wide open... Ah never mind... let them ignore the weather, let them ignore the mass extinction of species, let them ignore the factory made genetic mutations, let them ignore the destruction of our ONE and ONLY enviroment...
some day soon they won't be able to ignore it all anymore... just be sure that YOU or your kids will not be among the surprised ones wandering around aimlessly through the wreckage of what's left of our society going: "what happened?... I had no idea something was wrong... why didn't our government protect us?"
I was conversing with the nature spirits around us last night and they told me not to worry about the planet... it's OK... Our beautifull Earth will survive ... It's just that we won't be on it anymore... The earth is sick and humans are the disease... when her fever breaks... so will we...
Storm winds blow on the Golden Barley... and we will have to take each day as it comes, enjoying the fruits of life as they are given to us... and together we can Dance untill we Die! I wish you Love, Luck and Sunshine for the future... (you're gonna need it)
XXX Peace to the peacefull... Shaman SteveSic
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It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it...
Wow, what a fun show in Worms! We were a little surprised when we saw the stage ... which was ... how shall we say it? ... a little basic?... but that didn't matter to us! oh no! :-)
with a little creative OMNIA thinking and some help from the very nice local festival crew and organisers we had it set-up in no-time so we could play an OMNIA show on it comfortably.. no problemo! I know that our friends from Saltatio Mortis were playing the same stage there today (chilling in the sun no doubt! ;-) ... so...
big stage or small stage ...
we always make do...
that's because we're musicians...
and we do this for YOU!...
The audience in Worms was awesome! Such enthousiasm! Such energy! We saw many familiar faces in the crowd as well as loads of YOU whom we had never met before... like the sweet lady who travelled all the way from Malaysia to come and see one of our shows!... Or the great Polish couple who gave us the Polish Chocolates (which were delicious!) ... or the fans from switzerland... It's great to see that many of YOU travel so far to come and see an OMNIA show... but it's also kind of fair because we sometimes travel really far to come and play for YOU!... But it's always worth it! Rain or Shine, Storm or drought... we jump in our trusty vans and drive the long miles, or we jump in a plane and fly the world to come and ROCK for YOU... somedays it's hard, but then we know that there will always be a wonderfull audience waiting to share the energy with us! and at the end of a long night we get to meet so many of YOU , who come by our signing table just to say hello! to give us lovely presents!... or to get a signature on a tee-shirt or a CD... or (as in the case of this picture) we give our signatures on really friendly happy things like Carina's lovely boobs! ;-)
...ah! life is hard as a pagan-musician...
but somehow we still manage to keep on doing it!....
Greenz and XXX Shaman SteveSic
(picture by Carina)
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Work-out in the Sun...WORMS here we come!
The sun is shining beautifully today..it's life giving rays warming the very cockles of our little Pagan hearts... we are doing work-outs at the moment (like we do just about every day)... you know: cross country running, dexterity training , bit of weightlifting, weapon training, yoga and stretches to stay fit and battle-ready for our shows... like the upcoming show tomorrow on the Spectaculum Worms in Worms germany (a festival that we haven't been to before.. so we're very curious to see what it's like!) The reason we have to keep fit and healthy (apart from the fact that it's part of our personal religion to take good care of our bodies) is this: It's so physically challenging to play a hard-core , OMNIA PaganFolk Rock Show using only acoustic instruments, no play-back, no lap-top nonsense, no tonnes of easy-effects etc. that most other bands would probably give up halfway through the show and run from the stage crying like liddle babies... Yep.. we don't mess around... This is OMNIA where only the tough can play along... that's cause this is the real thing baby! ... Fuck the 3rd millenium, we're OLD SCHOOL!... just 4 hardworking musicians, a stage ,a bunch of instruments, some small amount of skill and a crowd of good people to rock out! Yeah! I love this band! anyway ... back to the training now... see ya tomorrow in Worms.. or someotherwhere!... we gonna work! 2,3,4,5,6,7,8! and hup 2,3,4,5,6,7,8!
Stay healthy!, stay fit!, enjoy Life!
Greenz... ShamanSic and the Pagan sexy fit-people (picture by D.Ross)
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I promised to tell you about some of the new songs we are working on so.... after "CRAZY MAN" (scroll down to one of the previous blogs if you haven't read the description of the "CrazyMan" song) now it's time for "KOKOPELLI"
Many of you already know the image of KOKOPELLI , and you might have wondered who that "freggle with the big flute" is supposed to be... well , he's a god! a cool and groovy fluteplaying fertility God of the west coast Natives of the northern americas... (apparently women become pregnant when they see his enormous flute!!) hahaha! well anyhow... He protects the wild animals (like Cernunnos) so he's OK with us! and that's why we made a new song, just for him ...in which I use my newly custom-built giant fecking overtone/fujara hybrid flute (which I have aptly named kokopelli aswell)... this song has a very Native beat / feel to it, using only Drums , FrameDrum, Didge and (giantfucking)-Overtone Flute for the musick.
The Vocals are a very simple repetetive chant, based upon Native american (plains) indian chants rousing the spirit of the magic flute player, aswell as being a bit of a war-cry aswell so we can fight the good fight for nature to the shout of "HOKA HEY!"...
music/lyrics: Stenny
arrangement: OMNIA
Hey YeYe Kokopelli...
Hey YeYe Ho!
Hey YeYe Kokopelli...
Hey YeYe Ho!
Hoka Hey! Hoka Hey! Hoka Hey hey hey!
We'll be playing this new song on all our upcoming shows, so (if you're there) be sure to sing along as LOUD as you can ... so we can feed the spirits with our energy together! Hoka Hey! XX Greenz from your own personal heyoka... Shaman SteveSic
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Dinner in the forest...
The Sun was out today! Yeah! so we soaked up a load of rays and even had a lovely dinner outside... (Salad with Goat's cheese, fried Saitan with leek , puree of carrots an' creamcheese... yum!) And to celebrate the beautifull light and warmth that we were given today by the big burning ball of exploding hydrogen up there in space, we had a lovely golden german beer aswell! Cheers! ... and now Stenny carries on with making songs.. we're writing and arranging loads of new stuff for our upcoming new CD so... we hope that wherever you are and whenever you eat next, YOU may enjoy your meal as much as we did... we wish you a happy tummy, peace of mind and lots of creativity!
XXX Stenny picture by mr.Canonautoclickything
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Depressed....Should I be happy today?
I'm depressed... well, just a little... It's hard to stay happy all the time (and as a "public person" it is kind of expected of me to be positive and constructive in what I say and do on the internet... well not today dear... I just don't feel like it.)
I was trying to think of something cheerfull to blog because the sun is shining a little tiny bit today, It's almost june and I'm happy that the temperature just rose above 10 degrees centigrade (for those of you unfamiliar with the climate in holland/germany the daily temperature is about 10 to 20 degrees BELOW what it should normally be at this time of year)... so maybe when me and my stupid tree-hugging hippie/punk buddies started shouting about "Global Climate Change" back in the eigthies somebody might have had the decency to take notice instead of just ridiculing us? But even now, the monkeys still don't seem to care much... it's like the pompeyans living on mount vesuvius saying: " dangerous?!! Naah!..that thing has been smoking for years now!... no problem! it's all perfectly safe!" yeah, sure pal...
Politicians and heads of state are too busy corrupting, stealing and backstabbing each other , while grabbing as much loot off the peasants as their scrawny little claws can carry...
(but what do you expect from a world in which a government can simply blow up a couple of buildings full of it's own people, then blaming it on some arabs, to justify a war of conquest while the rest of the so-called civilised world thinks this is "just fine"?... and no, it's not just a fucking theory!)
The main monotheisitic religions are cashing-in on the whole "apocalypse/end of the world" card to get as many souls with bank-accounts connected to their own particular brand of enlightenment, not giving a toss about the living planet..
(but what do you expect from Power-Mad Religions ..that forbid the use of contraception on an overcrowded planet full of conflict, disease and famine... That speak of the holyness of it's priests who rape little kids and get away with it....Religions that speak of peace and love while starting wars, imprisoning and persecuting entire populations of "unbelievers"... Religions that see this beautifull world of ours as merely a throw away "testing ground for souls" ... eternal souls who will live the "real thing" in heaven or hell after they have died in this life... yeah right...
Fuck!... I hate these monkey people... there has never been such a species of selfish , ignorant, blind, destructive, mother-raping ,mutant monkey as ours... and I am deeply ashamed to be a part of this cancerous growth called "humanity"... I love my life, I love my wife, I love my kids and I love my friends... but I really really want this human infestation to end (and so does mother earth). Hopefully, it will all be over soon, because this race does not deserve a future... we have gone to far (physically) as a species... we have learned too little (mentally and spiritually) to be allowed survival... we is going down! and somehow, that thought is comforting to me... moan moan... humbug! and bollocks!... and grr... and ...erm... well... yes...
(Jenny just danced around infront of me, while being only half dressed and looking very pretty and smiling... erm...it's hard to stay depressed like this... and all the birds are singing so beautifully in the trees despite the cold weather... Damn! how am I supposed to be sad like this!?) So er... forget everything I just said, life is wonderfull, the world of humans will end, but so fucking what? who cares? everything has a beginning and an end... let's just enjoy the time that we have been given to the full!
I wish YOU a great day while it lasts... Greenthingz on Demonwings! XXX Shaman SteveSic (pope of non-dogmatic Paganism, and official spokesperson for the living Planet) picture by Sic Vicious)
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Fuck the Profits!... this is ART for the sake of ART!
The new Saltatio Mortis Single... (Is now also a little OMNIA single!!)
Today we are finishing-up the production of our "re-mix" of the new Saltatio Mortis single which will be released on the 12th of July 2013. Sa-Mo is a very anarchist german Mittelalter/Metal band of freaks who are fast becoming very dear friends of ours. (we met at the awesome travelling MPS festivals of Gisi and it was like we'd known each other for a long time already... you know the feeling?) Their music is different to our own, but it's real and honest (no bullshit, no playback, no fake. etc.) they have a great respect for their fans , they really make music from the heart and there is a definate "core" which we share...
(it so happens that like us, they too have refused a lucrative record deal with a certain evil music multinational because it would have compromised their music and dissappointed their faithfull fans... that is soooo rare! I really thought we were the only ones who preferred ART to MONEY when given the choice, and who could actually sacrifice EASY FAME for HARD PRINCIPLES!... respect!)
So when these groovy guys asked us if we wanted to make an OMNIA re-mix/re-work of their latest single which deals with some controversial issues regarding the evil stupidity of greed and blind-commercialism and which even has a controversial tune!... we ofcourse said YES PLEASE! ... and... BRING IT ON!!! (I love the smell of controversy in the morning... smells like...Anarchy!)
This is officially the first OMNIA release EVER to be recorded in the "STENNY STUDIO" and let me tell you it's a real "goosebumps" piece! This was also the first time that we got to work with our sweet friend Fieke (Orchus.nl) as recording technician. She came to our forest home to be our live-in microphone-mistress for the duration of the recordings, thus giving the whole production a very intimate and warm feel, which you can really hear in the finished song. (I just heard the final mix and I'm still tingly all over).
The original song by Saltatio Mortis is very METAL and ofcourse in German, and we have made an atmospheric OMNIA version out of it with ofcourse english lyrics (so all you non-german speakers can understand it too!)
The original german lyrics by Timo/Lasterbalk really touched my heart and it was sooo easy to rework them into my own language... it all just went by itself :-)
Now all we have to do is wait patiently for this cool single project to be released in a couple of months time...
Greenthingz and ART before MONEY!
XXX Stenny et OMNIA
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Pagans in the forest...
What a weekend... what stages! What a crowd! First we rocked belgium BIGTIME!! and then Last weekend the trees formed our cathedral and together with the wonderfull MPS people we celebrated the Pagan- mass! Love in the Forest and peace among the trees!!! XXX Omnia
Picture by: http://www.mps-fotos.de/4images/categories.php?cat_id=625
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Tonight we Rock Belgium!!! (wanna buy a stage Banner?)
We're off to Belgium today to do our first gig there in years! and we're really looking forward to seeing our belgium friends again tonight! (eh Ju?)
We've also decided to sell our new stage banner... so if you're interested in owning a HUGE watertight , thick vinyl, Omnia poster (3x2 metres) that looks like this picture... which has had us dancing around infront of it on stage.... then you can buy one tonight in the Wieke in Deerlijke ,Belgium, or on Sunday on the MPS at Hohenwestedt, Germany. Were selling it for cost price (€ 200,-) If we don't sell it this weekend we'll put it online in our webshop next week, so you can buy the OMNIA stage banner wherever you live in the world OK?
Greenz and PAGANFOLKMUSICK!!!!
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Mixing and Editing in bed...
This is Fieke... the first recording engineer ever to start editing and mixing new OMNIA trax in bed!! ... while still wearing her sexy pyamas! This will surely make the new songs sound extra special! (doesn't she look absolutely adorable with her Jenny made wooly hat and headphones on?) anyway... we are finished with the recordings of two of our new songs... now the mixing process starts ... But for the moment OMNIA will be busy touring first to Belgium where we play tomorrow in the Wieke... and then on to Germany where we will Rock the MPS festival in Hohenwestedt... Grrreeenz! OMNIA
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update from the Stenny Forest studio... with Cloggs on!
So what do you do when the microphone in your forest studio is too high for your beautifull Dutch vocalist?... well that's easy!... she runs off to her windmill in the tulipfields and comes back wearing her cloggs! (handmade in holland)
Now Jenny has suddenly grown 1 1/2 inches she is just the right hight to reach the sensitive membranes of the Neumann mic for another brilliant set of vocals... hey @Saltatio Mortis!, we're doing the vocals for your single-remix today! ... and it sounds like: FUCK YEAH!... goosebumps... :-)
more updates will follow soon... Greenz and recording machines XXX Stenny and Fieke
(picture by that Dutch mouse.. you know the one? lives in a windmill , goes clippety clop a lot?)
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New Recordings in the Stenny studio!
Today we are recording, recording and recording new OMNIA musick in the Stenny Studio deep in the forest!! yeah! recordings!!... Outside, the trees are green , the birds are busy and the squirrels are doing branch to branch acrobatics... inside, we are laying down tracks of strings and things for a couple of great songs we have been working on. This is Jenny doing what she does best on the Celtic Harp while sexy soundtechnician Fieke is working the mics and the digital faders . This is gonna be great! It's the first time ever we have recorded in our own home instead of a big professional studio , so it's really relaxed and I get to make salads and spinach "love pie" in between takes! The remake of the new Saltatio Mortis single is going GREAT! (and the other song we're doing is still top secret)... tomorrow the other instruments go on.. Daphyd's didgeszsz... uh... I just sang a whole lead vocal part while drinking lots of whiskey.. (it was part of the song..) ... hips!... an... it was great!.. erm.. I write enough now... my glass is calling! bye bye ... nite nite... (or whatever time it is where YOU are reading this)
but remember, we are creating art for YOU... and it's FUN! (thanx for giving us an excuse to misbehave creatively everyday!... you're a great Boss!) XX Greenz
Shaman Steve Hic!, Jennennenny and Fieke! (picture by errr.. well would you believe Johnny Cash's ghost?)
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When the going get's Tough... the Tough get going!
We had an absolutely awesome yet scary, sharing and caring gig with a very brave and beautifull audience of (slightly wet) Pirates, Pagans and Mittelalter heros last weekend on the MPS festival in Rastede (Germany)!! I have to admit we were kind of nervous all during the day because it was going to be the very first time that we played with just Jenny, Rob, Daphyd and me on the stage (hence to be known as the "the fab four" ;-)... And it Rocked! ... Thanx for all the extra help in singing and energy that YOU the audience gave us there!! It was sooo cool to hear all of you singing and screaming along to the new songs (even though none of them are on an album yet!) And the Spirits were as high as a kite , despite the occasional rain and wind that passed by sporadically. Thankfully the weather gods kept the festival dry for most of the time on saturday... we weren't there for the other days though...
I have so much respect for all our wild and weird friends in the bands that were there... Hammering on! , playing their Mittelalter, their Folk, their Pirate tunes... most of them doing 3 or 4 gigs a day for days on end ... with hardly any sleep in between... It's easy for a band to seem happy and energetic when everything is going well and the sun shines... but when the Stormwinds blow on the golden Barley, and the un-seasonal cold bites you in your playing-fingers THAT is when the true warriors of music show what they are made of! and on Chief Gisi's excellent MPS last weekend there were only HEROES as far as I'm concerned!
Like our Scottish buddies from Saor Patrol who showed everybody what REAL "BraveHearts" look and sound like! Or the PaganPirate gang of the Dolmen rocking from the foggy dew all the way to the stormy night... the "German Tenacious D" Das Niveau! many many mittelalter bands great and small and ofcourse our dear anarchic friends of Saltatio Mortis who (despite their high charts ratings and indisputable grand German fame) are there on the MPS like real troopers ... morning, noon and night giving their all for their loyal fans! Rocking like demons on stage and always taking the time to talk to their fans after every show! You might have noticed that I mention the Mittelalter rebels of "Sa-Mo" a lot lately, but that is because we have found some real "blood brothers" in this crazy gang of black-clad outlaw musicians... their music style may differ from ours , but their world view and bushido-ethos is very much the same as OMNIA's... We agree that as real, free musicians , we have the long standing , traditional duty to always speak our minds and to keep on questioning "the authorities", educating people and bringing news as we see it wherever we go ... (when I say "REAL" musicians I obviously do NOT mean the "Justin Biebers of this world" and all other performing monkeys who produce commercial empty crap just for fame and cash). OMNIA (and Sa-Mo) share the opinion that if you have been given the HONOUR to stand upon a stage and talk to a crowd of people who will actually listen to you.. then you are duty-bound to SAY SOMETHING USEFULL!
That is the reason why we will be joining with Saltatio Mortis on their upcoming music project. It will be an awesome kick -ass METALalter single with some "very interesting" and deeply meaningfull lyrics and music (especially for a band in the jaded mittelalter scene). ...AND...They have given OMNIA the honour to make a reworked "remix" of their great song!! ... but then in 100% "OMNIA-PaganFolk-style" ofcourse! we're working on it this week... (I'll be posting more details soon about this exiting new single)... wow.. long blog... sorry Rob and all my other non-literary, smartphone tapping friends... (are you still reading?)
anyway... I see more and more musicians nowadays trying to do some GOOD in this crazy and suicidal world of fakers and moneymakers... this warms my cynical old shamanic heart, because let's face it people... the earth is not getting any healthier, governments and businesses are not getting any friendly-er... life is starting to get really tough... but ... We are Warriors .. we are the Crazy ones!
and when the going get's TOUGH ...the TOUGH GET GOING!!
Peace to the peacefull , Bloody war to the rest!... HokaHey!!
Shaman SteveSic pope of non-dogmatic Paganism ('cause DOGMA's a BITCH ;-)
... picture of Daphyd and Alea wielding their weapons of mass-destruction" during MORRIGAN made by home of impression (or should that be "weapons of mass-instruction!? ;-)
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Beer, rubber gloves, washing up and a really ugly picture
This is an ugly picture of OMNIA doing the washing up after a great day of practice on the live-arrangements of our PganFolk musick… well … Jenny and Rob are washing up and I was playing sweeny todd on daphyd's hair… we are not drunk at all…because tomorrow we are playing a really unique fecking set on the MPS in Rastede… so to get in the mood I'm drinking good gewrmann weissen beer (The lads are from Brabant so they have this really weird concept about wanting to drink dutch beer all the time… yeah? weird isn't it?) anyway… Jenny has not been drinking wine in large quantities and as I have mentioned before we are definately not drunk…erm…so we won't have a hang-over on stage tomorrow at all ata all… hihihi… anyway dear friends! Sláinte!! OMNIA
really ugly picture by S.Todd
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It's Ans' birthday! Today Jenny's Mum celebrates her 66th birthday! (the number of the feast! ;-)
Ans has always been the one and only "Mother of OMNIA" and her good advice, loving care and great food have sustained us and nurtured us through the long years of our life as a PaganFolkRock band! We're here in her beautifull garden to help her eat the cake and celebrate in style!
Now YOU can wish her a happy birthday too by singing a birthday song in your own style and language in front of your computer/smart phone and thinking of this great and sweet woman who gave life to Jenny.. and who helps to keeps us sane and alive!
XXX Peace and coolness! OMNIA
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Life is Change, Change is Life...
After a beautifull and intense period of living and rocking in the OMNIA family, Philip, our guitar player, has decided to enter down a different path in his life... this is his message to all of you:
Dear friends, fans, and members of the extended OMNIA-family,
I write today to say my goodbyes; I have decided to leave OMNIA. For 3,5 years I've lived and breathed this band. I feel blessed to have shared stage and festival with such free spirits, wise souls and incredibly talented musicians. I fondly remember every second of it.
And I remember you - the audience.
No matter how sick, cold or tired I was, you always managed to make me feel right at home on the stage, sharing our group energy and helping us turn every concert into a powerful ritual, leaving me cleansed, healed and rejuvenated...
But I feel the time has come for me to make my own way through life, to fight my own battles and tell my own story.
I thank you all. You cannot begin to imagine what this dreamlike time with OMNIA has meant to me.
I bid you all a fond farewell, and may we meet once more in brighter days.
Much love,
Phil... "
We'll miss you too Phil... thanx for the beautifull years, thanx for your spirit and your guitar!
In love and friendship we met, in love and friendship we part ... Good luck on your quest...
In the meantime OMNIA has been rehearsing and re-arranging our PaganFolkMusick so that we will be ready to rock the stage at MPS Rastede in Germany this coming Saturday!! It's gonna be a very special gig indeed! (but then again, we love a good challenge ;-) ...So ... if you wanna PaganFolk!? come to RASTEDE!!! Greenz, Hugz and Peace... the Show always goes on! Jenny, Rob, Daphyd, SteveSic and the entire OMNIA Family
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Kill, Maim, Fight, Slay, DIE!!!!
Stenny is out Jogging so I am writing a little bloggie for you while sitting in the forest with a nice cup of coffee.
Actually we have a new upload on our YouTube channel for you that I want to share with you:
Check out our new video: Morrigan!
Morrigan Crone of War!
Share it with as many people as possible and let the world know what PaganFolk Rock stands for!
one of the first quotes on youtube reads: "OMNIA, Folk meets Iron Maiden!"
Greenz DaphydCrow et OMNIA
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Pagans in tha sun...
This is OMNIA, a band of Pagan nature warriors, bravely facing the future...
As long as tha sun shines and the grass still grows, we'll keep on rocking!!!
Peace, OMNIA
Picture by Brer' Rabbit
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Let's go CRAZY! (but not confused)
We are currently working on lots of new Pagan Musick Material for the upcoming CD... many many many many NEW songs! which we'll be recording this coming winter.... life and Art goes in cycles like the seasons... (and like "bi" ;-) ... anyway We realise that hearing new stuff is always confusing for some people in the audience.. they get disoriented... they are forced to actually stop what they are doing and listen because they don't know the song yet... most audiences prefer to sing and cheer along to popular coversongs and "easy-hits" that they already know, that's why most bands like to play covers... But we have always been proud to be an original , independant band and I'm really thrilled to see that so many of you can sing along to all of our own songs... Pure PaganFolk OMNIA songs , grown from the nature around us... but ofcourse you can't sing along to the new songs yet ... they haven't been recorded so they are not part of your "reality" yet... So I'm going to introduce them slowly to you... one by one... by telling you some titles and some of the lyrics to these new OMNIA babies that we're working on... This gives you a little insight into the heart and mind of OMNIA and what our future holds in a musickal sense.. the words and the INNER MEANING are important to us and hopefully to YOU too... so... here's a new song that we're playing on the festivals this year... musically it's kind of an ode to the 70's and 80's heavymetal I grew up with... (but then 100% ACOUSTIC PaganFolk style of course!) Lyrically it's about the historical/spiritual "mad Shaman" figure which I identify with and which you will find in every indigenous culture around the world , but which the native americans call "Heyoka" :
text/music: Stenny arranged by: OMNIA
I'm a blood and bone , heya heya, primitive caveman
I can talk to the trees but I don't speak human
I got a heart full of Earth and a head full of Sky
I got Spirit drum, Wolf claw, Raven's eye
Crazy man! "Heyoka" I'm a crazy man
Howlin' at the Moon, float on a leaf
what I respect, you just can't see
I know I know nothing... to be is to be
Shaman or Madman, it's all hey-O.K. to me!
Crazy man! "Heyoka" I'm a crazy man
Crazy! Oh I'm walking backwards and talking Coyote!
Crazy! I bang my drum and scream so loud I can't hear all the other monkeys!
Crazy! Now society is free of me, there's so much more that I can see!
Crazy! I got a wholly, Holy, heya heya, Chaos hand and it's pointing right at YOU!
Crazy man! "Heyoka" I'm a crazy man
I know I know ONE thing... to PLAY is to BE...
Shaman or Madman it's all Hey-O.K. with me!
Crazy man! "Heyoka" I'm a crazy man
Green thingz , ECO-Anarchy! and Hoka hey! Shaman SteveSic and OMNIA
(photo by Jenny-Fairy)
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"No Woman No Cry..." a blog about perception (70% is what you see, 20% is what it sounds like, 10% is what is actually there)
Do you actually understand what an artist or musician is telling you?, or do you merely believe what you want to believe? Do you sometimes quote great art, without actually understanding what is being said? Does it matter? This is an interesting point I often wonder about.
It seems to me that living in this marketable world of glittery illusion and empty slogans there is hardly any true meaning anymore... it's all: "Yes we Can!"... "Let's make things better!" ... "We Care about YOU" ... etc.
And the "big" audience has lost it's ability to actually understand what is being said, because they always hear what they want to hear... they believe what they want to believe... that's easier... that feels safe... now my question to YOU, Do YOU do this too? No?... are you sure? ... I'll give you a harmless example :
Bob Marley's classic song "No woman, no cry" is one of those totally misconstrued songs in which the actual meaning of the lyrics has become replaced by what people want to believe...
The words "no woman, no cry" actually mean (in the Jamaican dialect in which they are spoken) : "oh my darling, do not cry" ... which also becomes obvious when you listen to the entire lyrics of this beautifully romantic reggea song.
The majority of semi-illiterate (mostly male) braindead masses outside of jamaica have taken the words "no woman, no cry" to mean: "without a woman, I have no need to cry"... turning it into a sort of pathetic sexist anthem against male/female relationships. And because they have attached this alternate meaning to the chorus lyrics , many many other people have also ASSUMED the same... Did you?
answer 1: No? you are a questioner and a listener, very good keep it up!
answer 2: Yes?... maybe you should re-evaluate what you think you know about the art and music you listen to ... is it really what you THINK it is? or are you just projecting? (this trick also works for absolutely anything in life by the way)
The world of mutant monkeys would be better served if all the little monkeys would not just accept what SEEMS to be thappening around them blindly...
But would actually take the time to look further and comprehend the MEANING of what they see and hear. To THINK and then look again at what they thought they saw or heard...
Not all that glitters is gold... "those that feel fairest are often foulest"... not everything is... what you think it is... and you will never find out unless you ...THINK...
Greenthingz and philosophy... Shaman SteveSic
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Poëtic Pagans Pondering Possibilities…
Here you see us three… no four
we seek to find the secret score
that's written for the orchestra
which plays beneath your wonder-bra
just another day in the life of an artist…
(now including free ,bad ,slightly sexist poetry!)
OMNIA during a break in the practice session , may the 2nd, 1913, somewhere in the woods on the dutch-german border … picture by Yotashi Lappitopi
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Tine Bealtaine!
Because yesterday was the very holy PAGAN day: Bealtaine.. we wanted to celebrate it in style... so (ofcourse) Jenny and me made love... 'cause that's what ya do on a spring/summer feast... and (obviously) we tended to the plants in our little forest garden (because fertility is also about plants don't ya know ;-) ...then we went to the MPS in Germany to visit our friends from Saltatio Mortis to talk about Life, Musick, Politics and Martial Arts... You know the more we meet with these guys, the more I'm amazed at how similar we are! It's like meeting with people you have known intimately for years, I know we've played in the same music scene for a long time now, but somehow we never got the chance to talk properly and exchange ideologies and the things that "make us want to ROCK"... and I must say I'm very impressed with them , their honesty, their straightforwardness and the respect and gratitude they show to their fans. It's a rare thing to find courage and honour in the music-business these days... (a lot of bands just see their fans as little money machines) ... But that's not the OMNIA way, and that not the Saltatio Mortis way either... but then, when you know that in their band there's an old-school Anarchist, a real Shaolin Monk, a Kendoka and an (ex-Schelmisch) Chaos-worshipper then it becomes obvious why I really love these guys! Anyway to make a long story short... our hearts were warmed on this extremely cold Bealtaine (walpurgis) night by Friendship , hot wine and the FUCKING HUGE FIRE that was arranged by the CHIEF of the MPS: the one and only Gisi!
I wish you could all come and see OMNIA and our friends of Saltatio Mortis, Das Niveau, the Dolmen etc. etc. etc. at the next MPS festival in Rastede next week... But I realise that most of you who are reading this don't even live in Europe... let alone close to, or in Germany... So untill we meet, someday some when, I wish you all well , wherever you are!
Enjoy this new day while it lasts... we are living the last years of our mutant monkey civilisation , so enjoy each moment to full and use it to do some fucking GOOD!
Greenthingz Shaman SteveSic et OMNIA (picture of teeny tiny Stenny fire by Herne the Horney)
ps: for the rest nothing interesting at all happened in Holland yesterday... be there King or be there Queen... I do not believe in their God so Slavery still tastes the same :-(
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Double-Didge fun on Stage!
Last Saturday we played our first open air festival gig of 2013 ( MPS Weeze ).
We had a great time, as always on MPS ;-)
I hope you guys enjoyed the PaganFolk party as much as we did...
As you can see on the picture, our good friend Alea from Saltatio Mortis joined us on stage to rock with his didgeridoo. I really enjoyed playing together with him, he knows how to 'blow' people away!
Anyway, in 2 weeks we're playing our next open-air PaganFolk Rock show in Rastede ( DE ). Be there! More info HERE
Picture by Tamara
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Let's go CRAZY!!!
Today we are going to PaganFolk Rock the first outdoor-festival of the season for OMNIA!!! We're off to the MPS festival in Weeze (on the Dutch german border)...
Looking forward to getting CRAZY on the stage toniight , having fun with the crowds and playing around with some of our new OMNIA songs (we are working on lots of new Pagan Musick Material for the upcoming CD... which we'll be recording this coming winter.... life and Art goes in cßycles like the seasons... and "bi" ;-) ... anyway We realise that hearing new stuff is always confusing for some people in the audience.. they get disoriented... they are forced to actually stop what they are doing and listen because they don't know the song yet... most audiences prefer to sing and cheer along to popular coversongs and "easy-hits" that they already know, that's why most bands like to playing so many covers... But we have always been proud to be an original , independant band and I'm really thrilled to see that so many of you can sing along to all of our songs... Pure PaganFolk OMNIA songs grown from the nature around us... but ofcourse you can't sing along to the new songs... they haven't been recorded so they are not part of your "reality" yet... So I'm going to introduce them slowly to you... one by one... by telling you some titles and some of the lyrics to these new OMNIA babies that we're working on... This gives you a little insight into the heart and mind of OMNIA and what our future holds in a musickal sense....here's a new one that we'll be playing today, musically it's an ode to 70's and 80's heavymetal (but then 100% ACOUSTIC PaganFolk style of course!) Lyrically it's about the historical/spiritual "mad Shaman" figure which you will find in every indigenous culture around the world , but which the native americans call "Heyoka" :
text/music: Stenny
arranged by: OMNIA
I'm a blood and bone , heya heya, primitive caveman
I can talk to the trees but I don't speak human
I got a heart full of Earth and a head full of Sky
I got Spirit drum, Wolf claw, Raven's eye
Crazy man! "Heyoka" I'm a crazy man
Howlin' at the Moon, float on a leaf
what I respect, you just can't see
I know I know nothing... to be is to be
Shaman or Madman, it's all hey-O.K. to me!
