Towards A New Architecture

We are heading back out with the boys in the New Year:
Jan 12- Seoul, Korea
Jan 15- Tokyo, Japan
Jan 17- Singapore
Jan 19- Bangkok, Thailand
Jan 22- Beijing, China
Jan 26- Perth, Australia
Jan 28- Adelaide, Australia
Jan 29- Melbourne, Australia
Jan 30- Sydney, Australia
Feb 1- Brisbane, Australia
* Johnny and I produce the video screen show during the concert. I am the videographer, who does the live camera shots of the band (using a variety of different cameras) while Johnny VJs these live camera feeds into his greater mix to create the video show. He uses VDMX software from Vidvox.

We are in Puerto Vallarta Mexico. I am not sure I have ever been to such a tourist driven economy & it has been a bit overwhelming. Time Share offers, beach cover-ups, boat rides, trips to the jungle, fake tattoos, silver jewelry and anything else you want comes directly to you on the beach, over and over again. To escape this we took the 45 minute water taxi over to the remote village of Yelapa. This special spot has no cars, only got electricity a few years ago and has the best fish tacos that I have ever tasted. But if you need a hand with your luggage you will need to call upon a mule to help- travel light.
In the future, if we were to come back to PV I would book a one night stay in old town at the Hotel Casa Dona Susana, because it is beside the best coffee shop/ bookshop in town Una Pagina En El Sol (A Page in the Sun). After morning coffee it would be time to board the 45 minute Water Taxi to Yelapa, where I would stay at Hotel Lagunita in room 6 or 15. Buenos Suerte!

Finished our last show of the EU tour!!!
For the next week we will be in a seaside village on the North Sea with no internet, phones or stores. We will observe a bit of blogger radio silence and enjoy this remote holiday. See you in a few days.

Photos by Stew

Today we are just outside Bilbao, in an airplane hanger styled convention center, nestled by Bavarian looking hills. All of the glass walls are etched with 00011000, making it apparent that this building was pitched to the local community as a hub for showcasing some type of high-tech media. Currently there are several huge New Media centers being established all over Spain, but this one certainly did not live up to its future-land promises. My guess is that this building was conceived around the time that the Guggenheim Bilbao was built. It is ironic to be surrounded by all this computer code etched glass & unable to find an open WiFi connection.

The endless garage doors and poured concrete floor make this most artists dream studio & it is actually a totally beautiful building. But it is less than ideal for a rock show! This will be our final show in Spain, as tonight we head for France.

This has been our route- with only one week to go!

not really... Johnny took this photo as we passed through the beautiful south of France on route to Spain.

We are all thankful to be done with the Italian shows, it is so difficult to work there. This morning I woke in Switzerland, beside this lovely community of garden sheds. I have always wanted to do a photo series of these little garden villages, which I have also seen in Sweden, The Netherlands & England

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.

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

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

While dining at Le Pigeon in Portland, Oregon we were photographed (lower right corner) for the NY Times article In Portland, a Golden Age of Dining and Drinking

Just arrived in Stockholm after an 11 hour ferry ride from Helsinki- it was beautiful.

There are some perks to the total disorientation that comes with 24 hours of plane travel, and walking along a lakefront park at 6AM is one of them. Helsinki was almost silent as the sun rose and the park was FULL of bunny rabbits. (Click the image above to start the slideshow)
Tonight, after our first day of production with the new team we will go to the Saunabar. Yes that's right- a bar inside of the sauna.

It has been a whirlwind visit to New York City and we are already re-packing our bags for the upcoming 1.5 month European tour. On Friday we fly into Helsinki and today I am searching everywhere for my leather jacket to stay warm on those cold Finnish nights.

I am really excited that the website for You Are Here went live today.
You Are Here will be two days of events that feature contemporary artists and researchers working with mapping and tactical media. I have been dreaming about a mini-festival like this one for years & am thrilled to work with each of the presenters involved with this project. We also could not ask for better collaborators than the inspiring staff at the Aurora Picture Show and the Mitchell Center for the Arts in Houston, Texas. It should be a great weekend- hope you can join us!

After a week it is time to post about about our time in Portland, Oregon but I hardly know where to start. This is an amazingly beautiful city that hardly seems American with all the bike riders and dynamic, mixed-use neighborhoods.

