VICEVERSE BLOG

Cerkno is a place that you least expect. It’s a place that every musician wishes existed, but seems impossible.

Cerkno, nestled in the mountains of Slovenia, about 2 hours from the capital city of Ljubljana, has a population of around 2000. The dialect is fairly strong, and most people don’t speak Serbian, and its much harder to understand their Slovenian dialect. There is a small ski industry. The ski hotel did not have a single guest at the time. This is a no stop light kind of town. And the people of Cerkno booked ViceVerse to perform in their town. What?

Cerkno is a music haven. Their internationally renown no-nonsense jazz festival is entering its 16th season, its shows in tiny bars across the village, hosting artists like Ken Vandermark, Fred Frith, Francesco Cusa, Myra Melford, Antonio Marangolo and Peter Evans Quartet. Childrens music workshops are held alongside music photography and even “wild food”, where the guide takes the festival goers out into the wooded area around the village to pick herbs, mushrooms and whatever else you can find growing on its own, to make a truly local meal. People come from all over to attend. Cerkno is a best kept secret. There is one grandma that cooks all the meals for the bands who come through town, and they have their very own schnapps, known in English as Bear’s Blood.

The children of the gentlemen who run the jazz festival now run their own club, called CMAK – Center for Alternative Music Culture (respectively). This is a town that have an “alternative” music club, where my own hometown of Boulder doesn’t even have a club. Cerkno is doing something right. The CMAK kids are like a micro tribe within Cerkno, each of them with their bright eyed, big hearted dreadlocked and half shaved signature look. When we arrived Luka and Blanka, who had taken a bus there, were lying in the meadow next to the club, hiding under spring wildflowers. mr NANA held a KidsPatch session for 3 little ones under the age of 5, on stone patio outside CMAK, masking making, with little to no verbal exchange due to the aforementioned language barriers. Upon arrival  in Cerkno immediately felt lighter, a sense of elation and physical freedom set in. And of course, we had the most steady wifi of the tour so far. Mario, who runs Cerkno Jazz Festival, put us up in the rooms above his bar, and fed us Bear’s Blood schnapps when we got out of the van. The people were completely welcoming and open. This community has fostered a deep appreciation for music and music as a way of life. It is a built in mode for these folks. The show itself was perhaps better attended than we possibly could have expected, the dreadshaved tribe of CMAK dancing and yelling. These folks would have danced for 2 days straight, or as long as we played music for them. These are the experiences in life that one will never forget.

Few words can describe the feeling that comes from something like this. Inspiration, Meaning, Magic…
I dare to say that Cerkno is a utopia in a sense, or at least a shining example of whats possible when an entire community engages in music and art as a way of life. I can only hope that I can return to Cerkno at some point in the future, and that I can embrace these same principles in my own practices.

Por Vida!  – katers

Ljubljana is always pleasure for us, people coming from Belgrade. Town suited for humans, a lot of trees, parks, no traffic jams, no stress on the streets and a lot of art and culture all around. That’s why we were very excited to share our fascination of this wonderful place with our dear US ViceVerserians. Coming from Vienna, even on the highway it was possible to sense that we are approaching very nice part of the Europe. Light green color around us on the fields and hills , clear sky and sun were promising enough. In Ljubljana we had a lot of programs presented in different spaces. In an very special cultural Center, Kino Siska, we presented ViceVerse photo exhibition by Sam Campbell, WoO played on the same event with Ben Frost. On the same night, after party was organized at the club K4 with D-Numbers DJ set. In Ljubljana, we were reunited with Lukatoyboy again, with special appearance of the FTW through some serious wall tagging.

Next day we had KidsPatch workshops at KinoSiska, we premiered new masks and different paper objects made by our dear friends d-bend. After some arts and crafts Lukatoyboy made an musical set up where kids did the beat boxing and singing through audio manipulation process. The night was reserved for Metelkova and club Chanel Zero were VV showcase was hosted by Senada, Selman and Sasha. Lot of friends joined Manchek, Bostjan, Dusica and many more.
We were joking, but actually it felt right…Ljubljana is definitely European version of Boulder.

Cerkno (Slovenia) was our next stop…stay tunned for more Vv advetures.

Over(and)out mr officer

Arrival. Landing. Reunion. Grounded. New Home. New Van. ViceVerse.

Everyone met the airport in Vienna, Feathericci and Cara had been in Barcelona for holiday after Feath played the Lucky Dice festival with Boris and The Salt Licks in Amsterdam. Relja and the G Man played a campout festival in the Serbian countryside the night before our flight arrived and drove straight from the gig at 5am to the airport. ViceVerse Spirit. No one slept really. Of course.

