http://www.youtube.com/user/cinemasoloriens#p/a/u/0/kqzY7koOEVI

http://www.youtube.com/user/cinemasoloriens#p/a/u/1/9RfDfa9Z_94

DAY 2-ANTWERPEN
We take on the city strug out like well, strug out musicians.
We take pictures, check out lovely gothic architecture, we rest a loooong time at this fantastic jazz bar.
Like a Rathskeller, lotsa wood beams, unique tables, old wood, great jazz and the exotique. I show Marshall, Dee-doo in full turket mode, trying to say peanut butter with a mouthfull o food-its funny, its why you have em. We are all nodding out and I am hallucinating mildly, the table service transforms into the most facinating still life I had ever seen, music blurs into another, light flickers, conjestion-I talk about bamboo and apple origins in Hermetic America.
Marshall tells me the funniest story he has ever told me...While on a Sun Ra Arkestra tour, years back, he was rooming with one crazy cat. Well you know how much Marshall digs his coffee, well he is low in the funds so he is going to brew up some in this very posh hotel they are staying at, he looks for the coffee pot and this cat has his d*ck in the coffee pot, going "you want the coffee pot (strange sex sounds)?". Marshall wants to kill this crazy nut, now he can't have any coffee after the pot has been sodomized and soiled forever-complains to Sunny to get him out of this room, no go, he was roomies for afew more times with this dude.
We get to check in to the hotel finally-Me and Marshall get to our room, It is not cleaned up at all, so initially when I call down they want us to come down and reassign us a different room-not with all this gear bro, me and marshall are in, we will leave and they send someone up to complete it-done.
We wait, he grabs a smoke and we wait and done.

DAY 1.5-MEETING UP WITH MARSHALL.
Marshall is about 20 min from Newark. I just grabbed me gear-things are brightning up.
Rejoin with Marshall and check-in. I was happy to see him.
The Philly Boys checkin and off we go to the new adventure all bleary eyed and exhaused to what is the magic of tomorrow.
We take off and try to sleep. Me and Marshall talk about music like two boys in the 1950's talked 'bout their fave baseball players stats.
Eat alittle, fake sleep alittle, watch Iron Man, read alittle, nod out again then POW! We are treated to some f*cking serious turbulance-like Marshall said, "It was the kind of turbulance where those sounds under the plane; you're uncertain if that is the ocean!"
No, not kidding, Japan turbualnce! Big frat boy is losing his mind, everyone is wide awake, silence only cut by a nervous laugh and the air of helplessness as this big steel thing is hurling through the sky, skipping along football field size airpockets, propelling you into a unique rollercoaster ride that lasted for about 10 minutes then...easing back to normalcy. No more visualizations of the Captain struggling with pitch control, white knuckled, wrestling to get the plane into submission.
More pretend sleep, this time I wake up a have no idea where I am for a moment, nod out again, then wake and now I am not sure if I am dreaming it, nod out...just weird what exhaustion and stress does, and all of us are going through it.
Then alittle breakfast and happy landing just as I actually, truly fall asleep. Welcome to Brussells. Welcome!
Get into Europe with friendly acknowledgement from Non EU Validation. "Musicians?" He asks. "Jazz?" Ed replies, "Well, yeah, you could say that, this is the rest of the members (introduces me n Marshall)."
"Where are you guys playing?" As I said-Welcome!
We are greeted by Danny from Cultuur Centrum Luchtbal and the driver-nice guys, treat us to coffee and croissants. While the gang are all up at the ordering, I watch the bags.
I am thinking about how the lights went out in the whole terminal in Frankfurt on me and Ed when without fail, the lights go out in the section I am sitting in! I love it.

