Zoe's Incredibly Interesting Blog

Album, SXSW, LA show...

2010-03-10T00:39:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know, I know...I missed my album release date (I'm gonna fire myself for sure this time!). I really thought I could get it to you by March 1st, but I was sorely mistaken. There's no problem other than I'm just a slowpoke and doing too far many things at once.

Also, for the reason I announced here (i.e. I'm having a baby in May!!) for the last 6 months I haven't been able to work late into the night as is my custom...because I keep falling asleep! I've been doing little bits here and there, in between all my other projects, but not the solid music immersion sessions that I like to do.

However, I am at last happy with how everything sounds. Now I need to finish up the mixing/mastering process with my trusty post-production friend Count and then Jeff and I will package it up...and hopefully some of you will still want it!

In the meantime, I've got some performances coming up that I'm really looking forward to.

The first is my SXSW showcase, next week on March 17 at 8pm at Central Presbyterian Church. I'll also be speaking on a panel, Effective Online Marketing Platforms, on March 19 at 2pm, along with Lou Plaia from ReverbNation, Corey Denis of Not Shocking, Jason Lekberg from Epic Records and Josh Wittman of Redeye Distribution.

Then, after SXSW, I'll be heading to LA to play a very special show with Curt Smith from Tears For Fears on March 23, at Largo at the Coronet. As Mashable wrote recently, we collaborated via Twitter on his new song "All is Love". I'm rather happy with how the cello arrangement came out (you can download it on Amazon and iTunes.).

On March 23rd, I'll play my own set, with songs from my new album, and then I'll sit in with Curt and his band on "All is Love" and maybe even "Mad World", if I can hash out a good cello version. More info at the Largo website and tickets are available in advance by calling (310) 855-0350.

Other performances coming up:

March 28: Switchboard Music Festival in San Francisco, CA

August 3: Colorado Music Festival in Boulder, CO
This evening will feature both solo performance and the premier of new ballet by the Apex Dance Company set to live music by me. tickets available here

Ok, that's it for now. If you're in Austin next week, say hello to me and my giant belly!

Thanks for listening,

Zoe

Expanding

2010-03-09T22:54:00.000-08:00

Jeff and I went down to see Robert Hodgin & Aaron Toblin's exhibit at GAFFTA a couple weeks ago. They are both such awesome artists. I'm really excited to be collaborating with Robert for the 2010 01SJ Biennial in September. We're going to put on a joint performance. The spiel:

"Composition for the ears meets composition for the eyes in an organic, evolving world of sight and sound. Zoë Keating will create a lush soundscape of live, layered cello, which Robert Hodgin will translate into light. "

While we were there, I finally saw the SFMOMA posters in the MUNI station that everyone's been talking about. I really wanted to steal one, but I refrained.

However, I doubt you will find the poster the most interesting thing about this photo ....

ahem.

Yes, its true! We're expecting a baby in MAY! So, if you see me over the next couple months, please don't think my latest hippo-look is just because I've gone all crazy with the chocolate ice cream (although I admit I have felt compelled to eat a fair amount of it over the last few months).

NEW ALBUM news & SFMOMA concert

2010-01-06T11:44:00.000-08:00

Hello my friends...

A very happy New Year to you!! 2010 feels like a very futuristic number. Are we in the future yet?

I have so many things to tell you that I'm going to have to break it up over several posts.

But to start....

***MY NEW ALBUM*** is called "Into the Trees"
I've selected March 1st as the release date. Much more about that next week!!! Please stay tuned...

Other things....

- "In C Remixed", which is an album of remixes of Terry Riley's "In C" as performed by the GVSU New Music Ensemble (with pieces by me, Jad Abumrad, David Lang, Mason Bates, DJ Spooky...many others) was named one of the top 10 classical albums of the year by the Washington Post. Here's where to get a copy.

- I did some cello arrangements for a new song by Curt Smith (who you might know from Tears For Fears). Its called "All Is Love" and will be released on Jan 24th.

- I recorded cello on this lovely little song by a new band called Pomplamoose

- For the 75th anniversary of the SFMOMA, I wrote some music to go with 2 works in their permanent collection (Rothko "No, 14, 1960" and Ellsworth Kelly "Stele 1"). The music will be included in the museum's launch of a multimedia tour of the collection, be available on your own handheld devices, such as cell phones and MP3 players, and as an application for iPhones. The app will launch on their anniversary weekend, Jan 16.

And speaking of January 16.....

- FREE concert at the SFMOMA with Loop!Station and Matmos.

I'm looking forward to performing for you, then listening to some music, maybe having a sip of wine while walking around the museum...and its all free.
I'm playing first, so make sure you come early, or you might miss me!

Saturday, January 16, SFMOMA, Haas Atrium 6:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m.
Zoë Keating at 7:00 p.m.
Loop!Station at 8:00 p.m.
Matmos at 9:30 p.m.

Museum and program admission are free.

***

Thank you so much for listening. In preparation for my next release, I did a detailed tally of albums sold and its almost 30,000 (breaks down to 64% digtial and 36% physical) !!! Not bad for no record label, marketing or publicity...and especially considering my 100% lack of "strategy" other than "be myself". I know that many of you have bought CDs multiple times just to support me. I keep thinking that I'll have to eventually go back to working my tech job, and each year, I'm amazed that this music thing is working out. Really, I can't thank you enough!

very humbly yours,

Zoe

Deep thoughts on my music career

2009-09-27T22:38:00.001-07:00

I went down to San Jose last week to do an interview and performance on the NBC Bay Area show Press:Here. The host, Scott McGrew was awesome for making the whole thing happen. The piece aired on TV this morning (its also available on the web here) and one of the interviewers also wrote about it for TechCrunch.

The interview went by so fast, and there was such much I wanted to say that I didn't get in because I was so flustered. Thankfully, that's what blogs are for: a chance to elaborate. Here are some of the questions I was asked, and how I would have liked to answer them if I had had my wits about me and an hour instead of a few minutes.

Thank you Scott McGrew and everyone at Press: Here TV and thank you Sarah Lacy for the follow up story. These things really help, they really do.

----
Do you feel like you've sold out in licensing your music?

Nope. Basically I think "selling out" is when you compromise your creative ideals in exchange for money. I have never done that, so I don't think I'm selling out.