On the Art front: The TBA festival is happening this week and there are performances taking place in theaters and clubs all over the city. Check out the day-by-day coverage of the festival provided by the staff at the Portland Mercury. While we've attended less TBA shows than hoped, we did see Mirah & Spectratone International's late night show Share This Place, a 12 song cycle about 6 insects... yes, songs about bugs. All the late-night TBA 'Works' performances are held in the lovely Wonder Ballroom, which feels like a Vermont Grange Hall dressed up prom (in a good way). Share this Place was a unique trope, reminding me of David Byrne's song cycle Here Lies Love, about the life of Imelda Marcos. It was a special event, but one that left me hungry for Mirah's indie pop songs, but the song Community stood out. There was a strong video component to the show provided by Britta Johnson's stop-motion films. At times I was slightly distracted that Johnson's edits did not sync up with the music, but her color palette worked so well with the space and the music that I was able to overlook this. Her round video screen was both conceptually smart and aesthetically pleasing.

On Saturday night we traveled across the Burnside Bridge to attend YACHT's 30-minute set that was part of the NW MusicFest. YACHT has an amazing amount energy & some great dance moves. He was a full-on one man show, accompanied only by his laptop and his girlfriend (for one really cute song). It was the highest energy performance I've witnessed in a while, and the audience agreed, dancing up a storm.

This morning I was on-line checking out Ultimate Blogger 3 (Jona from YACHT is a co-instigator & it is a TBA co-production) and while it took forever to download the videos using the shared wireless connection at the Jupiter Hotel, Ultimate Blogger 3 is some funny stuff!

We just returned from a great bike ride through the Mississippi and Alberta neighborhoods of Portland. We stopped for some coffee at the local favorite The Albina Press, and the guys from Ultimate Blogger 3 showed up and started shooting video outside the coffee shop. It was a real alt Hollywood moment. Portland is a small city & there always seems to be art being made just around the corner. In fact, as I type this post, the staff of the Jupiter Hotel are getting ready for the "Affair at the Jupiter" Art Fair (which kicks off tomorrow). They've been moving beds and dressers out of the rooms to make the transition from hotel to gallery easier. While the Jupiter is clearly a hipster hotel, I recognize the good design of a hotel that houses a tattoo parlor, adult sex toy shop, nightclub and hair salon. It is exciting and a little overwhelming that all of this activity is happening all around us, we sure picked a great week to visit.

With all this happening in Portland it might seem crazy that we would rent a car to head up above the treeline to Mt. Hood for lunch, but just look at these views!

Since taking a break from touring several people have asked me what our day-to-day is like. While our experience is not the same for all bands touring, I thought I would paste together some photos from this past month to illustrate what we’re doing out there on the road.

We, the 16 members of the crew, split up onto two busses, ride from venue to venue and often the distances are long (for example crossing the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah- shown above). Usually we are asleep in our bunks while the bus is moving.


We awake at the next destination in time for the 9:00 AM load-in. Our crew is greeted by the local crew, which is comprised 10-20 professional stagehands & “pushers”. They unload the trucks as we search for catering- this is where the coffee & breakfast is. The lighting department gets to work right away, marking the floor with chalk to indicate where the points for the truss will be, while the local riggers climb up into the catwalks. Often at this point we hang our 21’x16’ wide-format FastFold screen. We hang it either from a flying house pipe “upstage” (the back) or on a 40’ truss that the lighting department carries along for us.

While the lighting trusses are positioned and rigged, the sound team hangs their PA system from either side of the stage, customizing its position and configuration for each space. We hang our Christie 12,000 lumen projector from the downstage (front) truss.

During this time we are also setting up our “video world” at upstage right, tucked away off in the wing. Our video world consists primarily of 5 large custom designed cases– containing: a Mac Book Pro, a Mac Pro media server, a Novation Remote Zero midi controller, Grass Valley Indigo AV mixer, 16 LCD monitors of various sizes, a Knox 4X4 matrix router, a JVC hard disk recorder, the joystick controller for the remote cameras (6 tactical cameras & 3 pan-tilt-zoom cameras), a Canon XH-A1 HDV camera, 3x Panasonic 5k lumen projectors, and 5x 3k lumen projectors with moving mirror units attached (used as a video lighting effect). We also have two road cases devoted to cables and various tools and parts.

