central & eastern europe 5

Last wednesday we took the earliest plane possible to Budapest in
Hungary. There we met up with our driver and tourbus to go to Pecs -
a wonderful town about 3 hours away from Budapest. Pécs is going to
be one of the cultural capitals in 2010 which is one reason why we
are invited to play show here at the local art center.
We were driving along the river Donau and had a fantastic meal in one
of the famous fish restaurants - fish soup and fresh beet salad - yummy.
From the moment we arrived in Pécs until today we were rushed from
one meeting to the next, from rehearsal to soundcheck, from
interviews to press conferences.
Yesterday we met our local composer who presented us a very minimal
piece of piano music which we are practicing right now and we also
met some of the people who are responsible for the whole tour - our
booker and temporary manager who I haven´t met in real life before.
It´s difficult to be a promoter of german culture or culture in
general. I am never really sure how to behave - no, I mean what
people expect from me (I behave the best I can of course) - and I
have no idea what german culture is... we do drink beer and eat
sausages whenever we can but is our sound really german?
Today we played our show at the center of the arts. A bit boring room
with a lot of seats and a small sound system but I think we managed
to create a cool atmosphere with video projections and made the small
PA system sound like a big one. A lot of people showed up again -
thank you sooo much for coming!
Here is what some people said: "Sometimes I felt like a plane is
landing right in front of me.", "I didn´t know that I could go from
heaven to hell without creating a collapse in the middle.", "Bravo!"
- and we had to give our first autograph ever - yes.
I am not 100 percent convinced yet that our pieces really deserve so
much attention but I think most of our guests have never heard such a
weird mixture between experimental, electronic, field recording and
techno music ever - I haven´t - and maybe that is a fun thing to go
to and deffinetely something to talk about. We also have very loud
parts that make your seats shake and I think this also ads to the
experience...

We have 2 more days in Pécs to rehearse the minimal piece and then we
move on to Croatia.

I will post some pics tomorrow.

Lots of love from wonderful Hungary which has been treating us so
very nice.