Crazy man! "Heyoka" I'm a crazy man
Crazy! Oh I'm walking backwards and talking Coyote!
Crazy! I bang my drum and scream so loud I can't hear all the other monkeys!
Crazy! Now society is free of me, there's so much more that I can see!
Crazy! I got a wholly, Holy, heya heya, Chaos hand and it's pointing right at YOU!
Crazy man! "Heyoka" I'm a crazy man
I know I know ONE thing... to PLAY is to BE...
Shaman or Madman it's all Hey-O.K. with me!
Crazy man! "Heyoka" I'm a crazy man
Green thingz , ECO-Anarchy! and Hoka hey! Shaman SteveSic and OMNIA
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the Pagan Pimp Pack is on sale!!!
There's a brand new sticker-pack in the OMNIA shop! We have made a sticker-version of the actual OMNIA Stage banner, which we use live on stage when we play!!
Ofcourse the original is 3m (which is a bit too large for a sticker!) so the version you can get from us is a large size-sticker of 21 cm.
It is available as a trio called a "Pagan Pimp Pack" together with two OMNIA "Lunastars" (which are EXACT copies of the one that is on the front of Rob's drumkit!) So you can now pimp any item or person you own into a genuine OMNIA Pagan thingie! (like your car, your bike, your bottom, your books , your baby sister, your sheep etc etc...) alternately you can use these stickers to make a miniature OMNIA stage set-up together with your barbie dolls dressed up like us!
They are now on sale in our Web Shop and starting tomorrow in Weeze on all our live-shows! Pimp it PaganStyle! Greenthingz! SteveSic and the Earth warriors (picture by pope of paganism ;-)
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We Gotta Brand New Stage Banner! (and we're not afraid to pose infront of it ;-)
Check out our brand new OMNIA stage-banner! Designed by darling Fieke and silly Sic... Isn't it pretty? Isn't it absolutely kick-ass Pagan?
We thought that after 10 years it was about time to change our old-fashioned , hand painted , tired old OMNIA stage banner for a new one... sadly it wasn't "safe" enough for a lot of stages because it can catch fire and burn down a venue or festival full of fans... (of course we have no problems with burning large amounts of human-monkeys, but NEVER our own fans :-) so we changed it for a properly printed one with all the neccessary fire-precaution labels etc like other bands have ... BUT...
We chose to fill it with the most important of our pagan OMNIA symbols like:
the Celtic-Triskell, the SIC-Runes , our "shadows of nature" tattoos and ofcourse the OMNIA-"LUNASTAR" (which expresses life by encompassing the Earth, Sun, Moon and Chaos into one big Magick glyph)... How's that for Pagan!? This way it shows our deep feelings for our Musick and the Living planet on which we live during every show we play for YOU... Some people may find this banner scary (but then again , most monkey-people think that we and even the word "Pagan" is cary .. which says a lot more about them , than it does about us ;-) A lot of mutant monkeys may think that we are some sort of occult sect or that we are kneedeep into witchcraft and the worship of strange and ancient Gods...well....that's actually completely true! so we really don't give a flying fuck on broomstick what people think of us! We're OMNIA, we're PAGAN, we're FREE and we'll keep on playing PAGANFOLK and dancing naked 'till we die!
See you at the MPS festival in Weeze this weekend (if you are lucky enough to live on this continent and in the area of the german/dutch border) Otherwise we'll see you some other time, some other when, some other where soon! Think of us, 'cause we are thinking of YOU!
XXX Greenthingz! OMNIA (crappy picture in da forest by Crazyman)
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Operation Merch-Stand...
ready for our first festival show of the year:
MPS in Weeze!!!!!
Time for a pipe and a beer ;-)
Greenzz OMNIA!
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Real life, Real music, Real paint, Real brushes, Real artists, Real dreadlocks, Real messy.
This is me and the Crow, pimping the merch-stand, ready for our first festival show of the year:
MPS in Weeze!!!!!
Come check out our Art!!!!!
Greenz OMNIA
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Love and Friendship in the Forest ;-)
What a great weekend for chilling in the forest and talking about life , death and the universe :-) ...all hail Saint Douglas Adams!
We've been relaxing and chillin' with our home-girl Kaat (Leaf and Folknoir ) in the stenny studio, among the budding young flowers , fresh green leaves and humping birdies... My head is still a little fuzzy after the deliciously long days and nights of cameraderie, warmth, decadence and friendship ...
The food was jummy...
the wines were fine...
the walks were lovely...
the forest is divine...
Peace and Nature to all!
XX Stenny (picture by "sister Sunshine")
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OMNIA... it's Handmade!... it's Unique!... it's non- commercial!...
We know many very talented people who are good at making things. Well a couple of them (Cees and Bea Versluis) have been making the most beautifull and unique OMNIA necklaces for themselves and for us these last years (you can see one on the cover of the OMNIA cd- "Live on Earth".... and I'm wearing another one in the Video-clip of "I don't speak human") ... Now they have offered to make a limited edition for YOU our fans aswell, if you want... But because these necklaces are completely handmade by free artists, they take a lot of time to construct and hence they will be quite expensive compared to all the mass-produced "made in china" slave labour-shit that most commercial bands sell as merchandise... so .. here's my question to YOU... would you like to have Cees and Bea make you one of these beautifull OMNIA-logo necklaces?... yes?... good, now the next question, would you be willing to pay €50,- for one? ... If enough of you answer this question in a positive way either on facebook, twitter, or on our website guestbook, then we will arrange a place in our OMNIA webshop for them , so you can order one soon! ;-)
Realthingz! and Greenthingz!
ShamanSic and the earth-warriors of OMNIA
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Special BELGIAN OMNIA show!
Dear Pagan-family and music-lovers,
Only 4 weeks to go, till the first big Paganfolk Rock show in Belgium in years!
Good news: it's gonna be a great party and even better: you can win tickets!
How? Just share this flyer with all your friends and family on Facebook, we'll reward this with 2 times 2 tickets for the great and extra long show.
Shared it, didn't win but still wanna come? Book your tickets as soon as possible: see you in Belgium!
Tickets and info
Facebook Event
Greenz Daphyd et OMNIA
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Great Tits in the OMNIA house!
Spring is all around us and Life is good in the Stenny-Studio... I'm happy to report that a family of Great Tits has moved into the "OMNIA"- BirdHouse which was made for us by our kindly neighbour Ans... and the parents are busy flying to and fro with food for the cheeping youngsters inside! 3 of our other bird houses have nesting Blue tits and Great tits in them now... and this morning a newly arrived Pied FlyCatcher was checking out the last (still empty) bird appartment which I hung in a tree only yesterday! Nearly all the Bramblings seem to have buggered off back to Poland and Russia where they spend the summer so this means that the warm season is well on the way now! We are mostly spending our time between:
a little OMNIA-"office work", Playing and writing musick and lots and lots of Gardening!
Life is great , Love is huge, Living is easy!
"We take it easy every day..
We spend our days at work and play...
Don't care what small minds have to say...
'Cause ,Life is great the PAGANWAY!"
XXX Stenny (picture by the tit-stalker)
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PaganFolk - the Seed is Growing like Tree... together we are strong ;-)
We just had a lovely weekend , without internet but with good musick , art, philosophy and friendship ;-) Our sweet friend Fieke came over to stay a few days to bring some extra creativity into the the stenny home. And we spent our time playing, talking and dreaming... (which are always the best ways to spend your days in my opinion!) If you are well aquainted with OMNIA then you probably already know Fieke as the brilliant graphic designer who helps us to make all the pretty CD covers, and OMNIA merch-stuff... But did you know that she is also a brilliant and gifted musician who plays in the band CESAIR? ...Cesair is one of the "new-generation" PaganFolk bands ...like Seed , Sowulo , LEAF , Rastaban , Woodland , the Dolmen , etc. etc....I'm not going to list them all because I'll be here all day!
( Fuck! there's many! somebody should really make a proper list some day!? )
Anyway bands like this have been steadily popping up all over the place in recent years... It seems like centuries ago that I started making (pretty amateuristic) music to honour our Celtic ancestors and their Gods way back in the 90's... I was dreaming a dream of neo-Celtic Pagan musick that later developed into what you now know as OMNIA ... I remember the time in the first years of the 3rd millenium when it was just FAUN and OMNIA playing un-amplified in the streets and later rocking the festival stages of europe with a style of musick that honours nature, the pagan- roots of civilisation and uses mainly ancient and medieval instruments ... a music-style we called "PAGANFOLK" ... And now years later it warms my heart and puts a smile on my silly looking face to see all these new, acoustic, nature loving Bands being started all over the world (in Europe, as well as South-America and North America etc.) Music groups and bands containing people like us who try to connect to the original nature-loving roots of our different cultures through the medium of pure musick , played on real, (mostly) acoustic instruments... it doesn't matter if you call yourselves "epic-folk", "tribal-folk","finest-folk", "nature-folk", "fairy-folk" or other variations thereof... To us you are all part of the growing family of PaganFolk! And it might actually be a good idea if you all start using and promoting that name together to make the scene we play in bigger and stronger...
There is a giant music business out there who will never think outside of the box, and who will never take bands like us seriously because we don't fit "in the format" so all we can do is build our own scene!
The name and genre "PaganFolk" is steadily growing... but it can be much bigger! maybe one day it will grow big enough for even the mass-media-monkeys to take notice of it ... Together we can change the world... "Blues" and "Punk" also started out as "just words".. but see what they were capable of over time!.
If we all "band" together , we shall be strong... United we stand, divided we fall!..Our diverse little scene is too small for us to waste time over ego's , We have to stand as one to make PAGANFOLK a way of expressing nature through music... Some of us like FAUN have taken the road of commercial-thinking and television thus making the PaganFolk scene bigger and substantially increasing the audience (which can be a very good thing!), other nature-bards and singers of songs simply hang an old guitar around their neck and play around the campfire at fantasy and medieval parties (which is also a good thing!)... BUT still there is no real difference between any of us, if we all keep the same goal in mind.... which is:
a healthy Life for this Planet and Creativity and Pure Musick above all!... This world of human-monkeys needs to change... It is up to us, ( the fans and artists ) to bring about such change... the pulse of life beats on in the rythm of the drum... Keep it coming my dear friends and colleagues and who knows what the future might bring us all?
Keep it Green, Peace to the peacefull, Power to PAGANFOLK!
XXX ShamanSteveSic (not preaching, just saying ;-) picture by wall-fly
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Love without end...
I love the spring! Everything is FRESH and full of NEW HOPE and NEW LIFE! :-)Jenny and myself had our wedding tattoos refreshed yesterday by our tattoo-friend Renate (de inktpot.nl) to keep them strong and well-defined (like our love). It's a little like polishing your wedding ring to keep it shiny, but then involving more needles, ink and permanence!... I know that with a true and decent heart such as Jenny's connected to mine, I will always stay true and real to nature, to our lives, to our ideals and to our Musick... no matter what the mutant monkeys may sometimes think about me , my appearence and my outspoken funny ways ;-).
I always feel that OMNIA really started to become what it is today when Jenny and me became Stenny, because it has always been our love and the spirit we share that has been at OMNIA's real core... I only realised what our true mission was when Jenny came along and pointed it out to my blinded eyes... It's very rare for a group of artists to have this pure love at it's heart (and it sometimes makes it hard for people who do not feel this love and open-ness themselves to understand what we are all about)
BUT Two people who really DO understand this very much are ofcourse our dear talented friends Christopher Juul and the awesomely beautifull Maria Franz. The couple who's epic love burns at the core of the virtuose experimental-scandinavian band Euzen. If you don't know Euzen then check them out at the Festival mediaval in Selb where we'll be playing together ;-) and also check out this live video-clip of Euzen bringing art and sunshine into the rain ;-)
Have a great day, keep it fresh, feel the love
Crispy, juicy Greenthingz!
SteveSic and Jenny
ps: (Yes! you heard me right...we ARE playing at FESTIVAL MEDIAVAL again this year! You asked for us there, and they heard you! Sadly the headliner for the Friday night "Gjallarhorn" was unable to come ... they were the first band ever to use a slideridoo and a beautifull singer called Jenny on stage ... so the mediaval- orga has given us the honour of returning to Selb for the 6th year in a row and filling their slot on the main stage! how cool is that, eh?... see you there!)
(pps: picture of Eddy in our backyard by A.Nut)
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Support Renso! support real Art!
Our cousin Renso Tamse is a wild-life artist. (You should know his work from our CD: OMNIA - "Musick and Pöetree" because it's covered in drawings and paintings of wild birds made by Renso and his equally talented wife Marjolein)
As YOU know I'm a big fan of things that are "REAL" and This kind of "Real" art is becoming rare in the modern world of photoshop... (Just like the "Real" musick of OMNIA is very rare in this modern world of autotune, electronics and playback)
OMNIA is going to the US this year (as soon as we have our work-permits from mr. Obama) and our dear Renso also wants to bring his Art to the large audience in the US, but it's a rather tricky endeavour for him... he needs funding...
If you would like to help someone who can actually make REAL living-art by using actual physical skills and training... (without resorting to using a computer and some stock photography)... someone who has studied the greats his life long (like our uncle Alan Lee) then please click on this link and help him!
Greenthingz and fine-art!
Shaman SteveSic
(PAINTING.. not photo... by Renso Tamse)
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Travel the good "red road" and enjoy it!
I heard something profound from my belgian running-trainer today, as I was staggering through the forest in my trendy trainers and cool black Pagan sports clothes... well actually to be honest, it's black ex-army clothing and cheap-ass running shoes because I don't really have the money or the dress-sense to wear all that really hideous looking sports-gear... but anyway... I'm running again... I used to do long-distance cross country running when I was kid in Cornwall.. but that was a very long time ago, when the world was still in black and white ... but in the meantime, I've gotten soft and lazy!... so ... I stopped smoking tobacco and I work-out a lot now to beef up my heart and lungs so that I can play better musick and sing nicely for YOU ... I do interval-training now... (interval training is a form of outdoor masochism which can be done while wearing running shoes) ... so... imagine... there I was, running through the spring forest , sweating like a human, with my lungs on fire and my legs slowly turning to jelly but still with a big fecking smile on my face when my trainer suddenly hit me with this really zen-like comment which I hadn't expected... you see, the trainer I'm talking about is a very nice Belgian lady who lives inside a big stack of MP3 recordings, so all you have to do to train is: get your ass outside, switch on your mp3 player and do as the nice lady says... she says "run", you run!.... she says "walk" you walk!
(I love it when powerfull intelligent women tell me what to do... I suppose that's why I'm Jenny's bitch ;-)
Anyway, all of this cross country running and walking is done to a selection of the tackyest main-stream pop hits imaginable ... (Joe le taxi, With or without you, dreadlock holiday etc.) but kind of interesting to me because I only recognise the songs from before the 1990's when I gave up on radios and televisions etc...
(so all the Lady Googoo and brown-eyed peas is kindof shocking)
but anyway as I'm going through the training sessions this woman pops into the headset every now and then to keep you motivated, (or possibly to stop you from commiting suicide because of the bad music) so... she starts talking to me in her delicious Belgian accent ,saying things like "you can do it!" , "keep going", "well done!", "only two more minutes to go!" etc. and these little snippets of encouragement are interspaced with little pieces of running-wisdom. About how good it feels to be fit and strong, how good it is to be working on something positive for yourself, that this road to self-betterment is just for yourself, not for others... and this morning , as I was going up a particularly steep hill, feeling my blood pump and my muscles working like a meaty-monkey-machine she said:
"You have set yourself a goal, which is good...BUT if it starts to hurt anywhere, be sure to stop! Don't push yourself beyond your limits! There's no shame in taking it a little easier sometimes, Because the most important part of this journey to self-betterment is not reaching your end-goal, it all about ENJOYING the road that gets you there!" And then I smiled... that's one of my own mottos!
Yes my friends, Keep running the good red road of life people, be as good a person as you can be, for yourself and for the planet... but remember to always enjoy what YOU are doing! , You only have one life , don't waste it! XXX peace to the peacefull , and Greenthingz for all! Shaman Steve Sic
(picture by the also non-smoking , cross-country running-girl power-woman Jenny)
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MPS...what a Party!... what a night! :-)
I'm sitting in the afternoon sun, on the porch, in a lazy chair with my feet up and a cool drink of lemonade next to me ... birds are going bananas all around our little forest house, the music of their songs fills the air like a thousand flowers of sound mixing with the clear tones of the windchime... Life is good, we are happy... we are all a little "roadwrecked" after a weekend of hardcore partying with all our friends at the MPS jubileum party... Gisi (the Boss) had his birthday and he celebrated it like a Celtic king :-) ... in style! ... Loads of our friends were playing there with their bands aswell, making for a really cozy get together, like a "family gathering of medieval and folk spielmannen"... which gave the whole 14 hour feast a certain drive that feels good...we played a technically disasterous.. completely chaotic .. but very energetic show in front of a great audience of fantasy freaks and crazy weirdos ;-)
afterwards got huge amounts of very good (also vegetarian!) food for us ,our compliments to the cook... and then the drinking started...the vip area with unlimited booze on the house , curtesy of Chief Gisi... wow... and there's me not being able to smoke...(I have just stopped smoking tobacco so I can play my "Kokopelli flute" better (It's fucking huge and takes a lot of air to make it really come alive... so I'm trying to give my lungs a break... but not smoking after a great acoustic PaganFolkRock show is very hard for me...so, after our traditional aftershow signing-session to meet with the audience we returned to vip-place and drank... I drank... we all drank... a lot... drinking drinking drinking drunk.... and then we drunk some more... And we had an awesome night! we danced and screamed and jumped about, we laughed, we cried ,we felt alive... we saw and heard many of our friends play on the massive stage and we were filled-up with good sounds and good vibes ........
gosh... I'm a little tired... I'm not sure my writing is so good today...(Yawn! the author stretches and groans a little...)... but then is my writing ever any good? I dunno... I just write to inform... so you know what's going on in OMNIA and in our world... I just try to be real, so you always get the good and the bad, the Yin and the Yang... It's all part of life's rich tapestry... today is a good day! I feel lucky and blessed that I'm allowed to meet , talk-to and work-together with so many great performers , artists and organisers. Special people who each in their own way try to make this grey and meaningless world of human monkeys more bright... to opens hearts, minds and eyes... Respect to you all my friends... and Respect to YOU dear reader. keep it real... and I mean really real! (really!) ;-)
peace to the peacefull and Greenthingz ! Steve Sic and the whole OMNIA family
ps: picture by Jarwinbenadar.de Daphyd uploaded a whole new gallery of MPS
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I saw a nature program on video the other day, in which the rare and beautifull Pine-Marten (see picture) was described by a european "turkey farmer" as "vermin" which should be "destroyed" because they were threatening his livelyhood... You could take that statement as the dictionary would describe it ...or you can step into my mind and look at it differently... let me explain what these words actually mean to me in this context..
1. "Turkey Farmer" : a dumb-ass human who actively breed and tortures non-indigenous enslaved wild birds in a disgusting little concentration camp with the sole purpose of murdering these animals for the sake of making money by selling their mutilated corpses as food for over-fed, obese and useless monkeys that are overcrowding this planet..
2. "vermin": a proud and 100% indigenous natural animal,that has lived here for thousands of years, making use of the opportunity to kill and eat live prey which can't run away... it does this because it has nowhere else to go ... because it's own natural habitat has been over-run by stupid fucking naked monkeys who seem to think that they own the place.
3. "Destroyed": A very hypocritical Human way of avoiding words like : Murdered, Killed, Massacred.. etc... not unlike the german word "Endlösung"... it is used to make mass-murder seem less insanely cruel and brutal in the eyes of the braindead morons collectively called "humanity".
ARGH!! Mindless Motherfucking* Humans make me sick! (sic)... Who the fuck do they think they are? disrespectfull little mutant monkeys!...
Let me just quote one of my respected colleagues here:
"Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect."
-chief Seattle
Here's some more happy thoughts:
In Holland there are now (apparently) too many wild geese for the land (read: the expanding human population) to cope with, so what will happen to them? Yep!...they will be "cleared" and the population "stabilised"... ie: more than half a million beautifull wild and free geese will get brutally murdered with guns or cruelly caught and put into gas-chambers... right here, right now!
There's too much CO2 in the air... but according to some new scientific research ,apparently it's not caused by 7.000.000 mutant apes who get high on machines... no... it's caused by earthworms, which ofcourse should be "dealt with" (ideas for a worms massacre are being collected now)
Wild predators and opportunistic intelligent hunters that actually BELONG on this planet are being herded into smaller and smaller pockets of land by the expanding population of FERAL mutant monkeys that are spreading like a VIRUS across this world... whenever the monkeys take over some alligator's bit of swamp with their bungalows and clipped green lawns.. they seem surprised when a huge wild creature appears and eats their fucking grandchild... Thus making them a "THREAT" to the human population, and justifying their immediate "destruction" ... murder murder murder allround... and ofcourse the most defiant, proud and fearless wild creatures get killed first.
Now if you take ANY wild creature out of the circle of life, the whole thing get's disrupted... You make any creature extinct and the whole delicately balanced tapestry of life will start to fray... and the quality of nature (animal , plantlife, insectlife etc.) get's drastically less.
If you take away the Mindless Humans, everything in nature suddenly starts improving and the earth turns into the paradise which it should be...
So...I have an idea that will make everybody happy!
Most Human Mutant monkeys seem to believe in some form of Heaven, Eden or other groovy place, where they are allowed to go after they die... a place where everything is great, good food, harps, virgins, milk and honey... whatever...a super-place where they will finally find the peace and happiness they so richly deserve... for ever!
Well, as a PaganShaman who believes that heaven and hell are here and now, in THIS life and on THIS world I would like to express my heart-felt wish that ALL human monkeys who believe this fairytale should find their ultimate peace and happiness , preferably TODAY!
(so that the rest of us can enjoy the gift of Life on this beautifull planet in Peace without them)
Now all I have to do is figure out a way to get them all to Heaven as soon as possible!
Have a great day and make someone happy for ever!! XXX ShamanSteveSic
*MotherFucker= to me this swearword means someone who is soo stupid that he/she would violate and harm the one who gave them life... ie: the earth-mother
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Your Attention Please!!! NEW 2013 SHOWS IN THE OMNIA CALENDAR!
Well the OMNIA live-shows for 2013 are still coming in! We have just updated our
so now you can have a look and see if one has been added near YOU! There's finally some more shows in Belgium for instance! Ofcourse more dates will follow later! because our PaganScum bookings - "office" is still handeling more shows, which are now still in option... who knows what will become of them? (sadly we've already had to say "no" to a lot of festivals in various countries around the world. because either the logistics or the timing was wrong) but luckily for us there are many great festivals out there in the world who can make us feel at home so we can PaganFolkRock together with YOU! (now we still need to get a contact in Sao-Paolo /Brazil, and in Paris/France and in Australia and in Canada and.. and.. and.. let's see what happens eh? ;-)
Have a good one! Greenz OMNIA
(picture of "Eco-warrior Shaman with war-paint" by Kees Stravers ;-)
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Sex with the Audience! Thanx! (we needed that :-)
Wow!... and Yippeee!! ... and maybe just a little side-helping of FUCK YEAH!!!
That was one awesome, sweet fecking, first gig last weekend in a jam-packed, boiling hot, sold-out venue full of lovely people... We really really needed to feel that again after such a long pauze in playing live-shows... Gods! We missed the stage after 4 whole months!... You know how it is when you're body and soul are really missing something?, but you don't really know what it is untill you've done it?... well... In theory it's a bit like this: Imagine not having any sex for a few months and then being locked up in a room full of naked oiled-up horny gogo-dancers on extacy ... (I say "in theory" here, because I have no actual personal experience in either of these two scenarios... ahem... but you know what I mean... )
Well anyway, It's done.. first gig of the year played... new instruments given their freedom...new songs given life... we Pagan-rocked!, YOU Pagan-rocked! We shared the energy in one big warm happy "witches cauldron" melting pot of Nature Power! ... Thanx so much to all of you for giving us EXACTLY what we need! XXX ShamanSteveSic et OMNIA
ps: Maya, the eco-Food and Beer was wonderfull and made us play better!!
pps:Grace, the eco-easter bread was amazing! (and at least 10 more years to go!)
ppps:Sweet shy girl, thanx for the limburg's wool and weed!
pppps: Eva... niemand met een goed en eerlijk hart is onbelangrijk in onze ogen...
(picture by Jasper de Belgae)
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Spring starts today on the First OMNIA gig of the year! (SOLD OUT)
The sun is up... the sky is blue... it's beautifull... and so are you...
Dear audience... won't you come out to play?
XXX OMNIA (picture by Rita the meter-maid)
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Sold Out!
Hey Paganabananas and Musick-loveranas, tomorrow we will play our first gig of the season in the Peppel in Zeist and I just wanted to mention that if you didn't get a ticket yet , you are now too late... The whole venue is SOLD OUT. There will be NO extra tickets available at the door and we will be PaganFolkRocking for the first time this year without you... But we'll let let you know how it went though ;-) ... better luck next time! there are plenty more shows coming-up!
For those who did reserve in time, I just wanna let you know that We are ready to go go GO!, the cobwebs have been blown off our instruments, the band and the crew are on full action-pagan-mode (code green). We are very exited indeed about playing for YOU again after our 4 month sabbatical... This was the longest break we've had in over 10 years and now I really need to feel the musick and the energy flow again... (I'm a gig-junky) just point me at the stage and dive for cover 'cause I'm locked, cocked and ready to Rock! ... SEE YOU SATURDAY!
Greenthingz and new songz! dr.SteveSic (pic by Marcel Bakker ;-)
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New Life! Greenthingz are sprouting out of the Earth!
Today we got really serious about the new OMNIA gig- season (well... as serious as we ever get about anything that is) So we tried-out the whole Gig onna stage shebang ... amplified and loud , together with the master of the OMNIA live-sound: Sascha, plus some friends... The new PaganFolk festival/club set is so fecking Rock and so fecking Cool you could make it into a snowy mountain and ski on it!! Ofcourse you'll hear all the new arrangements, new instruments and the new songs (!!!) when you see us live and we want them to be a surprise for you , I just know you're gonna love em as much as we do! ... but, as a sneak-peak, I can tell you that one of them involves the awesome new flute I'm holding in this picture and it's called "Kokopelli" (which is also the name of this flute) ... check it out at one of our upcoming live shows as we enter the touring season again!!! The First show starts THIS WEEKEND! COMING SATURDAY we play an extra long musick night in "de PEPPEL" in ZEIST , together with our charming friends of "Kelten zonder Grenzen" (I heard there are only very few tickets left so if you don't have one yet RESERVE YOUR TICKETS HERE! (before they're all gone)... ... I hope you all had as much fun as we did today and I hope that you can feel the happy vibes coming through your screen from us.. to YOU :-)Peace to the peacefull, Love to the Lovable, Greenz to the Earth!
SteveSic and OMNIA
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PaganClan "Rebels with a cause" (legal, illegal, scheiss-egal?)
A lot of people have asked me over the years to give them some kind of suggestions or guidance on how to rebel... because I have always been a Rebel, eco-anarchist and Iconoclast ... I'm perfectly qualified to speak for the living planet as Nature-Shaman and self professed "Pope of Paganism" , so I do... often and loudly... ahem... Now ofcourse I would love to invite YOU to join OMNIA in the ongoing battle and raising awareness against evil corporate regimes (like Shell, Exxon, Unilever, Bayer, Monsanto, McDonalds ,Murdoch. etc. etc.) which have declared a total all-out WAR ON NATURE and TRUTH to increase the wealth and power of a handfull of ultra rich share-holders (like certain members of the European "royal" houses of Orange-Nassau,Hannover etc and the Banking families like Rothchild's) But what can we do without getting crushed between the wheels of this demon-machine that we are trying to change? It's hard to fight a war against such large opponents, when most people don't even realise there is a conflict in the first place... How to begin?
It would be cool If I could just invite YOU to REBEL in your own way... to bring about change in a real and physical sense to this ugly human world... To go out into the streets and show those bastards that you don't agree! ... that our planet is sick of being fucked around by the Rich-Man's Laws! That we are born free and that their false governments and propaganda stop HERE!... BUT ... Alas... If I would actually ASK YOU to do the things I can think up in my head , if I would hand you the various recipes of dismanteling this destructive system, straight from the Anarchist's cookbook as it were, then I would be accused of "inciting rebellion and public disorder" (which would result in OMNIA being dragged off to court and then probably prison before you could say the words "Eco-Anarchy and flowers!") ... so.. ofcourse I WILL NOT ask you to do all these things. This Blog is purely a form of mental exercise and "artistic expression" who's only function is to incite thought and creativity... I wrote a whole bunch of interesting ways in which you can help the planet and it's creatures in a real sense (like the amazing yet often "illegal" things that organisations like the awesome "SeaShepherd" does ) ... but I was advisewd against publishing them here, because , again... that is also illegal... grmmmbl... BUT!.... I WILL happily recommend that you join us in (legally) picking-up garbage when you are walking in your city, in a park, or especially in nature... and NEVER EVER buying or supporting ANYTHING that has been mass-produced by the largest multinational corporations ... ofcourse I have heard tell that stealing from these super-thieves is considered socially acceptable by many people nowadays , although ofcourse , I won't tell you so... because that would also be illegal ! ;-)
Peace to the peacefull, Law to the Lawfull, and screaming fucking death to all power-crazy life and planet Fuckers! :-) XXX
ShamanSteveSic and the Heya Heya Pagan Gang!
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Fuck Yeah!
This is our happy little band of Pagans after another whole day of practice… wow! have we got a set waiting for you! This is the most powerful OMNIA PaganFolkRock set ever! It's hard to believe that we still do this acoustic and "unplugged" when you hear the amount of noise and energy we produce … phew! I have no idea if we can actually play it live in one go..during practice we had to keep stopping every 15 minutes to get our breath back and to ease the ache in our overworked muscles… We're all working-out a lot to get our lazy winter bodies back into "hardrocking" mode ;-) (fitness, weightlifting, cross-country running etc.)We are very exited about the NEW material we will be playing and the fecked-up versions of older songs that we will be hitting YOU with from the stage! There's also some NEW instruments which are just aching to meet YOU!!! Were ready for our FIRST GIG of 2013
See ya there, here , there or somefecking where! XXX OMNIA
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Life and Death go hand in hand...
Today it's Ostara! the "official" middle of the Celtic spring!... but... it's snowing?... the forest is being treated to yet another heavy blanket of white stuff, making all the spring-minded creatures (such as us and our feathered and fuzzy friends) a little confused and quite a lot colder... brrr! The unpredictability of our climate is becoming more and more pronounced each year (even I find it very hard to know what weather is coming nowadays... I was more than a little shocked at seeing snow.. again..) But still... this is the spring we get, this is the life we are given and all we can do is to be grateful for the chance to live yet another year on this beautiful planet. ..we live life to the full and make musick about it as we go...
We have been creating our Pagan-dream for many years now and I have heard many many stories about what our musick does to the people who are able to understand it's deeper meaning (people like YOU?).
This "PaganFolk" is no joke ... that's why I take what we do so seriously... I'm more "Shaman" than "Frontman"... OMNIA's PaganFolk is much more than a fancy sounding name to make us look cool and alternative... I get reactions from all over the world from those of you who feel they have to let us know what they feel...