It is amazing when you expect to sleep on the floor of the venue and the promoters give you the keys to not just one, but two flats. We used one spot as a studio, one as the flat, and the venue, or gallery, as the office, since there was no internet at either of the other spots. In fact, thus far, it’s been slim picking with wifi. Lukatoyboy is the internet hunter, as always. In short, we have not had a steady signal yet. Wish us luck. It goes like this…

“Dear Interwub, without you, the world will not know what ViceVerse is doing in the moment. You want this blog post, right?”

Vienna: BOEM. These guys do it right. Proletarian Fridays and Monday Night Cinema. The venue is a small multi use gallery space. The BOEM bar sits on the street corner, a Serbian kafana-esque watering hole for the local workers. The BOEM folks wear many hats, running the bar and the gallery everyday. BOEM is in the 16^th district of Vienna, known as the foreigner’s district, where a place like BOEM with focus on Ex Yugo culture makes sense. The three gentlemen who run BOEM work around the clock with joy and heart. They made us incredible vegetarian meals every night – onion soup, coconut curry, corn chili. All the shows were free to the public. D Numbers played their first set on the European continent to an eager and open eared crowd. The exhibition lived in a street facing window display. Minimal and gorgeous. BOEM is socially motivated, politically aware, for the people, heartfelt and conscious, Honor filled, mindful and human. ½ the crew will return in June. Connectivity. A good start to ViceVerse Part 2: EU.  - katers

Started Blog Post:

Listening to: D Numbers soundcheck.

9:54pm CET, Ljubjlana, Slovenia – @ Channel Zero backstage in Metelkova. (a metal club in a squat which is a former army base in the center of the city. Sick)

Ended Blog Post:

Listening to: Moodswinger on the decks.

Vice Verse Thank Yous:

Chris Henry + Aaron Bolton at The Badlander and Ear Candy, Ian O’Brian at Autonomous Music, Cindy the parking lady in Missoula, Irving at Les Schwab in Portland, Barnett English + the Joshua Tree Music Festival team, Trevor Holmes + Phil Himot at Ion Electric, Tana Sprague and all the GAFFTA ladies, Naut Humon, Alain Mongeau + the MUTEK team, Kyle Griffin and the Beltane crew, Matt Arnold, Hepp McCoy and AudioPixel, Cobi at the Compound, Cupo, The Bread + Pie Angel in Los Gatos, Katelynn Ingersol, Thomas Kamholz, Anne Guise + the kids at the Bright Lights Initiative, Justin Gibbon, Dan Trevitt + Carl Ritger at SYNergy in Philly, Jason Short + Vivien Bilbao, Jason Urick, Evan Moritz, Matt Blake, Nick Miranda, Django, Nebojsa Cvetkovic, Gojko Kis, Pete, Megan, Inga Weins, Kelli Ann York, Barb Blake, Max, Andy, Judi Lesta, Lisa Miles, Suzanna Choffel, Lorene Hernandez, Michael Campbell, Louise Hernandez, Cecil Hernandez, Rick + Pat Schwartzburg, Deborah Campbell, Kyle Krall, Sima Kurtson, Marc the Locksmith, Ian Ridge-balls and all our homies at The Lodge, Charlotte at the Boulder County Arts Alliance, Lauren Higgins, The Colorado Carbon Fund, Craig Domes + the Missoula Children’s Museum, Dave McFerson + the Santa Fe Complex, Juliet Myers + SITE Santa Fe, Charles Nichols + the University of Missoula, Jason Silberschlag + Cartel Coffee, Dave Theno + the kids at the Golden Eagle Charter School in Mt. Shasta, Geoff White, the crew at Steamship Lilac, the folks and students at New Canan High School, all the CMKYers who patiently played “Where’s Kate” during the tour, our mums +dads, our ladies back home, Team Everything, everyone we forgot, and of course the Trust for Mutual Understanding.

Only with your love, help and support we were able to carry out this amazing USA + Canada tour in the spring 2010.

We are excited and happy to inform you that in 2 days our next ViceVerse phase starts >> this time we take over the EUROPA!

Stay tuned for more info on wonderful people, events, locations, photos and videos from our new adventures!

<3 ViceVerse Crew

Terra firma.

