Gregor McEwan - Going Solo
Flyctory.com Pros
- Beautiful, very personal songs
- Very nice and straight concept
When I prepared for the review of this album, I read in one magazine article that Gregor McEwen is a troubadour if ever there was one at all. In fact, this well-praised artist is a German singer-songwriter. With his 1st September 2023, he is releasing is new album Going Solo. The story behind the album: at the end of his career, he wanted to write a real, classic solo album, as he names it in the press notes. An album just like Johnny Cash’s late works at American Recordings. Just vocals and a western guitar. Sounds promising, doesn’t it? At least he caught me with these words – and here is the corresponding review. Even though the pandemic pushed Gregor’s plans by some years.

Gregor McEwan – About The Artist
Gregor McEwen is the artist name of Hagen Siems. The German singer-songwriter was born in Haltern (nowadays named Haltern am See), he is today living in Berlin. Born on 14th November 1982, he started to play guitar in childhood years. He intiially wrote songs for the indie band Helter Skelter until their break-up in 2009. During this time, he also defined his alter ego Gregor McEwan. Under that artist name, he released his debut album Houses and Homes in 2010. The album was re-released a year later an followed by three more studio albums.
Gregor McEwan – Going Solo – Track by Track
The eleven song album lasts 34 minutes.

1. (To You) CEO, Bitch!
So here is my song pitch
To you CEO, bitch!
Put it on a playlist
And not on your grey list
Watch later on YouTube
Where I just bought fake views
“Payable when due
From streaming revenue”
This beautiful reckoning with the music industry and life as a musician during Covid is not only opening the album, it has also been the first single release of the album. It already sets a clear direction for the whole record: straight records and the simple recording of Gregor and his guitar. The more limited you work, the more precise and well you have to do to get a good song. (To You) CEO, Bitch! is a good song.
2. Anthem For The Year 2020
The second song is nicely connecting to the opener. The song is about his personal experience in 2020. For example, he states I missed hugs and handshakes to I even missed my workplace in the first stanza. By the way, Gregor McEwan is breaking the guitar and vocal thing already in the second song by introducing the harmonica (even with a solo part). I pardon this lack of discipline with a smile – it is a good song.
3. Talking…
Talking… starts rather slow, but turns out to be more energetic in the chorus. Nonetheless, the song underlines the very personal and straight character of the album. Even though I liked the two songs before more.
4. Upside Down
Upside Down is one of these beautiful hidden gems of the album. The first time I listened to song, I did not really care about it. But the more I get into this album four minute track, the more I enjoy the straight and personal songwriting.
5. 60 BPM
The title is already suggesting that this song comes with a certain slowdown. It almost feels meditative. The very accentuated vocals lead to a very special touch. Even though this special way of performing also increases the presence of the German accent in the English lyrics. Tik Tok, Tik Tok… Writing songs can feel so simple if you got your homework done right.
6. 1234567
With 1:41 minutes, the sixth song is the shortest listen of Going Solo. If you wonder about the title, I don’t spoil your first listen. But I tell you that 1234567 feels like a full song and is definitely not just an interlude track.
7. Halo: Reach
Halo: Reach is one of three single releases in the second half of this record. The song is a beautiful, gentle country ballad. One of the nicest listens of the whole set of songs.
8. Being And Becoming
The eighth song is about coming home soon and sharing all the thoughts and expectations. There are not only positive ones – like and now that I’m in bad shape, I fall asleep very soon. A song like you would expect a beautiful singer-songwriter performance in a small club or bar to be.
9. My Little Girl
I don’t anything about life in this world, but I know most everything about you, my little girl is the key phrase of this one. Gregor is praising love even in situations where you feel to fail in so many other ways. Another really lovely write.
10. Windows Down, Volume Up
This 3:34 minutes song feels to take time where necessary. For example, the first 20 seconds are nothing but rather monotonous guitar strumming. That gives me a hart time to get into this song. It might spread quite some atmosphere as a live track, though.
