http://fredoviola.com/blog en fredo@fredoviola.com Copyright 2010 2010-01-31T00:47:00-05:00 http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/clermont_ferrand_film_festival/ http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/clermont_ferrand_film_festival/#When:00:47:00Z Hello there, all! I have a happy announcement… I will have 70 full minutes of my videos exhibited in the Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival!  I’m really so proud to be a part of this amazing festival in France.  I wish with all of my heart that I could be there as well, and I was invited to attend, and had planned on going as well, but fate ruled against it!  But anyway, I’m very very grateful to them for showing so many of my works and invite everyone to check out this amazing festival!  Here’s where you can look at the cool program of the festival and find any information you require.  The festival started yesterday and will continue through the the 6th of February! Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival! 2010-01-31T00:47:00-05:00 http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/my_improvisations/ http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/my_improvisations/#When:21:47:00Z Well, I keep practicing and practicing with my voice improvisations.  Actually, I don’t really think of it as practice, because it tends to be very creative and I often feel like I’m reaching into someplace strange and special.  But I worry about bringing this to the ears of the public.  I’m just not sure about the repetitiveness!  By it’s very nature, voice-looping improvisations are repetitious.  And there’s something very beautiful to me indeed in the strengthening of a single voice by it’s nearly identical, but ultimately different brothers.  I like how the voice seems to be come almost mythologized by the doubling, triple-ing, quadruple-ing!… Each repetition of the voice brings it into a place that makes me feel so mystified.  It reminds me of the faces I used to doodle all the time at school - they never had eye pupils.  To me, adding the eye pupil brought an identity that weakened the image.  I preferred these eyes to be anyones.  And for me I get that same feeling when I double my own voice.  It’s what I was drawn to in my Turn ghost cluster experiment as well.  Anyway, still I’m left wondering if these recordings will be interesting to anyone else!  2010-01-18T21:47:00-05:00 http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/taratata_appearance/ http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/taratata_appearance/#When:16:37:00Z Hi there, folks Last week I flew to France for a four short days to play on the French Music TV Show called Taratata.  It was a bit strange to go to Europe for so short a time, but I think the show went well, and we’ve just gotten word on the times it will be playing on TV in France.  So here’s that info: March 17th on France 4 March 19th on France 2 Also there should be a video link after the 17th.  I’ll supply that as soon as I have it.  2010-01-18T16:37:00-05:00 http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/strangers_and_electricity/ http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/strangers_and_electricity/#When:11:08:00Z I woke up in a bit of a fearful state around 5:20 this morning.  I could hear Max meowing outside my door.  Actually, he’d already awoken me with a paw to the face, so I’d put him outside, shut the door and was again awoken at 5:20 with a low-grade terror...This is a problem I have.  I don’t like to sleep in an empty house.  I always awake early and scared.  So I reached up and turned on my light.  It wouldn’t go on.  Is the electricity out?  But the sound machine is blowing it’s gentle white noise… I got up and tried another light.  It wouldn’t go on either.  When I tried to open the door to the hall there were boxes that I had to push out of the way.  These weren’t there before I went to sleep.  As I went downstairs I saw the house filled with moving men, and they were bringing in more boxes.  Somehow I figured these boxes were filled with Christmas gifts and ornaments with my friends’ names on them...?  The door was open but it wasn’t cold. I considered running away but sensed, perhaps in error, that it was safe in the house with these strange men.  And indeed, when I was standing in a corner with three of them I didn’t feel threatened, but at the last minute I saw two of them glancing secretly to each other and noticed the doors had been locked up.  I awoke in a panic.  First thing I did was check the power - it worked fine. 2009-12-09T11:08:00-05:00 http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/happy_birthday_graeme/ http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/happy_birthday_graeme/#When:15:41:00Z Happy birthday to Graeme!  It was very nice that Graeme had a birthday on our second to the last gig because otherwise it was a tiny bit depressing - we were schedule to play at 5PM on a Saturday night in St. Lo.  OK, this was a festival gig, but still… 5?  Still, the venue was wonderful and the audience warm.  Even so, we were all starting to sense the coming end of the tour and I think everyone was feeling a bit melancholic. The next day we traveled to Lille for the final gig.  We were opening for Patrick Watson, who is a very friendly guy.  The crowd was wonderful, and a new friend of mine, Marine, who introduced herself to me at the very first gig of the tour called out to me!  I called out back and the show went quite well!  Here’s a shot of this last lovely crowd: Afterwards we met with Marine, who was joined by her friend Chloe, and went to a bar called, I think, Australian Pub!  We were all sooooooooo tired at this point, especially Sylvain and me.  But we were able to spend some quality time with Marine before Sylvain and I left to hit the hay. It was such a wonderful tour.  