Towards A New Architecture

Richard Neutra's Kaufmann House in Palm Springs, California


From the New York Times:
The Kaufmann House is one of the best-known designs by Neutra, a Viennese-born architect who moved to the US in the 1920s and designed homes for the few decades for many wealthy West Coast clients. His buildings are seen virtually was the apotheosis of Modernism's International Style, with their skeletal steel frames and open plans. Yet Neutra was also known for catering sensitively to the needs of his clients, so that their houses would be not only functional but also nurture their owners psychologically.

Mark Dion's segment in the Ecology episode of Art21 Season 4 will air Nov 11, check your local PBS station for the time.
Other new episodes organized around the themes Romance, Protest and Paradox will air on Oct 28, Nov 4 & 18

Tonight may have been the best show of the entire tour.In these photos you can see our video show.

Bus driver JS gives us some tips on where we might find food on a Sunday afternoon in Milan & a cut-up video from our afternoon out on the town.

We have past the midway point in this tour and tonight will be our 42nd show since July.

This week we are in Italy. After shows in Bologna and Rome, we have reached Southern Italy and I can almost smell the ocean. I wish I could comment on all the wonderful food, coffee and architecture of Italy- unfortunately, I have not experienced much of it on this trip. What I can say is, Italian crews are very talkative & they often drift off for breaks.
Here is a quick little cut-up from the pre-show in Bologna.

To help ease homesickness and domestic urges, I have the blog 3191 set as my homepage. Each day Stephanie and Mav post a new set of images, although they live 3191 miles apart.

I wish that I had taken photos of the last 3 venues we played at because they have been totally different.

Today we are in Stuttgart (home of the Mercedes Benz & Bosh spark plug) in a metal-clad exhibition complex. The show will be held in a large 1970s conference hall. Finding the hall this morning was straight out of Spinal Tap ("where is the stage?"). Last night we were in the city center of Erlangen, in a cool little brutalist theater from the 1960s made of dark wood & poured concrete. The audience was amazing, especially since they normally present classical concerts this theater. The night before we were at Kultfabrik, in a tented hall in the industrial edges of Munich. The concert hall was located in a huge factory complex where noodles were made. The factory turned party complex was very popular during the rave era. I am told that kids would come from all over Germany, in camper vans and party all weekend long. But the heyday of rave parties is over and now the place now looks like an abandoned squat. Making the 3 tons of lighting, audio and instruments fit into these varying spaces is the daily trick. Good thing I work with such an amazing team.

Müller'sches Volksbad

Chinesischer Turm Bier Garten in the Englischer Garten

From Munich we go onto:
Mon Oct 22 - Stadthalle - Eriagen, Germany
Tue Oct 23 - Messe B - Stuttgart, Germany
Thurs Oct 25- Land Rover Arena- Bologna, Italy
Fri Oct 26- Palaottomatica- Roma, Italy
Sat Oct 27- Palasport- Andria, Italy
Mon Oct 29- DatchForum- Milano, Italy
Tue Oct 30- Palasport- Padova, Italy
Wed Oct 31- Eulachhalle- Winterthur, SWI
Fri Nov 2- Barcelona, Spain
Sat Nov 3- Madrid, Spain
Sun Nov 4- Bilbao, Spain
Tues Nov 6- Toulouse, France
Wed Nov 7- Nancy, France
Fri Nov 9- Newport Centre- Wales, UK
Sat Nov 10- Civic Hall- Wolverhampton, UK
Sun Nov 11- King George's Hall- Blackburn, UK

Arcade Fire's live video show looks great! I especially love those little video whales stationed around the stage. Does anyone know their video designer?


Power Out / Lies from casiotone on Vimeo.

