‘below is a hacked text of mecha/orga’s private dreamdiary regarding his memories of the 2 days sets that took place in xanthi’s folk museum dealing with the activities of the CCMR…’

It was the second time I had the chance to visit my beloved Xanthi. It was absurd Nikolas’ original idea for a concert and presentation of the Centre Of Contemporary Music Research (founded by Iannis Xenakis officially in 1986) at the city’s Folk Museum and after the nessesary arrangements between Costas Matzoros (of CCMR), Paschalis Xanthopoulos (of Xanthi’s Folk Museum)  and Michalis Elafros (of Pakethra), the whole thing took place on September 2, 2006…
We listened to a lot of “tape” music by various Greek electroacoustic composers. Although some pieces were interesting my CCMR fellows felt that just to press play on a CD player to listen to a track is not really that exiting -not for us nor the audience- even when someone’s able to difuse the sound in real time…Of course I had a good time performing with my laptop, either solo or jamming with Costas Matzoros (who was playing with a VCS3 synthesizer!) and Akis Daoutis who was doing some live electronics…
I have to mention that the night of the conert was just one day before the official opening of Xanthi’s Old Town festival. This means that our electronic music was mixed together with traditional greek clarinets and bouzouki which were heard from all over as the people of Xanthi were “warming up” for the next day’s beginning of the celebrations. Not to mention the smell which was surrounding us because the Festival includes the set up of outdoor grills that were preparing souvlaki, sausages etc…I insisted that we forget all about the concert and go have some fun in the town but my suggestion was rejected…
The day after the concert Pachalis was kind enough to take us to see the archeological site of Abdira (located a few kilometers out of Xanthi), a very fascinating and beautiful area. Well, it’s not hard to imagine, the idea is to organise a concert there, in open space, hopefully next summer. It’s kind of difficult to prepare it but I think everyone is willing to give it a try…
Of course our little trip included  food, drinks and discusions, all these in good quality and quantity. It’s nice to hang around with the other members of CCMR. I was pleased to hear from someone that she doesnt consider me a musician but a noise maker -or something-…Finally, someone is telling me a flattering comment!

Tags: shows/tour diaries, xanthi

yes, i realise the above bands are basically two people, frans de waard and roel meelkop. and they complained that nicolas worked them like dogs. well, sort of, they just said it was the first time they did a tour where they played every night. don’t start thinking there were sore feelings or anything, i’m sure they had a great time. anyone who has done the xanthi mini-tour (slowly turning into a fixture in the absurd canon) has had nothing short of a blast.

the shows too were all over the place; clubs, werehouses, museums and a front lawn. unsuspecting residents of xanthi, together with weekend visitors, were treated to the special flavors of frans & roel’s musics. the thessaloniki show was a little underattended but it had a great atmosphere. many non-believers were converted and there was also that special moment early in the evening when i saw cities in desolation, (gr/ch) who accompanied in two of the shows, singlehandedly burn the in-house mixer. they then kindly offered their own mixer for the rest of the night, which went on as planned, ending just in time to catch the plane back home.

end of chapter 4(?) of the xanthi adventures

Tags: shows/tour diaries, thessaloniki, xanthi