Annapolis Tuesday

02009-05-05 | Uncategorized

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.

Thursday Rehearsal

02009-05-01 | Uncategorized

Rode the Mariachi Bullitt to an early breakfast with Jon. Discussed video games. I bought a Playstation ten years ago and played a few games, but it’s been gathering dust for years. Video games just don’t seem interesting to me. When talking about this subject to another friend over lunch last week, he said that maybe the technology just needs to be taken further. I said that there are two separate issues I have with video games.

The first issue is that one basically plays the same scene over and over. One gets better at that particular scene, of course, but so what, it’s too narrow of an experience. Let’s say there is a bike-messenger video game versus a bike-messenger racing through a real town. In the video game version the truck on 46th street will ignore the stop sign every time, so watch out for him… in real life you’ll never know what the truck-driver will do so you’d better be prepared. The video game rehearses one particular set of events, while life is full of surprises…

So, my friend said, well, they just need to create more variations, so that you play a different scene every time. True, I answered, but there will still only be x-possible variations, unless we get to the point where the computer can actually re-write the scene every time – like generative music. And, this is my second issue, I still won’t smell the tar they are cooking to fix the potholes on Eight Avenue, or the perfume of the woman who just crossed the street, and I won’t feel the breeze on my face or the steam from rising up from grates on the street.

So, why would I play a bike game, rather than riding my bike?

Video games seem to solve that problem by creating game-play that enables the player to do stuff that would otherwise be punished by society, e.g. stealing cars, killing loads of people etc… Hm, that also does not sound the least bit interesting to me. Want to study fighting, go to a karate club?

When I discussed this with Jon, I suddenly thought of a game I would want to play. I am currently reading about the adventures of the eunuch Yashim Togalu in Istanbul in 1836. It would be lovely to have be able to walk through a 3D rendering of Istanbul circa 1836… But, who else would want to see that!???? And it would be less of a game and more of a moving map. Hm, like Google Earth with more detail and a time button…

Then I started thinking about whether there is an advantage to rehearsing a specific scene, the undulations of a race course for example. I would love to know how big an advantage a race-car driver who did 10, 50, 100 laps around a course in a video game would have against a second driver who hasn’t played the video game, if they are both racing around the same course in real cars. What would happen if the second driver had a head start of 10 test-laps on the real course, while the first driver did 20, 50 100 virtual laps before racing? Again, real race craft is more than knowing the race course. It’s being able to judge how wide one’s car is, knowing how to deal with a new oil spot in the third turn, how to escape an out-of-control car coming too close etc.

Good rehearsal with the band. Recorded all of the new arrangement-bits. Then packing for the tour.

Wednesday Rehearsal

02009-04-29 | Uncategorized


Rode the Mariachi Bullitt, loaded with my guitar and a bag, to Atlas for a workout and then to Jon’s studio for a rehearsal with the quintet. Band sounded great, a very nice step forward from the last tour. Now that everyone knows the music well, we can work on improving the arrangements and that’s what we did.

Rode home in the afternoon and did a phone interview with the Easthampton Press for our concert at the Westhampton PAC in May.

The dates for Autumn in Germany are firm now – all solo:

Oct 03 – München, Germany – Carl Orff Saal
Oct 04 – Leipzig, Germany – Spiegelpalast
Oct 06 – Berlin, Germany – Kleine Arena Tempodrom
Oct 07 – Hamburg, Germany – Stage Club
Oct 08 – Hanover, Germany – Markuskirche
Oct 09 – Köln, Germany – Kulturkirche

Go here to see links to the venues. There will be three to four shows in Italy and Austria before Jon and I roll into Munich.

Current reading: The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin. After reading about Inspector Shan in Tibet (here, here, here and here) and Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep in Bangkok (here), I am now reading about the eunuch Yashim Togalu investigating crime in Istanbul in 1836. Lovely, to be entertained while learning something about foreign places. At one point Yashim makes a paste out of walnuts and garlic that he puts on fish. I want to try that with tofu or grilled chicken.

If you have to push helmets for bicyclists… at least do it like this. :-)

Please remember to add friends@ottmarliebert.com to your email-address book as I will be sending out a new password for May this week. Wouldn’t want to lose the password in your spam filter.