Young mothers have chosen to let their children be born to the sound of our music... Pagans worldwide use our songs during their deepest rituals....Omnia lovers who are suffering use our Paganfolk to try and get better. It's used to ease pain, to stop self-mutilation, to stop suicides. Omnia's Paganfolk is used in cancer-therapy, psycho therapy, during surgery and even during the hardest passage of all namely: the gate between life and death...There are those who have chosen to die while listening to the sound of the sacred Musick that was given to us by nature... Musick to live by, Musick to die by...
My heart cries a little everytime I hear of a pagan-life that burned brightly which has been snuffed out in the wind. But I do not mourn a life well spent, I do not mourn the closing of eyes that have actually been "opened" to the wonder of life... I mourn only for all the insane mutant monkeys who are living with their minds and hearts closed, blinded by greed and human insanity...
Storm winds blow on the golden barley and the " wee birds" lie dead on the fields of Athenry, but I'll stand strong while you stand beside me, take my hand and we'll dance until we die! ;-) Happy Ostara! Enjoy this life to the full, it's the only one YOU have! Greenz XX Shaman SteveSic
(Picture of Skullpecker by Mort Lezekson)
ps: have some great sex if you can!... today you may fuck like bunnies, 'cause it's a fertility feast! ;-)
pps: the OMNIA video hits are still rising!
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Wow! Real PaganFolk is more popular than we thought!
We are absolutely AMAZED and DELIGHTED with the enormous amount of positive comments, true nature spirit, good feeling and video-sharing that is going on as a reaction to the release of our first ever OMNIA music-video "I don't speak Human"
At the moment that I write this (exactly one week after the "uploading"), our video has been viewed more than 122.000 on YOUtube!!! Something which I didn't expect because a large part of our fanbase lives in Germany where the GEMA is actively blocking all independant non-profit music videos on youtube. So most of our German fans couldn't see it at all because they are only allowed to watch very commercial cheesy big-label bands ...and sadly no PaganFolk bands like OMNIA ...
BUT thankfully for our German fans we have a very nice VIMEO channel, which is not being blocked!... (yet!)
So again for our German Fans, HERE IS THE VIMEO LINK to our video:
OMNIA "I DON"T SPEAK HUMAN VIDEO on VIMEO
Here are some updates about last week:
-Just on Facebook this video got over 1800 shares and almost 2000 "likes"!
(which is bloody good for a non-profit, indie band without expensive teevee and magazine promotion!)
-I'm very happy to report that out of the literally thousands of comments spread around FaceBook, twitter, Youtube, Vimeo etc. the amount of negative/stupid remarks was as tiny and insignificant as the penises of the people who place them ;-) (which is quite refreshing in this age of keyboard heroes and other such cyber cowards!). Me be a very happy paganshaman indeed!
- I did see one interesting question that I would like to answer right here and now which is this: "Does OMNIA wear FUR which has been ripped off tortured animals in this video-clip?... because fur is bad"….Which is a very strange question to those of you who know us. I mean, YOU realise what kind of people we are and why we make our PAGANFOLK musick... But to a lot of the "newbies" this is a fair question because they think that we are like the other bands out there (ie: unprincipled idiots who just want to be famous and rich). But please people, when I say that we are truly PAGAN! We play PAGANFOLK musick because we love this LIVING PLANET! Now let me answer the question:
We wear sheepskins from some very rare ancient races of sheep which are slowly being re-introduced into nature areas of Europe (Jenny's is a Norwegian "Spælsau", Daphyd, Rob, Phil and myself all wear the skins of the Dutch "Drents heideschaap" the oldest breed of domesticated European sheep (+/- 4000 years) which have been saved from extinction by 100% bio-organic farmers. All our sheep skins are of certified origin, and we know the people who bred them personally, our donations help them to continue breeding and protecting these beautiful and special sheep. And when the sheep get old and die, their skins help keep us warm in the snow... The leather of our loin-cloths is made from bio-organic-farmed goatskin, sheep skin and (wild) Boar skin..... The various feathers we wear have all be given to us by fans or gathered in the wild by ourselves... the animal / bird skulls and various bones on my indian head-dress have all been gathered from road-kill corpses and cleaned by me personally...
Please don't judge us as you would judge others... we're not the same at all :-)
Greenthingz! Peace to the peacefull, death to the despoilers of Nature!
XXX Shaman Steve Sic
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Yes it's real! and your long hours of waiting are rewarded because IT's HERE!!!
This is real life... this is real Pagan Folk musick... on real instruments...
in the first ever official OMNIA VIDEO CLIP!!!
For our German visitors:
The video is blocked by GEMA, please use one of the following "unblock" tools:
100% pure, 100% non-commercial, 100% non-profit... this whole production was made as a Musick/Artistic and Environmental statement, we're not trying to SELL you something, we're just trying to TELL you something...
Enjoy the ART... Enjoy the one and only original PaganFolk MUSICK ...
And don't forget to listen to the message from Mother Earth and her children that this song contains... then (if you like the clip or if you agree with the message)... SHARE IT! SHARE IT!! SHARE IT!!! with as many mutant monkeys as possible!
Enjoy life and Keep fighting the GOOD FIGHT! (because if you're not part of the Solution then you are part of the Pollution... one day you'll have to make a choice...)
Greenthingz! XXX Shaman SteveSic and OMNIA
(Filmed on location in the forest where Stenny lives, by Erwin van Dijck)
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OMNIA videoclip recording: Behind-The-Scenes ..
Anxious to see our first ever music video clip?
Let us tease you a little with some secret BEHIND-THE-SCENES clips.
Shot on a small handycam just before the battery died ;-) Enjoy!
The clip will be released in the near future. Expect the countdown to start soon!
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Smiling happily at Obscenity!
Here you see a bunch of Pagans smiling and laughing at their own extreme rudeness on film! This picture was taken just after we did a really hilarious and slightly complicated zooming in "dolly" shot on 160 % speed with the RED** ... of OMNIA performing some extremely impolite gestures for our UPCOMING MUSICK VIDEO! hahahaaargh!
(** for all non-film geeks: these strange words mean that it will look fucking awesome when you see it)
Sometime in the (very near) future we will be able to start the COUNTDOWN untill the moment that the very first OMNIA MUSICK VIDEO will be released into the light of day (including disrespectfull bad manners et al)
Because we've never done this before we really wanted this video production to be as OMNIA as possible... so:
DON'T expect politically correct "niceness",DON'T expect cheesy fluffy commercial emptyness, DON'T expect a hidden secret agenda to take your money with this...
DO expect ART!.. DO expect seeing us on film as we really are.. DO expect the most awesome, "goose pimples all over", "fuck yeah!" Pagan Video you have ever seen! Brought to you by the one and only architects of pure 100% PaganFolk!
Enjoy the starting spring... Greenz and the first leaves! XX ShamanSteveSic
countdown starts soon! (keep watching this space! and subscribe to our VIDEO-CHANNEL) (picture by "she who brings forth life")
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"Indigenous Europeans 2013 AD." Hoka Hey!...
Around the year 1999 I made part 1 of a series of artworks, which was a painting entitled "Indigenous European 2000 ad" It was basically a selfportrait of me being.. well.. me! . I was trying to express what a "modern natural human monkey" looks like nowadays... It was just me on that picture,as I was still "alone". OMNIA was a historical Celtic/Roman foundation, the people I worked with then were all history Geeks and Nerds and I spent more time with an Axe, Sword or Spear in my hand than a flute... I was still mostly a warrior then, long before I became Shaman.
My ancestors were the original free living semi-nomadic natives of the European lands (sometimes referred to by that horribly mis-understood name "Celts") Those ancient tribes very closely resemble the native tribes of northern america in their tribal way of life, connection to the earth and the respect for the creatures that live upon her... And like those proud free people, they too were massacred and assimilated by foreign invaders who destroyed their will with superior military might, political lies and hard-drugs like alcohol... untill finally their land was defiled by industry and the products of greed... My ancestors got annexed about 2000 years ago... my Brothers and Sisters on the American continent received their killing blow about 150 years ago...Me and the Native tribes are in the process of re-discovering and then teaching the true roots of their people and showing the others how to walk the "good red road of life"...
When my soulmate Jenny found me, I started to change rapidly. OMNIA had finally found a true and pure musical heart ,My swords and armour were replaced by many instruments... OMNIA became a full time band... and now we are HERE:
Here you see part 2 of the series called :"Indigenous Europeans 2013 AD." In which Jenny and me are posed as Native OMNIA Pagans (rather like the antroplogical photographs taken of "Indians" around the end of the 19th century)
This Picture is a part of the VERY FIRST OMNIA MUSICK VIDEO ever made!.... Which will be freaking out the underground Pagan musick scene in the very near future... are YOU subscribed yet to our video-channel?
Do YOU understand what this word "Pagan" means to us?, Will YOU cry when you see the video ART that OMNIA and Erwin have made? Do you realise that YOU and I are as FREE as the birds in the trees?... because if you do, then one day we can make part 3 of the "Indigenous people" series with ALL of us together!!
Peace to the peacefull :-) and a violent and painfull Death to the destroyers of Nature ;-) Hoka fecking Hey! ShamanSic (picture by EagleBoy)
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A "tiny" video preview
Yesterday we've checked out the high quality video clip that we have worked on the last 2 weeks.
Erwin showed us the video and we really can't wait to show it to YOU!
In the picture you can see a "tiny" preview… ;-)
Greenzz Daphyd et OMNIA
Picture by the E.vanDijck video crew.
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Goose bumps!
Yesterday I visited Erwin and I was one of the first persons to check out our new videoclip. Goose bumps!
We spend the afternoon working on polishing a few cuts and adding special sound effects to make it absolutely perfect for you.
As you can see on our notes it is hard work!
Can you already guess which song we've chosen for our very first video clip?
Greenz DaphydCrow
Picture by our mental health counselor
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Mmmmm!... Tastes like Chicken!
We have a lot of birds and small mammals around our house and feeding them all some extra food in winter can be quite a bit of bother sometimes, especially if you are pure Earth-loving Pagans with an enviromental conscience like ourselves.
You see, in this time of enviromental destruction the choices are simple:
"If you are not Part of the SOLUTION then you are a part of the POLLUTION"
So after long and exhaustive research we have found out that the most ENVIROMENTALLY FRIENDLY PETFOOD that you can feed to your little loved ones is HUMAN! I mean, Fuck "Carbon-Neutral" products... they don't work at all in the long run...(and in the words of that wonderfull bass-singer with the big hat from Jesus Christ superstar : "we need a more permanent solution to our problem")
Did you know that for every living human you use as animal food you will actually gain a NEGATIVE Carbon Foot Print!! Isn't that great!? (and it's not just wild animals that enjoy a bit of mutant monkey , throughout history it has become more than clear that dogs and especially cats are very fond of people in more ways than one ;-) , and what about pigs? I'm sure Pigs would love to tuck into a nice juicy bit of manflesh any day!
So my friends!, if you wish to spread comfort and joy to all our little friends out there in nature aswell as your tame animal companions PLUS saving the enviroment at the same time ... Feed then HUMAN! (available absolutely everywhere!)
Greenthingz! Heya heyoka! Shaman Sic (picture by H.Lector)
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Shaman Sic in tha picture...
And here is another picture of our Video weekend :)
Shaman Sic in front of a camera... looks promising, don't you think ?
More updates and pictures about our video clip soon.. Keep an eye on our page ;)
Greenzz Daphyd et OMNIA
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There is a video clip coming..
Hi there! :)
As you might have noticed we are working hard on our first official video clip. Here is another "behind the scenes" picture..
I will keep updating you ( as promised ), so don't forget to check our page every now and then.
Greens DaphydCrow
P.s. Thank you all for sharing our last live video ( but....keep sharing ;) )
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Rehearsing all day...
Life gives us musick...
Musick sucks our life... Zzzzzzzzzz...
Xx OMNIA
Picture by Crow
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Jenny's Birthday..
Here is a small gift for YOU because today it's Jenny's birthday! Woohoo!!!
It's a brand new live video on our Youtube channel recorded during our last club tour!
I know you all want to give Jenny a big, cosy birthday hug, lots of kisses, and loads of presents to congratulate her on this very special day.
But do you know what she would really like for her birthday?
What she really, really likes??
She wants you to share this video all over the inter web!
So please do and share this video with all your friends and their friends on Facebook etc. to make her the happiest Jenny of the world! Enjoy the video!
Greenz Daphyd et OMNIA.
P.s. The next video will show up **exclusively** in our RavenTimes newsletter. Don't miss it, be the first to see it and subscribe today! (Subscribe HERE)
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As seen on TV!
This is a Great Tit... it has always been a Great Tit... it will remain a Great Tit untill it's dying day... it is ...what it is... A beautifull and interesting creature which has a full and rich life, loving, living, breathing and surviving on this human infested planet... even if we are not aware of it's existence... it doesn't matter to my friend the Tit...
Now apparently If someone were to make a TV program or a movie about this bird it will suddenly become more REAL and INTERESTING to a lot of humans... because in the sad commercial world we live in the mass majority of mutant monkeys worship the little square screen of mass media... If a thing is not "show cased" on teevee or in a major movie...it's not REAL enough to be interesting to the braindead masses... sad but true... now let me share something with you:
Today I saw an advertisement for a classical concert of one of the most famous works of one of the best known composers of all times ( the absolutely awesome "REQUIEM" by super-freak weirdo Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) ... this should be enough description for anyone who is into classical music to know what the fuck it is... but no... the advertisers of this particular concert felt it neccessary to add to the poster: as seen in the MOVIE "AMADEUS"!!
...because apparently the fact that it is the musical masterpiece of one of Europe's top composers of the last 400 years is not interesting enough for modern homo-non-sapiens... no... it has to have been on a bloody screen to be really interesting!
the movie about his life is more "important" than the actual reason for them to make a movie in first place! (and did you know that my soul-friend Mozart was ridiculed and spat-out by the "masses" of his own time and he died pennyless and raving ... like most major artists who have actually contributed to real change in Art and Music)
Well fuck that! I say... A Tit is a Tit , it doesn't need more claim to fame than that...
and OMNIA is OMNIA , even if the only person who knows about it is YOU...
We are creating visual ART at the moment by making the FIRST OFFICIAL OMNIA MUSIC VIDEO EVER!! It will NOT be seen on Teevee, it will NOT be part of a major movie... it will just BE. a gift from us , to you... (we'll keep you updated on the latest developments untill it is finished , so you can judge for yourself if looking at it adds something to your life... just like looking at Tits adds something to mine ;-) Greenthingz and Musick SteveSic and the Tit (picture by Don Giovanni)
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This is our studio for our upcoming video-clip we are going to shoot this weekend!
Check out our awesome backdrop! We worked very hard on it......
No just kidding, it was natures gift to us.. More to read soon!
Greenz Daphyd and OMNIA
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Ye Olde Craftsmanship...
I was Talking to Lady Googoo the other day and complimenting her on her amazingly far-out stage outfits... "does it take you long to make them all?, where do you find the time to be a creative music artist on stage as well as a visual artist off-stage?" I asked of her.. She shook her glittering wig at me and giggled:
"No, ofcouwrse nowt silleey... Aah got me soo much time to doo handy-work because my entire business is being run by my managers... so Ah can make me loads of pretty costuumes and brew up a whole new batch of my personal perfume aswell!"... Isn't that great? Lady Googoo makes all her own stuff!.. just like all your favourite artists... Mick Jagger still sews his own tights... Axel Rose embroiders his own bandanas... Bono handcrafts his own "lightbulbs and mirrors" jesus' suits...
or do they?... Actually no...I'm not sure how creative or artistically skilled all those musicians are... most of the ones I've met up to now, buy their "look" from stores and creative-designers ... But for me it's always been the good old: Elbow grease and hours of painstaking designing , dreaming, drawing, painting , sewing, building....untill everything on the stage looks the same as it does inside my head.
Untill the OMNIA that lives inside my soul becomes visual for YOU to see,
We have always been a very "D.I.Y." band (and not just in the 100% original musick we compose, play and record )... And over the years I have had to learn many skills to keep up with the pictures inside my head...
So here you see me in one of my favourite positions... on the floor, paintbrush in one hand, part of an instrument in the other (can you guess what it is?... the answer will be revealed when you see OMNIA onstage again)
We build the musick, we build the look, we build the spirituality, we build the road we walk on every day... we do this ourselves, because we are the only ones that know what OMNIA looks and sounds like.....the only thing we didn't make ourselves is this beautifull planet and the life it contains...
But something we have never built (untill now) is a real kick-ass OMNIA video clip! In all our years as a pagan-theatrecompany from 1996 till 2002 and in all our years as a professional Pagan band since 2002 we have never had one of those shiney little entertainment sweeties called a VIDEO-CLIP (we've had many live- peformances filmed, but we never had the time and energy to build a musickal mini-movie ... untill NOW that is... At the moment we are hard at work, scripting, writing, imagining, storyboarding and arranging, a video- shoot together with our good video-friend Erwin . which will be filmed somewhere in the near future... and FUCK ME! ...it's a lot of work! (not just the artsy side of it)... you have no idea of the amount of detail that goes into making just a couple of minutes of video-entertainment... (well, not unless you work in the video-making business or your name is Christopher Juul) ... I only know of Euzen's great video adventure which they made all by themselves, and which is well worth watching! if you haven't seen it yet, check it out here:
.. (most "real" music videos are just Label-paid fantasies cooked up by multi media management teams using their own commercial hopes of selling shit to morons)...
But ofcourse our video will have a bit more class and good Pagan taste. (at least that's the plan)... because we do it the OMNIA way! ... personal commitment, personal vision, just good friends working together to create pagan-ART for the sake of the Spirits and the Earth... and hopefully YOU will enjoy it too... one thing I can guarantee you is that the Moronic Masses of Media-land would most probably hate it (although most of them will never ever see it) because OMNIA is, and always will remain... an UNDERGROUND band who only plays for YOU!!! cyberhugz and hope to see you at a gig somewhere in the future (we start touring again in march when winter has ended!) Shaman Steve, dr Sic and Inquisitor Evans van der Harten... (picture by Emily even Stranger)
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I can't face.... book (I face life)
As some of you might have noticed (well, those of you who spend a lot of time on FACEBOOK)... I have killed my facebook account. I want to thank all those thousands of people who have been my "facebook friends" for this last year and I'd like to apologise to all those hundreds of sweet people who sent me messages and questions that I never got around to answering because there was too much life distracting me, and it was too much information for my primitive little brain to deal with... I wish I could have answered you all, You have inspired me greatly and my heart has been filled with hope and joy for countless long hours as I read your words...I have enjoyed the experiment of "joining the facebook herd" to see and hear what it's all about, and it has taught me much about transglobal mass communication, and the rules of "polite conversation" in the modern satelite-linked digital world... Most of it is great fun, informative, touching etc... I enjoyed the good bits a lot, and I can see why so many of you like these so-called "social media"...
But some of it really sux... I have been especially shocked by the way people communicate with each other when they think they are "safe" and "anonimous" (or at least when they think they are safe enough to say what they feel like without getting smacked in the mouth for extreme rudeness...).
I call them "key-board heroes"; they seem to live inside the social media like human wet-ware tumours... their sole purpose being to annoy the fuck out of anyone with a functioning brain... sad little people, who would probably piss themselves in fright if they would ever have to talk to you in person, viciously forming opinions over the most diverse subjects, about which most of them know nothing at all.....It's just a form of extreme cowardice that really annoys me (years ago some people left OMNIA publicly via face book, cause they couldn't face me personally, and it still annoys me sometimes, you know what I mean?)...
Of course it's fine to have an opinion (opinions are like arseholes, we all seem to have one) but I would prefer to be able to curse the fuck out of somebody face to face if personal attacks are in order, wouldn't you?... If you have personal things to say to each other (and you actually know each other for real), SAY THEM DIRECTLY, PICK UP A PHONE, RING A DOORBELL...
That's why I would like to state now (because i saw the paranoia-meter hit "tilt" a couple of blogs ago) that I never make nasty Personal attacks about ANYBODY in my blogs .. ( I learned that years ago... they always backfire).
I will Slag off organisations, I will Diss corporations and governments and I will Verbally Vomit on Royal families... but personal attacks on actual people? NO... I do "face to face" with people... capice?
(although I will make personal SWEET remarks about real people in my bloggiez anyday! ;-) )
So good facebook people, I don't really feel like reading anymore of the sickly-sweet lies people throw down in their profiles to make themselves seem something they are not... I look at the AWESOME photoshopped profile pictures of all those wannabe "gods" and especially "goddesses" of the internet and I think to myself... "Hang on, I have seen that person!...But he/she doesn't look anything like that picture at all!)... It's all a little too fake for me to stay any longer...
That's why I have decided that my personal experiments with facebook (or "TwoFaceBook" as I have come to know it this last year) are over as of now...
I wish all of you who use this medium in a wise and honest way much luck, joy and wisdom! ... I wish those weedy liddle keyboard heroes among you nothing bad at all (because you're "real life" must suck big-time already if you have decided to spend most of it online...) All my news-page blogs get copied and pasted into the OMNIA facebook by dear sweet Daphyd (he's been doing this for quite some time now). So sorry I can't read the personal messages as I have no personal account anymore (just this worldofomnia page).
Wow... fecking long blog today! (still reading Rob?) I will finish by saying that real life is GREAT! (the sudden snowfall of last night is awesome, Jenny and me walked for hours this morning through a magickal fairyland of ice and glitter) . Our concert list for 2013 is still growing...I've just added a special dual-show outdoor concert of FAUN and OMNIA on september 1st 2013 in Fulda-schlosshof, see our agenda for details!
Greenthingz, Enjoy life, stay truthfull, stay real... Your far off internet friend (though not on facebook) SteveSic (yes I am a doctor, also a pope, also a shaman, also a raving moonworshipping lunatic;-)
(picture by a woman with a camera)
more concert dates will follow on our agenda as soon as somebody can be bothered to put them online :-)
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We live submerged in a world of music... the song of birds, the voice of the wind in the trees, the mesmerising rythm of the rain... and the sound of the new OMNIA songs that are being born this winter... I don't feel like writing a long blog right now... but I just want to share a thought with you: "We are really lucky monkeys ,because we are allowed to live and breathe on this beautifull planet... so be Alive! , enjoy this present and show respect and gratitude to the world that gives you this life everyday"... X peace dr.SteveSic (picture by somebody with a camera)
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A brand new collection in our webshop!
We have NEW Omnia lacy tops, tshirts and goodies!!
Yesterday we received fresh smelling and awesome looking t-shirts with the "Heart Logo" in the colours "Celtic Gold" and "Moon Silver".
We have the cute lacy spaghetti tops in both colours in the sizes: S, M & L
We have the regular shirts in both colours in the sizes: S,M,XL & XXL.
And we also got new linen bags in the colour "Celtic Gold" !
Check out our shop to see the new collection :)
Have a nice weekend!
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Imbolc and official Wedding anniversary
Today is Imbolc which celebrates the first beginning of Spring in the new year...our ancestors venerated these days (31st jan,1st and 2nd of februari) in ancient Celtic cycle of pagan holy days... And it really feels like it aswell! there is a vibrancy in the air accompanied by such a bright and varied birdsong all through the forest life is just waking up again on this day... 9 years ago on this day Jenny and myself had our 2nd marriage... and we became mr. and mrs. Evans van der Harten (officially for the state that time)... so today is a day for relaxing with friends and celebrating our everlasting love for each other ... Life is beautifull, Nature is sacred and we turn on the wheel with smiles on our faces.... XXX Stenny
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Peece and Pagansztuff!
Dis is me! Omnia is wraiting and praktissing new songs! (ofcourse me is da big ass produzer so me tells Omnia wot to play!... It will be brylli... Brellian... Brilleea... Erm...reelly good!! Peece and Pagansztuff! Mr.Fluffy ...piktjur by dr.Dreadd
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Don't you just love doing photoshoots in the cold?
Well we do actually! .. Snow is such a beautifull and rare gift of nature that it seems a shame not to enjoy it to the fullest! So we made some OMNIA Artwork pictures this weekend with our Belgian friend Jasper (the photographer with the good buttocks you see peering into his camera) and his girlfriend Saar (with the nice hat, and ..yes...peering into another camera) while visagiste Chloé holds the reflection screen (wearing a stunning pompom hat) all watched by me (staring into the camera that took this picture, so you're kind of in my POV here). Jenny opted to go for the full-on winter sheepskin, clothed version (because being naked in this cold was a little "over the top" and besides.. I'm not sure if a nude harp player is what "the fans" would want to see on a Theatre poster...erm... or is it?)
The Harp is fine by the way, Jenny's hand-built Triplett is one of the toughest harps in the world that has survived many years of constant touring, so a little freezing snow and icy winds won't bother it all that much , as all Triplett Harp players can tell you ;-) You will see the results of Jaspers' beautifull camera work appearing on OMNIA stuff when we start touring again in march... (and I can tell you it looks beautifull!) Anyway...be it rain or snow, sunny or stormy, hot or cold, wherever you are on this little blue green ball floating in space, have a good day and always remember to be easy and free! XXX OMNIA (picture by a totally nude Steve;-)
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Finally! we have a gig in BELGIUM again!
Great news for all our good friends in Belgium! We have missed all our Celtic brothers and sisters of the Belgae for so long now (what has it been? like 3 years or something?!) So we have decided to take the risk and organise a concert there ourselves!! (although we are getting help from our musical friends from the Deerlijcke folk festival with arranging the details and the location)
We want to offer our Belgian fans this MUSICKAL GIFT because we owe you a lot...
this 100% OMNIA PaganFolkRock night will be held on:
the 17th of May 2013 in "De Wieke" ,Deerlijk, Belgium
presale tickets are especially low priced at €15,- (€20,- at the door) ticket info here So Belgae.. will you join us for some PaganFolk? Greenz OMNIA
...please share this message...
picture by Ambiorix
Enfin ! Une nouvelle date en Belgique !
Bonne nouvelle pour nos chers amis de Belgique ! Longtemps vous nous avez manquez, frères et sœurs celtes de Belgae (Ça fait combien ? presque 3 ans, non?!). Nous avons donc décider de prendre le risque d'y organiser un concert nous même !! (même si nous sommes aidés par nos amis mélomanes du Deerlijcke folk festival pour les détails d'organisation et le lieu).
Nous voulons donc offrir à nos fan belges ce CADEAU MUSICAL parce qu'on vous doit énormément...
Cette nuit paganfolkrock 100% OMNIA aura lieu :
Le 17 Mai 2013 à ''De Wieke'', Deerlijk, Belgique
les tickets en pré-vente sont spécialement réduit au prix de 15€ (contre 20€ à l'entrée)
Alors Belgae...vas-tu nous rejoindre pour une nuit PaganFolk ?
Greenz OMNIA
...partagez ce message SVP...
Photo : Ambiorix
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True Colours (Philosophy on a misty morning)
Hi again, so you stopped by to see if there was anything new to read here?.. well you're in luck! , today I feel like writing to YOU again .. It's a lovely morning and I'm just sitting down with a cup of tea to look at the birdies enjoying the food I laid out for them. It's become quite a lengthy "morning ritual" now, to put food out for our feathered and fuzzy friends... there are so many of them! and they eat tonnes (especially if the squirrels join in on the buffet aswell!) , feed-balls, bags of nuts, rinds of left over cheese (without the plastic) get hung on the food-tree. The "peanuts with shell" go in a cage-like box for the woodpeckers and the nuthatches to feast on... then some huge dollops of peanut-butter get stuck here and there on the different feeding shelves I've made... followed by two different types of winter seed (rough for the bigger birds and also tiny seeds for the finches) , two cut apples, some fresh water to replace the block of ice I left yesterday and finally the "piéce de resistance" raisins for the blackbirds!! (they're like junkies for the raisins,most days up to 20 blackbirds gather to have a feeding frenzy on those sticky little packages of stored summer sun!) ... All our little friends are now happily munching away, while I quietly sip my cup of tea... the fireplace has started to warm the house a little and Jenny has gotten out of bed aswell now, leaving the soft warmth of the cosy blankets to face yet another creative day in the Paganworld!..she still looks a little fuzzy though, as she's going through all her yoga-like exercises to wake up her body (I'm sure her mind will follow shortly after we've made some coffee)... Today we're preparing a photo-shoot which we'll be doing this weekend (to make nice new pics for the theatre-tour poster of 2013/14).. should be fun!... we plan things really easy nowadays... doing it all in our own time... no rush... The new musick and the words of poetry flow like the water in the mountain streams, like the wind in the trees, like the blood in our veins... I love this life! Away from the harsh commercial world made-up by human-monkeys... real life... real musick... for real people!
I think that most "professional musicians would like to be a part of the "commercial music" business... Some might even think that EVERY professional band would accept a big-business record deal if they could, even if it means throwing away most of the principals that band was built upon , even if it means producing "main-stream" pulp instead of music ...even if it means betraying a few thousand of your most loyal and intelligent fans so that you may gain a few hundred-thousand television staring, consumer monkey idiots instead... because that's the only way to get "real" success (and money ofcourse) Well... I don't agree ... THIS BAND had the chance to go for the big business deal once (with the most commercial entertainment multinational in the world: "Universal") but when we realised what it would do to us , our musick , our pagan-ideals and our fans we said "NO!" ... (it cost us a very good Lawyer and all the money we had to break the basic-contract with these business people, but we did it!... because our TRUE COLOURS will always shine through... OMNIA is no joke , people... these blogs are not written by a "PR-person" pretending to be me... we don't pay to advertise, we don't buy "likes" and "youtube views" on the internet, we don't prostitute ourselves on tacky television... Because we don't measure "success" by our bank-account.. We measure our success by looking at the face we see in the mirror. If I can look myself in the eye each day and smile, because my actions are worthwhile and my concience is clear... THAT is a succesfull life to me!
We are always OMNIA! what you see is what you get.... and believe me....this is as real as it gets in the music world! We believe in YOU, because YOU believe in us... and we cannot betray that sacred pact... our Pagan honour won't allow it.... So no worries! we keep on keepin' on!
I leave you now to enjoy this picture I took of our friend Robin (beloved and holy to us and our Celtic ancestors) sitting quietly in the "totem-shamble" I made out side our little house in the woods... I wish you peace, I wish you warmth in your house and above all I wish you "real" experiences in a "real" life! Greenthingz! SteveSic (picture by Robin of DerWood)
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"Winter is coming..." erm.. no.. it's actually still here...
The wind howls outside swirling among the high icey branches. Twigs rattle and hiss, dancing in time to the song of the wind... her voice a banshee howl freezing the soul of all who hear her... outside in the wild... Overhead a plaintive wailing cry; a flock of geese , caught out in the wrong place at the wrong time, muscles pumping, tendons straining, wings fighting the strong freezing aircurrents as they seek for shelter from the storm... their desperate calls high and ethereal as they battle onward, mile after mile through the flurry of snow... bloody hell!... I'm glad I'm not a wild goose today! Silly human monkey, swaddled in woven wool and sheepskins... well fed, and well warm, I can just go out and have a bit of fun in the snow... tramp through the forest, singing songs ... getting thoroughly chilled... and then going back to a warm little house and a cozy fire, where Jenny is waiting for me (I'm happy to report that she is actually getting better now!) ... winter is here! with lots of BRRRR! (outside) as well as HMMMM! (inside)... Me likes!
