Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / A Symphony of Colors: Bette A., Brian Eno, and the Magic Within Their Collaboration [Episode 348]

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A Symphony of Colors: Bette A., Brian Eno, and the Magic Within Their Collaboration [Episode 348] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It's a magical fusion of storytelling, music and painting. The
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: story behind a collaboration between artists Beta A and Brian Eno. Next,
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  Speaker 1: We're totally booked rock and roll.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'll leave you. You're reading. Little Hands says
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: it's time to rock and roll.
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  Speaker 1: Roll up, I totally booked. Welcome back to Booked on Rock,
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  Speaker 1: the podcast for those about to read and rock. I'm
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  Speaker 1: Eric Senach. Our guest is artist and writer Betsa A.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: She is the author of the upcoming book Slow Stories,
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  Speaker 1: a short story collection, a vinyl art collaboration with Brian Eno,
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  Speaker 1: is due out March third. It's available now for pre order.
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  Speaker 1: We'll get to all of that with our conversation today.
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  Speaker 1: Bets A, thank you so much for coming on the show.
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  Speaker 1: Happy New Year, Thank.
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  Speaker 2: You, Happy New Year. It's a pleasure to be here.
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  Speaker 1: This is a project, according to the promo material, that
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  Speaker 1: took twenty years. Twenty years in the making.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, and my side of thanks. The book the first story,
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  Speaker 2: the oldest story in the book. I started writing I
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  Speaker 2: think in two thousand and six while I was still
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  Speaker 2: an art school.
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  Speaker 1: Wow.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, And many of there's short stories and they're kind
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  Speaker 2: of like fables, and I've been reading them in public
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  Speaker 2: and readings, but I never published them. And every time
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  Speaker 2: I wanted to perform them again, I rewrote them and
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  Speaker 2: I forgot bits and new bits came up. So they've
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  Speaker 2: emerged really really slowly until they kind of solidified into
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  Speaker 2: a form, a final form. And that's what we're publishing now,
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  Speaker 2: with slow stories.
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  Speaker 1: And that's what I want to get into now. I'll
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  Speaker 1: lead the question with a quote that you also have
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: in that promo, and you say quote, As I developed
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  Speaker 1: these stories during two decades, rewriting them from memory, they
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  Speaker 1: grew shorter, strange details persisted and gained significance, while what
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  Speaker 1: once seemed like a central plotline or meaning this, I
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  Speaker 1: ended up with stories that feel deeper than my ideas, simpler,
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  Speaker 1: more layered, and more surprising. The statement about strange details
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  Speaker 1: persisting and gaining significance, that's fascinating to me. Talk about
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  Speaker 1: that in the process that you went through in creating
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  Speaker 1: these stories.
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  Speaker 2: I think for a lot of people who make art,
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  Speaker 2: this will ring a bell. This process of where you
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  Speaker 2: might think, oh, I want to write a really serious
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  Speaker 2: novel about political tensions in a rich family, for instance,
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  Speaker 2: and then you keep writing about this neighbor. That neighbor
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  Speaker 2: keeps popping in, and you why am I writing about
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  Speaker 2: this neighbor? What is the significance of this neighbor who
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  Speaker 2: keeps talking about their cat? Before you know it, you
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  Speaker 2: have half a novel which is about some neighbor with
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  Speaker 2: a cat. And then five six years later, you think
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  Speaker 2: the real interesting stuff was in the things that I
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  Speaker 2: hadn't explored rationally yet. It wasn't my opinions that were
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  Speaker 2: interesting thing, It was my feelings that I was still investigating.
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  Speaker 2: And sometimes you're lucky and this investigation into your feelings
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  Speaker 2: leads to symbols and stories that other people can also
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  Speaker 2: relate to, and that has space for their experience. And
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  Speaker 2: I think a lot of music has that too. When
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  Speaker 2: you sing, for instance, purple Rain, what are you singing about?
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  Speaker 2: What is the significance of this? It's not a rational thing.
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  Speaker 2: It's more of a feelings thing. So I think allowing
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  Speaker 2: these stories a lot of time to shape themselves allowed
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  Speaker 2: me to sift out my uninteresting opinions and let something
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  Speaker 2: bigger emerge that was way more interesting.
