Driving Music

Switching to Portuguese for this one:

Para quem perdeu nossa apresentação completa no programa Experimente, do Multishow, seguem os horários das reprises ao longo desta semana.

HORÁRIOS ALTERNATIVOS
21/05 – 06h30 e 13h30
22/05 – 15h30
23/05 – 06h
24/05 – 08h30
25/05 – 12h30

Last year we were invited to record a few songs for the fifth season of Experimente, a live music show on Brazilian cable channel Multishow. Tomorrow, at 6:30 pm Brasília timezone, the show will finally be aired. The episode is shared with the band Fuzzcas and three of our songs will be featured – “Orange Traffic Cones”, “Watching the Wind” and “Strangers in a While”. If you’re not in Brazil, or if you can’t catch the show for some other reason, check out our performance of “Orange Traffic Cones” on HD here.

This performance was the last thing we did with the 2011-2012 line up. We’ve been rehearsing with Marcello Cals (ex-Lasciva Lula), our new drummer, for the past couple months, and hope to play a show and start recording new stuff sometime soon. Stay tuned.

From the very inception of Driving Music, I’ve nurtured the idea of playing fully acoustic, living room shows. Even though I’m perfectly happy with how each song’s turned out on Comic Sans and how we’ve been playing them as a band, these songs weren’t born like that, and I’ve often felt that a strong, although fleeting, intimacy could be achieved by just playing them by myself, without proper electricity, on an acoustic guitar. So when Mateus invited me to play at his house, in the beautiful city of Cabo Frio, I was more than willing to drive by the coast with an acoustic guitar and a bag of merch in the trunk of the car to make it happen. And that’s what’s happening this Sunday, which really just feels like a perfect way to wrap up the weekend.

I know things have been quiet around here for way too long, but that doesn’t mean we got stuck somewhere between a writer’s block and a dried up bank account. Actually, I’ve been working on the soundtrack of a Brazilian feature film that I’m very excited about, popping demos to my homies and getting things oily and taste with the new drummer. All that means you’d be hearing from us soon, but not right now, which just felt like a shame really.

That’s why I decided to start this new thing I’ve been calling “the home alone sessions”, and the first installment is right here. It’s basically a series of videos I’ve been making absolutely by myself, playing some of my songs at home. YouTube and Vimeo asked for a description, and this is what I came up with: “There is a unparalleled sense of intimacy one can experience by being alone at home with an acoustic guitar. The home alone sessions are videos I make by myself, trying to capture that very feeling, hoping the presence of the camera or the sounds made offscreen by the neighbors won’t be enough to make it go away”.

So this is the first video, for the song “Unimpressed”, which you can hear and download in its original form here.

“All in all, he knew he’d been putting up a pretty lousy show. That often made him wonder why she was still around”.

We haven’t played in Rio since February so I was happy when Audio Rebel invited us to play with São Paulo based band Hez (ex-Gigante Animal). Audio Rebel is one of my favorite venues, where I played my first show as Driving Music. The gig on Sunday feels a bit like going back home while still doing something completely different. Since my solo concerts at Audio Rebel have fit the venue really well, I’m using that as a solid ground to try something new, playing as a duo for the first time. We’ll be the second band to go on stage. See you there.

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Desde Fevereiro não fazemos um show no Rio, então foi uma ótima surpresa quando a Audio Rebel convidou o Driving Music para tocar com o Hez (ex-Gigante Animal) em sua passagem pelo Rio. A Audio Rebel é uma das minhas casas de show favoritas, onde toquei pela primeira vez como Driving Music. O show de domingo é uma forma de voltar para casa e, ao mesmo tempo, fazer algo completamente novo. Como meus shows solo se encaixaram muito bem ao ambiente da Audio Rebel, usaremos isso como base para fazer nosso primeiro show em duo. O Driving Music é a segunda banda a tocar. Nos vemos lá!