I've been lucky that the companies who've wanted to use my music are selling things that I approve of, like Apple, Specialized Bikes, and Herman Miller. Second, in every single case, I didn't solicit them. The people making the commercials found me and asked if they could use my already existing music, or if I could tweak something to fit. Thankfully I haven't had a situation yet where I've had moral problems with the company (i.e. Exxon).

The film work I've done has been custom in that I've had to write to the movie. But I don't feel like I'm selling out there either. Directors ask me to write for their films because they want a certain style that I presumably have. I would never compose anything out of character. Its all MY music and I think its recognizable as such. If someone approached me wanting me to write a score of salsa music, well, I'd turn them down...because I don't write salsa music.

How did you get 1 million followers on Twitter?

I've been very upfront about this. I've written about it, the SF Chronicle and Billboard magazine have written about it: I am on the Twitter Suggested User List! I don't know how I got there, or how (or if) I deserve it...but of course its incredible and I'm grateful and I should probably give Twitter a cut of my income if it makes me a lot more money than normal (I don't know yet if that is the case).

I will say however that I don't think this all this is a big deal. I honestly don't believe that 1 million people are listening to everything I say. I use Twitter to talk to whatever subset of that million is my friends, fans and potential fans.

What is great about Twitter is that, like I said in the interview, it allows me to be myself to as many people as possible. Me and my music are the same thing and I've always had this stubborn, egotistical belief that if I just had a chance to get the real me across....people would be interested. The belief that what I'm doing is worthwhile, even if no one hears it, has sustained me through a lot of rejections and hard times.

I doubt my current career would be possible without the internet. Thanks to social networks I can have what feels like a direct relationship with an increasingly vast audience. There is no middleman.

If a label approached you with a huge record contract, would you take it?

No. There are so many reasons....

I can't help noticing that most of the signed musicians I've known are broke or struggling. Those on small labels keep their day jobs. Mid-level bands, they run through their advance quickly and then they make a living by touring constantly so that they can sell t-shirts. It will be several millennia before the amount they owe the record label is recouped out of the band's royalty, and they don't own the recordings. New music/modern classical artists seem to sustain themselves with teaching and maybe performing as they get more well known.

Then there are the bands I know who've been dropped as soon as their sales dip. I know bands who've been majorly screwed by this: they recorded followup albums that never saw the light of day, or had nervous breakdowns. A basic financial decision to a company can feel like a matter of life or death to an artist.

So I've just watched all this and since I'm realistic that my brand of instrumental cello music is never going to go platinum anyway, I might as well save myself some suffering, release it myself and keep all the money.

I didn't always think this way. I used to feel like landing a recording contract was like a "stamp of approval" and I wanted that approval. Back when I was starting out my solo career, Myspace didn't exist yet. The standard wisdom was that the way to success was to build a local following and strive to get the attention of a record label. I spent some time and energy sending my music unsolicited to record labels, agents and managers that I thought would be a good fit for me. Of course I didn't hear back from most of them. I did hear back from two labels that were kind enough to reply. They both said that I didn't fit with the other artists on their roster.

Since then, I've had industry executives tell me very respectfully the following things: my music is interesting but not marketable; my music can't be sold because it doesn't have words & it lacks a single, simple melody for people to latch onto; and I am not young/not sexy enough/too nerdy. I've had classical industry people tell me that my music is too pop. I've had pop industry people tell me my music is too classical. And by the way, what category am I in and can I name any similar artists? The music industry seems entirely focused on releasing albums that are similar to albums that have sold before.

Very quickly, it became clear that I would never fit on any label without serious compromise....so I stopped trying. I didn't bother to hire someone to craft a "story" that would fit me into a neat little bucket. I just focused on playing music and selling my CDs at shows and on my website, and on Amazon, CDBaby, iTunes, Rhapsody, etc.

I'm not trashing record labels. They perform a useful service for many artists. But I don't think the model works for me. I think of recording contracts as very, very expensive bank loans. In the future, if I need extra money to make an album, I'm more likely to try and raise it by appealing to my fans.

Because there aren't very many mouths to feed, I don't feel any pressure to continually be selling more, more, more. I have never done an ounce of official marketing or publicity. I make enough to pay the mortgage, the bills, go out to dinner and a movie every now and then, go on vacation and save money for the future. I'm not rich, my car is old, but I have enough to live well and not be continually worried about money. That's really all I want. I want to exist and keep making more music. I'm in this for the long haul. Slow and steady is fine by me.

How do you make a living?

I realized that I should probably know the exact percentage breakdown of my finances before I answer questions on television. I just went and looked up all my tax returns, looking from Dec 2005 when I released my Natoma album until today. Averaged over that almost 4 year period, roughly speaking, digital sales have totaled 40% my income. Of the remaining 60%, maybe a quarter of that is physical sales and the other 3/4 is licensing, commissions, performance fees, grants, and royalties. That's all 4 years together. This year physical sales and performance fees are much less because I've spent most of the year in the studio and not performing (that's the deal... if you're out there performing, you sell music, but then you can't write music). But digital sales and licensing has been much higher and made up for it. This year has been my best year ever, I'm guessing because of my internet presence.

I'm optimistic about the future. However, the entire situation is constantly changing and I know I can't keep all my eggs in one basket. So if by this time next year everyone has migrated to subscription music services, I'd better find a substitute for the digital chunk of my income. I don't want to start selling T-shirts, which I've resisted to date. I do know it helps when people know that by purchasing my music they are supporting me directly, that each CD sold is a vote for me to continue as an artist.

Phew! That's it!

I'd love to hear your comments about all of the above!

Billboard Mag story

2009-05-25T21:28:00.000-07:00

The press gods have been smiling on me recently. I'm sure it won't last, so if you are near a magazine shop this week, pick up a copy of Billboard Magazine and you will find in there a picture of me with a wee story.

Billboard: Tweet Child O' Mine

(one detail about the story I feel the need to correct: my so-called "sales" figures. As you know, I don't have a record label and sell the majority of my CDs through my own website and at shows. Because individuals have to jump through such hoops to report sales to Soundscan, I don't. I never saw any point. Anyway, the sales figures they mention in the article can only be be digital....unless Soundscan is omnipresent and knows what people buy directly from me on Paypal. The article failed to mention that detail.)

