Monkeytown with the Cutlery
Thanks to all who managed their way to the couches of Monkeytown last night! The haunting jingle jangles, clarinet, record player, typewriter and banjo strings of the Cutlery ominously echoed the walls and brought a sultry, nostalgic mood to the shadows.
The room had a nice mellow feeling of serenity throughout our set, and was a lot of fun to edit live in my spontaneous ways of vision. I planned to have the visuals take you on a journey through time. We spent most of the evening floating between the 1920s and 1930s. Flappers, poetic meanderings, dramatic romances, cryptic cartoons and a side of Charlie Chaplan. In addition, lately I’ve been missing one of my very best friends, Zora, who passed away a few years ago. Her and I had just begun to collaborate on beautiful things together in the year before she passed. I know she would have loved the type of work that I’m doing these days. I always wonder what we would be creating today if she were still around. In our short time together we collaborated on one stopmotion film, Fascade Filosophia (also posted below), a few bare experimental tests of painted waves (will be posting soon) and animated sand.
Fascade, full of dark puppetry and mysterious castles, was a big hit last night from what I heard after the show. It felt amazing to have her with me last night, breathing through the walls. I’ve been missing her something fierce and showing that film reminded me that she’s still here inspiring me everyday. For me, last night’s set was dedicated to her.
That venue is so intimate and personal, I wish I could project visuals there more often. It’s absolutely my ideal space, and motivates me to make better and better work.
http://www.vimeo.com/5340051
J&R Kodomo Danger Show / 6/20/09
Yesterday morning, I packed up my car with my new portable screen, my laptop, mixer, cables, gaffer tape, wires & hard drive, and headed south to hit J&R’s Summer Expo.
At noon Kodomo and I set stage amongst thousands of CDs in the back of J&R for an afternoon set promoting his album, Still Life. While projecting under fluorescent lighting makes for a difficult performance on my behalf, it was a lot of fun and ultimately a successful rainy afternoon for both of us. I didn’t realize how much I missed being amongst all those records & CDs, and I always love performing. Especially for a good old fashion record store audience.
I really miss the experience of going to my favorite local record store on any given afternoon and spending hours wandering in the aisles. Record stores have always felt like design museums to me. Album covers spanning years of musical history and varieties of style, art and culture. Since downloading has been so easy and accessible in the last few years, I’ve watched all of my favorite music stores close down one by one, and many more musicians releasing digital downloads instead of putting money into tangible albums.
These days if I want the experience of picking up an album I have to either drive an hour north to Culters in New Haven or an hour south to my NYC spots. My preference these days is Kim’s Video, or my latest favorite, Ear Wax in Brooklyn. J&R was a first for me, but they had quite a collection, and it was cool to be a part of it. Happy Summer Solstice!
Don’t forget, this week I’ll be at Monkeytown, Thursday (Jun 25th) projecting for the Cutlery. 8PM Showtime. Just make sure that if you plan on attending that you shoot your info over to Monkeytown’s reservations. You can do that by clicking here. See you Thursday!
Jun 15, 2009 |
Gigs,
Music,
vj
Photo by Holly Danger - Theatre Ste. Catherine
Firstly I want to thank Warper folks for such a fun event in Montreal a couple weeks ago. I’ve been a little out of the loop with documenting on here since I’ve gotten back and have been in the midst of planning for the next few shows.
Just a heads up, but I wanted to leave a quick note to say that there are two shows on their way in the next week. One is with the Cutlery at my favorite venue Monkeytown on June 25th at 7PM, and another with Kodomo for a daytime promotional event & Summer Tech Expo sponsored by J&R Electronics, June 20th at noon. New footage is in the works for both, but I won’t give much away. Working on footage for 10 songs with the Cutlery this time, and excited to once again project on the 4 encompassing Monkeytown screens! Hope to see you!