11. The End.
The closing song feels like a folk-country fairy tale and leaves you with quite some warmth in your heart. What would be a better The End? Nice one!
Gregor McEwan – Going Solo – Spotify
I will add the Spotify widget once the album is available.
Gregor McEwan – Going Solo – My View
Is Going Solo close to a Johnny Cash one? Likely not – it is a Greator McEwan (or Hagen Siems) one. But in that, it is a real beauty. Some some turn the record into an a bit of lengthy listen – but overall, the album works out really well and tells personal stories in an adorable way.
Ruhrgebiet
From Duisburg to Hamm – here are all postings related to the Ruhrgebiet in Germany:
As the Run & Fly Meeting 2025 in Dortmund was held in parallel to a Borussia Dortmund soccer match and ...
I recently forgot a name of a German country artist and had to google it. I started typically by looking ...
In contrast to the rather small range of field events, the Run & Fly Meeting 2025 featured quite a lot ...
Back to the Helmut-Körnig-Halle in Dortmund: after I had featured the Sparkassen Indoor Meeting 2024 in the arena next to ...
There are just a few bands, which use Christmas time for album releases. The O'Reillys and the Paddyhats are a ...
I am still struggling with the Christmas presents - I am really late with this thing this year. There are ...
I had a quite turbulent and emotional November 2024. The more, I appreciated good music. Here is my overview of ...
Just two months until Christmas. Times are getting colder (at least on the Northern hemisphere), people spend more time inside ...
Finally, I made it - after featuring so many concerts of different genres, I headed to Essen in the German ...
Another year, another time for Rock of Ages. Similar to the previous years, I disclose some of the international dates I ...
I follow Andreas Dorau and his music since the mid-1990's. The more I was happy to be able to cover ...
After I had a one show stay in Vienna, it was already some three weeks since I had seen Rock of ...
12th March 2024 brought me to Bochum in the German Ruhrgebiet. The city hosted my very first Rock of Ages ...
Frank Renfordt is back - and this time he is wearing his cowboy hat again! The Cumberland River Project releases ...
Typically, my trip reports are about one travel. Sometimes, there are one-day stories like the 24 hour train ride through ...
The Cumberland River Project is on the final straight towards a new release. On 22nd March 2023, Frank Renfordt and ...
Just two weeks after I featured the Dümptener Füchse women's team at Erlensee, I had them on my schedule again ...
As part of my initiative to have more sports coverage in 2024, I traveled to Erlensee on 17th February 2024 ...
Coming back from the United Arab Emirates and about to head to Malaysia soon - thus, some really interesting experiences ...
Carnvial in Cologne - and I am in he United Arab Emirates this weekend. It is rather party season, no ...
Slope are doing a quite rare mix of metal, hip hop and electronic sounds. The band developed their style during ...
There are a lot of zoos and animal parks in the Rheinland and Ruhrgebiet region of Germany. The TerraZoo in ...
In the relations of my home town Cologne, we are celebrating a big Songs of the Week anniversary with this edition. My ...
I still feel that in many athletics meetings, the track events are somehow still more in focus than the field ...
After I gave you my report of the field and side events of the 2004 Sparkassen Indoor Meeting in Dortmund, ...
In general, I plan to increase the frequency of my athletics coverage during 2024. The first event of that sports ...
I already introduced you to the Museumkaart in the Netherlands, which may be a very profitable (but a bit of ...
I am a bit of angry as the tool I loved to use to scan for new country releases does ...
Afrer his very interesting album release Going Solo, I was really curious about how Gergor McEwan would be alike live on ...
Finn & Jonas are twins. They are doing German indie-pop songs. After they grew regionally and have a national fan ...
Golf? In Germany, the sport is rather regarded to be elite entertainment, a free time activity for the rich. Our ...
It is just mid-year 2023 and I already start working on my 2024 Rock of Ages International Tour list. I am sure ...
The title of the album Guten Morgen, schönes Leben translates to "Good morning, beautiful life". The artist who wrote it is German ...
If you think about famous German harbor cities, you might initially think of places like Hamburg or Kiel. However, Duisburg ...
