quoted 23 lines From: "Sean Horton" <sean_horton@hotmail.com>
>From: "Sean Horton" <sean_horton@hotmail.com>
>To: idm@hyperreal.org
>Subject: [idm] RE: (IDM) Lap Top "Performances"
>Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 11:38:48 -0700
>
>Personally if you're sitting up there staring a lap top (Phoenicia, Plaid,
>Richard Devine, Kid 606, etc) it's not a live performance in my opinion
>(even if they are dancing around on stage with their shirt off). I have
>been pretty keen on what these acts were actually doing live and most have
>just been playing back sequences with out any real variation from the
>album. Either that our setting up a very long track and doing live effects
>processing/knob twiddling which I find to be quite boring (Autechre).
>
>Mouse on Mars, Mum, and Tortoise spend 3-4 hours doing a sound check, lug
>equipment all over the globe, improvise and communicate with both the crowd
>and each other on stage. That is a performance. I refuse to pay to see any
>more lap top "performances". I'll go home and listen to the "performance"
>in the comfort of my own home. To be honest I would rather go hear a DJ. At
>least they can keep a consistant groove.
>
>I am a lap top performer, so I shouldn't talk. I am however working with
>musicians on a live set. This, to me, is the necessary progression of
>electronic music in the live realm. Do any of you agree?
I hesitated to contribute to this thread since it's the same argument that
crops up every month or so on both this and the microsound list. let me
begin by prefacing with the fact that I am a laptop performer as well.
Mouse on Mars, M?m and Tortoise are all selling considerably more records
than most laptop musicians, and all 3 work in the studio with non-computer
musicians. So it makes sense that they 1) bring non-computer musicians along
to perform and 2) can afford to do so. Living here in Chicago without a car,
and composing my music completely on my laptop, it doesn't make any sense to
haul my entire studio around, nor to put together some band just for the
sake of entertaining an audience. if the audience isn't interested in the
music to begin with, i hardly think that adding a guitarist next to me is
going to change their minds. besides that, there are added risks and costs
that factor into lugging tons of gear around that a lot less established
artists can't afford.
a rock band can go up on stage and perform the exact same set of tried and
true songs that everyone in the crowd knows and has recordings of. they can
perform it note for note identically, and it's somehow considered more
credible as a performance, when in fact the audience could do the exact same
thing you've stated, which is to stay at home and listen to their
recordings. a DJ, while a performer in his own right on a technical level,
is really just laying down other people's music, albeit taking liberties
with levels/mix/layering. But you could also argue that a DJ is playing back
music note for note in the exact same way a laptop musician works (except
that you can see him spinning the records). How is this more valid than
someone who has specially put together a piece of original music for you to
hear?
Basically, I don't buy the rather arbitrary decision that electronic music
should acquire a band to be experienced live. When half the sounds cannot be
generated by anything other than a computer itself, why should one fight so
hard to hide that fact? It seems like a step backwards... I don't feel like
any artists needs to justify his/her music by dressing it up with a stage
band, especially if it never was a part of the music to begin with. Were you
bored by Autechre because they didn't have a band, or were you bored because
you found their music boring? Would a band have made the musical idea (which
in theory would not be much different) any less boring?
On the one hand I'm a bit defensive because I perform with a laptop. But I
also don't require too much personally when I go to see shows. Have I been
bored by laptop performances before? Certainly, but it was a reflection on
the music itself more often than being bored by the presence onstage.
I understand some of your points but I don't think they embody "the
necessary progression of electronic music in the live realm"..... as if all
music needs to conform to one direction anyway.
m.mercer :: design + sound
design ::
http://www.matthewmercer.com/
sound ::
http://www.mattmercer.com
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