Sep 2007
We are in the NY Times
09/28/07 Filed in: Rambling
While dining at Le Pigeon in Portland, Oregon we were
photographed (lower right corner) for the NY Times
article In Portland, a Golden Age of
Dining and Drinking
Viking Ferry
09/28/07 Filed in: Rambling
Just arrived in Stockholm after an 11 hour ferry ride from Helsinki- it was beautiful.
Back on tour- Helsinki
09/23/07 Filed in: Rambling
There are some perks to the total disorientation that comes with 24 hours of plane travel, and walking along a lakefront park at 6AM is one of them. Helsinki was almost silent as the sun rose and the park was FULL of bunny rabbits. (Click the image above to start the slideshow)
Tonight, after our first day of production with the new team we will go to the Saunabar. Yes that's right- a bar inside of the sauna.
You Are Here
09/19/07 Filed in: Rambling
It has been a whirlwind visit to New York City and we
are already re-packing our bags for the upcoming 1.5
month European tour. On Friday we fly into Helsinki
and today I am searching everywhere for my leather
jacket to stay warm on those cold Finnish nights.
I am really excited that the website for You Are Here went live today.
You Are Here will be two days of events that feature contemporary artists and researchers working with mapping and tactical media. I have been dreaming about a mini-festival like this one for years & am thrilled to work with each of the presenters involved with this project. We also could not ask for better collaborators than the inspiring staff at the Aurora Picture Show and the Mitchell Center for the Arts in Houston, Texas. It should be a great weekend- hope you can join us!
I am really excited that the website for You Are Here went live today.
You Are Here will be two days of events that feature contemporary artists and researchers working with mapping and tactical media. I have been dreaming about a mini-festival like this one for years & am thrilled to work with each of the presenters involved with this project. We also could not ask for better collaborators than the inspiring staff at the Aurora Picture Show and the Mitchell Center for the Arts in Houston, Texas. It should be a great weekend- hope you can join us!
Around Jupiter
09/16/07 Filed in: Art
After a day of the Affair at the Jupiter art fair, which included a little lunchtime conversation with blogger and Portland arts writer Chas Bowie, we headed over to Le Pigeon for a farewell meal. There was a photographer from the NYTimes there taking photos for their upcoming food section article on Portland restaurants. (UPDATE: Here is the article from the NY Times on-line)
Portland Report
09/13/07 Filed in: Rambling
After a week it is time to post about about our time
in Portland, Oregon but I hardly know where to start.
This is an amazingly beautiful city that hardly seems
American with all the bike riders and dynamic,
mixed-use neighborhoods.
On the Art front: The TBA festival is happening this week and there are performances taking place in theaters and clubs all over the city. Check out the day-by-day coverage of the festival provided by the staff at the Portland Mercury. While we've attended less TBA shows than hoped, we did see Mirah & Spectratone International's late night show Share This Place, a 12 song cycle about 6 insects... yes, songs about bugs. All the late-night TBA 'Works' performances are held in the lovely Wonder Ballroom, which feels like a Vermont Grange Hall dressed up prom (in a good way). Share this Place was a unique trope, reminding me of David Byrne's song cycle Here Lies Love, about the life of Imelda Marcos. It was a special event, but one that left me hungry for Mirah's indie pop songs, but the song Community stood out. There was a strong video component to the show provided by Britta Johnson's stop-motion films. At times I was slightly distracted that Johnson's edits did not sync up with the music, but her color palette worked so well with the space and the music that I was able to overlook this. Her round video screen was both conceptually smart and aesthetically pleasing.
On Saturday night we traveled across the Burnside Bridge to attend YACHT's 30-minute set that was part of the NW MusicFest. YACHT has an amazing amount energy & some great dance moves. He was a full-on one man show, accompanied only by his laptop and his girlfriend (for one really cute song). It was the highest energy performance I've witnessed in a while, and the audience agreed, dancing up a storm.
This morning I was on-line checking out Ultimate Blogger 3 (Jona from YACHT is a co-instigator & it is a TBA co-production) and while it took forever to download the videos using the shared wireless connection at the Jupiter Hotel, Ultimate Blogger 3 is some funny stuff!
