Last month I wrote about my weekend at O'Reilly's Foo Camp. During my performance, I mentioned that I was looking to work with someone doing music visualization. Well, someone there (Jeffrey Veen) hooked me up with this incredible artist, Robert Hodgin.
His work is astonishing, here is a piece he did to a song by Trentemoller:
We thought it would be cool to try something together, so Robert invited me to perform a couple days ago during his presentation at Flashforward 2008 (an Adobe Flash conference). Here's a video of it, certain parameters of his animations are responding, live, to musical input from my performance (as I understood it: pitch, density, that sort of thing). I hope somewhere out there is better video of it, because it looked amazing from what I could see in the stage video monitor.
I'd love to do more of this kind of thing. I dream about midi control as well as audio since it seems like things could easily be triggered via midi data from my foot controller and Ableton Live.
If you know anyone, or have any interest yourself, write to me!! (info zoekeating com).
Last week I gave two private performances, one for execs of The Gap (and Top Secret!) and another for an "experiential photography" seminar lead by Jesh de Rox. Then, I headed off to LA to work with Mark Isham. I recorded some loopy cello layers for his score to "The Secret Life of Bees" and some solo parts. I learned the backing score was to be recorded the following day at Abbey Road by the London Chamber Orchestra...and directed by Mark via an iChat session..so I'm toying with the idea of being able to say I've soloed with the London Chamber Orchestra!
I also dubbed all of Alicia Keyes cello parts since her character plays cello in the film. She actually looks like a real cellist in the movie, not awkward at all, so kudos Alicia, because that's not easy and she must have worked hard. Many a movie has fallen flat for me because the cellists didn't look convincing (Tous Les Matins du Monde, for example, a great film but the fake cello playing made me cringe). I did find it hard to watch her though as I was playing, because I kept getting distracted by how gorgeous she is and then I couldn't play properly. No I'm not gay, but some people have faces like that, I can't stop looking at them.
Anyway, it was all very fun. What I heard of Mark's score is otherworldly and shimmery and quite lovely and full of cello and what I saw of the movie looked great. Comes out on Oct 17.
Then I had 2 more performances, one hosted by Pamela Z and another at SFO. Now I'm rushing to finish all the things I need to finish before going on tour with Amanda Palmer. There's music to do for a documentary about Abe Lincoln for PBS' American Experience, and then I'm trying to use an application called SooperLooper instead of my Electrix Repeaters. If that works, and its all a bit dicely honestly, I'll only need to bring cello + laptop + footpedal on tour. THAT WOULD BE SO AMAZING. Lots of technical details to work out....
I have another gig at SFO on August 29th. Its pre-security in the International terminal. The one last week was so surreal that I'm thinking of getting someone to videotape it so you can see all the tired and confused people drifting by me as I play.
Sony Home Entertainment has acquired Adam Mason's The Devil's Chair for release on DVD September 30th. The film features a haunting cello score by Zoe Keating.
The story: "With a pocketful of drugs, Nick West (Andrew Howard) takes out his girlfriend Sammy (Polly Brown), for a shag and a good time. When they explore an abandoned asylum, the discovery of a bizarre device - a cross between an electric chair and sadistic fetish machine - transforms drugged-out bliss into agony and despair.
P.S. I warn you...this movie is NOT for the faint at heart!! as i was writing the score, i could only bear to watch it with the sound turned off. of course i had to listen and watch the whole effect eventually, but i made sure to do it in the daytime.
that said, i'm very happy with some of the music in there. one of the pieces is "saddest song" which i've played live, and i think there is a youtube video of it. of course, one of the characters meets a nasty end while it is playing...
as for the name of that song, i was going through a phase where everything i wrote sounded like a tragedy. i was joking around that i was trying to out-sad myself with each new song. so this particular piece i referred to as "the saddest song in the WORLD" (this was quickly followed by a new song, "the saddest song in the SOLAR SYSTEM"...etc). it just so happened that the director of the film, Adam Mason, really liked it, so i developed it into the larger score.
