Hello,
Adam Kidd Band have just spent a couple of days recording at Oscillate Recordings, in Albourne. It was an odd session for us in some ways, as there is no intention of these particular takes ever seeing the light of day! We've been rehearsing twice a week since the start of the year and these recordings a just a test to see how well the work we're doing is going. It can be difficult to assess how ready for recording a band is without actually recording them... so now we should be able to see. We may well go back in a months time and do it all again! This is all part of a process that's leading us towards a trip to a tip top studio where we'll be recording our first proper release (as long as all goes according to plan!)
I made put a load of clips I recorded on my phone together to make a couple of 'making-of' videos. It's my first attempting at doing anything like this, so the results are understandably shonky. Checkemout:
In other news I went to the cinema yesterday and had my best experience of 3D since Avatar!! Well, really it's probably unfair to even attempt to compare James Cameron's Avatar with Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams... but they are the only two examples I have of 3D cinema that has made me go 'Ooooh', 'Ahhh', and turn my head to one side or the other in an attempt to peer around or into scenes. I went to see Toy Story in 3D but the enhancement was subtle and easily forgotten, Avatar was mind blowing, but sadly the plot was only marginally better than Disney's Pocahontas.
Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a different prospect all together. Herzog leads a small documentary crew with unprecedented access to the Chauvet Caves in Southern France. People are more likely to have heard of the Lascaux cave paintings, also in France, but Lascaux is now sealed up after years of visitors breathing in the cave caused mould to begin growing on the paintings.
The Chauvet Caves were discovered in 1994, and since then have been sealed off to visitors, with only scientists, and Herzog's film crew allowed extremely restricted access. The paintings in Chauvet are the earliest examples of human beings leaving their mark that we have discovered. The paintings, of horses, rhino, cave lions, bears, antelope, ibex and even a panther; are stunning. Beautifully rendered and less naive than you might expect. Herzog's decision to use 3D was, in my opinion, an excellent one as the paintings make use of the contor's of the cave walls to give their subjects relief and dynamism, as the scenes wrap around walls and into indentations there is a real sense of movement and action. In some cases the animals are depicted with 8 legs - as if 2 frames of an animation are simultaneously visible.
The Caves were in use something close to 40,000 years ago, which is staggering. At some point there was a landslide which blocked the caves original entrance and left it perfectly sealed for millenia. The floor of the cave contains bones and skulls that have been completely covered in the calcium deposits that form stalactites and stalacmites, making them look like rock sculptures rather than rela bones. The humans who used these caves so long ago would never even have seen these features!
I've been working on a new song for a little while, Aaron says it sounds Australian - or aboriginal - and was thinking about cracking out his didgereedoo for it!! I've been trying to finish the lyrics, which are about fragments of memories, both those which we use to piece together the lives of our distant ancestors and the kind our subconscious uses to create our own dreams... as I see that there is a great parallel between our dreams and our image of the past. I'm hoping the eye and brain candy on offer in Cave of Forgotten Dreams will spur me on to finish it!!
Ta-ta.
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