We just returned from a great bike ride through the Mississippi and Alberta neighborhoods of Portland. We stopped for some coffee at the local favorite The Albina Press, and the guys from Ultimate Blogger 3 showed up and started shooting video outside the coffee shop. It was a real alt Hollywood moment. Portland is a small city & there always seems to be art being made just around the corner. In fact, as I type this post, the staff of the Jupiter Hotel are getting ready for the "Affair at the Jupiter" Art Fair (which kicks off tomorrow). They've been moving beds and dressers out of the rooms to make the transition from hotel to gallery easier. While the Jupiter is clearly a hipster hotel, I recognize the good design of a hotel that houses a tattoo parlor, adult sex toy shop, nightclub and hair salon. It is exciting and a little overwhelming that all of this activity is happening all around us, we sure picked a great week to visit.
With all this happening in Portland it might seem crazy that we would rent a car to head up above the treeline to Mt. Hood for lunch, but just look at these views!
On the Art front: The TBA festival is happening this week and there are performances taking place in theaters and clubs all over the city. Check out the day-by-day coverage of the festival provided by the staff at the Portland Mercury. While we've attended less TBA shows than hoped, we did see Mirah & Spectratone International's late night show Share This Place, a 12 song cycle about 6 insects... yes, songs about bugs. All the late-night TBA 'Works' performances are held in the lovely Wonder Ballroom, which feels like a Vermont Grange Hall dressed up prom (in a good way). Share this Place was a unique trope, reminding me of David Byrne's song cycle Here Lies Love, about the life of Imelda Marcos. It was a special event, but one that left me hungry for Mirah's indie pop songs, but the song Community stood out. There was a strong video component to the show provided by Britta Johnson's stop-motion films. At times I was slightly distracted that Johnson's edits did not sync up with the music, but her color palette worked so well with the space and the music that I was able to overlook this. Her round video screen was both conceptually smart and aesthetically pleasing.
On Saturday night we traveled across the Burnside Bridge to attend YACHT's 30-minute set that was part of the NW MusicFest. YACHT has an amazing amount energy & some great dance moves. He was a full-on one man show, accompanied only by his laptop and his girlfriend (for one really cute song). It was the highest energy performance I've witnessed in a while, and the audience agreed, dancing up a storm.
This morning I was on-line checking out Ultimate Blogger 3 (Jona from YACHT is a co-instigator & it is a TBA co-production) and while it took forever to download the videos using the shared wireless connection at the Jupiter Hotel, Ultimate Blogger 3 is some funny stuff!
We just returned from a great bike ride through the Mississippi and Alberta neighborhoods of Portland. We stopped for some coffee at the local favorite The Albina Press, and the guys from Ultimate Blogger 3 showed up and started shooting video outside the coffee shop. It was a real alt Hollywood moment. Portland is a small city & there always seems to be art being made just around the corner. In fact, as I type this post, the staff of the Jupiter Hotel are getting ready for the "Affair at the Jupiter" Art Fair (which kicks off tomorrow). They've been moving beds and dressers out of the rooms to make the transition from hotel to gallery easier. While the Jupiter is clearly a hipster hotel, I recognize the good design of a hotel that houses a tattoo parlor, adult sex toy shop, nightclub and hair salon. It is exciting and a little overwhelming that all of this activity is happening all around us, we sure picked a great week to visit.
With all this happening in Portland it might seem crazy that we would rent a car to head up above the treeline to Mt. Hood for lunch, but just look at these views!
One day on rock tour with the video crew
09/07/07 Filed in: Rambling
Since taking a break from touring several people have
asked me what our day-to-day is like. While our
experience is not the same for all bands touring, I
thought I would paste together some photos from this
past month to illustrate what we’re doing out there
on the road.
We, the 16 members of the crew, split up onto two busses, ride from venue to venue and often the distances are long (for example crossing the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah- shown above). Usually we are asleep in our bunks while the bus is moving.
We awake at the next destination in time for the 9:00 AM load-in. Our crew is greeted by the local crew, which is comprised 10-20 professional stagehands & “pushers”. They unload the trucks as we search for catering- this is where the coffee & breakfast is. The lighting department gets to work right away, marking the floor with chalk to indicate where the points for the truss will be, while the local riggers climb up into the catwalks. Often at this point we hang our 21’x16’ wide-format FastFold screen. We hang it either from a flying house pipe “upstage” (the back) or on a 40’ truss that the lighting department carries along for us.
While the lighting trusses are positioned and rigged, the sound team hangs their PA system from either side of the stage, customizing its position and configuration for each space. We hang our Christie 12,000 lumen projector from the downstage (front) truss.
