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Jan 30.2010
Hello there, all!
I have a happy announcement… I will have 70 full minutes of my videos exhibited in the Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival! I’m really so proud to be a part of this amazing festival in France. I wish with all of my heart that I could be there as well, and I was invited to attend, and had planned on going as well, but fate ruled against it! But anyway, I’m very very grateful to them for showing so many of my works and invite everyone to check out this amazing festival!
Here’s where you can look at the cool program of the festival and find any information you require. The festival started yesterday and will continue through the the 6th of February!
Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival!
Jan 18.2010
Well, I keep practicing and practicing with my voice improvisations. Actually, I don’t really think of it as practice, because it tends to be very creative and I often feel like I’m reaching into someplace strange and special. But I worry about bringing this to the ears of the public. I’m just not sure about the repetitiveness! By it’s very nature, voice-looping improvisations are repetitious. And there’s something very beautiful to me indeed in the strengthening of a single voice by it’s nearly identical, but ultimately different brothers. I like how the voice seems to be come almost mythologized by the doubling, triple-ing, quadruple-ing!… Each repetition of the voice brings it into a place that makes me feel so mystified. It reminds me of the faces I used to doodle all the time at school - they never had eye pupils. To me, adding the eye pupil brought an identity that weakened the image. I preferred these eyes to be anyones. And for me I get that same feeling when I double my own voice. It’s what I was drawn to in my Turn ghost cluster experiment as well.
Anyway, still I’m left wondering if these recordings will be interesting to anyone else!
Taratata appearanceJan 18.2010
Hi there, folks
Last week I flew to France for a four short days to play on the French Music TV Show called Taratata. It was a bit strange to go to Europe for so short a time, but I think the show went well, and we’ve just gotten word on the times it will be playing on TV in France. So here’s that info:
March 17th on France 4
March 19th on France 2
Also there should be a video link after the 17th. I’ll supply that as soon as I have it.
Dec 09.2009
I woke up in a bit of a fearful state around 5:20 this morning. I could hear Max meowing outside my door. Actually, he’d already awoken me with a paw to the face, so I’d put him outside, shut the door and was again awoken at 5:20 with a low-grade terror...This is a problem I have. I don’t like to sleep in an empty house. I always awake early and scared. So I reached up and turned on my light. It wouldn’t go on. Is the electricity out? But the sound machine is blowing it’s gentle white noise… I got up and tried another light. It wouldn’t go on either. When I tried to open the door to the hall there were boxes that I had to push out of the way. These weren’t there before I went to sleep. As I went downstairs I saw the house filled with moving men, and they were bringing in more boxes. Somehow I figured these boxes were filled with Christmas gifts and ornaments with my friends’ names on them...? The door was open but it wasn’t cold. I considered running away but sensed, perhaps in error, that it was safe in the house with these strange men. And indeed, when I was standing in a corner with three of them I didn’t feel threatened, but at the last minute I saw two of them glancing secretly to each other and noticed the doors had been locked up. I awoke in a panic. First thing I did was check the power - it worked fine.
Happy Birthday Graeme!!!Dec 02.2009
Happy birthday to Graeme! It was very nice that Graeme had a birthday on our second to the last gig because otherwise it was a tiny bit depressing - we were schedule to play at 5PM on a Saturday night in St. Lo. OK, this was a festival gig, but still… 5?
Still, the venue was wonderful and the audience warm. Even so, we were all starting to sense the coming end of the tour and I think everyone was feeling a bit melancholic.
The next day we traveled to Lille for the final gig. We were opening for Patrick Watson, who is a very friendly guy. The crowd was wonderful, and a new friend of mine, Marine, who introduced herself to me at the very first gig of the tour called out to me! I called out back and the show went quite well! Here’s a shot of this last lovely crowd:
Afterwards we met with Marine, who was joined by her friend Chloe, and went to a bar called, I think, Australian Pub! We were all sooooooooo tired at this point, especially Sylvain and me. But we were able to spend some quality time with Marine before Sylvain and I left to hit the hay.
It was such a wonderful tour. I really can’t thank my friends Sylvain, Ben, Graeme and Jasper enough. The bond of music is very strong, and since returning I really miss performing with them so much. To think of the time when I was happier sitting in my room alone singing along with a karaoke track in headphones is very strange to me indeed! Hopefully there will be more performing very soon, and indeed, there are some interesting projects very close on the horizon.
In the meantime, after the last show I did a little voice improvisation alone in the hall of the venue. I really liked what I was coming up with, so I turned on my camera to record it. 30 seconds later I was surprised by my friends entering the stairwell one floor above me, and they entered singing!! We made this odd impromptu improvisation which is a fitting end to this tour blog…
Lille - spontaneous group improvisation on the stairs! from Fredo Viola on Vimeo.
Le HavreDec 01.2009
During World War II the city of Le Havre was mostly destroyed. From 1945 to 1964 the architect Auguste Perret rebuilt the town. This was explained to me and the other musicians by Graeme, who teaches architectural design (not sure that’s the correct term) in Manchester. This was one of the most memorable stops we made on our trip, and the city is up there among my favorites. First of all, I love seaside towns. Period. But this one is just amazing to walk around. Here are a bunch of shots of the town, starting from the phenomenal Modern church that looks like something out of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis!
Doesn’t this look just like an M.C. Escher drawing? It was quite an amazing structure!
The venue where we were to play was absolutely nuts as well. Here’s the main venue (we were in the smaller venue to the side, also pictured below:)
At this gig we were kind of opening for Revolver. Well, I suppose we were co-headlining, but we had a shorter set and were going first so… yep, we opened for them. This made us all a bit bitter because at one of the shows where Revolver were opening for us somebody told me that their manager made the broad gesture holding his nose backstage that we stink! (I’ll never understand artists not being generous with eachother. That’s the very nature of music!!) So despite the group being 3 nice, talented dudes… well, it was never fun running into their manager.
However, the crowd was great. It was generally a bit younger than we were used to, although we usually have all age-groups represented. This was a lot more late teens. It’s amazing how different the music sounds depending on the audience, amazing to see which songs go over better than others…
These two girls came up to us after the show. They were really excited and very sweet. I think they were here for Revolver but really liked our music.
They asked us to sign their arms…
The next day and a half we had off!!! Hooray! We hadn’t had a single day without either a performance or grueling travel during the gig up until now, so we were all really grateful to wonder around the city and just relax. We took a walk to the beach, which was covered with very unusual rocks and shells. Sylvain obsessed over them and ended up bringing a bunch of the most beautiful ones back to his room.
Some of Le Havre reminded me oddly of Miami, just in terms of the odd mix of architectural styles:
Anyway, after this nice day of walking around we had two more gigs. I’ll save those last two days for later.
Nov 30.2009
I am! Sorry, the end of the tour was plagued by really bad or non-existent internet connections. Then I returned home and… well, kind of collapsed - a very warm, satisfied kind of collapse, mind you! But still, phew! It’s good to be home! Anyway, onwards…
After the massive excitement of our appearance at the Prix Constantin we drove to Calais. Calais is very close to England, and I’d been told it was quite an industrial town. Anyway, it was a bit of a drive and we arrived late afternoon. As soon as we got out of the vehicle a car pulled up and four people jumped out. They asked if I was Fredo and could I play them a little of my music - they weren’t sure whether they were going to come tonight or not! hahaha! This was truly hilarious and wonderful so I played them a tune and they agreed to come, but only after I snapped a picture of them!
The venue was situated within an odd entertainment enclosure… not quite sure how to describe it. It was a bizarre mix of industrial and monstrous! Here’s a couple shots of the place:
The stage was really wonderful, as the seats climbed up just before it… it felt more ritual to me. And the sound was quite good as well.
Anyway, we did a circular video with this lovely crowd as well, which I will add within the next week on theturn.tv. Here’s an image from it:
After Calais we traveled to Le Havre, but I’m going to give that trip a full blog entry, because there are a ton of pictures! We LOVED Le Havre!!! Until tomorrow…
plenty more on the way
Nov 17.2009
I’m sitting down on my last day in Paris to write a bit more about the rest of my trip. We saw so many wonderful places in our last week. But before doing that, just wanted to invite people to listen to (and hopefully buy!) my friend Bluermutt’s new ep. Bluermutt is a very talented electronic musician who has worked with me both on remixes of my music, as well as with me giving voices for his own music. Please take a listen!
Montpellier - sour to sweetNov 15.2009
So we arrived at Montpellier’s venue Le Trioletto in the afternoon. This day we were supposed to have Soap and Skin opening up for us. I’d heard one of her pieces and found it to be imaginatively produced, if a bit bloodless. Still, the imagination was impressive so I was looking forward to meeting her, as was Sylvain.
We got down to business… the sound check seemed to go very well, and at a certain point a vampyric young woman came walking in followed by 3 men. I smiled at all of them, but neither she nor any of her entourage smiled back. Ahwell… perhaps she is shy.
Twenty minutes later we were nearly ready to do a run-through when we heard a wild rumor that Soap and Skin had cancelled her gig opening for us! Soon enough it was confirmed - apparently she didn’t like the mixing board and found the stage lights too “rock.”
Anyway, we were now slated to begin an hour earlier and had time to do a much longer gig! So we added Cucurrucucu Paloma to the set, as well as decided to shoot a circular video with the audience. We’d done that once before, at the still unreleased Blogotheque Soiree, and it was quite effectively rousing! So tonight during our first curtain call we gave some instruments to the audience, asked them to stand around us in a circle and… well, just started howling away! It was quite fun! Sadly the microphone on my camera mostly just picked up my voice. Next time we’ll be ready with an external mic. But the video is quite a nice souvenir from a lovely show with a very generous audience.
See the video on my website theturn.tv - it’s the small circle there! Later I will provide a youtube link as well.
