24 July 2012

Following the tour with Getachew Mekuria and the Ex & Friends I traveled directly to Berlin on the 17th of July to start rehearsals with Made To Break (Tim Daisy, Devin Hoff, Christof Kurzmann) to prepare for concerts there and in Nickelsdorf (this meant I unfortunately missed Andy Moor’s birthday party in Amsterdam, quite an event by all accounts!). The practice sessions with the group went extremely well, felt like we picked up where the band left off on our tour last November. The band played a strong set at the A L’Arme! Festival in Berlin on the 19th (though Christof Kurzmann had a hard time with the sound and we found out afterward that he was hardly in the PA for the first part of the show…), on a bill that included a stupendous duo with Irene Schweizer and Han Bennink (“old school” Improvised Music at its best) and Survival Unit III (missed the set with McPhee/Lonberg-Holm/Zerang so I could get my head together to play the MTB gig).

The next day the band traveled to Nickelsdorf, Austria to perform at the Konfrontationen Festival on a program that included BassDrumBone (a band that I saw frequently in the early 80s and that helped shape my growing appreciation for the new Jazz during that period), and Graewe/Butcher/Sanders, but that Necks performance had to be postponed because Chris Abrahams cut his leg open while set up for their concert and had to go to the hospital; luckily he was pretty much okay and their show was rescheduled for Sunday the 22nd. On this night Christof was super happy with the gig, but Tim felt frustrated (due to the rush to get onstage and set up he forgot to make sure that his monitor was set up properly, this meant he had a tough time interacting with Christof throughout the show). One of the most gratifying aspects to these performances, other than getting a chance to play together again, was the response from a wide range of musicians who caught our gigs- Johannes Bauer, John Butcher, Ray Anderson, among others- who said that they really enjoyed Made To Break’s music. Tim Daisy and I stuck around during Saturday to catch the music and socialize with all the friends at the Konfrontationen Festival, always an amazing time.