2016 / 2017

Construction festival, Dnipro, Ukraine, 2016

What I did in 2016.
This was super active year. 2 tape releases (at least!) and 98 performances in 24 countries (North and South America and all around Europe). Not so much time at home in Lithuania, although 26 shows were done here. The plan was ambitious for this year, I was willing to visit South Africa and Asia too, but it was complicated, so I couldn't manage it. Anyway 98 shows were enough for this year ; ) and i'm really thankful to Lithuanian council for culture, Lithuanian culture institute, Lithuanian culture attache in Ukraine and Poland as well as contributors of my crowdfunding campaign. Without this I could hardly do what I did. And what I did is not just a number. I was giving maximum of my energy for each show.  Everyone who has toured knows how hard it is: sitting hours in the transport, eating fast food, sleeping not in the best conditions, loosing money, playing with the shitty sound system, meeting unfriendly people ... and the list goes on... of course there a lot's of advantages too: seeing the world, meeting nice people, seeing and sharing the art, gaining experience, making friendship, discovering new cultures, earning money and so on.
So, I will keep on concentrating on touring for the year 2017, but more about plans below.
Also I organized tours for other artists and bands, it's Holzkopf tour in Ukraine and Lithuania, Ni tour in Poland, Czech and Ukraine, Andrea Pensado tour around Baltic sea. However I stopped this activity too, cause it's just to much stress, especially when booking shows for others outside of Lithuania.

What I have learned this year:
Firstly I've become less categorical, less judging about the art done by others. On the tour I saw lot's of artists, a few hundred. Some were really amazing, some were not, some were so bad that it was so good ; ) The same with my performances, some where wow for myself, some where bad (maybe also to much self-criticism sometimes). I have seen people who hated my show, I seen who loved and were totally crazy about it. By playing in different contexts you will get different reactions. And the contexts were really different: among punk bands, in art spaces, in improvised music community, in usual underground venues or in electronic music festivals. The most comfortable context should be free improvised music community, although quite often there are conservative people and cliches and this makes this music / events not so free. Personally I love playing for people who are open minded, willing to see something new and to react to it. This I experienced in quite many places and this keeps enthusiasm of continuing.
While touring I had enough time with myself, so I was thinking why am I doing this, whats the aim. Without doing this, what you get is just a constant change of the forms, people, cultures and so on. So, now I can say that the main things for me are knowing myself and friendship with the others (which is basically friendship with yourself, cause there are no others!). Also more and more I understand that there's more of illusion than we think.
I've also learned (well, actually still learning) how to cope with the negative aspects of my life. This is very important, cause we live in dual world and so we have to cope with this always.

New passion
Playing with other people has become a new passion to me. Doing recordings, making dialogue through sounds, forming new collaborative projects. So this year I did recordings with artists from Brazil, Austria, Spain, Greece (releases are coming up!), also had a trio band in Lithuania. All that was really great experience and I plan to continue this way. I'm quite individualistic person, so for me this is quite a move.

Event plans for 2017
Besides of tour plans, which are always in work, I also plan to come back into event organizing at home, in Lithuania. After wondering all over the world I always come back with the wish and enthusiasm to do something locally. I see how people do things in other countries, what is positive and negative. So this was good monitoring.
I was organizing events since 2006. in the summer of 2016 I stopped doing it and since then was following what is happening in Lithuania. The picture didn't satisfy me, so that's why I wanna act again.
Of course through those years many things changed both in my mind and in the "scene". Some things didn't change. Even though I was always open to different genres of DIY, underground music, but today, better then ever, I know what ideas through music I want to promote and what not. Also I understand that to have community is very important as well as a more proper collaboration with local venues and promoters. Currently I'm thinking about the model of collaboration.

Tour plans for 2017
The next tour starts in a month. Before that there's a plan to do the performance at the exhibition opening in Panevėžys, the town I live in now. After that - Krakow, Bucharest and Asia! All the new places I never been. Excited!
Then, later in spring shows in the UK, Portugal, Spain, France, Czech republic, Poland, Lithuania.
In June maybe will go to Siberia, also there's idea to go to Mexico and of course all around Europe.

So for now the plan is like this:
13.01.2017   Panevėžys, Lithuania, XX gallery

16.01.2016   Krakow, Poland, Osoblivy Poniedzialek

18.01.2017   Bucharest, Romania. A1

25.01.2017   Manila, Philippines. KPR
26.01.2017   Manila, Philippines. Today x Future
2?.01.2017   Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

0?.02.2017   Yogyakarta, Indonesia. 

0?.02.2017   Cirebon, Indonesia. 

0?.02.2017   Jakarta, Indonesia.
09.02.2017   Singapore, Singapore. Artistry

1?.02.2017   ?????, Malaysia
??.02.2017   ?????, Thailand.

16.03.2017   Manchester, UK. 

18.03.2017   Leeds, UK. 

19.03.2017   Bradford, UK. Fuse

31.03.2017   Rennes, France. 

01.04.2017   Nantes, France, 

04.04.2017   Prague, Czech rep.

05.04.2017   Brno, Czech rep. 

18.04.2017   Vilnius, Lithuania. Jauna Muzika festival

13.08.2017   Potsdam, Germany. Camp festival