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  Speaker 1: And you see the stories take place in strange and
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  Speaker 1: imaginary towns and villages from pasts that never happened in
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  Speaker 1: futures that will never occur. These worlds exist without an
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  Speaker 1: elaborate background scription, like islands in a misty c You
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  Speaker 1: also say that while making these stories that you discover
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: the importance of leaving longer spaces. Can you expand on that?
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  Speaker 2: That was while making the record with Brian so and
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  Speaker 2: in the writing itself, I discovered that leaving things out
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  Speaker 2: can be very helpful for the reader to connect through
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  Speaker 2: their own imagination and their own visual imagery that they
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  Speaker 2: have in their mind. So if I described a town
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  Speaker 2: and I say there was a church in the center
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  Speaker 2: of the town, that might already be enough for you
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  Speaker 2: to mentally go to some town that you visited once
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  Speaker 2: or where you grew up. So the more details you add,
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  Speaker 2: the more it becomes my story, and the less you
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  Speaker 2: can have your own imagery in that. And Brian and
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  Speaker 2: I are very similar in that we like to leave
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  Speaker 2: a lot of room for audience in our art. And
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  Speaker 2: he's when I was reading the stories, he kept saying slower, slower, slower,
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  Speaker 2: until I felt like I was going really slow, you know,
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  Speaker 2: let it keeping half a minute in between sentences. And
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  Speaker 2: then when I listened to it again, I thought, oh,
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  Speaker 2: half a minute is actually not so bad because you
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  Speaker 2: can picture this this town with the church and the
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  Speaker 2: bells and some mountains in the distance. So I yeah,
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  Speaker 2: it taught me working with Brian in that sense taught
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  Speaker 2: me that actually more empty space is better.
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  Speaker 1: Brian is on two of those tracks. Brian, of course
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  Speaker 1: known for Roxy music and producing, you too, David Bowie
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  Speaker 1: talking it. How did you team up with him for
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  Speaker 1: this project? You worked with him before on a book.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Brian and I connected over our shared interest in
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  Speaker 2: what art does, why do we do art, what's the
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  Speaker 2: point of it? And our frustration that nobody, in our opinion,
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  Speaker 2: had put this into words in a way that we
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  Speaker 2: agreed with. And Brian had decades of thinking about this
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  Speaker 2: and lecturing about this, and we made a book together
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  Speaker 2: called What Art Does, in which we describe why do
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  Speaker 2: we believe people do art, what is the use of it?
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  Speaker 2: Why is it important? And we also collaborated on loads
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  Speaker 2: of things. So I would go to the studio you
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  Speaker 2: might be working on lyrics and I would help a
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  Speaker 2: little bit, not always successfully, but I was around and
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  Speaker 2: he would help me sometimes with my stories, give some
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  Speaker 2: comments we painted together. So this came about very easily.
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  Speaker 2: And my publisher and named Press, has released records for
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  Speaker 2: a while where they put one of the stories or
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  Speaker 2: poems that their writers do on the music on final
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  Speaker 2: So when I said to Ryan I might do that,
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  Speaker 2: he said, well, let's do it today. Do you have
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  Speaker 2: a story ready? And of course we didn't finish it
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  Speaker 2: in a day, but we just got started. We started recording,
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  Speaker 2: looking through his archive, combining tracks, and it came together
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  Speaker 2: quite naturally.
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  Speaker 1: And you did mention the quote that he had where
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  Speaker 1: he told you slow, slower, even slower, yes, more slow?
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  Speaker 1: Is the actual quote? That's chromo material. Why that approach
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  Speaker 1: from a stylistic approach? Why was that important?
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  Speaker 2: Brain thought about this longer, so he had he had
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  Speaker 2: a plan to do this one day, so he already
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  Speaker 2: thought about this. And he said that he always wondered
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: why audio books are so fast and why they don't
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  Speaker 2: leave space, and he always had this idea of there
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  Speaker 2: should be a format with music very very slowly read
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  Speaker 2: stories and a lot of space for the music in between,
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  Speaker 2: and for the story and the music to be collaborative,
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  Speaker 2: and the music not too illustrative, and the story you're
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  Speaker 2: not too dominant. So when I sat down to read,
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  Speaker 2: I read in my normal I'm doing a reading voice,
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  Speaker 2: which means you read at a decent pace. The first
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  Speaker 2: one of the stories starts with a girl was born.
