A Beech and some Chestnut Trees We did find

A Beech and some Chestnut Trees We did find while walking up North West of Italy, in that area really close to the French and Swiss borders. Lady C and I were walking when her Father and Mother showed us a big Beech standing on the top of the hill, while we were guarded by several Chestnut trees. Some of the trees looked like burnt, fire maybe? We've been then told that it could even be cancer.
I've got confused for getting to know that even Trees can die because of Cancer.
I thought we human beings were their cancer.
Anyway I learned that the beechwood is the one who produces more heat while burning, while with chestnut wood it really depends on the wood age, depending on that the bark can be way different.
Somehow, i started thinking of Mistletoe, which has its own way of being parasitic. Druids seemed to find it very usefull.
I believe we are the real parasite here. But you may call it a suitable exchange.

 This reminds me of Killer Bob, and of Twin Peaks. Back on those years when I first saw the series, i became obsessed by Trees, but in a different way than now. They did scare me.
And when the wind did blow, they were even scarier. Something was going on.
Or I was missing something, something i couldn't understand.
Same thing for the Waves.
I think i'm starting getting psyched by Waves.
They do clean everything, don't they?
Here below the fog seen from a distance, it seems like a sea, with gigantic Waves going to hit the forest/coast.
For a while i felt happy for being watching Them taking over.

Ok, this will be the last post for this year. 13 total if i'm not wrong.
2012 have 13 posts, in order to hail to 2013.
You take care.

White Light Black Trees

White Light brought Us some Black Trees.
Black Trees came with the Waves.
You can clearly see how the Waves are pushing behind those Trees.
We're now facing them, both the Trees and the Waves.
White Light ain't no warm, but you could say it is still something you would go for on Winter mornings.

A triptych, 3 altar pieces columned together.

                                                                      

While here some Temple Pilots                          Protecting our Path across Pyrenees                         We did stop on the wayside

for payin' Them our respect

Again, Withe Light coming from behind the Hill

The Waves were further down

We knew they were following

Once back home we waited

Then They came.

Halloween

Happy Halloween.

Under these trees I did find freddie healing.

The waves sound was astonishing. The waves actually dug their way into old sovietic bunkers. The bunkers are still slowly falling into the Sea. The trees are only guardians here, they won't take any side. They will be there when the las buker will sink in the Baltic Sea.
This happened in Latvia, where Father Murphy played at Zemlika Festival, in Durbe.

A heavy rain and my collarbone decided to end the Summer today

Here I am, almost two months have passed, and you all know now that my promises of new pics and words were just lies.
I keep on failing the trees, failing you and myself when I say I'll be more often posting here.
Anyway, Father Murphy and I spent the early august touring North, Denmark and Germany, and then East, Poland and Czech.
Then freddie broke his collarbone, and Fr. Murphy had to cancel all the upcoming shows.
He fell of his bike, but Nico protected him from the Sky above or below, so freddie is still here with us.
But what about the pics so?
Today, september 12th, a heavy rain brought with itself a cold wind.
I decided this is the end of the Summer as we know it.
I took some pictures of the famous trees surrounding the Treehouse of ours.
Will maybe even these trees break one day?
freddie is recovering.
If the Trees one day should break, they'll recover too. Or they will show us where to head to.
In the meanwhile, at Father Murphy's we wanna get ready for some new recordings.
A two sides something, be it a 7'' or a 10''. That's the idea so far.
How will the Legend go on?
I finally can tell: we get to meet the concept and experience of Failure. We won't fail ouselves this time, we will try to get to know what Failure means.

And watch out for a new release due to november: our beloved friends at Aagoo will release a 12'' with intepretations of our latest album, "Anyway, your children will deny it". Soon all the names involved.
We only heard one from other dear friends, Black Dice, and we love it!

You know them, of course, but check their new album out and see if their tour is passing close to you. If so, you want to go see them live!

Looking at spiders while rocking on a hammock

If YOU take a look at these pictures, you will probably see different things than I did, right before taking them. It would be probably better if I started this whole sentence saying what I really see in the following images...

The nurturing inside of a gigantic spider? A gigantic spider than let me live in his belly?
Or simply a roof top made of branches of different trees hugging eachother.
Anyway, i took this pictures while rocking on a hammock at Santarcangelo 12 Festival Internazionale del Teatro in Piazza where we played last week thanks to our friends Nevrosi and Altre Velocità.
The festival happens every july all around the beautiful town of Santarcangelo, around 60 miles southern than Bologna, nearby the coast; so, if you're planning a trip to Italy next year, make sure to have some days off to spend at the Festival. I tell you, it is 100% worth it.
Ok, I believe i promised here I was going to post much more pics of our recent US and Canada Tour... not that I won't, actually I have some you really wanna see, but at the same time I kind of look forward to the next trip to the real North (Denmark) and then East (Poland), so to come back with others... so I decided to give room to some italian Guardians of ours. And the ones here above did for real check over my sleep.

Home sweet Home

     Brooklyn, june 17th.                           

Then they heard a long guttural sound

You choose the one you like the most. 
You feel them as a constant?
I do.
While spending 7 weeks in the New Continent, here are other pics of some guardians of ours.
Sincere gratitude to everyone who helped us, hosted us, booked our shows, fed us, pump'd fuel in our car, bought our records, played with us.
A kiss of protection to all our friends' forehead. We miss you already.
You know that our blood runs also thanks to you.