Thank you again for coming to see me in April and selling out the Old First Church. I never believe there will be more than two people in the audience, so you really surprised me.

Since I forgot to say anything about it at the April show (doh!) just a reminder that I'll be doing it all again (sans Charles Rus, alas) at the Great American Music Hall on Thursday, June 4th. I'm opening for Amy X Neuberg and her cello chiXtet. Its an early night, the doors are at 7:30 and I play at 8pm.

Amy X Neuberg & the Cello ChiXtet
Zoe Keating

"Amy X Neuburg & The Cello ChiXtet celebrate the CD release of "The Secret Language of Subways" -- an 'avant-cabaret' song cycle for voice and 3 cellos, with live electronic percussion, looping and processing. Opening the show will be the incomparable Zoë Keating performing her one-woman orchestra of solo works for layered cello. "

Thursday, June 4th
Great American Music Hall
859 Ofarrell St
San Francisco, CA 94109

Doors 7:30, Show at 8
$15

advance tickets at: GAMHTicket

Thank you!

celloly yours,

Zoe

Wired and Woodpeckers

2009-05-04T17:38:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

The cello and I have a few things we'd like to tell you about....

WIRED INTERVIEW

A few weeks ago Dylan Tweney, the Wired "Gadget Lab" editor, and a video crew, made the windy trek up to my forest studio north of San Francisco. We talked about composition and information architecture and I played a few songs. The result was captured in these THREE videos now up on the Wired website.

Here they are

GHOST BIRD PREMIER THIS WEEK

You've heard me talk about Scott Crocker's film "Ghost Bird" that I wrote music for last year. Well, the official world premier is happening this week at the Toronto Hot Docs Festival. "Ghost Bird" will be screening Wed May 6th and Friday May 8th. I realize most of you are not in Toronto, so, for your listening pleasure, here is some of the never-before-released music that I made for the film

And, for those of you in Toronto: screening info

JUNE 4TH IN SAN FRANCISCO

And lastly, tickets are onsale for my performance on June 4th at the Great American Music Hall. I'll be sharing a bill with Amy X Neuberg and her cello chiXtet for her CD release party. So yes, a cello extravaganza!

Tickets here

Ok, sorry to be so brief.....back to work with me....(on that album I won't even talk about until its DONE)

Thank you very much!

Celloly yours,

Zoe

Australia report, SF Concerts, film news

2009-03-25T12:27:00.000-07:00

Hello my cello friends,

Australia was amazing. I've been back for two weeks now and already I'm wondering if that really happened. Did I really go sunbathing on a perfect white beach and then swim in the Indian ocean, on the same day as a show? Did I really play four nights at the Sydney Opera House? I loved the people I met, the coffee, the light, the food. Fantastic.

Touring is wonderful, its one of my favorite things about my job, but it can be maddening when you are a "slow" traveller like myself. I like to explore every nook and cranny of a place, preferably over a period of weeks. I like to buy fish and vegetables in the local markets. I like to sit in cafes and learn bits of history or language from locals who will humor me. But on tour, especially one where I'm in a different city every day, I might have only a couple hours, if that, to absorb as much atmosphere as possible. I spend those precious hours alone, getting drunk on scenery, gorging myself on whatever local delicacies I can find. Sometimes I think I'm invisible, am I really here? Then, I race back to the venue to setup my equipment, soundcheck, and start the evening's work. All these delicious glimpses of a place make me fantasize about the adventures I will have when I come back. That list of places is now impossibly long. I've written about this before, but I really felt it keenly in Australia.

Anyway, back to the present. I have some nice bits of news to report.

First, Scott Crocker's documentary "Ghost Bird" was accepted into the Toronto HotDocs festival. I composed and recorded the soundtrack and I am very happy with the music. I would like to come out for the screening, and so I'm trying to arrange a performance in Toronto around that time. More details soon I hope. Until then, here is info about when the film will be screening:

Ghost Bird screening times

Next, I have a couple of performances coming up in San Francisco!

April 24th with organist Charles Rus.
This is a very special concert. Charles is an old friend, he's an uber talented organist and all-round amazing human being who lives and breathes music. He recently moved to Seattle, but prior to that he played organ with the San Francisco Symphony. We'll be doing a joint performance that will include my solo layered cello music, some modern and classical works for solo pipe organ (i.e. Phillip Glass and Bach), some duets and some cello plus pipe organ ambient improvisation.

Friday, April 24th
8:00 pm
Zoe Keating & Charles Rus

Old First Church
1751 Sacramento St. (at Van Ness Ave)
San Francisco, CA

Tickets are available in advance here

June 4 with Amy X Neuberg
Amy is another amazing musician I've known for a while. She is celebrating the release of a new CD with a performance with her Cello ChiXtet at the Great American Music Hall. I will be opening the show and playing the 1st half of the evening. So an all-cello, all-the-time, evening at my favorite local venue.

Thursday, June 4th
doors 7:30
show 8:00pm

Great American Music Hall
859 O'Farrell Street
San Francisco, CA 94109

Tickets are available in advance here

That's it for now! I'm looking forward to playing in San Francsico again. Its been a while.

Thank you for listening.

Celloly yours,

Zoe

Creative Capital performing arts grant

2009-01-20T17:03:00.000-08:00

20 Jan 2009

Hello everyone.

I'm still somewhat stunned by this news...

...Jeff Rusch and I were awarded a performing arts grant by the Creative Capital Foundation! The initial grant is for $10,000 and we are eligible for up to $50,000 over the course of the project. In addition to funding for our project, which I'll tell you about in a minute, we also get to participate in Creative Capital’s Artist Services Program. The program "offers artists assistance in areas like as fundraising, networking, marketing, and strategic planning, with the goal of advancing both their projects and their careers".

Um, WOW. The application process spanned several months last year and it seemed like such a long shot that I tried not to get my hopes up too much. In fact, I had put the grant out of my mind entirely and assumed we would do our project this year without funding. So when I got the phone call, I happened to be at a restaurant at the time, and I promptly lay down on the floor in shock.