During this time we are also setting up our “video world” at upstage right, tucked away off in the wing. Our video world consists primarily of 5 large custom designed cases– containing: a Mac Book Pro, a Mac Pro media server, a Novation Remote Zero midi controller, Grass Valley Indigo AV mixer, 16 LCD monitors of various sizes, a Knox 4X4 matrix router, a JVC hard disk recorder, the joystick controller for the remote cameras (6 tactical cameras & 3 pan-tilt-zoom cameras), a Canon XH-A1 HDV camera, 3x Panasonic 5k lumen projectors, and 5x 3k lumen projectors with moving mirror units attached (used as a video lighting effect). We also have two road cases devoted to cables and various tools and parts.
Around noon, the lighting crew has all the truss in the air, and the backline crew arrive to unpack the instruments, which they consistently arrange for each performer on stage. While this is happening, the lighting and sound designers are tweaking and testing systems. By now we are focusing the projector and cameras (two robotic cameras on the front of the stage, two static viotac cameras on the keyboards and two on the drum kits). Lunch also usually happens around this time- catering is often found in the basement or back hallway of the venue. Sometime we have time after lunch to relax a bit, as the band arrives around at 4:00 PM for sound check. It depends on how well all of the above has gone.
There is a lull in the action after sound check and the crew uses this time to eat dinner, take a nap or work further on set-up. Doors to the venue open around 7pm and the opening bands kick off the evening shortly after. The show for us really gets rolling when the headlining act emerges around 9:30 PM.
We are backstage. Johnny is controlling the live mix and processing with VDMX software (which he created) and I am controlling the live cameras, using a PTZ camera controller, which looks a bit like a video game joystick. My live shots are fed into Johnny’s master mix and he pulls these shots up onto the big screen during moments when the performers are doing solos. Each night the set lasts for 2 hours and we are working the screen for the entire show, alternating between video clips, animation, live real-time effects and the live cameras.
When the show ends around midnight, the Breakdown begins IMMEDIATELY. Breakdown is intense, as the stage is suddenly filled with the local crew (who have been waiting in the wings) and everyone is pulling cables and disassembling and packing everything on stage. Generally I am the first to the front of the stage, as I need grab the robotic cameras. Usually there are fans waiting at the edge of the stage begging for a copy of the set list from that night’s show or hoping for discarded guitar pick or drumstick. But I stay focused on my task, which is to disconnect my cameras’ cables and get them off the stage as quickly as possible. The load-out (pushing the cases and loading them onto the 2 semi trucks) takes 2 hours. One of us from team video must stay and monitor the load-out until every one of our cases are back on the truck. Generally we board the bus around 2:30 AM after taking a shower. While there is a little unwinding to be done when the work is all done, eventually we all head for our bunks as the bus pulls out. We’ll awaken the next morning outside the next venue, and the whole process starts again… “Where’s catering?”
We, the 16 members of the crew, split up onto two busses, ride from venue to venue and often the distances are long (for example crossing the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah- shown above). Usually we are asleep in our bunks while the bus is moving.
We awake at the next destination in time for the 9:00 AM load-in. Our crew is greeted by the local crew, which is comprised 10-20 professional stagehands & “pushers”. They unload the trucks as we search for catering- this is where the coffee & breakfast is. The lighting department gets to work right away, marking the floor with chalk to indicate where the points for the truss will be, while the local riggers climb up into the catwalks. Often at this point we hang our 21’x16’ wide-format FastFold screen. We hang it either from a flying house pipe “upstage” (the back) or on a 40’ truss that the lighting department carries along for us.
While the lighting trusses are positioned and rigged, the sound team hangs their PA system from either side of the stage, customizing its position and configuration for each space. We hang our Christie 12,000 lumen projector from the downstage (front) truss.
During this time we are also setting up our “video world” at upstage right, tucked away off in the wing. Our video world consists primarily of 5 large custom designed cases– containing: a Mac Book Pro, a Mac Pro media server, a Novation Remote Zero midi controller, Grass Valley Indigo AV mixer, 16 LCD monitors of various sizes, a Knox 4X4 matrix router, a JVC hard disk recorder, the joystick controller for the remote cameras (6 tactical cameras & 3 pan-tilt-zoom cameras), a Canon XH-A1 HDV camera, 3x Panasonic 5k lumen projectors, and 5x 3k lumen projectors with moving mirror units attached (used as a video lighting effect). We also have two road cases devoted to cables and various tools and parts.