DAY ONE: DEPART FOR BRUSSELS AIRPORT
Honestly after the past few days I got to thinking that a part of me, when I set up these "space tours", I just want my Pop to be proud of what I am doing. So Pop, thanks for all the support and rootin for me.
What can I say, got zero sleep. Me and Deb worked hard to get me packed, needed a new bag, the one I had wasn't cuttin it. After that was done I started to burn the DVDs for the show.
While they were burning, we worked on securing the tour budget. After all was done it was time for bed-3AM!
Slept for 3 hours, we got up, Deb got dressed and got munchkin up. After her teeth got brushed, I thought it would be smart to do a quick view of the burned discs and she could see em.
All waas correct and the files were in the proper order but for some reason the file I imported for one film on the disc was speeded up from 4 min to 30 sec! Mac weirdness and right down to the last moment. We have to leave to catch the flight.
Deb leaves to fuel up and drop off Sofie at daycare to save time while I manually re-import from the source mini-dv. After importing and moving the clip-boom-speeded up, whole file is there, just sped up. I view the tape-it is in real time, proper speed. Perplexed, I give up and opt to change the line up of the films and reburn-this process ate up so much time that we had to abandon this while buring because I now have one hour to catch my flight, but still have a 30 min. commute to the airport.
Zooom! Deb drives expertly, navagating through traffic opstacles with efficiency and lightning reflexes. She gets me to the airport with 30 min to spare. I kiss her and off I go into the terminal struggling to juggle my gear-huge koto in 4 ft box and heavy backpack and wheeled luggage.
I am greeted to the largest line to check in and get the boarding pass-I realize I will never make this flight. I get throught the line 2 min after they close the gate-no matter the homeland security checkpoint would have made catching the flight impossible.
No matter, we bump to another flight on standby recheck the luggage and prey for an assigned seat at the gate. My eyes burn, the coffee high has pumped lactic acid into my joints, chest aches from trying to support the backpack and not breathing much and the anxiety of this trip I am about to embark on is getting alittle touch to balance-add sleep deprivation and some tough news from the privious day, I am wondering how I am gonna get my sh*t together.
It works out-I get a seat assignment and board after 1 hour in homeland security.
I get on the plane and after we take off I am treated to the rock bottom of coping facilties-I am so strung out, my brain and body are duking it out-both really want to shut down but neither knows what to do so a crippling infusion of anxiety and dizziness begins.
After 6 of 7 unpleasant waves of this sensation, I look out to the clouds and a distant horizon, smile to myself and cool out jack!
I couldn't even eat with that nightmare going, so after the doom subsided it was A-OK.
I even slept alittle through the subtle turbulant trek to Newark.

DAY ONE: DEPART FOR BRUSSELS AIRPORT
Honestly after the past few days I got to thinking that a part of me, when I set up these "space tours", I just want my Pop to be proud of what I am doing. So Pop, thanks for all the support and rootin for me.
What can I say, got zero sleep. Me and Deb worked hard to get me packed, needed a new bag, the one I had wasn't cuttin it. After that was done I started to burn the DVDs for the show.
While they were burning, we worked on securing the tour budget. After all was done it was time for bed-3AM!
Slept for 3 hours, we got up, Deb got dressed and got munchkin up. After her teeth got brushed, I thought it would be smart to do a quick view of the burned discs and she could see em.
All waas correct and the files were in the proper order but for some reason the file I imported for one film on the disc was speeded up from 4 min to 30 sec! Mac weirdness and right down to the last moment. We have to leave to catch the flight.
Deb leaves to fuel up and drop off Sofie at daycare to save time while I manually re-import from the source mini-dv. After importing and moving the clip-boom-speeded up, whole file is there, just sped up. I view the tape-it is in real time, proper speed. Perplexed, I give up and opt to change the line up of the films and reburn-this process ate up so much time that we had to abandon this while buring because I now have one hour to catch my flight, but still have a 30 min. commute to the airport.
Zooom! Deb drives expertly, navagating through traffic opstacles with efficiency and lightning reflexes. She gets me to the airport with 30 min to spare. I kiss her and off I go into the terminal struggling to juggle my gear-huge koto in 4 ft box and heavy backpack and wheeled luggage.
I am greeted to the largest line to check in and get the boarding pass-I realize I will never make this flight. I get throught the line 2 min after they close the gate-no matter the homeland security checkpoint would have made catching the flight impossible.
No matter, we bump to another flight on standby recheck the luggage and prey for an assigned seat at the gate. My eyes burn, the coffee high has pumped lactic acid into my joints, chest aches from trying to support the backpack and not breathing much and the anxiety of this trip I am about to embark on is getting alittle touch to balance-add sleep deprivation and some tough news from the privious day, I am wondering how I am gonna get my sh*t together.
It works out-I get a seat assignment and board after 1 hour in homeland security.
I get on the plane and after we take off I am treated to the rock bottom of coping facilties-I am so strung out, my brain and body are duking it out-both really want to shut down but neither knows what to do so a crippling infusion of anxiety and dizziness begins.
After 6 of 7 unpleasant waves of this sensation, I look out to the clouds and a distant horizon, smile to myself and cool out jack!
I couldn't even eat with that nightmare going, so after the doom subsided it was A-OK.
I even slept alittle through the subtle turbulant trek to Newark.

