Yesterday Morning we showed up at Echoes to record a few songs and do an interview with the host, John Diliberto. Since our bus could not get close enough to the studio, and it was raining, we slimmed our instrumentation down and were able to move into the studio with just three car-loads.
Michael played cajon, dumbek and shakers, Jon played bass and his laptop (((the live/performance page of the new Logic 8 looks very good… now, how nice would it be to be able to use the rumored Apple Netbook, and to be able to create some buttons – e.g. a round red button called “Three Days”, to play the intro sound from “Three Days Without You” – on the touchscreen… Can you imagine what a great live performance instrument that would be?!?!))), Stephen played Flamenco guitar and Rusty played djembe and shakers.
As soon as the mics were set up we started playing a bulerias, but I don’t think that was recorded. It’s a good sign when a band enjoys playing, whether they are being recorded or not, whether there is an audience or not! Jon quickly set up key-commands to trigger different sounds and a few times I watched him pluck an open bass strings with his left hand, in order to use the right hand to trigger a sound from his laptop – all in time with the music, of course!
We performed “Morning Light”, “Sao Paulo”, “Three Days Without You” and “Streetlight”.
Back at the bus, I showed John Diliberto a painting by Van Gogh I had found on Wikipedia that morning:
It’s a surprising image, isn’t it? Van Gogh copied this wood print by Hiroshige:
John thought it was an internet hoax, so I sent him a bunch of links… Apparently, the painting by Van Gogh hangs in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Hiroshige print hangs in the Brooklyn Museum. Well, I’ll be in Manhattan for five days and will make an effort to visit the print. I love this sort of East-West communication. Every artist is a multi-linguist. Some of those languages are not spoken.
There is a wikipedia page that shows both paintings next to each other.
I am still in the land of dreams watching the performance from the land of enchantment. Here’s the link to a few photos which I took. In a small way they try to capture the spirit of that night. No flash was used and I was seated on the last row, though I bought the tickets in January.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rioazul/sets/72157617805568274/