I spent last weekend at O'Reilly's FOO Camp. It was 2.5 days of intense hanging out with about 300 uber-smart people. Like I mentioned in my last post, I get invited to perform at quite a few tech conferences. I love going, not just because the chance to play for a thoughtful and critical audience often spurs me to try new things, but also because I enjoy the session topics and love the atmosphere.
FOO Camp was unique in many ways. For one, there was camping on the lawn, next to the bar, which made the whole thing like your dream summer camp. Next, you can't buy tickets and have to be invited so there was no division between presenters and attendees. Whereas often at these things the presenters are like rock stars, FOO had an egalitarian feel to it. Of course, that could have been my personal experience because I didn't attach people's names to their credentials until after the event. It's possible that if I had known who I was talking to in advance, I would have been too shy to approach anyone. As it was, I enjoyed seating myself with people I didn't know at meals (the food was absolutely fantastic) and striking up random conversations with strangers.
I didn't know much about FOO in advance and so I wasn't sure until I got there if I was meant to participate in the whole weekend or just meant to entertain, provide some local colour and then disappear. Luckily, I decided nothing was meant, and it didn't matter, and so I proceeded to have a spanking great time. What was a complete surprise was how many people there I already knew, or was separated from by only one degree.
I wish I enjoyed music conferences as much. The few I've been to have been truly dreadful so maybe I'm not going to the right ones. The musician attendees have felt a bit desperate and I get the sense every conversation is a promotional opportunity with everyone ready to impress at a moments notice. Authentic interactions feel hard to come by. Maybe "geeks" are better at hiding their motives? I never had the sense at FOO that anyone had an agenda. Although, it does occur to me that because I was "just a musician" and not a CEO, no one needed to impress me.
And then, I'm sorry, but what do rock musicians talk about when we are together? Worst gigs. Best gigs. Tour horror stories. Dissing other bands. How drunk so and so got last night. Yes, that's a horrible stereotype and of course there are exceptions, but the current culture of the music industry does not seem to reward thoughtfulness or multidimensionality. Talking history or social psychology or political philosophy or poverty or whatever, is a good way to provoke glazed looks and worse, sarcastic comment. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy regular bouts of senseless mirth. I have yet to master burping on command, but I can probably drink you under the table. But, I crave banquets of curious people with which to have mind-expanding, vitamin-packed conversations. Luckily, I had about 40 hours of those conversations at FOO Camp and I realize that I have them almost every day with my partner-in-life Jeff, and with my friends. Burp.
Anyway, I also happen to be in the planning stages of a long-term project involving live visualizations (video, animation, imagery, etc) that I can control either via my music itself, or through manual midi commands. I mentioned it in passing to someone and they said, "you should ask people here, I bet you'd find people". So, I mentioned it when I performed, and sure enough, all weekend long people came up to me with ideas or knowledge about musical visualization. Now I wish I'd formally put it on the session board, but it certainly expanded my horizons as to what is technically and artistically possible. It also helped me realize that it will be a cooler project if I open it up and work with more artists. To be continued...
My other regret is that I never played werewolf because I was too busy chit chatting. I meant to join a game on Saturday night, but at 2am I suddenly turned into a pumpkin and went to sleep (this is after having been up until 4am on Friday, and then awake at 8am). Hopefully I can teach werewolf to everyone on the Amanda Palmer tour, since it seems like it could be a good game for 10 or so people trapped together for many weeks on a tour bus.
Somehow I've become the looping cellist of technology conferences.
Last year there was ISTE Educational Technology conference in Atlanta and then Pop!Tech in Maine. Tomorrow I'm playing at O'Reilly's Foo Camp and then in September at the Emerging Technology conference at MIT.
What's funny to me, is that I had this whole tech career before becoming a professional musician, and I never went to a single conference. But now that I'm a MUSICIAN, I'm invited as a special guest. Ironically, none of them have any idea of my past geek life (or do they? can they tell?). Hopefully they are not disappointed when they find out...