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  Speaker 2: A girl was born in a village in a desert,
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  Speaker 2: So I would read it at this bace and Brian
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  Speaker 2: would say slower, A girl was born, and then twenty
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  Speaker 2: seconds she was born in a village in the desert,
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  Speaker 2: with Brian's music next to it, which I didn't have.
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  Speaker 2: As I was reading this. It feels completely pleasant and
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  Speaker 2: natural to listen to it really is like it brings
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  Speaker 2: you into this dream like state. As I was doing
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  Speaker 2: it in a recording studio, it felt very unnatural to
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  Speaker 2: leave these giant gaps.
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  Speaker 1: Because you're reading it. You're reading it without the music.
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  Speaker 1: You said, yes, he added it after interesting, Okay, Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: We did put on some music at some point and
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  Speaker 2: headphones for me to make the reading less awkward, to
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  Speaker 2: get more of a sense of what he wanted to do,
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  Speaker 2: but that wasn't the piece that we used eventually, so
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  Speaker 2: once we had the recording, we started adding tracks. He
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  Speaker 2: has this great archive of music he's made. There's so
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  Speaker 2: much in his archive that is never used. And he
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  Speaker 2: has this wonderful program that he made together with Peter Choffers,
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  Speaker 2: where he can automatically shuffle and it combines, for instance,
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  Speaker 2: threet tracks. And because his music leaves so much room
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  Speaker 2: for many of the tracks are pretty quiet and they
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  Speaker 2: are not so dominant. So if you can stack three
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  Speaker 2: tracks and they might still sound good. So we did
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  Speaker 2: all this shuffling. We added some cricket, we took them out,
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  Speaker 2: and for both stories we ended up with what I
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  Speaker 2: think is really suitable music that adds a lot to
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  Speaker 2: the story.
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  Speaker 1: Pretty ambient. Yes, the two stories are the Endless House
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  Speaker 1: and the other Village. And I noticed I think it's
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  Speaker 1: on the Endless House where there is there's music. Plus
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  Speaker 1: I'm hearing some other things in there. You mentioned crickets,
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  Speaker 1: but I'm hearing some other outside like natural sounds.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, that also. Brian has a huge archive and we
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  Speaker 2: just went through it. We played some stuff. We used
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  Speaker 2: stag words to search through the archive, words like gloomy echo,
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  Speaker 2: and then we just found sounds and some of them
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  Speaker 2: I don't know the origin, but they just worked well.
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  Speaker 2: Did you recognize any sounds in there where you thought like, oh,
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  Speaker 2: this is.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was trying to pick them out with my ears.
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  Speaker 1: In my mind. It almost sounded like I thought I
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  Speaker 1: was hearing maybe a flowing river. At one point, I
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  Speaker 1: thought maybe I was hearing birds. But they were combined
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  Speaker 1: to make this really beautiful sound together. You know, it
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  Speaker 1: was interesting if you were to pull them apart, I'd
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  Speaker 1: be interested in hearing how many different things I'm hearing
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  Speaker 1: in there?
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  Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah, for me, it was also fascinating because I
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  Speaker 2: don't have a music background, and it's incredible to see
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  Speaker 2: Brian work, to be honest, because he just he has
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  Speaker 2: such a sense of what is going to work and
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  Speaker 2: what isn't. So whatever I would suggest, like, oh, shaw,
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  Speaker 2: we try this one, he would humor me and let
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  Speaker 2: me listen to it for a bit and then I
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  Speaker 2: understood why it didn't work. But he has a really
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  Speaker 2: great sensibility for thinking, oh, we need a little We
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  Speaker 2: usually talked in the language of color, like we need
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  Speaker 2: a little speck of pink here, and then we would
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  Speaker 2: add a little sound there.
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  Speaker 1: Well. The two stories are the endless House in the
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  Speaker 1: other village. What are those stories about? Tell us about those.
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  Speaker 2: The Endless House is the one that starts with a
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  Speaker 2: girl is born. A girl is born in a house
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  Speaker 2: in a village in the desert, and when she sleeps
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  Speaker 2: and she dreams, she dreams another room to the house
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  Speaker 2: into being. So the house where this little girl lives
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  Speaker 2: keeps growing, and the rooms that she dreams into being
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  Speaker 2: nobody can enter them. So the endless house refers to
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  Speaker 2: this house where this little girl lives with her mother.
