Photo by Claire, taken in Xining, China in November 2009.
Suitcases, airplane meals, security, layovers, running to catch trains, buses, taxis, strangers holding signs with our name on it, sheets, hotel room shampoo, smells, signs in foreign languages, sweat, communication breakdowns, ordering anxiety, granola bars, plastic bags, sunglasses, computer problems, wi-fi, coats, greenrooms of varying shapes, sizes, scents, and temperatures, fruit plates, untouched six-packs of Kronenburg (or Victoria Bitter, or Becks, or Chinese and Korean beers we can't remember), surly sound dudes, merch tables, sticky floors, magazines, makeup, bathroom stalls...then the show starts.
That's when we enter the Temporary Autonomous Zone. In China, Korea, the many corners of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, in the USA, or in Brazil: no matter how out of place we feel or how far we are from home, once the show starts, there are the kids. Some are very much kids, young and excited. Some aren't physically kids at all, but very much at heart. Some are overwhelmingly cool, fashionable, and "on the level." No matter which kind of kids they are, it's always a relief to see them. If we've learned one thing from touring every corner of this world this year, it's that "the underground" is a consistent phenomenon, one which varies only slightly in color and style from place to place. Kids are kids, and seeing them in Korean basement clubs, Chinese steampunk bars, or German discos is like stepping into an international embassy of adjusted normality -- or, rather, into the home lodge of a broad-reaching secret society with the power to change reality.
China proved to us that the temporary autonomous zone thrives even with censored Internet.
We've always felt that the performer-audience divide is the greatest problem YACHT has to overcome. By this we mean the vast and seemingly uncrossable boundary between us and them, the people who come to the show. We hate the old idea that "the artist sacrifices talent for money, and the audience sacrifices money for talent," because it implies that once tickets are paid, it is the audience's role to be passive, to accept what is presented to them as a return on investment. If the performance isn't what was expected -- "hey, I paid good money for this!" Of course, money is an inescapable part of the interaction, but we try to do everything we can to render that division between stage and floor transparent, if not annihilated. There aren't many existing models for us to follow, because this very separation is what defines performance, what distills a personality into a persona.
We didn't know what to expect from South Korea. New lands bring an equal measure of promise and trepidation.
We see the show as a pirate utopia, a radically demilitarized zone, an oasis of separateness from the foreign world outside. YACHT presents it, of course, and leads the way, but our ultimate goal is for the YACHT show to be a work of art without an author. From the first step inside the room, the audience should feel as though they are members, not watchers. It's a society of its own, a completely ephemeral secret society with its own spontaneously generated codes of behavior, which differ from show to show. It's owned equally by everyone in attendance.
And it doesn't matter where it takes place.
The Ute: a special breed of truck/car hybrid in Australia that we became obsessed with photographing.
It's with this in mind that we leave the hectic touring of 2009 and step into the fresh new reality of 2010. Schooled, humbled, and renewed. In the future, we will no longer be alone: when YACHT comes to your town, YACHT will not be a two-person commando of experience, but a larger system, a heavier and less predictable experiment in vibe control. Open the doors and prepare to participate.
Dinner with the band was great. I loved your performance of Psychic City, you guys put on a stage show in the guy's living room. Best part, IMHO, was bearded guy grinning when Claire got close to the "crowd".