I worked at a tiny startup in San Francisco all during the dot com boom. We did "information visualization", and no one could understand what it was good for at the time but we knew it was going to change the freaking world. However, with the exception of the marketing guy, few of us could explain in one sentence what the company did. I could't tell you what I did for that matter although I worked all night at it (ok, I guess that's still true). I started out as the receptionist, then taught myself whatever programming languages were necessary, and graduated to the engineering department as an interface developer. The CEO used to joke, "Zoe was so bad at being a receptionist, that we made her an engineer". After the crash I moved on to stuff I really cared about - art and culture digital archives (RLG Cultural Materials and the Database of Recorded American Music) and of course, making music.
All that time I had a "secret life", going off at night to rehearse and perform with various bands.
So now, I do music all day (ok, technologically extended music) and when I have down time, I like to curl up with my laptop and catch up on the all the tech blogs. I guess my past life is useful... I can fix everyone's Myspace pages, or troubleshoot all the computers on the tour bus, or organize everything in the house by its descriptive metadata. But sometimes I wish I could just CONSUME technology, like some people seem to, rather than always see it for what needs improving (don't get me started on Myspace..ARGH!). I always want to fix stuff, make it better, use it for some new purpose that it wasn't built for.
i've been keeping quiet about so many things for so long i've been afraid i'd explode. to keep myself under control and not annoy anyone around me, i've had numerous frenetic gardening/weeding/raking/run-up-and-down-the-hill sessions.
so this is one...from the saucy lady herself...
" the WHO KILLED AMANDA PALMER world tour: AUGUST 2008 - ???
The august dates in US & Europe are going to be strictly solo piano...then i am going to be starting the world tour in europe in fall and bringing the danger ensemble & a small string section (including zoë keating!) with me. zoe will also be opening up and my good friend jason webley *might* be joining us for a good run of dates in europe. Conjoined twins Evelyn Evelyn may make their first european appearance as well...more info on all the support acts soon.
info on US dates (starting in november) will be also coming soon. as always, stay tuned to dresdendolls.com/calendar/ for dates, ticket links, support acts, directions, and other good things…
i am exciiiiited.
in other news...author Neil Gaiman, photographer Kyle Cassidy and I are working on the WHO KILLED AMANDA PALMER photo/storybook which will hopefully be released right around the time the record comes out. I've never hung out with so many cool people in my life, it's making up for high school in spades.
love amanda "
you might remember i went to nashville last year to record with amanda at ben folds headquarters...to hear what you are in for with her solo record, listen to the song Astronaut. i think the words EPIC SONIC EXPLOSION sum it up pretty well, don't you agree?
so, clearly a lot of excitement and exclamation points and lack of proper capitalization happening all around. thank dog the cat is out of the bag and i can stop controlling myself...almost
here be the dates so far...
Sep 27 2008 Academy Dublin, Dublin Sep 28 2008 Auntie Annie's Porterhouse Belfast, Carlow Sep 30 2008 Cabaret Voltaire Edinburgh, Scotland Oct 2 2008 King Tuts Wah Wah Hut Glasgow, Scotland Oct 4 2008 Academy 2 Sheffield, Midlands Oct 6 2008 Club Academy Manchester, Northwest Oct 7 2008 Thekla Bristol, Southwest Oct 8 2008 Concorde 2 Brighton, South Oct 10 2008 Koko London, London and South East Oct 12 2008 Knaack Klub Berlin, Berlin Oct 13 2008 Star Club Dresden, Sachsen Oct 14 2008 Karlstorbahnhof Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg Oct 16 2008 Abart Zurich, Zurich Oct 17 2008 Music Drome (fka Transilvania) Milan, Milano Oct 18 2008 Komma Worgl, Tirol Oct 20 2008 Szene Vienna Vienna, Wien Oct 21 2008 59:1 Munich, Bayern Oct 23 2008 La Boule Noire Paris, Ile-de-France Oct 24 2008 Handelsbeurs Ghent, East Flanders Oct 26 2008 Melkweg Amsterdam, Noord-Holland Oct 27 2008 Helling Utrecht, Utrecht Oct 29 2008 13 Tilburg, Noord-Brabant
I just found this on YouTube. Its a short film set to my music, common enough (ok yes, I was searching for myself! I'm looking for half-way decent live video...do you have any??). A very clever little artpiece I think and it appeals to my appreciation of surreality.