Around noon, the lighting crew has all the truss in the air, and the backline crew arrive to unpack the instruments, which they consistently arrange for each performer on stage. While this is happening, the lighting and sound designers are tweaking and testing systems. By now we are focusing the projector and cameras (two robotic cameras on the front of the stage, two static viotac cameras on the keyboards and two on the drum kits). Lunch also usually happens around this time- catering is often found in the basement or back hallway of the venue. Sometime we have time after lunch to relax a bit, as the band arrives around at 4:00 PM for sound check. It depends on how well all of the above has gone.


There is a lull in the action after sound check and the crew uses this time to eat dinner, take a nap or work further on set-up. Doors to the venue open around 7pm and the opening bands kick off the evening shortly after. The show for us really gets rolling when the headlining act emerges around 9:30 PM.


We are backstage. Johnny is controlling the live mix and processing with VDMX software (which he created) and I am controlling the live cameras, using a PTZ camera controller, which looks a bit like a video game joystick. My live shots are fed into Johnny’s master mix and he pulls these shots up onto the big screen during moments when the performers are doing solos. Each night the set lasts for 2 hours and we are working the screen for the entire show, alternating between video clips, animation, live real-time effects and the live cameras.
When the show ends around midnight, the Breakdown begins IMMEDIATELY. Breakdown is intense, as the stage is suddenly filled with the local crew (who have been waiting in the wings) and everyone is pulling cables and disassembling and packing everything on stage. Generally I am the first to the front of the stage, as I need grab the robotic cameras. Usually there are fans waiting at the edge of the stage begging for a copy of the set list from that night’s show or hoping for discarded guitar pick or drumstick. But I stay focused on my task, which is to disconnect my cameras’ cables and get them off the stage as quickly as possible. The load-out (pushing the cases and loading them onto the 2 semi trucks) takes 2 hours. One of us from team video must stay and monitor the load-out until every one of our cases are back on the truck. Generally we board the bus around 2:30 AM after taking a shower. While there is a little unwinding to be done when the work is all done, eventually we all head for our bunks as the bus pulls out. We’ll awaken the next morning outside the next venue, and the whole process starts again… “Where’s catering?”

For the past year a few of us have been talking about creating a mobile cinema that will tour the US either via boat or RV. We have been brainstorming about funding sources for this endeavor and dreaming about what it will look like.
So given all this planning for the future- I knew that I just had to stop while I was passing through New Haven, CT to check out Point Counterpoint II. This is the music barge that was designed by the architect Louis Kahn in the 1970s for the conductor/ captain Robert Boudreau and the American Wind Symphony Orchestra. I first heard about this amazing vessel in My Architect, the movie about the life and work of Louis Kahn, made by his son.
The center portion of this 195 foot barge consists of the stage and the living quarters are on either side. The stage is concealed while traveling by a steel canopy that rises up on large hydraulic lifts, creating a roof to cover the performers. There is an echo of this hydraulic stage in the Frank Geary designed Concert Hall located within Millennium Park, Chicago. It is also exciting to think about Jennifer Siegal/ OMD's Globetrotter mobile theater design as a contemporary take on Boudreau & Kahn's vision.
I wish I knew the status of the boat- as it seemed slightly out of commission sitting in the New Haven harbor. Hopefully it will leave the North East before the winters come, as I would love to see this structure come to life!

photo by Michael Martin

"There is No Place Just Like This Place Anywhere Near This Place
So This Must Be The Place."
We are on a beach vacation in Guilford, CT-- home of 'The Place'. BYOB and pull up a stump to sit upon, because as they say "magic happens when you roast clams on a wood fire". Opened in 1966, this alfresco restaurant cooks everything over a 20-foot-long fireplace. Students who work there start out at the corn station; after a year or two they are moved to lobsters. All other fire-roasted entrees- steak, salmon, chicken, bluefish, and the clams- are cooked at the front of the fireplace by those with the most experience.

Having fully embraced this nomadic lifestyle, Johnny & I decided that it was time for some bikes. Yesterday we purchased a pair of Dahon folding bikes & they are an amazing design. This morning we spent two hours riding along the Hudson River, on the West Side Waterfront Greenway path and then pedaled home for lunch. Yesterday we rode around Central Park, where we spotted Brad Pitt riding in a horse and buggy, surrounded by paparazzi. I cannot wait to explore cities all over the world on these folding bikes. We also ordered the Airporter suitcase, which allows us to check the bikes as luggage when we fly and store them in the bus bay while on tour.