Nov 13.2009
OK, so this night proved to be just as exciting as it promised to be… We had the great opportunity to perform two songs at the Olympia, which is a very very famous, large theatre in Paris. Edith Piaf and the Beatles have performed there, along with countless others. I had been nominated for the Prix Constantin, an award for music that has yet to have widespread popularity produced in France. (Yes, my label is French, so somehow I fit onto the list of 11 nominees!)
I was sure I wouldn’t win. Especially when listening to the other nominees, my music just sticks out, so I knew it would be an odd choice for the judges. But truly, and I really really mean this, it was just cool to be nominated and have the opportunity to perform in this great hall!
We started the day with a sound check - a completely HEAVENLY sound check! You really have no idea how much the quality of the monitoring system helps out a performance! The crew at the Olympia were fast and extremely good. We practiced the two songs we were set to perform - Robinson Crusoe and The Sad Song - and then in the last five minutes did a really rousing performance of Death of a Son just to feel it in this space. It felt great. Really really great. The crew were really nice too… Here’s a couple shots…
This guy was from the UK, near Manchester. His name is Dom:
So now we had about 8 hours to wait for our time in the show (just around halfway through - we were going on 5th.) Our friend Renaud, who has created several wonderful performance videos with us in the past, suggested he knew a church at which the Pilots could perform a couple songs for video. This church was very near The Olympia, so we agreed it was a good thing to do… a good way to practice our singing as well!
OK… so the church he brought us to is the second largest in Paris! When we saw it we were all completely bowled over! Holy Magdalene!
That said, once we got inside it was actually just a bit too big. Spaces like this don’t appeal to me sonorously. They are so large that in order to have your voice ring out you really have to project loudly. Soft notes don’t reverberate at all, so it’s a bit hard to sing. You might as well be standing outside, or in a very dry studio. It’s a bit offputting.
We did 2 lovely songs by I Am Your Autopilot: Stateside and All In Our Hands. Then we tried The Sad Song and it sounded horrible!!! Pitchy as hell! We started in one key and ended in quite another!
So we went back to the Olympia to wait, quite on edge. Some of the more humorous moments were when we had to have our faces made up! Here’s a shot I snapped of Graeme having his face prettified…
But all our anxiety melted when it finally came time to perform. It was just one of the most exciting experiences of my life… waiting backstage to go on…
It reminded me quite a lot of Robert Altman’s Nashville, kind of felt like we were performing in the Grand Ole Opry! The crowd was so warm, the sound so luscious. After the two songs we went to the front of the stage and were interviewed by the charming host of the show, and even that was a blast!
Here’s a shot I took during the interview period of the audience:
After the show we met a bunch of really nice people and went to the after party. I met a very lovely woman named Dounia who chatted with me for a long time. Here’s a shot of her and her friend, who’s name sadly escapes me:
Also we met a very feisty woman named Emily who kept challenging the Pilots and Scalde to ping pong! We took a photograph with her as well:
After the party, and after we packed everything into the van, I snuck back to take a few shots of the crew as they took the stage down… I love the look of a stage after a show. There are so many markings on the floor, so much debrit of creativity, and the electrical charge of the evening’s performances still hangs in the air.
Nov 13.2009
After Lyon came what we thought would be the climax of the entire two leg tour: our show at La Cigale, performing as part of the LesInrocks Festival. And indeed it was fun. But the audience was very noisy throughout, or at least the part of the audience that was around the bar. Usually during the Turn they are more quiet. It was a good experience to have, as really all experiences are good for a person who has such little performing experience, but we would have been happier if it had been a little more quiet! So, despite it’s being a fun night, it was a wee bit frustrating.
Following LesInrocks we moved on to Clermont-Ferrand. This night proved to be another slightly odd night, as the band playing just before us was extremely energetic - really big, strong music! It makes a big difference, the kind of music that you follow, and truly I would have preferred this band to follow us! They were really nice guys too. Starboard Silent Side was their name and one of the members of the band was really kind to us after our show. I really like nice musicians!!
LYON!!!!!Nov 12.2009
Sorry to have disappeared for a while! We’ve had a really busy schedule and very poor web access, so I haven’t been able to write!
First let me tell you about the gig in Lyon, which went very well! We were opening (with an hour long set) with Patrick Watson, who it turns out is a really really cool guy. First of all, I’m sure he won’t mind me writing this because his gig was just awesome, but the guy really can drink! And drink he did before his show! He got very jolly indeed. We were all really charmed by his personality and quite impressed by his show.
Anyway, here’s a shot of us outside the venue:
For some reason, nearly every photograph I took of the band showed the person in a crazy light! We were laughing hysterically in the van the next day, especially at the following two shots:
It was quite a jolly atmosphere at the show. The crew were all really nice as well, and the dinner they served was yet another superb meal!
This venue is also kind of the perfect size. Not too big, not too small. Just right. Here’s a shot before the show:
And how did we perform? Well, considering this is the home town of Scalde, the show had some added significance so it was one of the more memorable ones for us. Here’s a shot of the smoke-filled theatre with the crowd mostly lost in the mist (but apparently happy!)
Le Fou du Roi / Mansfield Tya
Nov 04.2009
Yesterday morning we all woke up quite early (sadly all the guys from the UK had only had a few hours sleep this night and the night prior!) and went over to perform on a big radio show in France called Le Fou du Roi. When we arrived at the place, and as we were guided down the hall towards the space where we were to play I could hear tubas and trumpets rehearsing. I distinctly heard part of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, which thrilled me. The studio itself was MASSIVE, with a good sized area for an audience as well! This was much more than we expected, so everyone was totally thrilled.
Rehearsal/sound check went well, and the performance even better. It was a lot of fun! The coolest part is that we did a cover and had piano accompaniment provided by Franck Gelibert. He was only supposed to play during the cover (we did Downtown of course!) but we asked him to play along with Robinson Crusoe as well and it really added a wonderful dimension and depth. Here’s a shot of Monsieur Gelibert:
Here’s a couple images of Sylvain waiting barefoot to enter for our second song:
Here’s an image of the space I took as I was leaving the stage:
We’ve twice played alongside the wonderful duo Mansfield Tya. They make very intense, spare, extremely beautiful music, and played a song on the show just before us. Here’s a shot of them backstage:
And their cool sound engineer… SonoS:
I’m writing in my hotel in Lyon… or actually, about 20 minutes outside of Lyon. Tonight we will play a gig with Patrick Watson. I hear he’s great!
What?? No Pictures???Nov 03.2009
Hello folks,
Yesterday was the official first day of the second leg of the tour and I have no images whatsoever to show for it! This was partly due to the fact that the first gig, a performance at a women’s prison in France, would not allow cameras. It was a really special show actually. The women were very honest and real and despite the fierce language barrier and guards all around us, I think we all really enjoyed ourselves.
At the end of the day I did a small gig in an Art Gallery called 12 Mail. It started out with 5 songs to cluster video accompaniment. Then I tried for the first time some solo live improvisation using 4 banks of live loops. I was very happy with how well that went. It was a bit difficult at first, but once I got into it the piece was really fun and wild. Then the guys joined me for a live performance of the Sad Song the way we plan to do it at the Prix Constantin, with video accompaniment. And then finally I just did a bunch of karaokes of my own tunes, and Cucurrucucu Paloma.
This morning we play on the radio, and then off to Lyon! Nice start so far!
Reflections in a Golden EyeOct 24.2009
It’s a very rainy day here in Woodstock. I spent the morning watching John Huston’s “Reflections in a Golden Eye.”
What a strange and mysterious movie. I really loved the visuals in that film so much. It was created with so much joy for life, even if the film is filled with pain.
This film featured some of the most exciting moving photography of horses I have ever seen. And the way the image was very golden, but with subtle hues emanating.. such inky blacks! I wonder how they created the effect. Today no doubt it would be done with a computer, but.. something is lost really with the digital method.
I think we have too much control over every least aspect of a film’s look with computers. There’s something to these older methods which have more of a sense of mystery in the way they are processed. I believe as artists we really need to let control of some aspect of the works creation, leave some massive aspect of it to chance, or to elements that, well, maybe are not completely outside of our control but are alive and have their own rhythms not created by us!
EXCITING!!!Oct 11.2009
Hooray!:
Oct 09.2009
We knew there had been a journalist at the show - Sylvain had been asked questions about the instruments after the show. So it was a matter of just waiting! This morning I found his review, and it’s a really good one! Thanks so much!!!
Fredo Viola Brussels 2009 review
An emotional end to the first leg of the tour…Oct 08.2009
Tomorrow I return to Woodstock. I’m feeling so relieved and happy to be returning. Life on the road is hard for me, as I don’t feel comfortable carting my stuff around. I always worry I will lose or break something. I guess I did better than I expected dealing with this kind of stuff. What was the biggest and happiest surprise was how much I enjoyed performing.
The last show in Brussels was absolutely my very favorite. Me and the guys all the way there were very tired and cranky with each other. We got defensive, emotional, maybe a little childish too. But I think down deep, or maybe even not so deep, we understood it was just fatigue and a desire to be hooooooooooooooome. So it wasn’t really so serious.
The hotel we checked into was wonderful - really grand and comfortable for a change. And the venue as well was lovely. Having been refreshed by a shower and a rest we just decided to make this one the best performance. During the show I announced this was our last one and that we were going to really give it our all. The audience responded enthusiastically, and what proceeded was our most loving, emotionally charged show yet. During the performance of Puss I saw three people in the audience simultaneously smile with joy and it almost made me want to cry, I was so happy!! I felt so much love for my wonderful friends who were playing with me (quite opposite from the ruffled feathers of the morning’s drive!) It was such a great crowd too. We took another crowd shot!