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  Speaker 2: That's what the story is about, about this house that
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  Speaker 2: keeps on growing, and only the girl can enter those rooms.
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  Speaker 2: The other village. It's also about a girl she sees
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  Speaker 2: one day. She lives in a village, and one day
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  Speaker 2: in the distance, she sees what looks like another village,
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  Speaker 2: and she tells her parents and they say there is
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  Speaker 2: no other other villages, and everyone in the town also
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  Speaker 2: tells her there is no other village. So this story
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  Speaker 2: is about this girl who tries to discover this other village.
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  Speaker 2: The funny thing is when I send that story around
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  Speaker 2: to my friends and my publisher, my family, one person
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  Speaker 2: came back to me and said, I love this story.
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  Speaker 2: It's about Trump's America. It's a critique of Trump's America.
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  Speaker 2: Another friend said, it's this story made as a warning
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  Speaker 2: that I shouldn't she on my husband? She thought. I
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: specifically wrote the story for her as a warning, and
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  Speaker 2: then another friend of mine said, I understand as a scientist,
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: I'm also critical of science, and I love how you
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: put that in the story, that we as scientists always
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: want to measure everything. I thought, this is such a
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: wild array of interpretations of this story, from America to
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: criticism of science to don't fall in love with somebody else.
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  Speaker 2: And that's what I really like when that happens. When
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: I write a story and people come back to me
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  Speaker 2: with interpretations that make no sense to me.
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  Speaker 1: That is the beauty of art. There are paintings by
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: you and Brian, and there's the actual cover art here
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: is beautiful. Who did the painting that's on the cover here?
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  Speaker 2: We did it together. Yes, an Impress is releasing the
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: final the book as a bundle, and initially we wanted
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: to paint the record sleeve because we've painted together before.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: I'm a visual artist, Brian is as well, and we
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: enjoy painting together and Brian has this incredible system for
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  Speaker 2: spray painting, a little bit like his music generative system.
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  Speaker 2: I'll explain a little bit more later. And wanted to
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: paint the album cover. But then Brian said, and he
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: was right, if people want to hang the album cover
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: on the wall, they will have a loose record. So
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: let's just paint something separate that they can hang on
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: the wall. And we painted four hundred and forty four
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  Speaker 2: canvas panels in his studio and we used the spray
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: paint technique that he developed, where you use stencils and
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: you kind of stack the campuses in different ways and
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: you use stencils and found materials to create create shapes,
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: you spray over it, you rearrange them, and I also
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: made line drawings on them. And Brian was the one
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: who had more of a as always a bird's eye
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  Speaker 2: few and he would say, okay, let's try this. Let's
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  Speaker 2: shift those around, and we I think we made about
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: seven hundred or eight hundred, and we stopped when we
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  Speaker 2: had four hundred forty four that we that we were
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: found beautiful.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, we'll get back to the show, but first
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I want to tell you about an exclusive deal for
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  Speaker 1: Booked on Rock. Also find a link in this episode
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: show notes, or just go to Booked on Rock dot
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: com and click on my deals. Art has been such
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: an important part of your life. Your bio says you're
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: from Amsterdam. You studied image and language at the and
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: I hope that it pronounces correctly, is it? Garrett Reitfeld
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Art Academy.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Of the Dutch G is very difficult, oh man, beautiful
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Dutch G Right?
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, okay. You've published novels, you write short stories, you
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: teach in art schools, and I feel that art is
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: so important as a healthy way of processing our emotions.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I always say if people picked up an instrument or
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: a paintbrush or a pen and create, rather than pick
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: up a weapon, I think the world would be a
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: better place. Brian enos Bio talks about how he often
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: does lectures trying to answer the question you mentioned this,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: What does art do? What is our do? In your opinion.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: We wrote a book together about this, which is based
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: on Brian's lectures. And I'd been thinking about this for
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: quite some time, especially as I started teaching art. How
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: do you teach something we are not really sure what
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: it's for. So I started thinking about this a while back,
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: and I think art has to do with feelings and
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: it's play, and it's on the opposite end of the
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: spectrum of function. So art is a way. Bryan says,
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: play is how children learn. Art is how adults play,
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: and I think that's a great way of putting it.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: So playing making art is a way for us to
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: investigate our feelings, and our feelings are really important. In
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: our Western society, being rational is really emphasized, but we
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: made most of our decisions based on feelings. You know,
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: whether you like that colleague or not, or I don't
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: want to live in this apartment, but I do want
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: to live in that apartment, who you want to sleep with?
