Wimps

If there’s one thing that I regret about the 13 Most Beautiful concert on the NZ International Arts Festival is that I wasn’t prepared for it. I don’t mean prepared on a “I read a bit about the concert and I know what it is about”. I mean on a “I know the universe around it quite well” way.

The 13 Most Beautiful is a concert prepared by the Kiwi Dean Wareham and his wife Britta Phillips. The band plays while Andy Warhol’s screen tests show on the background. Those amazing, black and white silent (and sometimes awkward in a way) screen tests, that Andy shot with a bunch of nice looking crazy people in The Factory on the 60’s.

It’s really had to have a opinion of the whole concept. The band was good (not awesome, but good enough) and the matching with the people on each screen test was probably the best part of it. Before each song Dean or Britta would give us a brief history of the person who was going to be on the next test, and that’s what helped me connect the ideas and enjoy it for a bit. And they made a nice job writing and choosing the write music to match to each of those 13 tests.

The screen tests are nothing more than a camera set on a persons face for around four minutes. After stare at the person’s face for a while you can’t help but wondering about their history, what they are thinking about and how their life was. And that is what was really beautiful. Legend tells that Andy Warhol shot more than 500 screen tests on The Factory, and I really would love to have a glance on some of the most famous ones (such as Dali’s and Bob Dylan’s).

I’ve got a mixed review from some friends that went to the concert. Some of them loved it, some of them were bored. On my vision the whole idea wasn’t more interesting because of my complete ignorance about Andy Warhol and the Pop Art universe. But I’m not sure that it would’ve been a awesome concert even if I knew all of that.

Since then, I’m trying to catch up with the movement and that’s where my regret is coming from. How all this cool stuff slipped through my radar for this long?

Maybe, just maybe, the Yellowjackets were the event that I wanted to see the most from the NZ International Arts Festival. Why? Simple: They are pretty much the first jazz band I’ve listened to, some years ago. They were the one who showed me this amazing path which I would never be able to get out again. That’s pretty much why they are that important to me.

When I found out about the concert I couldn’t believe my eyes. Bought my tickets as soon as I could and kept sleeping beside it since then. On the night of the concert I was struggling to bear with the excitement, and from the moment the concert began, for me, it was all magic.

With some different formations along it’s 30 years history, the Yellowjackets have a very strong personality throughout  their various albums. Not only that, but as they grew older their ideas became more mature without going Jazz-Fusion-Crazy, keeping the root on the good old sexy Jazz Fusion from the 80’s. And man, what a show!

For quite a few times I felt like standing up by the end of a solo clapping and shouting, as some people did. For some of the parts I could sing along with the piano or the sax and I had to hold some water in my eyes. Even if it would’ve been a ten hours concert it would have been to short.

It’s really, really hard and enjoyable to understand and appreciate each musician of the band. They are all brilliant, funny and huge. As a drummer myself I wanted to give Marcus Baylor a hug by the end of the concert and thank him for doing what he is able to do. He is not only one of the most amazing drummers of the jazz world, but he also does a great job keeping and improving Ricky Lawson and William Kennedy legacy, both former drummer of the Yellowjackets. I could also very easily watch Jimmy Haslip (bass) play for the rest of my life, without being bored. Same for Ferrant (keyboard) and Mintzer (sax).

Well, I think my impression of the concert is pretty clear. After the concert I couldn’t help but asking how have I made until this point of my life without seeing it. It made me happy, light and even more passionate than even was about their music and about jazz.

On a crazy party I find myself chatting with four good friends. Amongst a fuzzy drink (for me) and some beers (for them) we occasionally mention one or another random at the party. It’s the kind of party organized by and for random people, so the conversation has enough material to keep working.

Apparently our table has the only ash tray on a ten mile radius. Therefore some of the randoms keep coming and going, just to leave their dust around. And that’s when it all began.

She came on a way I couldn’t notice. All I could see was her back going away for a while, but somehow it all stopped until she stopped a couple of meters away. She turned around with her eyes fixed on mine and just stared at me in the same way I couldn’t stop staring at her. After a moment or too to find my breath, my toes curled and I jumped out of the chair rushing on her direction.

Our conversation couldn’t be briefer. Her best friend, the talkative one type, kept breaking into us both. We couldn’t chat really. At least not with the words. Which was good because I couldn’t make much sense of my words for real. And when it looked like could be a good moment, my friends and her friends made sure we would be as physically far as possible for the most of the night.

When saying goodbye all I’ve got was a “It’s such a shame I don’t live here. I really would like to get to know you better”. Followed by a smile that made me black out for a second.

But before going home I got to talk a lot about Dave Matthews Band and codfish dishes with the guy with the awesome accent. It helped a bit.

Have you ever watched monks dance? No? Well, I can tell it it is a quite amusing experience. Especially when you have a wide concept for the word “dance” and really enjoy some amazing action with the human body.

I went with the Springload team to the opening night of Sutra, on the St. James Theatre on Wellington. The play was one of the most antecipated events of the New Zealand International Arts Festival of 2010. With a big knowledge of what was it about and a lot of expectation there I went to watch the thing.

My lot of excitement was exactly my biggest mistake. Yep, Sutra is amazing and breath taking at some moments but it wasn’t magical. Maybe because we are kind of use to see some of the movements on movies and stuff, even though it is not comparable when you see it live. Maybe it was all the anticipation built around it. But on the end we got a mixed review from everyone that went to it, which helped me made my peace of mind with my not-so-amazing impression.