After the Real North, we go deep South

Here someother pic,to show our westbound ride, from Cheyenne, WY, to Columbia River, OR, for then taking the I5 northbound, to Olympia, Seattle, and then Canada, again.
And since we come from the trees, we just let'em show us the way.
From the ground up to the sky, green arrows tell us once again to turn to the Sun.
Right now we're are in the desert of Arizona, at Arcosanti.
You check this place out, you have to.
http://www.arcosanti.org/

today, Grand Rapids, Michigan

I like to contradict myself, it's a fact. No more posts freddie until late june?
Here I am,again.
We're safe, in Grand Rapids, MI.
Our friends Xiu Xiu and Dirty Beaches are so great and funny to be with.
Here four photos. Trees are beautiful everywhere, even if the sky will turn black (i've got this line from a marvellous Xiu Xiu song) they will always be bright.

 Pontiac, MI

 NJ Turnpike

 Boston, our friends Richie and Judy's garden

Ottawa, Shab's parents garden

Spring is here again...

Tender age in bloom.

Despite all the photos I took during the last two months and a half of touring, I decided to post here a picture of what I found once back home: our trees have their green leaves back.
So no more pics to post here, until the North American leg of the tour will be over.
Only this one.
Our trees did spring.
They will stay green until we come back. It's their way to tell us they'll keep protecting us.
And I completely believe in it. One of the few certain things we have left.

The trees tell us stories from the past.

We stopped and stood in front of many trees in the past 4 weeks. So many trees, in so many different countries. Every day we play, we drive, we eat and we hear stories from the Trees.
I have plenty of new pics, plenty of words going around my head.
I'm happy today, I'm enjoying the Sun.
The Sun is telling our bodies to be strong and keep on our path.
Here you will find three pics, of different trees, with different stories.
The first two are from Terezin, also known as Theresienstadt, in Czech Republick.
There were a konzentration camp in this little town. We played one minute away, so we decided to go and pay our respect to the dead, and show our anger towards the ghosts of the perpetrators.
Trees told us stories, told us never to forget. If we will forget, it will be only for a choice of ours, so then we will pay the consequencies.
This few words won't teach anything to anyone. Few words to remember a day we spent hearing maybe some of the saddest stories from some peculiar Trees.
Last photo comes from Stoke Newington Cemetery, where we went to fly balloons with booklets of our beloved Ving Ngo. We freed the booklets in London's sky, and we did it again in Amsterdam, Holstebro DK and Prague.
Another way for telling stories.
It won't take me so long to come back here, I promise.
Let yourself willin to hear stories from everyone, especially from the Trees.

White snow, true Winter

After a while here I am, back to the trees' fort, or to the fort on the trees.
We've been travelling a lot in the recent three weeks, with our younger brothers Les Rhinoceros, and with our cicero Jakub from Seek Harbour Booking. We were East, tomorrow we start another tour and we will go West.
I thought of not writing post for the 4 months of touring we had ahead, for then coming back with tons of new trees photos and stories.
But it looks like i have already too memories from the first leg of the tour that I won't be able to take any new ones, so I decided with post something, every once in a while.
Three pics for the first three days of the tour.
Between Slovenia and Croatia. Trees are tall, they're able to keep apart all the grey. They're stunning. Even if I wasn't driving at all, I couldn't sleep in the van, I stared at the window and just tried to count'em all. Of course, I didn't make it.
They are so many of them, it is something that simply makes me joyfull.
They will win, they always will.
And I rememberd when I thought I was scared of Trees.
Now i can only think that posting these three new trees it is the best wishing luck for the new tour that is starting.
Take care, you too.

Beijing Winter Tales

Lotuses grow out of the mud pure and clean.
Some Beijing Winter Tales are about the lotuses growing out of ice, waiting for the Spring.
The beauty of Winter colors is a bold statement in which I read the art of enjoing the waiting, every little step. It is so hard sometimes. As when checking a pic before posting it to see if everything is in its right place.
This whole set of picture was taken by our C. Lee during her last staying in the North Capital of China. They were shot in December.
There are 4 of them.


A fifth photo is of a Tree coming out of a Beijing Wall. You can see some starlings flying around. Are They the ones I was talking about few weeks ago? I like to think that!

So, 4 pics of Lotuses + a Tree= 5. We miss one thing to get to Six, and you know how picky I can be with Numbers.

And the sixth will be the teaser for our upcoming album "Anyway, your children will deny it", shot by Luigi Dalla Riva e Simone Piva, on a Ba Abat set design called "HereWeare".
Just click on the link below.

"ANYWAY, YOU CHILDREN WILL DENY IT" TEASER

Friday, january 27th
signed

f.

Waves over the miles

Last time I was writing something here it was almost a month ago.
Now we have a new year, I personally have thousand different thoughts to follow in my head, and tons of pics to better organize.
Anyhow, there's a detail that I've been noticing in all the photos I took from the end of December to yesterday (January 11th, dates, you know, are important!): WAVES! Think of it as a concept, as the waves which (butthole) surfers are looking for or just as a lonely and gigantic big Wave that will wash all of us away, i can tell you they've been picking up on my mind for almost three weeks now. And if you check this three pics I'm not sure you will see anything related to it. Maybe it's just me thinking that trees can protect us even from that gigantic Wave. The sound of the wave hitting on the trees, I imagine it to be atonishing, though.
This short introduction is to present the new first pics of 2012.


I'll be hitting the road with my cohorts soon (check live page for updates!) so I'll be collecting new pics from this side of the world and the other, as we know it.
And I'll be posting here the first promo pics for the new record (Anyway, your children will deny it) very soon, pics which were taken by our friends @ quasimontecarlo, on a set design by Ba Abat http://www.baabat.com.




By the way, the second picture in this post depicts a Birch Forest up in the mountains between France and Italy, an amazing place where I did find some peace in the last days of 2011.






God speed.

signed,

f.