However, all the comments are in Spanish, so I have no idea what all the commentary means
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? (hopefully these people are being nice to each other?)
Spanish speakers, help me out. Although maybe I don't want to know?
Anyway, I have no idea what is going on, but I love how weird my world is sometimes (there I go quoting Paris Hilton again).
I've been wanting to make a music video for ages, and actually filmed one with a crew in 2005 that never got edited (6 DV tapes sitting in a shoebox somewhere...where?) ...but maybe this kind of thing is better?
This house, you see, is perched on the side of a hill and so the top of a very tall cherry tree is right out my studio window. This tree features large in my life these days. I think I've mentioned it before, but in the spring the tree puts on a riotous show of white flowers. It's great. I like to sit on the sofa upstairs and watch the sun light it up. Soon, the wind blows the petals off, and cherries start growing... little tiny green beads get fatter and bigger and then start to turn yellow. As soon as the cherries get the smallest blush of pink, they are devoured by armies of birds.
There are crazy aerial battles between blue jays, robins and acorn woodpeckers as they fight for every last cherry. Blue jays are loud! There's been the occasional visit from a grosbeak or a pair of western tanagers (listen to me, I'm all birdy now!). At every moment of the day, there are at least a handful birds in the tree simultaneously with more swooping in and out all the time. It seemed to get more and more frenetic, until yesterday... someone ate the last cherry and now all is quiet.
Which is fitting...because at long last I finished the music to the Ghostbird film. Its a documentary about the ivory-billed woodpecker and I spent many months thinking about birds, swamps, ornithologists and extinction. But now I'm done.
Finishing is hard. I like having one zillion pieces of music going on at once. I flit from one piece to another, immersing myself in each musical world and then resurfacing and diving into the next one. I consume the music and it consumes me. They are all so delicious and full of possibility...why, this dainty morsel of music...it could become a cherry pie, I could ferment it and turn it into wine! Or this one, its going to be a city made of tiny silver threads. They can be like children, chasing after every whim and full of half-understood ideas.
If you saw me working, all you'd see is me in a tiny room, sitting on a plain wooden chair, with a cello, one microphone and a laptop computer. But if only you could see what else is in here! What are they? I don't know...little creatures, complete cities, vast landscapes. I'm communicating with them, I'm closing one door to open another...and now we're running on the beach, we're walking through a charred city... now I'm adding a pinch of salt and a dash of lemon, burying something in the garden to make it grow into something new, knocking down a cathedral to build it out of leaves instead of stones....its a crazy, complicated and wonderful muddle. I can see my grade-school report card: "Zoe has a rich inner life".
But then, someday, I've got to finish. The real world beckons, people's calls need to be returned. I've got to package up my little creations, give them names...and send them off into the world to bring home some bacon.
Long suffering, patient fans...I put a fragment of music from Ghostbird up on Myspace for you.
....
Somewhere in there, did I mention I played a few songs with the Dresden Dolls last month at the Fillmore in SF and the Wiltern in LA? What a thrill. They have grown in epic proportions - in every way: musically, as performers, their audience. It's fantastic to see two people just go for it. And to improvise onstage with them was one of those peak musical experiences that I live for. I had an amazing time. Plus, I got to play with violinist Meredith Yayanos, who is a dear heart and has a violin tone like cream AND...my sister Laura was there (she works merch for the Dolls).
The extremely charming Neil Girling (i.e. Mr Nightshade) took some pictures...
A couple of weeks ago I played a concert at the NASA Ames Research Center for a massive event called Yuri's Night (Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space).
I would describe it as science fair meets alien fashion show meets performing arts festival meets rave. I had no idea NASA was so cool!!
I talked to a few people who worked there, and hopefully impressed upon them the importance of puttings cellists in space. Or at least hiring me to provide soundtracks for their missions! (er, I'm assuming all space missions have soundtracks?)
