25 April 2014

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Made to Break 2014 Part 1

“Still, among the conservatives, there persists the hope that Realism is no more than a temporary fad; it has not dawned on them that it is they who are now on the margins of the field. Of course, Realism has entered into history, and as such it has, naturally, been separated into strata. In order to produce a new generation of photographic arts- one that is further advanced and more highly developed- there must be an essential renouncement. This is unavoidable. Although the conservatives will surely attempt to have their day again as the focal point of the photography world, there is no way that this can happen. It is our absolute responsibility to halt this discouraging type of historic regression, which is no less disturbing than the backward movement of politico-economics.”

-Ken Domon, from “Setting Sun: Writings by Japanese Photographers,” (aperture: 2006), edited by Ivan Vartanian, Akihiro Hatanaka, Yutaka Kambayashi, pgs. 22-23.

4/13/14: I woke up to head to the final day of recording with Bob Weston at Minbal in Chicago for the new Margots album and my phone rang with a call from Christof Kurzmann saying his ticket from Buenos Aires had been cancelled at the last minute. So, half asleep I had to come up with $1400 on a credit card

to buy him the final seat on the flight leaving which was leaving in three hours. As I sat with Christof on the phone I went to the Air Canada website and entered all of his identification info, the credit card info and when I tried to pay for the ticket it sent me to a page telling me to click on the link provided in the box and process the payment as a timer started to rundown from 9 minutes. There was no link in the box, so I thought I’d click on it and see if that worked. It didn’t. Instead, the website erased all of the details I had entered and put me back to page one, while the clock continued to rundown, indicating that the possibility of keeping the reservation on hold would be eliminated. I rushed to get everything reentered and with the clock at 3 and 1/2 minutes the site put me back to the same validation page with the same direction to click on the nonexistent link. I told Christof that we were really at an impasse- if I clicked on the box everything would be erased and the reservation would be lost, if I did nothing the clock would run out and we’d also lose the reservation. Silence on the phone. Then, suddenly, BANG! The transaction was accepted for some reason and Christof’s ticket was purchased. I went to the studio $1400 further into the hole with a freshly induced ulcer. The Margots recorded the last two of ten songs, Miedo and Margot, two acoustic bass tunes. Things felt good but my concert D on the tenor was extremely sharp for some odd reason on Miedo; otherwise the piece was excellent. Luckily, we could pitch shift the note to salvage what was otherwise and excellent take, but I was humbled, embarrassed and confused by the intonation problem. After finishing the instrumentals with scratch vocals, John Dereszynski, Adrienne Pierluissi, Bob and I listened to the rough mixes and Adrienne only needed to do two punch-ins (on the song, “Baby Blue”) for the whole session. We’ll need fix a few intonation problems at the mixing session in July, but her performance was pretty amazing, especially since she was sick with a cold for the whole session.

4/14/14: Christof arrived from Buenos Aires, arriving with no hassle at immigration, which happened at the Toronto airport which maybe made the process easier. It turned out that the final seat on the plane was actually HIS ORIGINAL SEAT which had been cancelled by Air Canada because they said his credit card wouldn’t work despite the fact that he had purchased the ticket a month and a half earlier. Despite this fact and when the error on their part was explained,the airline refused to just replace his original seat free of charge, so he’s now forced to find a way to reimburse about $500 in fees for buying a last minute ticket! I composed two more pieces for Made To Break, which will need to be performed at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia on April 21st. Worked on more of the tour logistics, a ton left to do and the band was leaving in only couple of days for Detroit. Talked cinema with Christof over dinner, he’d been to a film festival in Graz, Austria and the later in Buenos Aires- there is so much to seeā€¦

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