October 2008 was another time of uncertainty about the "what am I gonna do about my musical career" matter. I decided to make something with it so I made music.

I'd sit in my studio and start with whatever came to my spirit while playing around with sounds, rhythms, feelings.. No preconceived thoughts or arguments or melodies or anything, I'd just let the soul express itself.
I ended up spending lots of hours transforming all that into songs but the result was something completely unusual in my music

After working on it for 9 months, just when I thought it started to look like something you can share with people, I decided to make a video for each song.

I couldn't pay anybody, they'd have to TRUST me and themselves. I checked out a lot of artists working in different fields -dance, theater, painting, sand art, animation, etc..- and talked them into getting involved in the project.

I spent 2 months emailing people telling them: "I just need a few hours of your time". Some of them said no. Some of them didn't even bother to answer. But you know what?.. Some of them accepted!

I wanted to start ASAP. I worked all summer in a restaurant to make some money to finance the first steps of the project. My friend Pierre would buy the camera and some extra material to go with it.

After gently pushing everybody involved to commit to a particular date, all was set to commnece at the beginning of October. It was only at that point that I started wondering: "What am I doing?.."

- Starters -

Sept. 22
First starter : Go to visit The Prado Museum in Madrid. Awesome!

Sept.23
Second starter : Go to visit The Princesa Sofia Museum in Madrid. They kicked us out right when we got to Picasso's Guernica.. It was great, anyway.

Sept.24
Fly to Paris and meet dancer Jean Pierre Keclard. He tells me about the Hip-Hop dancers that are going to perform for the Electrons video and gives me a contact number.

I have a long telephone conversation with Germi -the wall building chief- about matters related to bricks, cement, sand, etc.. Things I've never ever thought of til that very day.

Sept.25
The brand new camera that'll be used to film arrives! I spend hours studying the manual.

Sept.26
I search for locations and work on the Electrons storyboard.

Sept.27

1st. meeting with the Hip-Hop dancers, an amateur company called Kif-Kif. They're young and cool!

Sept.28
Converstions with Pierre about light, speed and other stuff related to photography.

Sept.29
Laurence Hautot, one of the dancers I'm gonna work with, asks me for some explanations on my ideas for the Portrait of a Young Woman video. I realize I have no rational explanations for what I'm doing. I also realize I don't need to have any. As for the music, it all is going to be based on intuition, spontaneity and my conception of beauty.

I buy a lot of train tickets and go to study the apartment where Portrait.. is gonna be shot.

- The Building Section -

Sept.30
I take a train to Montluçon. As soon as I get there I go and check out the place where the wall for the Have a Nice Day video is gonna be built: a sheep grazing field owned by a friend.

Oct.1
That wall's gonna take more energy and cost more money than what I ever thought it would..

Oct.2
Meeting with Paddy, Freddie, Ritchie and Vinnie -from the Footsbarn Travelling Theatre- to talk about dates, the story, the scenery and other matters related to the filming of Human Rights. They're working on their new creation "Sorry", therefore we'll shoot from 9 p.m. til midnight or so and use the same set they're rehearsing in: a circus floor. 14 actors and musicians as well as some nice animals will take part.

Oct.3
Go with Germi and Jean to work on the foundations for the wall.
We can't find the bricks I want. 

Oct.4
I work to adapt the Human Rights storyboard to a circus floor.

Oct.5
Work with the camera and search for some of the material that'll be used for the movie.
Dinner with Paddy and Freddie at their beautiful house. We talk a bit about the video and a lot about other stuff. I love these guys.

Oct.6
First day of filming with the Footsbarn. Go to buy the stuff that's still needed, make the last changes on the storyboard and learn that the bricks I wanted for the wall are too expensive. I end up buying a different and cheaper kind that same day and two friends and myself bring them to the place. That sucks a lot of energy out of me. The filming session is OK, though.

Oct.7
Jean starts cutting the bricks that'll make the wall look straight on a 25 degree slope.

Second day of filming with the Footsbarn. After having watched the previous day's footage, I feel more confident. I decide to work more with the camera in hand and give my intuition more room. The filming goes way better. Working with the Footsbarn was a short but great experience.

Oct.8
First meeting with Féfé, the painter.

Although it rains a lot, skies clear up in the evening and our friend Mimi shows up to assemble the wall's first 3 rows of bricks.

Oct.9
I buy the paint for the West side of the wall. I get lost in the store searching for some plaster and decide I will never try to build a house.

Jean and Emmanuelle keep gluing bricks while I get sick of carrying them down the steep field.

- A drummer?!.. -


Oct.10
Allelujah, Germinal finishes the wall! A great relief..

That night we go to Bea's birthday party. There's a Jam Session. I play drums for three hours. I wanna be a drummer!

Oct.12
I do some filming of the wall early in the morning.

Go to see Féfé at his studio. He shows me some of his great sculptures and a sketch of the fresco.

Oct.13
Féfé makes his painting on the east side of the wall. It's a 4 and a half hour non stop session, three hours of footage of which no more than 2 min. will be used. My body aches.

Oct.14
I visit all the Asian restaurants in town. I need a place and a few Asian people just standing behind a Break Dancer for one of the videos. They look at me as if I were an allien from a far-off galaxy striving to explain a Flemish joke. I decide I better drop it and find another idea.

Oct.15
Jean varnishes Féfé's painting.

Oct.16
I have dinner with Stephanie and we talk about what may happen on the other side of the wall. She shows me some pics of her tits.

Oct.17
Go to Paris and meet Lol, who I only know from FaceBook.