Cruising into the final show before our break we were feeling confident and relaxed as we set up and sound checked at London's Wembley Arena. We had a nice break before the show time, but hit a nerve wracking speed bump moments before show time. During the change-over following the opening band, we turn on all of our cameras and the large projector that hangs from the front truss. But the projector would not go on- it just sat there emitting no light. I heard Johnny call from Stage Left for the production manager- Oh No! We had a tense meeting on stage and decided that Plan A involved the French lighting technician strapping on his harness and climbing up onto the truss to manually boot up the projector.
Imagine this scene: the audience of 7,500 all worked up from the opening band are standing amongst the empty beer cups waiting for the main act. Then just when they think the show is about the start, this guy starts to climb up the truss ladder and is hanging 30 feet above them in the air. The crowd hushed as they watched Andre climb, I started to bite my nails and thought I might throw up, until a guy in the front row said "Man, I never saw a black Spiderman before". It was a welcomed bit of comic relief in a really tense moment. Despite Andre's best efforts the projector would not turn on and he was called back down. By this time we were holding up the start of the show and everyone was getting anxious about going past the 11:00 curfew if we did not get the show started right away.
On stage Johnny was now consulting with both the Production and Tour Managers. We decided to go with Plan B. They would drop the curtain to start the show, Johnny would stand on the drum riser at the back of the stage with the projector remote and I would start the video show from back stage- with our fingers crossed that it would all work.
The lights went out, I hit play on the mixer and Johnny hit the power on the remote & thankfully everything connected, the projector shot out that magical beam of blue light and we had a show!

I have a post upcoming about our dramatic final show at Wembley Area in London. But having just finished the 16 hour drive to Munich & my brain is fried from the ride and the 15 episodes of Perry Mason watched onboard (from the box-set that Ross loaned me before we left the US).
Posting the full story might take a day....

In the meantime, check out DavidByrne.com for the curated radio program ROAD TRIP. Songs for the vagabond, wherever you may roam. Lots of good Texas songs in there, especially Fort Worth Blues by Guy Clark. Just click on PLAY MP3 STREAM at the top of the page.

There is a moment each morning when I am unsure what language to use when saying "good morning" to the local crew. Thus far we have been to ten countries and done eleven shows in twenty days. This schedule does not leave much time for site-seeing, but I am trying my best to pay attention to cultural differences from my limited points of view. Today we are in Glasgow and tomorrow Manchester. Here is a map of our travels thus far...

The story of this venue is that it was built as a Social Hall for the workers of the chemical factory, but over time it became too expensive to upkeep and was sold to the city of Frankfurt for one dollar. What a Sci-fi landscape it must have been in that utopian futureland of domes, plastics and chemicals.
Check out the slide show of this beautiful building, which is surrounded by cornfields and trees.

The Camp crew, my extended family- came to the Paris show. It was great to see them & it seems like life in France suits them. You should check out Bob Camp's site & blog. He is a great illustrator & cartoon producer/ director, who co-created The Ren & Stimpy Show and was more recently a storyboard artist on the films Robots & Ice Age: The Meltdown.
The audience in Paris was amazing & everyone left France recharged, ready for a break in Düsseldorf. Yesterday was our first true "Day Off" since September 22th and after 14 days of 16hour workdays & endless travel - we were ready to relax. The sunny Saturday afternoon was perfect for a bike ride along the Rhine River, followed by an afternoon of window shopping and beer drinking.

Not really... Johnny took the photo in Portland, where it was brilliant blue but here in Antwerp the sky is a dull gray.

Breakfast choices: rhubarb Yogurt or a powdered Union Steak?

The highways in Poland are the worst roads I have ever experienced. We are traveling on a 2 lane road with 18 wheelers covered with tarps and suddenly the road will drop off into the shoulder or a giant pothole. These roads make the BQE look like the Autobahn! All the bus boys are sleeping or watching videos in the back lounge. It is just me and the amazing German drivers, up front listening to Toto & other 80s Rock music. We watch the miles between us and Warsaw disappear into a countryside of cinderblock houses and cabbage fields. There is simply nothing can be done that we are 4 hours late for Load In, the drive from Hannover to Warsaw is simply too long. The transformation from platform to stage takes about 6 hours. Wish us luck - as today we will only have half the time to complete the job.

OUCH! The Dollar to Euro conversion sucks! 1 Eur = 1.4 Dollars