I really can’t thank my friends Sylvain, Ben, Graeme and Jasper enough.  The bond of music is very strong, and since returning I really miss performing with them so much.  To think of the time when I was happier sitting in my room alone singing along with a karaoke track in headphones is very strange to me indeed!  Hopefully there will be more performing very soon, and indeed, there are some interesting projects very close on the horizon.  In the meantime, after the last show I did a little voice improvisation alone in the hall of the venue.  I really liked what I was coming up with, so I turned on my camera to record it.  30 seconds later I was surprised by my friends entering the stairwell one floor above me, and they entered singing!!  We made this odd impromptu improvisation which is a fitting end to this tour blog… Lille - spontaneous group improvisation on the stairs! from Fredo Viola on Vimeo. 2009-12-02T15:41:00-05:00 http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/le_havre/ http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/le_havre/#When:14:12:00Z During World War II the city of Le Havre was mostly destroyed.  From 1945 to 1964 the architect Auguste Perret rebuilt the town.  This was explained to me and the other musicians by Graeme, who teaches architectural design (not sure that’s the correct term) in Manchester.  This was one of the most memorable stops we made on our trip, and the city is up there among my favorites.  First of all, I love seaside towns.  Period.  But this one is just amazing to walk around.  Here are a bunch of shots of the town, starting from the phenomenal Modern church that looks like something out of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis! Doesn’t this look just like an M.C. Escher drawing?  It was quite an amazing structure! The venue where we were to play was absolutely nuts as well.  Here’s the main venue (we were in the smaller venue to the side, also pictured below:) At this gig we were kind of opening for Revolver.  Well, I suppose we were co-headlining, but we had a shorter set and were going first so… yep, we opened for them.  This made us all a bit bitter because at one of the shows where Revolver were opening for us somebody told me that their manager made the broad gesture holding his nose backstage that we stink!  (I’ll never understand artists not being generous with eachother.  That’s the very nature of music!!) So despite the group being 3 nice, talented dudes… well, it was never fun running into their manager. However, the crowd was great.  It was generally a bit younger than we were used to, although we usually have all age-groups represented.  This was a lot more late teens.  It’s amazing how different the music sounds depending on the audience, amazing to see which songs go over better than others… These two girls came up to us after the show.  They were really excited and very sweet.  I think they were here for Revolver but really liked our music.  They asked us to sign their arms… The next day and a half we had off!!! Hooray!  We hadn’t had a single day without either a performance or grueling travel during the gig up until now, so we were all really grateful to wonder around the city and just relax.  We took a walk to the beach, which was covered with very unusual rocks and shells.  Sylvain obsessed over them and ended up bringing a bunch of the most beautiful ones back to his room. Some of Le Havre reminded me oddly of Miami, just in terms of the odd mix of architectural styles: Anyway, after this nice day of walking around we had two more gigs.  I’ll save those last two days for later. 2009-12-01T14:12:00-05:00 http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/whos_bad/ http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/whos_bad/#When:13:27:00Z I am!  Sorry, the end of the tour was plagued by really bad or non-existent internet connections.  Then I returned home and… well, kind of collapsed - a very warm, satisfied kind of collapse, mind you!  But still, phew!  It’s good to be home!  Anyway, onwards… After the massive excitement of our appearance at the Prix Constantin we drove to Calais.  Calais is very close to England, and I’d been told it was quite an industrial town.  Anyway, it was a bit of a drive and we arrived late afternoon.  As soon as we got out of the vehicle a car pulled up and four people jumped out.  They asked if I was Fredo and could I play them a little of my music - they weren’t sure whether they were going to come tonight or not!  hahaha!  This was truly hilarious and wonderful so I played them a tune and they agreed to come, but only after I snapped a picture of them!  The venue was situated within an odd entertainment enclosure… not quite sure how to describe it.  It was a bizarre mix of industrial and monstrous!  Here’s a couple shots of the place: The stage was really wonderful, as the seats climbed up just before it… it felt more ritual to me.  And the sound was quite good as well. Anyway, we did a circular video with this lovely crowd as well, which I will add within the next week on theturn.tv.  Here’s an image from it: After Calais we traveled to Le Havre, but I’m going to give that trip a full blog entry, because there are a ton of pictures!  We LOVED Le Havre!!!  Until tomorrow… 2009-11-30T13:27:00-05:00 http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/plenty_more_on_the_way/ http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/plenty_more_on_the_way/#When:13:55:00Z I’m sitting down on my last day in Paris to write a bit more about the rest of my trip.  We saw so many wonderful places in our last week.  But before doing that, just wanted to invite people to listen to (and hopefully buy!) my friend Bluermutt’s new ep.  Bluermutt is a very talented electronic musician who has worked with me both on remixes of my music, as well as with me giving voices for his own music.  