Archive for 02009-04

The Ox

Oct 03 – München, Germany – Carl Orff Saal
Oct 04 – Leipzig, Germany – Spiegelpalast
Oct 06 – Berlin, Germany – Kleine Arena Tempodrom
Oct 07 – Hamburg, Germany – Stage Club
Oct 08 – Hanover, Germany – Markuskirche
Oct 09 – Köln, Germany – Kulturkirche

Go here to see links to the venues. There will be three to four shows in Italy and Austria before Jon and I roll into Munich.

Here is an example of the music available at Ottmar-Friends:

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That’s a recording we made at our first rehearsal with new drummer Michael Chavez. Subscribers get to download a high quality 320kbps mp3 version. I started out thinking I would offer one or two tracks per month, but we are already up to 11 downloads in two month. They are mostly 320kbps mp3s, but there is also a 24 bit 96kHz aiff file for audiophiles.

Monday I presented to the subscribers a new mix I am working on, a unreleased and unnamed bossa recorded during the sessions for The Hours Between Night + Day in the Spring of 1993. It’s a lovely bossa with a nice koto solo by Osamu Kitajima, but a CD can only handle about 74 minutes of music and The Hours Between Night + Day was packed full and tight.

My cherry tree waited until after the snow fall last weekend to begin blossoming.

My brother’s new Pilates studio in Santa Fe. I am training with him regularly. I have been doing Pilates since 1997 and have worked with half a dozen different trainers and Stefan is the best, no question. The studio is great and very thoughtfully put together, comfortable and as organic as possible.

Today we worked out to Bloom – Brian Eno’s iPhone/iPod Touch appliction that generates music. Perfect background, soft, non-rhythmic sounds that feel like a field, not music…

Atlas Pilates
825-D Early Street
Santa Fe NM 87505
The phone number is on the door…

Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate – NYTimes.com
For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming.

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

History – Samovarlife
Per the request of the City of San Francisco, Samovar Tea Lounge Yerba Buena opened April, 2006, enlivening the shuttered and defunct space that had housed a failed Starbucks. Samovar Yerba Buena is a garden oasis, resting above an urban waterfall in the heart of the city. Nested beneath the city’s skyscrapers, Samovar satisfies downtown workers, tourists, and convention-goers with an escape from the city’s frenzy.

…enlivening the shuttered and defunct space that had housed a failed Starbucks.
Nice!
Locations

In Rome:

Rome’s 2762nd Birthday Chariot Race at Urban Velo
A patriotic group of bikers sporting giallo e rosso (yellow and red) athletic gear cleverly transformed their bicycles into race horses that pulled bigas, or two-wheeled chariots, manned by enthusiastic charioteers. While ancient Roman chariot teams were divided by color into the greens, the blues, the whites, and the yellows, these modern day Ben-Hurs formed two teams distinguished by their headgear–the helmet heads and the brush heads. Eager for a bit of Sunday-morning competition, they lined up at one end of the Circus and at the signal, the race for glory and fame began!

In Copenhagen:

Copenhagenize.com – Danish Cargo Bike Championships

Anyway, the Danish Cargo Bike Championships was a festive affair in bright spring sunshine. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many cargo bikes gathered in one place. The course was set up around the square with a fine mix of smooth straights and cobblestoned corners.

There was a race for three-wheelers, with Leif Harup on a Kangaroo taking the gold medal and the three-wheeled glory. Then there was several heats for two-wheelers and Thorsten Rentel beat Hans Fogh by a spoke in the final. In both disciplines the riders rode first without cargo and then had to put three tyres on the bikes to finish.

There were many Bullitts from Larry vs. Harry, a good number of Dutch Bakfiets and quite a few Belinkys. Add to that Christiania Bikes, Longjohns, Short Johns and the aforementioned Kangaroo. Baisikeli was present with one of their ambulance bikes from their African workshops.

Sound Advice 010
Sound Advice 011

Check out Stephen Duros, playing his song Miranda in duet with Jason McGuire:

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You can find the original album version in the LL and where downloads are sold – iTunes, Amazon etc.

For bookings contact Stephen.

