‘Die Geschichte von Herrn Sommer’, na verdade chama-se assim e eu não percebo porque é que é Herrn e não Herr, o que me aborrece.
E agora vá, leiam lá este livro que é mesmo mesmo bonito!
O escritor de ‘O Perfume’ e o ilustrador das ‘Aventuras do Menino Nicolau’ (que pronto eram uns livros muitos giros que eu lia quando era pequena, em que o dito menino Nicolau e os amigos, que se chamavam Alcestes, Clotário e outros nomes alegremente traduzidos do francês para grande gáudio de todos se metiam em aventuras bem piores que, sei lá, aquelas sitcoms em que as pessoas se põem em aventuras mesmo complicadas, e as histórias e os desenhos eram mesmo engraçados).
Os dois juntos dá qualquer coisa muito boa.
School works have prevented me from writing here, luckily it is over, more or less, I still have German classes though (every day for three hours, gets into your brains).
The radio show is out for holidays too, as the summer schedule is now on.
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*aha here randomly is Patricia-on-grass, might get sued later
Good things have happened, ZDB’s 15th year anniversary party was great, great feel-good concerts on the garden, with Guine All Stars and the awesome tropical frenzy Konono nº 1, they were really really good, everyone danced like crazy as the sun went down, the breeze was smooth and it was fun.
Then there was a break** for dinner, in which we got to know (or to shake hands with, at least) Pocahaunted’s guys, cool drummer and all, were dining right next to us at Cister, my regular morning-coffee Café, right next door to my house.
**in which some (mild) drunkness got hold
The rest of the concerts were in the gallery itself, down at Rua da Barroca, i did like Sun Araw, very minimal guitar+pedal effects+spacey voice.
And then of course came Pocahaunted, and they were so so so good, got to finally set off a trance on us.
They were dressed like shamans, their bodies swining and shaking like early shakers rituals, mix of religious and psychotic trip, Diva (on the bass) is awesomely beautiful and plays bass awesomely, and her bass was awesome too. I also love her vocals, as well as Amanda’s, though from where i was i couldn’t hear her voice as good, but god were they almighty. The sound was coming and coming and getting into places… The guys were great too, Sun Araw frontman now on the keyboards+pedal effects (wonderful psychedelic drones), guitarist and the superb drummer.
As for both girls, they are so hypnotic, they get on the ground and mingle and get ecstatic and sing and breathe heavily as the song climaxes, it’s out of this world.
It was awesome, bewildering, a trip.
It was also too short. I wish they had played more and they had some tour tapes left, but since it was the last date no no fun of that for us. Please please come again (sometime, somewhere)
Here is a thoughtful resumé someone did of the party, on video:
Do watch the Konono nº 1 excerpt, it’s worth it, they are really amazing. Amazing music and amazing to dance, original and contagious.
As for Pocahaunted, it’s hard to get a hint of the concert in that video, so here’s a better one:
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As for Galeria Zé dos Bois I really think they have a great thing going on, the best and one of the most interesting-thinking in arts and music, there I got to see one of my favourite bands, A Silver Mt Zion, also Pocahaunted and Acid Mothers Temple, for instance.
And the gallery has promoted also one of the works/exhibitions that has inspired me the most lately, Abissologia by João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva, I find their work absolutely new, yet anciently founded, fresh, beautiful, and mesmerizing.
Now with the opening of the terrace there’s open-air cinema there, I got to watch ‘Protesting the Dixie Chicks‘, really cool (and funny) documentary with the director Christopher Fleeger present for q&a, he was a really nice guy, ivestigating crowd behaviour, and the movie had some really bizarre situations [around conservative americans protesting Natalie Maines, who said publicly she was ashamed George W. Bush was from Texas].
All the movies (on Wednesdays) are documentaries about music (in some way), next week is one of the most interesting, the premiere of footage about R. Steevie Moore, relatively unknown but really awesome godfather of DIY music and experimenting in general. From what I’ve read it’s a lot of material collected and created on his work, by Nuno Monteiro. It’s next wednesday, 29th July, and it’s the last one. It’s worth it, for the subject and the place, the terrace is great, the movies are projected onto the building in front, and there’s the seagulls and the stars too.
*(photos not by me, from other concerts> internet-ish, that is)
So yesterday was my birthday and I went to see Secret Chiefs 3 at Santiago Alquimista, which was honestly one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen.
Their music is good on record, but live it’s a whole new and different thing. They really are masters of cool and also masters of music (like, awesome unbelievable musicians).
From surf-rock-ish to oriental to great mashup of both and everything else, they are really mindblowing. They come and go away from the stage, and return with black suit/tie on, then tunics and then regular clothes. And they play like hell and they really they seem to be enjoying it a lot.
And they are great musicians. Their bassist is amazing, really one of a kind. His low notes really handle the music, take it to a different level, with moments for ravaging distortion or just simple but perfectly done bass lines, it’s absolutely perfect. But that goes for all of them - the drummer who was really creative and psycho-looking while playing (shall not comment any further on that matter, however…), cool keyboard player, multi-instrumentist (trumpet and violin and guitar) and bearded-probably-wise-frontman Trey Spruance (also from Mr. Bungle) who played guitar (surf rock guitar with totally brutal death metal pose -> nice) and an oriental instrument which is probbably an electric sitar but who knows.
Let me add that they had a band bitch/groupie who we suspect was the drummer (not unlikely, since they went all the time changing clothes) who was the coolest and creepiest person I have ever seen. So it was a guy with really short running shorts like this, only in blue, and a fucking Mayhem t-shirt, not much different from this:
[that's more less about it, but with short light hair and eyes and skin and yeah.. what the fuck]
Our guess is he was the drummer, although who knows, might as well be just the band bitch who does who knows what between songs in backstage (let’s cut it here).
Here is a video I found with +- good quality, cool song of the Oriental-inspired part of the concert, with the electric sitar [it's with another drummer, though, the one from yesterday's concert is in the photo above]:
Finally, and unrelatedly, bless Kurt Vonnegut and his wonderful books. I recently read ‘Cat’s Cradle‘, ‘Breakfast of Champions‘ and ‘A Man Without a Country‘. Writing about those is subject for a new post. For now I just wanna say how much of a cool guy he was, certainly disappointed with the state of the world, certainly sad and deep his humour, but still there was his humour to make it a little lighter for us to live (as he wished).
So I definitely advise you to save a few bucks and buy one of his books.
‘A Man Without a Country’ is a sort of a conversation about America in the age of Bush.
‘Cat’s Cradle’ is a novel with wit and humour and that keeps you hooked and amused while talking about some really serious things.
‘Breakfast of Champions’ is also a novel that has great great characters (some of the best ever), great great story. It is so fucked up and sad it hits you in the guts and gets you down (to the very bottom), makes you think a lot and a lot and a lot. It’s bloody tough, but it’s also impossible to put down before finishing the read. And it’s sooo good and so true about human nature and about everything. Also it has some of the weirdest/coolest sci-fi stories written by (my most-favorite loved character) Killgore Trout. And cool doodles by Vonnegut.
Really, read it!
So bless you Kurt, you really are making it easier on us all!
Tiny pieces of Lisboa, Coimbra, Évora and soon Hamburg.
one. i like eating in the kitchen two. last summer’s flowers three. big cloud over the living room four. can’t help that home is where the heart is five. my room six. sun sets over my (home) neighbourhood, and oh the pretty lights and the mountains, and that bell that used to bug us with its playing all through the night [meanwhile they programmed it to stop at 11pm, hooray]
My friend Patrícia has a blog -> plastessina.blogspot.com throught which I found out that Kymia Dawson is playing in Lisbon on 24th May… so I really wanna see her concert and sing the Metallica part in ‘My Rollercoaster’ (and the rest of it too)!
[I like very much the little lady drawn up there in the blog, either hanging from the ceiling or floating in space in pure bliss]
I also found out that Kymia Dawson has a daughter named Panda Delilah. And Harmony and Rachel Korine’s baby is named Lefty.
Which reminds me of ‘The Dirty Ones’, a short movie with Rachel Korine I saw at Indie Lisboa film festival and which was so good. You can watch the trailer here. It’s the story of two mennonite sisters who have to do a journey [won't spoil you the cause of the journey, but don't look into sinopses because they will], their first in these deserted neon-lit cities. So the images are very beautiful - deserted like the cityscape they portray, the places silent and ordinary, yet there is an underlying tone of out-of-this-world, as if through those very same bright artificial neon lights is the actual only way to access reality, rather than through what we thing is natural or documental and real.
And, beautifully, all music is by Grouper… which creates these environments of almost-existence, almost reality, but with a touch of strange and detachment…
I was so much looking forward to see it, and it’s really beautiful. I was wishing it went on for undefinite time…
To finish off random, I found out just recently that some Simon and Garfunkel is really good… randomness comes on how I got in touch with their music more recently. Lying on the couch resting after OFFF festival, I was watching TV and ‘Loser‘ was on. It’s a romantic comedy with Jason Biggs [who until very recently I thought was the same person as Adam Sandler...] and Mena Suvari and Greg Kinnear which I will try to make look cool by posting this found black-and-white picture:
Still it’s a pretty decent movie to watch on a Sunday afternoon, pff. Anyway, it had this really beautiful song by Simon and Garfunkel which I found out to be ‘Scarborough Fair‘.
Enjoy…
Brought along with some schoolmates, I’m working as a volunteer at OFFF digital arts festival. The theme isn’t exactly my thing - graphic and interface designers + digital artists rejoicing with interactive environments, wearing t-shirts with quirky design sayings and using ‘pantone’ bags and what not. However! getting in touch with new stuff is always good [and volunteering means free pass for conferences and concerts]. And also there’s some cool artists lecturing :]
I’m working at the Loopita, a sort of lounge area (not for my feet, certainly) where there’s concerts of experimental electronic music. Not a bad spot at all, because I get to see all the concerts. It’s mostly pure minimal electronics, with pure minimal video projections, all very digital and raw in that sense. It’s fun to finally work a bit, speak with people and understand a little German every once in a while. But the music is 99% cold and dettached for me, I don’t especially like it. Very primitive beats that go on forever, hm. (of course it’s different if it’s very primitive riffs that go on forever…..)
Anyway, luckily wonderful things do eventually emerge, and so I got to see Christian Fennesz’s performance, which was absolutely beautiful… first off, he plays a guitar, something extreeemely rare around those parts.. he plays a guitar plugged in with effect pedals and a laptop, and whith those he creates wonderful sounds, still warm and full from the chords but yet spacey and drowning - it’s beautiful. The room becomes filled with sound, the projections are very simple but not ‘minimal’ in the pure-white-digitally-generated sense. So the day pays off and what’s left is this peace.
Fennesz has worked with Mike Patton and Sparklehorse and here’s a hint of how he works:
and a bit from the album (cleaner and sometimes more electronic sound, but also beautiful):
So today I’ll be there working again from 4 to 10pm, but before that I’ll be attending some lectures, I really want to see Champagne Valentine, I love this -> champagnevalentine.com.