This time of year is so full of inspiration, with life and death going on outside the thin walls of our cabin... Like a stark reminder of the circle of life that rolls on within us and without us.... bringing with it new tunes, new stories, new spirit... we are composing like crazy right now and my little notebook and the recording set-up is starting to fill rapidly with new songs...well, at least the concepts of new songs... it's always an exciting and humbling process to live through...playing with a tiny idea, some fractured snatch of a tune, a sentence that keeps buzzing through your head and won't leave you alone, a feeling you get when you look up at the sky... these things slowly revealing an embryonic idea wanting to be found and filled with life to become.... "a SONG" ... a living Musickal entity that can change it's surroundings just by existing...how many of these half-living ideas that are in my booklet now will evolve into strong presences like "Etrezomp ni Kelted"?, "the Morrigan"?, "Toys in the Attic"? , "I don't speak Human"? in the future?... how many of the words that I mumble to myself today will be sung back at me tomorrow by thousands of joyous voices in the audience?... I do not know... but I'm really looking forward to finding out!... how about YOU?.. keep it REAL (as real as the difference between Life and Death that so many of our little fuzzy and feathered friends out there have to face each day!) Whitethingz on Winterwingz and may the great spirit knock some sense into your monkey head!... ShamanSteveSic (picture by Hiawatha the Happy Heyoka)
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Wrap it up!…warm and cozy...
Well , how are YOU doing?.. us?.. erm?.. no, we're fine thanx ;-)… Still sick as a factory farm pig… (sorry for the on-going realism, I know most people prefer to hear made-up stories when it comes to "Bands" and their "PR" but I know YOU are not "most people" and we certainly aren't a "normal" band/consumer product ,But you know that… you came her to the OMNIA site for that….and that's why I still bother to write to YOU.
anyway, we apparently still have time to be sick in... (which is nice for a change)
No pressure from without, no concerts in our winter break, no production time-limits we can't ignore (I've cancelled even more appointments now) ... and it was all OK. It feels good to be free , free enough to say to yourself: "today I will work as hard as I can" and also free enough to say : "Aw fuck it!, drop everything, you're not doing anything today babe, you need more rest)... I'm still amazed that we can actually do this, we can stop working for a while and have a "mini-pension" without starving to death... just slowly consuming the reserves that YOU have given us…
(although ofcourse we can't keep this up for ever, because we have no big company, or manager, or other form of "Boss" except YOU out there paying us sick-money or any other compensation when we can't work... We are on our own... no subsidies, no fancy foundations giving us cash... we don't even have a bloody union to turn to…but this is Europe in the 3rd millenium. Where as a band it really takes a lot of balls to remain free….You are either a product which is OWNED by somebody or you just have to take your OWN chances no matter how hard or scary it gets… and keep on holding your OWN freedom in your own hand! … that's the only way to keep the energy real)
So yeah...We're free, we're weird. we're crazy, we're Pagan, we're living the life of creative ART and independance and despite the influenza I suppose we're doing real fine...
The snow lies thickly on our beloved Hills and I've been out in it a couple of times to walk and think and compose (two nights ago I sat cradled in a giant tree as the sun was going down, wearing my new woolly hat and my warmest sheepskins singing to the snow , sining to the forest and singing to the tree (altough he didn't hear me as he was sleeping)... and I was just laughing at myself and being happy at being there in that setting (it was like the beginning scene of fecking Game of thrones... really!) when I suddenly got the song lyrics I was looking for rammed into my head… lyrics to go with one of the great new OMNIA compositions we are working on… something describing the Shamanic, nature protecting, no concessions kind of life we lead… It's called "Crazy Man". Don't expect it to be put on a CD anytime soon… we're planning our first new release way over in 2014.
We always pay for all our own CD productions ourselves… and I just put part of that money which could have been used for a new CD into the ingredients which are bubbling away in the large pan of Dutch Pea-soup I'm brewing for tomorrow, to feed "the lads" when they come over for OMIA band -practice! … BUT no worries! we'll be trying out most of our new PAGAN FOLK ROCK musick LIVE on the festival stages of Europe and America!! , so you can hear them there (or one of the hundreds of live recorded "I have a smart phone and I'm not afraid to share it-videos" that you find knocking around on Mr.Murdoch's playground)… The Life is good, The year is 1, the real PaganFolk musick flows thich and rich like life blood… I leave you now with this rather fetching picture of my soulmate Jenny, wrapped up real warm and cosy. I took her outside for a (slow and not too far) walk, to feel the season's life and to put a smile on her sad little face (she hates being ill almost as much as I do… it's frustrating for her to hear me arsing around with musick recordings and silly words, while she is powerless to join in the fun) … hopefully she feels better tomorrow… Green thingz! Stay weird Stay free! XXX Stenny
(picture by Black Elk)
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Stenny still Sick (sic) but there's always time for fashion!
Hi again!, I'm feeling better enough to play with Pandora's box for YOU... (thought I'm still functioning at about 75%) I feel much better than I did a few days ago, I can tell you! But now sadly, as I'm coming up again, this dreaded disease has taken Jenny down!. She took such good care of me last week, when I was ill, now she has it herself! She has been snottering under a pile of blankets for days now going into and out of a fever... she's so sad and miserable right now... poor puppy! Now I got the chance to take care of her again! (nurse Steve to the rescue!) We've had to cancel all of our engagements during this last week, and the coming week looks to be no better...
So I am spending alot of time fixing practical things around the house in a quiet sneezy kind of way. For instance My long black wintercoat was getting old, so I'm making a new one (it's the one I always wear , you can see it in all the OMNIA-"almost human" videoclips). I also made myself a new woolly-hat... (to carry on the "warm clothing-winter- I dont wanna get ill again" theme) and... I'm spending a lot of time with our studio equiptment and a bunch of instruments building new songs from all the sketches and text material that we've collected over the last 2 years... cool shit! (I was even given the inspiration to write some more new stuff!).. very satisfying and kind of releasing to finally get this stuff out of my head and down "on tape" ..but it's a little lonely too, 'cause I'm doing it on my own instead of with my soulmate or my band... (Soulmate sleeps and coughs most of the time... Band is keeping away from the disease-center which is our home/studio right now...) anyway... this was just a short message to let you know we are still alive (just about ... snif!... cough!!.. gnarrrrf!..) and we'll be kicking any time soon again! Greenthingz and "groan" from SnottySteve and SickJenny ! (picture by Hugo Boss)
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The OMNIA-shirt World Tour…
We want to put new life in our OMNIA news letter: the RavenTimes.
There will be a lot of cool, fun and maybe shocking stuff about OMNIA and the band-members. ;-)
Do you want to hear all about us? Don't hesitate and subscribe (FOR FREE! )
But there is more…. You can also be part of our PaganClan!
"The Omnia-Shirt world tour":Do you want to be in the next RavenTimes? Send us a beautiful picture of you in your OMNIA shirt/hoodie/girly with the location and maybe you will appear in the next Raventimes!!
(mail to: firstname.lastname@example.com, subject: Omnia-shirt world tour)
"Fan-Art":We are also are looking for ART inspired by OMNIA. For example, Paintings, drawings or tattoo's. Send us your best pictures with a small description, so we can put some of your "fan-art" in it as well.
(mail to: firstname.lastname@example.com, subject: Fan art)
You can also ask questions to OMNIA Ask whatever you want! To all of us or to one of us personally.. you're choice!
(mail to: firstname.lastname@example.com subject: Questions)
Stay up to date, be part of our PaganClan, be part of the World of OMNIA!
Greenz OMNIA
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Snotter!... glurgh... slime... A!.. A!.. Ah!! ... Tsjooooooch!!!!
Dr. Sic is still sick.. snif.. ah well...shit happens... (so does snot).. isz OK though... My mind's a liddle fuzzy and my lungs are on fire, BUT I have the best nurse in the world taking care of me (do you know Jenny even played me to sleep on her harp last night, because I looked so pityfull?... and who said being ill is all bad? ;-) Luckily we have no OMNIA concerts at the moment, so my body thought that this would be the perfect time to finally let go and have a nice heavy fever-mucous session... can't be healthy all the time eh?.. I'm kind of enjoying it (with the gentle ministrations of "nurse" Jenny to keep me going)... Had to cancel this weeks band practice though (sorry guys) but still had enough energy to smile and snotter weakly at some old friends (Kaat and Oli from Faun and Leaf) who came to visit me on my deathbed .. erm... I mean sickbed...bringing good cheer and a welcome distraction into the Stennystudio (I hope I didn't infect you guys !)... anyway... Jenny is a darling (did I mention that already?) I'm ill, but certainly not sad... (I even wrote some new lyrics today... eventhough I'm not sure how good they'll turn out to be when the fever goes down)... I'm rambling a little... but hey! what's new?! that's what I'm good at!... always spewing out the truth no matter how green and sticky it looks... It's what I do, It's part of my job... Greenz!!
"sometimes healthy, sometimes sick...
always OMNIA and dr.Sic! " (picture by the snot troll)
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Duelling aerophones in the StennyStudio...
So we had a Fun and productive time writing new material with the gang this weekend... jamming out new tunes, following up old concepts, checking out new instruments.. (and their various uses) etc. also we made plans together for the new releases of the RavenTimes which will come during this hopefull YEAR 1 so you can get a closer look into what we do with OMNIA and why... The guys have just gone back home (they send their regards)... my work is done.. I will now slowly collapse into a heap of blankets and produce a glutinous range of fevered snot , mucous and other equally off putting bodily fluids, as I seem to have the plague...again... I thought I got rid of it but (not unlike a bad politician or arnold schwartzenegger) ...it came back!
I wish YOU health and happiness , now I shall log-out and pester my wife so she can take care of me in this pityfull moaning state.. groan.. Jenny?...JENNY!? ...help?( puppy eyes ).. snif... Greenz .. Sick (picture by the snotmonster)
ps..there are still more gigs and festival dates to be put on our agenda... but I really can't be bothered to put them on right now...
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All is quiet on New Years Day...
The official New Year's speech by the Pope of non-dogmatic Paganism conducted on day 1, year 1 of the new world (without the order)
My Fellow Mutant Monkeys!
Peace has returned to the forest... the harsh erratic voices of the ongoing "War on Nature" have stilled... a few million mega-tonnes of cheap chinese explosives have completed their destructive incendiary circle around the globe... following imaginary timelines ,set down and governed by the slow decay of atomic particles locked up in the bowels of Greenwitch on the Former estate of old King Henry... Thus reasserting the absolute dominion of the mutant machine monkeys over this majestic , awe-inspiring living planet , so sadly infected by genocidal apes... ahem...
So, Who gives a f*ck? We're still here to provide a much-needed contrast! And so we shall remain! ...ahem... on a lighter note: We are all free! It's official now (and I'm a goddam Pope so you can believe me on this one..) The apocalypse has been and gone and we have arrived in Year 1 of this new universe! (Hey!.. why not?.. if other cultures are allowed a different calendar, why not OUR culture?)
I know the planet around you still looks a little like the old one, but this will change... Everything is connected, The first change always starts in your head.. If you really BELIEVE that this is a shiny new universe, with new chances for the creature which is YOU to make of YOUR life whatever you want it to be... then it IS a new universe because YOU will have changed... everything is connected, if YOU change, the Universe changes too... As I said before, I'm a Pope, I know these things ;-)
The festivities of passage have been and gone, we played out the passing of the old world on the whimsical tones of musick and song..together with our dearest friends Christopher and Maria (of Euzen), sharing good food, good talk, fine spirits ,fine smoke,sweet musick and a veritable feast of good feeling and peace... they are on their way back to the land of the vikings, while Jenny and me let this first day of our new life settle into place...
It's year 1! and the world is your proverbial mollusc *, the old world has gone and we are free to choose what ever life we would really wish for ourselves in this NEW world of possibility and freedom. (New World Order?...I don't think so buddy!) ... You may re-invent yourself completely if you so wish! The old you went away together with the last age... here's a question: what would YOU like to do now?
Speaking as Stenny, Jenny and myself have decided that we'd like to play in an underground Celtic cult band! ... yeah!... so we asked some weird friends of ours who are brilliant musicians if they wanted to join..., and they all said yes! Now we're in a band! and to celebrate this fact, we are going to be performing lots of live PaganFolkRock music with this band during the coming imaginary 364 andabit days of year 1 of the new Universe!
We thought it might be nice to name this group of artists "OMNIA" because it means "everything" in Latin and we have no idea what we are going to do... so this name should cover anything... do you like it? (it's also handy because there already seems to be a website , video channels, face book etc. with that name.... hmmm?.. probably some residual influences left over from the old world which was destroyed at the end of the last age?... looks cool!, so we might as well use it!...
Well anyway , we'll be performing our DEBUT show as the Crazy, Rebellious, Tree-Hugging PaganFolkRock band "OMNIA" in Holland at the earliest beginnings of spring! We'll be trying out our full length festival show in front of a live audience for the first time! (I'm nervous already).. In a club called "de Peppel" in Zeist (NL) on march the 30th year 1 (aka: 2013) INFO HERE .. we'll probably fuck up most of the songs , playb out of tune and stand there like clothes-dummies with frozen worried expressions on our sweaty faces... on the other hand... we could also PaganRock your fuzzy Socks off!!! (something you may decide for yourselves, who are we to judge?... hehehe! did I just write that?.. mmm? must be getting soft, with all that good will around me... :-)
.. At the moment we're still working hard together with these guys :Philip ,Daphyd and Rob on getting some songs and heya-stuff together to play at YOU on one or more of the many upcoming festival and club stages (check it out here) ... and we're still not decided on what our "Image" and "Band Message" should be (baggy arse-pants and bassball caps?, chains, leather and bondage gear? Irish traditional costume? Star Trek uniforms?... hmmm?...but I'm sure something will pop into our minds during the long winter months 'till spring reappears...
See ya from the other side of the stage my friends!
Greenest new Leaves and Blessed Beez!
Pope SteveSic Jenny Faery and a Pagan band called OMNIA
* in this case that means oyster...
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Catch a dream of hope...
Omnia concert advent calendar no:13...
Have a merry Christmas everyone!
(we'll ...everyone who is a completely/partly christian and/or family traditionalist/sentimentalist and or western-society indoctrinated consumerist or at least who celebrates the 25th of december as a family/friends get-together around a decorated tree emulating the re-birth of natural growth and the return of the SUN (Son), with lots of food and some presents to be given/received etc.)
Today is a day for dreams of hope and the old-fashioned , Dickensian style of feeling once called "good-will to all men" (in which I must stress "all women" are included aswell as recipients of afore said "good will"... especially the nice ones ;-)
So, speaking of "nice", how are you being categorised by the large fat man in the red coat this year?... "naughty or nice?" (THAT is the actual question my suicidal danish prince... or am I losing the illiterate audience once again?).
If you've been "nice" (ie: simple, well behaved, not so smart, pleasant and uncomplicated ethimologically speaking) you will receive many great goodies for contributing to the greater good! If you've been naughty you will get nothing at all or only crummy crap presents...(apparently) ...... except ofcourse if you've been REALLY REALLY naughty in which case you'll get whatever you please (but ofcourse you know this already because you are probably a member of the royal family or one of the foremost banking houses) Anyway... we had a little family "dream catcher" building session yesterday , to ease the nocturnal travels on which we fly from time to time... See here the products of our labours... Three modern wytches Myrthe Fortuna ("Maiden") Jenny ("Mother") and SteveSic ("Crone") , catching dreams with rural art.... we ... simple rude peasants, dreaming on for a better, free-er future , away from the clutches of royalty and state-control... harkening the herald angels who bring tidings of comfort and joy while shepherds watch their turnip tops , the lamb and the ox beat time and the Fat guy pours himself a brandy, lights up another spliff and shouts "HO HO HO!" :-) have a good one, whatever you're flavour ... PaganPope ,WytchDoctor , Whatever SteveSic and Family (musical and blood) ... (all hail Eris) ... (OMNIA CHAOS EST)
... picture by Chris the Saviour
oh yeah... if you live in Germany here is a big bag of christmas presents in the form of 5 more of the amazing MPS festivals where we have been confirmed that we will be playing next year, see you there!
20th of april- MPS Bad Säckingen, DE
19 of may– MPS Hohenwestedt, DE
7th of june– MPS Dresden, DE
24th of august- MPS Speyer, DE
31st of august-MPS Hamburg
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Happy Yuletide/Merry Christmas and a happy new year to ya'll…
We've uploaded another video for you on YouTube and Vimeo,
a little present for these dark but happy days… Whieeej,
"The Sheenearlahi Set"
And I actually want to write something funny about Steve after our last conversation, because now I know Steve is not going to use his computer until tomorrow so he won't notice.. But I can't find something to write about…
I hope you have a great time for those upcoming days, let's celebrate the fact that we have survived the Apocalypse and we see eachother next year!
Lots of creativity and love,
Daphyd :)
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The Eclectic band at midwinter practice…
Omnia concert advent calendar no:12...
After the longest night (and the apparent end of the world ;-) have been and gone… we felt it was time to get down and bring the light (and the hope) back to this little ball of mud floating in space, by getting together with our dearest friends to talk, drink, laugh and WRITE NEW SONGS!!! (see my buddies, aka: my musical family/Clan aka: OMNIA here on this pic , smiling at me and YOU)
I'm happy to tell you that we are absolutely ON FIRE at the moment (musically speaking)… the ideas and melodies and lyrics that have been brewing for sooo long can finally be released to see the light of day… and you will be introduced to the newest members of our Pagan repertoire on one the very many concerts that we'll be doing next year… check it out:
,next date on the OMNIA Calendar is the darkest BlackField festival!!
date: 30th of june 2013
place: Gelsenkirchen , Germany
event: Blackfield Festival
This fun-gloom festival is quite a legend in Germany, It will be our first time to visit their Stage , but we're sure gonna rock it Paganstyle!…Let the shadows roll on as OMNIA's Nature Rebels turn on the nightlight with pure musick FESTIVAL INFO HERE
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Light of Midwinter (the value of rare)
Sic's incomprehensible blog no. whatever
Today is midwinter...the shortest day of the year, when every little ray of sunlight is a precious as it will ever get here in the northern hemisphere... so I got up as the sun rose ( as the birds and the animals do too) to enjoy every little last bit of it before it goes down again and plunges us into the longest night of the year...
There were quite a few people who believe that today the world will end (because of some ancient maya prophecy, or solar flare thingy, or meteorite wossname... Well I don't think so, but what if today was your last day? What if these few hours were the last you would ever have? what would you do? Would every experience today become better , because it would be your last?
Isn't it strange that when something is really really rare it becomes much more precious? I feel that I am a very very rich man, because I am surrounded by very precious and rare things and people. Nearly everything I own is a one-off singular object, hand made for me, unique and irreplacable... instruments... clothes.. jewellery.. I live in a shack in forest surrounded by wild animals in one of the busiest , most polluted and overcrowded countries in the world, I am married to a most singular and talented artistic fairy in a world where all people seem to be becoming the same mass produced clone (same clothes, same food, same look, same movies, same music, same opinions, bought from the same stores, with the same plastic money, found on the same computers...same , same...not different.)
Today I am getting a most singular and unique flute, hand-built for me by a very "celtic" minded Belgian flute builder (more about that later)...it will be brought to me from Belgica by Jasper , a special guy.. whom I've known since he was just a cute kid who wanted to interview me for a school project many years ago, and who has now turned into a very handsome Pagan dude who plays in his own pagan-band... very singular people... very rare people... very precious to me, because people like that... like YOU, are very rare... and rare is valuable.
Think about the value of that one, old slightly damaged cupboard that your grandfather made by hand when he was a boy (which on e-bay wouldn't fetch more than a few cents) as compared to that brand new IKEA kitchen you can get installed any day (for a few thousand quid)... one is a mass produced, seemingly valuable product of no consequence....the other an irreplacable and rare artefact..
As you are swirling around your little prospecting pan In the river of life, always think to yourself what is really valuable.....
Because the real gold-nuggets in this life are very very RARE...
and the rest you see on tv and on the advertisements is just mud with a shiny layer spray painted on...
Enjoy the midwinter light while it still lasts...
Greenthingz and Hope (always hope) Pope, WytchDoctor, Whatever SteveSic (picture by Fenris)
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I like Birdz
concert advent calendar no:11...
This is a picture of jenny and the flufster looking at a book about birdz
we like birdz...we always look at the birdz every morning at breakfast because they help us to wake up... their simple beauty and bravery is awe inspiring!!
,next date on the OMNIA Calendar is the SCHANDMAUL 15th ANNIVERSARY SHOW!!
date: friday 30th august 2013
place: Tanz brunnen , Köln, Germany
event: Schandmaul 15th year anniversary festival!
Our friends of the German Mittelalter band Schandmaul are celebrating their 15th year as a band! They are really one of the most important sounds in this unique (and to us very precious)german music scene! They play pure music like us and on the friday they will play a special acoustic set, so ofcourse we will be there to celebrate 15 years of Mittelalter along with them on the stage!! Partyyyyyy! FESTIVAL INFO HERE dr.SteveSic Rockin it PAGANSTYLE! ...pic by Dendrocopos major
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mr.Fluffy's Back!!!
concert advent-calendar no:10...
"Me is THE Mr.Fluffy
and me wordz nevver fail
an' if you don' like it,
you kan Kiss me tail!"
Dis is me!... well is me back, cos me's looking out da window at all da birdiez in da Forrest as a pwetty Konsurrt Advennt Kallandarr piktjoor for tooday... Yeah! SteveSic ask me to wrait tooday 'cos he don' feel like doo-ing it.. so me can teelll YOU about da nex OMNIA gigshow for nex Year!!
an dhe nex dait too be putt on OMNIA konsurt kallendur is dhe MPS in Telgte!!
date: the 17th of August 2013
plaice: Telgte Germanny
Eevent: Middelaldeliggufantassispektaakoo.. middellalldu..er...MPS!
me love de Middelaldeliggu..um.. MPS!! cos, dey hav soo manny marrket places wid naice food! and all da peeples shout JUBEL!!! all da time ..so go dhere!
FESsTIVALL INFO iz HEAR on da Consurt AggenDa
Happytingz! mr.Fluffy piktjoor by my frend Noodle again cos he's a great fotoggrathinger..
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Friends and Fire
concert advent calendar no:9...
Winter is a time to hang out and meet friends , over a glass of wine by the fireplace...
so ... when we turn over this little advent calender page we see:
Jenny, Fluffy and Coca! (our Harp playing, festival organising and all round good feeling spreading friend from the amazing "Kelten zonder Grenzen" and many more folk-band projects here in Holland) who came over to to the StennyStudio to share thoughts, laughs and walks in the forest with us today... Cheers!
and the next date to be put on the OMNIA gig Calendar is the MPS in Weeze!
date: saturday the 27th APRIL 2013
place: Weeze, Germany
event: Mittelalterliches Phantasy Spectaculum
The absolute biggest moving medieval and fantasy festival that we've played on.The legendary MPS travels through all of Germany putting down it's roots for one fantastic event in town after town, moving on like a glorious medieval circus. We'll be Paganfolkrocking the various stages together with a mass of other great bands like Faun, Saltatio Mortis, Rapalje a.o and amazing circus acts all amongst the and varied weird market stalls under trees lit by the glow of giant fires and a thousand torches and oil lamps... don't miss it!
check out the details for this show (and more) on our CONCERT AGENDA
Greenthingz! Steve and the gang... ...pic by Noodle the Poodle
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The Trolls listening to the Elves...
concert advent calendar no:8
the Clean purity of Winter ice, the deep resonant warmth of summer sun on an Oaken forest , the flowing eloquence of a crystal stream running it's meandering course through the wild moors... these and more are the images conjured up in my mind when I listened to our friends of ANUNA perform their most highly developed art in the theatre of Doetichem last night... Such beauty, such poetry, such skill... It always leaves me deeply satisfied and yet also humbled to see our highly respected friend Michael McGlynn and his amazing choir perform live on stage.
We met when Jenny toured with them as their Harp-player many many years ago (I was just her humble roadie then), and we became absolutely enchanted and befriended with these most awesome and 100% real and pure musicians from Ireland... They are actually very much like OMNIA in the way that everything they play is pure- acoustic , no playback, no nonsense, no compromise.. Michael makes all their own arrangements, they produce their own CD's , they tour all over the world and they still manage to survive in this gritty and dirty music world making what they want to make. Their music is more christian than pagan, but their hearts are pure!
This is the maximum clarity of musical performance as far as I'm concerned...as real as you can get...they are even so brave as to perform entire pieces un-amplified! in a packed-out theatre!!.. wow! ...respect...
Michael always chooses the finest and best looking vocalists for Anuna, so that's ethereally beautifull , top notch singers, with voices like angels and long flowing hair dressed in stunningly tastefull velvet gowns and capes of the medieval "Lady of Chalotte" type (I just love that look!) and the men are all equally competent and talented singers with voices I would long to steal and all of the strong, noble Irish type clothed in their traditional "manly" way .. all very "lord of the rings"- like and again so fecking tastefull, tastefull, tastefull!! ..a veritable feast for the ears and eyes!!
The contrast between them and the jam packed audience however couldn't have been greater. I have seldom seen a worse looking crowd of ugly old people in my life! What's up with these modern old folks? The woman all have these extremely "short -back and sides" roughly done boyish haircuts that make them look like asylum inmates (but which probably cost them a fortune at some "trendy" haidresser) All trying to squeeze their obese over-aged bodies into tight fashionable trousers and hip little sweaters and slathered with enough make-up and perfume to grease a truck and stun an elephant..(shudders) and the least said about the un-inspired looking, washed out fashion slaves that pose as modern men, the better... This , combined with the many cholera, whooping cough, pneumonia and lungcancer patients which seem to have been distributed evenly about the hall, hacking ,coughing and grunting their combined way through both the sets gave me the impression of an army of culturally wishfull yet hopelessly obtuse Trolls attending a concert put on for them by the finest that the Elves and the realm of Faery have to offer... But at least they all paid and Michael and the gang have to eat, so I suppose every body wins... (although If I would have had a big fat gun equipped with a silencer and a night-sight on me there would have been a few less philistines who can't shut the fuck up and listen .. and definately less idiots who have no idea how to switch off their mobile phones when they go to a theatre ;-)
Anyway I was gonna take a nice picture for my blog while Jenny and me were in the backstage with the whole ANUNA gang, but I got a little drunk on whiskey (there was no smoking in there, so I just had to do something to get rid of the taste of bad perfume and the smell of slightly incontinent flatulence that pervaded the theatre) and I got distracted by good conversation and good friends (even Michael's brother, the mentally unstable and thouroughly lovable John McGlynn was there! whom I hadn't seen in years, which put a smile on my face which is still in place as I write)... so I completely forgot to take the fucking picture... sigh...
Anyway...I had a lovely night last night, and If you happen to live in holland and you have the chance and the time during the coming week or so...then :
(you will thank me for it later...)
check out the remaining tourdates here: ANUNA TOUR DATES
check out two of the many ANUNA videos HERE and HERE
so , no OMNIA gig on the advent calendar today...today is just for our Irish friends...
Thanx for reading this extremely long blog, but I seem to have caught the plague from the audience last night, so I'm lying in bed, sick (sic) as a very sick-thing and killing time (while my body kills germs) by writing my incoherent rantings to YOU..
Thanx! I feel much better now :-) Greenthingz SteveSic... Inquisitor of Creative Chaos/Pope of Paganism (picture by Jenny Galadriel Moonchild)
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"The two Towels" by JLL Torkien
"Roses are red
my Towels are black
I'm not much of a poet
I'm more of a hack..."
and the next date is the Worms Spectaculum!
date: the 1st of june 2013
place: Worms, Germany
event: Worms Spectaculum
This will be our first time at this well established medieval festival in Germany, so I can't tell you much about it , apart from the fact that we are really looking forward to headlining it! (and hopefully we will meet many new friends there! ...like you?)
Check out the FESTIVAL INFO HERE
Greenthingz! dr.Steve Sic (still the fecking Inquisitor of Creative Chaos) ...pic by Aracorny (giggles)
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Wood for the Fire, Axe in the snow...
concert advent calendar no:6 ...
"The snow's cold and white
but I'm warm and relaxed
'cause I'm married to Jenny
and she's great with an Axe!"
and the next date to be put on the Calendar is the MPS in Rastede!
date: saturday the 11th of May 2013
place: Rastede, Germany
event: Mittelalterliches Phantasy Spectaculum
The absolute biggest moving medieval and fantasy festival that we've played on.The legendary MPS travels through all of Germany putting down it's roots for one fantastic event in town after town, moving on like a glorious medieval circus. We'll be Paganfolkrocking the various stages together with a mass of other great bands like the Dolmen, Das niveau, Saltatio Mortis, Feuerschwanz, Saor Patrol a.o and amazing circus acts all amongst the and varied weird market stalls under trees lit by the glow of giant fires and a thousand torches and oil lamps... don't miss it!
Greenthingz! Stenny ...pic by Logen nine-fingers
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Hugging Trees...
concert advent calendar no:5 ...
a close embrace of Oak and Beech.. what more can I say, that this picture can't?
and the next date to be put on the Calendar is the MPS in Köln!
date: saturday the 3rd of August 2013
place: Köln, Germany
event: Mittelalterliches Phantasy Spectaculum
The absolute biggest moving medieval and fantasy festival that we've played on.The legendary MPS travels through all of Germany putting down it's roots for one fantastic event in town after town, moving on like a glorious medieval circus. We'll be Paganfolkrocking the various stages together with a mass of other great bands like Faun, Saltatio Mortis, Rapalje a.o and amazing circus acts all amongst the and varied weird market stalls under trees lit by the glow of giant fires and a thousand torches and oil lamps... don't miss it!
Greenthingz! dr.Sic (Inquisitor of Creative Chaos) ...pic by Treebeard
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Here we go, here we go... one more Jennii in the snow!
concert advent calendar no:4 ... I failed to "open" a little door with a date and a picture yesterday (Rob's fault, 'cause I don't "do" computers when we have friends visiting) So I'll give you one extra pretty picture of the love of my life, being very much herself in a natural Ice-fantasy setting straight from a Tim Burton movie (but then for real...) and the next date to be put on the Calendar is CastleFest!
date: friday, 2nd of August 2013 AND Sunday 4th of August 2013
place: Kasteel de Keukenhof, Lisse (Holland)
event: Castlefest
Definately one of the best fantasy festivals in Holland, we've been regular guests and loyal friends to this event through the years, ever since we kick-started the first edition back in 2006.(hey! it was actually 2005 already!!! time flies when your having PaganFun!) This year we've offered to play the cosy little village stage in the early afternoon on friday to warm up the event for the weekend in which we'll be sharing the stages with our friends from a.o: Valravn, The Dolmen, Rapalje, Faun, Berliski Beat, Scrum and many many more!
On saturday we will be rocking the stage in another country, But on Sunday we return to Castlefest as headliner on the main stage with a massive OMNIA PaganRockshow as a grand finale to end this fun-packed weekend on a happy (and 100% Pagan) note! INFO HERE
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Walking in a winter wonderland...
concert advent-calendar no:3
and behind door number four we find:
Stenny out enjoying a healthy and invigorating walk in the falling snow.. (I didn't post anything yesterday because we were far gone into our heya heya rituals for most of the day and night :-) ... deep winter is amazing for some really cool psychonautical explorations.. delving into the deepest parts of your self/mind/body... (well it is if you're a Stenny!) And the next deep trip into the calendar is the excellent Feuertanz! we're going back next year!:
date: 21- june 2013
where: Abenberg (bei Nürnberg), DE
event: Feuertanz Festival!!