Afterwards I met my good friend from France, Anne-Cécile as well as a person from em411 who I have known without ever having met for at least five years. Bodo!
We all went out to have some drinks and it was just so completely joyful and satisfying. The show had gone very well. Indeed, the TOUR had gone well! We had learned so much about each other and now we had a nice three week break before the last two week leg of the tour! What could be better??!
Prix Constantin nomination!
Oct 08.2009
I was nominated today for a Prix Constantin in France! The Prix Constantin is like the Mercury award, which recognizes new artists… The cool part is that me, Ben, Jasper, Sylvain, Graeme and possibly Charlie as well will be televised performing in the Olympia Theatre, a very famous, awesome venue where Edith Piaf has performed, along with generations of amazing artists! Quite a bit of luck!!! Anyway, wish me luck!
Festival Temps D’ImagesOct 04.2009
Last night we played at the magical Festival Temps D’Images in Marnes La Valée. It was the first day that really felt and smelled like autumn, which made us all really happy. The festival grounds looked just amazingly beautiful with all leaves swirling around in the breeze.
The show went well, despite my voice being a bit tired. The crowd was really great though, so once again we took a photo!
Oct 03.2009
So after a subdued Tuesday night concert in Alencon, we awoke to discover the beauty of the center of town. Great bakeries, really amazing old buildings. It was just very lovely. Here’s a couple shots…
After a bit of walking around we had to head straight away to the city of Rennes to play at UBU. I am very appreciative of having the opportunity to play this venue as the owner, Jean-Louis, had booked me two years prior into the Transmusicale festival which I got too sick and had to cancel! So it was great to have a second chance!
We had been told that the venue was very special, if a bit strange. It turns out the venue is shaped like an ear! We were a bit perplexed and wondered how well it would go.
We were really happy to have quite an energetic, responsive crowd and the show went so well! Probably one of my favorites so far.
After the show Jean-Louis came up to us and congratulated us heartily, so I felt really happy to have given him a good show.
Afterwards we hung around in the front meeting some of the very kind fans. I have written this one fan’s name down and can’t find the slip of paper! But I will eventually and edit the blog! If you see this, here’s the shot! Send me your email and I’ll email a high res to you.
Last night we played Laval, which was quite subdued, despite it being a Friday night. I think it was the proximity of the bar. Personally I don’t like to perform when you can hear people talking throughout, but it’s something I suppose I have to get used to. And actually, I think all in all folks enjoyed the show. It was one of our best performances too, as I think we felt we had to work a bit harder for their attention.
Today we drive to Marne le Vallée. Then just one more show for this first leg of the tour. I am starting to really miss home.
Live from the Ososphere Festival!Oct 03.2009
Hi there,
I have lots of new news and photos, but first just wanted to post a link to the first twenty minutes of our set at the Ososphere Festival. That’s the big, raucous, fun festival which I wrote of previously as being a massive challenge for us which turned out really well! If you’d like to watch, you can see it here:
Fredo Viola Live at the Ososphere Festival
Le VaubanOct 01.2009
Basically the trip has been, as Mido the tour manager put it, “quite gentle” with all of the performances separated by a day or two or sometimes three in between. Until now… We have just completed the second of 5 performances performed in a row. It feels good. You don’t really have enough time to worry too much about anything.
Anyway, the first, and for me the most memorable, was in the city of Brest, by the Ocean! Being a big fan of both Fassbinder and Genet I had heard a lot about Brest throughout my college years. Apparently all but two buildings were bombed during WW II. After that they built new structures right on top of some of the ruins! ??? There are basements in some of the buildings of Brest with old street signs!! And if they need to do construction (this part I find a bit hard to fathom...) the whole city has to be evacuated just incase they hit a buried German bomb and it sets off a chain reaction of buried bomb explosions… ??!!!
hmmm… well, my experience of Brest was memorable indeed. When we arrived at Cabaret Vauban, the venue at which we would be playing the next day, we had a peak of the performance space and were all brimming with excitement. This club had been built and decorated in the 50s and 60s and had not changed a bit!!! It seemed so David Lynch to all of us and we couldn’t wait to perform the next day!
In the morning we took a walk around the hotel, down to the water. There’s a fortress wall that really reminded me so much of Old San Juan in Puerto Rico. Also of Querelle, minus the… well, you know… kissing sailors.
The folks at Vauban were so very nice. One kind gentleman by the name of Philippe had seen a performance of me and Ben on One Shot Not a few months ago and came specially to the show!
He was very kind and bought us all beers after the show and talked with us. Vauban’s owner was very kind as well and asked us to sign his club book, which had been signed by the many artists who played there since 1950.
Truly the best part of these shows has been the reaction of the audience members and the great conversations we have had after the shows. Here’s an image of two more of the folks from Brest, Fred and Dominique.
Sadly I didn’t get a shot of Dominique’s husband Yvon. He was also very kind to us. Thanks to all of you for a really great time. We really hope to return soon!
Anyway, next stop was Alencon, and Mido has had to leave for another gig, leaving Finian as both the audio engineer and tour manager. He’s doing a great job, but merch sales after the show were extremely difficult and awkward! Anyway, thanks for everything, Mido!!
Sep 28.2009
So we’re in France for a day. We arrived last night to a bit of a fleabag hotel quite far from the center of Paris. We placed our bags in our rooms and made haste for the center. Had a nice night walking around. On the way back we had a cab ride with a driver who asked us to appraise his singing to the music of Elvis Presley and an Italian pop singer I can’t remember… He really gave it his all. It was very touching, if a bit awkward.
Woke up this morning and discovered a review of our Tourcoing show from one David at Froggy Delight. I *think* it’s a good review! Google translate seems to translate it as such!
Thanks again, David! It really was a pleasure!
Sep 26.2009
So when last I wrote the guys and me had just had a really good show in Tourcoing. It probably had something to do with having made it there in one piece… this I’ve written already. Anyway, so the next day we were off to Le Mans. It was a long drive, if I remember correctly it was close to 7 hours… We fill the time on the road watching movies. For instance we watched Hitchcock’s Frenzy twice! We really loved that one. Or we watched The Hangover without too many laughs.
When we finally arrived at the hotel in Le Mans it was very strange to look at. It kind of reminded me of a corporate Overlook Hotel - you know, the famous haunted hotel from The Shining. Here’s a shot of it:
Anyway, the internet was solid and the rooms were extremely clean and stylish. So we were really happy for this night.
The next day we played on a barge venue called Peniche Excelcior. It was right across from a big mall with a McDonalds. We were really happy to see a big supermarket because frankly we were all a bit sick of eating out and wanted to make our own lunch. So we went and bought a bunch of ingredients for sandwiches and walked out to the water. What we found looked a bit like a small dock, yet we guessed this was probably the actual venue.
Soon we heard a cranking sound and a portion of the barge began to rise, followed by an arm setting out a metal support pole. This was indeed the venue! We were thrilled!
Just before the show both me and Ben had sudden stomach attacks! It was so strange. The boat was completely packed and perhaps a bit intimidating. I’m not really sure how else to explain our sudden nervous stomach situation as everyone ate the same food but only Ben and I got sick. Anyway, this is one reason why we were grateful for the close proximity of a McDonalds! The show went over really well. It was a very small venue indeed, but so unique and strange. So much fun. The crew and the folks who set up the gig there were extremely nice too. Here’s a shot we took right after the show:
The next day we drove to Strasbourg for the Ososphere Festival. Strasbourg seemed nice, if a bit cool in temperament upon our night time arrival. Still, the hotel was again clean and had even faster internet, so I was happy! I could skype again rather than use my massively expensive cell phone!
The gig… well, I suppose we got downgraded in venues because what was supposed to have been a 900 capacity crowd in a theatre called La Laiterie turned out to be more like 150 capacity in Le Mole! But who’s complaining! An audience is an audience. And this festival had such great vibes! Such a massive amount of excitement. During the morning we had gone to a laundrymatte and met a young woman studying French in Strasbourg named Marianne. She had explained that everyone was talking about this exciting festival.
The festival’s main music staging area was just awesome!! Here are a few shots I took during the day while folks were setting things up:
When we arrived for the gig at 11:00PM (we were set to go on at midnight) there was a massive crowd and all were rowdy and drunk. They barely let us pass in our vehicle. Folks were pushing against the van and slapping it jokingly. As we approached the Mole we could hear extremely loud dance music or heavy rock from several other venues. How the hell would our much more… hmmm, what’s the word? I don’t really want to say folky, but I suppose there really are folky aspects to my music, and these are the elements that clashed here… how would these songs work? The Turn? Death of a Son? The Sad Song??? We all started laughing. But to me it seemed like such a great and fun challenge. So we just turned our nerves into great excitement, took Moon After Berceuse off the list and jumped in.
It went GREAT!
The crowd was great! Super responsive. Super attentive. My new friend Marianne from the laundrymatte, who I put on the guest list, came and said she had never experienced such a respectful audience. All we noticed were a lot of smiles. At the end we took a shot with the crowd:
We were all so pleased with the show. It was so much fun, such a great communal thing… But there was very little time and we all had to quickly clear our stuff off the stage for the next performing band and before you knew it… every one was gone! It was a bit sad. I had to go back to my room as I needed to get some sleep but everyone had already been absorbed into the festival, so there were no goodbyes…
The next afternoon we met my friend Geraldine, who picked us up at the hotel with her friend G.B. (I hope I have spelled/remembered that correctly!) G.B. produces music videos and films. Very nice guy.
Anyway, we walked around Strasbourg and had Spatzel in Little France. They were absolutely delicious and, wow, what a gorgeous city! I’m going to let the pictures do the talking now…
After a relaxing afternoon me, Sylvain, Charlie and Ben walked back to the hotel, singing motown classics along the roads.
