I'm no longer doing my reviews in chronological order, I'm that behind on blog work. But I'm catching up, I'm getting there. Here is the first of a two-part series on my musical experiences while spending a week in Lisbon last month.
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| C* listening intently to Excepter |
The most noteworthy experience we had in Lisbon was art-related. We ventured out of the old city centre and took a tram out to the Museu Colecção Berardo, a space built to accommodate the impressive modern art collection of Portuguese millionaire José Berardo. Entry to the museum is free to the public and pretty much all art movements of the 20th century are represented and informatively presented. To our delight, while there, we stumbled into a small temporary sound art exhibition called O Novo Ofício (The New Trade). It displayed pieces of sound equipment and art associated with music and sound collages, starting with Eric Satie and moving up to contemporary musicians like Excepter, Black Dice, and Jandek. It was the most amazing exhibition and I wish it could move to Berlin for all of you to see. You were given MP3 players with songs and you would select the relevant track to the piece of art or musical equipment you were looking at. Some pieces involved the visitor by encouraging play, others were off-limits to the public. We spend a lot of time in those two small rooms. My favourite pieces were those by John Cage, a rondel of record players and literally hundreds of records that you could play as you chose, and by Excepter. They had chosen to transform a hot dog cart into a boom box stand with candy and skulls and bones added. The chosen song was so good I listened to it three times in a row, all too aware that J. had been seeing them at West Germany only the night before. Magic.
Our primary reason for our little travel to the Mediterranean was the Optimus Alive festival, which we had to attend in a work-related matter. The Kills were playing the festival on the stage sponsored by a beer brand at 1:50 am. (On a side note: that brand seems to follow us around. A week later, we would see Moon Duo at another sponsored event, not to speak of the beer sponsored festival that The Kills played earlier last month - when did that beer brand become so interested in sponsoring music events?) Now I seriously lack rock'n'roll credentials since I struggle to sustain stamina past midnight. However, my partner had a lot of work on his plate and I could watch Radiohead, making the time pass surprisingly fast. I was getting into the Portuguese late-night spirit.
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