Tag Archives: burning man

Percussion cruise to Sonic Runway and beyond

A percussion cruise is a pretty simple pleasure: Invite people onto the roof to play the drums and gongs, and drive across the Black Rock Desert.

As I drive, happy sounds drift down – people lazily striking the gongs, and chatting passionately about their burns.

The first part of this clip is the sound of a cruise we did on Tuesday afternoon, and the latter part is part of XyloVan’s set at Sonic Runway – friends from Liminal Labs joined random Burners on the roof and around the xylophones to play.

Unfortunately, the mixer crapped out so the roof percussion drowned out the xylophones, but the sound was enough to trigger some beautiful patterns on the Runway.

Support XyloVan on Indiegogo!

indiegogohero_smThat’s right, friends, we’re campaigning on Indiegogo right now!

Please jump in, check out our video and give as much as you can to help XyloVan get back on the road and all gussied up with new lights, sound and instruments.

Please share this link with your friends and help us bring more music to the people. What’s in it for you? Aside from keeping one of the world’s weirdest, most interactive art cars in action?

Well, handsome schwag, ruggedly beautiful handcrafted aluminum amulets, gorgeous musical instruments, personal appearances by XyloVan and a helluva lot more. Please come check it out and give us a hand!

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 was a kick in the skull, a warm meal in the tummy, a pyrotechnic blast of hot air, a goosing of the chakras and raw noise and (of course) the B e s t   B u r n   E v e r.

It’s just that it all happened at once. And things got, shall we say, a little madcap.

Your keywords for joining XyloVan on this crash-dive burn are dust bowl, flying saucers, Gate badassery, Swing City, Burn Wall Street, Center Camp, playa throat, nude acrobatics, darkwads, polo-shirted virgins and Goddammit, is AAA really charging fucking $1,595 to simply tow us and XyloVan from Exodus to Reno?

Continue reading Burning Man 2012 – Whoa, what was THAT all about?

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 for the weird pelvic foot that thrusts down, lifts the entire machine and pivots to help its otherwise linear drivetrain turn.