By the way, I am so touched by the great relationship Ben and Charlie have. Charlie, if I haven’t already mentioned it, is Ben’s son. He’s a very talented kid, but very kind too. He obviously takes after his dad…
Tomorrow we drive to Paris, the just over halfway point on the road to our next gig: Brest!
the oddness and mysteriousness of it all…
Sep 22.2009
Life is so strange. It’s odd to be on tour. Really odd. For me, at least. Three years ago I would never have thought this could be happening. Five years ago I would never have dreamed of having so many people listening to my music, much less arriving in a city I have never even heard of and watching people I’ve never met mouth the words to my songs…
I consider myself extremely fortunate. I suppose I have plenty of bad luck as well (such as my experience with all the computer’s I’ve ever bought dying within a year! haha!) But here’s just a bit of thanks for the people who support my music, to my friends from I Am Your Autopilot, and to Scalde, to all the people who like to exist in the same bubble of music-love as I do.
Sep 21.2009
We have just played our first three gigs in France for the tour. The first was in the city of Nantes as part of the Scopitone festival. It went well. Things were a little bit off between us, so we were all a bit dissatisfied, but we got a nice response from the audience. The festival itself was very cool visually. Most of it took place in a very large hanger dissected by tall curtained installations.
The next gig was in Nancy. Nancy, first of all, is a really pretty city. Actually, the place where we were staying was almost like an enormous mall, but somehow this kind of thing makes me feel comfortable! It’s odd. The venue was super cool, all red and modern, but we were not on the main stage. It was a bit of a smaller room in the shape of a cube. Again, I think the show went over well, and we had a lot of fun, but somehow something was still missing between all of us! Maybe we hadn’t quite hit our stride yet…
The next day we were meant to leave quite early to get to Tourcoing for a early evening Sunday gig. But nobody was eating breakfast! Around the time we were scheduled to leave the Pilots started showing up looking… well, quite hung over. But nobody else came down until about 45 minutes after we were meant to leave… and further delays had us setting out an hour and a half late.
So in the van everyone, except for me and Mido (who was driving) was asleep. We were driving top speed on the motorway. Suddenly the van seemed to be driving on some odd ribbed concrete - the whole van started to vibrate. Everyone opened their eyes in a panic as the van began to swerve to the left and right. It seemed like were were about to go out of control, and this lasted for about 10 or 15 seconds. Thankfully Mido kept his head and got us over to the shoulder where we discovered that one of the tires had blown up and was absolutely shredded. We were lucky to not have had something far more serious happen…
Beyond the significance of having made it through this potentially deadly experience alive, this would be our last performance with Graeme on bass during this leg of the tour so we all just kind of brought all our emotions and finally gave the kind of show we had always intended to! It was really emotional and energetic. The audience seemed quite moved as well. And the venue was just great. Great sound, great crew. Just an overall memorable experience. We sat afterwards and ate dinner with the theatre crew.
Now I’m in Paris, feeling a bit under the weather. I think I’m going to take a bath and just stay in and read tonight. Next stop Le Mans…
on the train to NantesSep 17.2009
So we arrived at our hotel and I could barely believe we were off the motorway! Just a two minute walk to the left brings you to a cluster of oil refinery buildings, one minute to your right brings you to a cluster of small domelike huts. A glance behind the hotel brings a view of the mountains and an old church! Despite this being a very industrial area, I kind of like it! It reminds me of where my grandmother lived in Huntington beach, California.
Anyway, the nextday we met with Sylvain and saw Lyon for the first time. I love this city a lot. I love that there are so many hills, making a great many beautiful vistas. Also there was a crafts fair taking place and I ended up buying 5 small handmade instruments.
We also visited two enormous churches, one of which was just a bit too decorated, but the other of which had a wonderful clock which had a huge crowd gathered around it. We waited around and five minutes later it tolled and strange little marching toys emerged from it’s framework!
The next day, after an accupuncture appointment Sylvain set up for me I was really happy to be greeted by the image of all my friends in the band on bicycles! We rented them from the street and biked around all afternoon.
Sylvain’s kind friend Colas joined us as well. It was a really nice day!
This post was writing on a train, alone heading towards Nantes for a solo performance which happened last night! Tonight we have a full band performance and apparently it’s sold out! We’re all very excited and happy to be getting back to work! I’ll write all about Nantes tomorrow!
lots of love and a breakdown ends in Feyzin…Sep 14.2009
So the day after our first gig we had planned a relaxing day of a few small journeys. First off we were set to have lunch with Sylvain’s parents. They lived just about fifteen minutes from Geneva, so it was a very fast journey to their lovely home in the country.
Sylvain’s mother prepared the most delicious meal. We were all really grateful to get a wonderful home-cooked meal in such a beautiful environment and had a lot of fun playing with their cat, who looked a bit like a tiger and caught a mouse and proceeded to play with it cruelly before our very eyes.
After that we had the opportunity to do some recordings at a church nearby. The acoustics were wonderful and surprisingly reverberant for the humble size of the church. I’ll be releasing these videos on my website and vimeo soon. Just have to do a little mix. We performed a nearly acapella version of The Sad Song, a fully orchestrated version of Death of a Son and All In Our Hands there. We also did a strange vocal improvisation which sounded almost a bit Webernish! hahah, that’s not necessarily a good thing, but it was for us a very interesting experiment and we really got into it. It felt good.
After that we went to my friend Stéphane’s 40th birthday party down near the lake. Stéphane hasn’t changed even a touch since the last time I saw her nearly ten years ago. She’s the same spirited, wildly intelligent person I remember. We chatted with a bunch of her good friends and the Pilots stripped down and jumped into the cold lake - a very impressive feat indeed! Ben was telling me though that as he swam deeper out into the lake the current got quite strong and when a wave crashed over him and filled his mouth with lake water he very quickly swam back to shore!
So from here we drove back to Lyon. We watched Hitchcock’s Frenzy in the van, until the film had about 10 minutes until its conclusion… suddenly I smelled burning rubber. I looked at Graeme who had the same slightly quizzical look on his face. We mentioned it to Mido and Finnian up in the front seat and they had noticed not only that but there was smoke coming from under the hood. We were 18 kilometers from Lyon!!!
After a lot of headaches for poor Mido we made it safe and sound to our hotel. That’s another chapter though. I’ll post about that tomorrow.
Sep 12.2009
So yesterday was our very first performance of the tour! It was in the Alhambra theatre in Geneva, Switzerland, a place I’ve never seen before. It’s a lovely city, very gentle and… well square. And I mean literally. There are just lots of right angles in the architecture! Anyway, we played as part of La Batie festival. I can’t write too much right now because we’re set to check out of our rooms in 18 minutes and I have yet to pack (!) but the show went well. And a very old friend of mine, Stéphane Mitchell, who had just turned 40 on the very day came to the show! It was so great to see her, and have a chat after the show.
Also, and it sucks I can’t remember the woman’s name, but after the show we had a very long chat with a woman who came with her boyfriend David. He was the one who set up our live performance on the radio (THANK YOU!) and it turned out she was from the Bronx originally, which is where my dad was from, so we had a long chat about Mozzie (slang for Mozzarella cheese) and New York. She had been really moved by the performance of Umbrellas, and described her experience in such a way that really touched me so much.
I’ll tell you, the shows are fun, but really it’s meeting folks afterwards that brings a lot of warmth and happiness. So if you come to one of our shows afterwards, come and introduce yourself!
Here’s an image of Graeme and Scalde just before the show tuning up.
Sep 10.2009
Today we’re having a day off after a solid 5 days of very hardcore rehearsing! Yesterday was great, we got through the set 3 times, and did a few tweaks to The Turn and a couple others… We met Mido the tour manager and Finian the sound engineer. Both really lovely guys. I’m so excited that it’s kind of keeping me up at night though! Anyway, I’m sure once the tour gets in the swing all natural biorhythms will be restored!
Next stop Geneva!
you have to count your blessings!Sep 08.2009
...especially on days like today!!!!
I’m leaving behind all the stuff that went wrong, so here’s what went right!
We got lots of vocal practice in! It really started sounding so nice, the Sad Song did. Practice has made it so that the guys feel so much more comfortable with their vocals and we’re able to build a lovely emotive structure together. It’s quite a lovely experience. I suppose it’s probably a bit like singing in church or something. And actually, we went and sang in the hallway where there was really nice reverb.
EXCITING!: Sylvain suggested we shoot a cluster video of Sad Song in a church near his parent’s home in a few days, so hopefully that will be worked out.
Aside from that, and a lot more practice… well, the day was pretty exhausting. Tomorrow we meet Mido, our tour manager who seems like a very nice guy already, and we will send him off to Geneva with our equipment in advance of our flights Thursday night. We’re all getting so excited, and, it has to be admitted, a bit nervous as well!
our lips are sealedSep 07.2009
Not to sound gushy, but wow… Today at around 2:30, even 3… no maybe later actually… Sylvain suggested we work on another new song. I had been contented with adding Puss and a new version of Sad Song! And honestly, today had already been a bit grueling. Just really hard work… So I was like… hmm.... really? But we all agreed… let’s do another cover.
We discussed doing a cover of one of my favorite songs, Sweet Dreams, the Don Gibson song made famous by Patsy Cline. It would take a bit to arrange that though, so thought we might try my cover of Our Lips are Sealed, the classic Go-Gos song which already had a vocal arrangement. I played them my cover, and within an hour not only had Ben, Sylvain and Jasper mastered the backing parts, and Graeme the bassline, but we had arranged the song to be performed WITHOUT playback! I’m so excited by the progress we’ve been making and can’t wait to share these tunes with you folks!