On the stage there are 20 or so martial arts monks (one of them being a child) and the Belgium dancer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Sidi visited the Shaolin temple digging through the temple’s philosophy and the relationship between martial arts and dance. There he was asked to help promote the monks’ work throughout the world. Since 2008 they have been travelling around showing what they can do.

What I liked the most on the whole concept was the very clever use of the boxes. Sometimes they were shaped to make a stage on top of the stage, sometimes pilled together to form a dormitory and sometimes used as dominos with the monks inside, among other uses. The high points go to Sidi standing on his neck (!) and to the exciting sequence on the end with all the great fighting moves around the whole stage. The good matching with the music played by the live band is also a highlight of the play.

I don’t know if I recommend the concert or not. Maybe you can buy a ticket for another play in case you have options, but maybe not. Maybe you will think it is not enjoyable and you expected way more, but also there are high chances that maybe not. It wasn’t the greatest thing I’ve seen in my life, but I definitely give a lot of credit to the amazing work this “dancing monks” are able to pull off.

Quando a gente lê da música pela música, a gente se depara com coisas assim:

Trecho de Música, Cérebro e Êxtase, por Robert Jourdain

“[...] Uma idéia familiar do tempo está na ponta da nossas línguas: uma única dimensão que se estende para a frente e para trás, até a eternidade, sendo cada instante um ponto de duração infinitamente curta. Imprensado entre o passado e o futuro está algo chamado ‘o presente’, onde ocorre a experiência, inclusive a de ouvir música. Embora nossa vida inteira seja no presente (porque até as lembranças e expectativas são aí experimentadas), não podemos realmente pôr o dedo nesse momento que chamamos de ‘agora’. Afinal, não temos sensores para o tempo, como temos para a luz ou para o som. Não há, aí, nada de sentir. A experiência psicológica do tempo surge, em vez disso, da percepção que o sistema nervoso tem de suas próprias interações com o mundo. O tempo psicológico é a experiência de ter experiência.

Enquanto filósofos e físicos discutem interminvelmente a natureza absoluta do tempo, os neuropsicólogos assumem uma visão mais pragmática. Para eles, é tolice falar de um presente infinitesimal, de um presente que, na verdade, nao está absolutamente aí. Trabalho de laboratório mostra que, quando os acontecimentos se dão de forma extremamente rápida, ou extremamente lenta, o sistema nervoso deixa de senti-los. Sejam quais forem as verdades que oes instrumentos do físico ou as deduções do filósofo possam trazer, o ‘presente’, para o psicólogo, tem um extensão finita, que se pode medir. É o minimo tempo que se leva pra sentir, perceber e categorizar, e é ditado pela velocidade de estimulação dos neurônicos. [...]”

Photo by Sarah Hellas on Flickr

This blog could use some weeding. Will work on that ASAP.

If you ever heard of Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Foo Fighters or Queens of the Stone Age you are a good fella. If you like one of them you already deserve some respect. If you like all of them then well, we could be friends if you want to.

If you never heard about Them Crooked Vultures then it’s a different matter. Them Crooked Vultures is the superband formed in 2009 with John Paul Jones (bass and keyboards, ex-Led Zeppelin), Josh Homme (vocal and guitars, Queens of the Stone Age) and Dave Grohl (drums, Nirvana / Foo Fighters). As expected the resulting work would be a mash up of all the three philosophies with a great dose of personality. And well, it is somehow.

Listening to the CD before the concert is a weird experience. It starts as a punch of sound in your head so strong you can barely hold yourself not to get up and start jumping like a teenager around the room. But then it gets quieter and almost boring by the end. It kind of gets you thinking how the concert is going to be. If it has the same dynamic of the CD you are very likely to go grab a drink and sit by the side of the crowd as it gets by the end.

For my delight no, it wasn’t. On the 28th of January the band arrived at Wellington for a astonishing and loud concert on the TSB Bank Arena.

To start with, seeing three legends like this together on a stage is breath taking itself. You make a small mapping on your mind of who they have been around to, what they did, where they played, all the DVDs and documentaries you saw about them and you wonder if this is real for a bit. Then you go and try to enjoy each one of them separately.

I think John Paul Jones the most legendary of the three. Seeing a Led Zeppelin member playing is a rare joy and has to be appreciated with caution. He is one of the low profile old school bass players, with a precise rock groove and a lot of consistency with the bass drum. And he is the reason that half of the crowd was there, so he had a concert for himself.

Josh Homme is probably one of the biggest douches of the universe. I really think he is too much out there. But well, you cannot deny how good a musician he is. His rock’n'roll attitude is annoying as he over do it all the time, but there, on the concert, it is kind of cool.

For me Dave Grohl is one of the most rock’n'roll being in the world. He is an idol for me not only because his work as a all-porpoise-musician, but as a drummer specifically. His simplicity always wondered me and his directions both in the Foo Fighters and in Nirvana are very respectable. This concert only made me realize that probably with weak band members his music wouldn’t be that good, but the greater the band is the greater he gets. Maaaaannnnn, what a awesome sensation to see him there.

And then there’s the show itself, as a group. No, it doesn’t get boring. I don’t know how they managed to pump up all the songs and there’s no low peak. Even on the slowest song they make a little dance, a little play with the lights and it all gets really interesting. The ideas applied on the light system behind the stage (you can see them on the picture above) are awesome and entertaining as well. And the best of all, they all look like they are having fun playing with friends and having a good time with some good rock music.

On the end of the day, a maaasssive neck soreness, buzzing ear but an indescribable sense of satisfaction. I guess that all means I really liked the concert.