We are currently on a BREAK
Aug 27- Sept 4 - New York City
Sept 6- Sept 16 - Portland, Oregon
Where we will attend:
Time Based Arts Festival at PICA & The Affair at the Jupiter Art Fair

Wed Sept 26 - Ice Hall - Helsinki, Finland
Fri Sept 28- Hovet - Stockholm, Sweden
Sat Sept 29 - Spectrum - Oslo, Norway
Mon Oct 1- Capitol- Hanover, Germany
Tue Oct 2- Torwar Hall- Warsaw, Poland
Thurs Oct 4 - Lotto Arena - Antwerp, Belgium
Fri Oct 5th - Zenith - Paris, France
Sun Oct 7 - Philipshalle - Dusseldorf, Germany
Mon Oct 8 - Jahrhunderthalle Hoechst - Franfurt, Germany
Tue Oct 9 - Ahoy - Rotterdam, Netherlands
Thu Oct 11- Carling Glasgow Academy- Glasow, UK
Fri Oct 12- Carling Apollo- Manchester, UK
Sat Oct 13- Wembley Arena- London, UK
BREAK - Munich
Sun Oct 21 - Tonhalle - Munich, Germany
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 9- Newport Centre- Wales, UK
Sat Nov 10- Civic Hall- Wolverhampton, UK
Sun Nov 11- King George's Hall- Blackburn, UK

Today we are playing at an outdoor amphitheater in Toronto, which stands in the shadow of the The CN Tower, "Canada's wonder of the world". This tower was built in 1976 and is still the world's tallest free-standing structure on land, although a proposed tower in Dubai is set to surpass it in 2009. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Toronto was a booming 'City of the Future' (much like Dubai today) and the tower was a potent symbol of the strength of Canadian industry. The CV Tower has even been named one of the Seven Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
There are several other significant towers in the world, but Berlin & Seattle have my two favorites. Berlin's TV Tower/ Fernsehturm was built between 1965 and 1969 by the former German Democratic Republic, as a monument to the power of Socialism in Germany. On my 30th birthday, Jdk & I went up there to celebrate while looking down upon the dynamic Alexanderplatz and surrounding Berlin. The Space Needle in Seattle, Washington was built in 1962 for the World's Fair and stands as a reminder of the sci-fi Future City, a vision that looks so retro today.

Crossed the US border to play our first state fairground show in the rain

When we arrived in Baltimore this morning, I was surprised that it did not look like a set from a John Water’s film. The waterfront area where we are tonight looks more like Boston or Annapolis with mega-shops, restaurants, and sailboats. You know, nice but a little dull. So I found a bookstore and picked up Metallica and Philosophy: A Crash Course in Brain Surgery, which claims “Metallica is the “thinking man’s” metal band and the headbanger’s CNN”. Not sure if this Professor of Popular Culture will deliver on bringing me into the fold of Metallica’s music via theory, but I figured that if I was ever going to read this book, being on the road with a metal band was the right time to do it.
We leave the US tonight for Quebec City – Viva La Quebec!
Photo by Bill Worsham, my bus mate from the lighting team

The weather here is amazing with a light breeze and sunshine. It feels like a real beach day. We are playing tonight at an outdoor arena along the river and throughout the day Great Lake tankers and tour boats have been passing by the venue. They make me long to live aboard a houseboat- trading in the dirt and grime of the highway for the open seas.

This photo of us was taken by Andrea Grover, while she was hanging out backstage in Houston.
We arrived in Chicago this morning & since it is a union theater, we had to wait on their guys to set up our gear. This makes for a slow moving morning, but it is much easier on the body. Our video show has been getting better and better each night and we are now using the live cameras throughout the entire show. On occasion we do still miss a cue, but for the most part, I think we are really starting to rock!
Today I learned that artist, Bill Viola designed the video for a Nine Inch Nails tour in early 2000. I hear they produced a DVD of that tour, which I will have to look for. Rolling rolling rolling - we leave for Cleveland tonight and have the day off in Detroit on Sunday!

Backstage

Front of stage

We had a great show in Austin and are now heading across Oklahoma on route to Kansas City.