Next year we're back in the Medieval Castle in Abenberg for another brilliant time at this mittelalter rock festival that has always made us feel very welcome and given us an enduring place to PaganRock! (Glad to be back!)
for info check HERE
Greenthingz! Stenny (picture by Rudolph t.r.n.r)
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OMNIA Birdhouse!
concert advent-calendar no: 2
so we turn open the little flap and it's:
Jenny holding our new OMNIA-Birdhouse! This beautifull and usefull ornithological art-work was made for us by our very sweet neighbour Ans , to have a tastefull and warm place for the birdies :-) And speaking of warm and artistic places, the next date on our 2013 agenda is this! :
The MPS 20th year anniversary party!!
date: april the 6th 2013
place: Westfalenhalle, Dortmund, Germany
event: The MPS 20th year anniversary party!!
An explosive kick off to the new festival year , celebrating the 20th year of the amazing MPS Medieval/fantasy fairs of our (very big... literally) friend Gisi, He celebrates the success by putting on a massive show with an impressive line-up including our friends from:
Das Niveau, Rapalje, Saltatio Mortis, Saor Patrol, Faun, Fiddlers Green, Feuerschwanz, and more! Ticket info
Looks like a fun day! We'll be there!.. will you? ... Greenthingz! Stenny (picture by E)
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Advent Concert Calendar...
You know those cardboard seasonal advent calendars, where you get to open a little window and see a new picture each day? They give you this sort of "oh" feeling at having something new to discover on a regular basis and all within a given theme... and ... as we haven't updated our 2013 concert agenda for quite some time now, we've collected a pile of new concert dates and options from all over the place, which might be nice for YOU to know... (if you're planning on going and seeing us live some time next year that is... ;-) .. Well .. we thought it might be seasonally appropriate to update our calendar in the "one by one" , a gig at a time- way to create for YOU a tiny, yet subtly satisfying, sense of mystery and subsequent revelation with each revealed country, date and location... (ok... so I'm not sure if that beats a tiny, badly rendered picture of a smiling raindeer or a jewish couple who have just become parents in a housing facility for live-stock... but still... it's the thought that counts!). So here's the first picture, I'm peeling back the little cardboard door now and... it says:
Date: July 27th and 28th 2013 (hey? so I'll be having my birthday in america?!)
Place: Mount Pisgah, Eugene, Oregon, USA.
Event: FAERIEWORLDS festival
"For the first time ever...OMNIA will be bringing the one and only, pure and uncut PaganFolk to the US!
Old world Paganism meets the New world tribes! The Clans that were sundered by time, politics and emigration will be re-united for this one amazing, fantastical, artistic and magical Festival in Oregon!
FaerieWorlds here we come! Nature has provided us with a lot of energy, and we long to share it with the cool people over in America! see ya there!!"
Festival website and Ticket information
Greenthingz and 'till the next time!
(exciting isn't it? ;-)
SteveSic et OMNIA
Check out the video:
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Flabbergasted by HARP robbery!!
Dear friends, musicians, colleagues, lovers of art and everyone else…Listen up!
A few days ago, we heard some very shocking news about the theft of FOUR harps from my once conservatory of music-harp-buddy Mirjam Rietberg. This lovely, sweet, good-natured and very talented young professional harpist, who's also very active in the Folk Harp world, found her house empty of almost all her harps. Some fucking arsehole(s) stole the following harps:
David 47 string concertharp, Salvi Livia celtic harp, Hans den Brok chromatic harp and Triplett Avalon (the last one she bought from my mother's store Dreamharps not that long ago…). On the picture you can see what they (and Mirjam) look like.
PLEASE help and have a look out on the internet for any second-hand harps like these that are for sale, ESPECIALLY in all other countries (for selling it in Holland would be nearly impossible, as every harpist, harp builder and harp seller knows each other in this small country). If you can do anything to help, please do. This is not just a financial disaster, this is her LIFE and PASSION and BABIES that were assaulted (if you don't have this relationship with an instrument, just imagine your 4 children being kidnapped, and you'll get close to the feeling). Thank you for sharing this message as often as you can, there is no such thing as spam as far as this kind of thing is concerned so go for it!
Thank you so much, with a sad heart I wish Mirjam a lot of strength and hope we will be able to find the stupid honourless bastards who did this…..Love and peace, Jenny / OMNIA
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first snow of the season!
So.. who said "winter is coming"?.. it seems to be here! ... Woke up , looked out my window, 's all covered in snow! .. Stenny likes snow, it's like a bandage to cover the human inflicted wounds upon the earth (when you live in the city) or like a really cool white fluffy visual/climatic entertainment show (when you live in nature , with a warm hut and a fireplace to keep you safe after an exciting walk in the woods)...sad for the birdies and the fuzzies though... extra feeding neccessary to get them over the first cold shock. (a lot of our more obscure "neigbours" are becoming less shy , now that they are getting hungrier! .. Anyway, after a nice day out yesterday to visit our friends at the MPS-winter festival (we will be playing there a lot next year, and the new agenda is going on-line this week so you can see where and when we play!) , we be working for the "greater good" of OMNIA today (Jenny was playing one of the new tunes on piano in the background as I started writing this blog, but she's now checking e-mails in "the office") ah well , no complaints though, we have a good life,no stress... Anyway... I myself will delve into the inner catacombs of the web and it's assorted dungeons of terror now to make sure that
1: OMNIA stays alive and functioning
2:OMNIA has enough gigs to play so YOU can get to see/hear us (and we YOU)
3:OMNIA rewards the good guys and pisses of the wankers...always! ;-)
Greenthingz! dr.SteveSic pope of Paganism and inquisitor of Chaos (pic of Jennii by Niiv)
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What a lovely day... I don't wanna work...let's go to MPS! (born to slack!)
So , dear reader, today was gonna be a working day for us, behind the computer.. even when we have a nice long holiday from playing gigs, the "Pagan Office" still keeps ticking over...at the moment we're fixing up the gigs for next year (we'll be updating our agenda next week with some VERY unexpected new concert dates!.. keep watching!)... but it looks like such a lovely day today... and we know there is a MPS medieval/fantasy winter market in Telgte (Germany) today, which is only about 2 hours drive from our home... so we thought: "Fuck it! we're gonna have some fun!" and so we're off in our very own Tardis time-machine (the OMNIA van) to timetravel to a happy land where we can score a new cup for Jenny (she broke her favourite mug yesterday, so we really have to go to a medieval market now to replace it!...ahem) anyway.. have a good one! Greenthingz and major slacking!!! Stenny ;-) (pic by sic)
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keepin' it REAL !!
Keepin' it real... that's what we're doing, day in day and day out, so (as I owe you some words that I haven't penned lately here's a blog, from me...to YOU:
I'll give you a short description of my day today:
woke up early (for a rockstar) as the sun rose (Jenny was still sleeping tightly like an uber cute amber-dreadlocked dormouse) ... we were jamming on new OMNIA material and reading poetry (Lewis Carrol) in front of the fire untill quite late last night... anyway, I got up and went for a morning walk in the forest to say hi to the early birds and the squirrels..mmmmm..misty mornin'!... had some great conversations with the creatures, sang a bit with a blackbird, sucked air and felt my heart pump with life... got back home, made breakfast for us both and woke my love to start the day properly... today's a "working day" for us (which means "office work" , because musick isn't work, it's pure enjoyment) so I slapped on my evil little laptop and worked my way through a pile of e-mails and phonecalls... some nice, some neutral, some shitty... having gotten properly fecked up after too much computer and humans, I felt we needed a break (a thing that happens to me quite easily as I believe that computers, the internet and business are all a little evil sometimes... but you knew that ;-)... so I went and lugged some heavy bits of wood around outside our house (aka: "arsing around") to keep my body moving, my blood circulating and my mind level... I ate a light lunch with Jenny and now it's (wow!) 16.18 already as I write this to you (Jenny's outside now chopping blocks of wood for the fireplace with a gigantic axe...so sweet!) ... I noticed I hadn't blogged since our LAST GIG of 2012... so now I write this: Aw man! , that was a grungy gig in Altstad! we had lots of PaganFun (even though the sound system was a little creaky) , we saw a LOT of friends and fans and we got to finish our concert year in a wonderfull "old school" atmosphere (It was like being back in a punkband again in this setting :-)...it's been a good gig-year for us on the OMNIA front... two club tours, a theatre tour and ofcourse all the wonderfull festivals that we were invited to play on... wow!.. we have a good life!... we're not rich (by obese western consumerism standards), but we are very happy indeed... we're not as famous and loved as Gaga, but we do'nt need to be , because we have real fans who support us and who buy tickets to our shows and who buy our songs on CD and as downloads... You are still a great employer, and we are greatfull that we get to do this weird pagan shit working only for YOU... thanx so much for giving all of this to us... it's YOU who provide the food that we eat,the instruments we play, the roof over our heads, the birdballs we buy to give to our feathered friends and the ability to make and produce our own musick and CD's... thanx again, we really appreciate it! (just so you now)... I'm busy writing some articles for the all new RAVENTIMES which will go out properly on the web next month... Now that we have forced ourselves to have a long winterbreak from live-concert playing, We're finding the "space in our heads" free again... so the music starts flowing in!. New compositions and songs that have been "brewing" for months are starting to get defined and the NEW OMNIA performances and CD's of the future are being born right now... (after I post this I'm gonna play some more 'cause there's this riff I just can't get out of my head) ... I was thinking of asking YOU to help us decide what style of songs we should put in our show next year, because we write so much different material, we can just let you decide.. you know.. do you want more "Saltatio" style or more "Jabberwocky's"? , do you prefer the "Old man Tree" type songs or are you more into the "Dance untill we Die"'s?... I'm thinking up a way to let you help us (More in our newsletter the RAVENTIMES about that)... Oh yeah.. I still owe some of you an answer about the 'Teeshirt situation'... well it seems that we will be getting all our money back, so that means we can start a new printrun soon, I haven't got it back on our bankaccount yet , because it's still "in the post" but I also haven't put the name of the responsible printer online and I've refrained from dissing them till they bleed, because we want to give them the chance to make it right... (but, if all remains "not well" , we still have a groovy lawyer and a really lovely dissing-rant ready written for the purpose.. but I think I won't have to use them...) ... Daphyd (the crow) is coming round tomorrow for a friendly visit with Jenny (the blackbird) and Sic (the Raven)which should be fun...m maybe he'll also enjoy dragging wood around the house?...(and he's also going to practice singing close harmony with us.. but he doesn't know that yet... oh... I suppose he does now!)
anyway... thanx for reading this looooong blog (you especially Rob!).. It was great to talk to you again, take care, have a great evening/morning/night/afternoon depending on current location and timeline... x SteveSic
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Somebody told me this week that my expectations are too high, when it comes to the quality of work that other monkeys can achieve … the monkey that told me this was an executive of a printing plant that fucked up our entire printrun of OMNIA tee-shirts … again… (the reason why we had no merch during our entire tour) and I'm in the van as I write this…on our way to see the printer right now (together with Jenny and Chloé), to get our money back personally…something he has been reluctant to do when merely speaking to us on the phone or by mail…
For most monkeys "quality" is a very relative state.. they cannot judge what is high or low, because they lack the skills to detemine the difference… so they will be perfectly happy with low-grade illusions… fake massmarket burgers… fake massmarket bands… fake massmarket movies.. fake massmarket clothes… fake mass market lives… but still: FAKE!
"You can't expect such a high quality"… That statement kind of summs up our existence as artistic -shamanic- bohemian- practically inclined creatures of energy and light… We want a too high quality of life, and we want it every day..
Jenny and myself always aim to reach the highest quality and integtrity in anything and everything we do,no matter if it is cooking, writing text, composing musick, making love, hiking, relaxing, building a bird house, making clothing…whatever… and so we (naively) expect others to strive for the same high levels of excellence as we do… a sad and ultimately disappointing wish as most of this human world is populated by creatures with a head full of shit and the artistic/esthetic capabilities of a mud-brick. So if at any time we feel frustrated at the extreme low-quality "fakeness" of this world it is merely an extrapolation of the fact that we have too many skills ,we do stuff too well and have too much intelligence/ critical path analysis to appreciate it all with… we have lovely clothes (we make them ourselves). we eat the tastyest dishes of the finest food (we cook them ourselves), Our house looks stunning (we decorate it ourselves) and has lots of handy features making life there easier and more fun (which we build ourselves). We have a really enjoyable and spiritually fulfilling religion (which we basically made-up ourselves), We play really cool and freaky musick (which we write ourselves) on some extremely weird and unique instruments (which we build ourselves) we have a band (which we made ourselves) we have a record company (which we built ourselves) which has cd's (which we make ourselves) filled with cool art (which we make ourselves). We keep fit and strong (by working out ourselves) , we got dreads (even those we make ourselves)… I haven't even started to sum up all the things that we've learned through the years that we DON"T use or do so much anymore.. (like: oil-painting, fine-art, professional dance, stunt-fighting, weapon making, martial arts, fire-stunt art,archeology, celtic history , wildernis survival, mountaineering etc).…the list goes on for quite a while… oh yeah… (I realise that in a Calvinistic ex-Christian Europe it's socially seen as "not polite" to sum up what your good at unless you are royalty) BUT modesty is something I've never learned, because I'm a real kicking screaming , larger than life , warp spasm-ing Celt of the CuChullain/ Slaine type. (not to be confused with the humble, polite , impotent "top of the mornin' too you sir" variety) … I suppose you have to be into ancient Celtic values to understand that last statement… I am also a rapper with a license to say "FUCK" quite loudly whenever I want, … so whaddap! , we have more skills than any average 100 mutant monkey motherfuckers out there and yet we are still forced to put up with all the bullshit of all these dumbfucks around us on the planet making the place ugly, stupid cruel and pointless… bereft of esthetics...
sigh… this can effect the way I express myself at times...
Soooo… as you probably have read more of my blogs, you've seen that when we occasionally have to "judge" the end products of other monkeys around us (be it music, art, food,religion, or a print run of tee-shirts ) forgive us if we seem arrogant or if we sometimes project a "better than the rest of the world" attitude…but it's quite simply because we are… (don't get me wrong… I realise I have tonnes of faults aswell… I just don't seem to care about them so much ;-)
The reverse of this means that if we judge something done by others as "GOOD" , you can bet your ass that it's really fucking great, because our art-appreciation skill has levelled up to about 94% by now… and it's still rising...
AND the good news for YOU is that you CAN expect only the HIGHEST QUALITY POSSIBLE from us in everything we do…
We compose to make the finest musick, we live for the best Life , we Strive for the best Art, we Fight for the best World… everyday.
See you all on the net Greenthingz … XXX Stenny
Drawing of the Celtic Hero "Slaine" by the most excellent Simon Bisley...
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This is the End...
Today we play the last theatreshow before the end of the world... This last beautifull artistic night will take place in Parkstad Theatre , Kerkrade, NL
(close to germany and Belgium)...
after that it's game over... no more gigs... (check our agenda if you think I'm kidding). If you couldn't make it at all to this last and best theatre tour...well here's a short video to show you some snibbits of what you've missed... here you can watch it on the very excellent:
or you can watch it on fucking Murdoch's fucking shitty youtube:
Last chance to see ya'll tonight!... and we'll be extra happy 'cause our "last supper" will be arranged and cooked by "TribeMother" Maja tonight, who's coming all the way from Kassel to fix us our last meal... Greenz and It was nice knowing you... SteveSic
(ps: the applicable word "irony" doesn't mean "a lot like a ferrous metal")
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Life... Time... and nudity in the forest.
Sometimes life is sooo confusing?! .. you see it's like this...Tomorrow we play:
and ofcourse I'm all exited and sad about it at the same time...I'm exited because this theatre tour was musically the best we've ever done, with many challenging and moving musical pieces in it, all of which are favoured 'loved ones' of ours...The sound is perfect...(Yo Sascha!), the lights are stunning...(Yo Arvid!) the Roadie roadies... (yo Damien!)... the merch is cooking for the fans (well everything except Tee-shirts and hoodies , but that is another story for another blog)...(Yo Chloé) and tomorrow we do it one last time! Let's make it a special gig guys and gals!!!
so...exited!.. yeah! :-)... I'm also a bit sad to think that we won't be doing this fantastic set anymore 'cause that means I'll have to miss playing with the whole band ,great songs like "the Raven", "Bran" , "Moon", "OldManTree", "Jabberwocky" etc for quite a while... untill we either:
1: do another theatre tour (season 2013/14)and decide to keep those songs in the repertoire...or...
2: some festival decides to book a special (full band) OMNIA-Poëtree show instead of our PaganFolkRock madness...
otherwise Jenny and me could always decide to do some more teeny tiny acoustic Poëtree gigs if the songs really need to be sung before an audience again... (but I would miss the lads...) so sad that it's the last one for now... snif!...
Anyway as these conflicting emotions rain down upon my poor liddle artistic constitution I am also deeply involved in frantically making the "theatre promotion material" needed by our Dutch theatre booker (the mighty men and women of Mojo)... A product of which being that I had to get my picture taken, stark-naked, out in the woods, at 5 degrees centigrade this ...brrr!... This stuff always happens like this because the deadline for the picture and story of the "New OMNIA Theatretour of 2013/14" is tomorrow (on the last day of our 2012 tour)... Mojo needs these things to put in a special brochure, which then the theatres of holland can look at this winter , to decide if they actually want to book this weird band of Pagans for their pretty establishment in the coming year(s)... I always get into temporal trouble here, because this forces me to look into the future (which doesn't exist) and then to write a consistent story (with a title) about what we are actually going to do there apart from just "being OMNIA" (which is what we actually always do)... so anyway...
why oh why do I always let the deadline get so close!? (I'm such a procrastinator of stuff I don't like doing)... des toutes facons... We made up a title and a story together with Arvid (who can sometimes think "in the box" much better than we can) and we struggled some with the artistic parameters of the pictures we could take... I won't show you the end-result be here is one which I just had to share with you... enjoy! Greenz and cold bits.. dr.SteveSic (picture by Fungle)
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Not blogging much am I?... (we)
Well, that's 'cause Stenny is kinda busy the last few days... We sort of try to steer a course between mailing/phoning/arranging "business-stuff" and relaxing/enjoying life/chilling "Pagan-Stuff)... but this sadly leaves me little time to let my thoughts wander on the keyboard.
Now, for example, I had to take a phone call which leaves Jenny behind the keyboard...Not much for blogging she is, words are hard, melodies are easy she says...SO you'll have to do it with this shallow bit of blog and the nice picture of Stenny in the office in the woods :o)
Pagan Love & Greenthings
the Stensters
pic by Mr Tackx
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Believe in your own weirdness and Art
Since we are not playing a lot this winter, and we are almost done with the Theatre gigs for a while now.. (last theater next week in kerkrade, check our agenda)
We are going to work hard this winter, creating, dreaming, living, making sure we can offer you guys a lot for next year…with much more of our Omnia creativity.
So freaky people out there who read this,
I really hope to see you guys next year, when we are going to Rock the stage again,
on one of the many summer festivals in Europe.
Come join us for this crazy PaganFolk and give us the energy we need
to give you the energy to dance...until we die ;)
One more thing:
Years ago a wise man told me:
"Believe in your own weirdness and Art"
This has brought me to where I am now, a happy person, doing what I love to do most,
Together with lots of friends.
Live your dream and share it with the world!
Greenzz, DAPHYD
Picture by "gruftimusik.de": Omnia's ritual before a show. We stay connected, with each other and the earth
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Fried eggs, Organic Coffee and literature...
Everyday in the Stenny Studio starts with our morning ritual of : a relaxed and nourishing breakfast and fresh ground coffee ,taken together with a good book and plenty of time to enjoy it in... Sometimes with guests... like during a tour when we car-pool a lot to reduce our monkey-footprint... here you see the noble silhouette of an intellectual guitarman partaking of said pleasures to fortify his artistic constitution in order to "rock" YOU this evening in the penultimate theatre of our tour in the city of Capelle aan den Ijssel... and..for those curious minded interested individuals amongst yourselves (who like to collect these little facts).. this could be YOU but I'm not sure , so if you if you are not interested in this info just indulge my literary wanderings for the sake of your peers....ahem.... I can inform you (or your more interested peers) of the following facts: he took his eggs with a broken yolk on cheese n' toast, (soy)milky-sweet coffee and the book he's staring at is "the Doors of Perception" by Huxley... (Jenny is reading the most excellent "Quicksilver" trilogy by Neal Stephenson and I'm devouring Terry Pratchett's new ode to dickens called "Dodger"...) there now you know...Cyberhugz and Greenthingz (with a lot of autumnal brown, red and orange) Stenny and Philip....(and the OMNIA gang sayz "Hi!" and the birds say "Peep!")
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the Dalai-Farmer...
There's nothing like a little bit of gardening on the morning of a theatre concert... it helps me to wake up and focus on the musick ... I just planted some more little trees (there's never enough trees... even when you live in a forest ;-) ... see some of you later on today in Wijchen or Cappelle aan de Ijssel tomorrow... I'll be seeing most of you on your computer screen on my next blog! Have a very green morning, afternoon, evening, night.. (depending on your geographic location around the planet) Cyberhugz and Nature rulez! SteveSic (Pope, Shaman, Dalai-farmer) ...picture by Paulus the forest-gnome...
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Packking dha Zootcase!!
Dis is me!.. mr.Fluffy! Me just helped pack dhe zootcases for Stenny, cos we go to annoddr OMNIAshowconsurtgig tooday!... Mr.Fluffy hav important job as mannedjur, Me make dhe band feel confidha...konnfidun...confydonso... GOOD on STAGE! an me make sure dhat SteveSic has his stagewaterbottle and sweatyface towell packed... an tonite we PLAY! see Youu in Purrmurrend! Fluffythingz! mr.Fluffy
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Let us Pray....# with footnotes
We've just been out praying in the forest... As non-dogmatic Pagans who worship only nature itself , we have many different choices on how to pray to our dearly beloved planet/solar system/universe... It isn't mandatory for us to go to a large house once a week and mumble at an invisible bearded monkey in the sky... Neither do we have to beat up, torture or burn unbelievers as a form of worship (although some times I'm very tempted indeed!)
We just try to keep it simple and practical ..as we think more like Granny Weatherwax *
So everytime we are out walking in the woods the simplest thing for us to do, is to take along an empty bag... as we walk along we pick up the garbage that all those selfish, ignorant human monkeys leave behind•••
This way we enjoy nature, the forest becomes free of plastic and other rubbish where we pass, and we feel good , holy and self righteous about ourselves (which is an obvious by-product of prayer) See? it's a win-win situation for us AND our "gods"...
So that was my Blog on prayer for today! and... as there were some complaints from one or two fans ¥ about seeing my ugly face too much on the little bloggies that I write, here's a picture of dear Jenny making the forest a cleaner (and definately prettier) place...
Greenthingz! and see you all in the theatre! XXX Stenny
# with footnotes
* what? you don't know who Granny Weatherwax is?... poor you... she's probably the wisest women who ever sat on a broomstick in the greater multiverse , achieving this feat by stepping out of the head of the greatest philosopher of our time**
** Try looking under the name "Terry Pratchett"
***because the little buggers are simply not aware of the fact that it's the wrong thing to do if you care for your living enviroment˚˚˚˚
˚˚˚˚ Actually Stenny has become quite an expert on the waste-dumping habits of humans, just by studying what get's left behind the most and where...I'll probably publish a small paper on it this winter in the RavenTimes..
¥ all male ofcourse!
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The Raven and the Wolf
Today we go to play a deep emotional gig again… one of the last beautifull theatres in our tour…. after that the winter will give us rest and contemplation…
Today I will let somebody else speak, this is a letter Jenny and me received this morning from our (very spiritual) friend Marius, who to us has always been the very personification of "the healer" listen to his words:
"Never forget the deepest Truth: The dream we live in makes us belief we 're seperate beings. Yes, we have different bodies, even different minds, but in the Inner Circle of Knowledge we 're just One!
So dream whatever you want to dream, but hold on to your deepest thruth and we will all be fine. I 'm you and you are me. Your band shows it. When you, as a group, are well atuned, you act like a living organism, like one being. And that's the sjamanic part. People sense that, long for it.
The Raven said: Never more...
Grey Wolf says: Go on and keep your inner Flame burning…"
Thanx for your words of wisdom Marius… What more can I say?…
Greenz and Peace to the peacefull Steve , Jenny and the never ending OMNIA family
(picture by the famous anonimus)
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"Bring out your Dead!" (confessions of Sic)
The first "real" RavenTimes FanLetter in a long time is going to be sent to your mailbox starting Tomorrow! (If you haven't subscribed yet to the OMNIA PaganClan Fanclub but you would like to read these "more private" band messages which cannot be sent directly over the internet (because they are either illegal, or too shocking), just click on "FanClub" on our homepage and all will be revealed…
here's an excerpt of what's coming:
"Bring out your Dead!" (confessions of Sic)
-"..I came across a most wonderous book today "the PaganClan Tribes of OMNIA 2010" book……"
-"..The PaganClan started to scare me a little. because Cracks had started to appear in what I had always thought of as the strong and loyal family which was OMNIA…"
-"..I didn't notice my band crumbling behind me due to some miscommunications, some dishonesty, some bad record deals and some really stupid financial issues…"
- "..because of those negative minds, I lost all my enthousiasm for running the entire PaganClan because I felt I had lost the right to tell anybody what to do, as I had failed with what was once one of my best friends ... "
-"..I'm basically just a simple hard-working 3rd millenium shaman you know, who can talk better with trees, animals and spirits than with humans... Nature is always honest and clear to me, people are another matter.."
-".. don't forget the most important thing, if we share our thoughts we stand together... and together we stand STRONG!.. "
interested?…it's free!… so get subscribed NOW!
Greenthingz! OMNIA
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A Short video impression of the 2012 OMNIA theatretour
This is what our theatre show looks like through the eyes and lenses of our dear flim-maker friend Erwin van Dijck...
please share this video with as many people as you know on the web...we'll be giving away more prizes to the lucky few who get picked from all who share!
(also available on VIMEO!)
Greenthingz! Stenny and the OMNIA family
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Shine the Light on me!
The one and only master of disaster, king of the lighting technique universe and all round "bad boy" of light design is back in the OMNIA family! After an absence of two years our original lightguy (and good friend) Arvid is back in the house and on the OMNIA team in the theatres! After doing the first shows with a different dude who wasn't really "OMNIA material" we asked Arvid if he had the time to take over for the rest of the season and now "The dream team" is back together again :-) Yeah baby! It's so awesome for us to have our favourite light-master flicking the switches and shifting the faders during the show and going with the flow… (it feels like "home" again on the OMNIA stage!) Arvid is really deep into our musick and he plays the light desk and the stage like an instrument, making the musick visible in the light-show (as any of you who have seen Arvid at work during our last musick show in Waalwijk will have noticed..). I'm soooo glad we can present to you the highest quality OMNIA show which those of you who have taken the time to come and see us deserve. ( I was a little embarrased about the bad lights on the first few shows, sorry for that ;-)… anyway, the theatre shows are still ticking over one by one during this tour, and we give our best at every show, no matter what the stage is like or if it's a full house or a barely half full venue…
Sometimes it's a little strange for me to hear via internet etc. so many people who would love for us to play in Canada, South America, Nort America, Spain ,Poland etc. but then… when I get on some stages here in Holland where we actually live I am confronted with a mass of empty chairs in theatres that we could normally fill to the brim…
I see some of our long time fans and hard-core Pagan friends out there, but where are the masses of "normal-people"? Has the economic crisis finally touched OMNIA aswell? Are our ticket sales in some places low because no-one has the cash to go and see a show anymore? (especially the old folks who are losing enormous chunks of their pensions and benefits because of supreme Bastard-dom and corruption in the upper echelons of government… although I see that all the biggest banks and the largest company in the world Shell had a tidy profit this year…ahem) Or do most of the dutch people think we suck, because we don't fit in the Format, we don't advertise, and we don't speak human? …
I mean, ofcourse we never set out to preach to the commercial masses (the masses and the music industry love Justin Bieber and other over advertised crap) so no loss there…And an audience of 1 is still an audience (and that 1could actually be YOU)… so we play 100% no matter what, where or who for……But it would still be nice to get a few more bums on the seats of the remaining shows of this tour (If only so that you can get to see all the beautifull work that Arvid has done to the stage)… So … dear people , if you haven't had the chance to catch a OMNIA theatre show yet…then get of your arse and make your way to one of the coming venues (that are in our agenda) and show your support by spacing out and joining us for some Pagan Folk! Hugs and Greenthingz! SteveSic and the whole extended OMNIA family XXX (picture by Kees Stravers)
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the Packing of the van…
Here we go again…packing the black an' beautifull OMNIA van (new and improved with crow and hawk stickers!) for another night of theatrical fun… this time in "de Leest" Waalwijk…I'm so busy with the performance/musick part of our life (and then recouperating afterwards) that I have been shamefully lacking in creative blogs for a while… I haven't offended or shocked anyone in ages on the web (wow!?) and all I seem to be writing are these polite little messages about going to and from theatre gigs lately (because they seem to fill my life at the moment) and about the fact that I'm happy spending my days in nature (which I must say is like a soothing balm on my tortured soul)… BUT have no fear , I'm sure I'll write something more substantial and freaky soon, because there are ofcourse still many subjects that piss me off aswell about which I'm just itching to blogg (got a whole fucking lawyer-thing running at the moment with more "nice" non-creative money-making people from the music-business… still wanna blow up the royal family and the house of parliament… still wanna save the earth from the encroaching onslaught of human cancer… etc. etc.) But these subjects will all have to wait for now, because today I do the most satisfying and important thing I can possibly do in this life (apart from Loving my wife and my kidz) which is: Making Musick for the Disenfranchised masses! catch ya later! Greenz and Peace to the peacefull dr. Sic (picture by Eddy the Squirrel)
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New Pictures!
Hi there!
I just uploaded some really nice OMNIA Theatre pictures in our gallery Pictures made by Marcel Bakker, thanks man, they look great!
Greenzz Daphyd
P.s. If you want to join this magical moments you see on the pictures, com join us at one of our gigs this theatre season..
Our next one is tomorrow: OMNIA Theater Show, Theater De Leest, Waalwijk, NL (tickets)
Also have a look in our Agenda
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WytchesBrew PaganFood...
When you're on a tour the food situation can get pretty gruesome after a while...It's hard to get anything eco-friendly or vegetarian at a venue, so you usually end up choosing the "easy option"... but even for a culinary teenage mutant ninja turtle like myself the pizza's tend to lose their charm after a few nights, if you know what I mean.. Food is very important to us, it's not just physical sustenance, but also an expression of who we are. we respect nature and we wish only to eat that which is least damaging to ourselves , our fuzzy friends in nature and our enviroment (so no cheap concentrationcamp meat, and chemically fucked up rubbish for us!, no way dude!. We're fighting for nature here , so we need to stand by our religious principles and that definately also means thinking about what we eat!)... So we have decided that during this theatre tour we will cook dinner for the whole band and crew ourselves! (just because you're a rockstar doesn't mean you can't cook your own 100% heya/eco dinner) anyway.. So far it's going pretty well, most of us take a turn at cooking (you really don't want to let Rob cook...believe me!) so Daphyd made a delicious pasta-salad last week, while the day after Jenny treated our tastebuds to her famous Pumpkin/Beetroot soup! For last night's gig nobody had time to cook, so we settled for option no2 (pizza) ... but today I've got some time left, so I'm fixing up a giant wytches brew of traditional Dutch brown bean soup (a family recipe I learned from my mum, with some added "chef Sic" influences ofcourse for that added "je ne sais quoi")... cooking is really and alchemy of life "can you taste the soup that feeds us?" ... ;-)
I do hope the gang will like it... , we'll have it on saturday...yum!... hmmm?.... speaking of gig food, I wonder what Daphyd is cooking for tomorrow's show?... I hope he'll do his south african thingy again sometime (buboti? boboto? umboti?.. what was that name again?) Well i suppose we'll find out in Uden, whatever it is he made.I'm sure it will be lovely (he cooks almost as good as he didges), well anyway, I hope to see at least some of you out there at a show soon , I have no idea where (and when) exactly you all are when you read these blogs, I meet people from all over the place at the gigs from very far-flung countries like Bretagne, Switzerland, Germany , Israel , Spain (I even met a lovely pair of people who came over to europe from Oman and were all exited about finally seeing an OMNIA gig!)
