Sunday, May 20, 2007

Turning Points 12, 13 & 14
at CCCTV, Torres Vedras
from 19 to 30 of May


Yesterday was the opening of my instalation Turning Points 12, 13 & 14 at Cooperativa de Comunicação e Cultura, in Torres Vedras (Portugal).
This time i did it with 3 turntables and 10 drum cymbals. The sound result was very nice, with two of the turntables making a loop on 2 amplified cymbals each, while the middle turntable was playing randomly in 6 cymbals. This instalation will be presented untill the 30 of May, so if you are around, don't miss it!

This is the video of the previous presentations of Turning Points, using different sound sources each time:

Pocketbook of Lightning
live at Musicbox (Lisbon)
16 of May

Pocketbook of lightning is the duo with myself on guitar and amplified objects + Marco Franco on drums and analog electronics. This gig in Musicbox last wednsday was very special, since we were being payed at the door and zero tickets were sold. In the audience there were 3 ladies that won the tickets in some radio contest, plus Ricardo Freitas (a friend of ours who had an invitation). The ladies went away a little bit after we started playing... we played a little bit more for our friend Ricardo. Then we stoped and chated for a while. Then To Trips and 3 friends of him arrived and asked if our gig was finished and we said "noooo, we'll play a second set for you guys".
You know what? i really enjoyed playing that night!

Friday, May 18, 2007

Separados Frutos
live at Pompidou Center, Paris (11, 12 May)
+
Lost & Found
live at Rencontres Chorégrafiques, Bobigny
(12, 13 May)

First of all, a word of advice to my fellow musicians: never travel with Easy Jet! They claim they are the fastest to deliver your luggage; it's true; but my new Gibson SG arrived in Paris with a big big crack in the body... shit!...

Anyway, while in Paris i split my time between reharsals and soundchecks at Pompidou center and then taking the subway to go to Bobigny (in the outskirts of Paris) to do the same thing for Lost & Found.

The two concerts of Separados Frutos (11 and 12 May) were realy great. We played very well and intensively, though in the second concert there were some problems with the sampler that stoped working for a while, but it was not serious stuff... we managed to deal with this situation by providing more musical material from the acoustic instruments and i believe no one noticed this short problem. Nevertheless, there wasn't much people in the audience... and playing in the big room of Pompidou Center for a small audience of around 70 people, each night, makes it difficult to warm up and feel the presence of the audience as an extra drive to enhance the energy that we put out when playing...

On saturday 12 of May, as i leave the Pompidou Center stage, i gotta run to Bobigny for my second gig that night. I start playing as soon as i arrive there and i had a great kick for this first concert of Lost & Found (a songs duo with Mark Tompkins
on vocals + my videos as background). I can't say the same about second concert of Lost & Found on sunday 13 May. I was more tired, i didn't have the adrenaline of the day before... But Mark felt better and prefered this second gig. The audience was great and very warm both days.

Nuno Rebelo + Katharina Franck,
live at Akademie der Kunste, Berlin

After a few days rehearsing at Katharina's studio in Berlin, we opened the festival "Horspiel voche" (week of radio pieces) with our duo concert of spoken word on the 21st of April. "Nazaré, nicht der stadt, die frau" (see a previous post in March) was a big success. We performed at the big room of Akademie der Kunste and had a standing ovation from the audience. I believe there should be between 300 or 400 people, not bad! Katharina spoke her text with her expressive and soft voice, i played the mucis on the mutant portuguese guitar and amplified objects, with some background tapes. Since i had a "partition" with all the details i had to take care during the concert, this was the first concert in my life that i was obliged to wear glasses!

Here is a review: “And from time to time the radio also shows that it is capable of transgressing borders and offering something other than its usual pre-packaged productions. Nazaré – not the city, the woman, a radio play produced for BR, is transformed by its author Katharina Franck together with musician Nuno Rebelo into an acclaimed live performance, which pays tribute to host country Portugal with great narrative intensity.”
(Christian Deutschmann. FAZ, 4.27.07)