verde3 : music + video aka "the insider"

VIERNES POR LA NOCHE
letra: champi (carlos benavides)
voz: diana galán
corregida por diana galán + champi
música: checho (sergio medina) + champi
programaciones: checho medina + champi
producción: verde3
mix: orlando perez rosso + champi
(c)(p) 2006/2007 verde3/fonoespacio
todos los derechos reservados

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me despierto y a veces ya ni sé
si hoy es lunes, martes, miércoles o qué
me levanto, son diez para las tres
nada que comer, la casa está al revés

me doy cuenta que el llanto se acabó
las lágrimas de amor
las ha secado el sol
solo quiero bailar hasta morir
reirme porque sí
y celebrar al fin

desconecto, prefiero no pensar
porque hoy yo tengo ganas de bailar.

cuando pienses por un momento en mí
nunca olvides lo que he sido para ti
hoy te cuento que al fin me siento bien
ha pasado el tiempo y el dolor también

me doy cuenta que te he dejado atrás
y que ya nunca más
podremos regresar
tantas cosas quedaron por vivir
y ahora que me fui
igual debo seguir

pondré un disco y todo pasará
porque hoy es viernes por la noche y ya.

me despido, ya me tengo que ir
a pintarme el pelo rojo y a salir
pondré un disco y todo pasará
porque hoy es viernes por la noche y ya.



fotos por lucho berni
www.berfoto.com

champi onstage with minimoog, teatro colón bogotá 2003, pic by paloma villamil

thinking of:
string ensembles
jazz composition
experimental song
modern psychology
pili, john, mia!
susana san juan
pedro páramo
love
acausality
joni mitchell: "the hissing of summer lawns"

listening to:
joanna newsom
deerhoof
battles
hot chip
jeff buckley "live at sin-é"


what! a string quartet! i'm supposed to be this rock kid no? "champi the guitar guy." funny because people who met me in my early twenties remember me as the kid with the synthesisers (minimoog included) so they scratch their heads when they come to a new wave gig and we're rocking out with verde3. then some former students of mine will see me in the "latinofutura superbailables" parties with pepe plata djing reggaeton, dub and cumbia villera. or with the same pepe plata at new wave gatherings djing 80s stuff. or with the minimalheadz twisting around the beatz or turntabling.

then you find out that the first version of verde3 was called "verde" and involved a string septet back in 1997... so yeah the string quartet, a return to the roots of my first original composition ensemble format... this time with a laptop (or not) and a will to chant my lungs out on the microphone, if singing from your gut indicates anything...

the string quartet can be seen as an instrument in itself. you have two violins, a viola and a cello. you have four people you develop a working and personal realtionship with. you learn and you learn. you laugh at their jokes. you inmerse in their body language, sound, musicality, all like serum in the vein. a festival of harmonics and a human assemblage. i'm still in awe because this quartet are world-class and said they'd been looking for me to see if i could do some electronics for their pieces, and that they are interested in popular musics too. wow. i sigh because i've missed strings like an old true friend. i can't wait to begin writing and meeting!

some of the dearest moments ever were spent hanging out and working in boston with andrea deboer, flavio gaete, lorenzo peris and kristen odle. the first string quartet "when we were very young..." we did a play in boston 1997/98 with my dear sister pilar you know, an adaptation of "pedro páramo" with live strings and ektachrome subtitles and 16mm black and white projections... so glad i'm in touch with most of the crew, particularly with emilie blezat who is a gorgeous babe and works as producer of films and advanced theatre in paris, maria chenut who is also a gorgeous babe and lives and works in galicia, and mauricio rico (16mm film operator) who actually plays in verde3 today !!!!!! pili was susana and champi was pedro, pili acted and pedro read text. a wonderful achievement. it's decently recorded in audio too!

so from a minimoog to piano to synths and guitars to strings to recording and mixing to djing to running an academic unit to teaching to laptopping, to rocking, and now back to strings. always singing. always onstage. and always recording!


minimoog by heiko mehring, from www.moogworld.com

i see it like this: if music is multiple, if style has been left behind, if the public is diverse in what they listen to, the musician can be that as well: a chameleon in musical style, in instrumental approach, in working format, in the use or setting of the sounds created. music is music. sound is sound. it's all speakers placed or boxes tossed around for people to hear, see, feel, some plugged, some not. quite simple to me.


coincidences between quantum mechanics and the modern school of social psychology are impressive. two coincident ideas struck me particularly: one, how personality and reality in these new models has been admitted to be changing, modifiable, dynamic and alas, something you can create (eg the power of thought, eg the i-ching: "by one's thoughts one commands"). and two, the resulting importance of a proactive role in the individual in terms of the construction of his own (dynamic) personality and actions.

our modern world has become worryingly the opposite of this gorgeous array of revolutionary thought: the mis-use of the world "reality" by reality tv and its imposition of unchangeable "realness," obeying the rules for money. the uniforms of style and thought, all those "who isn't with me is against me," the mention of such thoroughly backward terms such as "the axis of evil" in a world which has already come to the scientific demonstration of the existence of god (quantum mechanics, gilles deleuze). the arts will squirm and the arts will sidestep, the arts will be la piedra en el zapato, continue to generate questions, thought, ideas.