What is the project? It is to create a live synaesthetic presentation of my music. Jeff and I will be taking one step further the work we have done together in the past with our layered cello-plus-video performances in San Francisco, in Italy, and in France. The goal is to create an ideal live performance environment in which you, the audience, can experience a version of what I see in my mind's eye as I play.

I'm very grateful. The first meetings with Creative Capital are this week. The work begins!

Obviously, I'll keep you posted on all this as it develops. If all goes well we should be ready to perform in November.

2008 went out with a bang. I had a great time on tour with Amanda Palmer and the Danger Ensemble. I really love performing, and also I love to travel. Its already a blur of warm fuzzy memories. A special treat this time around was that I got to tour with my sister Laura and her pregnant belly (she is Amanda's as merch girl extraordinaire).

Now I'm also very eager to be back in my studio because being in my studio means I can WORK ON MY ALBUM, which I haven't been here to do since August. I've been tinkering away on it the last 2 weeks, hopefully productively!

Thanks very much for listening. I know these are tough times for a lot of people, but watching the inauguration today gave me so much hope.

celloly yours, Zoe

A Ballet in Valencia

2008-11-21T09:01:00.000-08:00

It is 6am and I am wide awake here in my temporary apartment on a quiet medieval street in Valencia, Spain. It is so beautiful! Its like a stone stage set. I am still having difficulty believing I am here.

How it happened....the choreographer Asun Noales discovered my music on iTunes. She choreographed a ballet to "Updraught", "Legions (War)" and "Frozen Angels". Then she was invited to put on the ballet at the Teatro Principal here in Valencia so the music director of the theater contacted me to see if I could produce sheet music for orchestra. However, because I didn't have time to do that (because I was leaving the following day to play at MIT and then join Amanda Palmer's European tour) they asked me to come do it live.

Hmmm...let me think hard about that one...a two week trip to Valencia, Spain to perform with a ballet company in a grand theater that is a copy of La Scala in Milan...how about....FUCK YES?!

So here I am. I've stayed up nearly every night the last 4 days making the music perfect. I'm finally ready, which is good because the premier is today.

Here are the details if any of you happen to be in Spain over the next week (come on, the weather is lovely and the food here is fantastic!).

"Llebeig"

danced by the Ballet de Teatres de la Generalitat
choreography by Asun Noales

live music by Zoe Keating

Teatro Principal
Valencia, Spain

Nov 20, 21, 22 and 28 at 9pm

Nov 23, 26 and 27 at 7pm

10 to 20 Euro

tickets here: http://www.bancajaticket.es/Servientrada/janto/main.php

Celloly yours from Spain,

Zoe

Live videos from Paris

2008-10-30T14:02:00.000-07:00

Here are two videos from my performance in Paris last week at La Boule Noire. Thank you Fanch Oriant and Alexandra Opillard for taking video! Also, these two songs are still untitled...if you have any suggestions, write to me!

My schedule for the rest of the year

2008-10-22T15:56:00.001-07:00

Hello!

I'm writing this from Paris, where I just spent a lovely day wandering with my sister. Because we're here on tour we had no plans, which is kind of nice. We headed off in the most appealing direction and went from pastry shop to pastry shop until we found ourselves at the Louvre. Then we strolled along the Seine to Notre Dame and wound up the day in the Latin quarter. I have to say, it is days like today when I LOVE MY JOB. I think we stopped for crepes at least three times.

The concert is tomorrow at La Boule Noire in Montmartre and that's my last performance on this leg of the Who Killed Amanda Palmer Tour. Amanda and the Danger Ensemble will continue on to Belgium and the Netherlands, but I must get myself to Chicago for another live installment of Radio Lab on Oct 26 and 27. You might remember last year I performed with Radio Lab in St. Paul Minnesota for their deconstruction of War of The Worlds. They are reprising the show, for two nights, at the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago and I am providing live music. Details below!

Then, in November I'll be in Spain working on live music for a ballet. It will run from Nov 20 to Nov 28 at the Teatro Principal in Valencia. And immediately following that, I rejoin Amanda Palmer in Toronto on Nov 30 for the rest of her North American tour which ends on Dec 16 at the Henry Fonda Theater in LA.

That's the scoop! All the dates are below...and will be on my website as soon as I have internet for more than 30 minutes!

Thank you to everyone in Europe who came to see us. I've had an amazing time. Its all still a bit of a blur, but there were so many amazing moments, and audiences. I will certainly be back.

celloly yours, Zoe

--------------------
Oct 26, Oct 27
RadioLab Live!
Chicago: Victory Gardens Theater

Victory Gardens Theater Fresh Squeezed and WNYC's Radio Lab will present Martian Invasion! Decoding the War of the Worlds, on the eve of the War of the Worlds 70th anniversary, at Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, October 26 and 27.
Radio Lab hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich will deconstruct the original broadcast of War of the Worlds and describe what was happening-sociologically and psychologically-at each step. The program will be accompanied by cellist Zoe Keating.

more info:
http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2008/10/08/get-yer-tickets-war-of-the-worlds-live-in-chicago/

--------------------
Nov 20 to Nov 28
performing live with the Ballet de Teatres de la Generalitat
Teatro Principal, Valencia, Spain

--------------------

Who Killed Amanda Palmer - North American Tour
(supporting and accompanying Amanda Palmer on all dates)

Nov 30, Toronto, Ontario: Mod Club Theatre
Dec 2, Ferndale, Michigan: Magic Bag:
Dec 3, Chicago, Illinois: Cabaret Metro
Dec 5, Minneapolis, Minnesota: First Avenue Nightclub
Dec 6, Denver, Colorado: Bluebird Theatre
Dec 7, Apsen, Colorado: Belly Up
Dec 8, Murray, Utah: Murray Theatre
Dec 10, Vancouver, BC: Richard’s On Richards Cabaret
Dec 11, Seattle, Washington: Showbox Theatre
Dec 12, Portland, Oregon: Wonder Ballroom
Dec 13, Sacramento, California: Harlow’s
Dec 15, San Francisco, California: Bimbo’s 365 Club
Dec 16, Los Angeles, California: Henry Fonda Theatre

in europe!