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: All these things are based on feelings. You cannot rational
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: think your way out of it. So in order to
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: investigate our feelings, understand them, learn about ourselves, we can
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: make art. And the way I did with allowing my
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: stories to surprise me, which resulted in slow stories, but
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: also my friends saying it's your story, awarding that I
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: shouldn't cheat. She used my art as a way of
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: investigating her feelings. And I also teach together with Afghan poets,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: so may Amish I teach two Afghan women online women
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  Speaker 2: in Afghanistan and they are now under the Taliban, not
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: allowed to do basically anything, and poetry and art is
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: extremely important to them and they say without poetry, we
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: wouldn't survive. And it made it so much more clear
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: to me as well that we need art for our survival.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: In the hardest times. We turn to art and you
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: see it again and again that it gives us something
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: that we can hold on to. It gives us some grip,
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  Speaker 2: It gives us a way to express our feelings, remember
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: our feelings. It gives us a way to forget ourselves,
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: to relax, to make a monument for something. And I
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: also teach at the Art Academy in Amsterdam, which you
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: just mentioned here drist Felt Art Academy, and we facilitated
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: an exchange between the Afghan women and the Amsterdam students
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: at the Art Academy, and you can imagine that the
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: difference in culture is significant. On one end, you have
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: women in Afghanistan who have to secretly join the meetings,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: women who often are already married, often against their wishes,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: who are young, they have children and allowed to work.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: On the other hand, you have Amsterdam art students who
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: are maybe of all the art students in the world,
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: the most wild and free type of art students, and
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: it was incredible to see them connect through art. There
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: was one instance where a French student, very artistic boy
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: with tattoos on his face, he connected with Habiba, an
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Afghan mother, and they connected through a fairy tale, a
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: two hundred year old fairy tale from the Afghan province
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: of r and they both loved at Fairdale and the
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: fairy tale was the bridge between them, so they could
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: talk to people from such different cultures connecting through this artwork.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I just believe that I might be one
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: of the most the strongest advocates for art as like
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: you say, like the world will be a more peaceful
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: place if we gave it more space in our personal
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: lives and in general.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: So is the ability to create art something that's in
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: all of us? Is it something we're all born with?
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: The capability to create art.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: I believe. So I think playing every when you're doing
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: something non functional, when you're making a line on paper
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: and you're looking at how it looks, or you're smearing
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: mud on the wall and you're you're seeing, you're just
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: looking at as a kid, you're looking at you know
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: what's happening until your parents intervene, that's already art. And
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: whether it is setting the table or making a playlist.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: I know a lot of people who say I don't
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: do art, and ever since Brian and I released the book,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: and if they really did come to me and they say, actually,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: I do a lot of art. I always make playlists
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: when we're in the car and everybody enjoys them, or
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: I set the table, or all these little forms of
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: where they do a little bit more than they have
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: to do. And you know better than anybody else that's
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Selecting music is also a creation of art. Other people
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: have made the music and you make the selection, and
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: curating is also a form of art. So I think
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: in childhood there's this stage which is called the rational stage,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: and I think it's between nine and twelve where children
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: start to ask what's the point of this? So I
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: have to learn to ride a bike. Why because you
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: have to go to school. And with art, there is
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: a point where children stop drawing because they say, my
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: drawings are not photo realistic, They're they're plateaued. They're not
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: getting better. Other kids are better at drawing. My drawings
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: are not realistic enough. I'm gonna stop. And I think
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: if we in our education system creating more awareness of
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: the fact that actually creating photo realistic drawings or becoming
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: the best dancer of all the dancers is not the
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: point of art. The point of art is the process
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: of doing it and that gives you something. Then I
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: think I hope that less children would stop at that
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: stage doing something that they actually enjoy. What do you think?
