Hello Andreas, I can't tell how envy I feel. How on earth I should know about festivals in advance? I couldn't go to Berlin jazz festival, but would be easy to go to Wels. Unfortunately I managed to find festival's web site only on Sunday. It was too late. I'm going to Salzburg now and hope to catch Vandermark with Spaceways Inc., but what else am I going to miss near here, I wonder. Is there any source of information about European (mostly German or Austrian) music which would provide some sort of schedule of events like Berlin and Wels festivals or even single concerts and tours of the musicians? Tuesday, November 12, 2002, you wrote to me: AD> This year´s Wels festival (www.servus.at/w8) had probably the most wide AD> spectrum of styles I ever witnessed at one weekend: at one point we heard a AD> very loud and weird performance of Otomo and Eye where Otomo damaged his AD> turntables by feet while Eye screaming in a funnel and these two guys AD> attended a totally silent performance by Radu Malfatti and dieb13 the other AD> afternoon where the only thing I was hearing was the digestion of my AD> neighbour (don´t know what they thought about it). AD> Most interesting for me was the Peter Brötzmann Quintet w/ Mats Gustafsson, AD> Conny Bauer, William Parker and Hamid Drake. With this rhythm section AD> nothing could get wrong! Another highlight was the Dutch-Chicago connection AD> Skins & Strings w/ special guest Ken Vandermark - very intense. AD> Very good sets were made by Lonberg-Holm, Kessler and Zerang and by AD> Courvoisier, Olive and Mori. AD> A bit dissapointing was John Butcher because there were lots of visuals and AD> electronic distortion which diverted from his excellent sax playing. AD> Nice vocals were presented by baskian singer Benat Achiary (very intense!) AD> in a dedication to Peter Kowald (he was originally scheduled to play in duet AD> with him) and Carla Bozulich with the Nels Cline Singers. AD> Dirty hardcore hiphop was heard by the american band Dälek - more than AD> expected! AD> Another impressing concert was made by Markus Hinterhäuser who presented an AD> interesting piece by Morton Feldman: For Bunita Marcus. AD> Unfortunately the Ex Orkest was cancelled due to internal trouble within the AD> Ex with the effect that Luc left the band. AD> Andreas AD> np: Les Diaboliques - Live At The Rhinefalls (Intakt) NP: Paris Combo "Paris Combo" (CD) -- Best regards, Peter Gannushkin e-mail: shkin@shkin.com URL: http://www.downtownmusic.net/