We’ll be playing as a five piece again this Sunday, in Volta Redonda. I was born a few miles away from there and, through the years I’ve been living in Rio, Volta Redonda has grown to be one of the coolest cities I’ve known – and for a city to be cool, free live music is absolutely mandatory. For years, Freakshow was a weekly festival, where three independent bands would play for free in one of the city squares. The project was put on hold for a while and has finally returned, now on a monthly basis. We’re more than proud to take part in this second edition of the new, revamped Freakshow, with Ricto and Plastic Fire. We’ll be the second band to go on stage, so be there early, since the whole thing must be over by 10 pm.

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O Driving Music volta a ser um quinteto para mais um show neste domingo, em Volta Redonda. Eu nasci em uma cidade perto dali e, desde que me mudei para o Rio, Volta Redonda tem se tornado uma das cidades mais legais que eu conheço – e todo mundo sabe que shows de graça são uma das regras obrigatórias para qualquer cidade ser realmente legal. Por anos o Freakshow aconteceu semanalmente, com três bandas independentes tocando em uma das principais praças da cidade. O projeto ficou suspenso por um tempo até finalmente voltar, agora uma vez por mês. Estamos honrados em participar da segunda edição do novo Freakshow, ao lado das bandas Ricto e Plastic Fire. O Driving Music é a segunda a tocar, portanto cheguem cedo, uma vez que o evento precisa terminar antes das 22h.

Since the earliest stages of Driving Music, I was always interested in working with fellow artists who I thought were doing interesting things that had something in common with what we were doing. That’s the solid base for the ongoing relationship with Clarissa de Oliveira (besides the fact that, well, we live and work together 24/7… by the way, you should check out her website if you ever wondered who was responsible for all the Driving Music artwork) and were able to work with Rodrigo Braga and Juliano Gomes on previous occasions, for specific videos.

Gabriel Martins is a great filmmaker from Minas Gerais, with works in both short and feature length such as “Contagem”, “Estado de Sítio” and “Dona Sônia Pediu Uma Arma a seu Vizinho Alcides”, who have been shown in film festivals around the world, such as the 41st International Film Festival Rotterdam, the 4th Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival & Market and the Cinélatino, 24èmes Rencontres de Toulouse as well as a number of film festivals in Brazil. Now, as a member of the Driving Music fellowship, he presents this video for “Watching the Wind”. We’re proud to be a part of this.

Like previously announced, we’ll be playing two shows in the state of São Paulo this weekend. What I forgot to mention is that both these shows will be the first ever (and the only ones scheduled so far) performances as a trio. Join us to hear these spacier, noisier, trippier versions for the songs on Comic Sans and a couple surprises. I personally think they sound pretty unique this way and I can’t wait to hit the road and share what we’ve been working on with whoever wants a piece. Since we added the artwork for the Taubaté show last time, we’re going with São Paulo’s now.

16/06  Driving Music, Chapp & Level 2, MC Ralph, Hierofante Púrpura, Eu Contra o Ego, Seamus, Tamarindo, Controlador de Máquinas, Sin Ayuda, Riddim SS… – @Espaço Serrinha, Rod. Oswaldo Cruz, km10, Taubaté/Ubatuba

17/06  Folk this town!, Driving Music & James Orr Complex – @Casa do Mancha, Rua Filipe de Alcaçova, s/n, São Paulo

We’ll driving to São Paulo once again this weekend for two more shows. The first one happens in Taubaté, where we’ll be headlining the Zero Zero Festival, on saturday. The next day, we drive the extra two hours all the way back to Casa do Mancha, to play with Glasgow’s own (and São Paulo based) Christopher Mack and his James Orr Complex.

16/06  Driving Music, Chapp & Level 2, MC Ralph, Hierofante Púrpura, Eu Contra o Ego, Seamus, Tamarindo, Controlador de Máquinas, Sin Ayuda, Riddim SS… – @Espaço Serrinha, Rod. Oswaldo Cruz, km10, Taubaté/Ubatuba

17/06  Folk this town!, Driving Music & James Orr Complex – @Casa do Mancha, Rua Filipe de Alcaçova, s/n, São Paulo