A warm hello to all of Saharadja's dear friends and fans!
First of all I'd like to invite you to join our new mailing list at Fanreach (please visit www.reverbnation/saharadja or simply add your email address in the box on our Myspace page). It's a much easier way for me to organize all our contacts and keep you up to date with Saharadja's latest happenings. It also helps me to let you know when we'll be performing in a city near you. We have many tours coming up throughout Asia, Europe and Australia so we'd love to see you at one of our shows! If you haven't done so already and have a spare minute, we would really appreciate if you could fill in your details at reverbnation so we know where you are located. This way we can let you know when we are performing in your country.
We're very excited to announce that you can now buy our 3rd album Abracadabra on iTunes and Amazon.com. We have also signed up at Reverb Nation (www.reverbnation.com/saharadja) where you can download some free Saharadja tunes, watch videos, see some photos, our schedule and more. We'd really appreciate it if you could spend some time checking it out as there are some simple ways for you to help promote Saharadja. Try for example adding a banner (which you can find on our page) to your website which will link to our page. Or you can even add a Saharadja Tunes widget to any website or blog so your friends can hear our music.
You can also check out our myspace (www.myspace.com/saharadja ) which is kept up to date with our latest news, photos, videos, press clippings etc.
Lately we've been busy rehearsing and recording with Simon Tuke from England who hopes to take Saharadja on tour with him through Europe next year. We've been in the studio working on his amazing songs, adding a few 'Saharadja spices' to create a demo. A huge thanks to Martin Lindsey-Clark who has been trying for years to help us play in Europe! He came up with the idea for this collaboration and has committed 100% to this project. We have a couple of other offers for festivals in Europe next Summer so we are trying to piece them all together to create a tour. If anyone has any contacts anywhere in Europe (such as Festivals or other venues) we'd be forever grateful if you could let us know. We plan to be there from June until August and hope to do as many gigs as we can in that time.
The last couple of months have been very busy with tours, recording and concerts. In April we toured 3 cities in Java (Semarang, Purwokerto and Salatiga) which was a huge success. We performed on various university campuses with crowds of over 4000 people. The crowds were mostly made up of very enthusiastic students and their friends and families so the energy was wild. The tour was such a success that we were invited back to Semarang on the 18th August where we performed at Semarang's City Hall for Indonesian Independence day. This was quite a formal event for all the government workers. The next evening we did another concert in Semarang sponsored by L.A. Lights at the UNIKA university campus with a crowd of around 3000. Another spectacular show… we're really enjoying the response we receive from the university crowds and looking forward to touring the rest of Java.
A couple of hours after arriving back to Bali from Semarang, we headed to Korea for the Nangye Traditional Music Festival in Yeongdong. It was great to play in Korea again. Big thanks to Victor Kye for taking such great care of us while we were there.
Photo by Yose Riandi: Semarang August 2008
Over the last couple of months we've performed for many corporate functions and parties in Bali for government, banking and golfing events as well as a charity concert in Sofitel to raise money for the earthquake victims in China. On the 9th August we performed for Miss Earth Indonesia which will soon be broadcast on national TV. We joined forces with 30 Balinese Kecak performers to create a spectacular version of our original song 'Abracadabra'. We also took the stage on the 10th August at Sanur Village Festival where we had a blast.
We'd like to thank Yose Riandi for taking such amazing photos of Saharadja in concert in Semarang. He really managed to catch the energy of the band and the crowd. You can see these photos on www.reverbnation.com/saharadja and www.myspace.com/saharadja. We'd also like to thank Hans Straub who took some great pictures at our Dynasty Resort performance. Also big thanks toAndreas Griesmayr who photographed us at Sanur Village Festival and has been so kind to allow us to use them on our websites. You can see his complete album of Saharadja photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kuuan/sets/72157606664336319/ . There are also some great photos by KC Kong and many others at www.flickr.com if you search for Saharadja.
And just a last note for anyone who enjoys a bit of rock music…..
Myself and Marina have been recording a duet album (vocal/ violin) which Rio is producing. This album is mostly made up of commercial style rock/pop original songs which we plan to launch with a major label in Indonesia. We will have our first performance in Obsesion on the 15th November. For more details please visit www.myspace.com/siztas
Thank you all for your support – it's always great to receive your emails and we look forward to catching up with you again.
Warmest Regards,
Sally Jo
on behalf of
SAHARADJA