25. 4. 2014 / 14:22
We will have several concerts with The Blessed Beat in Slovakia, Czech Republic and Poland. I don't like arranging gigs, but nowadays it's a musician's job. Manager, PR manager, chauffeur, sound engineer, etc. I'm looking forward to seeing how Simon and I will find our first times in Meshuggah music. Simone is incredibly good at it. He teaches me and explains things to me. I wouldn't have guessed that those songs are on four...
17. 6. 2014 / 17:21
Pat texted me!!!
"I've been listening to your album The Son. I too have had hard times, and this album reminded me of them. I have one week free in November. I can come to Slovakia and we can play." I called Paolo right away. We're going to be a trio (guitar, trumpet and drums). Pat came up with the name "KoMaRa" (Kollar, Mastelotto, Raineri).
6. 7. 2014 / 05:00
Today we're going to the Karlovy Vary Film Festival with Miro Remo and the film Comeback. The film is in the main competition section. My original music and music from The Son is there. Mel Gibson is supposed to be there...
23. 10. 2014 / 17:32
Paolo and I are in L.A., in a hotel, after a U.S. tour. We have a free day before our flight, so I found out on the internet that Hans Zimmer has a studio fifteen minutes drive from there. He inspired me a lot, especially with the soundtrack to "Batman". His approach to sound, rhythm and choice of instruments amazed me. A couple of months ago I reworked his melody on electric guitar. All the sounds are from the guitar and the microphone I have built into the body of the instrument. I decided to write a handwritten letter, put my music on a USB and we're gonna go see him. Zimmer was in Slovakia to record gypsy music for the lm Sherlock Holmes 2. When I saw on his website that he was in Spišské Podhradie, I was almost knocked out. If I'd known, I'd have been there... Fifty kilometres! Paolo encouraged me and we got in the car. As we approached Zimmer's studio, I got a huge scare. I was prepared for Zimmer to give me five minutes and send me away. I thought about what I would show him and we parked the car. I had a huge lump in my throat. We arrived at the front door, where it said "couriers report to 1531 14th Street.So we went there. I moved over and rang the bell.
"How can I help you?"
"Aaaa, I've come from Slovakia to see Hans. He was recording the soundtrack for Sherlock Holmes 2 here, I wanted to show him something."
"Just a moment."
I got ready to go in: "Come on, play!"
After about a minute the Security guy came in, a huge American...
"Who are you looking for?"
"We're here to see Hans Zimmer."
"What do you have in your hand?"
"An envelope with a letter and a USB stick with music."
"Take the USB because I'm throwing it away, we're throwing all CDs and USBs in the trash. Hans records something and then a couple of fans claim he stole the idea from their CD they left behind. That's why we tell everyone right away that it's going in the trash."
"Okay, I see, so here's the letter then."
"I'll leave him the letter. What else would you like?"
"We're on tour in the US, I recorded a solo album, The Son, which was top-recorded in a couple of US magazines, so I've been invited to play here. I know Hans is always looking for interesting people, so here I am, ready to show him how I work with the guitar."
"Well Hans is in London... But I promise you I'll leave a letter on his desk."
"Oh, okay, well, good and thank you... May I still ask... do many people come here like this?"
"Almost every day, and mostly Germans. They think Hans will help them, after all he's German too. I wish you a safe journey home."
He left and didn't pick up the letter. I stopped him and put the letter in his hand.
23. 10. 2014 / 20:08
Paolo wrote to Tommaso Colliva. He is a friend of Paolo's who is a studio sound engineer of Muse. I didn't know Muse, I just did a quick flick through it on youtube to see what he was talking about. We had a coffee and I told Tommaso my story with Zimmer. Tommaso had worked with him in the studio in the U.K. He said it was good that I was trying it out like this and had something to offer. I just have to work hard and work on my music. I'll never know when a guitar player from Muse will come to my site and need me for something. If he sees that I haven't recorded anything in two years, he'll leave it at that. Tomorrow, flight home. All those checks again, the long flight, the jet lag. From Budapest it's still four hours to Slovakia in Peter Ondrus' car. I'll get myself together at home and start preparing for the first KoMaRa tour. I hope everything will go well. I'm going to start a five-day-a-week regime:
2 hours - metronome, polyrhythms and rhythmic scales1 hour - English
1 hour - free playing and improvisation, record and listen to where the gaps are
1 hr - making new sounds (abstract, rhythmic)
1 hour - live processing and working in Ableton.
1 hour - working on mails
2 hours - bike or walk with David jr, his friends and my little Barbora
25. 10. 2014 / 21:32
I'm 31 years old today. The tour with KoMaRa is coming up. I'm feeling in shape, except I have my day and night reversed because of the US. I was dreaming with Zimmer. He walked into his office and had 500 sheets on his desk. He opened the basket and threw them all away. I remembered the situation when I learned that he was in eastern Slovakia for "Sherlock". I then immediately started looking on the internet for the contact of the gipsy group he was working with. They were the Sendrei family. I found a telephone contact and immediately called them. I don't know exactly who picked up. I told him that I wanted to show Hans my way of playing the guitar, so if someone would email him a report I would prepare. The person on the other end asked me:
"And what kind of film do you want us to do the music for?"