2008-09-30T05:57:00.000-07:00

hello everyone,

i'm in edinburgh right now, in a fantastically homey pub called the Black Rose Tavern. the mohawked staff is attractively decked out in black, the music loud and punk, but most importantly, they have all day breakfast (black pudding!!), comfy sofas and free wifi.

anyway, i haven't had internet for a few days and see that i have a PILE of messages! i will do my best to read them all, but you should know that i might be a bit out of touch for the next 4 weeks since i'm relying on free wifi in conjunction with free moments to find the wifi!

thank you for the lovely messages. as some of you probably heard, amanda palmer got hit by a car in belfast. she stepped off the curb while looking the wrong way. thankfully, only her foot was injured, but pretty seriously, and she has three broken bones in her foot, a broken big toe and a cast up to her knee. the girl is a trooper though and even performed an extra long set in belfast that same night. so...the show goes on. send her your best bone-healing wishes....

i'm going to go now and have a wander while the sun is shining. i forgot how much i LOVE BEING ON TOUR.

celloly yours, zoe

Pics from Oracle Open World

2008-09-25T08:53:00.001-07:00

Just some quick shots of one of my Oracle performances. There was a 350 foot screen behind me, showing animated text that conference attendees were entering into kiosks around the Moscone center.

Newsy bits, European tour, WKAP pre-orders

2008-09-10T13:13:00.000-07:00

Ello, ello, ello....

The outline....

1) NEWSY BITS
2) WHO KILLED AMANDA PALMER PRE-ORDER
3) UPCOMING PERFORMANCES

1) First the NEWSY BITS....

I'm getting ready for tour, trying to finish all my competing projects, and coping with the RadioLab-podcast-effect (i.e. mailing hundreds of CDs - thank you everyone! AND you made me #1 on iTunes classical last week!!). Jeff's been helping me figure out logistics of transporting me and my stuff (fly to Boston, rehearse in Boston, fly to SF, then perform at Oracle OpenWorld, fly to Boston, perform in Boston, fly to Ireland).

One of my goals is to not bring any external hardware with me, and just use a software looper called SooperLooper. Not sure yet if I'm going to be able to pull that off, but it would be so freeing (er, and with less baggage charges!) to travel with just cello+computer+foot pedal.

I heard, via my Dad who read it in the NYTimes, that "Secret Life of Bees" premiered at the Toronto Film Fest the other day. It said the film "a coming-of-age drama set against the civil rights struggles of 1964, turns out to be stitched together, emotionally speaking, with a cello". I know they're speaking about Alicia Keyes' cello-playing character, but its gratifying nonetheless, given that it is me playing all those cello parts. The movie premiers in theaters while I'm in Europe, so if you see it, tell me how my "solos" with the London Chamber Orchestra sound...

2) Next....WHO KILLED AMANDA PALMER PRE-ORDER...

Yes, at long last Amanda's album is here! Its great, nuff said. I can't wait to go on tour and play the songs. I am extremely happy with how my bits came out. And its not just an album, this is a full-on art project that comes with a variety of options: signed by Amanda and Ben Folds, companion book by Neil Gaiman, lithographs, twin-peaks-inspired crime-scene-photo sets, special songs, etc.

Here's where to get it: Who Killed Amanda Palmer?

3) And now...UPCOMING PERFORMANCES!!!

So, at the bottom you will find whens and wheres of the Amanda Palmer tour. Opening solo are myself and also Accordion-playing-audience-mesmerizer Jason Webley. Then I'll join Amanda and the Danger Ensemble for the big show (yes, costumes are involved).

Right before leaving this continent I have a performance at MIT for the Emerging Technology conference. For those of you in Boston, yes, this show IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!
September 25th, 4:30pm
MIT: Building W16 (Kresge Auditorium)
street address: 48 Massachusetts Ave (Rear)

Also in there, are performances on Sept 22, 23 and 24 at the Moscone Center in SF at Oracle OpenWorld (before keynote speeches, if any on this list happen to be going).

After the tour, there are some other things happening (i.e. live performances with a ballet in Spain) but I think there is already enough in here and I'm amazed if I haven't lost half of you already!

Thank you, thank you for all your support.

celloly yours,
Zoe

Performances:

Sept 22,23,24 Oracle Open World @ Moscone Center, San Francisco
Sept 25 4:30P EmTech @ MIT, Boston

Sep 27 7:30P Academy Dublin, Ireland
Sep 28 8:00P Auntie Annie’s Porterhouse Belfast, Ireland
Sep 30 7:00P Cabaret Voltaire Edinburgh, Scotland
Oct 2 8:30P King Tuts Wah Wah Hut Glasgow, Scotland
Oct 3 7:00P Birmingham Space 2 @ The Custard Factory Birmingham, UK
Oct 4 7:00P Concorde 2 Brighton, UK
Oct 6 7:30P Club Academy Manchester, UK
Oct 7 7:30P Thekla Bristol, UK
Oct 8 6:30P Carling Academy Sheffield, UK
Oct 10 8:00P Koko London, UK
Oct 12 9:00P Knaack Klub Berlin, Germany
Oct 13 9:00P Star Club Dresden, Germany
Oct 14 9:00P Karlstorbahnhof Heidelberg, Germany
Oct 16 8:00P Abart Zurich, Switzerland
Oct 17 9:00P Music Drome (fka Transilvania) Milan, Italy
Oct 18 8:00P Komma Wörgl, Austria
Oct 20 7:00P Szene Vienna Vienna, Austria
Oct 21 9:00P 59:1 Munich, Germany
Oct 23 8:00P La Boule Noire Paris, France
Oct 24 8:15P Handelsbeurs Ghent, Belgium
Oct 26 7:30P Melkweg Amsterdam, Netherlands
Oct 27 7:30P Helling Utrecht, Netherlands
Oct 29 8:00P 13 Tilburg, Netherlands

cello and audio-responsive visualization

2008-08-23T21:13:00.000-07:00

Last month I wrote about my weekend at O'Reilly's Foo Camp. During my performance, I mentioned that I was looking to work with someone doing music visualization. Well, someone there (Jeffrey Veen) hooked me up with this incredible artist, Robert Hodgin.

His work is astonishing, here is a piece he did to a song by Trentemoller:

We thought it would be cool to try something together, so he invited me to perform a couple days ago during his presentation at Flashforward 2008 (an Adobe Flash conference). Here's a video of it, certain parameters of his animations are responding, live, to musical input from my performance (as I understood it: pitch, density, that sort of thing). I hope somewhere out there is better video of it, because it looked amazing from what I could see in the stage video monitor.