Oct.18
After emptying my friends' living room and building some kind of dream-like set, Lol and I work intensly from morning til evening. She's a very nice woman.

- Up North -

Oct.19
Although it is clearly printed on the ticket, I make a mistake and arrive at the train station 4 hours early. Once I get to Morlaix I meet Delphine and Vincent. Delph is another FaceBook friend.

Although the basic Rain story was written for a woman and a doll, that same evening I meet one of her best friends and dancer student, Amelie. She is pleased to be asked to participate as a substitute to the doll.

Oct.20
Go with Delphine and Vincent to find some locations to shoot in.

Oct.21
It's my birthday and Amelie's as well. We film some dancing and playing at the beach in early evening. Later on we meet with Veronique and Christian whom have kindly offered to let us shoot in their incredible house. That amazing place gives the story a complete turn.

Oct.22
We film all day. Amelie had some very bad news in the morning but does a great job anyway.

Oct.23
So sad to say goodbye to these guys. Such wonderful people. I leave this place full of good energy and a renewed will to keep going. Brittany is by far my favourite place in France!

- Can a stain possibly dance?.. -


Oct.24
Pierre and I look for some other locations for Electrons.

Oct.25
We meet with Kif-Kif at 1pm. and work til 6pm. They're flexible nice youngsters. We all have a lot of fun!

Oct.26
Studio session: Jean comes to Paris to record the bass for 4 titles of the Bubbles' music.

Oct.27
Back to Montluçon. I paint the West side of the wall.. Pink.

Oct.28
Stephanie and I spend the day trying different furniture and items in front of the wall. Hours later I decide to stick to the simplest and use just a few objects and sculptures.

Oct.29
I film Stephanie. Féfé the painter comes to play a small part, too.

At 4pm. the three little girls arrive. They're beautiful and go for it.. We have a lot of fun!

Oct.30
I go to the Footsbarn's and have a meal with Sylvie. We talk about the possibilities of asking for a subvention to finish the project, which people to contact to have some support, how to do it, etc.. The first conclusions are these: 1- I don't wanna borrow money from the bank but I need to find either someone to borrow it from or some investors. 2- Like it or not I have to seriously work on a dossier to present the work.

- Yes, it can.. -


Oct.31
I film René the dancer from noon til 2pm, my Kabyle friends Djamila and Farrida dancing from 2pm. til 3pm. and then go to Bea and Jean Luc's and shoot them in a kind of improvised horror movie set from 3pm. to 5pm.                           

In the evening I watch some of the footage and find there was a stain on the lens while filming René's wonderful dancing in front of a tree. Do I need to tell you I wanna hit my head against a wall? A pink one, maybe.

Nov. 1
I film René in front of the same tree round noon. The result looks less interesting than the day before, of course. A philosophical question arises: What is a stain to do in art?.. Can a stain dance?..

At 1.30pm. we meet with the Acrobacirque guys. They are impressed by Jean hitting his car against a huge cement beam he swears he didn't see. We all go to a nice flat field and I ask them to stand in positions that make me think of some Fellini movies.

In the afternoon I film Jean walking to the pink wall. For the time being, that's the end of my fimming in France. As soon as we stop shooting it starts raining. Jean laughs at the "chance" I've had with the weather for this time of the year in that country.

- End of this side of the trip -


Nov. 2
I take a train to Paris. The train is delayed by what the French call "an accident of person". It's sad.

Nov.3 to Nov. 8
I fly to Madrid and take a train to Salamanca.

Vane shows me the locations she's found to shoot in, I like them right away. Weather is uncertain. I meet some of the people who are going to participate.

On Saturday we film til it starts raining. It's kind of frustrating cause we all would like to keep at it a bit longer, but that'll be it. Everybody was as great as they were late! Spain..

Nov. 9
I spend the day in different trains til I get to Barcelona. End of this side of the trip.

* The Pink Note *

Everybody was incredibly nice. They all got involved as if it were their own project. There were no arguments, misunderstandings or anything of the sort. We all listened to each other with respect and get the best of out of it.

I ended up working with 50 performers plus a bunch of friends and participants who'd help with the cooking, the driving or the building of the wall. I got back to Barcelona full of the energy and love everybody put in this project and concluding I was not wrong in believing money's not the only energy that makes the world go round and around.

*The Musical Note*

Using the music for syncronicity or other aspects didn't seem necessary to me. This is not a video clip project..
Except by some rare occasions all was made to the music of silence, well, except for my voice..

*The Euronote*

Pierre and me have spent over 2000 euros each for the moment. It's not that big an amount of money -well, except for us! I'm gonna need some financial support to finalize this project, though.

There's something that's been shown to me all through this project: everytime the weather, some particular circumstance or person or anything else makes you change your plans, something new takes place. If you adapt to it, play with it and even enjoy it, you are giving yourself the opportunity to get the best you can from that unexpected situation.
You can protect yourself from the wind, but you can't fight it. I think that the only thing we need to keep going is our faith and trust in life, ourselves and the people we are with.

I don't know what makes us move in a particular direction, choose the people we work with, a musical note instead of another or the way we want to show something to others. I don't know why after being a musician for so many years I suddenly decide to make 12 videos and work in a field I'm not familiar with. But I believe things don't happen just like that, there's always a preparation, some sort of concoction, a preamble, and one day everything's ready. Then you have to go for it.

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Photos by Jean Verdu, Vincent Alicendre, Pierre Barromes & Vanessa Martín.
English text corrections: Jim Garcia

Music: Intro / If I Ever Get to China / Rain (Part 2) / Postlude
Composed by Josue Febles (C) 2009

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