I repeated the whole situation again, the person understood me and I got the info that Zimmer was coming to Bratislava for the premiere of "Sherlock" . No idea when, but I got the phone number of the producer from Bratislava. I called him immediately, but nobody answered. I wrote a long text message. The answer never came. I tried calling a few more times for a few days, but no answer…
(here is short piece of music. All sounds are from my guitar)
22. 11. 2014 / 22:22
I'm home after my first tour with KoMaRa. We have become a real band. Borrowed a rental car, drums, mix for Pat, cymbals sent to me by Kimmo Pohjonen from KTU. I still had a portable fridge, in it beer, fanta, coke, mineral water and snacks for everyone.
Early in the morning I went to the airport in Krakow to pick up Pat, Paolo and Bruno Germano. We met and travelled straight to the first concert in Brezno. I had incredible stage fright. So Pat took the risk and came to Slovakia! I hoped it would work. He set up the drums on the soundcheck. I was careful not to play anything that resembled Robert Fripp or Adrian Belew. Both are originals and Pat has been playing with them for thirty years. Plus, they both inspired me. My head is a mess and stressed.
I have a strategy:
- Don't play too much.- I don't know what to play? I'd rather not play, there are two others on stage who know. I'll wait and that way the song will breathe...
Before the concert, we stood by the car and Pat told us about his experiences on the road. He warned us that people might be expecting the King Crimson repertoire. We started the concert, which was announced as an impro one. With The Blessed Beat we only play improvised gigs... We played quite ambient for the first ten minutes and started to warm up the gig. Then someone in the audience shouted:
"What are you doing? Give a solo! What are you playing...?
Pat smiled and asked me what the guy was saying. I translated it for him. He quickly picked up the pace and we started playing the groove. Eventually we stopped the concert. I was completely thrown off by the guy. I was sitting in the corner of the dressing room, waiting for Pat to send me “somewhere” and tell me to take him to the airport right now and cancel the tour. I guess the crash came and I'm going to have to pick myself up somehow. Pat wasn't coming, so I went back to the club. He was laughing taking pictures with fans and signing King Crimson records. I walked up to him, grabbed his hand, and almost burst into tears. I said how sorry I was and that I would understand if he sent me “somewhere”, and that I'd drive him to the airport. Pat told me not to worry about it, that it was ok, we'd move on and make a plan for tomorrow at the hotel tonight. Situations like this have happened to him while playing improvised music. I was still shaking from that all night. Marek Salka was there too, that helped me.
We agreed on the strategy and the skeleton of the concerts. It was getting better and better. Until I got a phone call from Prokop Holoubek from Midi Lidi band, who was in charge of the Czech part of the tour. The concert in Brno was cancelled. Another screw-up...
I was afraid to tell Pat. A bit too much trouble in one week. Pat reacted well again:
"Ok, book the studio and we'll go record. If not a studio, then a hotel room where we'll work."
I called Lenka Dusilova and she immediately arranged a studio for us at Faust in Prague. We recorded about four hours of improvisations and in the evening we played the last KoMaRa concert at Palace Akropolis. Pat's wife Deborah came from Texas. She enjoyed the concert very much. She told me how Pat was hesitant to go to Slovakia or not, but something told her to go. He believed her feeling and KoMaRa was formed.
The next day I drove the Prague-Presov route, unloaded and returned the drums, guitar amps, cymbals to my studio and dropped off the rental car. I started to feel sick and couldn't breathe. I ended up in the hospital. I was afraid it was a heart attack, but they told me it was called anxiety (mental and physical exhaustion).
25. 11. 2014 / 16:20
Today SpitFire Company from Prague performs Animal Exitus at the Ponec Theatre. I've been working on the music for almost three months. Setting it up to be danced to and lit. Making beats... It was a big challenge.
I love SpitFire. I hope we do again in the future. They travel all over the world. Lenka Dusilova gave my CD The Son to the director Peter Bohac. He got in touch and we started working together.
27. 12. 2014 / 21:24
Pat sent me a video. He's lifting a barbell in the gym and says:
"Dude, I cut 29 songs from the recording session in Prague. I'm sending them via Drop Box. Cut, finish what you feel where, and send back to me. We're going to make an album."
I'm going to do it immediately!
28. 12. 2014 / 11:38
Prepared Guitar Blog Spot posted a video on KoMaRa from the first tour that I'm "post Fripp generation"... It's really Christmas.
22. 02. 2015 / 17:21
David Suchar's documentary Unfinished Stories is screening at the BFI Future Film Festival in London today. David used music from The Son and I've got some new stuff to play him. It's a very honest film about Slovak skateboarders.
