November 5th, 2003...
Hmmm. Well. It's simply taken me forever to ever get around to writing any news here, so what I'll do to finally get the ball rolling is fill you in on some current stuff and then catch up on a little bit of old news as well (in the form of photos, links, and video). It's constructed in true web-log style - newest news first and oldest news last. Here goes...

For starters, Kuenstler Treu will be flying off to the States soon to do a bit of performing with Jon Appleton. The first gig will be on Saturday, November 15th , during a three-day electroacoustic music festival at Princeton University. A short biography blurb was needed about K.T. for Princeton's web-site concerning this event, and I ended up being the one to write it. Here 'tis:

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Kuenstler Treu was born in a small town somewhere in the highly civilized wilds of Southern Germany. His childhood was spent panicking his mother with grocery-store disappearances, pricking his ears to the various sounds echoing across the neighborhood, and listening to crackled Erik Satie, krautrock, and Balinese Gamelan music on a short-wave radio (under the covers, long past his bedtime). These echoes, waves, and crackles could soon be heard popping up their heads and weaving their ways through the wild and often humor-drenched audio chaos that he obsessively dedicated to tape during his teenage years. You could say perhaps that things haven't changed much - except that the waves and crackles (expanded by bleeps and blonks) are now dedicated to digital formats and that the chaos has become very precise indeed; a fine, fingertip placement of elements - intricate but never labored.

A couple of years ago his love of odd selections in vintage vinyl brought about an unexpected contact with the illustrious Mr. Jon Appleton. After hearing some of Kuenstler Treu's work Professor Appleton decided that it was high time they collaborated...

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For any of you located near Princeton who are perhaps interested in viewing this event (LITSK 03 - Listening in the Sound Kitchen 03 - November 13 ~ 15, 2003 - A Three Day Festival of Electroacoustic Music), Princeton's still-in-transition info web-site about it can be found here. Kuenstler Treu and Jon Appleton will be performing a fairly free-form live interpretation of music from their newly released joint album, WUNDERBRA!. A very nice little Flash site dedicated to WUNDERBRA! can be found here. Appleton and Treu's separate, personal homepages can be found here (Kuenstler Treu) and here (Jon Appleton).

And hot on the heels of the Princeton gig, on Monday, November 17th, Appleton and Treu will be performing at the Tonic in NYC (avant garde, creative, and experimental music: Tonic / 107 Norfolk Street / New York, NY 10002) According to Tonic's website, it all begins at 8pm, and a fellow named Yury Spitsyn will be performing that evening as well.

(Appleton + Treu Live! - flyer)

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Time to leave current events now and begin going back in time a bit - a couple of weeks, for starters, to Tuesday, October 14th: Mysterious doings at Berlin's own White Trash Fast Food. Three torch-bearing tiki gods burned masks of three highly irritating public figuares in effigy - right in the midst of a partially hat-and/or-wig-wearing, exotica-enthused, White Trash party public. Moritz R. (of Der Plan), J. J. Jones (of Fuzzy Love ), and Kuenstler Treu were all seen on the scene, but the exact connection between these three and the mysterious tiki gods is not yet known. Video footage of this event, however, is apparently intended for online display some time relatively soon. Until then, here are a couple of "backstage" photos of the artists in question.(Photos by Carola Wimmer. Click the thumbnails for a closer look.)

(J.J.Jones, Kuenstler Treu, + Moritz R. - with yours truly lurking in the background)

(Moritz R. + J.J.Jones preparing torches for the tiki gods)

(Moritz R. + J.J.Jones testing the torches for the tiki gods)

(Moritz R. + Mr. Match-Head)

(Moritz R. + President Bush)

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...And now I feel the strong inclination to skip all the way from October 2003 back to May 2003...

My brother Bruce took the plunge back in May - literally. He and his betrothed, Jacky, pulled on their diving gear, jumped into the brine (with a photographer and a preacher), and tied the knot underwater. The wedding announcement read thus-ly:

"...Jacky Scheidt and Bruce Carleton were married On May 25th, 2003 at 156¡ 30' W longitude & 20¡ 38' N latitude at a depth of 50' (Molokini Crater, Hawaii)"

If you'd like to visit Bruce and Jacky's web-site and see more photos of this unusually wet wedding, please click the thumbnail below. (some of the pix on this site take a while to load for slow connections by the way)

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Earlier this past May (a couple of weeks before Bruce's and Jacky's underwater wedding) we had a visit from my bro - Dutch 3D-animating guy, Kay-Kay. While he was here he made a nice little "film" of us with his newest toy - a digital camera that shoots internet-sized video. Take a look. :-)

"Where's the grill?" (please click image below to view the video)

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And moving right along (backwards still)... Achim (Kuenstler Treu) went off to Dartmouth in the Summer of last year to work together with Jon Appleton on their afore-mentioned, recently released Appleton + Treu album WUNDERBRA!. Here's a nice photo of them interviewing each other (July 2002) on the back porch of Jon's home... (please click the thumbnail to see a larger image)

(Porch Interview - July 2002)

And later (not moving backwards in time this time, but forwards from July to December), while the album was still underway, Jon paid us a visit here in Berlin (December 2002) , and I finally got to meet him in person. That was a lot of fun. Jon is one of those people who bursts with adventurer's energy. He's a wonderful fellow. A great soul. If you'd like to see a couple of snapshots taken during his visit, please click the thumbnails below.

Snapshots of Jon and Achim (and me) - Berlin, Germany - December 2002:

(Professor Appleton and Kuenstler Treu in their element)

(Jon Appleton and Saint Nick)

(Seeing Jon off at the train station)

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As for whatever else I've been up to, it's just been storyboard and other illustration work basically - plus various cooking-up activities for this or that project, which I don't feel particularly inclined to talk about online just yet. ;-) ...This being the case, I s'pose that's really about it for now. So until next time, a lovely November to you and happy browsing.

Signing off, L. (L.C./LLV) ...