colleen

Adapted from the message I sent to my Bandcamp followers today – I send a message to my followers every month – if you would like to join, head over here :-)

Dear everyone

It’s another Bandcamp Friday.

As most of you know, 11 months ago, I started selling “Conditional”,  a song I made for Moog, on my Bandcamp. I decided to give all the proceeds to an animal shelter in Colombia, Peluditos con Mucho Amor, also decided that I would do this in perpetuity, then added more songs to this initiative (they are clearly marked FOR ANIMAL SHELTERS).

Thanks to your generosity I’ve been able to send more than 1700$  to 11 organizations working directly to save animals. 

Today is Bandcamp Friday and I am still collecting for Hogaramordegalgos, based in Buenos Aires (pic below of some of their dogs). After that, I will probably stop selecting an organization in advance, as fundraising in general is hard and it is difficult for a small-scale project like this to not lose steam.

I started writing a more personal text today, but think I will publish it later on – or perhaps not at all. Sometimes I am not sure if I am oversharing my thoughts and feelings.

In any case, I wanted to let you know that this week marks a big turning point for me:  on Monday I started volunteering at SOS Galgos here in Barcelona (we sent them almost 250$!). The plan is that I will go once a week, every week. Below a pic of beautiful Luna and Suri, hiding from the rain downpour we had on that day (Luna, the one at the bottom of the pic, as adopted this week, along with several other galgos and a podenco, so it’s been a beautiful week for the shelter!).

I would like to repeat my deepest thank yous to all those of you who have donated, but also to those who haven’t, since these decisions can take a lot of time. Sometimes, a commitment that’s slower to materialize can be deeper too. In a way I feel that this is what has happened to me, since it took me a long time to take action.

Sending you all a big hug

Cécile

PS: regarding physical releases, my Bandcamp still only sends from the US as it is maintained by Thrill Jockey in Chicago, but we now have a new official partner in Europe, Anost, in Germany, and they have all my albums in stock.

And new shows later this year in London and Brighton, with London being a special one as I will play special extended set of Le jour et la nuit du réel with never before played versions!

01 11 Baba Yaga’s Hut at Grand Junction – LONDON, UK

02 11 – Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts – BRIGHTON, UK

It took me a bit of time to share the concert I gave at the stunning Sala del Paradiso of the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Firenze, Italy, on 4th April, as there was a technical issue with the sound recording, so I needed to get used to the idea of sharing this with the only sound source available, a miraculously clean recording from the side camera. This does mean that there is no audio from the mixing desk (my gear), nor from the ambiant microphones that were set up in the room – this is just room sound next to one of the speakers (the one with the most delay too), so there is a lot of reverb and very little stereo. Such is life sometimes. I do hope you enjoy it.

Full video below on the Museo’s Youtube channel

NEXT SHOWS
01 05 Les Nuits Botaniques @botanique_bxl BRUSSELS, BE
21 05 Opéra Underground @operadelyon – LYON, FR 
30 05 St George’s – BRISTOL, UK @stgeorgesbris
01 11 Grand Junction / Baba Yaga’s Hut  – LONDON, UK @grandjunctionw2 @babayagashutlondon
02 11 Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts – BRIGHTON, UK @attenboroughctr

BANDCAMP FOR ANIMAL SHELTERS
This month supporting @hogaramordegalgo in Buenos Aires
So much work to be done, so in awe of the people behind this, so moved by the way these animals recover from the worst, and also sometimes don’t…
100% of what you give on my Bandcamp for the songs marked FOR ANIMAL SHELTERS go to the selected organization of the month.
 for your donations, Silvana and team @hogaramordegalgo and @galgo.libre for rescuing so many dogs.

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A post shared by colleen – Cécile Schott, musician (@colleenplays)

Dear everyone 

Back from a dream-like concert in the incredible setting of the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Firenze, Italy, yesterday… Should be able to show you more about this show soon, I put up this short video snippet as a reel and in the meantime I’ll be putting up stories today on my Instagram (remember I also archive these, so you can always find them later).