I am already on the third installment of John Burdett’s Bangkok series, a book called Bangkok Haunts – I am reading the Kindle version on the free Kindle for iPhone application. In what seems to me typical Thai fashion the book is able to move effortlessly between violence, sex and spirituality. Here is a snippet from a conversation between the main character of the book, a cop in Krung Thep, and a monk:

Saved? There is nothing to save, my friend. You cannot caste yourself into the Unknowable in the hope that gesture will buy you salvation – you have to jump for the hell of it. In a nirvanic universe there can be no salvation because we are never really lost – or found. The choice is simply between nirvana and ignorance. That is the adult truh the Buddha urges upon us. We are the sum of our burning. No burning, no being.

When I traveled in Asia for a year, a long time ago, I was constantly amazed and delighted by the ability of so many people (((seemed like everybody was able to do that))) to switch from the mundane to the spiritual and back in no time at all. Spirituality is not reserved for a fixed hour per week, but is constantly present and referenced.

Winter is back for a day or two and Casa Monte Frio is under 3 inches of white stuff. Piñon branches are bending down in greeting, heavy with wet snow. But it is April and green blades of sturdy Southwest grass are peeking through the sparkling white blanket, which will melt in record time now that the sun glares down from a blue-bue sky.

They say spring has come
and the sky is filled with mist,
Yet on the mountains, no flowers, only snow.
- Ryōkan

Nice audio piece and slideshow in the NYT.

Civilized Riding – Interactive Feature – NYTimes.com

Stephen filmed my soundcheck in Torrence last month.

Sound Advice 006

Feb. 17, 1818: Proto-Bicycle Gets Things Rolling
Bad weather in 1812 caused oat crops to fail, and horses starved as a result. That got von Drais thinking about how you could get around quickly without a horse. His first attempt was a four-wheeled vehicle with a treadmill crankshaft between the rear wheels. He demonstrated it to the Congress of Vienna (the peace confab that ended the Napoleonic wars).

That invention went nowhere, but the eruption of Indonesia’s Tambora volcano in 1815 gave Europe a snowy summer in 1816. Oats were scarce and expensive again, horses died, and von Drais got back to work.

This time, he invented a two-wheeler on a frame that looks much like a modern bicycle frame with a seat and front-wheel steering. It didn’t have a chain drive, and it didn’t even have pedals. You drove the thing with your feet, much like a scooter. You stopped it with your feet, too: no brakes.

Ottmar Liebert + Luna Negra at the Lensic

Tickets go on sale tomorrow.

Confirmed:
OL – Guitars
Jon Gagan – Bass + Synth
Stephen Duros – Guitars + Synth
Michael Chavez – Drumkit + Percussion
Robby Rothschild – Djembe + Cajon

An all-Santa Fe band plus one stranger.

You know that I am all about pushing bikes and cycling, but why do some people take such a narrow view of things? Take the post below, at Copenhagenize.com, for example. Not everyone who doesn’t ride a bike is fat or lazy. My dad, who contemplated buying a Segway in his late Eighties, would have loved this machine. He could have used it instead of a car for most of his daily errands. Because a knee was failing him when he was 91, he had to drive a car to the grocery store that was about a mile from his apartment. I am perfectly able-bodied to use a bicycle, but this GM/Segway product pictured is fantastic for the elderly and people with a physical handicap. Come of your high horse bicycle advocates. I’d rather see people use these great little vehicles, which are electric and don’t take up a lot of space, than tool around in an SUV. I imagine a bicyclist coming together with this vehicle stands a bigger chance of surviving that when s/he gets hit by an SUV.

William added this piece from an article, asking the question: “Haven’t they heard of bicycles?!”

General Motors Corp. is teaming with Segway Inc., maker of the upright, self-balancing scooters, to build a new type of two-wheeled vehicle designed to move easily through congested urban streets. The machine, which GM says it aims to develop by 2012, would run on batteries and use wireless technology to avoid traffic backups and navigate cities.

Funny… I’ve been moving easily through congested urban streets for years, in cities all around the world, on a bicycle. And by the looks of that machine, I’ll stick to my bicycle. Although fat, lazy people will probably love it.
(Via Copenhagenize.com – The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog)

From a series of photos I took of Stevo outside of Palm Desert.

Scott Pommier
Check out the rest of the photos as well.

Tickets for our concert at the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe on June 4th will go on sale next Tuesday, April 14th. The concert is a benefit for a local school. Tickets will range from $20 to $65. For $65 you will get one of the best seats in the house plus access to an after-show-party with the whole band (((and, more importantly finger-foods and wine))).

We want to do a special home-town show and will be talking to certain horn players about joining us – especially since the planned Luna Negra XL show in December was cancelled.

This will be a lot of fun!