Around noon, the lighting crew has all the truss in the air, and the backline crew arrive to unpack the instruments, which they consistently arrange for each performer on stage. While this is happening, the lighting and sound designers are tweaking and testing systems. By now we are focusing the projector and cameras (two robotic cameras on the front of the stage, two static viotac cameras on the keyboards and two on the drum kits). Lunch also usually happens around this time- catering is often found in the basement or back hallway of the venue. Sometime we have time after lunch to relax a bit, as the band arrives around at 4:00 PM for sound check. It depends on how well all of the above has gone.
There is a lull in the action after sound check and the crew uses this time to eat dinner, take a nap or work further on set-up. Doors to the venue open around 7pm and the opening bands kick off the evening shortly after. The show for us really gets rolling when the headlining act emerges around 9:30 PM.
We are backstage. Johnny is controlling the live mix and processing with VDMX software (which he created) and I am controlling the live cameras, using a PTZ camera controller, which looks a bit like a video game joystick. My live shots are fed into Johnny’s master mix and he pulls these shots up onto the big screen during moments when the performers are doing solos. Each night the set lasts for 2 hours and we are working the screen for the entire show, alternating between video clips, animation, live real-time effects and the live cameras.
When the show ends around midnight, the Breakdown begins IMMEDIATELY. Breakdown is intense, as the stage is suddenly filled with the local crew (who have been waiting in the wings) and everyone is pulling cables and disassembling and packing everything on stage. Generally I am the first to the front of the stage, as I need grab the robotic cameras. Usually there are fans waiting at the edge of the stage begging for a copy of the set list from that night’s show or hoping for discarded guitar pick or drumstick. But I stay focused on my task, which is to disconnect my cameras’ cables and get them off the stage as quickly as possible. The load-out (pushing the cases and loading them onto the 2 semi trucks) takes 2 hours. One of us from team video must stay and monitor the load-out until every one of our cases are back on the truck. Generally we board the bus around 2:30 AM after taking a shower. While there is a little unwinding to be done when the work is all done, eventually we all head for our bunks as the bus pulls out. We’ll awaken the next morning outside the next venue, and the whole process starts again… “Where’s catering?”
Portland or Bust
09/07/07 Filed in: Art
For the next 10 days we will be posting from Portland, Oregon where we will attend the Time Based Arts Festival hosted by the Portland Contemporary for Contemporary Art and catch some of the shows that are part of this weekend's Musicfest NW
Barge Music
09/05/07 Filed in: Rambling
For the past year a few of us have been talking about creating a mobile cinema that will tour the US either via boat or RV. We have been brainstorming about funding sources for this endeavor and dreaming about what it will look like.
So given all this planning for the future- I knew that I just had to stop while I was passing through New Haven, CT to check out Point Counterpoint II. This is the music barge that was designed by the architect Louis Kahn in the 1970s for the conductor/ captain Robert Boudreau and the American Wind Symphony Orchestra. I first heard about this amazing vessel in My Architect, the movie about the life and work of Louis Kahn, made by his son.
The center portion of this 195 foot barge consists of the stage and the living quarters are on either side. The stage is concealed while traveling by a steel canopy that rises up on large hydraulic lifts, creating a roof to cover the performers. There is an echo of this hydraulic stage in the Frank Geary designed Concert Hall located within Millennium Park, Chicago. It is also exciting to think about Jennifer Siegal/ OMD's Globetrotter mobile theater design as a contemporary take on Boudreau & Kahn's vision.
I wish I knew the status of the boat- as it seemed slightly out of commission sitting in the New Haven harbor. Hopefully it will leave the North East before the winters come, as I would love to see this structure come to life!
photo by Michael Martin
Summer Vacation- Finally!
09/01/07 Filed in: Rambling
"There is No Place Just Like This Place Anywhere Near This Place
So This Must Be The Place."
We are on a beach vacation in Guilford, CT-- home of 'The Place'. BYOB and pull up a stump to sit upon, because as they say "magic happens when you roast clams on a wood fire". Opened in 1966, this alfresco restaurant cooks everything over a 20-foot-long fireplace. Students who work there start out at the corn station; after a year or two they are moved to lobsters. All other fire-roasted entrees- steak, salmon, chicken, bluefish, and the clams- are cooked at the front of the fireplace by those with the most experience.