Weird world.. weird life... but a good one!.. so, I'm gonna stir my cauldron for a while ... humming "bubble bubble toil and trouble" and thinking nutricious thoughts... bye for now! Greenz and Beanz dr.(chef)pope Sic ;-)
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It's empty without you! (the curse of Uden!) FREE TICKETS in UDEN!
Oh my fecking gods! I just heard that the ticket sales for the OMNIA theatre show in the city of Uden next friday are dramatically low! Could it be the curse of Uden again?…
The last time we played there our drummer was stuck in a snowstorm in Germany and our didgeplayer left the band via Facebook just before the gig! So we ended up doing a show with just Philip, Jenny and me!!! (helped out by our sweet friend Maral who had never been on stage before!)
So … that night we had a good crowd, but not enough band members on stage. but now it looks like it could be the other way round!? … this is wrong! let's break the curse of Uden! so what we are going to do is this:
EVERY ONE WHO BUYS ONE TICKET FOR THE SHOW IN UDEN GETS ONE EXTRA TICKET FOR FREE!!! So that's TWO for the price of ONE!!!
We want to see you guys have a good time , and we don't give a shiddleywink about the cash! so grab this opportunity to take your girlfriend/boyfriend/grandmother/spacealienneighbour or whatever to the OMNIA show! get your (FREE) tickets HERE! … I know it doesn't say so on their website, but it's true! phone em if you don't believe me…(we just did)… greens! SteveSic
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Look what I found on the attic...
I came across this great autographed picture of our friend Lawrence Makoare (who played many a beautifull and magnificent bad-guys in movies like "Lord of the Rings") I remember him getting on stage with us at a festival years ago for the best (and only) live version of "Get the Halfling" that we ever played... What a guy... what a warrior! ...
I hope your out there doing allright Lawrence, we never found that fucking Halfling, but if we do , we WILL call you!... the search for the halfling continues in a theatre in Roosendaal today which for us will be quit an unusual gig, for reasons I won't explain to you (a little mysteriousity is most recommendatory in the early morningal period)... Greenz and FECKING" ART BABY! dr.SteveSic, Gandalf , Saruman and the other wizards
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SteveSic's Cloggs!
I put a "I spy with my little eye(phone)" picture on face book a couple of days ago, with the question what is this exactly?… (check out facebook to see the picture) There is a great prize involved in getting the right answer Well we got a lot of reactions on this question and masses of answers that said something along the lines of "It's a Clog/ it's Dutch wooden shoe/het is een "Klomp" etc. And although these answers are generally in the right area, they are not the correct answer I was looking for. You see life is usually a lot more specific than it seems first hand… because the correct answer was ofcourse that its' my bloody clog… because that's what it is.
It's kinda like the difference between talking about:
"a random montheistic religion" (which could be any one of the popular politically suspect, brainwashing systems of mass control in vogue on this planet)
or talking about a specific monotheistic religion that is responsible for torturing and burning about 9.000.000 of my ancestors in Europe.. (ie: Christianity)…
It always pays to be SPECIFIC in what you say (and think)
So the answer to this week's "I spy with my little eye(phone)" picture is:
SteveSic's Clog!
'cause I love wearing em, when I work in the garden…I may only be half Dutch, but I have more respect for ancient Dutch traditions than most of these so called "conservative" America worshipping, McDonald's sucking consumer monkeys here in the flatlands...
So I see that only one answer comes close to this , and I'm happy to say that the grand prize which is a free OMNIA theatre ticket plus a "meet and greet" in the backstage with OMNIA plus a signed copy of the new CD aswell as a free didgeworkshop by Daphyd! goes to……(drumroll)….
Daphyd! congratulations dude!
now we're off to Drenthe (not Groningen) to play in a converted farmhouse theatre in Roden…catch ya later (the next "I spy" will be posted soon ;-) … Green, peace and pick up your trash when you walk in nature! XXX dr.SteveSic (pope/pagan)
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Ah! The Theatre!
We've made a good start of our new theatre tour by playing our 1st gig of this theatrical season in the high north of holland (we'll be back there in de winsinghof in Roden on friday) and we're really bouncing all over Holland back and forth because I see that thursday were in Hengelo, and saturday we play in Leiden in the beautifull old theatre there on the gracht (and …for those of you who (like us) don't have so much money to spend on expensive theatre tickets,they have a special offer on tickets in Leiden for only €9.30!! which you can get at the door on saturday)… anyway, we love to play these special acoustic shows, but really, an OMNIA experience is not the same for us without YOU!
We hope to see as many of you at one of the coming shows as possible (check out the OMNIA agenda for the locations because there are some on the border to Belgium and Germany aswell!
Join us for a spiritual/Pagan night filled with the musickal magick of the ancient Celts… peace and Greenthingz OMNIA (photo by Michael Lahmann)
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Pimp my Guitar!
The master at work….Philips guitar is being pimped at this very moment…Come and see the finished artwork during our theater tour…Three in a row to come this week:
11.10.2012: OMNIA Theater Show, Rabotheater, Hengelo (kleine zaal), NL
12.10.2012: OMNIA Theater Show, Theater de Winsinghhof, Roden, NL
13.10.2012: OMNIA Theater Show, Leidse Schouwburg, Leiden, NL
Hope to see you there! Greens from the forest xx Jenny
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Meet Bawu from China!
Check this out freaky people! I gotta brand new Bawu and I know how to use it!
(filmdudes Erwin & Michelle brought it to clogland for me after their recent Chinese adventure) so...spot the new flute in my wind instrument-arsenal!! can you see which one is new? (I'll give you a hint, it's got feathers on it)...
We've also got a few more cute new instruments to use during the OMNIA THEATRE TOUR which starts TOMORROW in CC van Beresteyn Veendam! Come along and check out the new soundz and new lookz of our upgraded theatrical stage collection!! (plus the new songs ofcourse!) See it for yourself in one of the many fine Dutch stages we'll be gracing with our PaganFolk Musick and blessing with the spiritual kiss of nature during the next one and a half months! Greenthingz , Pagan Musick and Peace... OMNIA
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New Video! Toys in the Attic...
Hi there Freaky people!
This is OMNIA's theatrical anthem celebrating Insanity and the quest for being a Freak living in a society of brain-dead zombie consumers...
We will be performing a new version of this song during our upcoming dutch Theatretour with the whole band together on stage...!
Check out the dates and venues in our agenda.
See you there!
Greenz OMNIA!
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Let's do it differently!
Today is a practice day with the whole band together :-)... happy pagans at Dreamharps making musick and chilling out , we've had a long day of musical creativity making and playing the new set for the theatre season which starts on Octobre the 6th in Veendam (NL), after such a great festival season it';s cool to be able to work on new material and more "listening" PaganMusick ... the band is in top-form and we're having a really good time just messing around and enjoying each other's company while the musick flows and good cheer surrounds us... and yes...we've put in a lot of new stuff! (but you'll just have to come and see/hear us play to know what... anyway, this shamanic sound stuff is hard work aswell, so Ans and Hans take care of our nourishment needs... We've just eaten, Jenny and Philip are looking at Artbooks , Daphyd is surfing the internet , I'm writing this blog to YOU and Rob "Slumber" is asleep on the couch...he looks so sweet ;-) Anyway that's all for now, we've this whole evening and an entire new day tomorrow to continue with our artistical pursuits...I wish you a good evening, night, morning or afternoon (depending on which timezone you are in while you read this) and untill we meet/read again.. Greenthingz! wytchdoctor SteveSic et OMNIA (picture of silly band at practice by J.Bond)
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Relatives...It's all so relative...
I once heard that time and space are relatives...of course I didn't believe this, because if that is so , then why didn't they come to my birthday party last summer?
...then again I don't really have any contact with either of my British or Dutch family branches either so I suppose that fictional figments from the minds of physicists fans shouldn't really be noticed in their exclusion from my personal nativity celebrations... BUT the enjoyment of a lot of "stuff" you can experience in your life is relative to the place in "time" and "space" that you happen to be in, and the way in which you perceive said "stuff" based upon past experiences...
If you have always warmed your house with an openfire and you get the possibility to have central heating installed (due to radical changes in industrial grade manufacturing processes and centralised power/energy availability extrapolated from economic changes amongst the human monkeys that dominate your personal habitat)...then you might consider this "a good thing" (because you won't have to chop wood and clean the hearth etc.. just turn a little knob on the wall and ...ah!.. warmth appears... this leaves you much more free time to spend watching television advertising and all for the small price of lots of your money and 100% state dependancy... this is a possibility, this is (as they say) one part of your life in the multiverse.
but on the other hand (in a different trouserleg of time) you can actually have a house with a central heating installation, you are used to it, it's not magic anymore...you know the house get's warm with a click of the wallswitch, but you realise that the warmth is somehow "different" (it's kind of like the difference between your lover's body heat when he/she/it is really sick with a fever, or when he/she/it has just orgasmed after a long energetic lovemaking session... the body temperature may be exactly the same, but it feels very very different indeed... you know what I mean?)
Anyway, so now you have the modern city house with all mod-cons installed, but then perversely, you choose to spend time in a tiny little wooden house where you actually have to chop wood and build a fire in a hearth! losing all that valuable "watching advertising on television/internet" time to doing menial tasks such as dragging dead bits of arboreal vegetable matter around and breaking them down into smaller bits so that they may be speed-oxidated into light and heat through process of incineration within the space of your woodstove.
We live in the fattest lands of the world, where wealth just pours out of humanity's blind obese arses, and we choose to live like primitives. Because to most WEALTH means , having the latest plastic consumer products (made in China by mostly slave-labour) eating lots and lots of caffeined and sugared foods for little money, like at McDonalds (where you get the tortured and mutilated corpses of the genetically raped children of the once-proud free animal races of the earth) ,and being entertained on TV, the WWW and in the movie-theatres (by endlessly repeated money-making remakes of non-original pulp fiction..made by idiots, for idiots)
and to some WEALTH means walking in the forest in a body that is still strong after a lifetime of too much abuse... seeing the light of the sundown slanting through the canopy of leaves like a song of gold being poured from the universe into our world as the birds call out in perfect harmony... feeling the tears of joy building up behind your eye lids...glancing aside into the eyes of the one you love standing beside you and knowing that she feels the same...that is WEALTH! ;-) Greenthingz and Peace WytchDoctor SteveSic (Pope of non-dogmatic Paganism ...Partisan of Nature)
(picture was taken in the van today as Stenny was leaving the forest to go and work in the city .. photo by speckled Jim)
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Peace during the storm
So...what's happenin?.. well..we're being happy... happy in the forest... Outside our little StennyStudio, deep in the woods the wind is howling... a storm sweeps over this part of the Dutch German border in the hills of Batavodurum.(which was ofcourse the capital city of the Celtic Batavian culture who inhabited these woods in the Maas/Waal estuary over 2000 years ago... well... untill the bloody Romans came that is :-( ... but that is another story, Anyway, history aside...at the moment Stenny is still mostly busy with meeting all the various neighbours (a whole bloody menagery of wild creatures that squeek and howl and hoot and peep merrily at all hours... which soothes our souls, and puts a smile on our silly faces... and , believe me, the sheer amount of fuzzy little feathered feckers we get on our front porch when we put down some bird seed would give the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock the urge to remake the movie "Birds" and call it "Tits!" ... we're working on new material right now, I myself have started on the construction of a Bronze age Celtic garden fence...ahem... and Jenny is looking at curtain material on the net... cough.. OK!, I know you are probably more interested in what we're doing musically, but we're just really shallow at this moment in time... I'm still excited about staring at a woodpecker really close up for half an hour.. (we're easily entertained in nature) But to put your mind at ease, we're also using this great opportunity of actually having all our (more important)Instruments unpacked and in the same room together by playing them! Oh! I love the StennyStudio! We have a recording set-up at hand to work out our little sketches whenever we have them! Yeah! (this is really a PaganMusicians dream!)
Sooo, where was I? Oh yeah, the theatre tour! This week sees the first OMNIA get-togethers to work on the fine details of the show, expect to hear what you know we play best! with an extra big helping of our more soulfull Shamanic/Pagan pieces (both old and new)... we look forward to seeing you in one of the theatres in Holland (if you can get there), where we will translate some of this amazing energy we are getting from nature into our songs so that we can give some of it to YOU! Greenthingz and Peace... Stenny
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Staring at tits...
Sorry for the "Sic is not-blogging at all anymore" of the last two weeks, but Jenny and me have been quite busy with mainly moving instruments and furniture around and spending the rest of our time staring at tits... great tits... and blue tits... and blackbirds... nut hatches... woodpeckers... finches... tawny owls... buzzards... all sorts o' birds really,as well as loads of squirrels! (Nuts!!) because, you see, we've finally found a proper Stenny-nest for the winter! (this picture was taken at our front-door 5 minutes ago). Yes people of the paganfolk persuasion, Stenny has finally found a little woodland house/studio!! Somewhere we can hang our various hats and Celtic longshields...somewhere where we can hang one or two microphones aswell...
It's in the forest on the dutch/german border where we can peacefully make music , write new material and relax, and then we make more music and stare at birds, and then we walk into the forest and ... ;-) ...well, you get the picture! and we can do all this whenever we want! , for at least the next 8 months! No more city-house in stinky Utrecht for a while, we are on a loooong working holiday in da woods!
So this is the reason I couldn't/wouldn't blog for a while...The whole "moving house" circus, combined with the "oh my gods, we need extra furniture!" and the inevitable "where are we going to hang all those fecking bouzoukis , flutes and that new guitar?" and suchlike took away my taste for laptopping... So sorry my friends for keeping you in the dark so long on cyberspace about "what'sup in OMNIA/Stenny land"...but now you know! This is really a beautifull Mabon/Autumnal Equinox this year...We are harvesting the bounty of nature/life after working hard all summer, and life is really very fucking good indeed! Thank you nature and thank YOU! for making it possible for us to live like this!
OMNIA is now in the process of rehearsals for the new theatre season which starts on the 6th of octobre in Veendam CC van Beresteyn (NL) (dus lieve Nederlanders, nu niet meer klagen dat we nooit in het Noorden komen , wij komen eraan, en jullie komen allemaal kijken.. ok? ;-)
Greenest wishes and the light of the sun through autumnal forest leaves to all!
Stenny (picture by Cuchullain)
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The 2012 summer festival season is now officially over for OMNIA! Wow! whata a fecking summer! We had such a great time on the Festival Mediaval in Selb last weekend! It was a really good finish to this beautifull season for us ...to headline the sunday night and play the last gig of the festival to a packed field of the most wonderfull fans ....you really blew us away as we rocked the massive stage with all the energy we had ...thank you for this spark of life that you give us time and again...all the stages, all the countries...it's you we do this for....you guys rock...thank you for being there for us...
Every thing went rosy for us ,the atmosphere was relaxed, the weather was great! After an eight hour drive to the Czech border we just enjoyed the whole saturday... hanging out with a shisha and a mocha ...we got to chill out with loads of our old friends and we met some new ones too...it was cool to just "be" at this last festival ...checking out the concerts (like the awesome set of Stella Mara) and chatting with other bands (we had a really good time with the guys from Schandmaul , just sharing a beer in the backstage and talking about the chaos of life on and off the stage ;-) ... and ... NEWSFLASH!....I can actually tell you officially now that we'll be playing at their huge anniversary party in Köln next year! (Which is an honour for us as they are such Icons in the german Mittelalter Scene)...we'll see you next year guys and girls!....And after seeing the whole Schandmaul show on the saturday night I can assure you that it will be huge party! We drank too much , we smoked too much, we laughed and sang to much, so... next evening when we had to strut our Pagan Stuff on the mainstage we were actually already quit knackered by a whole weekend of partying with all our friends there... and I have to admit that we were a little tired and shagged out just before the show,I was a total sissy and quite floppy in a non-rockstar kinda way... but when we got on stage and looked out over that packed field filled with glorious faces, shiny souls and free spirits, we were grabbed by the moment and we flew! All thoughts of tiredness gone , our hearts opened and we lived the moment all together...We all had goosebumps through the whole fucking show! The whole OMNIA gang was feeling the buzz of the last day of summer and the night was filled with Pagan magic! The audience was awesome!! (as you can tell by their pretty faces on this picture (thanx again guys for letting us take this picture together with you... (could you all autograph it for us the next time we meet?)... and for me personally the greatest compliment was this: straight after the show was finished I ran into the backstage to get some dry and warm clothes on and some shoes (I was kinda half naked and sweaty at the end of the gig)...and when i got in there it was completely empty! the whole place was deserted because everbody was out on the field...now that is rare... It makes me feel humble to see that people seem to "get" what we are trying to say, or if they don't , then at least they can appreciate and accept our humble offerings of musick and life...
We were well rewarded with food (Tofu!) , drink (Whiskey!) and a party afterwards when the huge backstage tent filled up again.... we got to relax and feel the buzz of a job (and a season) completed and well done...we are content with this years festivals, and we look forward to another bountifull summer next year ! (if the world doesn't end in the meantime that is)...and...Expect to see us a lot more in Germany next year! ;-) but that is a story for another time...
Now the OMNIA theatre season will start for us with practice sessions of our more "sophisticated and spiritual" Art which we will get to perform for you in octobre and november in Holland... more about that soon....
and now we'll finish by saying once again and in perfect close harmony :
THANK YOU ALL FOR GIVING US SUCH A GREAT SUMMER!!! ... Greenthingz, Peace...SteveSic, Jenny, Philip, Daphyd, Rob and the whole OMNIA family (picure by www.Noba.tv)
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Do you think that your government is NOT scaring you senseless and stealing your cash while screwing the population of your country in their collective arses?
Do you believe the scary stories that Rupert Murdoch's commercial media is telling you?
Do you believe that faceless, nameless terrorists want to blow up your family?
Do you really believe that the CocaCola or the MacDonalds company gives a flying fuck about you or your obese children?
Do you really believe that Royal families are chosen by God and deserve to take all our land and money?
Do you believe that there is actually a world bank or multinational company out there which is NOT totally fecking Evil?
if you answered yes, then... please don't listen to this song , because it will be a waste of your time! (and ours)
if you answered all of the above questions with a resounding "NO!" then enjoy this amazing video made by our dear friend Erwin and OMNIA's 100% acoustic Pagan Hip-Hop Rap song! ;-)
This video was filmed in Köln (D) during the "OMNIA I don't Speak Human Tour". This track is taken from the new OMNIA Live Album "Live on Earth" which you can buy in our webshop ;-)
Greenthingz! OMNIA
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Last of the summer wine...
(what I did on my weekend holiday by SteveSic class 3b)
I was sad last sunday evening... I cried a little... the emotions welling up in my soul after receiving so many impressions of LIFE we're just too much to bear and I gave expression to my feelings by letting them go...
We had the most amazing time this weekend at MPS Öjendorf this was what we expect from a cool weekend...and more! I want to share some impressions of joy with you now... After a "medium" drive of 6 hours to seevetal, we arrived and checked in to the "natur freunde" hostel where we booked our rooms for the weekend (in a pretty forest south of the city of Hamburg) ...the friendly people and eco-atmosphere of this old hostel made us feel right at home (much more than the usual "impersonal" air-conditioned hotels sometimes have to visit)... Upon arriving next morning at the (FUCKING HUGE!!!) MPS festival we were treated with the usual respect and good humor by Gisi's wonderfull festival and stage crew (especially thanx to Jeannie our favourite "MPS band-hostess"!) We had a chance to meet with our friends from "the Dolmen" and "Faun" again as they were sharing the same stage as us... in the evening OMNIA did the "Pagan-FolkRock-thing" on the festival stage under a full Harvest Moon...we gigged for all we were worth, I preached nature-sense in German as well as English , the massive audience was brilliant and we rocked their (and our) fecking socks off!!(well... most of us were bare-foot anyway)... We had the added bonus of meeting our friends Christopher and Maria (of "Euzen") aswell, who had come to the festival from Denmark just for fun, so that we could hang out together! ... The signing session was sweet ...and sweeter still because of the "low-blood sugar" emergency kit which we were given for no-food emergencies! ...(thanx dr. Arndt & Tina! are you reading this blog too?) and we even met a whole gang of fans from India! (which is something we don't do everyday)... after the show our "work" at MPS was done so then we stayed and just relaxed having a good time , enjoying the fruits of the festival...we saw the biggest, meanest, loudest most impressive motherfucker of a Fireshow we have ever witnessed close-up ! ...the MPS fireshow is made by a whole troupe of extremely professional and fearless fire-artists and framed/headlined by a gigantic mechanical flamethrower set-up, designed and worked by the guy who also worked on Rammsteins stage fire productions... I was impressed...bloody hell....we all were...(toch Diana?..Richard?) ...anyway... after our ears and eyes had adjusted again we started to roam the enormous medieval barbarian camp lit by countless gigantic bonfires and literally thousands of torches, oil-lamps and candles.. All spread out among the trees and lakes... the beautifull people dressed in medieval, or fantasy or pirate or whatever they wanted ... roaming in the dark, drinking mead and good german beer , song and laughter everywhere...awesome! ... It was like walking through Robert Holdstock's "Legion" (from the mythago wood books)... we were drawn to the folkstage by the sweet tones of Traditional Celtic Folk being played with a skill that only our old friends of Rapalje can manage and we stood enchanted infront of their stage while they made our toes tap and our smiles grow! (that really was a perfect folk-gig guys! thanx!)... when we finally dragged ourselves away from there back to the forest hostel we were too hyped to sleep so we sat and played (very dangerous) Danish drinking games with Chris , Maria and our whole gang untill I happily passed out into an uncommon but not wholly unwelcome state of alcoholic inebriation somewhere during the night... Next day , our crew had to return to Holland, but the whole band and our friends went back to the festival just to get that last festival-fix before it would all go away again..this was our last MPS festival for this year! boohoo and sad face :-( ... we caught some of the friends we didn't see the day before (altough I missed talking to of good people like Alea of SaMo again!) ...we did some shopping...(I bought a teapot!... and some new longbow arrows!) ...we bid farewell to Gisi and we assured him that (like Arnie) we WILL BE BACK!...Jeannie let us and our black PaganFolk-Mobiles off the terrain... we waved MPS goodbye...and that was it for this year for OMNIA.... but not the end of our weekend....
we drove to Hamburg for an appointment with our friends from FolkFriends.de... this is a shop which makes affordable music instruments available to people who would like to play folk and trad music. (a lot of people WANT to learn to play an instrument, but can't afford the prices of "proffessional" instrument builders, so I think it's great that there exist shops which sell decent enough beginners instruments for a fraction of the price) And because we believe that the means to make real music on actual instruments should be available to everyone we like FolkFriends! (for instance: they actually still sell the same model bouzouki which Oli from Faun and I myself started with a long long time ago!) These sweet people gave us a whole bunch of "musical toys" to take home and try out! So we can happily toot!, squeek!, poot! , tringg!, pling! and boom! this winter when we miss the festivals... (we also made some random music improvisation videos with them in their shop! , which they will probably put online some time in the future)
Well that was my monsterblog for today... one more festival left...and that's the Festival Mediaval in Selb next weekend! We've been playing there every year since it was founded , so we're well know on the terrain! We will end the festival on the mainstage on Sunday (although well be hanging out there all weekend because Daphyd is giving DIDGE WORKSHOPS there on saturday! plus we'll get the chance to hang out and chat some more with our buddies from Faun, Schandmaul, the really nice people of Stella Mara etc etc etc.... this will be the last of the summer wine for us when this glass is drunk it's finished... because...winter is coming.
Greenz (and greys) Pope SteveSic and the Pagan Inquisition... (picture by Emma Pierre)
ps: did you really read all of it Rob?
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Back on the Road! (end of summer is near)
This weekend we are happy and sad at he same time...
We're happy, because we will be playing at the MPS festival again (where we really feel at home, everytime we stay there!) , this time the gigantic mediaval/fantasy tribe will be spreading joy and weirdness at Ojendorf (Hamburg) and we'll play there on saturday evening on the festivalstage.
We're also kind of sad, because this will be our LAST MPS festival for this year! (NOOOOOO!)
BUT , I'll let you into a little secret here...Because we enjoyed this amazing fantasy experience and the great team led by Gisi that makes it all possible (they really made us feel welcome and always treat us with such respect there!, which is rare in this world) and ofcourse we feel mutual respect for them!....So ...we've decided that we will do our very best to play at every single MPS next year! (we are arranging it with Gisi's booker right now) . So if you're looking for us next spring/summer/autumn...start looking at an MPS in your area first! ..ok, we're off to the motorway now...take care , stay free, be green...see ya tomorrow in Hamburg (or someother place some other when) Greenthingz dr. SteveSic
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Low Bloodsugar levels, GTA on I-phones, useless police, friendship and the true PaganWay...
Sic's incomprehensible blog number: 666
Well..that was an interesting weekend all together... I can assure you that the OMNIA-gang had many "interesting times" indeed at the festival we played in Wuppertal, Germany last saturday...after a nice short 2 1/2 hour drive from Holland...we played a Pagan concert for a whole bunch of very lovely people in a beautiful wooded/rocky valley on a stage which was basically a big tent... our friends of "FeuerSchwanz" had already whipped the audience into a frenzy with their funny songs and meadmachine and stuff ;-) , and then the very friendly and charming Eric Fish (from a.o. "Subway to Sally") played an emotional Irish immigrant song to announce our gig and to get theaudience in a better "listening modus" for our art (thanx so much Eric!)... we played, we had fun...all great stuff up to there....Sadly we couldn't play the full set we had planned...because while we were making our bow to the audience (just before our last song with still 5 minutes left to play) the over-enthousiastic and extremely rude crew of the headline band and this festival started pushing all sorts of heavy lighting gear, extra risers etc. onto our stage, nearly hitting our instruments, not giving us any time to clear the stage or even finish our show properly...("big" modern bands cannot perform without truckloads of expensive extra "show" equipment nowadays to dazzle the audience with (because they believe that simply playing honest music isn't good enough anymore)... So we (and our precious instruments) were literally thrown off the stage to make way for the definitely "more important" showband that would headline after us... I had to pick up bits of our gear off the floor in the dirt where they had been dumped!...Disrespectfull bunch of ArseFucks!... Well anyway, due to this stage invasion, we didn't have time to tell our fans that we would be signing at our merch.stand hidden away, somewhere way back in the farthest corner of the festival terrain...but still, no big deal... we still went, and yes! of course loads of YOU had gathered there for a word, a signature a photo and a smile. After we had met with our fans we dragged ourselves (a little tired at this point but still content) back to the artist catering to finally eat something! (we hadn't eaten any dinner yet as we were performing all through dinnertime and beyond)...My bloodsugar level gets really fucked up when I don't eat enough especially after a show...because I'm such a skinny stick Sic ..(I have no energy reserves in the form of Fat as lots of other people do).. BUT annoyingly.. NO!.. we weren't allowed go and eat yet because for some inexplicable reason the "friendly" backstage crew wanted us to get our equipment out-of the way (it was stored in the tent they gave us for this purpose, and not in the way at all)... we HAD to get it all packed into the OMNIA vans RIGHT AWAY!...sigh!... (which means first getting the van from some far-flung parking space, parking it in the road as close to the stage as possible (still quite far though)... then it all had to be dragged through the muddy ground past the stage to pack it... (a fact which was made considerably harder by the fact that
"the HeadLiner" had a guitarplayer standing in the small area next to the stage blocking the normal exit..This guy was playing various guitars in the shadows where the audience couldn't see him during their show ...(?) )
... Anyway... after we finally had the OMNIA-vans safely packed and parked again we headed to the "secure artist area" on top of a hill to get some food at last! .happy happy!... and what do we find when we get there... NO FOOD!? ...WHAT!!!?...
oops!...there goes my mind!.....bloodsugar is getting my crankyness up fast...not much more I can take from this fucking toy-organisation......
So I ask as sweetly as possible..."where is the food, please?"
The answer I get: "no sorry, there's no food for you... all the food has already been eaten by the other bands and the people that work here, but here is a cold sandwich with some industrial salmon instead... At this point I didn't really care anymore, I ate some of the fucking evil sandwich and thought about all the children in Africa who would be glad to have such a fine slice of german pumpernickel with slavesalmon... things couldn't get any worse anymore anyway...could they?
...at around this time we found out that the "secure backstage" where we had put all our things was apparently a little less secure and safe as it should have been, because all our wallets, I-phones, and Jenny's handbag with our passports, carpapers, car keys, house keys , money etc. HAD BEEN STOLEN!!... (warning! warning! Sic explosion alert!)
Oh dear... I wasn't happy at all anymore now....It was interesting to see the faces of people around me as they see Steve Sic change from "Happy musician who is mildly annoyed, hungry and tired" into a full blown CuChullain "warpspasm- battlefrenzy..(my internal chemical levels go into full-ADHD KILL KILL KILL-mode at this point). And I set out to look for something or someone to kill, maim or otherwise destroy to stop the screaming in my head... while Jenny and the OMNIA gang got organised and did more usefull things like, block our bankpasses and talk to the wuppertal police who had arrived and proceeded to do FUCK ALL in a bumbling kind of way....Happily enough the dumbassed motherfucker who stole all our valuables from our "Secure" backstage also stole Jenny's I-phone which has "GPS tracking" inside it... so we got two I-phones from some really sweet festival employees (yep they had those too), They put one on "GPS Locate Jenny's I-phone", and the other on "GPS locate this I-phone" and then simply compared the two screens untill we knew we were close to the culprits...It was actually quite fun, when we started the midnight hunt through the dark... I had a chance to get rid of lots of excess adrenaline by running around through the gloomy park around the festival area...with a whole posse of OMNIA and three volunteers, staring at the two screens untill we located the area where the thieves had gotten to (back on the festival by now)... it was just like GTA with the little screen in the corner, but then live! ...There were loads of people there at the place our GPS indicated, so we couldn't know who exactly had our things... So at this point somebody in the crowd who knew what we were doing and who apparently works for Mac, wanted to help us (thanx dude!) so he made Jenny's phone go into ALARM! mode by remote control (yet another handy thing which you can make an I-phone do)...
So... we heard Jenny's phone scream, and saw this fucker who was standing two meters next to us, drop it on the floor...but alas for him...too late! We grabbed him and got the bastard!! At this point the Police (who up to this point had been about as usefull as something really not fucking usefull at all) arrested the thief-dude, found some of our stuff and left for the police station...We ourselves had to figure out where the rest of our things had been thrown in the bushes etc.. (in the end Daphyd the scout found everything except his own and his friend Emma's wallets...I'll get you a new one Daphyd!)....So..we finally left that "nice festival" behind in the small hours of the night ...drove by the police station to get what they had confiscated at the festival back from them... and then....finally... we got to the hotel, ordered some late, late, late night pizza's and had a cozy little party at the Hotel with a couple of sweet girls from Feuerschwanz to end this moving yet interesting experience... Well that was my story about our last adventure... I have left out the names of the festival and the headliner, because i don't want to destroy your illusions, and probably they are all normally really nice and cool and stuff...just not for us.
