Winter's Solstice

The Didgeridoo

Climb the light the color of love
Aligned with the sign of the beautiful desire
One and other you and I
Entwined in the finest beautiful, beautiful, beautiful desire
--Beautiful Desire  Telesma


Vaycay is always filled with activities & usually the summer is the non-stop activity trip but I this vaycay, as it is inevitably & unfortunately drawing to a hasty close, has been chock full of stuff going on.  I wrote about the beach trip but I didn't share another part of the winter break--stuff that Xing Fu & I did alone.  

On the solstice, and the day after the world was about to end, Xing Fu & I went to a warehouse way out near Arbutus in a clearly huge industrial park to listen to a band we enjoy a great deal--Telesma.  For me, Telesma has some history.  Way back I've written about how each year there was a solstice party featuring Alex Gray painting & Telesma playing with lots of other performance artists.  The first year that I wanted to go, I ended up with the bizarre ex-preacher with 11 kids who couldn't even make it to the show.  The following year, Xing Fu & I were going to go but it snowed on the solstice & the show was pushed to February.  We eventually saw the show & it was amazing & wonderful.  It was great to go to see them on the solstice once again, three years later. 

It was definitely freaky-deaky driving there because it was in a warehouse way back of row after row of gray, squat buildings with minimal lighting.  Obviously not designed for a concert....but we found it & with a bit of trepidation, climbed the stairs into the nondescript warehouse--inside was Orion Studios--a practice/soundstage/studio for artists & bands. The room opened up with cool lighting & posters, a stage, artists painting, & lots of folk of all ages, types, milling about. There was even a cool face painter so I sat down & had her put lots of sparkle on my face (along with face paint). Also amongst the folk was an artist very similar to Alex Gray--Adam Scott Miller.  Kinda the trippy vibe that Alex Gray has--we looked over his prints & decided that one was perfect for our house--so we bought a reproduction painting entitled "Celestial Shore"  which Adam personally signed to me.  

Celestial Shore

Telesma hit the stage & Xing Fu & I were immediately caught up in their sound.  Lucky to have such a cool local band around.  Hard to describe them but I've seen them described thusly, "electro-acoustic psychedelic world dance music".  And on their website they self-describe as being able "to taste the color of sound."  http://telesmaband.com/      Regardless, we were enjoying the vibe and everyone was grooving together.  A great night for us and we have a little bit of the evening hanging on our wall now. Looking forward to more nights like this one for 2013.