16 May 2013

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The next morning the main organizer, Jerome Henry, drove me to the airport to fly to Belgrade for gig #3, asked me about the possible connection between Marker and Snow to my music. As we talked I realized that what I’m attempting to do is apply Marker’s “essay” approach to cinema and Snow’s “structural” filmmaking to what I’m now struggling to do in the solo format. This revealed that my current fascination with Godard’s, “Vivre Sa Vie,” is connected to an attempt to create music that spontaneously investigates the language and process of music making, much as Godard investigates film language with the structure and methodology behind “Vivre Sa Vie” (as impossible as this may be). Then, of course, came the realization that Godard had already achieved this in the cinema 2 years before I was born… The conversation with Jerome confirmed how necessary it is for me to talk through ideas in order to discover, clarify and articulate my thinking to myself.

That Saturday night, May 11th, I performed at the Drug Store in Belgrade, a kind of “squat performance space” located in an abandoned concrete building near the zoo. At first it felt that no one was going to be at the show- 30 minutes before I was supposed to start I think there were only 4 people in attendance. I did a soundcheck with the PA because I was told that the audience might talk through the show (since it was a Saturday, and since the organizers mostly put on dance parties at the space, there was concern that the people who arrived might be expecting more of a party than a concert of solo improvised reed music). But by the time I started to play the place was full, with about 100 people in attendance, all seemingly excited to hear me.

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