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A post shared by colleen – Cécile Schott, musician (@colleenplays)

So… a little late for my now traditional Bandcamp for animal shelters fundraising initiative, because it’s not easy to travel AND fundraise at the same time – last BC Friday was also on a return day from a show, which is why I even missed it completely.

We still have about 17 hours left to support our friends the galgos (Spanish greyhounds), but this time in the Buenos Aires area. A quick look at Hogaramordegalgo will give you the very sad information that galgos have it just as bad over there as in Spain, and just as in Spain, galgo rescue organizations are desperate for funds because they not only have to rescue a lot of galgos, those dogs also come in terrible conditions, sometimes to the point of not making it alive, and so vet expenses are huge. 

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A post shared by Hogaramordegalgo (@hogaramordegalgo)

You can find the songs and EPs that are part of this project exclusively on Bandcamp HERE (they are clearly marked as FOR ANIMAL SHELTERS), I will donate 100% of what you give, even if you give once Bandcamp Friday is over.

Once again, please feel free to see this project as an invitation to donate directly  (even 1$ will end up making a difference if many of us join) and to spread the word about these particular dogs, the situation faced by independent shelters (which in most places are the only organizations doing anything, since official shelters are also full to the brim) and the importance of adopting, not buying. 

With much gratitude

Cécile

(tried to make it sound like a Captain Beefheart title)

So… this is how these shows I anticipated so much went.

Monday. Land in Ponta Delgada.

Tuesday. 12-hour visit of the stunning island, seeing its endemic bird species and subspecies.

Wednesday morning. Boat trip, bottlenose and common dolphins. Start to get digestive issues after lunch, put it down to hectic schedule and feeling emotional. Show. Digestive issues do not go away.

Thursday. Manage to drag myself through town at snail pace. Now something definitely feels off and the mental tug of war begins: my body and my instinct are clearly telling me I am getting sick with something and that a transatlantic trip is not a good idea. I even google flights back to Barcelona. But I don’t want to cancel Big Ears. Of course not. It means a lot for a European artist to play there, my expenses are huge, I worked hard to get the visa and… I just want to play. On a symbolic level too, cancelling my 251^st show just feels so wrong.

Make it through the flight. Get to my hotel in JFK for my night layover. Start to get chills, then finally throw up. Now I think coming here was a big mistake.

Friday. 5 am. Write to Big Ears to say I’m cancelling. Then on the phone to my travel insurance provider. First person talks to me like sh.t. The second is nice. Tears of exhaustion well up as I spell the digits of my policy number. After waiting for nearly 2 hours because of a video app bug on my phone, I speak to a kind and reassuring Mexican doctor, who tells me that because my symptoms started nearly 2 days ago, I should be better by the end of the day, and can probably travel and perform the next day. His words a literal injection of hope and relief. Hotel staff is also incredible, with the sweetest cleaning lady ever. WHAT KINDNESS CAN DO IN A MOMENT LIKE THIS. Reorganizing the next day takes the whole morning.

Saturday. Fly to Knoxville in time for my first meal in nearly 3 days and soundcheck. Adrenalin gets me through the show, which I truly enjoy playing. I only manage to catch 2 shows but they do wonders for my spirit, Digable Planets and Shabaka Hutchings.

Sunday. Fly home Knoxville-Atlanta-Barcelona.

5 days of nothing but sleeping, resting and making peace with the experience. Finally feeling slightly better now.

PS1: turns out it wasn’t food poisoning as I initially thought, but a rotavirus which affected many people at the festival. Which makes me feel a bit better as I now know I didn’t do anything wrong and didn’t even get particularly unlucky: it just happened…

PS2: the irony is not lost on me that after all my attempts at articulating how complicated live playing can get, these shows that were so important to me would turn out to be a textbook example of just what I meant by that…

PS3: the last photo cracks me up. I can imagine myself saying “It’s an animal about THIS BIG”.

Also, if you are wondering what the beautiful light contraptions are (they kind of look like speakers, so might be confusing), they are part of Andre3000’s setup and he was playing there that night!