Goodiepal: This video will blow your mind


I wouldn't normally link to this. It's 30 minutes long. It's streaming. It's windows media. It's all in Danish. But it's the craziest thing I've seen for ages. You have to skip through 12 minutes of a report on Second Life to get to Goodiepal (who I've mentioned in the past) being interviewed on a fairly straight TV show on Monday. He puts a small, white flightcase on the desk, and they talk for about six minutes. Then he opens the case, to reveal some kind of clockwork thing under a bell jar. They talk some more. The money shot is at about 20mins, where Goodiepal picks up the jar, winds it up and starts whistling. The clockwork thing becomes a little bird, which whistles along with him, as he plays some levers round the back. The presenter is flabbergasted. At about 23mins, they both get up and walk over to a table covered in little planets and stuff. Goodiepal starts whistling again, moving stuff about, and grunting in a weird Orc-like way. A previous poster thought it was awful. I thought it was awesome, if only for the look on the presenter's face.
After all that, you might want to learn more about GP. There's a rather noisy official site, a bit of stuff on flickr, and a straight biog. If you really can't bear the streaming windows nonsense (or the link has died), there is a bit of stuff on YouTube including this rather unenlightening clip of the mechanical bird in action - here is a higher res .wmv version. (Thanks, Martin)


Comments:
I know the Goodiepal and those Mechanical Birds were self created over the past couple of years. The best things in my opinion are the 12" etchings he has done on various vinyls both he has made and that have been released on V/Vm. the only shame is most are so limited.

His live show is a killer, he does a great Bjork impression these days which has to be heard to be believed.
 
This comment has been removed by the author.
 
Seriously, if you ever get the chance to see him live - DO SO IMMEDIATELY! He is side-splittingly funny, and has a great range of stories about living in the back end of beyond.
 
What a loon and, quite frankly, a fraud.
 
Does somebody has any clue how I could watch this fucking windows media shit on a mac ? I've tried flip4mac without success.
I've got old 12" of Goodiepal on Hobby Industries and I remember they were quite nice but my turntable is broken at the moment.
Oh well...
 
Is that thing essentially a wind-up theremin with a bird on top? 'Cause I've been looking for one of those.
 
re: flip for mac.

works for me in safari. make sure you have the latest version
 
yeh the bird theremin thing is totally underwhelming and didnt "blow my mind" in any way whatsoever.. very lame actually

however the table with the planets and bells and the distressed screeching was extremely fucking funny in a LOL way

id really be interested in what the fuck he was talking about there
 
I would be extremely interested to see a translated transcript (even loosely translated) as to what they were actualy talking about.

The bird thing is cool, but i have a feeling that im completely missing the point on the whole planets thing without hearing the dialog.

P.S. eccentric weirdos rule!
 
I'm danish and I've got no clue what they are talking about....!

Na, seriously... Goodiepal talks about his interest in mechanical music vs. electronic music, which he has made for many years. He's also a lecturer at The Danish Musik Conservatory (the electronic music line http://www.musik-kons.dk/english/study/e-music.php)

The glass bird box thing is all DIY and mechanical.

"the table with the planets and bells thing" is a boardgame type deal. It apparently takes a really long time to 'play'... and it's an attempt to make a different type of spaciousness.

Goodiepal has also written the theme music for the 11th hour program itself, which we hear at the start and the end.
 
I went to a concert with him in Oslo a year back or so. He basically did the same thing as in the video. We also got to try out his bird-cage-glass-thingy. It was weird as ****, but very interesting. He really has a system with his planets, and he's serious with it! POL
 
that was amazing

if he is a fraud...

_best_ _fraud_ _ever_
 
Goodiepal has also worked as a sound designer for various multinationals (Carlsberg, Nokia, Chupa Chups if I recall correctly) and a couple of years ago released his entire sound collection on DVD-Rs to anyone who was willing to name a price to him.

I think I got him down to around £50 and a CD of Buddy Holly bootlegs, although I couldn't afford even that at the time so had to pass on it.

The bird sounds were indeed on a limited 2x12" (limited to 100) on V/Vm Test records, of which each record was split in 2 halves of colour, and had tiny runic etchings in between each of the tracks. Maybe one of the few records with several grooves per side :)
 
More Goodiepal info at:

http://www.everyoneforever.com/content/2006-10-12/the_goodiepal/

A throughly silly musician shrouded in a smelly cloud of deep deep mystery.
 
that dude is rediculous. very intriguing. what a trip
 
I can assure you that the Goodiepal is definetely NOT a hot heat fraud, This MAN most have a whole VISION. ;-) Just see him live!
 