CINEMA SOLORIENS & THE COSMO-DRAMA 

featuring Experimental Films By JAMES HARRAR and live music with MARSHALL ALLEN of THE SUN RA ARKESTRA, ED WILCOX of TEMPLE OF BON MATIN, KAMIL KRUTA of KOONDA HOLAA and JAMES HARRAR

EURO-MICRO TOUR 2009

APRIL 10-Cultuur Centrum Luchtbal-ANTWERP, BELGIUM

APRIL 11-Kunstencentrum Belgie-HASSELT, BELGIUM

APRIL 12-The Palace-ST. GALLEN, SWITZERLAND

Come on by.

DAY 4-LEEDS AFTER GIG, LEEDS TRAIN STATION ANF PARTING WAYS

So we go off to Leeds Train Station with Marshall and Ed off to London and Me and Bobbo to Glasgow.

We all go to exchange some money in the train staion and this drunkin nut starts hassling bob, asking him for 20pounds-i thought he was gonna urinate on our luggage-very interesting to see how each of us handled the guy-bob didn't know whether to punch his lights out of stare at him, i was laughing at the situation, lucy was gettin nervous and gave him some money to hit the pike and he left.

we say our goodbyes to lucy and get some food at this little pub-type restaurant in the station for tea and burgers.

Ed goes off to hit the restroom which is outside the pub and all of the sudden alarms go off to evacuate immediately-we all look at each other, like what is going on, and this official looking gentleman runs into the pub yelling "GET OUT OF THE STATION NOW, LEAVE EVERYTHING AND GET OUT NOW!"

Shit, we move fast, getting our gear, and leave the station, anticipating in my minds eye the impact of the explosion as particles of brick and debris penetrate my soft tissue, throwing me through solid objects, body parts detaching, all until the last brief moment of total awareness has left-knowing that this is the last existing moment of your life and that it was not totally unusual to end in some terrorist attack.

apparently a false alarm, as some unattended baggage set off the need for immediate safety-Marshall and Bob are huddle behind their own shadows prob. thinking the same as I-and i am also thinking, where is ed-shit, he is in the bathroom-in the chaos he comes strolling down the hallway as the false alarm has cleared us-he was stuck in the bathroom-prob. the safest place to be during an attack.

whew....

hugs and goodbyes to see ed and marshall off.

Glasgow awaits and we are plenty tired...

THE CINEMA SOLORIENS & THE COSMO-DRAMA performance at Victoria Hall

After a warm introduction from Alex-sensitively mentioning that perhaps Sun Ra is watching the performance unfold.

Before the lights dim and my films engage-i tell ed that i want him to start out fast, right out of the gate, sorta rhythmic space-chord-opportunity to clear my mind and to honestly clear out audience members that don't really want to be there-get 'em out!

Booom! We are off! Rocket No. 9! Zoom, zooom, up in the air, zooom!

Nice turn out, the Hall was filled in very nice.

Some moments i really wasn't pleased with the direction the music was going with the films-always tension, my images with sound, musicians playing to my films. i really dig playing with ed (really love when he plays up on his kit with his feet) and my percussive manner of playing just about every instrument i play (even reeds) makes for some interesting moments-some really nice drum and bali xylophone raga went very nice and dug it very much.

Marshall soloed a very pretty, lyrical flute piece.

His keyboard and EVI work was very interesting for the Hall.

Some of my more outre sax solos really fired me up. I really try to set off like i may never play again, that this is it, give all the lung power i have-indestructible!

in the corner of my eye, I see Marshall's affirmed nods as I develop my sound-language, with him, all the while following each note I blow and shape-more fuel for me.

This other interesting moment, which happened in Aarhus was that we got into another space-funk jam that is really not in the plans but just unfolded though Bob's driving guitar chords, Ed picking up rhythms and all just falls in line. great time-all goes by fast and lasts forever.

real warm round of cheers and applause from the Leeds crowd.

i take the mic for q and a from the audience. The Leeds crowd was very sensitive to the imagery-members noticing even specific books in my library featured in Biblioteca Sol Oriens, name dropping Adam McLean and finding the visual language of Alchemy fascinating. I enjoyed talking with the crowd, usually my favorite part aside from the music-may like it even more because it is such a direct moment to connect-i feel the comfort as the planet gets smaller and our collective sensibilities are revealed honestly and with sincerity-so rare now.

LEEDS-VICTORIA HALL, Soundcheck and gig!

Time to set up the gear and get to showing some films and swingin avant-rock.

Wish i could say that the set up went well, the staff was diligent and helpful, but the whole time we were in the UK is was wrought with electronic gremlins.