Photo: txtmel8r Assignment #2 was "What does the weather look like?"

This morning I woke up and was unsure of what day of the week it was and of what state I was in. I guess the mentality of Rock and Roll tour has fully set in. As we roll back into Texas, I feel welcomed home by that familiar smell of summer rain.

I keep coming back to the scanned copy of Dave Hickey's essay The Delicacy of Rock and Roll from Air Guitar, that I saved to my desktop before leaving Houston. My favorite 2 paragraphs come at the end of the essay:
"Rock-and- Roll, on the other hand, presumes that the four of us- as damaged and anti-social as we are- might possibly get it to-fucking-gether, man, and play this simple song. And play it right, okay? Just this once, in tune and on the beat. But we can't. The song's too simple, and we're too complicated and too excited. We try like hell, but the guitars distort, the intonation bends, and the beat just moves, imperceptibly, against our formal expectations, whether we want it to or not. Just because we're breathing, man. Thus, in the process of trying to play this very simple song together, we create this hurricane of noise, this infinitely complicated, fractal filigree of delicate distinctions.

And you can thank the wanking eighties, if you wish, and digital sequencers, too, for proving to everyone that technologically "perfect" rock- like "free" jazz- sucks rockets. Because order sucks. I mean, look at the Stones. Keith Richards is always on top of the beat, and Bill Wyman, until he quit, was always behind it, because Richards is leading the band and Charlie Watts is listening to him and Wyman is listening to Watts. So the beat is sliding on those tiny neural lapses, not so you can tell, of course, but you can feel it in your stomach. And the intonation is wavering, too, with the pulse in the finger on the amplified string. This is the delicacy of rock-and-roll, the bodily rhetoric of tiny increments, necessary imperfections, and contingent community. And it has its virtues, because jazz only works if we're trying to be free and are, in fact, together. Rock- and-Roll works because we're all a bunch of flakes. That's something you can depend on, and a good thing too, because in the twentieth century, that's all there is: jazz and rock-and-roll. The rest is term papers and advertising."

Highway 80 between Laramie, Wyoming and Denver, Colorado brings me back to being an 18 year old exploring the West Coast for the first-time. Thankfully, this time the landscape is green and the highway is clear, unlike that wintry Halloween weekend of my youth when they closed down the highway due to ice and snow and I was stuck in Laramie in a van with no heat. 15 years later this highway seems less extreme from the lounge of this tour bus, with its satellite TV, 2 fridges and the on-board bathroom.
After tonight’s show in Denver, we will start the long drive back to Texas. It feels like we have been on this tour for much longer than just 14 days. The work is physically and mentally exhausting, with days that generally start at 8:00 AM and end around 2:30 AM. But Johnny and I are finding our groove, honing our rig, hitting our cues and the last two shows have been gone much better. Last night in Salt Lake City, I used my robotic cameras for the first time, allowing us to catch some really nice solo shots and add them into the mix up there on the big screen.
However, we have been having endless problems with our tour bus since San Diego and our driver is at the end of his rope. The driver explained that this fleet of buses was bought as an investment by a rich man in Florida and have not been maintained. It looks like he will only take us as far as Dallas, because when we get there they will bring in a new bus that comes with its own driver. It is a shame because he is a great driver, but at this point he is so pissed at the bus owner and having to suck up the losses that come with being an independent contractor. These tours are a real leap of faith for the independent guys, like us. There is big money to be earned, but it is a risky investment with possible gear failure, personality clashes or bodily injury. For the big guys, like union houses & major concert corporations such as Clear Channel and Live Nation, these US tours are a total racket.

Hello from Berkley, CA! The weather here is cool and overcast and I could smell the ocean as I stepped off the bus.
During the month of August, I will be participating in the exhibition Txt Me L8r, hosted by the Houston Center for Photography and curated by Andrea Grover of the Aurora Picture Show. This exhibition explores the potential for distributed creativity through the use of cell phone technology- in a geographically dispersed collaboration. Throughout the month we receive text message photography assignments, which we are to respond to by shooting an image with our cell phone cameras (mine sucks) and then upload the pic to a photo-sharing site (flickr site). The results of this crowd- sourced project will be projected in the Houston Center for Photography during August.
Above is the result from the warm-up assignment: "What does Sleep Look Like?" Which was taken aboard our tour bus.