22. 3. 2015 / 18:22
After the KoMaRa tour I started writing with Viktor Sagfors from Finland, who had Pat as a guest in the past. Viktor makes a living producing music for Japanese pop singers. He is a very interesting guitar player. He arranged concerts and a workshop for us in Finland. We did a trio KSN - Kollar, Sagfors and Toni Nordlund on drums. Interesting line-up... Two guitars and drums. Toni is also a very skilled musician. He plays live drums and uses a DJ table. During the mini-tour we had some free time and we were in the studio to record two improvisations. The workshop turned out great. I was a little worried about how the students at the conservatory would take it, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The school had its own studio, concert halls, guitar combos, a beautiful cafeteria. There were a lot of students at my workshop who came to the concert in the evening. They are taught to keep their minds open, the school wants them to see as many styles of playing and genres of music as possible... At Toni's house I ate reinderr for the first time. Tomorrow I fly from Vaasa to Bologna. Right away we have The Blessed Beat Tour and recording.
3. 3. 2015 / 06:32
We're putting the finishing touches on the KoMaRa album. It will be released by Jano Sudzina from Hevhetia. The album will also go on vinyl. It's been a tough two months, full of frustrations for me. Doing this over the internet. When I'm awake, Pat's asleep. There were days when I was up till the wee hours of the morning to wait for the drums to finish. Pat and Adrian had the day in the US, I had the night. I spent hours on YouTube to learn all the tricks of the trade. in the recording program.
We used improvisations from the Faust studio in Prague plus my tracks Dirty Smelly, She Sit on The Black Silt and 2CFAC. Pat and Paolo played their instruments into them and Adrian Benavides gave the songs form. It's almost done. Pat pulled one more ace out of his sleeve... He sent us a picture of a monster made by Adam Jones of Tool! KoMaRa has a face! Tool is going to help us promote it. Unbelievable stuff. I'm very excited about this. I wrote a quirky script inspired by the True Detective series directed by David Lynch. I did the order of the songs, their joints and the lengths of the pauses based on it. Pat gave my lines to Bill Munyon and he voiced his part. It stayed on the album. Denis Rodier will do the cover art. Denis draws comics.
1. 4. 2015 / 08:32
We're after a tour with The Blessed Beat in Italy. We chose two free days to record at Bruno Germano's Vacuum studio in Bologna. Bruno was the sound engineer on the KoMaRa tour and at Faust studio in Prague. The first day we didn't do well, we just jammed. No idea and no energy. I used all the guitar amps and bass amps for the recording that Bruno had. In the evening after the recording we sat with Paolo in the kitchen and talked about the story we needed to tell. Charles Bukowski's short story, The Copulating Mermaid of Venice, came to mind.
We took notes and started recording the very next morning. We had a note "Venice in the Morning" and we played the atmosphere. The next one was "stealing a corpse" and we recorded that feeling. The whole album was recorded on the first take. We were just looking at our watches to see if we had the length of the CD yet. Then Bruno mixed and mastered it for us.
Tour rules:
- Don't drink too much alcohol, because tomorrow is very important day
- A fresh and sleepy brain favours good ideas and thoughts.
- A nicely prepared merch table (CD table and T-shirt table) during the tour can cover 100% of the travel costs.
- If you feel bad about something, feel free to confide. What happens in the car, stays in the car - Let's jam on soundtracks if we can and record, a good idea can come at any time.
- Free day? We can do some new material at the hotel.
- When the car stops, there's always something to throw in the trash.
- We talk to people after the gig, we don't run out the back door. Remember the sound man's name and call him by his first name.
21. 4. 2015 / 17:21
Both Gergős (Borlai, Baranyi) are coming tomorrow. We are playing two concerts with the trio in Slovakia. We will play Gergő's FOLK, 7/8 rhythm and a very long theme. I've been playing it every day for two weeks now.
10. 6. 2015 / 14:31
I found Adam Jones's Facebook profile. Looks like he's the one from Tool. He has the KoMaRa monster on there too. I messaged him saying I don't know if it's him, but I wanted to thank him so much for what he's done for us. He wrote me right back and gave me his phone number. He has a lot of fans on Facebook.
26. 9. 2015 / 10:00
Today I'm playing in Bratislava with the drummer John Clardy from the American band Tera Melos at the Twoism festival. He contacted me when he found me on the Pat’s page. He sent my recordings to guitar effects manufacturer EarthQaker Devices. They sent me a letter, a t-shirt and 11 free effects. Pat wrote to his friend from Daddario about me and they sent me 20 sets of strings and cables. Slovak customs made it complicated, but I finally got the stuff. John and I are going to Prešov tomorrow to record something. On October 12th we are playing with The Blessed Beat as support for Tony Levin Stick Men in Lucerna, Prague.
3. 7. 2015 / 22:13
Ivan Paluch died. :(