We kept blowing out fuses in Marshall's amp for his EVI and I could not get my power converter to work-prob. blown fuse which we needed for Bob's effect pedals. So we had and emergency trip to the most impressive hardware, electronics store i have ever been too-clean, organized, helpful staff,and they had the fuses i needed-still they did not work, step up converters didn't work, step downs did not work and i had been completly out of touch with deb and the blog (which is why this is all diary entries from the past)-no internet connection because out batteries went dead. tough.

so bob stocked up on 9volts for his effects and we had to go to the music store for bob to get a inexpensive distortion petal because the amp was a little "off" sounding.

The Leeds crew helped us tremendously, always accommodating and courteous, providing transportation to shuttle us to and fro-and back to Victoria Hall.

SOUND CHECK got off better, ed was way over mic'd but the bugs we could work around and honestly the acoustics in this place were incredible!

Marshall had performed in just about every world-class venue so not much surprises him. Marshall turned to me to say that this venue was a real treat.

DAY 3-LEEDS TOWN HALL
VICTORIA HALL

after a very nice breakfast and a curious look at the sign to the armoury we are off to set up and soundcheck at Victoria Hall.

so beautiful, when we went inside we veered off to the left to set up, when alex told us that we were in the wrong area, though the doors and behold...

DAY 2-Heathrow to Leeds

After a hot and stuffy flight into London, we spilled out into Heathrow airport. I realized I lost my superfine sunglasses that deb made for me in toronto-most likely in carry on baggage checkpoint while going outside for some fresh air w/ bob and ed. i really dug those glasses and feel abit of the bad omen comin on-i just never lose me glasses-abit unsettling, everone assuring me that they are in my luggage somewhere, i know that they were in my coat side pocket and then they were not...shite

heathrow is pretty intense, much like jfk, especially after a long flight the airport seems to flow against you, like you are way out of phase with the space you are presently in. then off through customs and to baggage claim. getting that passport stamped seemed like more questions than i remember, but through with no prob. baggage claim we get our gear and bob goes out of the airport to smoke a fag and can't get back in-security giving him the hassle while we are waiting for him not knowing where he is or if he is waiting on the other side, however if you go to the other side and he comes back to where we were, good luck ever finding each other for most of the day-we got a car ad driver to catch up with-finally he turns up and off to the first breath of fresh air since we g0t to london-her name is sarah, a friendly sweetheart that graciously accepted the challenge to transport us and our gear to leeds.

after introductions and some light banter, more goofin and some roasted eggplant sandwiche, and some much needed coffee to get back in step we were off to car to leeds.

great little van with a snub nose front. sarah had a great cure for all of us in a car full of pressurized cabin addled brains and sleep psychosis sufferers-dub, a cd case full of roots music and fantastic dub.

we skanked our way through the busy highways of london cutting through the rush hour and jackrabbit stop and go traffic arteries and sarah's weighted lead foot. i dozed on and off smiling and enjoying the countryside as we leave london far behind.

we get into leeds and into our hotel where we meet up with lucy, also professional and chaming.

we get our room assignments. marshall and ed in one and me n bob in the other-move our stuff up the elevator (see pic) and move in. get cleaned up abit while lucy picks up a tiny practice amp for bobbo-nice one too, right at the front desk and much appreciated-like an early xmas present (see pic)


That evening we went out on the town to check out Leeds-we met up the Festival Director, Alex King-very nice, professional-top notch! Got to have a much needed beer finally, Stella, though it would be something a little more local but Stella was pretty much what they has and i do love Stella soooo...

We went back out into the cold night to grab some dinner that was set up by the Festival.
The restaurant was called Darbar, fantastic Indian food in a palatial setting.

really great food. during dinner i was really feeling the disconnect for a moment-that instant where you have no frame of reference-i was here one instant and now i am, well not certain where-i could be anywhere. Marshall and i make some eyecontact and start to gabbing. So often Marshall is centering to me. He just knows me so well-how i am eating, job got me down, homesick or when i am learning at crucial times in my life and noticing the signs.

DAY ONE- Atlanta to Toronto, Toronto to Leeds

Got up early, me and ed were taken to the airport by deb. i got to spend alittle extra time with my munchkin, she and i would look at each other and smile until she fell asleep. after we said our goodbyes and i grabbed extra smells of deb and baby i was off.

ed and i met up with marshall and bob in toronto. it was like a family reunion, all of us upbeat and goofin.

the plane to london was packed and got abit stuffy.
all of us goon takin our shoes off to get our feets some air. yikes was more like a frito-lay factory. sorry and cheers mate.