Please take a listen! BLUERMUTT’S NEW EP! 2009-11-17T13:55:00-05:00 http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/montpellier_sour_to_sweet/ http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/montpellier_sour_to_sweet/#When:09:00:00Z So we arrived at Montpellier’s venue Le Trioletto in the afternoon.  This day we were supposed to have Soap and Skin opening up for us. I’d heard one of her pieces and found it to be imaginatively produced, if a bit bloodless.  Still, the imagination was impressive so I was looking forward to meeting her, as was Sylvain. We got down to business… the sound check seemed to go very well, and at a certain point a vampyric young woman came walking in followed by 3 men.  I smiled at all of them, but neither she nor any of her entourage smiled back.  Ahwell… perhaps she is shy. Twenty minutes later we were nearly ready to do a run-through when we heard a wild rumor that Soap and Skin had cancelled her gig opening for us!  Soon enough it was confirmed - apparently she didn’t like the mixing board and found the stage lights too “rock.” Anyway, we were now slated to begin an hour earlier and had time to do a much longer gig!  So we added Cucurrucucu Paloma to the set, as well as decided to shoot a circular video with the audience.  We’d done that once before, at the still unreleased Blogotheque Soiree, and it was quite effectively rousing!  So tonight during our first curtain call we gave some instruments to the audience, asked them to stand around us in a circle and… well, just started howling away!  It was quite fun!  Sadly the microphone on my camera mostly just picked up my voice.  Next time we’ll be ready with an external mic.  But the video is quite a nice souvenir from a lovely show with a very generous audience. See the video on my website theturn.tv - it’s the small circle there!  Later I will provide a youtube link as well. 2009-11-15T09:00:00-05:00 http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/lolympia_the_true_climax_of_the_tour/ http://www.fredoviola.com/blog/lolympia_the_true_climax_of_the_tour/#When:09:22:00Z OK, so this night proved to be just as exciting as it promised to be… We had the great opportunity to perform two songs at the Olympia, which is a very very famous, large theatre in Paris.  Edith Piaf and the Beatles have performed there, along with countless others.  I had been nominated for the Prix Constantin, an award for music that has yet to have widespread popularity produced in France.  (Yes, my label is French, so somehow I fit onto the list of 11 nominees!) I was sure I wouldn’t win.  Especially when listening to the other nominees, my music just sticks out, so I knew it would be an odd choice for the judges.  But truly, and I really really mean this, it was just cool to be nominated and have the opportunity to perform in this great hall!  We started the day with a sound check - a completely HEAVENLY sound check!  You really have no idea how much the quality of the monitoring system helps out a performance!  The crew at the Olympia were fast and extremely good.  We practiced the two songs we were set to perform - Robinson Crusoe and The Sad Song - and then in the last five minutes did a really rousing performance of Death of a Son just to feel it in this space.  It felt great.  Really really great.  The crew were really nice too… Here’s a couple shots… This guy was from the UK, near Manchester.  His name is Dom: So now we had about 8 hours to wait for our time in the show (just around halfway through - we were going on 5th.) Our friend Renaud, who has created several wonderful performance videos with us in the past, suggested he knew a church at which the Pilots could perform a couple songs for video.  This church was very near The Olympia, so we agreed it was a good thing to do… a good way to practice our singing as well!  OK… so the church he brought us to is the second largest in Paris!  When we saw it we were all completely bowled over!  Holy Magdalene! That said, once we got inside it was actually just a bit too big.  Spaces like this don’t appeal to me sonorously.  They are so large that in order to have your voice ring out you really have to project loudly.  Soft notes don’t reverberate at all, so it’s a bit hard to sing.  You might as well be standing outside, or in a very dry studio.  It’s a bit offputting. We did 2 lovely songs by I Am Your Autopilot:  Stateside and All In Our Hands.  Then we tried The Sad Song and it sounded horrible!!!  Pitchy as hell!  We started in one key and ended in quite another!  So we went back to the Olympia to wait, quite on edge.  Some of the more humorous moments were when we had to have our faces made up!  Here’s a shot I snapped of Graeme having his face prettified… But all our anxiety melted when it finally came time to perform.  It was just one of the most exciting experiences of my life… waiting backstage to go on… It reminded me quite a lot of Robert Altman’s Nashville, kind of felt like we were performing in the Grand Ole Opry!  The crowd was so warm, the sound so luscious.  After the two songs we went to the front of the stage and were interviewed by the charming host of the show, and even that was a blast!  Here’s a shot I took during the interview period of the audience: After the show we met a bunch of really nice people and went to the after party.  I met a very lovely woman named Dounia who chatted with me for a long time.  Here’s a shot of her and her friend, who’s name sadly escapes me: Also we met a very feisty woman named Emily who kept challenging the Pilots and Scalde to ping pong!  We took a photograph with her as well: After the party, and after we packed everything into the van, I snuck back to take a few shots of the crew as they took the stage down… I love the look of a stage after a show.  There are so many markings on the floor, so much debrit of creativity, and the electrical charge of the evening’s performances still hangs in the air. 2009-11-13T09:22:00-05:00