kisshug.

the killers live by ashurita



may then.

shows:
*** la Ribot live @ Mapa Teatro
performance de doce horas
sábado 12 de mayo mediodía
carrera 7 calle 23 esquina
gratis
orlando perez (verde3): sonido

listening to:
restaurant music in a restaurant
deep house and such
giorgio reni's mixfile
bachata + merengue
read words on microphones
suede
the stone roses
the sundays

thinking of:
juan luis guerra
dani dani dani
diani diani diani


so the socorro show went quite well. loads of punters, the dancing, the jumping, the glee. attendees included mejo and kim from barna (we'll hit primaverasound / all tomorrow's parties which will be lifechanging for sure), adri gonzalez from paris (future uuuuu videoclip coming from her)

so what's santo domingo about? not a good clue yet, but at least discovered a friendly cafe-resto from which this blog is being written to a margarita and thumping house. so yeah, you find a bar where one can get late nite food, thumping house with everyone sitting down and having a lovely time, generous margaritas, and a very nice bartender attitude, in santo domingo. it ain't no cancún. it's austere. but then that's the sweet detail. think of a pumping house place with a free computer and cheap cocktails and cheap spanish tapas. makes us bogotanos look like some real lame tight assed bastards, like real underdeveloped snobs. which we are ???

the open questions about the state of our indie scene. a wave came and went, our internal divisions only made it ever so fainter. now the inertia swallowed the wave. the media hardly noticed. which is also why i'm doing all this thinking and reading, wondering how to crack the egg, how to make this indie thing happen in bogotá.

this contrast reveals me our inadequacies in the bogotano music scene, of how we could be doing so much better in the way we work for our bands, for our sound, for our working conditions, and for our clients, our listeners. we could be generous. we could be not agressive with ourselves. there could be a gradient in what we look for when we party, la degustación, saborear un momento, we could be not self-important. we could also serve late nite food! and we could definitely have more stages where to play live music. in sum, we could be nicer and we could be less complicated and tight-arsed. se nos tiene que dar la gana. i will eternally point to how good medelink does things and how much we have to learn from our friends in warmer weather.

the santo domingo book fair is free and open to the public. coming elections here, also in france, stayed awake trying to find out what the hell did sego and sarko said on that tv debate...

they're kicking me out of the bar now. i'll carry on rambling, this caribbean weather's got my brain full of oxygen, constant thoughts of juan luis.

great u came to socorro.


*****
sunday may 6

a drawing by ashurita


santo domingo airport. sunburnt and refreshed. new ideas. neno's hating her country as sarko has won. i hated mine both times uribe did so there. ideas in my head. a sense of clarity, of mental organisation. i guess i needed a few days of a different setting to put it all into perspective (the loudspeaker calls mr. carlos johnson, mr. carlos gonzalez, making me jump every time... will they have to make me open my bag again like on the way here? (i'm carrying my 01v in the big suitcase)).

after entire nights in an air conditioned hotel room watching mtvla, tv5, tve, bbc, tnt, fox, and even some rai, one gets a feel of certain things that running around in bogotá prevents. somewhat strange as this trip felt like a sort of new year. there was a full moon on the caribbean sea on thursday night. memories of my childhood cartagena days back in 82-84, the punctual renewal of energies the caribbean will always bring to me... as i saw myself weaving those "new year resolutions" a clear thought: why am i thinking of new year resolutions in may?

"to stop banging my equipment around" (literally: this trip both laptops earned new bumps on their chassis, time to visit rondón for the fix, internally unscathed of course, outstanding pieces of equipment that these machines are; i was due to go there anyway to finish up the maintenance work on the 12 inch).

"to eat better."
"to sleep more hours."
"to exercise."
"to say more clearly what i think provided it is put in a constructive tone."
"to meditate."


foto de canal13

***** about the bookfair i attended this week, santo domingo, república dominicana.

i was there for five transforming days. i saw my former mentor mario mendoza, heard him talk. i also saw roberto burgos cantor (the next alvaro mutis), heard him talk. el poder mágico de la palabra. stirred to the bone by them, by their words. if one had to pick the two most important colombian novelists alive (apart from gabo and mutis) it would clearly be them.

mario mendoza attended for the launch of his latest novel "los hombres invisibles." my former teacher: intro to literature classes 1992. at the time i was bored studying electronic engineering. his classes were an escape and a gateway. i shall elaborate on him, but in the meantime his mention of how he left the academia in favour of dedicating himself to his books in 2002-ish. he quit his job upon reading a native american one-phrase poem:

"salta, que ya aparecerá el suelo."

simple as that. he read it, he stood up, and resigned on the spot. now he publishes novels and his "satanás" has been made into a flim. un master. such a big influence in my life. i told him this during lunch two days ago. he was moved.

we did a reading set to music, of roberto burgos' lastest novel "la ceiba de la memoria." rolf and heidi abderhalden, aka mapa teatro. old friends now, five and a half years together. these are readings with them both on shure beta 87's and me on ableton live. we also read gomez jattin. irreverent. i got to play the piano. hm: piano, lobster, sunshine, literature, people, juan luis!




more the killers live by ashurita