So we made it! the spirit of Champ touring the New World guided us on a very charmed bike trip from Denmark to France, where we are now, getting straight to work on a hot new stop motion music video (!!!) for a hot new song on a hot new album. The video will be shot on location in the building below, the Performing Arts Forum, where we will be living and working for 2 months, so let your imaginations run wild!
The building used to be a convent school (perhaps once occupied by the Germans and then an apocolyptic cult) and is now an artist residence/workspace with 2 wings, 4 floors, more than 50 rooms, at least 4 pianos (1 grand), a chapel, peacocks and at the moment, 20 or so artists, mostly from the performing arts. It is in a tiny village that no French person I’ve ever met has ever heard of (unless they live here of course). It’s perfect. Parfait, formidable, incroyable.
our first day. we were so relieved.
it's hard to catch moments like these
not to mention moments like these
There are an endless amount of magical corners. Our world for now pretty much exists within the building, and time of day only because the bell strikes a certain number of times. Otherwise we barely know what day of the week it is. It’s completely immersive and defined by the people who are here at the time, who are here to work an all kinds of artistic endeavours, and who can schedule anything in the building, from yoga classes to performance showings to feedback sessions. Last night we had ourselves a wild impromptu dance party in the kitchen, in which every utensil was used to its fullest prop potential. When you have a group of dancers on the verge of burn out after days of rehearsing on various performances and just days before showing these at an international festival, there’s a lot of energy floating around, and the no-boundaries-group dynamic is magnetic. We will definitely miss these guys when they leave. Bless their souls. But to just think of all the other people who we will see come and go while we are here! Living in our mint green room by the chapel and dragging our crazy portable filming rig to and fro everywhere between the basement and the attic(s).
Since we didn’t get funding for the project as we hoped (and really really needed!) we’re seeking all avenues for patronship and recently got the idea to set up a handy dandy virtual donation box to go towards our residency fees and filming expenditures. But unless you’re Oprah, Bill Gates or listed in Wikipedia’s ‘List of Billionaires (2009)’, then know that we have no expectations from you! Money is not a measure of love. But for anyone feeling the extra weight of extra pennies in their pockets, or are at this moment considering spending big bucks on something you know will only make you feel beautiful for a day and then regret later, or if you actually wished that some of your tax dollars went to support the next Jacob Perkins & The Nobody stop motion animated video (due to be released with the new album, ‘Acts For the Frozen Sea’), then THANK YOU for choosing us. We can’t promise a trickle down effect, or better education, healthcare and justice for all. but we can promise it will be spent wisely, directly and with much gratitude.
by clicking on this button!
Otherwise, you could of course buy a CD! 11 bucks very well spent. That we can guarantee you.
CLICK HERE TO BUY THE CD
Meanwhile, a bit of a wrap up.
The show in Auckland with Teacups, Street Beat, The Ribbon and Surf City just before we left was a whopbanger! “5 bodacious bands, 1 bodacious night. shaa-wing!” thanks everybody!
apparently the film was stretched
really stretched
and the photographer didn't know which way was up
and then she dropped the camera
The bike trip was epic. A 70km day of going against unforgiving headwind will really take it out of you. But then you spot a herd (?) of baby goats (kids?) frolicking in spring time wildflowers and for a moment or two the double time and double work is all worthwhile. Not to mention the 86% cocoa solid ‘brut’ Belgian chocolate that sits conveniently in your basket. Or you roll up somewhere you’ve never been in your life to the familiar face of a good friend, and you forget that you just biked your sore ass to get there and so just let the games begin! Oh it’s so worth it.
touring the new world without gas guzzling
We started in Copenhagen, where our dear and trusty friends helped us score our dear and trusty steeds for the job, henceforth referred to as The Crescent (Hana’s cadillac with 3 gears and backpedals which we kept trying to get her to trade in) and The Flemming (Jake’s slick racer which was custom made for some pro biker nobody’s heard of). We spent a few days pimping them out (sort of – The Flemming got a back rack, and The Crescent’s basket got relocated to the right rear). Then pushed on south till the end of Denmark, hopping the train through the German corner to get to our friends in the Netherlands in time, along the Dutch coast, into Belgium, swerving between the sea and inland to get to France, which is now home to us for at least the next 2 months.
I could go into a detailed description of our trip but as they say, pictures are worth a thousand million bazillion words. And we have about a trillion pictures, not to mention the ones yet to be developed on the half-frame-double-for-your-money rolls of film. So if you want to see more and stay updated visually, you can also go here. There you will see celebratory occasions hither and thither with friends between London, Helsinki, Paris, Copenhagen, Arnhem, Utrecht, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bruges, and all the magic of the countryside in between!
A million thank yous to everybody for being there (here and there). As usual, we just couldn’t do it without you.
pep shadow
there were lots of dreamy places
biker stylez
and sometimes we slept in places that looked like this
free 4 ever ok
