Ramblings: 2012 Recap Part 1 - The Spiritual Roadie

Two-thousand and twelve.

Recently, each year has posed some interesting new adventures and new experiences. When I first started this blog I made a claim that 2010 was such an amazing year and that 2011 has a lot to live up to. 2011 ended up being incredibly awesome. I stopped expecting what the next year will hold for me and was open to anything.

Twenty-twelve started fairly uneventful. But it was nice. I was back with my family in Oklahoma. Other than the amazing Dead Sea Choir concert later in January, there isn't much to talk about until March.

Originally I planned for a large East Europe trip to start in January. I wanted to experience an Eastern European winter... walking around outside in the cold with a dismal, overcasted sky, the exquisite yet drab coloured architecture surrounding me, while sipping some hot mulled wine. But a sudden decision to move to New York City in May forced me to push the tail end of my trip to my arrival in NYC. So, instead of the end of January to the middle of March, it ended up being from the end of March to middle of May. The plans were set. One week in Italy, one week in Austria, two weeks in Hungary, one week in Bulgaria, two weeks in Turkey. I just had to play the waiting game. Fortunately I was kept busy with a variety of work to pass the time.


Pre-Europe trip... trip

The trip started earlier than expected. I was aware of Labirinto's tour earlier in the year. In fact, I was trying to help them book some shows. I was only successful with booking one show, in Norman, Oklahoma. Elated with my efforts to help, Muriel (the drummer) invited me to tour with them if I could make it to Chicago. Three minutes later a one-way flight to Chicago was booked.

As usual, when I book my flights I always book them out of Dallas. Flights are much cheaper there than out of Oklahoma City, and I like to take the train to Fort Worth. I was hoping to meet with my first Couchsurfer on my small pitstop to Dallas, but I couldn't get a hold of him. So I spent the night in a hostel in Irving. I met the owner out front, a Bulgarian man named Иван (Ivan). "Здравей!!!" He whipped around to see who just greeted him in his language. Before I got the chance to be embarrassed with a slew of Bulgarian words just to inform him I just know how to greet, I quickly introduced myself. Excited to know that he was Bulgarian, I informed him of my trip plans to Bulgaria. He was more confused than delighted. Even after explanation he still couldn't understand why I would go to Bulgaria. Oh well.

In the hostel I met an absolutely delightful Argentine woman, Jesica, and a guy named David. I got to taste Yerba Mate for the first time. (And I'm craving it now.) The night was rather uneventful, as there is not much to do in Irving.


The next day I was on my way to Chicago. I decided to arrive in Chicago a few days early to visit a friend in the suburbs, Laura. It was rather cold, so our time was primarily spent indoors. Not much to tell about this part of the trip. It was your general hang-out-with-a-friend time which was probably the only extended relaxing period I would have before my life started to go in overdrive.

I headed back into Chicago and spent a day to enjoy the city before starting my musical excursion with Labirinto.



I woke up the next morning excited. This is when my adventure officially starts. After a delicious breakfast at a Greek restaurant next to my hostel, I scheduled to meet with the guys. We went to pick Gabe (one of their old friends) up at the airport, then load up the van for their first show in Chicago.


The next week was spent crammed in a van with five other men and one woman hitting up venues in Des Moines, Iowa; Kansas City; and Norman, Oklahoma.



We were hoping to grab a show in Omaha or Lincoln, Nebraska, but that didn't work out. So we decided we would spend the free day wandering around the Kansas City music scene to do a little bit of promotional work. On the way to the city we stopped at a rest stop to take a little break when I noticed a van of the same size park into the lot about eight spots away. "That's a tour van." As the doors swung open and a group of people decked in all black charged out most likely on a mission to empty their bladders, I thought, "I KNEW IT!" We were about to leave, but I wasn't about to go without knowing who they were. Their tour manager replied my query, "A Storm Of Light." "Are you guys headed to Kansas City as well?" I further asked. "Yup!" They were playing that night while Labirinto the night after, nice! I didn't think much of it until we arrived and started hitting up the record stores and CD shops. One of the guys heard Corrosion of Conformity was playing that night. And on a spur of the moment our quiet, free night suddenly became a night of Metal! And then it hit me... A Storm of Light is metal... could they be? Yes. Yes they were. They were the first band to open for Corrosion. And they were actually my favourite of the four bands that played that night.

It is worth noting that Labirinto's show next evening was incredible. The lineup was a really crazy mix of genres that all had nothing in common. But I like these kinds of shows. "Variety is the spice of life." Labirinto killed it that evening, though. They were at their peak.


The last day of my tour with Labirinto was a sombre one for me. I didn't want it to end, but I knew that I still had a massive trip ahead of me. We arrived back at my family's house with warm greetings from my mother and a lot of food. It was Sunday, so Labirinto got to partake in our traditional Sunday family dinner. That night, Labirinto were all Leathers.