Sep 06.2009
Rehearsals have gone really well so far! Sadly Graeme won’t be able to play bass on all the gigs, so Ben has introduced his young son Charlie into the band for those dates. Charlie is so talented, and completely melted into the group instantaneously! We had one great day of rehearsals with him alone yesterday, and then today Graeme joined us as well. We worked on a live version of Puss that was really exciting to us all. It’s kind of the way I first hoped the song would sound: swing rhythm… very dark… very strange… Graeme described it well as acid-influenced sea shanty music!
Sep 05.2009
Hello folks. Well, I’m on day two of my month and change long trip to UK and Europe. Yesterday hardly counts though, as I was in a zombie-state. Today: only half zombie! Thanks be to benedryl for helping me get a solid 8 hours last night!
Anyway, I’m going to attempt to write more regularly, with sometimes shorter entries.
Woke up feeling pretty refreshed today at 7:30 am. Got up, gargled and washed my nasal passages (I know, gross! I’ll only write that once, just know it’s something I do twice daily!) and did my voice exercises. Feeling pretty good. Found Graeme’s cat Jagger sitting in the bathtub. Crouched down and sang a little Jagger song. The cat looked perplexed. When I reached in to take him out he scratched me! Obsessive-compulsive mode turns on and I spend 5 whole minutes cleaning the very slight little scratch on my wrist! Brought Jagger some fresh water to make up for the apparent annoyance of my singing!
Anyway, today is first day of rehearsal. I’m going to do another gargle and get ready!
I Am Your Autopilot, the big launch!!!!Aug 12.2009
Hello there, folks
It’s with great excitement and pride that I announce the launch of I Am Your Autopilot’s incredibly wonderful album “Robots in the Orchestra.” It’s a beautiful and extremely imaginative work that takes the listener on a fantastic and soulful journey.
I can remember the first time I heard Smokescreens, which has become the first song on the album, I was mystified by the juxtaposition of very meditative, almost mythical-sounding vocals, soulful acoustic backing and impeccably written, eccentric electronics.
Then I heard All In Our Hands, which has become one of my very favorite songs. This song has one of the most haunting melodies and arrangements I have ever heard.
I was instantly a massive fan!
The full album is a real masterpiece. The flow leaves you feeling so satisfied and warm, and again… each track is very imaginative as well. I can’t recommend this album enough, so please do show the guys your support and buy their album!
I Am Your Autopilot are playing at Dulcimer in Manchester, England (Wilbraham Road, Chorlton) on Thursday 13 August. Their album “Robots In The Orchestra” (Timbreland Records) is released on Monday 17 August.
Aug 03.2009
Hey there,
So finally I have been able to fill up the Events section of the site! Lots of performances posted, starting in September. We’re all so excited! And I may be working with a special team on a couple very unusual live shows… we shall see, we shall see… Anyway, it’s nice to finally be able to use the scroll bar in my events page! Works well, thanks Joey and Mike! hahah.
- Fredo
Tonight with Whispering Bob HarrisJul 25.2009
Hello there,
So I have just returned from a trip to Paris and the UK and have some news. Tonight a session me and the guys taped with Bob Harris on BBC2 will air at 11PM in the UK. The session was really very cool. Mr. Harris is a great interviewer and a fascinating man, so it was very easy and fun to do.
The session will be online for a week following it’s airing, at the following link:
whispering bob harris
After the set in London we travelled to Manchester, where we did a similar set with Marc Riley on BBC6. The interview style was totally different but just as fun. You can hear that session at the following link:
marc riley
Jul 07.2009
Hi there, folks
My friend Steph Thirion, the man with whom I collaborated on the concept for theturn.tv, has released his iPhone game to really terrific reviews! I’m so proud of him! Please check out his ultra-cool (ultra-challenging!) game: Eliss!
Best of luck, my friend! I hope you have many sales!
Damn, damn, damn!
Jul 04.2009
I just had the most wonderful dream of the writing of a new song. It was a strange song, but much more… hmm, how to describe it? Well it was intelligent, mature, but also a bit sexy, humorous, it kind of seemed like something from the 20s. I can actually still hear the lead line in my head, but the whole construction of the piece was really sophisticated and cool. I loved it and was so inspired. And I thought I wasn’t dreaming. I spent about an hour in this dream recording the ideas. I then played them for my sister, who responded immediately with great delight! Suddenly in the dream I got had the faintest realization I was not in Woodstock. I started to put two and two together and it dawned on me… this is a dream. And the song has not been recorded. Suddenly I started listening to it over and over, savoring it, as I knew most of it would be rolling out of my head as I pull myself to waking reality. And that is exactly what has happened. The lead line has indeed been warped by the clutching I did to hold on to it. Without the awesome backing vocals and piano it’s unrecognizable. I’m an insecure shadow of my vibrant, dreaming self!
The Sad Song, cluster di Bra
Jul 03.2009
Hello there, folks.
I just got back from two very satisfying weeks, if a little tiring, in Manchester, Paris and Bra, Italy. Basically the first 6 days were spent rehearsing with my musician brothers Ben, Graeme, Jasper and Scalde for our first headlining show in Paris.
The show was at Café de la Dance, a venue I had been told was really nice and it definitely proved to be so.
Like the last performance in France, the audience was amazing - very receptive, emotional, good-spirited. We all had such a monumentally good time! And this was quite a hard gig, as we had introduced a handful of songs sung with full choral vocal parts, so we had to practice those over and over.
Anyway, while there, I met two old friends, one disastrato and my childhood friend Shane, as well as a new friend, one Anne-Cécile. It was a little difficult concentrating after the show, as truly I was on cloud nine and super excited. The show went so very well. We got a lot of love from the audience and gave our fullest in return.
The performance will be online in full from the Arte website until the end of August, and you can watch it here!
After that I went on an 8 hour train ride to Bra, Italy, which is the Slow Food movement capital city! It’s in the Piedmont area of Italy, about an hour from Torino. What followed were great days of watching short films, meeting new artists and a couple performances.
One of the performances was done alone - in an old Octagon-shaped building called La Zizzola di Bra I performed a 7 voiced version of The Sad Song. I then spent the next day mixing and compositing it together, and the day after that used the video as playback for a live performance in the courtyard of a baroque Palazzo in Bra. That performance went well too and I was very moved by how emotional and open-hearted the Italian audience was.
Anyway, I have just uploaded the circular/octagonal shaped video to my website. It’s the small dark circle.
I invite you to take a look/listen!
May 28.2009
My talented friends at the Art Pack made a piece about me, which includes footage shot at One Shot Not, the show I did feverish and sick!, an interview with Mauro Gioia, and a couple performances me and my musician friends did while we were in Paris. I am really proud to have a piece done by these guys, as they are very very talented. Take a look at the link, but make sure to check out their other stuff as well. They recently won a contest to create a whole short narrative in I think 48 hours, soup to nuts. The Art Pack
HOORAY! LAUS WIN!!!May 19.2009
Just now found out that theturn.tv, won a Laus award for Interactivity! This is great news! Many thanks to Cristo Castille and José Hernandez of Aer Visual Studio as well as Guille Lopez. They all did such an amazing job with the flash and coding (they truly are wizards!), as well as of course to Steph Thyrion who helped conceive the idea of the site itself. Cristo just wrote to me and told me the site won three awards!
Silver in “Corporate Websites”
Gold in “Interactive Innovation”
it also won the Grand Laus, which is the highest award of the whole “Interactive” category
I’m going to get cracking on some more videos to upload and take advantage of the wave of traffic that maybe will come!
Hooray!!!!
final entry to the trial by fire (and fever)
May 16.2009
Okeedokes, so that was a long bit of time before the next blog post! Sorry about that. I have been working so hard on new videos.
First off, just to let you know, me, Autopilot and Scalde have prepared another international cluster video. Come and take a look on either theturn.tv, youtube link or vimeo link.
Anyway, ok, so where were we? I’d performed without having more than an hour of really restless sleep on a tv show in Manchester. I started to feel extremely run down and felt perhaps that a cold was coming on, tried to get to sleep very early, but never-the-less, woke up early the next morning with a very bad cold, and it was clutching at my throat! This was the day that me and Ben were set to travel to Paris and perform on Manu Katché’s show One Shot Not.
So off we went. I hadn’t tried singing yet and was actually not speaking as much as possible. Ben, who is one of the most level-headed and sensitive persons I have ever met, was being very calming and affirmative. The plane landing was incredibly painful though. I felt that my head would explode.
Once we arrived at the studio a couple dapper French men met the car and explained that cameras would be following us around everywhere, that we should just follow them to the green room. Ugh, I so wanted some privacy to see where my voice was. We followed them off to the room, played with some percussion instruments for them, mugging a bit for the camera, and finally had a moment of privacy.
With the door shut I tried to sing and made the horrible discovery that I really had no voice. My falsetto was completely gone and my regular singing voice was wildly inaccurate. I just had very little control over pitch or intonation.
Suddenly who would knock and enter the room: David Byrne. That’s right, David Byrne. He was playing on the show tonight as well. He said, “Hi, I’m David.” Both Ben and I were bowled over. At this point, my head was really throbbing and I felt quite feverish. Soon one of the nice gentlemen from the show came and said it was time to meet Manu Katché and Avishai Cohen and see the studio. Manu and Avishai would be accompanying us tonight and hadn’t heard the songs yet. They are both totally brilliant musicians - it was an honor to have the opportunity to play with them.
We stepped out into the studio and it was an absolute dream come true. Lights everywhere, about six oriental rugs with a separate drumset on each. Amazing mixing console. Just dreamy. The cameras followed us out and I had to open my mouth and perform and it sounded like absolute CRAP! I mean truly. I kept looking over at Ben, who would respond with the kindest look of encouragement, but I could see in his eyes that it was a bit pathetic! I sounded like I couldn’t sing a note in key! I started to cough, partially just to prove I was really sick, and explained to Manu and Avishai that I had awoken really really sick. Manu was very kind and said I should just relax and try to heal the throat as best as possible before the show.