World class athletics in walking distance to my home? The #TrueAthletes Classics in Leverkusen has been on my bucket list ...
Being on a five-day seminar in Lünen North of Dortmund lead to a comparably long stay at the Hampton by ...
Newcomers and established artists, rock and schlager, party songs and deep messages - I feel that this edition of my ...
With this fourth posting, I am closing my coverage of the German Athletics Nationals 2023. The Auestadion in Kassel hosted ...
I have struggled quite much with health issues this week - which also prevented me to travel to some British Rock ...
The artist name Sebel is a short form for the civil name of the artist, Sebastian Niehoff. He is a ...
As I told you in previous postings, I initially gather candidates for my Songs of the Week, before I narrow the ...
Visiting Dortmund, my wife and I also headed to the Naturmuseum (Nature Museum) in the city of the German Ruhrgebiet. After the ...
Reading sessions, artsexhibitions... and concerts - if you look at the tour dates of Kati von Schwerin, you already see ...
Semifinal time in the German floorball playoffs: after I already took you to the first women quarterfinal match between Bonn ...
Not too many releases due to the Easter week. The week was dominated by my Rock of Ages coverage. First of all, ...
Duisburg in the Ruhrgebiet might not be on the top of your list when you plan a trip though Germany ...
After a lot of tour-chasing Weird Al Yankovic and watching the Pittsburgh Penguins, the first weekend home after quite a ...
Technically, I had already closed the list of potential reviews as of 24th March 2023. But then came Sophia and ...
He is having the unofficial nickname The singing Gentleman's Cake and had a huge song about a cat's toilet - Helge Schneider ...
Today is a very special day to me: Weird Al Yankovic is playing is first-ever concert in Germany tonight, at ...
Damn - just when I had a massive travel volume, the number of new releases of all genres went up ...
Ireland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, USA, Canada - and of course Germany lay ahead of me for the ...
Oh wow, I really have to limit myself this week. There is so much good music being released this week ...
How could the Christmas days end better than with some warmth, sauna, whirlpool and... wait... It will be damn full ...
Welcome to the first Songs of the Week posting in 2023! Despite the music industry is slowly getting back to business, I ...
The last posting of the year - Best Ones 2022 is introducing you to my best experience last years (as ...
Just some ten days left until Christmas. Instead of my typical album preview, I this time go for a preview ...
I was quite amazed that there were quite a lot of interesting single releases this week. At least artists from ...
"Little Christmas" - as there is Thanksgiving in the United States, the volume of new releases is significantly reduced, just ...
The Hohensyburg castle is located at a height of 245 meters above sea level in Southern Dortmund in Germany. While the castle ...
After I gave you an overview of 2022 European appearances of my favorite musical Rock of Ages, I felt to ...
At the beginning of July, my wife and I visited the LWL Freichlichtmuseum Hagen, the LWL Open Air Museum in Hagen. The ...
Interestingly, most of the press information I received about Das Jahr, das sich um eins verschiebt by Philipp Eisenblätter declares the ...
Okay, this week, my Songs Of The Week listeners need to stay strong: I started my list with schlager (with a touch ...
26th June 2022, Mülheim-Dümpten, Von-der-Tann Straße sports hall, 14:00 hrs local time: The final two teams, fighting through the group matches and ...
The second last match of the German Under 15 Girls National Championships featured the two losing teams of the semifinals, ...
From the senior girls to the very young ones: while the Dümptener Füchs from Mülheim, Ruhrgebiet region, just have become ...
So good to have a new one from The Cumberland River Project: one of Germany's finest manufacturers of country music ...
Axel Rudi Pell is definitely one of the most well-known hard rock and metal acts from Germany. On 15th April ...
I already introduced you to the Visiodrom in Wuppertal, for which a former gasometer has turned into an audiovisual exhibition ...
Apart from regional local soccer dominator Borussia and the coal production history, Dortmund is quite well famous for a very ...
Doing Christmas shopping with a hotel room around? Right next to Germany's largest shopping mall, the Westfield Centro in Oberhausen, ...