I can assure you that the Goodiepal is definetely NOT a hot heat fraud, This MAN most have a whole VISION. ;-) Just see him live!
 
I was utterly fascinated. The planet music thing felt like some kind of magic.
 
Uhm.

I'm not sure what to say.

Yes, bell and whistles were fine. Grunts were out of place, really.

The bird ? Well, it looked like a puppet, actually.

Uhm. I think that the guy is secretly making fun of everybody and he's the only one who gets the joke.
 
tips and facts about car-amplifier.great article and ressources for mot clé
 
To be truthfully sure. - After one has heard the music, one only has a vague notion of what it is all about. If anything at all. Do I have a clear(er) picture of what he is about after a live show? NO, not in a million years, in all it´s apparent vagueness i did miss somehting..

HELP ME. what is GOODIEPAL?
 
"DVD-Rs to anyone who was willing to name a price to him.

I think I got him down to around £50 and a CD of Buddy Holly bootlegs, although I couldn't afford even that at the time so had to pass on it"

They were Joe Meek, and I have them along with some reams and reams of conspiracy documentation.
 
Not overly impressed with the bird, though I applaud the effort.

...BUT...

WOW what a beard! I want to hear the beard sing.
 
To the guy with Mac problems: It's available as a video Podcast:

itpc://vpodcast.dr.dk/feeds/Den11.timerss.xml

you want the 05/03 episode

BTW: That program is by far the best tv show made here in Denmark in ages! And Goodiepal is always a treat!
 
I had the chance to see him play live a month ago or so, saw him beginning to pack up his planets and stuff and doing soundcheck but then i had to go. Nice to see this video, i really liked the whistling bird-apparence and he has a truly impressing beard, i only wish that i could grow such a beard.
 
Long live the Goodie! He mastered our record you know.
 
Thanks for everything, Seriously "the music thing" is the best blog in the world.

Goodiepal is essential in post electronica.

Killer
 
I remember seeing that when they first showed it. I am still in WTF mode - but i liked the boardgame with the whisteling.
 
8-0

WTF...?
 
Transcriptio/translation af the dialogue for those who might be interested:

Mikael: Countless viewers have asked us "Who has composed the title score of this show?". Now I can welcome Goodiepal, and you have composed the music we play.
Goodiepal: Yeah, I would say so, yeah.
M: I would like to thank you for that.
G: You are welcome.
M: You have come here in order to play a completely different piece of music.
G: Well, I have come here because you asked me to come and play some more music, and I would like to do that. Thus I have have brought this thing with me.
M: So this is a piece of music here on the table now?
G: No, it is an object of music. It is an object that gives me the opportunity to play music, but it is also a tableau.
M: It is a transport box that you travel with a lot?
G: Yeah, I do.
M: Where has it been in the world?
G: The box has been to, eh .. Faroe Islands, Russia, USA, it's been to Austria, eh, Japan, it has been around.
M: When you travel with this box, what do you do? You perform as a musician?
G: Eh.. yeah, performing artist of harmony, you could call it.
M: Besides that, you also teach?
G: Yes, well I am a teacher at the Music Conservatory of Jutland in Aarhus, and then I have been teaching as stand in at different foreign universities.
M: Some of which are labeled Ivy League Universities with a fancy word?
G: I can't answer that question, because I dont know what that means.
M: Among others Princeton in New York...
G: Nah, New Jersey... Brown University, CalArts - Californian Institute of the Arts, and .... eh, yeah
M: Which subject do you teach?
G: I teach what with a ugly notion is called "History and aesthetics of Electronic Music". And that notion leads to the question: "What is electronic music?" and I will claim that it is a watered-down notion. Everything is electronic music today, everything that uses elctricity, amplified in one way or the other is electronic music. So it is a nonsense notion that universities and conservatories etc. still use. I prefer to call it "predetermined music" but I accept talking of electronic music as a modern notion.
M: But there are no cables connected to this box?
G: No, I have an idea of a basic structure of mechanical music, electronic music and computer music as three building blocks on top of each other, i.e. there are mechanical parts in electronics and electronical parts in computers. And I have chosen for a while to dive deeper into mechanical music instead of electronical music.
M: Mechanical music. So this box contains something that can play mechnical music. Should we try to open the box?
G: Yes, let us do that.
M: So I will get us a microphone.
G: OK, there we go.
M: What is that?
G: That is a mechanical bird. Actually there are two mechanical birds. That is a piece of work that I have build.
M: You have build it yourself?
G: Everything I do I build myself - generally speaking.
M: What have you used for building it?
G: Eh, equal amounts of clockwork, and stuff.. wood ...
M: So the gears and the mechanical parts we can see in the bottom of the glass case is from a clockwork?
G: That is correct. The idea has been to make an world separated from the mechanical parts. So we have kind of a illusion up here. I am very intereseted in isolated worlds, confined realities. I have met a lot of people describing this box as a work of art, but I disagree completly with that. It is piece of mechanics. It does not ask any questions. It is not a piece of art, it is a concluded mechanical process that can be used to perform musical riuals or musical sequences. Rituals is too big a word.
M: So the lower part is the mechanical part?
G: Yes, and then there is the black line here, and then the birds on top.
M: If we look closely on the birds we can see skulls and bones, and that is made by paper?
G: Most of it is made of paper and things I have carved out of wood and plastic. But all of this is paper. And then there are two planets here in the top that can move forth and back.
M: Two planets?
G: Yes, there are two planet. There and there. Well, that is what it can do.
M: So when you have been to - say - Moscow with this one, how do you perform then?
G: I have always been very interested in the idea of the borders between human and machines. It is a classical phenomenon in modern litterature and electronic music as such.
M: Science fiction?
G: Well, like in science fiction. What started me was once when I saw Sony's Ibo-dog. It is very advanced. But I have never felt...
M: That is a little white dog that can move to music?
G: No, but you can program it and it can return to you etc. But you don't feel that it is alive for just one second. I wanted a piece of mechanics or complex piece of activity that is so complex that it can give the illusion of being alive. So i built this one. And when you enter the world of physics, it is easy to get a feeling af complexity playing a part. Once I carried this machine outside and the machine suddently misted up on the inside inside and started to whistle.
M: So the difference in temperature made it play?
G: Yes, it started the bellows and the bird started whistling. For a while I had the feeling that I had created a something living. And that is enough for me.
M: When you were in Torshavn, Faroe Islands, what did you do there?
G: I was on a Psycriatic Hospital doing musical therapy for the patients.
M: Should we try to do that here?
G: I don't want to do musical therapy here since there are no patients here.
M: Ah, (laughs and point to the camera) then you ought to see some of the mails we get from our viewers.
G: OK, I would prefer to perform a little ritual showing how to blow spirit into the machine and then ...
M: See what happens ...
G: And then returning to zero. So at first I start to blow. (Whistles and plays on the mechanincal bird) And then it more or less takes care of itself.
M: Fantastic. I have never seen anything like that.
G: Yeah.
M: Over here we have some more stuff of yours.
G: Over there we have a planetary scenario that normally is a musical game platform that I use in my music. I have made a planetary game where I move the planets around.
M: So these are planets?
G: Yes, they are all planets, there is one missing. There. Erh, it is a set of planets that i play with and they each have a tonal value. It takes very long time so I prefer to illustrate how it works instead of playing a whole game. I whistle the planets and then these ones strike the planets out of play. (starts to whistle, ring bells etc.) And that would continue untill there has been an astral scenario.
M: What did we hear in this piece? Is this planet Earth?
G: It could be. It could also by a mirroring of planet Earth. It is close to be planet Earth, yeah. It is a parallel universe. I have for a long time been interested in the way we as humans understand the solar system rather than how it is. It is like we still don't understand true spaciousness with time. We want to squeeze it flat. I collect computer programs that simulate the stars and none of them gives me the feeling of an opportunity to dissappear in the sky of stars. So I was interested in creating a flat planetary scenario with a negative universe on the other side where the planets can fall through. Like this.
M: Arhh.
G: I don't know if you know that old classic Flatland where the universe is two-dimensional. These are the same rules in this game. So no planet is taller than the others. They all move around in a flat universe and we as humans can then observe it in the same way we see it when we are poetic not scientific.
M: Goodiepal, I know that you are on your way to the airpot. You are leaving Denmark very soon. Thank you very much for coming and playing two other pieces of music than the title score. Please come back again.
G: I would like to. Erh, it depends on the circumstances.
M: Of course.
 
WOOT!

Mental translation, the Goodie Pal is out of this world!

You are a star, it most have taken you hours to make all that text?

So is all that really what he did say or

Did you copy and past it from some William Gibson book?
 
>You are a star, it most have taken you hours to make all that text?