At this point I just felt so desperate and sad. I called my singing teacher, William Riley, in NY. He gave me the number of a great doc in France, Dr. Abitbol, and told him to mention that he sent me and use the words “career emergency”. So off I went to the doc, who confirmed there was no damage. I could sing without fear of causing damage. But it may not sound good. Period. He gave me some meds that would help, but basically I would be singing with a bit of a crippled voice.
OK, to make a very long story a tiny bit shorter, Matthias Labarbe, the marketing director based in France, gave me a kind of Rocky Balboa speech before the show that was very very important. He said the songs were good. The voice, maybe not so good tonight, but there’s also the heart and the love that is put into the music. He promised me that if I gave enough of that the audience would respond favorably.
Somehow this freed me up completely. Even as I listened to the totally amazing Avashai Cohen who performed just before me, I didn’t feel bitter, frustrated or even scared. I just felt lucky. Very grateful to have this opportunity. Truly. It was a wonderful audience, a fantastic group of musicians. I had Ben Evans playing with me. I’ll just do the best I can. And I did. And it sounded pretty crap! But during The Turn I got a really nice response from the audience, so learned a big lesson there!
Anyway, I think it might have been two days later that Ben and I met with Scalde for a single day of practice. Scalde is another one of my favorite musicians who I met on myspace a year or so ago. He has a very angelic voice and plays so many eclectic instruments, so it was just really really fun practicing with him, although he too arrived sick!
We played a live TV show called Ce Soir Ou Jamais, which I felt went horribly. Not so much the musicians, but me… I froze up. Got so nervous. It’s just an odd situation when the audience doesn’t know you or know what to make of you. It’s even stranger to have to stand silently behind a curtain, waiting for the silent cue from the stage manager to start playing. That was the absolute emotional low point of the whole trip, although I have since seen the show and it actually sounded pretty good.
But a couple days later we played a Blogotheque Soiree de poche! This was actually a show that from the start I very worried about, because they required 30 minutes and we had only had 3 days between us to prepare. But once we got to the apartment where it was being held and met the kind owner and all the folks involved, the excitement and warmth just helped us to have a really fun show. Plus, I had the idea of staging a little circular video with the audience, and with that fun goal in mind it just set a really creative tone.
I have promised to upload this video since a week after the performance, and obviously it has been much longer than that! To all you folks who were there at the show and waiting, so sorry! The video portion has been complete for some time. I am just awaiting a final mix from the show’s producers and it will be uploaded to my website.
Which reminds me… another fun afternoon was spent at the fabulous apartment of Isabelle Chelley. It’s sort of a strange mix of dark, magic theatre antiques and some very colorful kitch! I love it. She has a really bizarre collection of dolls which I took some photographs of. Also I shot a circular video here, and I will be uploading that even sooner than the Blogotheque one, as it’s nearly done.
OK, so I guess the Blogotheque show went really well. We had such a good time, and played for about 45 minutes. I had no problems communicating with the audience. In fact, I quite surprised myself and really enjoyed it. So now we had just a whole bunch of internet performances scheduled and our first big show, opening for Peter von Poehl at La Cigale!
The internet performances went pretty well. My favorite is one we shot in the stairwell at the Because office. I learned a big lesson about singing when mic’d with a lapelle mic - do NOT over pronunciate! And make sure to sing in pitch!!!!! hahah.
But finally the night of La Cigale arrived. What an incredibly gorgeous theatre.
Me and the Pilots were so happy walking around there. We did our sound check and it really sounded amazing to hear so much sound bouncing back at us. Off we went to the green room to await the show.
Jane from the UK office arrived and said hello. I did an interview for AFP. All this was good because it kept me distracted. And I had learned, over the course of the trip, that it’s best just to pretend nothing new is happening, stay connected to the music, to the songs, to the vocal technique. Ignore all the scary thoughts. Finally our time came and we were led out to a packed crowd of nearly 1000 people. Folks started to applaud, and thus began a really really fun night! Again, I surprised myself fully by really enjoying speaking with the audience. The Pilots all played so well. We looked at each other throughout the performance and I could tell everyone was very happy.
So ended quite a rigorous trip. I have to thank first I Am Your Autopilot and Scalde. Ben, Graeme, Jasper and Sylvain are all great musicians and working with them has been and continues to be a real pleasure. Also, Matthias Labarbe was especially wonderful. He brought such a warmth and kept everything moving forward at breakneck speed.
Anyway, really there are so many details (for instance, one of the Pilots was a horrible SNORER and that caused lots of trouble for the Pilot who had to share a room with him!!!) I have left out these details because already this blog is TOO LONG!!!
Anyway, if you have a chance, do check out the Robinson Crusoe cluster. I’m returning to France on June 22nd to play at Café de la Dance, so hopefully I will see some of you there!
UK release!May 05.2009
I just got word from my label that my album has finally been released in the UK! Hooray! So anyone who likes my music and lives anywhere in the UK, I hope you will consider buying it! It’s a double disc set: one with the album’s music, the other a dvd with eight of my videos.
next chapter, coming right up…May 04.2009
Hello there,
So just wanted to let you all know the next little chapter of my trip will be written about very soon. I’m just trying to finish a circular video shot while I was in France and I want the blog to coincide with that. In the meantime… I can announce my next live performance! It’s June 22nd, 7:30PM at Café de la Dance in Paris! Hooray! So please, if you are around Paris at that time, come and hear us! It’s going to be me singing with the instrumental/vocal support of I Am Your Autopilot and Scalde.
If you are interested in seeing what we sound like live, there’s a clip from a performance we did in a hallway in France you can see here:
Wood Smoke - the third circular video
Apr 28.2009
I just uploaded my third circular video, which I made to play against the edited voice improvisation entitled Wood Smoke. The imagery was inspired by the arrival of summer. There’s a smell of heated wood from the forest and all the trees are in bloom.
Anyway, It’s the large dark green circle found at theturn.tv. I hope you enjoy it!
the wonderful writings of my momApr 27.2009
My mother, Diana Serbe, has just started a little website devoted to her fiction writing. This makes me so happy, as she’s really talented! I invite you all to do some good reading!
a brief interruptionApr 27.2009
Just want to mention that I have a couple new improvised pieces on exhibition at luvsound.org, a really awesome netlabel run by good friend and musician hecanjog.
The song is called Wood Smoke, and it’s an edit down from 12 minutes to 3! I really like this one, it’s peaceful and feels a bit summery.
The second is my new video Crater Lake, which is an unedited 14 minute journey. It gets kind of intense if you give yourself to it.
Anyway, great thanks to hecanjog for including me on his wonderful site! They have a great many wonderful artists released in the past. Make sure to check some of the previous releases out.
Entry number two of my trial by fire!Apr 25.2009
But first, I have added three new rectangular videos in the last month to theturn.tv site. Red States international cluster - this is one we did live with Autopilot shooting their voices in Manchester, Scalde shooting his in Lyon and me shooting mine in Woodstock. Then I have uploaded two improvisations - Crater Lake and an Untitled one. Both are relatively trippy. Crater Lake gets extremely disturbing musically and it’s very long, so be warned! Soon I will add these videos to this site as well.
OK, so where were we? I had just arrived in Manchester, met Jasper Wilkinson for the first time (forgot to mention that, he’s the only Autopilot member I hadn’t met, and he’s loverly!) We’d spent a grueling, but highly satisfying two days practicing several new arrangements of songs and now it was off to London to perform…
The UK… somehow I’m not quite feeling the love there yet. I’m hoping for it. Obviously most of my favorite pop music has come from there. So I went off with two of the members of I Am Your Autopilot hoping for the best.
First we played a radio show called Q. It was pretty strange. Not as scary as I thought it would be (yes this was a first!) Actually the only thing I would say is it takes some getting used to singing in a seriously dead quiet room! While there I shot a little circular souvenir video, and here’s an image from it:
While in London the schedule was quite tight. I had a full day of what I thought would be interviews but ended up being little performances for different websites! Because of the misunderstanding I didn’t have any musicians there to support me, so I ended up just doing it similar to how I used to in the hallway on 14th street. And all in all it went well.
Now, I had been told that Jasper, with whom I was meant to share a room while in London, was a noisy snorer. Seeking to avoid a sleepless night, I asked my friend Lucas Howe who was also visiting London on work if there was any space on a couch where he was staying. Lucas was staying at his friend Rory’s flat and said I was welcome to come and take the second room. The place was so swank! Here’s a shot of Lucas in Rory’s flat, followed by one of us in a cab testing out my new camera.
Anyway, it was lovely to see Lucas, but I noticed he was just coming down with a horrible cold. I’m actually a bit of a hypochondriac and worried instantly that I would get sick.
Still Lucas and I had a grand old time. In fact, the last radio gig I did there, which was LIVE (yes, another first) I invited Lucas to come and play some hand percussion. This was a bit crafty of me, because while it was fun to have Lucas on the radio with me, it also strengthened me to know somebody was more nervous there than me! Anyway, that was the John Kennedy show, and the interview and performances went well! We were all so excited when we left, and it was quite late, around 1AM.
We had to pick up all the equipment from Jasper’s room, move it back to Rory’s where we would be leaving at 5AM the next morning. This left us about 3 hours to sleep. Ever tried sleeping when you have to get up in 3 hours? Impossible. I had about an hour of restless rest that morning before we hit the road to do another first: perform 5 songs on a TV show in Manchester. Despite being absolutely bushed and truly running on fumes the show went pretty derned well. Especially the first three songs.