I am SOOOO looking forward to being at the MPS festival in Ojendorf this coming weekend!!! See ya there, if you care! Love to the Loveable, Peace to the peaceful...Greenthingz SteveSic et OMNIA.
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Another Year, another OMNIA " WickerMan" (although this year it was a "Pigasus"!!)
This week we had our yearly WickerEffigy burning ceremony to thank the spirits of life for giving us so much energy and joy to be thankfull for! (our religion is like a wheel ;-)... To ask for further guidance and to further pledge our own lives to the service of nature... Lacking a friendly festival, this year we did it in private, just us and our family and some close friends (Like erwin who took this picture of Pigasus after it had collapsed as well as my old buddy Floris(simo) who was actually there at the very first wickerbeast burning somewhere in 1993).. We were very kindly invited by some cool Scouts (Thanx Jeroen!), to use their scouting terrain plus giant fire-pit to make our traditional nature sacrifice... We Built a giant winged Boar ("pigasus") from wickertwigs and pine-branches, filled it with many valuable, beautifull ,and spiritual gifts... some very old...some brand new (like the new CD...finally!)... some were very deep and personal...(Floris even cut off all his beautifull long hair to sacrifice!) The atmosphere was delicious! Rain was predicted, and even some thunder, but we asked Taranis to chill a little, so all day we had beautifull sunshine and PERFECT weather!... like a medieval pagan village, the Old and the Young...we ate all together outside, we played with fire-games like poi, staffs, clubs, and fire-breathing....then we brought out all our big drums and lots and lots of stones... we started banging them...non-stop for more than an hour as the sun was setting...and...when it started getting dark.....we set this big boary-baby on fire so Pigasus could fly on the wings of the flames into the firmament and take our dreams and wishes with him!... all of us there (OMNIA, Family, Friends, Scouts) were pretty much roasted as the drums and stones went into a frenzy of rythm and sound...the flames went straight up as a sunspear to spike the heavens, the entire sacrificium was consumed...all was well... all is well... now we're off to the Feuertal festival in germany today, to play our Pagan rites in Musick for whoever of YOU is out there...
Love to the lovely, Peace to the Peacefull, Greenthingz to the Green of Heart! ...SteveSic, Jenny, Philip, Daphyd, Rob and the OMNIA gang/family/cult
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Fun in the Sun!
Summer, after all! Wow, last weekend at the amazing MPS in Telgte, I had to remind myself we were actually in Germany, not in Spain…I know lots of people like to complain about the heat, but come on! It's kinda lovely! You just have to slow down a bit, drink a lot of water and keep your head cool. The MPS organisation had placed cold showers on the terrain, and Rapalje had even provided the Folk Stage-audience with a sprinkler which caused many hilarious and very wet moments (Macéal even stood over the sprinkler during their concert, getting soaked, including bouzouki and mouth harmonica…respect!). We were one of the lucky bands playing later at night, so we didn't burn away. Still, it was a very sweaty business, jumping around on stage. But the atmosphere was so….Happy Hippy! Bare feet, hardly any clothes, dancing the night away….we had a great time!
So, thanks to the Sun, thanks to the trees, thanks to Gisi, Ede, Horris and our sweet backstage fairy whose name we forgot again (oops), and last but not least the coolest audience ever!.....
See you again at Feuertal, MPS Öjendorf and/or Festival Mediaval, and enjoy the Summer while it lasts…before you know it, the temperature drops like a wingless bird and the day grows dark at 5 PM…
Thank you to Valeria S. Photography for the awesome picture! Great we now know who you are :o)
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OMNIA playing "FEE RA HURI" Live in concert VIDEO!
Check out this beautifull live-video made by our friend Erwin this was shot during the OMNIA 2012 " I don't speak human" tour, and this is the actual live recording of the song which we put on the new CD OMNIA "Live on Earth"!
if you like this lovely slice of OMNIA life, tastefully cut and assembled by Erwin, then please share it! We will be giving away signed copies of our new CD's to some more lucky winners which we'll choose from any and all who will share THIS video openly! So share it with all your friends please! (and maybe you'll be as lucky as our last prizewinners: Davina Pisarek, Zsófia Kölcze and Max Kat! .... congratulations!)
…oh yeah!…here's one other thing for you to do…we've had most of the songs on the "human tour" filmed…which , by amazing coincidence is also the entire tracklist of the new album… and Erwin could actually change some more of this 'raw film footage" into beautifully rendered music videos like this one…so you can see us play the same songs which you hear on this disc! (kinda like a live-DVD but then FREE! onthe web ;-) … so start thinking about which other songs (from "Live on Earth") you would really really like to see as a video clip like this one, and who knows?, maybe you'll see it appear on our youtube-channel in the near future!
anyway, we're chilling at the moment after another wonderfull weekend of fun at Folkwoods! …We happy…. Life in the OMNIA family is good, the summer seems well underway…the festivals keep coming (we'll be in germany : MPS Telgte! next weekend…more about that later) I've said enough for today…enjoy the video! Peace and Greenz dr.SteveSic and the OMNIA family...
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Ancient stuff and smiles in the sun…
This weekend is the 10th anniversary of Stenny, so now we're practicing a special song taken from the ancient OMNIA repertoire of long ago…"Epona"… It's a piece we haven't performed in about 9 years…but we've always kept warm feelings for it….so …we dug up this ancient instrumental dedicated to the great Celtic goddess of horses and breathed life into her again to honour the Celtic religious roots which we grew from… we'll play it for you on the excellent folkfestival "Folkwoods" in eindhoven on saturday, during our 75 minute powerset on the mainstage (around 20.00 hours)… as you can tell by the cheesy smiles of the various band-monkeys of OMNIA in this picture the effect Epona has is benificiant to the soul and (as an added bonus) apparently this song makes the sun shine… Greenthingz on Ancient wingz…OMNIA
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Life is a Festival!
(really long blog by dr.Sic, so if you wanna read this, sit down, have a cup of tea (possibly a biscuit aswell) and enjoy the blabla...if you don't, then don't ;-)
What a weekend! what a weekend!!! We're still glowing from all the love we felt ...and all the love we received from all you beautifull people... WOW! I'm sooo glad to see and feel that there are more and more of you waking up to the world we live in...no matter where we play or what the past or the future hold. We had a really great time this weekend and met so many of our sweet fans who gathered from all over the world to Rock the song of nature with us in the sun and the rain! You Rock BIGTIME! You guys warm our hearts and make our souls sing...you give us hope for this poor ,abused planet we live on,...don't forget that no matter what "humans" with their greed , lies and misconceptions do.... together we have our own world, we carry it in our hearts! Keep on fighting for what's right and BE the change! (corny but true , if you actually mean it)
During the extra long Castlefest show on Friday Night we played ALL the songs from off of our new CD "Live on Earth",which we "sneak pre-released there! Straight after the set and after breaking down the stage we ran off, still sweating and panting to do an extra long signing session (a full one and a half hours! which lasted all through Faun's soundcheck and well into their set...sorry guys!) ... It was fucking awesome though!, the que of people willing to stand and wait to say hi! or to get the new cd signed, was so long that it seemed to go on for ever! After meeting so many of you, shaking hands, taking pictures and other stuff...we were shattered and very hungry after all that "labour of love" so we drove off to seek a warm bed and hot food at Ans and Hans's "DreamHarps"...(thanx sweet "band parents!)
The next day we drove to the excellent MPS festival in Köln and did another power set made up of songs from the new cd! Yeah baby! It was weird and wonderfull to see so many of the same faces in the crowd as the night before! (you followed us to Köln from CF!?...respect , you guys rock!), it is a humbling experience for a band to realise that so many of you actually understand what this musick stuff is all about.
The MPS charmed us again (as it always does) and we had a wonderfull time The show rocked..the rain did some special effects which cause a lot of people to go into frenzied halfnaked dancing in the rain ...which was really cool to experience!...thanx again for staying! Next mornin' after a very funny and relaxing night in a very friendly hotel we woke up to a radiant and hopefull Sundaymorning and decided to drive all the way back to Lisse so we could see all our dear music and artist friends who had arrived at CF during the weekend.. Irfan, Euzen, Faun, Corvus/BerlinskiBeat, Medusa, Florissimo,Wen, "de Kelten",bands and physical artists of all plumage (most of which Jenny and me had introduced into the CF "circus" over the years when we were still the bookers there) too many for me to write all down here with my fuzzy liddle mind, but you know who you are;-)
I'm so glad we're all still alive and all still rocking (even though we've sadly seen some of our good friends dissappear along the way..)...sooo many people, sharing one feeling, one "Clan" and that's not even mentioning all our friends on "the other side of the backstage fence", the ones that turn this gathering of freaks into a FESTIVAL..... YOU! ...(yeah, I mean you!) Some faces I've known since as far back as 1996! (Hey Ju!) some have come along more recently...some came from many thousands of miles away , some came from near... all were looking for that spark of life, I sincerely hope you all found what you were looking for.... we did.
I had the most lovely time imaginable and even though I miss all of it already, I know that our life is filled with festivals, some big , some small...some near, some far...but all of them contain a portion of the spark of life that we are addicted to as long as YOU are there, YOU make it special for us , again and again...
And don't forget that we know what it's like on BOTH sides of the stage aswell...
I'm also "a fan" ... I felt the flow of life when I stood dripping in the pouring rain in front of the stage on sunday, listening to the awesome EUZEN with a smile on my face and a light in my soul...Last night the whole band had a little celebration outing, we went to see one of our heroes Xavier Rudd in Paradiso/ Amsterdam!
It was astounding!, We were singing along as loud as we could, we danced till our legs ached, we clapped our little hands red, we laughed, we cried, we screamed! afterwards we stood in line and waited to meet him so we could say hi! and he was ever so sweet and he gave me a hug and I looked a kindred spirit in the eye.... I felt the same as some of the descriptions I hear from people when they meet me or talk to me for a bit... I think we finally got that "OMNIA feeling" that so many of you talk about! (sometimes it's very hard for us to imagine what you feel when you see us play, because to us it is simply our life that you share when we're on stage, so it's really hard to see from the "outside")... but I think I get it...wow!..
anyway, to make a long story no shorter at all (still reading Rob?)
we like music, you like music...
we wanna change the world and fight injustice, you wanna change the world and fight injustice...
so how about we like music , change the world and fight injustice together?
we're in! .... how about you?...
Our next gig which will be the completely sunny and very high quality FOLKWOODS festival in Eindhoven (11th of august) with lots of real musick in the sun! where we will celebrate Stenny's 10th anniversary!... with lots of sun! (and as an extra special EXTRA we will be playing one or two ORIGINAL OMNIA SONGS from the OMNIA of the past....but then ofcourse in the pimped-up PAGANFOLKROCK version which appears when the OMNIA in the NOW plays them! (did I mention it will be sunny?).... see you there!
Peace to the peacefull ;-) dr.SteveSic (pope of non-dogmatic free paganism)
(photo Castlefest by Eline Spek LNDE.NL)
ps: (to my good friend Jasper who made some of the live pictures which we used in the booklet of OMNIA "Live on Earth") message begins:
" Fuckfuckfuckedyfuckfuck! we used his pictures and didn't put him in the credits!?...oh bollocks!....sorry man! Somehow we got the information jiggled about and your name didn't appear in the booklet! My bad...you may whip my buttocks with a nettle! , I'm going to find some way to make this up to you! big hug and (belated) thanx!!! SteveSic
pps: ("quoth the Raven..."oops!")
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I just had some really hopefull news for all you people who are waiting to get your happy little hands on the NEW OMNIA LIVE CD "LIVE ON EARTH"… As most of you probably know we always do sneaky pre-sales BEFORE the official cd release if at all possible…and traditionally we start at the Castlefest festival in Holland. This year it wasn't going to be possible because…well, we we're just to late with finishing the "making process" to get it all done in time …or so we thought……
BUT …I just finished talking to a nice lady called Jana who works at Optimal Media (the printing plant in germany who makes our little musical seeds of nature chaos)… and she told me that they are just about finished!, and if she sends them to us by express courier we will have them JUST in time to bring them to our hard core fans who will be at Castlefest(Lisse) on Friday and MPS (Köln) on Saturday!!! YEAH!!! So happy people…JUST FOR YOU…We'll take a limited amount of "LIVE ON EARTH" CD's to BOTH festivals (a limited amount because we just don't have the storage space to take 1000's to a festival as we usually do) But I'm sure we'll have enough for all the most eager fans to get hold of a copy of the best and last CD OMNIA will ever make! And to make the whole "Lughnasadh" weekend even more special we will play ALL THE SONGS that are on the NEW CD on BOTH EVENINGS! so…wanna join us for some PaganFolk?… Greenz on a bright sunny Lughnasadh day from a happy SteveSic… (artwork sample of Disc "Live on Earth", pencil art by dr.Me, Colouring by dr.Fieke)
ps: official release is in september BUT online sales will start (through our webshop only) next week for all of you who don't live near enough to come to one of these shows... ;-)
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Today I was given a beautifull shiny pocketwatch by Ans and Hans...and for you guys ...We've just had a whole new batch of "WOLFLOVE" tee-shirts made for our merch-shop!
And now they've been printed in Gold aswell! (we like shiny stuff!)
so the whole OMNIA line of blackshirts is printed in different shades of pretty pretty Gold… Here you see the piles of boxes…if you want to see the new shirts properly…come and check them out up close at our merchstand on Castlefest and MPS! (next week the new shirts will be sold online aswell)
but we're not sure yet if the new cd will be available this weekend as a pre-release sale… so don't get your hopes up too high ;-) Greenz OMNIA (picture by merchbabe Chloé)
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Er is er een jarig, hoera , hoera! (google translate?)
This upcoming weekend we're going to be celebrating the anniversary of Rob's Ist Year in OMNIA! (and hopefully he will never play his last!) Our buddy Rob has proved himself to be the most amazing drummer ever to join us on our PaganFolkRock adventures...not only is he a really cool and sweet guy who's nice to have around all the time..no, there's more! ;-)...his specific sounds and drum/percussion skills as a Rythmic genius have contributed an enormous amount to the ongoing evolution and growth of OMNIA's musick (as you will ALL be able to hear soon on our NEW live cd "OMNIA "Live on Earth"...just a little more time to wait...patience is a virtue, as well as an opera).
So...dudes and dudettes, if you're planning to come to Castlefest coming friday or the MPS festival on saturday be ready to give an extra loud cheer for the man from Eindhoven...on drumz...your friend and mine...ROB!
There! I just had to say that....greenz! Sic
(artwork clipping from "Live on Earth" booklet by Fieke, picture by Valeria Strazzeri )
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Tradition and BlingBling
Stenny is polishing the bronze and silver...we have accumulated so many bronze and silver "Celtic thingz" (mostly replicas of bronze and Iron age Torques, amulets, weapons etc.) that we have been given and have earned, bought or swapped over the years. So... about once a year when a large ritual gig approaches we polish our holy stuff and make it SHINE so we can wear and feel something special...And even though this year sadly we won't be able to do our traditional Pagan WickerMan Ritual together with YOU the audience ...there's more than enough reason for us to shine the pagan "bling bling" anyway! Because to us EACH OMNIA show is a Pagan nature-ritual already! ,be it Lughnasadh on a big fantasy festival or a small clubgig on a dreary wednesday night in Kassel... We always share our BEST with you!...So we'll make ourselves extra pretty this coming weekend when we'll be playing a Full Length 90 minute PaganFolkRock show at both Castlefest in Lisse (NL) on Fridayevening and the MPS in Köln on the saturday evening (D)!!! So come and join us in a celebration of Life at one (or BOTH?) of these great festivals! see ya there! Greenz wytchdoctor SteveSic and the whole OMNIA gang (picture of Polishing Jenny by Molly the Magpie)
ps: because Daphyd , Jenny and me spent more than an hour waiting in vain for Xavier Rudd to appear for a signing session after his great show last friday...(he never showed up, even though his merchpeople insisted he would...in the end we were thrown out of the Effenaar by the security people! ah well such is life...anyway, because we realise how rotten that can feel we promise you that if you stick around our merchstand after the show , we'll be doing an extra loooooong signing session on both festivals! so you may all have your CD's,Didgeridoos (especially didgeridoos!) , Boobs (can I say especially boobs aswell or did the didgeridoo reference already take up that exclamation? It's just that I personally prefer signing boobs to signing didgeridoos, but I made the didge joke' cause Daphyd dragged his brand new didge all the way to Xavier's gig so he could get a signature put on it, but it never happened..and ...oh gods..this is a major digression now...i think this diversion and this blog have gone on far enough! so I'll just finish the sentence I origionally started and you can read it again, ignore the bollocks and figure out yourself how it should fit together...here goes:
Arms, Bottoms, Sneakers, Handbags, Dogs or whatever signed !!!
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Yes boys and girls (and other creatures) of the cyber-monkey world HERE is a brand new OMNIA-VIDEO TEASER!!! (shot Live on Location by our gifted videofriend Erwin during the "I Don't speak Human" tour). We've put it online now to promote our UPCOMING LIVE CD "OMNIA-LIVE ON EARTH" which is BEING PRINTED right now!!! YEAH BABY! ß∂ƒ©šš∆©˙∆š^@£%^%^&*!!!! Please SHARE this video with as many friends/sites/fora/internet nodes as possible so that the seed of OMNIA may spread Like a GREEN VIRUS...hehehe! we will randomly pick a bunch of lucky winners out of all of you have shared it publicly (starting today) and those blessed few will receive SIGNED COPIES OF OUR NEW LIVE ALBUM as soon as they are ready!!! Enjoy the video, enjoy the day, enjoy this new cd filled to the brim with Real Life!..Greenthingz XXX dr.Sic
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Birthday suit... no pictures
It's my Birthday today!... me happy... and my age is divisible by 9 again, so this will be a very good and extremely Pagan year indeed!
The Sun woke me with her life-giving warmth and golden light...I got strawberries and cream for breakfast plus a nice spliffrolling table and books , books , books!!! (peace and knowledge...that's all I ever wanted...well...that ...and Boobs ofcourse!)
Anyway I was going to get a new tattoo today , but because I was still making the artwork for our new CD (which took longer than expected) I had no time left to design the artwork for my own skin... (you're such a demanding boss sometimes, don't you know?)... so instead to celebrate another yearly psycle of psic , Jenny and me are going to a Sauna!!! yeah!..and we can both walk around in our birthdaysuit all day. Sadly I won't be posting any pictures though, as the various webmedia will only block my accounts (again) for indecent nudity ;-)... I never realised before internet that people could get upset by seeing me and Jenny naked and happy...
so i suppose it's good we haven't started making any "PaganPorn" (yet!) ;-)
anyway, enjoy today, it's a gift! Happy birthday to the ghost of the wholly holy Saint/Painter: Mucha!(who shared this birthdate with me)...and I'd like to congratulate the cool celtic freak with the orange hair whom I keep seeing at gigs in germany , happy birthday too dude!... Well...I'm off to get hot, wet and naked..have a good one!!
the venerable Pagan Pope Inquisitor (Wytch) dr.Steve (sic) Evans van der Harten OBE, GSE, GBH, FUT (picture by the hand)
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The Sun shines!, the files are at the printer...but not everything...
the printer has started the process of turning the conceptual into the actual...but not everything has started yet!.... because.... the master CD hasn't arrived yet!...it is still somewhere in postal-limbo between Holland and Germany... Gods! i hope it's allright! (all this excitement is just too much for my tiny mind!) Anyway The Veldenstein Gig last weekend was great! Thanx soooooo much too all you fans who stood in front of the stage in the pouring rain to listen! (that is so cool, you really made us feel very welcome indeed! and thanx to the organisers and the BEAUTIFULL castle ...which might not be used again next year for festivals!...(shame shame!)... The summer seems to have arrived...Stenny is still renovating the house (I'm painting the woodwork actually) and here is another ART CLIPPING from the new CD (can you guess who this is?)
Greenest things on summers wings....Dr.SteveSic et OMNIA (drawing by leonard of Quirm, graphics by Fieke)
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It's on the way!
Ice sheets are cracking, superstorms are blowing and the mad monkeys are simply playing with their guns and their lawyers… BUT the LAST CD of OMNIA HAS GONE TO PRINT!!! our newest baby is off to be printed today, and we're off to Germany to play the Veldensteiner festival!!! Greenthingz and the end of Days! ;-) dr.SteveSic ((cut-out from artwork by many photographers and Fieke)
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Today we're finishing up the artwork for the new OMNIA CD "LIVE on EARTH"!!!
...that's me an Fieke (the photoshopfairy) slaving away behind the hot smoking screens ... while we'd rather be out there having fun....work work work is the fate of the modern artist ;-) ...actually greenz Sic et Fieke... (picture by Dumbledore)
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(put's on Antonio Banderas Accent)...This is Juanita Carmen Perdita...my spanish guitarr... You never see her on an OMNIA stage, because she's a little shy and she's scared of crowds... (but she was played during the acoustic "Toursong" which we put on the Omnia youtube channel... and now I stop writing...Vamos Muchachos!, los Cabrones aqui!...Don Esteban (picture by Mariachi)
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I wish every day could be a good festival!
Just got up...sipping coffee...now write bloggy for YOU...got back home yesterday... We had a lovely time at the MPS in Bückeburg this weekend! We saw many of our buddies there and met some new ones aswell...Before our gig was a show by our friends from the duo "Das Niveau", which was fucking hilarious! (if you understand German) we really enjoyed to have their show in front of ours at the MPS! Then we played a kickass PAGANFOLK set and even though the sun wasn't shining all the time...as we had some rain and wind whipping our stage every now and then aswell ...the audience didn't care, we didn't care, we got wet together ;-) ...when the front of the stage got a bit too slippery to stand, the festival chief Gisi HIMSELF got on and started drying it with towels during the show , to great applause of the crowd !!! (now THAT is dedication!... Respect dude!) and together we had a great party! After our set the whole band and crew danced and freaked out during the awesome show of "The DOLMEN" on the same stage. We were really pleasantly surprised by this English pagan-folk-rock band, awesome music!, great lyrics!, great skill!, high party-mode! and ... FINALLY ...
a REAL no-nonsense PAGAN BAND! ... Seriously folks, in all the years we've been doing this concertstuff we've never actually met another pure Pagan activist Band like ourselves ... and now at last we did! Jenny and me were so happy! anyway, we danced and partied like crazy with all the cool fans and our pal Alea from Saltatio Mortis (who was also playing this festival...ofcourse!) and we celebrated life together..(I hadn't danced like this since I saw the fecking Pogues back in the day that Shane McGowan still had a brain!)... I really hope we get to play a stage line-up like this again some time soon, so we can have such a big party again ...
my perfect Mittelalter-evening at the moment would be:
"das Niveau- OMNIA -the DOLMEN" ...anyway for us and the audience it was a great night! And after the last tones of the music had died , musicians and audience all gathered together around one of the many big campfires with lots of really great and sweet people and talked about life, music, japanese history, and just how fucking lucky you have to be to be allowed by the spirits to become a musician with something to say and something to give to the sweet people who really matter... We love you all ! Thank you for listening, thank YOU for reading this... Enjoy your life and praise the living Earth with each breath you take (Before she snuffs us out like the pesky pestilence we are!)... Peace and Greenthingz! dr.SteveSic (Pope/Inquisitor of Paganism) ...picture by Tamara...
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Storm winds Blow on the Golden Barley...Birds lie dead on the fields of Athenry...Your world is Dying...BUT the NEW OMNIA CD IS COMING!!!
Yes folks this is it...we proudly present to you the first sneakpeak of the cover of OMNIA "LIVE ON EARTH"! (drawingz by Sic, Graphicz by Fieke)...This awesome live cd is probably the last thing we'll ever make before the human shit really hits the enviromental fan, (unless ofcourse the monkeys will start to see sense afterall?...hahaha!...naaah!) anyway...this is really the ONLY album you can cheerfully put on full blast on your headphones/speakers/internal voice while the superstorms start ripping your house and your country apart! Bring it on baby, through history they called us dirty Devil-worshipping Pagans... BUT alas.."their" Gods have always been a lie,while our only mother and father is the living Planet and she/he's pissed off! but no matter!.. we'll stand strong while YOU stand beside us...get this CD and we'll Dance untill we DIE! ;-) Greenthingz on Stormcrow wingz OMNIA. (the official release date of "LIVE on EARTH" will be somewhere in september)
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Eddie the Squirrel Video! OMG! This stuff is exclusive!!! a totally unreleased unique Stenny song!!!
Yes peeples..here is a never-before-released song by Stenny from OMNIA...shot on video by the great art-director/producer mr.Fluffy and his semi-chinese filmcrew Erwin-san and Michelle-san! Just the kind of thing to cheer you up on this gloomy octobre morning as the winds howl around the concrete appartmentblocks and the storms lash the flowerpetals to shreds outside in the municipal council greenery/garbage gardens... (what?...it's july?!!... you mean climatic change was NOT a joke?) anyway enjoy this video (while you still can) and please share it with as many people as possible on facebook,twitter,shizzlestream,etceterar... (like a well rolled spliff or a venereal disease) so that all the monkey populace may get something from it (stoned or infected and itchy)...check it out!
we will DRAW ONE NAME from all the "sharing" peeple and this LUCKY WINNER will get a SIGNED COPY OF THE NEW OMNIA CD "LIVE ON EARTH" sent to their home as soon as it has been released...from us personally ... peace , love and genocide! dr.Sic
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NEW CD: OMNIA "LIVE on EARTH"!!! ...coming soon...
Aw! it's really getting close now!, our whole new live CD of crazy omnia onstage living, religious, rocking, pagan virtuosity is getting closer to completion everyday....Here's a little preview of one of the iconic drawings which will be used as original cd-booklet artwork. You see... not just our music , our clothes, our life-style , our food, our sextoys and our religion are handmade by us...we can make our own visual-art aswell ;-).
This plate is in honour of our Lord mr.Fluffy, the great unicornomorphic personification who was sent down to Earth to us to be our saviour and so to set us free!
"Ecce qui tollit peccata mundi" all hail the unicorn of GOD!! HALLEHLUJAH! and don't forget kids...believe in mr.Fluffy , because he loves you! Peace and Greenthingz! ... his most reverend holiness the Pope, dr.SteveSic ;-) (picture by the wholly holy ghost)
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Back from the wild...feel the love
After a really really REALLY relaxed two weeks in the wild, filled with flowers and trees, birds and bugs, freetime and good food and ofcourse lots and lots of love...we're back in the land of concrete and confused media ( called "civilisation"). We is back with smiles on our faces and healthy, tanned and strong bodies...Jenny, mr. Fluffy and myself have had a ball of a time doing lots of the things we like doing best ...walking, walking , walkabout through nature.."walzing mathilda" as they used to say in Oz...over hill and down valley, through the forest and the fenns...beautifull...we've really recharged our little eco-batteries and life is good in the Evans van der Harten camp. Art flowed and creation found it's outlets...Now we are back in the land of harsh mass illusion (that thing that the monkeys call "reality"...hihihi!) , with quite a bit of boring and non-boring work still looming on the horizon (if we want to get our new CD "OMNIA-LIVE on EARTH" printed and published any time this year, that is :-) But I must say that Holland seems a lot less harsh when viewed from the backgarden of "DreamHarps" (where we are staying for a while)..among the beautifull flowers the sun shines, the pool is cool and Stenny are a pair of really lucky fucking monkeys... (I'll try and blog every day for a while, so you can keep updated on the status of the new disc and what the band is upto aswell! (I see Daphyd has bought a new didge...I really wonder what tuning it's in? hmmmm?, we must give him a ring today and find out) anyway, lots of Pagan Tree Hugging happy Love to all the nice Gaia-respecting folks out there (and a big huge Pagan glowing poker up the butt to all the money and gun worshipping arseholes!) Live free, Love, be Green! Stenny and the flufster (picture by mr.Fluffy)
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Hi there! Freaky People...
I am chilling here right now with my personal Instrument builder, he is great! He made my Carbon-Fiber triple slide-didgeridoo and some other instruments Omnia is using..have a look : Carbony Celtic Winds
Today we eat some typical dutch meal, "brabants stoofpotje" and he liked it ;-)
Rob is here for a secret mission.. I can tell you a little part of it.
We want to enlighten the world on the 4th of July, as we will gain indepedence, one drone at a time as our founding fathers intended.... Haha ;-)
Therefore we need the perfect carbon slide didgeiroo and Rob is going to make that for me. Togheter we are close to the final product, the one I play right now on stage.
Do you like it? .. I do
No we are jamming a little bit while enjoying a cold one ;-)
Steve, Jenny and Mr. Fluffy are still enjoying nature on there holiday, meanwhile I am running the facebook blog part, muwhahaha......
I hope they can find the peace they need..
In one and a half weeks we are back on stage again, Whoehoew! I Can't wait :)
So.. talk to you soon, hope you 'nJoy this bloggie again.
Cheers Daphyd
We have just reached 19.000 Likes on Facebook, did you see that!?
You should celebrate tonight with us, and tell your friends (SHARE SHARE SHARE) so they can celebrate with us when we reach 20K ! Yeah !
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The Raven Times..
Do you already know about our Raven Times ? No? ... Let me tell you what it is:
It's our on-line Fan-Club magazine! You can join our "Pagan Clan" for free and you will always be up-to-date. Read about all our PaganFolk weirdness and art!
What you can find in the RavenTimes:
News about the band, some exclusive information, fun facts and many more.. Things you don't want to miss... (believe me)
When you are joining our Pagan Clan you can also view our previous Raven Times newsletters, in four different languages. For example, the one about our gig at Folkwoods, you can come and watch OMNIA with a 25% discount! ( 11-08-2012 see our event page on Facebook or in agenda ) Also information about our New "Live" CD! ( soon )
....Subscribe and read more : http://www.worldofomnia.com/lists/?p=subscribeP.s. you can un-subscribe any time you want, because you're free
Greeeenzz Daphyd and OMNIA.
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A gift of the tree's ...
Hi There!
Here is my promised blog!
Today I went to Amsterdam to go to one of my favorite stores, ( http://www.aboriginalart.nl/ ) to buy myself a brand new didgeridoo.
I told myself: "I will not go home before I find just the right didgeridoo".
So I was there for about 4 hours, playing, feeling and listening and it was a very difficult job.
As you can see on the picture, I could not easily choose my didgeridoo.....
After a few hours I finaly could pick the right one out of the to many didgeridoo's in Melle's shop. It plays fast, easy and it has a powerfull sound. Its wood! Its a true gift of the tree's. I think many more will follow ;-)
Wauw.. what a sound!
This was my "short" bloggie. Hope you 'Njoy it.
Greenzz Crazy Daphyd Didge Crow Thing! (now I am goin' to make some freaky-musical-didge-rythmes-overhere ;-) )
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Love in the Forest...
Well my friends, I'm Sic of OMNIA and Jenny and me are sick of it all together (little linguistic joke there for the Latinspeakers) So we are off to the forest for 2 whole weeks of R'n'R ...rest and relaxation! We've been working hard on the new LIVE CD and now we want a break before the "endsprint"... I'm not sure when or where we will (pre)release this new baby for the first time (because since this year we have no tradition for that anymore)...so maybe we'll do a Dutch pre-release somewhere else this year...how about the Folkwoods festival? anyway, it all depends on when OMNIA "LIVE on EARTH 2012" is finished, printed and delivered anyway...and ofcourse the "official" release will be in september
Oh Yeah, She's gonna be called OMNIA "LIVE on EARTH 2012" (because it is)
and she's FECKING AWESOME!!!
