bike-mike

The drummer of Simonga-Maliko gets some horsepower to make it up the hill to the Pöstlingberg.

The "20er Turm" was built to protect the city of Linz against the troops of Napoleon in the 18th century. No heavy fights happend around this tower, the French army was too powerfull. The Simonga-Mailko from Zimbabwe walked around the tower and played their unique music with their Tonga horns (nyele), beautiful vocals and drums.

Recorded with Zoom H2 and Soundman OKM on May 3rd 2009.

Length: 8:57

Infos and great pictures by Werner Puntigam on the Parade/Linz09 here .

7:30 in the morning. Surrounded by noise!

I am living in Linz, Freistädterstrasse. South of my house is a main-traffic-road of the city of Linz, west of it is a big gas-station with a big car wash and north of my house they build many houses.

When I got up on April 20th at 7:30 and opened my 42db noise-pretection-windows to get some nice air into the space I got three different noise levels into my house.

West: Construction work at the gas-station (loud compressor)

This recording was done with the Zoom H2 and the built-in mics. out of my kitchen window.

Older link (car wash): http://bikemike.blogr.com/podcast/1059066/

7:30 in the morning. Surrounded by noise!

I am living in Linz, Freistädterstrasse. South of my house is a main-traffic-road of the city of Linz, west of it is a big gas-station with a big car wash and north of my house they build many houses.

When I got up on April 20th at 7:30 and opened my 42db noise-pretection-windows to get some nice air into the space I got three different noise levels into my house.

North: Construction work

This recording was done with the Zoom H2 and the built-in mics. Out of the window in my sleeping room.

The Gupteshwor Mahadev Cave is a very holy place for the Hindu people. What I liked that much is that the Hindu people are so happy to be there that they express it within the holy place.

How much I love this bells!

On the day of this recording I could see these beautiful solar rings (Sonnenringe).

Recorded with Zoom H2 and Soundman OKM in Pokhara, Nepal - August 2008.

View from the Hinteren Langbathsee to the Höllengebirge (Höllen means hell)

On the 28th my wife and I walked around both Langbathseen (Vorderer Langbathsee and Hinterer Langbathsee) to slim our body after christmas.

It was terrible cold and the snow sounded awesome. So I took my Zoom and made this nice ALL THE BEST FOR 2009 recording for you!

Nilgiri from the north

I did this recording from the window of my hotel room in Jomsom, Lower Mustang, Nepal. From my hotel room I could see the frightening Nilgiri and the Jomsom Airport.

Someone on the airport played this nice instrument and tune. I neither know the instrument not the song. Maybe you can help.

Recorded on August 24th 2008 with Zoom H2 and the built-in microphones in stereo.

Mountains on the way to Yara, Mustang

The women of Yara have to work hard day in, day out. Being guests in Yara the women from the village between the two rivers (thats what Yara means)  made us a precious gift: They sang and danced for us. Not only to enjoy us, they also wanted to raise funds for a photo-voltaic system. A excellent deal and a beautiful evening.

Recorded with Zomm H2 and bulit-in microphon. 

Early morning in Kagbeni, Mustang,Nepal. In the background the Anapurna.

About the recording: In the afternoon we visited the Kag Chode Thupten Samphel Ling or Sakya Monastery founded by Tenpai Gyaltsen in 1429. When the light went off around 10 o'clock the monks started their celebration in the monastery.

I put my Zoom H2 into the open window of our bathroom to record the ceremony which happend 200 meters away. So you'll get the door, the water tripping, ... animals.

Kagbeni August 9th 2008

On the way to Swoyambhu Stupa in Kathmandu, Nepal.

A nice ambience of hungry cows (holy), cars (too many) and people who do their work in their shops.

Recorded with Soundman OKM and Zoom H2 on August 5th 2008. 

April 19th 2008 I had to go to an annual meeting in Dresden, Germany. I always take the train from Linz, Austria via Prag up north. But this year they changed some trains and so I had to change the train 3 times up north.

This recording was done in a very, very local train between Summerau (Austria) and Budweis (Czech). The train was quite old and slow (only one railway-track - we had to wait) but very charming.

The recording was done with an iRiver T20 and a Soundman Mk. II microphon.

The old London harbour is gone. Some ships are still anchored next to new fancy houses where some years ago ships, cranes and warehouses dominated the scenery near to Tower Bridge.

It was late night when I did this recording. You can hear the mooring ropes and after a while a boat is gone towards inner city.

Recorded with my Panasonic NV-DS25 videocamera.

The "Urfahrmarkt" is a hybrid of market, lunapark and october fest in Linz, Austria.
Twice a year in spring and autumn people enjoy delicous food like Schaumrollen (see the pic), beer in hudge glasses, Bratwürstel, etc. and enjoy their life.