Thanks. Well, it took me about an hour or so but I enjoyed making it, and I thought that all of you WTF'ers ;-) should have a decent chance to know Goodies ideas.

Personally I think he has some very interesting and intelligent ideas and a very unique ability to realize them.
 
I have never seen an electornica artist taking 3 years out of his time to make mechanical birds!

I don’t think he is a fraud, and if he is, he is by far the best.
 
my parents had a wind-up singing mechanical bird in a cage(circa 1974, from either switzerland or singapore, i forget.)

it looked and sounded exactly the same as this one. last seen in my dad's garage... i'll see if i can hunt it down.
 
This cell phone video is great to, dos Mr. Scandinavia have any idea hove fucket up he is?
http://www.dr.dk/Forms/Published/PlaylistGen.aspx?qid=384910
 
Goodiepal is no fraud.
 
KILLER!
 
It definitely looks like he is not a fraud.
His Christian name is Kristian Vester, and he is actually lecturing at the Royal Academy of Music, Denmark:

http://www.musik-kons.dk/english/
(staff - DIEM)

Also, he has an, imho, interesting view on how we see or think of the universe as being 2-dimensional when approaching it via poetry, rather than the 3-dimensional scientific approach.
 
Btw - very nice transcription!
 
WOW - GOODIEPAL IS THE BEST!
 
i^3 hypermedia to host Radical Computer Music Course, seeks participants

Chicago, August 21, 2008 - On October 18th at 7PM, i^3 hypermedia (11 W. Illinois, 4th Floor) will be hosting a netcast Radical Computer Music Course entitled “Mort Aux Vaches Ekstra”. It will be taught by Gaeoudjiparl Van Den Dobbelsteen, aka Goodiepal (both are aliases of Kristian Vester, a renowned Scandinavian electronic/electro acoustic musician and professor of music composition). Gaeoudjparl will be lecturing live from London via the internet to a core group of up to 20 students plus a general audience. The entire event will be streamed live on the i^3 website (www.i3hypermedia.com).
i^3 is currently seeking a core-student body to participate in this event. In order to fully participate, each student must obtain Gaeoudjiparl’s new book (the “Mort Aux Vaches Ekstra Extra” Education Book, available at www.i3hypermedia.com/CubeCart). It contains a toolset which will allow each of them to become a co-composer of Vester’s new magnum work of the same title. Over 300 have been completed by students all over Europe since the program was set into motion in the fall of 2007. Examples can be viewed http://www.flickr.com/photos/26336036@N03/sets/72157604939721183/ General audience members do not need a copy to sit in on the event and will still be able to obtain the education.
Gaeoudjiparl has many new, worthwhile ideas on saving the sorry state of modern computer music, and for anyone involved with electronic music, this is not to be missed! His project is an attempt to declare war on traditional music education systems and to bring computer music back to what it could have been - a way of creating new sounds in new ways with NO BOUNDARIES!!!!! For more information, visit www.i3hypermedia.com/events. Gaeoudjiparl apologizes for the subtitles in the embedded video, which he claims are rather literal. (12:45, 18:42 and 25:14 are all recommended starting points for this admittedly long and winding lecture.)
i^3 hypermedia is a progressive production and post-production house dedicated to creating new types of visualization and storytelling models. The innovative techniques used in projects such as B-17: A Mini Epic and Greater Than Less Than: Level 2 (www.youtube.com/bseventeen) have set into motion the Hyper-Cinema™ method being developed at i^3 by Arturo Cubacub and Sarah Weis. On Feb. 29th - March 2nd they hosted the first quadrennial (international | independent | interstitial) festival, celebrating work created in the spaces between established genres, formats and mediums.
Potential students (of any age or background) should write to info@i3hypermedia.com to secure a spot.
Contact kay@i3hypermedia.com with additional questions or to schedule an interview.
Contact: Kay Frederick
kay@i3hypermedia.com
312.464.0911
 
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE!!!
Gaeoudjparl will be lecturing live from London via the internet to a core group of up to 20 students plus a general audience, followed by live performances by Harry Merry (bizarro keyboard pop from Rotterdam: http://www.myspace.com/Harry9Merry) and Lord of the Yum Yum, Chicago’s premiere avant-vocal/electronic entertainer (myspace.com/5834604) . The entire event will be streamed live on the i^3 website (i3hypermedia.com).
 
CHECK OUT THE FLYER FOR THIS EVENT!!!

http://i3hypermedia.com/images/events/Goodiepal/i3live_lg.jpg
 
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