In the hotel in Montreal jet-lagged but ready to play.
Posted May 15th, 2008 by Oliver CheslerFiled Under: live performance
Tonight I perform in Montreal, Canada at a Festival Kinetik. It’s a three day event with over 50 electronic bands and DJs. Tonights show is Nitzer Ebb, Ascii Disko and myself (The Horrorist).
We flew here last night with Air France; layover in Paris. For the transatlantic leg we were on a huge Boeing 777-200. A small city can fit on these planes. It was boring as ever. I can’t believe when I lived in NYC I used to fly over the Atlantic 2-3 times a month. I don’t think I could go back to doing that. To pass the time I listened to a few podcasts. For readers of this blog the podcast of note you should check out is Sonic Talk from Nick Batts and his crew over and SonicState.com. This week they discussed the Moog Guitar, Turnkey going out of business and in ear headphones. I also had the mispleasure of watching the movie Jumper staring Hayden Christensen and Samuel L. Jackson.
I think it’s funny that the Canadian border is by far the hardest to get through. I’ve been to places like the Ukraine but Canada holds the top spot for always being a major pain in the ass. I always have a proper work permit but it’s never good enough. Every time it’s first a stop at the immigration office and then Customs. This time Customs was extra nasty throwing my underwear all over the table. It took me twenty minutes to fold those neatly! Anyway, we made it though and met the promoters and Nitzer Ebb. I’ve played Montreal a bunch of times before and know the promoters well so we caught up a bit then drove to the hotel.
The hotel is decent, a place called Candlewood Suites. Each room has a kitchen and free wifi. Free internet makes me happy and the kitchen is useful because it’s stocked with coffee. I’m going to need that tonight because I’m typing this to you at 6:30 AM. Luckily jet lag usually doesn’t effect me too much.
They are shooting a DVD of the festival and I know the director Larry Kraman so there will be some wicked footage. They will have six nice cameras rolling tonight. I also did an interview for the Montreal Mirror yesterday. Of course I’ll post whatever media I can grab.
Back in Berlin Miro Pajic is using my studio and feeding the dog. As long as he doesn’t put in the wrong alarm system code again (that was a disaster) he should make some good music this week. By the way he has a full length album that just came out on my label called Everything is Nothing.
After Montreal we head to NYC by car. I will be doing a few music related things like visiting the studio of Mark Ephraim (The Shorebirds). He has some nice API gear. Oh I also have a Voice of Saturn Synth and Sequencer being delivered to my mothers house!
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good luck man!
have fun with that synth and seq. those look super fun.
On behalf of all Canadians I’d like to apologize for our jack-booted neo-fascist thugs we seam to hire for border patrol/customs agents. I hear from people all over the world that they are some of the biggest jerks around. They see themselves as self-appointed custodians of Canadian decency, protecting us from the evil influence of foreign [ie American] culture.
While I’m at it, I’d also like to apologize for the poor acting skills of fellow Canuk, Darth Vader aka Hayden Christensen.
If you’re gonna be in Montreal Fri night, check out Club Saphir’s darkwave night. My wife and I [& friends] are driving up to Montreal from Ottawa [2hrs] to party there. Sadly we can’t attend Kinetik as the acts we like are playing tonight, namely yourself and Nitzer Ebb.
Hi Andras! Big thanks.
Hi Case. Thanks for the apology although not needed. I had my papers so it was just a little extra time. I don’t blame you guys for wanting to keep some Americans out! haha! Thanks for the invite to Saphirs but we have to drive to NYC in the morning so we will miss the rest of Kinetik and your night. I bet the club will be full though… I see a lot of freaks already on the streets here.
damn! wish i was local! Come play boston sometime!
how exactly do you get these shows where they will pay for a trans-atlantic ticket to get you to play? how would one go about emulating that process???
I’m in NYC and won’t be able to catch this event, but would be interested in catching the footage of the show. Give us the heads up on how we can vidi the end product.
BTW Nice blog. It has a pleasant mix of stuff I like.
Hi Andras! The simple answer is: hit records. Everyone I know who gets paid good fees and headlines these events had a career moment where a record they had did very well. If I had the key to emulate that I would share it but to be honestly I am cluess why song A is huge and song B is not. Of course sometimes you know but then again there are some amazing songs out there that no one seems to even have ever heard.
Hi Scott. Big thanks. I think there will be plenty of footage. If not right away within a week.
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