Flyctory.com has a focus on country music, my community includes quite a bunch of US-American people and I love to ...
One of the things I always try to do when in the United States is to spend some time at ...
One of places my wife and I really loved to visit in pandemic times are private spa suites. We already ...
Oberhausen might not be regarded to be one of the most beautiful cities of the German Ruhrgebiet region - but ...
The German artist Det Haggard is a new name in the German lyrics country music scene. After he had some ...
Some new guitar riffs made in Germany: it is hard to think about the German metal music scene without thinking ...
Ship lifts are one of the most fascinating technical constructions to me. Being able to move ships like in an ...
I received quite a lot of feedback on my initial (late April 2021) version of the The German Songs edition of ...
After quite a hiatus - the last regular Country Music Picks edition is as of November 2020, I felt it ...
As the reviews of the park were pretty good, my wife and I headed to a deer park / wildlife ...
It's been just too long since I did the last episode of my Country Music Picks. At the end of ...
The Red Dot Design Award is one of the most well-known (and prestigious) design awards in the world. However, the ...
If an industrial site is jokingly called the Eiffel Tower of the Ruhrgebiet Region, it seems to be quite an impressive ...
Despite the limited travel situation in Germany due to Covid-19, there are some quite interesting virtual airline projects in Germany ...
The city of Dortmund in the Northeast Ruhrgebiet region is maintaining its own airport. Dortmund Airport, which is officially called Dortmund ...
292 Media Review postings - looking into new music (and a few other) releases was definitely some sort of core ...
2020 is about to come to an end - and the last three posting of the years re about to ...
Sodom is one of the finest names for Thrash Metal made in Germany. The band is already having a 38 ...
Even though Covid-19 is taking quite much of our time, we should really enjoy the good things - and at ...
60 years of Axel Rudi Pell - one of the big names in the German metal scene is celebrating this ...
Already the first single Back On The Road felt very promising - and at least when The Cumberland River Project released their ...
My Country Music Playlists on Amazon Music and Spotify are one of the most popular elements of the Flyctory.com music ...
Country music made in Germany? There are more and more projects which feel to be very promising. In my point ...
Like you already saw in my review of the Emirates Aviation Experience, including the A380 simulator, I have a certain ...
DJK Holzbüttgen close to Dusseldorf and Cologne is an amazing masterpiece of local sports club management. Having started with very ...
The Best Lounge Reviews
Here are all my lounge reviews, having a rating better than 4.0, in descending order of the rating:
My October 2024 trip, featuring multiple flights and airlines from Germany to Jakarta, came with one major highlight. Qatar Airways ...
Before my flight back with Saudia Arabian Airlines from Kuala Lumpur (KUL) in late February 2024, I expected to have ...
Terminal 3 of Heathrow Airport (LHR) is something like the safe haven for British Airways Executive Club (BAEC) status customers ...
Flying intercontinentally from Europe via Helsinki, especially to Asian destinations, became more and more popular the last years. One key ...
For customers flying on Lufthansa's top notch First Class product (and HON Circle Members), the German airline offers a very ...
Opting for American Airlines over British Airways when flying from London-Heathrow (LHR) to the United States has a key advantage: ...
A roughly eight hour transfer time in Jeddah (JED) - some people would not have booked the trip I took ...
As far as I had in mind, there used to be two business lounges at Krakow Airport (KRK). The more ...
My March 2023 flights to some Pittsburgh Penguins matches had a nice highlight from an aviation point as well. For ...
In between of tour-chasing Weird Al Yankovic in Florida in October 2022 (see my picture posting), I also had the ...
Before heading to the United Arab Emirates in February 2022, flying with Finnair from Helsinki Airport (HEL) to Dubai (DXB) ...
After I mentioned the Air Canada Lounge at Frankfurt Airport already in my love letter posting to LATAM flight 705, ...
In addition to the non-Schengen services at Terminal 1, Terminal 2 of Prague Airport (PRG) offers two lounge options. I ...
What a day - on 14th January 2023, I traveled through all 16 German states in a 24 hour train ...
