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well kids, the show went amazingly. the place was literally packed, and a lot of people had to stand outside. i hooked up my minidisc player to record it, but in the adrenaline of the moment, i forgot to hit record! here's the rundown...
we filled the stage up with gear, we were literally surounded on three sides with gear. there were 8 keyboards (including the moog!), two computers, a 14 space rack full of gear, one turntable, two mixers, a couple of distortion pedals, and an accordian. we were both wearing all white, and we had a live visual show projected on us while we were playing. (plus my hair is currently fire engine red, so i was quite a sight!). here's how the set went:
1. an arrangement for piano, cello, and explosions
this is was a basic industrial/experimental song. it really hooked in the audience. holly was video taping and she caught some raver kid telling his friend "that sounds so badass!"
2. untitled angry song
before this song i told the audience that they were encouraged to yell at the top of their lungs whenever they felt during the song. i even put a few people on the spot in the audience and made them yell. during the song we had a few spots were the music would stop and john and i would yell at the top of out lungs. by the end of this one the audience was totally hooked.
3. a modem, a blender, and one synth
before playing i explained to the audience that this song consisted mostly of sounds sampled of my modem, but to fill it our we took samples of a blender, and then added one synth. i got lots of positive feedback on this one.
5. violating my casio
before we started this song i ripped open a small casio keyboard and started poking it with wires (it made weird bleeps as it was dying). much to the delight of the audience, halfway through the song i lifted the keyboard high above my head and smashed it into the ground. i even managed to cut myself a few places while destroying it (that's how you know we're punk rawk). the second half of the song i screamed into a vocoder.
6. the unfortunate tradition of naming diseases after people
this was a little bit slower. boards of canada meets speedy j. it kind of brought down the energy level. lots of head-bobbing in the audience to this one.
7. this is what trance would be if it were any good
this song was HIGHLY experimental. the first thing we did was turn up some white noise, while i explained to the audience exactly what white noise was. then we exposed them to a binaural beat (learn about them here!) while i told the audience that they should relax, and their brains were going to sync to a theta wave created in response to the binaural beat. then we played a very slow kick drum pattern that mimicked a heart rate. i the told the audience that their heart rates were going to sync to kick drum, and they were going to be put in an extremely relaxed state. then john and i played some minimalist electronic stuff over all this, with lots of anime samples. ;) part of the point of this song was to prep people for the next one...
8. the sing along
while i was promoting the show i told everyone to bring musical instruments, and quite a few people complied. during the opening act i taught people this song. i introduced the song and i explained that this song was a sing-along, but that there were no words, and that they should sing whatever came to them. the song was a simple trip-hoppy/boards of canada romp and about a minute into it everyone was playing along. i was singing onstage (but not into a mic), and a lot of people were singing in the audience. about five minutes into the song i got off the stage and wanered around in the audience singing. then i hopped on an old slightly out-of-tune piano in the back of the venue and started playing. the music on stage died down but everyone in the audience was still singing and playing along, and i was still piano. about three minutes later i stopped playing piano and waited for the music to die down before i turned around.
i can not adequately describe the joy i felt when i turned around. it's a moment that's going to stick with me forever. everyone's eyes were on me, and everyone had a huge grin on their face. i could tell the music had gotten through!
i'm sorry if this post wasn't all that coherent, i'm still pretty tired and i haven't gotten my coffe yet, but i just had to share.
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jubilant
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