New projector up and running onto the new screen!!

Hello from Burbank, the heart of the animation industry where, thankfully, we have our first 'day off' after 10 straight days. But as they say in the rock and roll industry there are no 'days off' only 'no show days'. We will spend the day trying to solve some technical problems with the projectors.
This is the first update since we joined the dark circus and all I can say is that the first 10 days were hell! I felt like a green middle schooler on their first day of high school and my thoughts were plagued with the audio loop of "what have we done.... what have we done." We had both technical and content issues to resolve with no time to do it and were trying to problem solve with no sleep and under intense pressure. After a disaster of a first show, we pulled off the second show in Phoenix and were officially welcomed into the team. 
So now I have a new family of 20 guys and 1 other gal- thankfully. We have three tour buses and two semi trucks. I am learning (quickly) the unwritten rules of the road and are starting to decoding the social cues. The dress code of the crew is black, practical and increased cred comes with wearing shirts from the previous tours one has worked. The location of tattoos tends to be on the calf muscle or bi-cep. The backline, (the guys who care for the instruments and the musicians) have their own style, which is more of a casual surfer look, with button-down shirts and slip-on vans.
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Today we are at Universal City and upon arriving at the loading dock at 8:00 AM, it was clear that we were in Hollywood. All the "hands" look professional and the stage is so clean- like a movie set. There is a group of older men sitting here with me in catering who have worked in the industry since the 1970s. They are talking about putting their children through college, surgeries, medicare and the increased value of property they bought 20-30 years ago. It is a welcomed change from the usual 'local crew' banter and dirty jokes. The catering is wonderful and looks like the interior of a 1950s diner. There is a huge spread of fruit, bagels, cereal and hot food. There is even a sweet breakfast cook who was more than pleased to scramble up some egg whites for me "oh, yes that is healthy."  

The Countdown is almost over and suddenly I find myself feeling nostalgic about leaving. The loft looks pretty depressing with two suitcases sitting in the corner, but the echo is amazing & makes the space feel much bigger than 700 square feet.
The past week has been a flurry of activity, with the endless chore of packing thankfully punctuated by dinner parties with friends. We still have one day to finish up last minute stuff in the studio and are then off to San Diego to meet up with the gear and start rehearsals. It has been an interesting year for this New York girl making her way in Texas. In the end I have realized that Houston is nothing like I imagined it would be. Most of those negative stereotypes of Texas are missing and there are pockets of amazing activity happening all over this city. However, I have not gotten over the sprawling flatness of Houston & miss being a pedestrian!

What I will miss most in Houston:
The moody skies and amazing thunderstorms
75 degree nights in January
The clanging of the Metro as passes below the loft
Isabella Court (shown above)
Happy Hour at T’afia
Yoga Ananda
Andrea Grover & the Aurora Picture Show
The patio at Café Brasil
KTRU 91.7
Sunday movie night in the studio
The trees that blanket the Menil Museum Complex

The movers arrive tomorrow! Today will have to be a ReBlogging day, as there is no time to head outside to shoot a new photograph.
Below is a video from the NY Times about the Bike Sharing experiment happening at the StoreFront for Art and Architecture in SoHo. Sponsored by the Forum for Urban Design, this exhibition "attempts to imagine bike sharing in New York" and makes 20 bikes available to anyone for a 30-minute ride. Imagine New York City full of bike-only lanes, like you find in Berlin or Amsterdam- Beautiful!
Manhattan Waterfront Greenway, the 32-route that circumnavigates the island of Manhattan, has put maps and video, shot from the biker's perspective on-line

Today, I had planned to put together a slideshow of my old postcard collection, before packing them away for a year. Only to realize that I had already taken the scanner off to the storage unit.
So- the slideshow above is a mini-tribute to the start of summer and New York's Playground of Coney Island and the Rockaways. You see, I come from a family that spent their summers floating in the salty waters of Jamaica Bay off Brooklyn and Queens (and sometimes the Long Island Sound). My grandfather, August Wiedemann was a high diver in the Rockaways. And to this day, my parents hop in their car on Sunday afternoon, leaving the city heat of Manhattan, to spend some time floating out at Jacob Riis Park. OK- sometimes I get a tad homesick & I guess today is just one of those days. Sticking with this nostalgic theme, there is a good video about the sale of Coney Island's Astroland Amusement Park in today's New York Times online. Click the Cyclone image to watch it.

