Elektron Musical Instruments

At 06:40 AM 9/29/2002 +0000, endlessnessisticman wrote:

>I saw Monolake in Detroit at this small gallery.

I saw him last year during the Transmissions electronic music festival here 
in Chicago.  It was that concert that made up my mind to put together a 
laptop setup.  I hadn't even heard of Monolake previously, but the set was 
awesome.

>He was sitting behind a table with is ibook apple whatever with some
>midi controler.  I'm not sure what controler though.  It had about 36
>knobs or more.

Probably one of the Doepfer units.  The name of that huge one they 
manufacture escapes me just now, but I'm sure somebody on the list knows 
the one to which I'm referring...

>Even my favorite live pa group
>Spacelings and Bassheads could seem boring to watch.  They just sound
>good.  You can't see anything anyway.  Hey, put your hand on the knob
>and wave your other hand, yo.  It's all about how you interact with
>the crowd.

I think there are (at least) two different points I'd like to bring up 
here.  First, compared in general to the other instruments of your typical 
"rock" ensemble, keyboards/synths are pretty boring to watch.  It doesn't 
matter if you're editing a laptop with a mouse or tweaking the filter on 
your 303 or Sidstation.  From the audience perspective it's all tweezy 
gearhead stuff so hardware vs. software makes little difference.  There's 
just very little you can do to look interesting when surrounded by racks of 
keyboards and gear.  Heck, Keith Emerson used to douse his in lighter fluid 
and set them on fire, and even *that* wasn't very entertaining.

To some extent you can mitigate this with alternate controllers, although a 
guy with a keyboard strapped around his neck still looks dorky as hell 
(and, in the case of instruments such as the Moog Liberation, ready for a 
trip to the chiropractor).  Some guitar or drum controllers can help make 
things a bit more interesting.  The key here seems to be to get the 
audience's attention away from that stationary rack of equipment.

Either getting or becoming a good front man is a viable strategy.  Many of 
the best examples of good "rock"-style concerts by electronic groups are 
those who realize this.  For example, Bill Leeb of FLA does a lot 
playing/programming onstage, but he spends even more time frenetically 
bouncing around with a microphone at the front of the stage.  And can you 
imagine what Skinny Puppy would have been like live without Ogre's antics 
to keep your attention visually?

The second, and more important, point to bring up here is what exactly are 
you trying to accomplish with your live show?  The whole point is to create 
an environment in which both you and your audience can interact.  If you 
can put on a visually interesting conventional show and that's your thing, 
then go for it.  But that doesn't have to be the only type of performance 
acceptable.

Monolake's performance in an art gallery would be a good example of a show 
of a different type -- detached, but creating an overall ambience where the 
space itself is the center of your attention.  This type of performance if 
very much more like an art installation in and of itself.

Others prefer to use extra elements, such as video projection, to provide 
interesting visuals.  At that point, the show almost becomes an improvised 
soundtrack to the images playing across the stage.  I've seen electronic 
groups such as SPK, Chris & Cosey, Severed Heads, and Psychic TV all use 
this method to good effect.

In an entirely different vein, I can remember seeing the Crystal Method 
after they released Vegas a few years ago.  Almost immediately, everyone 
was sucked out on the dancefloor and became caught up in this sort of 
shared tribal experience.  By the second song, the performers themselves 
were moot and could have disappeared entirely, so nobody really cared what 
was going on onstage.

Overall, though, if you merely want to do the rock-&-roll thing to feed 
your ego onstage, then you're probably better off growing your hair out and 
buying a guitar.  Instead, think of it as taking your audience on a 
trip.  Where would you like them to go?  How will you get them there?

         -c-

_____
"i want to reach my hand into the dark and *feel* what reaches back"
                                                 -recoil