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I agree, And I think what you're saying is
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: so true in terms of people are creating art most
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: of the time they don't even realize it. It's like
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: when I hear musicians talk about there's music all around us.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: We don't even realize sometimes. Like you drive by a
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: factory and you hear the pounding sounds of whatever the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: mechanics are of the factory, that's music right there. The
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: sound of a bird chirping is music. The breeze is music.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's all there. It's just you have to
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: be open to it and understand it absolutely.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: That I met Brian at at dinner and we talked
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: about art, and he said that he gave a lot
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: of lectures about art and about art what art was for,
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: and we were going to meet up the next day
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: in his studio. And remember walking to his studio and thinking,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: if he knows what art is for, will he is
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: he still playful or will he become really outcome oriented?
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: If you decide artists to achieve this, do you become
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: really outcome oriented? And do you lose to play? And
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about this and knocked on the door
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: of the studio and I heard him be all the
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: doors open, come in, I'm busy. And I saw him
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: in the middle of his studio with Joe, another artist,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: and Brian was throwing a bucket onto a chair that
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Joe was holding, and they had a microphone next to
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: the chair, and Brian said, I just I found this
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: bucket and when it hits the wood, it makes an
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: incredibly good thunk sound, and we're trying to catch the
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: thunk sound. So I watched them for ten minutes throwing
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: the bucket and then Joe catching the bucket with the
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: chair trying to get the right thunk sound, and I thought, oh,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: the playfulness is still alive.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Sure, I love it. Yeah, there's a musician. I just
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: watched an interview with the musician recently talking about the
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: importance of emotion in what you're hearing in the particular
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: instrument or a song. In other words, don't get too
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: caught up in the technical stuff like the EQ levels
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: or all these technical aspects. How do you feel when
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: you hear something. It may not necessarily be technically correct,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: but if you're feeling something strong at that moment, then
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: that's what you're looking for. And this was actually a
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: drummer who was talking about a snare drum and looking
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: for a particular snare drum sound, and he's not thinking
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: in technical aspects. He would just be if it feels right,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: then that's it, just as you were saying, trying to
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: capture that, and then you have to recapture that sound
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: and figure out how did I just do that? You know,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: you stumble about of things, you know, I find that
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: most creative during difficult periods. That's when you know I'm
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: most emotional, but everybody's different. Is there a particular time
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: when you feel most creative, at a certain time of day,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: or a certain season, or a certain mood when you're
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: feeling most creative, or does it just come out of
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: you unexpectedly.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: I very often have this urge to gather all my
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: unfinished projects and finish them. I have this surge of
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: energy which I always tried to use in spring, which
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: I think might be related to the I don't know
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: something that's in the air or something.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: So, and I was just saying yesterday to a friend
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: of mine who was an artist and who was very stuck,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: who was really tired, and she said, I just cannot
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: create right now. I don't know what to do. And
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: I said that during lockdown, I tried to write because
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: I thought, oh, this is a really good time to write,
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: because it's finally quiet. And I struggled because I was
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: stressed with lockdown and the uncertainties and everything was so confusing,
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: and I thought I'd wasted a lot of time feeling stressed.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: But when I later went back to the stories, I thought, actually,
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: all this hard work of mine going on and trying
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: and pushing actually did lead to something I get. I
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: did get some stuff fun paper that was good, that
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: was usable, but it wasn't my best episode. But I
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: do encourage people to keep on trying.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: I've heard people talk about that too. Every day, at
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: least once a day, go down and get to pull
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: a pad out or laptop or whatever and start writing,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: or take the canvas out and just start painting, even
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: if you're not in the mood. Others may say differently.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: You know, it's all I guess the individual approach. What
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: advice would you give to somebody who wants to create paintings, music, writing,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: any form of art? What would you tell them is
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: the most important thing to I guess to start with,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: if it's somebody who's you know, a child who's really
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: interested in wanting to create art.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: It's say, look at the things you're already doing and
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: do some more of it. I feel that a lot
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: of people have this idea in their mind of the
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: kind of art that they would like to do, and
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: sometimes it's other people they admire and they wish to
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: be like that, and they don't pay a lot of
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: attention to the doodles that they make or the way
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: they hum in the shower. They think that's just one day.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: I all make really great art and meanwhile I'll hum
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: in the shower. So I always say, start with the
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: thing that you're already doing and do some more of it.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Apparently you like huming in the shower. Can you do