Andrea Grover & I went back to the Buffalo Bayou to do some location scouting. Andrea took this sweet photo of me and the Houston Skyline and we found the Houston Biodiesel plant. Check out their cool sign!

Today we solved the problem of how to get our mail while traveling.
Earth Class Mail is a service for the 21st Century that picks up my mail from a post office box, scans the outside of the envelope and puts the scan on-line. I then have the choice of clicking: 1) Open envelope and scan contents for me 2) Forward unopened mail to me somewhere along the way 3) Recycle or Shred 4) Archive.

My pretty green bike will soon have a lovely new rider. In honor of this I put together a little bike slideshow.

For everyone out there preparing for a long summer of touring with a Rock and Roll band, here is some Tour Yoga from YACHT!

Road Warrior One
Car Cobra

Johnny & I arrived in Houston last July and only one word can describe it- HOT! We spent a few weeks staying at the Modern B&B in the Montrose neighborhood. The B&B was just down the street from the West Alabama Ice House. It was so hot during those first few weeks that we were forced to wrap napkins around our sweating beer bottles and I came to understand why everyone used those goofy bottle cozies.

Since that first month, The West Alabama Ice House has been my favorite place to bring visiting artists for a taste of Texas. The writer Dick Hebdige and I sat under the roof of the shed on a rainy fall afternoon, while he was Scholar in Residence at the Mitchell Center. Matt Coolidge, director of the Center for Land Use Interpretation convened a meeting of curators around a long picnic tables last March. We had spent the day of exploring the Houston Ship Channel, as Matt prepares for CLUIs upcoming residency with the Mitchell Center. The CLUI team will be examining Houston's environs and connection to the petroleum industry as they complete their on-going portrait of the Gulf Coast region.

Ice Houses are the hub of community life in Texas, no matter what community or subculture you belong to. They act as the common backyard or front stoop of social life and are basically a bunch of picnic tables surrounding a shed (the ice house) that serves beer. What makes this Ice House so special is the amazing diversity of folks who go there. While this is a huge and diverse city, it's sprawling nature almost prevents different types of people from getting together and establishments tend to cater to heterogeneous clienteles. But at the West Alabama Ice House oil men in their overly starched button downs sit at tables beside tattooed bikers. Cowboys dance with their ladies to the Rockabilly band playing on the outdoor stage and over in the corner some Houston hip-hopers wearing gates are throwing darts. As the jangle of the triangle rings out folks line-up for hot dogs fresh of the grill. Both the grill-man and the band are "playing for tips & free beer."

I apologize for the fuzzy photos- they were taken with my mobile. But the band & the night were so magical that I could not resist snapping a few shots to share with you. I am going to miss Houston, but in case you are headed this way there is a pretty good travel article here.

Click the photo to watch The Frugal Traveler's video blog of his US road trip. He posts a new segment posted each Wednesday. The New York Times really got my number with this one: An old volvo on a cross-country road trip- meow!

Shortly after arriving in Houston, last August, we were at a cocktail party associated with my job. I was talking with a woman about wanting to go check out Galveston, the seaside city on the Gulf of Mexico and only 35 minutes from downtown Houston. She seemed to think the beaches were cleaner these days because "the hotels are no longer giving out those special towels that clean the tar balls off your legs." Gross! After her comment I imagined a nasty Petrol-polluted landscape, and was really surprised at the beautiful beachfront campsite we had this weekend at the Galveston Island State Park, located at the remote western end of the island.

Galveston Island State Park Slideshow

Gallivantin' Galveston Gal comes via The Singing Cowboy, Gene Autry.

Creative Constructions in the Morongo Basin
A Center for Land Use Interpretation Bus Tour

9 AM- MOCA Los Angeles
11 AM- Desert Christ Park
12 PM- The Institute of Mentalphysics
2 PM- A- Z West/ Andrea Zittel Land
3 PM- Noah Purifoy Sculpture Park
4 PM- The Intergratron
5 PM- The iT House
6 PM- Pioneertown
7 PM- Dinner & beer at Pappy & Harriet's Pioneertown Palace

High Desert Slideshow

Guide to Malibu's Hidden Beaches -- Part 2

HOUSTON, TX