Re: New in Köln

[Jay Vaughan (ibisum)]

> with all the saddening news, I'd like to tell a few stories of how things are going for me in Köln so far.
> 

:)


> I have been searching out music venues and concerts, met a number of experimental electronic musicians and promoters, artists and interested audience. I was invited to "Patchbay", an informal event at the KHM, the university for media arts where people with an interest in electronics meet and show off their Easels, Blippoos and related gear and jam.

Sounds awesome!

> 
> Our house is in the the back of a building, next to a few others, where very nice visual artists and their two cute kids are our neighbors. On sunday, while chatting with the guy of the couple he asked me if I also played a "real" instrument -- yes, I said, bass.

Here, you failed.  The answer is: all instruments are real instruments.

> He was very happy and basically forced me to come to a band practice with him last night to rehearse for Karneval, the biggest event in Köln every year -- where I'll play on a float during the Tuesday parade in the "veedel", as the town's quarters are called here, every veedel has it's own little parade on tuesday after the big one on Monday of Karneval (Feb 8th).

Yay!  I’ve been to Karneval in Cologne, it is indeed a blast!  Actually, Germans do know how to party, and I think that is one of those events I’ll always remember as “Germans dancing in the streets like its the apocalypse”, and I think the thing that makes Germans really good at dancing at the apocalypse is that they do it every year.


> I was never into Karneval, but had a hunch that in this city you can't entirely avoid it -- I never dreamed that I'd be a part of it, basically  the second month we live here... ;-)

Yes, the Ruehrpott versions are hideous, or at least really swing more in the apocalypse direction than in Cologne, where it is gay as hell and everyone is having a good time.  (Your experience should see a lot less broken glass in the streets to contend with as ones proclivities become extremely difficult to control.. whereas back in the RE’inghuasen, ’twas literally, bloody dangerous at times.

> 
> Not so exciting, but I at least to me this is all uplifting news..;)
> 

Hey, bring it on, sir.



From my side of things, I’m having a rejuvenation with the music-making, as I have multiple projects going on that are gradually pushing me back into the artistry of things.  My personal song-writing has taken an interesting turn as I recently moved my piano-controller out of storage and into our main living space, where it sits like a normal piano would.  That has been great for me, every day, or not, sit down and play the piano.  Got lots of work to do on the ol’ chops.

Stan and me have begun a new pact as jammers to bring more industrial/vocal leitmotif into the sessions, and that has recently proven fruitful for us vis a vis vocals, which have been a long-standing issue for me.  So, improvement there as well too, but again the chops are not yet mutton, even.

We’re recording things.  No releases yet.  But I’m slowly amassing a nice archive of sessions and it looks like there will be new disks filled soon enough.  I think the thing is, there needs to be a serious mastered, produced, and only then .. released .. album, from our side of the planet, to sort of get some things off our chest.  So the material is going to evolve for us personally, and then we’ll come out of the studio.

Studio-wise, I’m enjoying multiple setups at the moment .. a fast laptop+Reaper+plugins, plus multiple iOS-battlestations per musician.. this is a real treat, holy shit.  We’re seriously living in a musicians future. On the other hand, my kids prefer to jam with me on the piano, or MS20/SH101/Machinedrum rig which is, after-all “just-turn-on-and-play”-able, contra to the iOS jams, which always require setup time.  Love that!

I’m hacking daily on the MIDIShifter, and will have it permanently installed in a setup at a new lab in the city soon, running a multi-timbral MIDI setup.  Its really exciting, but a hell of a lot of work to do to get out there in a useful way as a product.  Also, to turn it into a real music-instrument startup is work, as well.

The weather sure is weird, I have that to say as well, as well..  We had amazing ice conditions last week, an entire frozen lake to ourselves - but now, its all melted away and, alas, mud is not as fun as the snow was.  I guess everyone has their weather stories; ours are mild and mostly pleasant.  Joost - your tulips have risen in our garden already, in all sorts of odd places .. ’tis a treat to see this sine LFO roll on by ..



;
--
Jay Vaughan
seclorum at icloud.com

;
--
Jay Vaughan
ibisum at gmail.com




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