david letterman, cab rides, and the nytimes June 16, 2007
Posted by Charles Noble in : Uncategorized, add a commentWell, I’m back in Portland in one piece, which considering my day yesterday (Friday) is no small achievement! Aside from a ferry, the four days I was in New York involved traveling in most every other form of conveyance. I was transported in a jumbo jet, taxi, passenger van, bus and a two types of trains: subway and surface. (more…)
carnegie hall June 14, 2007
Posted by Charles Noble in : Uncategorized, 3commentsLast night I got to play Carnegie Hall! Was it with one of the world’s great orchestras, or even our wonderful Oregon Symphony? No - it was with Portland’s own sensational band Pink Martini. There were over 20 of us on stage for the (long) evening, and we all received a hero’s welcome to the Big Apple’s greatest stage. It was, quite simply, a love fest. There was, in the words of trombonist Robert Taylor, a literal “roar” that came off the stage as we concluded the set with the band’s signature encore “Brazil”. Truly a night to remember! (more…)
pink martini in europe June 3, 2007
Posted by Charles Noble in : Uncategorized, add a commentPink Martini just got back from a European tour a few days ago, and already some new stuff has popped up on YouTube. Here is a clip of their single “Hey Eugene” from the British show Later with Jools Holland. (more…)
hey eugene! May 17, 2007
Posted by Charles Noble in : Uncategorized, add a commentThis past Tuesday and Wednesday were spent rehearsing and playing for the CD release party concerts for Pink Martini’s new CD, “Hey Eugene!”
It was fun as usual - it’s good to see the people in the band who I haven’t seen for ages, particularly cellist Pansy Chang and guitarist Dan Faehnle, who used to live in Portland but now make their home in southern Ohio.
The crowd energy was fantastic at both concerts, and hearing the Portland marching band sensation March Fourth was a real treat (and they’re appearing on the OSO pops series next season, don’t miss it!).
thomas lauderdale and gus van sant action figures May 11, 2007
Posted by Charles Noble in : Uncategorized, add a commentThis came via an anonymous tip - it’s typical youtube fare, but with a local connection: [click 'more' for video page] (more…)
in the studio… January 18, 2007
Posted by Charles Noble in : Uncategorized, add a commentYesterday afternoon I was in the studio with eight other string colleagues to play a backing track for one of the new songs on Pink Martini’s upcoming, highly anticipated third album. Recording is an interesting process. A friend who has done a lot of the really high-class movie work in the LA studios described recording as 90 percent crashing boredom and 10 percent outright terror. The boredom is that you spend quite a long time watching the engineer setting up the mics, running cable and checking levels. You run through the chart a couple of times, then you must do everything you normally do, but perfectly, and often many times in a row. It’s a nice change of pace from the orchestral rehearsal, where you have time to work out any passages that you didn’t fully shed at home during the rehearsals. At concerts, mistakes are at a minimum, but since we hear in a linear fashion, things that do happen recede into memory pretty quickly, and the overall impression of the interpretation is what is left in the mind of the listener.
The recording situation for this session was unique to my experience. Rather than recording to a hard drive, they were using what looked like 3 inch tape stock for the recording, and the machine probably was running at 24 feet per second, so there was a limited amount of material that could be kept for editing. An added wrinkle was that the vocalist, China Forbes, was doing the track live along with us in a vocal booth, with Thomas Lauderdale valiantly donning his conducting hat and trying to keep us with her and her with us. It took a while to get the hang of it, but I think we got a good result. Word is it might be the first track on the new album, but these things have a way of changing as the production gets further along.