I'd love to do more of this kind of thing. I dream about midi control as well as audio since it seems like things could easily be triggered via midi data from my foot controller and Ableton Live.

If you know anyone, or have any interest yourself, write to me!! (info zoekeating com).

more about Robert: http://www.flight404.com

An action-packed summer in Zoeland

2008-08-18T13:14:00.001-07:00

Last week I gave two private performances, one for execs of The Gap (and Top Secret!) and another for an "experiential photography" seminar lead by Jesh de Rox. Then, I headed off to LA to work with Mark Isham. I recorded some loopy cello layers for his score to "The Secret Life of Bees" and some solo parts. I learned the backing score was to be recorded the following day at Abbey Road by the London Chamber Orchestra...and directed by Mark via an iChat session..so I'm toying with the idea of being able to say I've soloed with the London Chamber Orchestra!

I also dubbed all of Alicia Keyes cello parts since her character plays cello in the film. She actually looks like a real cellist in the movie, not awkward at all, so kudos Alicia, because that's not easy and she must have worked hard. Many a movie has fallen flat for me because the cellists didn't look convincing (Tous Les Matins du Monde, for example, a great film but the fake cello playing made me cringe). I did find it hard to watch her though as I was playing, because I kept getting distracted by how gorgeous she is and then I couldn't play properly. No I'm not gay, but some people have faces like that, I can't stop looking at them.

Anyway, it was all very fun. What I heard of Mark's score is otherworldly and shimmery and quite lovely and full of cello and what I saw of the movie looked great. Comes out on Oct 17.

Then I had 2 more performances, one hosted by Pamela Z and another at SFO. Now I'm rushing to finish all the things I need to finish before going on tour with Amanda Palmer. There's music to do for a documentary about Abe Lincoln for PBS' American Experience. And I'm trying to use an application called SooperLooper instead of my Electrix Repeaters. If that works, and its all a bit dicely honestly, I'll only need to bring a laptop and a footpedal on tour. Lots of technical details to work out....

I have another gig at SFO on August 29th. Its pre-security in the International terminal. The one last week was so surreal that I'm thinking of getting someone to videotape it so you can see all the tired and confused people drifting by me as I play.

Sony to release The Devil's Chair on DVD

2008-07-22T12:23:00.001-07:00

I've just learned that Sony Pictures is going to release The Devil's Chair on DVD on the 30th of September. Last year, I wrote the score for this film by Adam Mason.

"With a pocketful of drugs, Nick West (Andrew Howard) takes out his girlfriend Sammy (Polly Brown), for a shag and a good time. When they explore an abandoned asylum, the discovery of a bizarre device - a cross between an electric chair and sadistic fetish machine - transforms drugged-out bliss into agony and despair."

I will warn you in advance that this film is NOT for the faint of heart or the extremely sensitive. It is graphic, gory and scary-as-shit. As I was writing the score, I could hardly bear to watch it and kept the sound off most of the time.

There are numerous funny stories about making music for the film. Jeff and I had only recently moved into our cabin in the woods, and you could say things were a bit rough around the edges. I setup my studio in a dark, freezing cold, spare bedroom, and was burning the candle at both ends to get the music done in time. One day, I had been up for 36 hrs, struggling with a particularly chilling scene starring an ax and a large quantity of blood, when Jeff returned home from the hardware store (he'd been very productive and had installed a woodstove). He stood in the doorway, all cute in his earflap hat, and exclaimed cheerfully "honey, I've bought an ax!", while brandishing his new red ax at me. For the rest of the day, things were extremely surreal. I continued to work on this dreadful scene, with the monster enthusiastically hacking up a lead character, and then I'd look out the window and see Jeff (in earflap hat) enthusiastically hacking at logs.

However, I did actually enjoy writing the music. I think I've talked about it before. I liked how with this genre all musical conventions go out the window. Anything goes. It was very liberating. It felt like I could do anything, which I know I always could, but it took a horror film to show me. The only difficult thing was the compressed schedule, because there was so much more I wanted to do, but we just ran out of time. But I'm happy with it and I'd do it again. I thank Adam for tracking me down and convincing me to do it.

One of the pieces in the movie is "Saddest Song" which I've played live (I think there is a YouTube video of it). I named it long ago when I was going through a phase where everything I wrote sounded like a tragedy. I kept joking that I was trying to out-sad myself with each new song so this particular piece I referred to as "the saddest song in the WORLD" (quickly followed by a new song, "the saddest song in the SOLAR SYSTEM"...etc). It just so happened that Adam really liked it, so I developed it into the larger score.

Also, it sounds like a funny thing to say about a horror film, but it is beautifully shot. It looks glorious. Adam's talent shines through the whole thing and I think Andrew Howard, the lead actor, is the cats pyjamas.

talking all day and all night

2008-07-16T15:14:00.000-07:00

I spent last weekend at O'Reilly's FOO Camp. It was 2.5 days of intense hanging out with about 300 uber-smart people. Like I mentioned in my last post, I get invited to perform at quite a few tech conferences. I love going, not just because the chance to play for a thoughtful and critical audience often spurs me to try new things, but also because I enjoy the session topics and love the atmosphere.

FOO Camp was unique in many ways. For one, there was camping on the lawn, next to the bar, which made the whole thing like your dream summer camp. Next, you can't buy tickets and have to be invited so there was no division between presenters and attendees. Whereas often at these things the presenters are like rock stars, FOO had an egalitarian feel to it. Of course, that could have been my personal experience because I didn't attach people's names to their credentials until after the event. It's possible that if I had known who I was talking to in advance, I would have been too shy to approach anyone. As it was, I enjoyed seating myself with people I didn't know at meals (the food was absolutely fantastic) and striking up random conversations with strangers.

I didn't know much about FOO in advance and so I wasn't sure until I got there if I was meant to participate in the whole weekend or just meant to entertain, provide some local colour and then disappear. Luckily, I decided nothing was meant, and it didn't matter, and so I proceeded to have a spanking great time. What was a complete surprise was how many people there I already knew, or was separated from by only one degree.

