Robert Rich | Off to Riga - thoughts forward

Off to Riga – thoughts forward

by Robert Rich on August 28, 2008 in Recent Activity

Well, the tickets to Latvia came through, and I hope to be boarding a Polish aircraft in San Francisco CA (USA) early Friday morning for an (Uggh) 18 hour flight to the Baltic. I arrive Saturday around noon (counting the 10 hour time shift), where I hope my luggage shows up with me, and I plan to borrow a portion of an MOTM modular system from Girts Radzins, a fellow Synthesis Technology customer kind enough to offer me access to his modules for this performance. Thank you, Girts! I have been practicing a 2-hour set that includes some new material and a fair amount of improvisation (how does one practice that?) With hopes that I can sleep a bit on the flight (unlikely), I’ll recover a bit on Sunday and fly home early Monday morning. After hearing so much good stuff about Riga, I know I’ll regret not spending more time there.

The day after I get back I teach the second audio mastering class for students at Cogswell College. The first class this week felt good, and I’m excited about sharing my enthusiasm for good sounding audio. Can we bring the love back to “Audio-phile”? I hope so.

11 days after that, I fly to Wisconsin for another performance that I really look forward to. Wisconsin’s Earthdance takes place in Black River Falls, and I’m hoping to rip a marathon there if the mood strikes. With the improvisational mindset that has taken hold for me this year, I rely on the energy of listers to guide me forward. I know that my sounds can seem slow at times to those that aren’t on the same page, so I tend to adjust according to vibe. Sometimes my sets get heavy and intense, sometimes bright and shiny, or mellow and gentle. I try my best to read the energy. If the vibe hits, magic can happen. I keep hoping for this.

At some point after that I hope, some of this performance preparation will start to inform the new album I have brewing in my head. Oh, and speaking of new albums, as soon as I settle in I think “Zerkalo” will arrive from St. Petersburg, Russia, alas only 300 copies, so we’ll be taking orders and wrapping packages for a week or so.

A question for readers: If I offered for pay-download a bunch of old live concerts in their entirety (edited and mastered by me, in the case of gaffs I can’t stand to listen to…) would you be interested in them? I have some archives I am pondering for digital-only release. These are all live concerts, dating back to a radio concert in Paris in 1989. Some are more recent. Most of them feature unreleased music. Comments?

Much love – Robert