Lucidity Festival was a much needed calm in the storm of our lives. Lately, it’s seemed like the plates we’re spinning are spinning us, and someone keeps adding more plates! At some point, your realize your life is living you, and you need to re-center, to find peace and solidity among solid souls with good …
L.A. Burning Man Bequinox 2013 – The first time
We built Seraphim, a 24-foot-high multi-ton wooden sculpture, in the desert last weekend near Joshua Tree, for BEquinox, the inaugural spring gathering of the Los Angeles Burning Man community. Four artists adorned the flame vortex with angels representing the four largest cultures of modern L.A. – Latino, African, European and Asian – and participants wrote …
L.A. Decom 2012 – Unifying angels and syncopating devils
Bigger, lusher, deeper, louder – better. The L.A. Burning Man Decompression Arts Festival grew in scope and beauty this year. We were really staggered and touched by all of you gorgeous people who came by to play and chat with us – and we wish we had met even more of you, but Decom beckoned, …
XyloVan walkaround – L.A. Decom 2012
XyloVan in full voice – L.A. Decom 2012
Be warned – it’s LOUD. And that makes us happy.
Drumming on XyloVan at L.A. Decom 2012
Contemplative jam at L.A. Decom 2012
Thank you LA Decom friends!
We had an awesome time meeting you all and hearing you play! We’ll have some photos and video up shortly. Meantime, come find us on Facebook!
Photos from Caine’s Arcade Day of Play
Fun at Caine’s Arcade – The Cardboard Challenge Day of Play
XyloVan was thrilled and tickled to be invited to join hundreds of kids (and grownups indulging their inner children) at the Caine’s Arcade Cardboard Challenge DAY OF PLAY. Kids in Boyle Heights (and at Cardboard Challenge events all over the world) built wild, amazing toys, games and masks out of cardboard, tape and a little …
Burning Man 2012 – Whoa, what was THAT all about?
We left the playa 8 days ago. We’re still trying to figure out this exhilarating, \ exhausting, just-got-mugged-in-a-brothel feeling. Our 9th burn – the 6th for our two kids – started out wild. Then it grew wacky, turned mostly wonderful – and then veered toward the horribly woeful and deeply weird. In the end, 2012 …
Burning Man 2012: Burn Wall Street – and torch that Egyptian god while you’re at it
At some point – say, \next year – we’ll probably quit aiming a camera at the same damn spectacle that everyone else is videoing and actually absorb a burn face-to-face with open soul, unfiltered by a 2-inch screen. Until then, we’re happy to share these videos of Burn Wall Street and the Anubis burn: Word …
Mutant Vehicle of the Year Award for Burning Man 2012
XyloVan loves meeting fellow mutant vehicles. On Tuesday night, we stumbled across “Fusion,” a fantastic V8-powered desert roadster hand-wrought entirely of stainless-steel tubing, laboratory reactor vessels, LED arrays and raw badassery. We can’t find much on the web about it – no build log, a few photos on Facebook, but it appears to be tied …
Contemplative Laura
Laura – a multiinstrumentalist who dropped by to discuss XyloVan mallet technology found a mood:
Thursday night jam
Mikaal, Hunter and a friend get into a groove in Swing City:
The Walking Beast
It’s been around for a while, troche but this is the first time we got to see it up close and in action. Biomass is completely obsessed with it, of course. Fire good. Mammoth earth-shaking alien-looking tank technology gooder. Here’s a clip of it showing off on the Esplanade at Burning Man 2012 – watch …
The Saucers
Our Burning Man project for this year took so much time to build that we haven’t been able to scrape together a full build log for it. But watch this space – we’ll share some pictures of how we spun plastic plates from the 99-cent store, a handful of Chinese-made LEDs and four old backpack …
We’re headed to Swing City!
We’re tickled as hell to share this news: XyloVan just learned that we will be joining Swing City in Black Rock City this August at Burning Man 2012. Swing City is dedicated to aerial gymnastics – and the XyloVan crew is about as buff as a plate of doughnuts. But we’re as likely to monkey …
Photos from Lucidity Festival 2012 – Sparks of joy
Lucidity Festival brought a lot of joy to XyloVan. Here’s what some of that looked like. If you spot yourself in any of these photos, give us a shout in comments – we want to hear from you – and thanks for playing!
Rocking the mallets at Lucidity Festival 2012
Everyone brings something glowing and unique to XyloVan. Little kids, drunks and professional percussionists hammer at the keys in a zillion different ways. People play “Chopsticks” or “Star Wars” or “Mario Bros.” or “Claire du Lune.” They goof, explore and jam. Their music is as diverse as their faces and lives. But the beauty of …