I wish I enjoyed music conferences as much. The few I've been to have been truly dreadful so maybe I'm not going to the right ones. The musician attendees have felt a bit desperate and I get the sense every conversation is a promotional opportunity with everyone ready to impress at a moments notice. Authentic interactions feel hard to come by. Maybe "geeks" are better at hiding their motives? I never had the sense at FOO that anyone had an agenda. Although, it does occur to me that because I was "just a musician" and not a CEO, no one needed to impress me.

And then, I'm sorry, but what do rock musicians talk about when we are together? Worst gigs. Best gigs. Tour horror stories. Dissing other bands. How drunk so and so got last night. Yes, that's a horrible stereotype and of course there are exceptions, but the current culture of the music industry does not seem to reward thoughtfulness or multidimensionality. Talking history or social psychology or political philosophy or poverty or whatever, is a good way to provoke glazed looks and worse, sarcastic comment. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy regular bouts of senseless mirth. I have yet to master burping on command, but I can probably drink you under the table. But, I crave banquets of curious people with which to have mind-expanding, vitamin-packed conversations. Luckily, I had about 40 hours of those conversations at FOO Camp and I realize that I have them almost every day with my partner-in-life Jeff, and with my friends. Burp.

Anyway, I also happen to be in the planning stages of a long-term project involving live visualizations (video, animation, imagery, etc) that I can control either via my music itself, or through manual midi commands. I mentioned it in passing to someone and they said, "you should ask people here, I bet you'd find people". So, I mentioned it when I performed, and sure enough, all weekend long people came up to me with ideas or knowledge about musical visualization. Now I wish I'd formally put it on the session board, but it certainly expanded my horizons as to what is technically and artistically possible. It also helped me realize that it will be a cooler project if I open it up and work with more artists. To be continued...

My other regret is that I never played werewolf because I was too busy chit chatting. I meant to join a game on Saturday night, but at 2am I suddenly turned into a pumpkin and went to sleep (this is after having been up until 4am on Friday, and then awake at 8am). Hopefully I can teach werewolf to everyone on the Amanda Palmer tour, since it seems like it could be a good game for 10 or so people trapped together for many weeks on a tour bus.

a foo camping I go

2008-07-10T23:05:00.000-07:00

Somehow I've become the looping cellist of technology conferences.

Last year there was ISTE Educational Technology conference in Atlanta and then Pop!Tech in Maine. Tomorrow I'm playing at O'Reilly's Foo Camp and then in September at the Emerging Technology conference at MIT.

What's funny to me, is that I had this whole tech career before becoming a professional musician, and I never went to a single conference. But now that I'm a MUSICIAN, I'm invited as a special guest. Ironically, none of them have any idea of my past geek life (or do they? can they tell?). Hopefully they are not disappointed when they find out...

I worked at a tiny startup in San Francisco all during the dot com boom. We did "information visualization", and no one could understand what it was good for at the time but we knew it was going to change the freaking world. However, with the exception of the marketing guy, few of us could explain in one sentence what the company did. I could't tell you what I did for that matter although I worked all night at it (ok, I guess that's still true). I started out as the receptionist, then taught myself whatever programming languages were necessary, and graduated to the engineering department as an interface developer. The CEO used to joke, "Zoe was so bad at being a receptionist, that we made her an engineer". After the crash I moved on to stuff I really cared about - art and culture digital archives (RLG Cultural Materials and the Database of Recorded American Music) and of course, making music.

All that time I had a "secret life", going off at night to rehearse and perform with various bands.

So now, I do music all day (ok, technologically extended music) and when I have down time, I like to curl up with my laptop and catch up on the all the tech blogs. I guess my past life is useful... I can fix everyone's Myspace pages, or troubleshoot all the computers on the tour bus, or organize everything in the house by its descriptive metadata. But sometimes I wish I could just CONSUME technology, like some people seem to, rather than always see it for what needs improving (don't get me started on Myspace..ARGH!). I always want to fix stuff, make it better, use it for some new purpose that it wasn't built for.

Ah well...I'm off to get ready for tomorrow.

Fall Tour with Amanda Palmer

2008-07-01T21:39:00.000-07:00

i've been keeping quiet about so many things for so long i've been afraid i'd explode. to keep myself under control and not annoy anyone around me, i've had numerous frenetic gardening/weeding/raking/run-up-and-down-the-hill sessions.

so this is one...from the saucy lady herself...

"
the WHO KILLED AMANDA PALMER world tour:
AUGUST 2008 - ???

The august dates in US & Europe are going to be strictly solo piano...then i am going to be starting the world tour in europe in fall and bringing the danger ensemble & a small string section (including zoë keating!) with me. zoe will also be opening up and my good friend jason webley *might* be joining us for a good run of dates in europe. Conjoined twins Evelyn Evelyn may make their first european appearance as well...more info on all the support acts soon.

info on US dates (starting in november) will be also coming soon. as always, stay tuned to dresdendolls.com/calendar/ for dates, ticket links, support acts, directions, and other good things…

i am exciiiiited.

in other news...author Neil Gaiman, photographer Kyle Cassidy and I are working on the WHO KILLED AMANDA PALMER photo/storybook which will hopefully be released right around the time the record comes out. I've never hung out with so many cool people in my life, it's making up for high school in spades.

love amanda
"

you might remember i went to nashville last year to record with amanda at ben folds headquarters...to hear what you are in for with her solo record, listen to the song Astronaut. i think the words EPIC SONIC EXPLOSION sum it up pretty well, don't you agree?

so, clearly a lot of excitement and exclamation points and lack of proper capitalization happening all around. thank dog the cat is out of the bag and i can stop controlling myself...almost

here be the dates so far...

