South East Asia Tour Jan/Feb 2023
Thank you to @djunot_avp on Instagram for the featured image photo.
I was invited to do a tour of South East Asia without much notice. It was an incredible experience and I want to document what happened with a blog post. I would also like to acknowledge that I received an Emergency Grant from the Foundation Contemporary Arts. I am so grateful to the Foundation Contemporary Arts for this grant as it partially funded my airfare and really made this tour possible. Thank You!
The tour was basically myself and an amazing artist from Latvia, whose artist name is Water Flower. She consistently sounded great every night and it was inspiring to hear her and see her show night after night. All in all I did 3 shows in Malaysia and 15 throughout Indonesia. Both Waterflower and I were doing Audio/Visual Performances and I brought a nice projector for us to use at every show.
Here is a video compilation with footage of some of my performances:
When I go on tour unexpected things always happen and it’s good to be flexible and willing to adjust to what comes your way.
One of the shows I was particularly excited about was playing at the 2023 Jogja Noise Bombing Festival. The day I was set to perform the festival was going to take place outdoors in a nice garden type venue. Before I was going to play I set up all of my gear and the projector.
Once everything was set up and I was all ready to start, monsoon rain started pouring down on me, onto my gear, computer and everything. Some people helped me to take my gear into a covered area, but I still was performing outdoors with rain sort of spilling around me. The projector was covered and could not be used, so the audio/visual set I wanted to do was immediately scrapped. I just improvised a harsh noise style set.
Here is a video of my set. You can see and hear the rain when I started. As the rain died out people started to gather around my table and I felt their support, which was very inspiring.
Water and electronic music are kind of a lethal combination. I was able to keep my computer and equipment from getting wet. However my case got wet. When I got to where I was staying I realized what had happened and my computer got water damage, and was basically unusable.
Myself and our incredible driver Leo spent the next day driving around trying to fix my computer. I was ready to drop off the tour, but with Leo’s encouragement and help we were able to secure a new motherboard, which was a few years older than the one I had. Thank you Mac Store Jogja for hooking me up!
After installing the new motherboard we immediately drove like six hours and did a concert in Pati, Indonesia. We arrived at around midnight and did the show.
When you get a new motherboard it’s like getting a whole new computer. When we arrived in Pati I used someone’s phone hotspot. I downloaded Pure Data, the driver for my Motu Ultralight interface and Touchdesigner. I installed them all and did a show that night without really getting a chance to configure anything or test anything out. It was not my best show by any means, but I am happy I was able to do something and provide the promoters with the best I could manage given the situation.
Here is a video of me playing with just one Pyramidi controller, which is all I could configure to use in the few minutes I had to prepare with my new motherboard.
The next day we did a nine (9!) hour drive to Garut, Indonesia. At some point during this drive I tried to get some money out of an ATM. The machine ate my ATM card. I tried to retrieve it, but it seemed like it was futile. Because we needed to keep driving we left my ATM card there. So from this point forward my access to money was very limited. I was able to PayPal some people and they would give me cash, but mostly I was relying on the money that was given to us at each show. I have to admit it was kind of scary being broke in a foreign country. I stayed positive and focused on playing music almost every day.
I was able to get all my software installed and the new mother board configured by the time we performed in Garut, so I was happy about that. I also had a nice gig in Bali, where everything seemed to be going smoothly.
However, when I got to the next gig in Tangerang my computer started acting up. I don’t know if it’s because I was messing around with the file structure, or if there was more water damage than I realized. So I only did an audio set in Tangerang and my computer issues continued. The same thing happened when I played in Jakarta, which I was bummed out about because the venue in Jakarta, Scream Destroy, was such a cool place and has an amazing history and a Punk, Thrash squat in the middle of Jakarta.
I sort of was able to get my computer to where I could get through a set each night after that, so mostly things went smoothly.
The last gig of the tour for me was in Sumadang, which was great place, with really nice people and very talented musicians. In general all the musicians I met in Indonesia are of a very high level and very creative. They are also more open minded than most American musicians and kind of lump experimental music ( which is how I am often categorized ) in with noise music, punk, metal and hardcore.
After the tour ended I had a few days to chill in Indonesia. I decided to visit a place I’ve always wanted to see, but never imagined I’d be able to go, which is Gunung Padang. Gunung Padang is a megalithic site in Indonesia which is now dated to be 28,000 years old. The place has very special energy that is strong, intimidating, but also very calming and peaceful. I could feel the power of the place, but it was relaxing to be there. Almost like when you are at the beach and know you can get crushed by waves at any second, but you can also just enjoy the calm wind and sound of the waves.
Getting back to the United States kind of was a terrible ordeal. I was turned away from my flight by Emirates Airlines, because they said my instruments weighed too much. I had to stay in Indonesia one extra day and fly out the next day. The next day I had to basically hide my instruments and use some Jedi Mind tricks to get them into the plane, which somehow worked.
I plan on returning to South East Asia in the future. I want to expand on this last tour and maybe perform in Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore and some other places, as was suggested to me by some Indonesian musicians.
This trip was pretty grueling because of the pace of traveling and performing almost every day. I did learn a lot though and I am excited to be back in the U.S. and share my music at all these other performances I have booked. To be continued.