But directly after the show I suddenly felt like I was getting sick. The next morning Ben and I were meant to go to Paris ahead of Graeme and Jasper to do a special show called One Shot Not, with very amazing drummer Manu Katché. So it was super important that I didn’t awake sick. I hit the hay early that night, and the outcome I will save for the next installment. (But keep in mind, I’m calling this my trial by fire, so you can imagine what happens next!!!!!)
Till next time!
UK and France: Entry OneApr 14.2009
A month ago I took a two week trip to the UK and France to do some promotional performances. That may be a very normal part of every musicians’ life, doing various kinds of performing, but for me it has been anything but normal. Actually, I have been petrified, absolutely terrified, about even the idea of performing. I knew I had to do it, so I have been practicing steadily, but… I suppose when the fear is great enough, really nothing can prepare you. You just have to do it and hope things work out.
So I did. I met up with the great band I Am Your Autopilot and started rehearsing with them in their home town of Manchester, England.
The first two days
First of all, Manchester is lovely. The people are so friendly. I mean, jokey too, of course. In fact, on the airplane ride over I was seated next to a rather heavily inebriated Mancunian who suggested that for this red eye he was going to get me drunk as a skunk. Of course that was out of the question for me as the following two days would be filled with very intense rehearsing. No way I was going to go into that hung over. He was a kind guy and decided that he would instead just drink my portion of alcohol, and proceeded to play me whole albums by some of Manchester’s most famous musical treasures. For hours. It was nice, but… I needed to sleep!
Well, anyway, the next day I met with I Am Your Autopilot, who are Ben Evans, Graeme Brooker and Jasper Wilkinson. These guys are all great musicians, but also extremely nice guys. And what I discovered, after freaking out about having to prepare 7 songs in 2 days, is how fun it is to play music with musicians. Again, this seems like a really basic truth for most musicians, one that perhaps is even taken for granted. But for me, I’ve been a headphones musician, working alone, constructing my music like… well, I guess a bit like an alchemist (or at least a pharmacist!) It was extremely inspiring to discover another spirit to music. And it was very moving to hear my songs played by somebody else!
While I was there I stayed at Ben’s house with his lovely, friendly family. Ben has a lovely wife named Rebecca and two children, Noah and Charlie - Charlie is a really talented bass player. So it was really a warm environment to come into.
We ended up rehearsing for 7 hours each day and prepared 5 songs… Red States, The Turn, Robinson Crusoe, The Original Man and Friendship Is…
The place where we rehearsed was super cool looking too! At the top is an image within the actual studio, and below that is a shot of Graeme (on right) and Jasper. And just below that a shot me Ben, Rebecca with Lee, who is another artist I have known only through the internet! Finally on the bottom you can see a shot of the outside of the studio which was fascinatingly bland.
I’ll post the next chapter of my trip next week with more picts. Next up: a trip to London with some live radio performances and a visit with my New York friend Lucas…
warming up to loopingJan 24.2009
Hi folks,
Sorry it’s been a little while since I’ve written. I’ve been extremely busy, as I have finally finished setting up my studio in my new place in the country and have been settling down to business. Why did it take so long… well, that’s another story! But rather than gripe, I’ll keep positive and talk about what I have been up to creatively.
So the album is being formally, and physically, released in late March. It’s actually been available on iTunes, but for a number of problems originating either with my label or iTunes I haven’t wanted to make an announcement. Looks like soon I will have to be performing some of my music and I’ve been trying to develop an interesting way to merge the sound experience of multi-vocals and some of my visual techniques.
It’s slow going though. Video is very difficult to stream live. That’s just a fact. But I have been practicing my live looping technique and have had some interesting results.
I’ve been a bit on the fence for a while about live looping. Why? Because I like structure! A lot! I like key changes. I like the transformations a finished piece of music makes. Looping live seems a similar, but at once wildly different aesthetic. It’s constantly growing. The repetitions are a bit of a challenge for me, frankly. But I’ve been having a lot of fun and will soon have some new videos.
Here’s a tiny image:
Anyway, I’m heading off to France next Saturday to do some promo and possibly a first tiny performance. I’m QUITE nervous! hahah.
My new studio…
Jan 07.2009
I’ve moved back to the countryside! I now live back in Woodstock again. I’m so happy, and slightly sad as well, as I have left several close friends and creative acquaintances… and all that lovely energy of the city. But it’s quiet here. And I can sing at the top of my lungs without worries! I have to say, the first night I spent here I had a very schizophrenic night of dreaming. The first was a horrible nightmare, which I won’t recount as it will wig me out again. I awoke almost screaming. But when I went back to sleep I dreamt a lovely new song sung by a female soprano, and recorded it immediately into my cell phone!
I’ll post some pictures once the room is done. It’s lovely. The house came with all this great, colorful Danish Modern furniture. Piles of it. There were some down in the basement that I dragged up to my music room and it feels so great.
By the way… how could I ever have avoided hearing the music of Moondog??? I recently came upon it and really love it so much! Such a strange eclectic mix of styles, and a wonderful sense of rhythm and… well the word verve comes to mind, hahah! But I guess it’s appropriate. Anyway, the ones that caught my ear instantaneously (and set my imagination on fire Viking 1, Pigmy Pig, Sea Horse, Do Your Thing, Frost Flower. It’s outrageous. Gorgeous. All the -geous words!
two bits of awesome news!Dec 04.2008
Today I found out that theturn.tv has won as website of the day over at thefwa.com! This is really great news for me, because it will bring my work, and the work of Aer Studio into the eyes of a lot more people! It’s going to be featured on their site starting on December 8th, 2008.
But the most awesome part is that is the same day my full album is being released on iTunes, so how’s that for timing!?
I’ll post links once all this good stuff starts happening. I’m so excited to see things moving forward, and obviously feel fortunate for the good luck!
My second EP is now availableDec 01.2008
Hello there, folks
Just wanted to announce the digital release of my second EP, Red States, available starting today on iTunes worldwide.
The EP includes the following:
Red States
Oh My Love
Occam’s Razor
Let the Sad Out (featuring wonderful and strange words written and spoken by Donavan Freberg)
Our Lips Are Sealed
and then a wonderful remix by Fink of my song The Turn.
Come check out the songs!
US iTUNES
FRANCE iTUNES
UK iTUNES
CANADA iTUNES
Nov 22.2008
Just a little note, about a month ago I did an interview with Per for the launching of Sofarock.org. Per is simultaneously featuring an interview with photographer Heidi Johansen and a splendid, vibrant electronic release from Greg Hoffmann, known as Utofbu.
Go take a look, and bookmark his site!
theturn.tv is launched!Nov 09.2008
Hello folks,
I’m happy to announce the launch of my new site, theturn.tv
Although the site was developed to frame a bunch of new audio/visual concepts, I like to think of it more as a web-toy - it’s completely interactive and there are a lot of controls that the user can play with. I’ll leave many of these for you all to discover for yourselves.
I’ve drawn a couple little pictures to show you two of the most important aspects of the site.
1. Grab the shapes.
2. Drag them to the anchor.
3. Drop them in the anchor.
Hexagon and circle shaped videos are turnable. For example, if you want to watch something that’s in an upper panel, click on that panel and it will be turned so you can watch it right side up. Or, if you just like to turn things, knock yourself out!
This site was developed in collaboration with the talented folks at Aer Studios. Links and full credits are on the site.
Anyway, there are many more videos in production for later release, so please keep checking back for new shapes and experiences. Hope you enjoy!
- Fredo
Oct 08.2008
Hi there,
Well, we’re in the final days of work on the new website, and I’m so excited to share it with everybody. The folks at Aerstudio have absolutely astounded me with their brilliance and speed. The site is everything I hoped it would be and then some. Anyway, yes there has been a few months quiet patch on this site, but it will be made up for, I promise. When the new site comes there will be new music and at least four new videos. Plus… well, the site. It’s fun!
Did I mention that I’m wildly excited to be able to share this site???
Hope to upload a link very soon!
- Fredo
Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine ShowSep 18.2008
Hey there, folks
Does anyone here know the internet program called Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show? I was contacted a couple months ago by Greg Benson, the show’s director and husband of it’s star and creator, Kiko Evey. Kiko is playing a very enthusiastic, if wonky, Japanese tv talk show host. It’s kind of Peewee Herman’s playhouse meets one of those insane Japanese shows, and I think it’s very funny.
Anyway, every week they end their show with a new cover, similar to how the show Weeds begins and asked if I wanted to submit a cover…
I used layers of counterpoint voices, dulcitone, hand percussion, some sinewave and finally got a use for this odd little percussive instrument which I don’t know the name of! I’ve included a photograph of it below.
The first episode of the second season starts tomorrow, and that’s where they have placed my cover. So go take a peak! Hope you enjoy!
You can see it here [UPDATED LINK]
Sep 16.2008
Hi folks,
Just wanted to give you an update on what’s going on with my cluster performances… I’m at work on a new batch done in a very particular new way. Also, I’m working with a team of very talented designers based in Spain (called Aerstudio) on a new site dedicated just to the experience of the images and sounds… This site will still be here, and I will be updating it with news, standard videos, blogs as things progress. I have a new set of screensavers that I will be releasing here quite soon as well. But for the time being my focus is on development of the new site and videos.
About the Spanish design team - Aerstudio are amazing. I am eternally grateful to Steph Thirion for having made the introduction. And you can see some of their work here!
dream of my father and tall wavesAug 14.2008
I had a dream the other night that has stuck in my psyche. I was in the ocean with my father. It was daylight, crisp and clear. Comfortable. There was no wind or stormy weather, and yet the waves were intense. Me and my dad were fighting to stay on the surface. We kept getting pounded into the water by what looked like 10 to 15 foot waves. I remember watching as they grew into tall peaks, and then began to tip and fall into a crashing mass on top of us. My dad was closer to the shore than me. I was deeper, thus closer to the source of the waves, and I remember watching a massive giant begin to build. It looked like it could be 20 feet tall already and it had barely reached it’s peak… This one is going to hurt… I figured I had better dive into it’s base before it began to crash. My plan payed off, I was able to look back and watch it transform into a massive crashing storm from inside out… but I lost my dad.