Sep 27 2008 Academy Dublin, Dublin
Sep 28 2008 Auntie Annie's Porterhouse Belfast, Carlow
Sep 30 2008 Cabaret Voltaire Edinburgh, Scotland
Oct 2 2008 King Tuts Wah Wah Hut Glasgow, Scotland
Oct 4 2008 Academy 2 Sheffield, Midlands
Oct 6 2008 Club Academy Manchester, Northwest
Oct 7 2008 Thekla Bristol, Southwest
Oct 8 2008 Concorde 2 Brighton, South
Oct 10 2008 Koko London, London and South East
Oct 12 2008 Knaack Klub Berlin, Berlin
Oct 13 2008 Star Club Dresden, Sachsen
Oct 14 2008 Karlstorbahnhof Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg
Oct 16 2008 Abart Zurich, Zurich
Oct 17 2008 Music Drome (fka Transilvania) Milan, Milano
Oct 18 2008 Komma Worgl, Tirol
Oct 20 2008 Szene Vienna Vienna, Wien
Oct 21 2008 59:1 Munich, Bayern
Oct 23 2008 La Boule Noire Paris, Ile-de-France
Oct 24 2008 Handelsbeurs Ghent, East Flanders
Oct 26 2008 Melkweg Amsterdam, Noord-Holland
Oct 27 2008 Helling Utrecht, Utrecht
Oct 29 2008 13 Tilburg, Noord-Brabant

horray!

Surreal Life

2008-06-30T23:07:00.000-07:00

I just found this on YouTube. Its a short film set to my music, common enough (ok yes, I was searching for myself! I'm looking for half-way decent live video...do you have any??). A very clever little artpiece I think and it appeals to my appreciation of surreality.

However, all the comments are in Spanish, so I have no idea what all the commentary means

youtube link

So yeah, that's cool...aren't you thrilled...but then...wait, there is a video response...

youtube link

and...here's another one!

hilarious!

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? (hopefully these people are being nice to each other?)

Spanish speakers, help me out. Although maybe I don't want to know?

Anyway, I have no idea what is going on, but I love how weird my world is sometimes (there I go quoting Paris Hilton again).

I've been wanting to make a music video for ages, and actually filmed one with a crew in 2005 that never got edited (6 DV tapes sitting in a shoebox somewhere...where?) ...but maybe this kind of thing is better?

Starting with birds and ending with a fish.

2008-06-18T17:06:00.000-07:00

-----

The cherries are all gone.

This house, you see, is perched on the side of a hill and so the top of a very tall cherry tree is right out my studio window. This tree features large in my life these days. I think I've mentioned it before, but in the spring the tree puts on a riotous show of white flowers. It's great. I like to sit on the sofa upstairs and watch the sun light it up. Soon, the wind blows the petals off, and cherries start growing... little tiny green beads get fatter and bigger and then start to turn yellow. As soon as the cherries get the smallest blush of pink, they are devoured by armies of birds.

There are crazy aerial battles between blue jays, robins and acorn woodpeckers as they fight for every last cherry. Blue jays are loud! There's been the occasional visit from a grosbeak or a pair of western tanagers (listen to me, I'm all birdy now!). At every moment of the day, there are at least a handful birds in the tree simultaneously with more swooping in and out all the time. It seemed to get more and more frenetic, until yesterday... someone ate the last cherry and now all is quiet.

Which is fitting...because at long last I finished the music to the Ghostbird film. Its a documentary about the ivory-billed woodpecker and I spent many months thinking about birds, swamps, ornithologists and extinction. But now I'm done.

Finishing is hard. I like having one zillion pieces of music going on at once. I flit from one piece to another, immersing myself in each musical world and then resurfacing and diving into the next one. I consume the music and it consumes me. They are all so delicious and full of possibility...why, this dainty morsel of music...it could become a cherry pie, I could ferment it and turn it into wine! Or this one, its going to be a city made of tiny silver threads. They can be like children, chasing after every whim and full of half-understood ideas.

If you saw me working, all you'd see is me in a tiny room, sitting on a plain wooden chair, with a cello, one microphone and a laptop computer. But if only you could see what else is in here! What are they? I don't know...little creatures, complete cities, vast landscapes. I'm communicating with them, I'm closing one door to open another...and now we're running on the beach, we're walking through a charred city... now I'm adding a pinch of salt and a dash of lemon, burying something in the garden to make it grow into something new, knocking down a cathedral to build it out of leaves instead of stones....its a crazy, complicated and wonderful muddle. I can see my grade-school report card: "Zoe has a rich inner life".

But then, someday, I've got to finish. The real world beckons, people's calls need to be returned. I've got to package up my little creations, give them names...and send them off into the world to bring home some bacon.

Long suffering, patient fans...I put a fragment of music from Ghostbird up on Myspace for you.

....

Somewhere in there, did I mention I played a few songs with the Dresden Dolls last month at the Fillmore in SF and the Wiltern in LA? What a thrill. They have grown in epic proportions - in every way: musically, as performers, their audience. It's fantastic to see two people just go for it. And to improvise onstage with them was one of those peak musical experiences that I live for. I had an amazing time. Plus, I got to play with violinist Meredith Yayanos, who is a dear heart and has a violin tone like cream AND...my sister Laura was there (she works merch for the Dolls).

The extremely charming Neil Girling (i.e. Mr Nightshade) took some pictures...

"Fight For Your Right" w/ East Bay Ray:

String Players:

Sisters:

Rock God:

Rock Goddess:

Rock Cod:

Cellos in Space

2008-05-01T22:59:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I played a concert at the NASA Ames Research Center for a massive event called Yuri's Night (Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space).

I would describe it as science fair meets alien fashion show meets performing arts festival meets rave. I had no idea NASA was so cool!!

I talked to a few people who worked there, and hopefully impressed upon them the importance of puttings cellists in space. Or at least hiring me to provide soundtracks for their missions! (er, I'm assuming all space missions have soundtracks?)

Music for a new short film

2008-04-24T13:18:00.001-07:00

Last month I made some music for German filmmaker Max Sacker's recent entry to the Filmaka competition. The film is called "The Secret Adventures of the Projectionist" and you can watch it here:

Fiery Fashion

2008-02-05T15:33:00.000-08:00

I performed a couple weeks ago at a fashion show at The Crucible in Oakland, CA. Incredible fashion, stunning models, lots of fire! Here are some photos that Jeffrey Rusch took of the event.

Getting ready...it takes 15 minutes to lace up my granny boots...

and another 15 minutes to make my hair look like I just crawled out of the swamp. I know its ready when I can't tell what's going on when I look at it....

Note the folks getting ready behind me....

You have to be careful on your way to the stage...

My performance...

Chatting with one of the designers, Antoniya Ivanova..

Some of the fashion...