The artwork on the new CD is still carrying on without us (go Fieke go!) ...and the editing-work on the live OMNIA videos shot during the last tour is also in full progress without us..(go Erwin go!)... soon we can infest the internet with even yet more of our PaganMusickStuff ...hehehe!... I'm sorry to say that we still don't own an i-phone or such like, so we won't be able to tell you anything the coming two weeks about what we are doing or what we are making, BUT I think Daphyd will probably post a couple of times to let you know that we are still ALIVE! I wish you much love and luck, think about us every now and then as Jenny and me are living our life of "Love in the Forest" ;-) Greenthingz and Luv..Stenny XXX picture by Treebeard
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Omnia's 10 Year anniversary..
OMNIA plays the saturday night @ Folkwoods in Eindhoven! This is the home town from Rob and me ( Daphyd )! We can't wait to play for our friends and neighbors ;-)
We are also going to celebrate Stenny's 10 year anniversary, the "heart" of OMNIA. OMNIA will play a very special power paganfolk-rock show for you on the Main stage.
But there is more.... Special for the OMNIA fans...
You, as a true fan, can buy your ticket with a 25% discount! You have to order before the 31th of July. (normaly the Saturday "door ticket" is 50 euro, but for you, with the "discount-code" 30 euro!)Order your tickets now via : Folkwoods.nl
Order ticket, fill in the action code and the discount will appear. How easy is that.. ;-)The discount is also for the whole weekend and camping place, have a look. ;-)
I hope to see you all on the 11th of August for our latenight power pagen show!
Action-code is : GGG2012
Greenzz Daphyd and Rob ( OMNIA )
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Game of Songs
Dis is me..."Ser Fluffy" of da black cape and da golden Dragonn headed feeboola ...Fibullea ...fybjooll ..erm... Cape-Pin!...(SteveSic got it for father's day from Damien-Raven...but me steal it! hehehe! becos it has a face jus like ME an I am a DRAGON-unicorn!) It is me blogging again today, becos SteveSic is way too busy widh working on da new OMNIA live album...he's jus drawing piktjoors and photographing and planning things with miss Fieke (orchus.nl) to make it all look nice on da covver...(becos ALL the music bit is now finnished!...Stenny is jumping around in dha house now widh the stereo on fecking loud and a crazy gleam in their eyes, while shouting Kill! Maim! Fight! so I think they happy widh the mastered version of the Morrigann which was da last one to finnish... ;-) Me is a little lonely now becos Stenny only hav time for working and when they are not working they is reading all the "Game of thrones" books written by mr.George RR Martin...and it's a lotta books...BUT now I finally get the space to show you my fancy cape , pin and me valyrian steel sword "Manager-Bane" (that mr.Daphyd and mrs. Chloe and mr.SoundSascha gave to me) annyway, dis is my Blog...Greenthingz, peace, luv,flowwers...... BLOOD and FIRE! ...Ser Fluffy Targaryen the 1st ...
house Targaryen RULES! (picture by uncle Rhaegar)
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the good life...
We just arrived home again after another exhilarating weekend at the MPS festival!(this time the Mittelalter Phantasy "horde" settled in Dortmund) YEAH! The festival rocked us and we rocked the festival stage on saturday evening PaganStyle! (I had such a lovely "old school" festival feel there... very relaxed atmospher, really sweet people, really LOUD crowd... we felt at home... I think that's partly because the Chiefs (organisers) we talked to are such cool dudes...we met Gisi and Ede (did I spell that right?) and had a talk about life out of the box, freedom and making your own path in the world (and festivals ofcourse)...just sitting around with loads of happy people and freaky weirdos having a good time in the sun all around us... beside the lakes ,under green leaves of age old giant trees in a beautifull (huge!) german park...It warms my Celtic heart to see and feel the positive vibes of extraordinary and creative people who don't give a damn about what others think of them, but who simply get on doing what they think is right ..working together to spread good feeling and joy of life despite the grey and boring world of humans... we..(with "we" I mean all the bands, the festivals and the artists which I know ) have the ability to make a new reality exist within the drab commercial "reality" (illusion)of modern life...we can offer you an "alternative" reality ... and that is a responsability as well as an honour... anyway...I digress (just smoked a jay because I'm back in Clogland)...we had fun , the whole OMNIA band and crew left germany with huge grins on their sweet little faces...I was especially happy to finally see our old friends from Rapalje again after so many fecking years of never being at the same place at the same time with them, (we played together a lot in the old days) check out mr.Fluffy on Daphyd's arm, enjoying their concert in this pic... so, sorry for making you read this much, I realise you're not supposed to write this much in blog, because most people have stopped reading by now (like Rob)...but not you...thanx...now I will finish this bloggy with the wise words that Macéal told me this afternoon ;-) : "be easy and free" (says it all doesn't it?)... this life is a good life, thank you all for sharing it with us...Greenthingz dr.SteveSic and the tired yet content OMNIA gang...
(by the way our next concert will be the MPS festival in Bückeburg on the 14th of july)
...picture by ChloéBabe...
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It is done!
This is us..onna ferry-boat…crossing the sea from Danmark to Deutschland (sadly our trusty OMNIA van still doesn't swim so we hitched a lift on a boat)……that was yesterday when we had another 10 hour journey home to Clogland just to remind ourselves what motorways look like…The mixing and mastering of the new OMNIA LIVE CD was a succes! It was a looooong gruelling process in which Christopher Juul , Jenny and myself smoked too much , worked too long houres, relaxed too little , slept even less and lived just to make art…that and all the other clichés that anyone who has ever worked on a big production in a studio will understand…(it's really very intense)… but such sweet work in the end 'cause it's pure musick (sic)…living art… we're very proud of it! Chris is still finishing up some details in Denmark , but we're back home for one day to wash our clothes and sleep 1 night in our own bed…and tomorrow we go to germany to play on another one of the cool MPS festivals! (yeah!) this one's in Dortmund (close to holland) so if you have nothing better to do, then come and listen to us play the entire tracklist of our new cd for you live!
Next week begins the process of making cover ARTwork. I've started drawing again, shall I just hand draw the outside cover this time?…hmmm? (more on that next week)…first we have a PaganParty at the MPS! Greenthingz and løve …SteveSic and Jenny (aka : Stenny) …picture by Jonathan Livingstone Seagull…
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Sunrise over Lava Studio...
Hey cool peoples of the internet world and beyond! Look at this picture of a beauty of a Scandinavian sunrise, taken this very morning around 4 am! Christopher and me had an almost al-nighter, we went to bed not earlier than 5! Steve was so tired he crashed a bit before us (well, acually 5 hours earlier). After our beauty nap (in my head, the screams of 'kill!maim!fight!slay!die! were on repeat...guess which song we were doing last...), we travelled to the centre of Copenhagen by ultraspeed taxi and since 10 am we've been in the Audioplanet mastering studio with "mastering-master" Jan, and the music is sounding awesomer and awesomer!
Thank you sweeties for reading this and giving feedback. I don't think I'll be blogging a lot as a rule but it's still great you like it ;-).....Løts of løve from København....Jenny xx
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Smokin' in the Studio...
As the day for our mastering appointment draws near (Wednesday 10 am), we are still frantically mixing the last tracks of our awesome live CD. As always, it takes more time than any of us expected. It doesn't help either that sometimes, the software behaves like an absent-minded pain in the ass and stuff has to be done all over again! You can see from the time of our last blog what kind of time we go to bed. The birds are already singing when we hit the sack (a huge amount of blackbirds! wow..). But as you see, we are still in a good mood and smokin'. Now and then we have some guests from Euzen listening along, here you see Kristian (their amazing drummer) smoking and listening along. The general consensus seems to be 'kick-ass!'
Well, there you have it, I wrote a little blog. (I think it is never as cool as anything Steve writes, but I hope you like it anyway).....Singing blackbirds and elderflowers!...Jenny
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the Best Omnia Gig ever...
Imagine a concert that has been arranged just for YOU...you get the very best place in the concert hall, where the sound is optimum (not too close to the speakers , not too far) in the exact centre of the hall for a perfect stereo effect... the ambiance is lovely...all the instruments and voices have been mixed just as we want you to hear them... there is no over enthousiastic omnia fan screaming into your ear every 5 seconds so you can hear everything... AND you can sit or stand or dance, whatever you want because YOU choose where and when you want the show to start...That is what we are building for you now on the new OMNIA LIVE-CD
Mixing out a live-show professionally in the studio is harder than it seems...you would think that all you need to do is get a recording made in the venue somewhere of the whole show and simply slap it on a disc and voila! (like we did with our really old cd "live religion" which we recorded acoustic bootleg-style in a church with just one small sony walkman)
Alas, no...sound on the big stages doesn't work like that..there are a gazillion microphones...there is lots of technical wireless shizzle...there are atmospheric mics...there are conflicting frequencies...there are goblins in the system... there is a huge PA giving "spill" into the mics....there is a big noisy audience...and then there is the music coming in on many different lines onto a hard-disc, where it all has to be seperated, cleaned and re-introduced into the mix to make this recorded show an absolutely perfect OMNIA PAGANFOLK ROCK experience... BUT unlike other bands (yes also the ones you like) we are ofcourse NOT overdubbing mistakes and re-recording voices and instruments to make us seem better than we actually are... All the OMNIA live songs are 100% pure, nothing added, nothing taken away, just mixed to perfection... because ofcourse we are and always remain OMNIA, so what you see is what you get ;-) Greenthingz and smokey studios...dr. Steve Sic and Jenny (picture by Marcel Bakker)
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update from Kopenhagen...
All the mixing and selecting work on the new OMNIA album (still no name) is going tiddelypoo and zippedeedooda...and the adrenalin in Lava studio is high at the moment because the pumping beats of Saltatio vita are bouncing off the walls like an anti aircraft cannon at close range....and I must say...fuck yeah!!!...ahem... we love Rob's drumming!...the guy is so fucking tight on the rythms...amazing stuff!..It's so freaky to be in the studio and to be able to take apart a whole OMNIA live show (well quite a few OMNIA shows actually) and examine it as through a microscope...to listen to what just one bandmember is doing inside the entire chaos of a live show...also in the moments they are not playing! (yes Rob, Philip and Daphyd...we hear EVERYTHING now! ...hehehe...;-) but seriously it's awesome..it ROCKS! There's so many OMNIA songs that we played on stage during the last tour ("new" ones and "old" ones, although for us they are all our babies, so ...timeless...), and so many different cool audiences and weird venues... it's gonna be hard to select which songs we are finally going to end up using... I mean , how long is a cd? 80 min?... we'll have to choose carefully... any ideas?... we're stil in the middle of the process... the days (and nights) are long but the work is sweet because we're finally putting the real OMNIA PaganFolk LIVE sound on CD! after all these years it's about time don't you think?... Greenthingz (from Christiania) and PaganFolk...dr.Sic (picture by Pandora's box)
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please fence me in...
It was such a lovely day yesterday after many many cold and hard ones that we decided to do some stuff in the garden (Chris and Maria's garden ofcourse because it's much closer than ours at the moment). I was feeling a little sick (sic) and grumbly and I find that a bit of physical exercise does wonders at such moments...so we had a little break...while christopher carried on with the tedious part of the production work in his smoky studio... Jenny and me helped Maria install the bits of gardenfence she had just bought from a Danish second-hand fence seller in the street... (check da pic) ...Don't you just love doing something simple with your hands?... just plain honest handcraft ...that's actually what most people used to do not so long ago...before multinational companies started automating everybody out of a job (and importing the rest from China) so that our lives would "become better"... But because we are ultra-conservative people who value physical skills and "real thingz" It's great to just play around with wood and wire, with plants and roots, under the fresh sky... lovely! Today is a different kettle of fish all together... we're back in the studio at the moment listening to the mix of an OMNIA song about insanity while the rain pours incessantly from the sky ...Clouds pelting their acidicly tainted liquid load against the studio window... like incontinent gods showering their criticism of modern society down upon the huddled mass of blind humanity...ah well...at least we can rely on the climate, which is still completely unchanged in its policy of constantly changing... I'm glad we get the chance to make our final OMNIA CD like this , just before the world ends... this will be our best cd ever, It's not even finished with mixing and mastering but I already get goosebumps from the energy it has...live and pure...old and new...recorded with our friends...while we were doing what we do best...playing music for sweet people (and freaks) like you! ... Green(wet)thingz! and luv...dr.SteveSic (supreme freak and sweet thing) picture by Jenny the FlowerFairy (who is officially the nicest person/fae in the whole world!)
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in the Mark of the Danes...
The days are long in studio, but the work is sweet. We're selecting and cleaning up mountains of songs, so they'll be ready to be put on the new OMNIA CD disc... we want to do it in record time (as is our habit) so instead of using months as other bands would, we (Christopher, Jenny et moi) have about a week to get it all done... but...because this is an OMNIA production, it means that our live album will contain actual LIVE RECORDINGS (and not a bunch of stuff that's been re-recorded and overdubbed in the studio as with other bands) so it's less work for us (because faking it takes more time obviously)... It's really lovely to hear the enormous energy just sizzling off the live-recordings as we work... The Pagan musick, The pulsing rythms, the crazy audiences...it's like we are re-living the entire "I don't speak human tour" by working through all these tapes...(erm, tapes? hello dr.Sic, this is the 3rd millenium we're in!...they don't use "tapes" for recording anymore...oh yeah...what should I call all the seperate bits then?, because everything is lumped unto one huge hard-disc now...concert-bytes?...concert- disc-spaces?... digitally captured-concerts?)... anyway I digress...again...have a great day, spare a thought for us slaving away in LavaStudio to bring YOU some pure art...and the real pure OMNIA sound because (this information is for all of you that never actually come to see our live shows) Despite all our experiments in studio cd's our LIVE SHOW has always been the same feeling:...Pagan and neo-Celtic, Flutes and Drumz, Harps and vocal-harmonies, Didges and Dancing...as it has always been, as it always will be... Greenz from Christiania and a cyberhug from København...XXX puppy SteveSic (if GOD is a DOG, than the POPE is a Puppy!...I like puppies better than popes)
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back in the stuuudio today!
Dis is me widh my frend Christopher Juul in dhe LavaStudioo in København in the land of dha Danes! Today is the first day of mixing the OMNIA LIVE ALBUM...
evverythingg is going well...we make a good start and teh atmossfea...athmusphe..attmoosve...erm...uh?...feeling in the house! ..is great! Fluffy musicall real fecking live thingz! mr.Fluffy (picture by hagar the horrible)
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we're on our way to København!
On the road again for another fun 10 hours in the van and on a (MF) boat to go to Kopenhagen… in the land where the vikings roam free and have voting rights and woolly hats!… We are going there to see this woman (Maria from Euzen) and her husband (Chris from Euzen and Lavastudio) to do their hair and talk about life, the universe and everything and visit Christiania and eat free-range norwegian duck and talk about life some more and smoke too much and drink too much and fall asleep on the floor….and possibly we'll also be mixing our new live cd in Chris's studio aswell…Greenthingz and miles of travel…Stenny
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Orchestral manoeuvres and the D!!
cool gigz this weekend! We really enjoyed playing XTATICA with the percussion orchestra and the jazz choir in Valkenswaard on saturday! fuck yeah! what a massive sound! Thank you very much to everybody who helped to make that evening a very speacial memory!
also Stenny had a "family outing" with the kids and some of their friends at the Tenacious D concert in Amsterdam...(and yes...it was totally awesome...Hail Jaibles and Kage! "The D" still rules supreme!) greenz and music dr. Steve Sic (picture by Carla Vinken)
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selecting interesting photo's for the live cd...
I'm selecting photographs to be used in our upcoming OMNIA live-CD today...we've made hundreds of the little feckers during our tour (backstage , in the hotel, on the road etc.) and I really want to put as many of them as possible in the artwork, so You can see how a REAL PaganFolk Band goes about doing a tour! Like this one where Daphyd and me are having a friendly discussion about some technical problem while building up the stage... I always like to discuss things with the band and crew in a friendly and adult manner like this, because we are all very reasonable and above all ...serious...people! Greenthingz and asphyxiation! dr.Steve Sic (picture by "the Roadie")
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OMNIA band meeting...
This is us having a band meeting and get-together to plan for the future...well, we've reached a mutual agreement and we've decided that the human race has no future on this planet, but we don't think that that should be allowed to become a barrier to our artistic expression ...so we won't let it stop us playing any less...actually , we wanna play MORE!... As you can see on this picture we are all completey submersed within our own respective cyber enviroments (of which this is one) to arrange as many gigs as possible for YOU! And Rob isn't on this picture because he had to leave early to go and practice with the drumorchestra for the show in Valkenswaard coming saturday (which we are joining aswell this weekend) ...all for YOU! (you are such a demanding boss you know!) ...anyway That's all the news from the cyberfront for today... Greenthingz! dr.Sic and OMNIA (picture by neo)
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The NEW OMNIA LIVE CD!!! (coming soon)
Jenny and me are working at the moment on this super hot sunny summer'z day, listening to all the live-recordings we made during the 2012 OMNIA "I don't speak human tour" that we brought to Holland and Germany… we're selecting which songs and which venues we are going to use for the upcoming OMNIA live-cd! It's kinda warm to be doing this kind of stuff, but then again millions of people are forced by some bossman/woman/vogon to slave away in some hot office behind a p.c just to earn an honest euro/dollar/yen/whatever…so I count myself fecking lucky that I'm only forced to work only by YOU…
We're quite enjoying the process of selection because we're sitting in a sunny room (where we always practice) and when we get too hot we go into the garden , where the birds are singing and the bugs are buzzing…and just drop our clothes and jump into the pool!… gosh every studio should have a swimming pool I think…(thought that a picture of us working behind the computer/speaker set-up would be a bit boring, and a picture of us naked in the pool would be much more entertaining but seriously in danger of censorship…so I opted for this picture, which I took by accident as I was getting the camera ready...but still it seems to express the atmosphere… Greenthingz and sunshine! dr.Steve Sic
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cool weekend, cool ending...
and this is the chilling and smoking at the pool "afterparty" see you all again soon! XXX Stenny
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jennyfluffy and da audience
this is Jenny impersonating mr.Fluffy at today's OMNIA-Poëtree gig at dreamharps (with backing vocals by the blackbirds) …(Jenny does a pretty good impression I must say!)…and what a crowd! … hugz and greenthingz! Stenny (picture by mr.Fluffy ;-)
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duality is life…
I'm sitting in the hot sun my body engulfed in the wondrous rays of heat emanating from that big ball of burning hydrogen which floats in space at just the right distance from me to make my skin tingle in delight with it's thermal caresses...
Yet my mind is engulfed in Ice and snow as my eyes submerge my conciousness deep into the world of fantasy, reading about heroes with frostbitten extremities battling undead and spirits in howling storms of snow… (I'm re-reading the entire 7part collection of "Song of Ice and Fire" books…you probably know them better as a televison series called "Game of Thrones")…and I was just getting a little schitzo by the contrast between the fire on my body and the Ice in my mind…but that's life isn't it? it's all about duality, Yin Yang, love and hate, dark and light, man and woman,ice and fire, monkey and planet…it's the everlasting dance between two opposites that cause the existance of the wonderous third player in this cosmic tragedy/comedy called life… I am sitting in silence and peace now ..but soon the house will be filling up with more happy people who have come to listen to Jenny and me play our songs… empty house + full house = life …have a good one! (we will;-) …Greenz and summersun dr.Steve Sic
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after Poëtree-gig chilling by the pool…
the players and the listeners , hanging out together under the sun, with their heads in the sky and their toes in the coolpool! ;-) picture by Jenny
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great audience! great poëtree gig!
dis is me with the nice peeples on a summerday!…wee had a lovely afternoon of musick and frendship at dreamharps today…the sun was shining, the blackbirds were singing and Stenny woz playying…me like! tommorrow we gonna do it again!
musickal greenthingz! mr. Fluffy pictjoor by Sic…tag yourself if you wanna ..but me cannot ..becos me don' hav a stoopid facebook…only a face…
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Can you feel alive today?
This weekend we're playing the last two of our special unplugged OMNIA-Poëtree gigs in the beautifull (sold-out) music-room of DreamHarps in Mijdrecht…the weather is amazing and I started this lovely sunny day with skinnydipping in the pool! …that's really the best way to wake up in the morning…just staggering out of bed and falling into the cool embrace of fresh water! spashhhhhhh!….. oh! if only I could start everyday in this way…that would truly be paradise… (well at least I would be awake very fast every day)...now I'm catching some rays in the flowery back garden (which will be full of omnia fans this afternoon) in an attempt to put some bronze on my pathetically pale body (especially the parts that are usually out of the sun!)…ah it's such a hard life...work work work all the time... I don't know how we manage! ...hehehe!... BUT today we shall do some of our real "work".... Today we make the purest musick!, today is a day without electronics and amplification… just us and you… and our poëtree... and afterwards we can all chill and smoke and talk beside the pool…it's onna be a good weekend, bring it on, 'cause we feel Alive! …hugz, Greenz and suntan lotion…dr.Sic and nurse Jenny ;-) (picture by zombie hedgehog)
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Well that's something we haven't done before!
on saturday the 2nd of june Rob's 15 piece drumband will have a special performance together with a jazz-choir in theater de Hofnar in Valkenswaart (NL). They will be doing an entire evening of different musical pieces in various different styles....and OMNIA will also be joining this rather large ensemble for a percussive/choral version of two of our songs (Extatica and Stand-up) during this evening... ticket INFO here
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Extra heart of gold!
We added a new tshirt in our webshop.
The Regular Heart of Gold tshirt in size S!
To commemorate the official 10 year "OMNIA the PaganFolk band" anniversary, we have decided to make a special "heart of gold" edition tee-shirt and girlie-top for 2012.
so no more need for searching...you've found the Heart of Gold (including subliminal improbability drive) and it can be yours!
Of course you can also buy our merchandise during any of the gigs that are listed in the Agenda.
Have a lovely evening,
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nature art into the skin
This is my daughter Myrthe Fortuna getting her very first tattoo set, she really wanted to have one since she was about 13 but we told her to wait untill she had turned 18...so for her 18th I designed one of our nature-swirlie family tattoos and here she is getting it stabbed into her skin by our favourite tattooist Renate at tattoosolutions. This first session took about 4 hours and like an indian warrior coming-of-age ritual it hurt like hell! (but judging from myrthe's smiling face and cool poise during the long session you could never tell ;-) XXX greenthingz and black leaves... Steve Sic
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Well...that was really a most pleasant surprise indeed!...we had an A-ma-zing-ly good time this weekend at the MPS festival in Rastede (D)...wow what a fucking awesome travelling festival! When we arrived it was like entering a huge medieval/barbarian encampment ...as if a giant army of Knights and Celtic/ Viking / Fantasy raiders had settled for a while in a beautifull german park...BUT instead of spreading death and bloodshed, rape and pillage , this army's mission was to spread good humor, music and the joy and culture of the "simpler" historical times among the huge audience (most of whom were ALSO dressed up and completely immersed in this otherworld). And there we were...like a hired band of Celtic mercenaries ...the warband OMNIA with our weapons of melody , ready to entertain....fuck yeah! ...we played a full one and a half hour set and we rocked the place as hard as it rocked us! Friends of ours like Rapalje and Faun had already been there, but this was our very "first time", and...We love this festival and it has shot up into the very small list of our "favourite places to play"! (and the good thing about it is that the MPS is not just once a year, no way! it's actually more than 22 festivals this year, moving from place to place and a season ticket to go to ALL the festivals for the wholeyear costs only €80,-!?) we will definately be going back to play our Pagan madness this year on the following 5 MPS's which are all reasonably close to Holland: in Dortmund-16th june, in Bückeburg-14th of july, in Köln-4th august (together with Faun we'll have us a proper PaganNight there!), in Telgte-18 august and finally in Öjendorf-1st september. So if you want to see us play in one or more of these beautifull festivals on an "old school" medieval stage in a beautifull setting come and check out the MPS and if it's on a day that we're playing , we'll be seeing you there! Greenthingz and Peace XXX Steve Sic et OMNIA
Edit: And we just added some new Live "MPS" Pictures in our gallery!
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bandanas are back in season (apparently)
check out the new gallery which has been added to our "live pictures" taken at the last Theatre show in Vlaardingen by Jasper... enjoy! OMNIA from now on the picture galleries will fill with all the upcoming festival gigs! check like the MittelalterlichesPhantasySpectaculum...FESTIVAL in Rasta-stede coming saturday the 19th (ya mon!) see ya there!
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looking for a Heart of Gold?
To commemorate the official 10 year "OMNIA the PaganFolk band" anniversary, we have decided to make a special "heart of gold" edition tee-shirt and girlie-top for 2012. These cool highquality shirts have the OMNIA heart-logo printed on the front in beautifull rich gold (like the first OMNIA-Shirt SteveSic ever designed!) and will certainly last you (and us) for another 10 years of the purest natural PaganFolkRock experience!
so no more need for searching...you've found the Heart of Gold (including subliminal improbability drive) and it can be yours! order it here on our webshop
greenthingz OMNIA
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The sound of flowers growing...
Nothing in this world of mutant monkeys is really sacred...only NATURE deserves that description... A flower grows through a crack in the concrete...tonight you can hear the sound it makes (here)... Green and neo-Celtic thingz and Peace to Gaia...dr.Steve Sic ...picture by Jenny the Harp (and Flower) Fairy...
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OMNIA team on the road...
Please allow me to introduce ourselves...we're a band of wealth and taste!...
from left to right: Didgeman-Daphyd, Guitarman- Philip, Damien the Roadie, Steve Sic the me, Drummerman Rob, Mistress of Melody Jenny, Merchmaid Chloé, tourmanager Jan and Supersoundguy Sascha... This is the gang that brought you the OMNIA- "I don't speak Human" tour...which we finished with an epic show last saturday in Köln (Germany)... that was it!... the last OMNIA tour is now officially done (and seeing as the world will end in 2012 this was also our last tour ever,because next year we'll all be dead!.... so if you missed it...too bad ;-) (luckily we've recorded it all though...for the live-album we're working on...)
BUT ANYWAY...We will be playing our last theatre show (of this season) in Stads gehoorzaal Vlaardingen coming friday the 11th and after that the Festival season starts for us (but more about that later) Thanx so much everybody who showed up for our tour , and thanx especially for all the lovely gifts that you've given to us! ...Stay weird, Stay real, Stay Green, and Don't be fooled by the Media Monkeys!!! Hugz and Peace, Steve Sic and the whole Rocking Fecking OMNIA team! (picture by Michelle Jagger)
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On the road to Germany... (reprise)
We're packing! (again) to go to Germany to tour! (again) to finish off the last part of the
OMNIA "I don't speak Human" club-tour ... Yeah!... We still have three dates left to play in Germany : Leipzig 3rd of may, Giessen 4th may and Köln 5th may...sadly the gig in Bremen was cancelled because of the inevitable bovine-faeces music business bureaucracy... (musicians are like simple addicted prostitutes who's performing life gets dictated by the pimps (bookers) and the brothels (venues and festivals) of the entertainment branch... ah well! We will just rock harder at the venues where we DO go!
We're actually recording all the upcoming shows for our new live-album! and in Köln our video friend Erwin and his ninja -stealth -video crew will be filming the show aswell! So if you come to one or more of these shows, be as loud and as pretty as you possibly can and maybe you'll appear on the new OMNIA CD or a on a video with us too!!! We'll also have our sweet friends of Las Fuegas joining us on stage for a few songs at the Leipzig show! Well...I'm looking forward to being back in beautifull Germany for a while...although I'm not looking forward to the motorway Zoll ambt rummaging through my bags again! ;-) (but that's the price you have pay for having Dutch licence plates on a cool looking van!)... anyway, jedenfalls, de toute façons, in ieder geval, de todos modos see you at one of our coming shows! Greenthingz SteveSic et OMNIA (picture by Marcel Bakker)
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Happy Bealtaine!!! WARNING! this is a Celebratory message coupled with political ranting! (do not read if you are sensitive to these things!)
Today is the official ancient-Celtic start of summer, and from where I'm sitting I must say: yeah baby! it's here allright!!...Wow what a lovely sunny day!... in Holland on this date most of the (non-arab) dutch populace prefer to celebrate the fact that the whole country is still enslaved to an inbred-family of German/Spanish dictators who were once (in the 16th century) given a city in france called Orange...thus turning that unfortunate colour into the ,main celebrational hue of all things "Dutch"... Holland is covered in the colour orange right now like a giant Fanta-rally.... I personally have no orange coloured items to wave aloft as I say the traditional "Oranje Boven" (which means "Orange über alles" in the language of the nederlands)...but I have found an orange tinted face-cloth on my mother in Law's washing line with which I wish to join in with the revels of my "fellow countrymen" in celebrating the wiping away of all the many sins perpetrated against the simple peasants of this land over many many centuries by the family of our noble hat-bearing Queen Beatrix and her jolly fat son Willem. (sadly because of brain damage due to massive inbreeding the dutch/german royal family have always lacked the imagination to think up a better name than "Willem" for any of their male offspring ...it's always got to be Willem van Oranje ...or Kaiser Wilhelm or somesuch dosh....erm...and that would be William in English...(and especially in Irish, if you know your history well)... Bizarrely enough this family of puppet masters of the Netherlands who own most of the shares in nearly every large company in Holland have NEVER actually allowed a true dutch person to marry into their little mafia family since they stole the throne back from the Dutch republic after Napoleon had strutted his stuff in these parts...they are a strictly German inbred family (with exceptions to a certain blond south american generalissimo's daughter ofcourse...who is probably at least a quarter german after the 1945 exodus ;-)
Ah yes , I'm ranting again! (well it's a dirty job but someone's got to do it) thank you for reading this and if you're Dutch maybe it'll inspire you to look up a bit of your own country's history and read between the lines to what is (and always has been) going on... To change the human world and think up some new way of doing things we first have to get rid of the old one...because what we're doing now (drowning in blind consumerism while voting for yet another corrupt government of corporate asskissers and royal lackeys who will only collapse like a flan in a cupboard AGAIN leaving even more of your tax cash running into some rich family's account, really has no use...does it?)
so dear friends and other peasants... celebrate "Queens Day" and spend lotsa money, wave the orange flag high in the air and piss on the memories of your ancestors who fought for your freedom and the Doomed Dutch Republic... :-)
But seriously if there's one thing to celebrate, celebrate the summer which is here... again and again...the yearly cycle of life that has nothing to do with silly humans and all the lies, rules and laws they invent to abuse and control their fellow monkeys ...you only have one life , live it Free! (if only in your mind)
.....Summer's coming ...time to smile! Greenthingz and Warmth dr.SteveSic (picture by Verminder)
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Come join us...for some PAGAN FOLK! :-)
We just finished a bit of breakfast and exercise , plus some practice and getting ourselves "tarted up a bit" with showers et make-up et all....because we're playing a theatre tonight (de Meenthe in Steenwijk). By tonight my stage make-up will probably be dripping down my face so I'll look all emo, but who cares?.... that just makes it more real... Tonight we're trying an experimental instrument set-up with some weird percussion instruments but including the full drumkit ...so we will be playing a very dynamic Theatre show ranging from super-soft to rock-hard... We're all looking forward to playing "up north" in Holland again (a place we don't go to very often) We hope you'll enjoy the show (if you're there).....I hope you'll enjoy this day (wherever you are and whatever you'll be doing today) Greenthingz on this hopefull springday in 2012 (the last year of this human civilisation ;-) XXX dr.SteveSic (picture by cptn.Jack Sparrow)
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OLD MAN TREE the acoustic version!
We just uploaded a new video onto our youtube channel...This is a purely acoustic recorded version of Stenny performing the song Old Man Tree at Dreamharps, made into a beautifull video by our dear friend Erwin... check it out, and if you would like to help us please SHARE IT! XXX peace and greenthingz Stenny
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