After dinner we rushed to the Opolis for my last show with Labirinto. I was extremely nervous, this was the show that I organized. Sadly, there wasn't a big turnout. But it was a fun night none-the-less. Tele Mori and The Samurai Conquistadors rocked it pretty hard.






The next day we had to say our goodbyes... but not before lunch! My father decided to take the entire band out to an awesome burger joint in Oklahoma City, S&B's Burger Joint. We had some tasty burgers, delicious fries, crazy bloody mary's (a must-have if you go to S&B's), some great conversation, then exchanged hugs and said our goodbyes.




Labirinto continued their tour to SXSW, New York, and Canada while a tour of my own was about to commence...

... Europe...

The Wandering Musicphile presents: Our Ceasing Voice

Many people express their passions in different ways. For music, however, someone with an intense passion has a tendency to end up playing an instrument. It has been long since I played one (piano), but my passion in music is still strong. It's probably stronger than it ever was. And because of this insatiable desire, I've had some amazing experiences. But nothing, up to this point, could really satisfy. I needed to do exactly what musicians do with their passion. I needed to create something.

I do not play an instrument, nor do I desire to get back into playing one. I work in video post-production. This is my expression of my passion in music through what I'm good at.

The Wandering Musicphile Presents...

Our Ceasing Voice

A little back story behind the project:
I've gone great lengths in trying to find ways to appease my passion in music. But when the day is done, I feel like I've only scratched the surface. One day an idea hit me, why not use my skills in video post-production toward my passion? "Music videos," came to mind. I made my first video for the Hungarian band, Marionette ID. It was a pre-album release video for Alluvion. I loved working on that. But I wanted to do something... different. That is when I realized that I should add my travel into the mix. "Make a video of musicians as not just musicians but as people, someone that we all can relate to. And capture them in their own home town." I've yet to see a video on musicians that had this level of intimacy. I decided to start this project on Our Ceasing Voice on my two month trip through Europe. I had already seen them in Budapest and Vienna the year prior and had established a friendship, so I thought I might as well.

I had the fear that bringing a recording camera into the scene would detract from my own personal experiences with who I already consider as friends. But surprisingly to me, it did not. For the week I spent in Austria I shot 55 gigs of footage. I edited during my stay in Budapest, Hungary and Sofia, Bulgaria. Right when I finished my first cut my external hard drive slid off the desk and hit the floor and sustained severe mechanical damage. I couldn't back up the project onto my computer, it had no space. I deemed the project as dead. But at least two people got to see it.

After arriving back to NYC I took the hard drive in for repairs. What was claimed to be a 3-5 day repair ended up taking 3 weeks. When I received my new hard drive with the restored data I realized I had lost almost (if not more than) 50% of my data. 20 out of 60 files were completely corrupted and the rest were partially corrupted. Videos that could play were segmented, 40 seconds of good footage followed by 20 blank seconds, then a minute of good footage... etc. etc. The project had to edited with pieces of footage. It was very, very difficult to create this re-edit especially since I lost some pivotal scenes, but I was up for the challenge. Plus, this means too much to me to give up. It took me more than 10x the amount of time it took me to cut the original edit. The original was 20 minutes long (5 minutes longer than my target length for this video project series). This edit is at my target length, but took me a while to cut it in such a way so that I could meet that target. I am not 100% pleased with the pacing. But for what it's worth, I'm happy with the way it turned out.

Anyway, it is now finished. Now I would like to move on to some more bands as well as my idea for "Raw New York" featuring street musicians in the same fashion as this "presents..." project.

...presents Raw New York City: Jovan Johnson

This has possibly been the craziest weekend of my life. I'm still trying to grasp how everything happened in three days. One of the biggest highlights of the weekend, however, was the very end. As I walked into the ACE 14th St. subway by myself I heard some wonderful music coming from... somewhere. I heard this wonderful tone of brass. The music became louder and louder as I ventured deeper into the station. Suddenly I'm staring at a young black man playing the trombone.



He finishes his improvised song and starts a new one. He does some simple beat boxing, puts it on a loop, and creates various other layers with his trombone. I found myself doing exactly what I do at most Post-Rock concerts I attend... I closed my eyes and just listened. I've never imagined myself doing this to a performer in a subway station. But there I was. It was 02:00 so the station was nearly empty. There was no big crowd, he was just playing music for the pure enjoyment of doing so. He had told me that he already reached his tip goal for the day. This both impressed and inspired me. I was in the presence of someone expressing his passion in music in such an unlikely spot during an unlikley time of the day. And I could feel it through his playing. It was then when I realized... I want to do a spin-off video project that will feature NYC street performing musicians that impress me.

So, look forward to some videos on various musicians that roam the streets, parks, and subways in various cities and countries. (There will obviously be more NYC just because I live here now.) I think I shall call this project Raw *city name*.


(Someone seemed to have recorded him that night as well.)

A little update on "The Wandering Musicphile Presents... Our Ceasing Voice," The project has been on hold this week. I've been pretty busy. I am hoping to resume it last week. I'm hoping even more that it will be finished this week too, but we'll see.