What is it about the ocean? It’s so scary to me. So mysterious. I need to get over my fear of the ocean, I think.
Fredo Viola’s vimeo pageJul 23.2008
Just a note… I have started a vimeo page to have high resolution representations of my video work which will be embedable. So if you are interested in seeing any of these pieces in higher res, or embedding within your facebook/myspace/blog pages… here’s where you can find them.
The Turn Ghosts is up!Jul 22.2008
Hi there, folks
First of all, for those of you on my mailing list, sorry about sending you three emails. It was a morning filled with stupid email mistakes!!
Anyway, I have finally uploaded The Turn ghost cluster performance and really hope you all enjoy it.
Click me to watch!
Jul 17.2008
YAYAY!!! I got my glockenspiel in the mail today! It’s from the 50s, of Deagan make. I was directed by a very generous and knowledgeable man by the name of Mike to buy this used instrument, despite it having some rust on a bunch of the bells. He explained that in the 50s and before that the manufacturers used different kinds of metal that, in his opinion, could not be matched today. Anyway, I LOVE the rusty bells. Love the weathered wood, broken case. This instrument makes me really happy to look at it, and it sounds lovely (although a few of the bells I have to position them specially to get a really clear tone.)
Anyway, look forward to hearing and seeing this in some upcoming cluster videos.
Jul 17.2008
Hello there folks,
OK, so… I know it seems I have missed two months of cluster feedage, but I’m preparing to release the one I made last month in the next five days. I have been sooooooooooooo busy preparing for the upcoming release! On top of that, I am working on a second website which… well, it’s going to be quite different, and I’ll be adding a bunch of new videos to that site, so possibly this cluster I will be releasing soon will be the last for a short while.
Anyway, stay tuned for my very first ghost cluster....
love,
Fredo
Jun 22.2008
Hi folks,
This has been an extremely busy month for me. I know I’m due a cluster performance video, and actually I have done two this month, but it may have to wait. Here’s what I’ve been up to…
I’m working with Liuh-Wen Ting. She’s a fantastic violist, and considering her background and skills I feel really honored to be working with her. We’re collaborating on a cluster of The Turn, and, as I mentioned, I’ve done two relatively successful tests already. But I don’t want to share until it’s perfect!
The first time I met with her we talked a lot about music. As some of you may know, I’m a fan of a whole bunch of different styles, classical and modern classical being two of my favorites. So we spoke a lot about Stravinsky and Bach. And then Liuh-Wen surprised me with an impromptu performance of Stravinsky’s Elegy. I was really moved by her performance, and rather in awe of her ability to do this from memory!
Anyway, sorry again for the delay. Hopefully it will be done soon!
Test of Friendship
May 18.2008
My fourth cluster performance is now online. It’s a song called “Friendship Is...” This video is different as one of the voices is actually going through some filters and distortion that cause it to sound like an instrument when I sing through the mic. Watch for it, it’s voice five all the way on the right. Hope you enjoy!
CLICK ME to watch Test of Friendship!
Old friends and new clusters
May 18.2008
About a month or so ago, after The Sad Song video got featured on Youtube, I got contacted by a guy who used to be one of my best friends back when I was in 6th grade. I think I saw him once in the early 90s, but it really had been a very very long time! So anyway, he happens to be a director and was coming to NYC to do a video for a band called tastiskank. It was really fun, and quite refreshing not having total responsibility for once!
Théo has barely changed at all. He looks just the way I thought he would. Here’s a shot of me and Mistah Théo:
Anyway, helping with the video caused a slight delay for the release of my May cluster performance, but it’s coming tomorrow. I shot it the day before yesterday and have been doing final touches on it the last couple days. Hope you will come and take a look. It’s for a fun song called Friendship Is…
Apr 14.2008
Hi there, folks
I’ve just released my third cluster video into the media section. It’s a second performance of Moon After Berceuse I performed in my hallway (poor neighbors!)
Moon After Berceuse - Hall Cluster
It’s a second performance of Moon After Berceuse that I shot with my little hand-held Digital Elph camera. I think it’s more intimate then the one I did with Ike. I’m holding the camera myself, and each move of my body causes a camera move as well, and I think it works to have that for a spare song like this one.
Hope you enjoy it!
Martha’s VineyardMar 21.2008
What a great trip I just had to the Martha’s Vineyard Independent Festival. I’m so appreciative to Jeremy Mayhew for selecting my two videos and arranging for me to perform. Also I’m grateful to founder Thomas Pena and to Brad Wescott, who I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time.
Martha’s Vineyard is a place that takes me back to some part of my childhood I guess. The first time I set foot on the island I felt like I’d been there many times before. Anyway, I was a bit worried that the magical effect this island and it’s great community had on me might during my first trip the festival two years ago may have been due to the fact that Sad Song was shown three times and I had received such an outpouring of love from the folks there. But I’m happy to say it wasn’t any of these things. It’s just a great place. I consider it to be one of my favorite places on the planet.
Here’s a few images from some footage I took walking with Jeremy and his friend photographer friend Josh Marowitz:
Look at how rich in color the cliffs are.
This is my good friend Jeremy Mayhew.
We showed Puss and The Turn at the festival. I think Puss went over better than the Turn, but I was really nervous during the Turn because an hour later I was set to give a performance. Still, folks were laughing a lot during Puss and many people came and told me they really enjoyed it. Never under-estimate the power of laughter!
The performance went well too, although I have to admit, it was a little odd… I was singing in front of a food line! haha. I guess any experience is a good experience, and really I was just grateful to have the opportunity to give my heart to these good folks. Here’s an image:
I left the island with plans to make a video with Jeremy within the next two months. I’ve got all kinds of ideas. As was the case last time I left Martha’s Vineyard, the place has set my imagination on fire.
Mar 17.2008
I’m going to keep this short because I’m still in Martha’s Vineyard and am trying to spend as little time on the computer as possible.
I’m proud to announce the release of March’s cluster performance, Moon After Berceuse - duet with Ike Sturm. Hope you enjoy it! It was very very fun to shoot and perform.
I’ll be back at you soon with images and thoughts from the Martha’s Vineyard festival, which was even more lovely than I thought it would be!
Moon Duet, featuring Ike Sturm
dreams of Martha’s VineyardMar 12.2008
I had rather strange sleep last night. I’d say it was kind of fluorescent, electric sleep… constant but buzzing. Obsessive thoughts about the Martha’s Vineyard Independent Festival and all my lovely friends there.
At some point I was at a video store with a couple friends and I saw a poster for Fellini’s Clowns (one of my favorite films) and asked my pals a question: does this mean it’s available on dvd...? The dream response was a widescreen dvd cover in messy black and white video, but… endlessly, horizontally wide, and it spread out before my eyes, honest, slightly sad and beautiful… and it was of the Sea at Martha’s Vineyard. Somehow I imagine seeing my friend Jeremy’s face kind of translucent smiling over this vista with his friends. I was lost in a trance. Then snapping back to the video store I said, Oh yes I’m definitely going to buy The Clowns.
What is the meaning of this? I suppose it’s obnoxious to over-analyze dreams. Especially in public! So let’s just chalk it up to me being very excited. I’m going to bring my whole video and audio rig, so there should be plenty of material to work with when I return.
On a side note… The Moon Duet cluster video has been finished for five days now, but we’re having some technical difficulties with the site. But if we can’t get them figured out before I leave they will be up by the time I get back. Thanks for your patience.
Puerto Rico / shooting with Ike / strange powersMar 06.2008
Howdy folks,
So just got back from a nice week off in Puerto Rico. Such a beautiful island. I brought my camera and made a lot of little movies, hopefully some of which will make it into some future work. Here’s an image from Old San Juan:
I got back just in time to shoot my next cluster video with my friend, the great upright bassist, Ike Sturm. We captured ten voices in five passes live to my p2 card for you. It’s a performance of my song Moon After Berceuse sung at St. Peter’s church. That’s a church famously known as “the jazz church” and Ike is the musical director there. Anyway, aroudn the middle of March I’ll be going live with it, so check back.
While I was away in Puerto Rico “The Sad Song” got featured on youtube, and in one day the stats went from 1,110 views to 175,000 views, and continued to climb until the video left the front page. It was very exciting, but most beautiful about it was hearing from folks who’d seen it.
Actually, I heard from an old friend with whom I went to elementary school. His name is Theo Burkhardt, and he has a great video which I totally love, so I wanted to post a link to it. Go watch it! The song is “Strange Powers” by the Magnetic Fields. Great song. Great video.
click here to watch Strange Powers
Feb 11.2008
It’s been a long time in the making and the site is rich in content, so I here’s a little introduction to what you will find.
Opus Videos
The Sad Song is now joined by a new video for The Turn. You will find both of these videos in the media section under the heading “opus”, joined by my Silent Night video. Keep checking back for updates, there are many more in the works.
Cluster Videos
Also in the media section you’ll also find a heading called Cluster Videos. Once a month I will do a new live performance of all of the vocals of my song and cluster them together graphically. Until science finds a way to clone human beings, this is probably the purest way I can possibly perform my music live. Please head on over and take in my first performance. And if you have any requests email me!
Downloads
In the download area you will find a full set of desktop images and avatars from images by the very cool designer Richard Colman, and my own cat as avatar. Keep checking here for future treats.
Do search the site carefully, as there may be some hidden content…
I owe many thanks to Mike Grigg of Royal Magnet, who designed the site, as well as to Joey Trimmer who did the code. And the marvelous artwork is by Richard Colman.
Please enjoy the site and come back again soon!