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: some more of it? Can you record it? Maybe you
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: know what is it about the humming? And then later
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: we will see if other people also like it, which
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: might really surprise you.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, thanks so much for checking out the Book
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: down Rock podcast. If you've just found the podcast, welcome.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: If you've been listening, thank you so much for your support,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: and make sure you tell a friend, a family member,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: share on social media and let people know about Booked
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: on Rock. And if you do like the podcast, make
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: sure you subscribe give a five star review. Wherever you
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: listen to the Book on Rock podcast, Ron Amazon, Apple, iHeart, Spotify, Spreaker,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: tune in in on YouTube music. You can check out
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: the full episodes on video, along with video highlights from
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: to the show. I'm curious now because we talk about
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: rock and roll in this podcast, and Brian such a
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: big part of rock and roll. I'm curious as to
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: if you have any favorite rock bands or artists. Actually,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: my favorite band you could see the Van Heilen logo
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: behind me, the van Halen b from Amsterdam, and actually
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: it was Alex van Halen who was bringing up that
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: point about the snare drum. But I'm curious if you
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: have any favorite artists bands.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: I listen to a lot of music while I write,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: and that is usually music that leaves a lot of
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: space for my brain to do stuff. So I listened
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: to piano music. Brian's mixing album is one of the
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: things that I listened to. I also listen to Wilder
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: piano music, Julius Eastman. I love reggae, especially the older reggae,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: and I would say very much someone who enjoys music
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: without having any talent to ever make it, so as
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: someone who makes visual art, right, it's so nice to
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: just enjoy an art form and have no ambition to
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: get involved in it. Yeah, it's really.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Relaxing, isn't it true? Yes, yes, yeah, so so true.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: And I always say I love talking about all of
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: these musicians because to me, they're there I just I
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: don't know how they are able to to write such
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: beautiful music, Like where does it come from? But we
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: all have things that come to us. I mean I
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: I've been a writer most of my life and broadcast
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: for most of my life, and a lot of things
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: just like they come to me naturally in these areas.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: So I think with musicians and people like yourself, there
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: are things that come more naturally to you. But musicians, boy,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: it's just I talked to a musician the other two
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: three weeks ago says music songs come to him all
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: the time, and his wife will tease him. They'll be
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: in the grocery store, you know, and she's like, you're
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: writing a song right now, aren't you. And he's like,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: what are you talking about? Says You're not. You're bob
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: in your head. It's like, man, you know that that
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: that flow that it's coming through you of art is
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: a beautiful thing, whatever it is, music, painting, poetry, whatever
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: I want to finish With the proceeds of this project,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: they go to charities. Correct, yours you have two charities
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: or yours is one and Brian has one, right.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Brian has found it. Send which channels money from
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: the music industry into projects that help benefit the health
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: of the earth and the oceans. And I have founded
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: co founded foundation called Turquoise where artists and scientists work
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: together on social projects. And one of the projects is
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: the Heroines Movement, which is a project where teams all
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: over the world make children's books about women role models,
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: again with the idea that art can be a great
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: way to connect to people. You know, children's books with
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: stories and images can inspire children to dream bigger. And
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: we also fund the Afghanistan Online to School with this program.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: We do all kinds of great projects where artists and
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: scientists get together to do something impactful. Wrecked and impactful.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: So those are the two charities. So the money from
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: the Bundle funds funds are work.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about where people can go now to
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: pre order because it doesn't come out till March third,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: but it's important to get the word out now because
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: people can pre order. Slow Story is a short story collection.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Where can people go to pre order?
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: This?
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Is there one particular website we should direct them to.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, they should go to the website of Unnamed Press,
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: the publisher, and then if they click on final they
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: will see. There's the bundle. And if you buy the bunnle,
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: you get the final the album, you get a hardcover book,
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: and you get an original artwork twenty by twenty centimeter
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: campus that was painted by me and Brian. Okay, and
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: that's the bundle. And there it's a limited edition of
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: four hundred and forty four.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Yes, and I'm looking at it here. Yep. I'll put
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: the link in the show notes so people can just
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: go right there, click on the link and pre order
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: beta A. Thank you so much. This was a great
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: conversation about my favorite topic, which is art and being creative.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Thank you. I really enjoyed it. And the thing that
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: I'm going to do when we hang up is fine
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: fan Haylenk, give them a new listen because I'm into
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: it now.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: There we go. Thank you, and again, Happy New.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Year, Happy New Year. Thank you so much. That's it.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: It's in the books.