Self:
LiveMusic Outing
Tonight the Ogden Fantastic 4 converged on the Viper Room to see MidnightMovies (http://www.myspace.com/midnightmovies)
While Lightling insists that it wasn't the best performance she's seen, I was pleased. A 'pop, psychedelic, indie' rock band, reminded me of takeoff from an airport on an overcast day to some pleasant destination, where beneath the clouds it's stormy and pelting hail and drumsticks at 120bpm, while above it's serene, sweetly whole notes on legato. Pressed to compare, it reminded me of the 60's version of the Dresden Dolls, primarily in the focus on female vocals and hard hitting drums. Females bouncing around banging on drums, and doing it well...while singing...what's not to like?
Actually the aspect that really stuck with me was not the music, the song writing was average, and I would have preferred more counterpoint, harmonies and motifs, but rather the silent camaraderie on stage, the degree of unity in presence, it didn't feel like a lead and the band but rather a peer to peer, facing inwards to the heart of the band, maintaining eye contact. Sonically and technically the multi-instrument proficiency of most the members, appealed to me. They were more careful in sound selection, compared to the band before them which had 9 members crammed in a stage only designed for 4, and most the time I couldn't tell what half of them were playing, and the more interesting members were crowded to the side or back of stage.
It's great to get out and enjoy live music. It's so hit or miss.
TheGreyman
After seeing inspiring and some no so inspiring live music. Part of me envies the bands, either way...performing is fun. Part of me also misses the personal growth that one gets in the process. After the 3rd time feedback ripped out my eardrums (in ear monitors), being flustered only prolonging the experience, I learned to calmly quickly it happens. Performing to a cold non-captive crowd is a exercise in self motivation and charisma.
While it's clear when say the drummer is singing, then playing keyboards, and playing flute, and designing the T-shirt they have had to make choices of what part(s) to play and when. Overall it seems simpler clearer a path to follow from inception to delivery, than I and fellow live loopers face. For one they aren't alone. My ideal performance, would be no two songs would sound the same, which makes it hard to find a venue and in particular an audience, and thus make that jump between hobbiest and professional. At present, having trolled Pandora I think 2-3 aspects of the music if fully implemented (I've never really spent that much time on my music) are separately marketable, and if I spent some time on the presentation I could make others somewhere between a performance art and a comedy/stage magic routine. Of course the cost benefit ratio to any of those is hard to justify against my other talents, engineering in particular.
On Friday, I gave a 5 minute presentation via the web, plus a few minutes QA via skype to the Bay Area Futurists, sadly the video cut out so I couldn't tell how well the video was received by the very diverse crowd, other than Mark asked me to come up next month and perform. While the presentation took many hours (following the trend of about 1hr per minute to make something, 2hrs per minute to make something good), that could have been spent on work, it was good to spend a few minutes on the musical facet of my life. Big thanks to metaeducat10n for resurrected some graphics last minute for me. I'd like to put something on YouTube, but it needs some work, in particular video is ...wonky (ironic seeing as I do flash video as a major part of my business). I'm interested in spreading the word about Live-Looping, and contributing my part, by open sourcing the techniques involved.
A few people have remarked being envious of my diverse creative talents, so I have to remind them that each is a skill that has to be maintained, and there are diminishing returns as one tries to get better, so it's like having a group of children to feed, that just like a parent I feel somewhat neglectful if I don't spend time with all of them, even if that's the right thing to do. Also it makes allocating time that much more difficult, especially when you consider truly great things only happen if all the energies are focused solely on that.
Tonight the Ogden Fantastic 4 converged on the Viper Room to see MidnightMovies (http://www.myspace.com/midnightmovies)
While Lightling insists that it wasn't the best performance she's seen, I was pleased. A 'pop, psychedelic, indie' rock band, reminded me of takeoff from an airport on an overcast day to some pleasant destination, where beneath the clouds it's stormy and pelting hail and drumsticks at 120bpm, while above it's serene, sweetly whole notes on legato. Pressed to compare, it reminded me of the 60's version of the Dresden Dolls, primarily in the focus on female vocals and hard hitting drums. Females bouncing around banging on drums, and doing it well...while singing...what's not to like?
Actually the aspect that really stuck with me was not the music, the song writing was average, and I would have preferred more counterpoint, harmonies and motifs, but rather the silent camaraderie on stage, the degree of unity in presence, it didn't feel like a lead and the band but rather a peer to peer, facing inwards to the heart of the band, maintaining eye contact. Sonically and technically the multi-instrument proficiency of most the members, appealed to me. They were more careful in sound selection, compared to the band before them which had 9 members crammed in a stage only designed for 4, and most the time I couldn't tell what half of them were playing, and the more interesting members were crowded to the side or back of stage.
It's great to get out and enjoy live music. It's so hit or miss.
TheGreyman
After seeing inspiring and some no so inspiring live music. Part of me envies the bands, either way...performing is fun. Part of me also misses the personal growth that one gets in the process. After the 3rd time feedback ripped out my eardrums (in ear monitors), being flustered only prolonging the experience, I learned to calmly quickly it happens. Performing to a cold non-captive crowd is a exercise in self motivation and charisma.
While it's clear when say the drummer is singing, then playing keyboards, and playing flute, and designing the T-shirt they have had to make choices of what part(s) to play and when. Overall it seems simpler clearer a path to follow from inception to delivery, than I and fellow live loopers face. For one they aren't alone. My ideal performance, would be no two songs would sound the same, which makes it hard to find a venue and in particular an audience, and thus make that jump between hobbiest and professional. At present, having trolled Pandora I think 2-3 aspects of the music if fully implemented (I've never really spent that much time on my music) are separately marketable, and if I spent some time on the presentation I could make others somewhere between a performance art and a comedy/stage magic routine. Of course the cost benefit ratio to any of those is hard to justify against my other talents, engineering in particular.
On Friday, I gave a 5 minute presentation via the web, plus a few minutes QA via skype to the Bay Area Futurists, sadly the video cut out so I couldn't tell how well the video was received by the very diverse crowd, other than Mark asked me to come up next month and perform. While the presentation took many hours (following the trend of about 1hr per minute to make something, 2hrs per minute to make something good), that could have been spent on work, it was good to spend a few minutes on the musical facet of my life. Big thanks to metaeducat10n for resurrected some graphics last minute for me. I'd like to put something on YouTube, but it needs some work, in particular video is ...wonky (ironic seeing as I do flash video as a major part of my business). I'm interested in spreading the word about Live-Looping, and contributing my part, by open sourcing the techniques involved.
A few people have remarked being envious of my diverse creative talents, so I have to remind them that each is a skill that has to be maintained, and there are diminishing returns as one tries to get better, so it's like having a group of children to feed, that just like a parent I feel somewhat neglectful if I don't spend time with all of them, even if that's the right thing to do. Also it makes allocating time that much more difficult, especially when you consider truly great things only happen if all the energies are focused solely on that.