Get an idea how the Urfahrmarkt sounds during the day when I passed by with my bike. The lunapark people boost their soundsystem to the limits to attract youngsters to do use their high tech funmachines.

Recorded with Soundman OKM (on the limit) and DAT.

Funny, but this New Years Eve the fireworks startet 5 minutes late. So the prople from Italy and guests like us tried to make the best out if it when the bell announced the New Year 2008.

Very subtile recording with a Soundman OKM and a DAT.

Wolfgang Dorninger in front of a painting of Herbert Brandl in the Austrian pavillion at La Biennale di Venezia 2007.

About the recording: waiting for a short local train, passes by quick, cars start their engines, all as usual. the silence before the opening of the gate was stunning. Done near Pordenone on autostrada SS13.

DAT and Soundman OKM

July 2007

4th of October 2007: Graz Bahnhofsplatz in front of Hotel Ibis.

Early in the morning on the way to the railwaystation I passed by the Hotel Ibis with a hudge glass outbuilding facing the Bahnhofsplatz.

When you pass by you hear interesting reflections from the glass front.

I came from the Bahnhofsstrasse - big road, heavy morning traffic - the left channel is directed to the Bahnhofsplatz (a place) and the right channel is directed to the glass front of the hotel.

After 1:20 I turned around and walked back to the Bahnhofsstrasse - so the channels are changed. The file is 2:20 long - Blogr does display the time wrong.

Recorded with DAT and a Soundman OKM mic.

"Closed enough" by Staalplaat Soundsystem

I went to Graz to do an interview with Justin Bennett and to see him perform with BMB con. as part of "Closed Enough" by Staalplaat Soundsystem at Steirischer Herbst 2007 / Musikprotokoll.

BMB con. delt with nature and human in their opening performance which stood opposite to the Staalplaat Soundsystem performance driven by machines from the tool shop expanded with a flying helicoper, car-hifi, race car, trains and truck. What shall I say: "Excellent lights, stunning sounds, a perfect floorplan and organic structure of the timeline: A hymn to a 100-year tradition of noise-making machines."

A performance without stage using the whole space of the large List-Halle made the audience moving around. So everyone cruised around for best sound-experience and visual impression. I did the same, but I focused on doing nice video-recordings not that much in doing perfect audio-recordings.

But by luck my mp3-player/recorder iRiver T20 did a great job with my Soundman OKM mics. Carsten and Geert-Jan gave me the permission to present parts of the recordings at BikeMike thanks a lot!

rec.1 is quite at the beginning of "Closed enough" with a focus on trains and train-sounds - the Austrian railway-company ÖBB took part at this performance. Then adapeted machines from the tool-shop started the percussive-part ending with sirenes.

Amsterdam: 6th of September 2007 between 9:20 and 9:40

Walking from my Hotel near Vondelpark to Mediamatic near Centraal Station.

This is part two, recorded with a Soundman OKm Mk. II. You can hear me saying where I am. Why did I make this recording? Its easy: Amsterdam is diffrent, less cars, many, many bicycles, in the center just little noise, except they do construction work. You can hear it at the beginning of this walk in Part II.

Enjoy Amsterdam!  

Sitting under the pillows of a building in classicist style (I don't know the name) in front of a "Mohnfeld" (poppy seed field) next to the Friderikanum in Kassel Gabriele (my wife) and I made a rest. Walking through the Documenta is exhausting :)

On the recording done below the pillows you can hear people passing by discussing the art presented on Documenta XII. On the edges of the park you hear cars and busses and then the 6 o'clock evening bells of three different churches. Two of them loud, one silent from far away.

Something on Documenta XII: few sound-installations, no field recordings but lots of text.

Pic. by Galbriele Kling-Dorninger

These days I am on the road for a video-documentation "in the fields / Feldaufnahmen" (worktitle) onroute 1 which leads me from Linz, Austria via Pilsen (Czech) to Crottendorf in Saxony, Germany to do an interview with Marcus Obst.

Marcus showed us one of his fav.locations in his neighborhood called Pumpkraftwerk Markersbach. There is one big basin up the mountain and one lake (which was a valley before) with a dam on the foot of the mountain.

During the night they pump up the water into the basin on top and in the morning the let it rush down to the turbins to prudce electricity.

So I did an interview with Marcus at this technical place within a beautiful nature ressort. At the end I walked up with my Soundman OKM from the lake to the pumphouse. 200 meters.

You get the waterflushing into the lake then the wires singing ..... grasshoppers ....

 Enjoy the recording!

Next stop is/was Leipzig to do an interview with Patrick Franke at the  Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig.