I met with Anke Hammer yesterday. Anke knows how to design and sew puppets and she agreed to produce a small series of Quäkmonsters with me next year. For this I’ll have to resolve some details such as how to hide some of the control elements.
More Monsters
December 2nd, 2009Project Speaker Ball
November 11th, 2009Together with a friend from the sublab I started a new project. It’s a mirror ball that consists of approximately little speakers instead of mirrors. All speakers will get the same audio signal but can be switched on and off individually. This way, it is possible to let a sound travel over the balls surface. If synchronization works out, another audio file could be played with each switching to another speaker. The whole thing will be controlled with PD via USB.
Right now we’re working on a test circuit for 8 speakers. Once it works I will upload it here, hopefully with proper documentation.
Finally! The Quäkmonster Video
November 10th, 2009I finally managed to do a video on the Quäkmonster!
About last night… Chiemsee Reggae Festival
August 22nd, 2009I was blessed with free tickets for the Chiemsee Reggae Festival this year. So I took it upon me to actually spend 9 hours on overbooked trains into deepest bavaria (no shit! a few more kilometers further I got a text message saying I left german net coverage).
Personally, I wouldn’t recommend attending CRS as a paying guest if you’re older than 23 and really into reggae. The majority of the people there is as much into dancehall and reggae as it is into techno-acts like Deichkind, last years headliner. The whole event takes place in bavaria and thus the place is filled with undercover cops (on their website CRS prides itself for its good cooperation with the local police) eager to catch you with a joint to add to their career. I’m not much into weed myself but I still find the idea of reggae without smoking rastas estranging. So actually the whole thing reminded me of some kind of 25000-people-highschool-senior-party. Not bad, but much too young for me and not my vibe.
Apart from that I have to aknowledge that the surroundings where just great. The whole Alps scenery and the fresh water of the river running through the festival area are really special. And beer was cheap, too ;-)
Anyway, it’s about the music. So here’s what I saw: Junior Kelly sucked massive. Max Romeo was simply boring. Third World did their thing quite professionally and where good at it. Hans Söllner of course had a home game and Peter Fox did quite a show, despite seeming not quite healthy. But, after all, I am not much into big stages and thus I had most of the fun at the tent.
There I saw Phenomden, a Swiss based reggae singer/mc. He actually sings in his native laguage, which gives his vocals a strange groove and tone I really like. The performance with the Scrucialists was absolutely tight and got me dancing all the way through.
Paprika Korps, a Polish dub band had the misfortune of being one of the first acts to play on sundy. Nontheless they did their best, playing a mixture of laydback dub tunes and really forward electric guitar tunes. I believe they are quite known in Poland and I had heard tracks of them before that didn’t impress me much. But after this concert I’ll have a second look. For sure, I recommend seeing them live!
I had only a short glimpse at Oceana, but was quite imressed with her presence on stage. There was some serious soul funk going on :-)
Update
July 14th, 2009Das ich so lange nichts von mir hab hören lassen liegt mitnichten daran, dass nichts passiert wäre. Ich hab mich vielmehr mal um ein paar kommerzielle Projekte gekümmert, schliesslich will man ja auch von irgendwas leben.
Die Stadt Leipzig hat mich dieses Jahr wieder gebeten, die Kampagne für den hiesigen Girls’ Day zu gestalten. Das waren ein Video für die Strassenbahn und ein paar Flyer. Dann hab ich dem Chiemsee Reggae Festival den diesjährigen Trailer produziert und gerade bin ich dabei, für Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 ein kleines Produktvideo zu basteln. Nebenbei schneide ich noch die Doku der Eröffnungsperformance vom Bauhausjahr in Weimar und organisiere alle 2 Wochen die sublab:lounge. Reicht das?
Summertime Lazyness
July 8th, 2009Yes, I know! It’s time do write some more. Things have happened. I completely exchanged my hardware and went places and events such as a Coco Rosie concert and Balkan concerts and such. And I bought music, too. But, hey! It’s warm outside and the lake is calling. I’ll be back soon.
On Styles
June 21st, 2009Whenever people ask me what music I listen to or what I play when djing I actually don’t know what to say.
Electronic Music? – Well that’s mostly true, but pretty vague. Most people get suspicious hearing this definition because they don’t like techno. But all the Trip-Hop stuff, most balkan music played in clubs, lounge music like Kruder & Dorfmeister, Dub, Ragga, Drum’n’Bass, it all fits here.
I guess, the best way to make some kind of statement would be to make a list of names of some sort. Charts or something? I could redirect you to mylastfm account which is not too representative because whenever I listen to my vinyl theres no entry there. My mixes should be a hint, the ones released being all completely different from one another…
Smilla update
May 7th, 2009So wird das gut. Ich werde zusammen mit Mila van Daag Video, Bühnenbild und Ausstattung übernehmen. Morgen treffe ich mich mit Christian fürs erste Brainstorming. Ich hab mir Fräulein Smillas Gespür mittlerweile auch mal durchgelesen und bin mal gespannt, wie wir da ran gehen werden.
Leise rieselts…
April 24th, 2009Gestern hat mich Christian Fuchs angerufen. Ich hatte ihn für seine letzte Produktion in Dresden mal technisch beraten und nun hat er angefragt, ob ich für ihn bei einer Inszenierung von “Fräulein Smillas gespür für Schnee” Video machen möchte. Das ganze an der Kleinen Bühne in Naumburg. Los gehts erst im Februar 2010, aber ich hatte sowieso mal wieder große Lust, was am Theater zu machen und daher freu ich mich sehr drüber.
Black Gold… Ska Train
March 18th, 2009A friend showed me this record and I just had to get it! The Beatmasters released “Hey DJ! (I Can’t Dance To That Music You’re Playin’)”, introducing Betty Boo, in 1989 and landed no.7 on UKs charts. The song sounds to me like some sort of mashup of everything it needed to become hit back then. Some elements sound like something from an EMF song, others are typical RAP and early Technotronic.
But the reason why I am writing this is the b-side. Ska Train is an absolute must for people who like the dancing side of dub! It sounds like the not so old father of Yamaha vs. Eletricos “Phoenix City”. A mixture of house and ska that should have been on one of those “Serious Dropout” compilations released by DJ Reverend in the mid-nineties. I actually find the combination of these two songs remarkable. It explains where musicians like the Freestylers have their roots, combining electro sounds with reggea and ska elements.
I wish I could have heard this stuff back when it was produced. I was only 12 years old back then, long hairs and listening to heavy metal, but this sure would have inspired me. Anyway, it will enter my set now, 20 years after its first release. Call it sustainable rockwellopement :-)