After 48 hours in the van to process our past 52 days on the road, we have touched down back in Boulder. The knots in our hearts, memories, and backs have begun to unwind and reality has hit- the ViceVerse Tour is over- for now. One beautiful week in Montreal as our transient tantamount and one epochal night of Mutek taking over the Savoy room Saturday night were the cherry on to of the icing on top of a 52 layer cake. The people, the places, the sounds, the struggles, the strife, the sweetness, and the all-over victory of our tour has left the ViceVerse crew forlorn to say goodbye. But don’t think that just because we have left the road that our work here is done. No sir. With 40+ hours of footage, over 15,000 photos, countless live recordings, and a European tour to plan, ViceVerse is just getting started- and that goes the same for the VV blog and VVTV.

As we sit weary eyed, blossomed hearted, and hungry minded, we say cheers. Cheers to everyone who has helped us along our way and everyone who came out to support what we are doing. It wasn’t easy, but it was a labor of love. Thank you everyone, we love you very, very much.

Look forward to an onslaught of new content, new projects, and new movements from ViceVerse. Whether we are at home or on the road- ViceVerse, its all the same- we are out to make it happen.

Photos from our Mutek showcase:

Hello there,

first blog post from me is pretty late coming, but better ever than never. Either way, there will be more content coming on these pages even once our vehicle hits the parking lot of the rental firm in Austin, Texas. So don’t forget about this URl once we stop moving!

So what is this about? I have been receiving praise from fellow passengers about my ability to sleep in any situation and at any time, or for the fact that I sleep often but little. Eventually, due to the nature of this tour, I ended up taking a nap or (much less often) going into deep sleep in some of the most amazing, comfortable, weird, annoying or utterly uncomfortable places and positions in my life.

So here we go! In the last 43 days, I have slept:

- in a master bedroom in a house

- on the seat on a moving bus

- on a sofa on a moving bus

- on top of a pool table

- on a mattress in a parked bus

- on the floor of a venue

- in the middle of a club with 8.2 surround PA

- on a dining table

- on the roof of the bus

- in a camping chair in the desert

- in n Indian tent in the desert whilst listening to Gamelatron

- on a sofa in a fancy villa

- on the floor of an office

- on a trampoline, in the burning sun

- in a cottage in the woods

- on the backseat of a car parked in the middle of the woods

- in a cottage on a frozen lake

- on various other sofas and futons around the USA

Also, I have:

- shared a sofa/bed with another person

- shared a bed with two more people

- shared a bed with three more people

Hope you find this list interesting, it would be the best thing coming out of my useless sleeping habits.

And there is one final conclusion of this tour: SLEEP IS NOT OVERRATED !!!

(Big up to everyone and anyone who helped me pass out in their homes and on their furniture! )

Your truly,

Moodswinger

First night at Mutek. Where do I start… 10 hours on a Greyhound from NYC and face first into the most groundbreaking and exhilarating performance I have seen in many moons. For those of you who are unaware of the music of Matias Aguayo, buscala (look for it… in its imperative form). What many will hail as the best record this year, the performance was consistent with the recordings. Live vocal loops, drum pads, mic’ed maracas, tambourine, and some good old fashioned EQing rendered one of the most exciting new sounds in electronic music. The dance floor was insanely sweaty, the lights were concussive, and the jams were jam. Playful music complimented by a lightly-hearted pop star presence not only made this a fun set but a complete contrast to a genre of music often accused of taking it self too seriously. Icing on the cake: Matias closed with the track ‘Minimal’, a track that accuses minimal techno, a Mutek staple, of having ‘no groove, no balls’. Ja ja ja ja, everyone still dug it.

Matias-centric photo series:

The idea to put together a performance in New York was a lofty prospect on its own. Now put it on a hundred year old boat, dock it in the Hudson, and you have ViceVerse in NYC. Everybody Does It, WoO, D Numbers, and Borne all brought their A games to what turned out to be the most magical evening of the tour yet. Pretty tough statement to make all shows considered.  What started as our most logistically challenging load in to date turned out to be an intimate evening with friends in an enchanting city. Serene, eclectic… Does not even begin to describe this scene. With the waves lapping against the hull, a cool breeze enveloping a kinetic crowd, and the city lights for a backdrop, NYC was pure electricity. Special thanks to Mr. Brandon Wolcott AKA Smirk, the generous crowd for the donations, and the crew of the Steamship Lilac for rocking the boat.

Insert flier:

Insert Photo gallery:

Insert inevitable pop culture reference:

“I’m on a mother f_*king boat.”

Photos from our show in Stamford last week. Thank you again to Ed, Barbara, and Omi. What a beautiful city and magical night.

Sitting at our favorite spot in Montreal, Laika, among friends as per usual at Mutek. Arrived just in time to catch Matias Aguayo’s set last night… earth-shattering. On the run today so here are some photos from the show in balitmore. More to come today.