In previous postings, I already introduced you to my excellent travel experience with the Southern Florida high-speed rail provider Brightline ...
In August 2021, I finally visited a place which has been hidden from me for so long. I had so ...
Though they really seem to put in quite some effort to improve the situation, I am not too much a ...
On my trip with Sun-Air of Scandinavia, I had the opportunity to visit Billund Airport. My stopover time there was ...
Even though I already had a couple of flights from Newcastle Airport (NCL), I never shared my lounge experience from ...
Typically when I fly from the B Gates at Frankfurt Airport (FRA), I love opting for the Air Canada Maple ...
Unexpected encounter in October 2022: right when I was about to have my first Eurowings Discover intercontinental flight to Tampa ...
For years, if I would have wanted to deeply bash the Deutsche Bahn (German Rails), there would have been a simple way ...
In April 2021, I finally had my first flight connections to/from the new Berlin airport, BER - Berlin / Brandenburg ...
If you have a Schengen flight from Madrid Barajas Terminal 4 and fulfill the requirements, you typically relax at the ...
I recently reviewed the DB Lounge / German Rail Lounge at Frankfurt Airport. I could somehow copy and paste major ...
If you fly a non-Schengen flight from Terminal 1 (the non-Lufthansa one) at Munich Airport and depart from the B ...
I have to admit that American Airlines Admiral Club Lounges are not really my favorite place. Some are functional, some ...
Being on some sort of Lufthansa farewell tour after I decided not to prolong my Senator status gave me an ...
On my recent trip to the Tennis Hall of Fame Open 2024 in Newport, I had British Airways and American ...
I am very likely not prolonging my Lufthansa Senator status after it expires in February 2025. Thus, when my wife ...
In late July 2023, I have been checking out some of the services of KLM and Air France, testing if ...
In January 2023, I took a rail trip hitting all 16 German states in one day. Apart from that geographic ...
Flying back home from a Rock of Ages show weekend in Inverness in the Scottish Highlands, I was really amazed ...
I have to admit that I did not become too much of a friend of Malta during our four night ...
My Firefly flights in Malaysia to and from Subang Airport (SZB) also offered me to explore a new lounge. The ...
As my trip to the Faroe Islands in September 2023 was on two split tickets, a SAS one from Dusseldorf ...
Right before the United Kingdom left the European Union, I headed to Jersey for a short mileage run. The Channel ...
In October 2024, I flew from Jakarta (CGK) Terminal 3 back to Abu Dhabi (AUH) via Colombo (CMB). The SriLankan ...
Four flights with SriLankan Airlines - the national aviation provider of the Asian state was the backbone of my travel ...
Flying Qatar Airways Business Class from Belgrade (BEG) to Doha (DOH) gave me a rather rare experience. While I already ...
Being the only guest in a lounge almost demands me having a lounge review. This happened to me in Dresden ...
Yeah, I am a bit of nerdy, but one thing I was looking forward about flying Lufthansa First Class from ...
Primeclass is a global franchise of airport lounge operators. During our Croatia Airlines flight from Dubrovnik (DBV) to Frankfurt (FRA) ...
I haven't been to Birmingham for quite before in December 2023. Thus, my flight from Birmingham (BHX) to Dusseldorf (DUS) ...
Travelling to the very last Rock of Ages shows by the British DLAP production company brought me to Swansea in Wales. The ...
The (most of the times) good thing about exploring a new airport? Right before you leave, you have the opportunity ...
Our October 2022 trip to Cyprus lead to an outbound connection from Germany to Larnaca (LCA) with Austrian Airlines. It ...
After visiting so many German Rail lounges in my life, I was really looking forward how the more exclusive waiting ...
With British Airways' decision to move all short-distance connections including the one to Cologne/Bonn airport to Heathrow, I unfortunately will ...
As Munich Airport (MUC) is one of my most traveled ones, I know the business lounge situation there quite well ...
Starting my trip to the United States on my Weird Al & Grass Court Tennis trip 2019 was the second ...