The ChatRoulette Show Recap
Last Friday at 4 pm, I realized I'd accomplished nothing all week (I learned a few songs, and wrote a song poem, but didn't *finish* anything). So I went on a Craigslist ad-responding rampage. I wrote to 3 people about unpaid opportunities (because sometimes you just need to get out there) and they all wrote me back! One was a music video production team who's willing to do a video for me for free for their portfolio (I'll be working on at least 1 video with Noisescape simultaneously), one was a 48-hour film team who I've volunteered to do *whatever* for this weekend, and one was, dunh dunh dunh, The ChatRoulette Show.
There were 6 performers and we were each to play for about 3 minutes for a person on the other side of ChatRoulette. Our webcam image + the other person's image & the chat were projected on the venue screen. At the beginning of the night, before I went on, we couldn't get a real audience member on the other side. Well, that's not quite right -- there were plenty of members! But at the very end of my song (I Jacko-rolled them with Billie Jean) after a couple of mildly interested chatters, we landed on Justin and Jonathan, 17-year-olds from Tennessee. They stuck around for the next 3 acts and were super sweet and very into us. Jonathan Bender, our MC, kept wanting to move on to someone else on the other end of the tubes, but the in-house audience loved these kids, they were enthusiastic and sweet. When I went back up for the 2nd round we were pressed for time and I did a quick "Bad Romance," replacing "bad romance" with "chat roulette" -- the chatter we randomly landed on was a little slow to respond and dead-fish like, but we got him into it and he told us he was in Brazil. Then Doc came on and we did a quick song together, "Do You Really Have To Pee In a Girl's Mouth" and everyone else ran through quickly. For some reason The Makeout Room has a 9:30 cutoff for shows there so we had to wrap it up -- but we all got on stage and through audience cheering, people voted for me! So I won $50. I've never played a show that was a competition before. It felt a little weird, like it would come between us when I'm used to being so cooperative with other performers. The other acts were so talented, we really all deserved some money, but the show's budget was tight so there you have it. But I was happy to be a fan favorite, and I said hi to a bunch of people afterwards and gave out a lot of postcards.
The lineup:
Hope Mirlis - singer and actor
Unwoman - cellist and singer
Dr. Popular - yo-yo extraordinaire
Sam Rogers - a cappella/beatboxer
John Staedler - musician, spoken word poet, performance artist
Alex Chaves -- live portrait artist
This was a good step in the comedy/improv direction for me and I'm very glad I made it. I would like to continue this way, as well as doing the goth & steampunk shows.
I've got some new songs to play for you guys if you tune in to my ustream show tomorrow! I start at 6:00 Pacific. At 7 I will begin frantically checking my email for news about what genre we got assigned for the 48-hour film project, but I'll probably keep playing for you all till 8:00.
[edit -- here's video from last night!]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvefxJ26btA
There were 6 performers and we were each to play for about 3 minutes for a person on the other side of ChatRoulette. Our webcam image + the other person's image & the chat were projected on the venue screen. At the beginning of the night, before I went on, we couldn't get a real audience member on the other side. Well, that's not quite right -- there were plenty of members! But at the very end of my song (I Jacko-rolled them with Billie Jean) after a couple of mildly interested chatters, we landed on Justin and Jonathan, 17-year-olds from Tennessee. They stuck around for the next 3 acts and were super sweet and very into us. Jonathan Bender, our MC, kept wanting to move on to someone else on the other end of the tubes, but the in-house audience loved these kids, they were enthusiastic and sweet. When I went back up for the 2nd round we were pressed for time and I did a quick "Bad Romance," replacing "bad romance" with "chat roulette" -- the chatter we randomly landed on was a little slow to respond and dead-fish like, but we got him into it and he told us he was in Brazil. Then Doc came on and we did a quick song together, "Do You Really Have To Pee In a Girl's Mouth" and everyone else ran through quickly. For some reason The Makeout Room has a 9:30 cutoff for shows there so we had to wrap it up -- but we all got on stage and through audience cheering, people voted for me! So I won $50. I've never played a show that was a competition before. It felt a little weird, like it would come between us when I'm used to being so cooperative with other performers. The other acts were so talented, we really all deserved some money, but the show's budget was tight so there you have it. But I was happy to be a fan favorite, and I said hi to a bunch of people afterwards and gave out a lot of postcards.
The lineup:
Hope Mirlis - singer and actor
Unwoman - cellist and singer
Dr. Popular - yo-yo extraordinaire
Sam Rogers - a cappella/beatboxer
John Staedler - musician, spoken word poet, performance artist
Alex Chaves -- live portrait artist
This was a good step in the comedy/improv direction for me and I'm very glad I made it. I would like to continue this way, as well as doing the goth & steampunk shows.
I've got some new songs to play for you guys if you tune in to my ustream show tomorrow! I start at 6:00 Pacific. At 7 I will begin frantically checking my email for news about what genre we got assigned for the 48-hour film project, but I'll probably keep playing for you all till 8:00.
[edit -- here's video from last night!]
Click to viewhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvefxJ26btA