Annapolis Tuesday

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.

Fan, flying through lobby…

I noticed that the installation made a lot of people smile, including me. It’s a fan that dangles from the fifth floor and flies around the lobby powered only by the air moved by its blades. It’s just above the people, maybe at a height of 8 feet, on the first floor. Link to YouTube vid of a similar installation at the SF MoMA.

After the MoMA visit I went to the Nokia store on 57th Street. They offered to update my phone’s software, which I took them up on since the updater is Windows-only and I only have Macs. When I came back a half hour later to pick up my phone I spoke with a person about the newer N95s, which do not have a protective shutter – neither the N95 8GB nor the newer N95 or N95-3 US Edition. I have seen side-by-side comparisons and my older model with shutter takes better photos than the models without shutter. I find it much more natural to open the shutter with my thumb, which also starts up the camera application, than having to go to the software menu to start up the camera. I was told that the new N82 has a new design of the protective shutter that should also carry over to the upcoming N96. Pleasant surprise #1: the phone-backup on the memory card actually brought back my info and preferences – something that didn’t work with the earlier updates. Pleasant surprise #2: the camera starts up in one or two seconds – it took almost half a minute before. I was ready to get rid of my phone, but now I am going to stick with it for a while. Well, at least until I see the 3G iPhone in July… :)