It is the last night of the year and only a few fireworks are going off outside at this hour, the weather now cold - it would seem that on the last day of the year winter finally reached these shores. Still no snow around here, though.
I'm sitting at home now, listening to music, one screen in front of me, another behind me, walled in by two computers and a number of synthesizers. When I was a kid, playing Commodore 64 games well into the evening, diving into 8 bit space until I was told to go to bed, I would dream of a future where I could be with machines all night long - and here it is. And yet this isn't really what I thought it would be. There was a time when computers were science fiction, when electronic music was exotic and dreamed of a future, bright or dark, that was nothing, really, like today. But in a world where people, still, starve to death and get killed in wars, terrorist attacks or because they're guys who like to take it up the ass, in a world where mass music consumption is handled by glossy talent shows on TV that honour those who can sing the hits of yesterday and where a generation of young people prefer reading status updates on Facebook by interchangeable fashion icons rather than books that will last a lifetime, I guess I should just be happy to have seen times that actually dared dream of a future.
After all, at the end of the day, and the year, the dream of the future is always better. And with that, a happy new year.
It's been a busy autumn so far, recording new music, doing concerts, and celebrating the five years anniversary of our club, Klub Golem. Moreover, I very recently shot a new music video for my song Load Error - it's a song about digital childhood memories, so I basically wanted to make it like a sci-fi B-movie based on Pac Man, which means yours truly - wearing all yellow - is running around in dark corridors, eating pills and getting chased by four fellow musicians. We did some fourteen hours of video takes in one go, everybody feeling cold and tired in the end because, for some reason, there was no heat down there. But plenty of dead mice and some not so dead frogs. Hopefully the video should be online in a not so distant future.
I'm also planning to do another video based in part on live recordings from the concert I did at the balcony of The Art Museum here in Odense early September. So far it looks like there will be new outdoor shots too, possibly night shots - it seems making music videos and getting colds go hand in hand in my case. And to round up the video plans I also hope to put together a few live videos based on the five years anniversary concert I did at Golem, also in September. We shall see, we shall see.
The rain is pouring down, everybody is off to festivals to drown in beer and mud, and I'm wearing pink sunglasses when I go outside, to pretend I'm really a rockstar or the sun is really up there somewhere. There is no mistaking - it's summer in Denmark.
I've had my fair share of rainy festivals so far this summer, hugging Jean Michel Jarre at one and eating barbecue with Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark at another. How is that for starfucking decadence? Was backstage at Nakkefestival the 22nd of July and following the terrorist attack on Norwegian kids on my little laptop, hour by hour, which felt rather uncanny. Like most people - hopefully - I don't understand what will lead a person to commit such atrocities, but what I really don't understand is how this fellow could picture himself as a knight on a holy mission. Come on, attacking unarmed kids with a shitload of guns? Not exactly much Ivanhoe in that, is there?
The past weeks I've been working on new music, a song about toys coming alive at night (neither Hoffmann nor Tchaikovsky lived in vain) and a cover of Kate Bush's Cloudbusting, which I think is one of the most beautiful pop songs ever done. The video featuring Donald Sutherland alongside Bush, and directed by Julian Doyle, conceived by film and Python legend, Terry Gilliam, isn't half bad either!
Also, it seems concerts are lining up in August, September, and October, so I better stay indoors with my machines the next few weeks to finish last details on the new music. I'll post as soon as concert dates are confirmed.
Copyright: Ras Bolding 2011