Warning: This is full of my own personal observations and may veer
away from being relevant to either the Analog Heaven and IDM mailing
lists, but I've been getting mail this morning from several people
on both lists who want to know about how my live show went Friday night,
so I'm posting here rather than replying personally.
After packing up my gear I picked up Jason Welch and we headed to
Rock Island. Along the way we listened to teep tapes, which are a
continual source of musical sustenance for me. Big up teep!
When we found the YMCA in Rock Island, they were setting up the big
room and the promoter was nowhere to be found, so we went to the coffee
house around the corner. There was this guy who was singing live there
to his home-produced backing tapes that had to be seen to be believed.
Now I know what is happening with all those cheese-ass workstations
that Yamaha is making -- gomers like this guy are producing bad pop
music with rhythm presets in their quest for world domination.
We couldn't stop laughing. We're in Rock Island IL, and here's this short
pudgy guy in a cheap tuxedo, macking along with his homemade karaoke tapes.
He even put on what he called his 'funk' song, and did some robot dancing
through the crowd. Outside the front window two skate kids were imitating
his every move.
This was one of the high points of the evening. I laughed
so hard I got hot espresso up my nose.
Went back to the Y, and Tyson had finally showed up and told me where
to set up, but the PA wasn't there yet. I'd brought a mountain of gear --
EMS Putney, 606, 707, Juno60, Wavestation, Korg X911, mixer/effects rack,
two CD players, Turntables, Vinyl and CD's. I got it all set up and connected
together, and got everything working. Still no PA, and it's 10PM.
No problem -- the ultimate ambient PA -- a mountain of gear and no sound
coming out. I got everything synced up and Jason (who wants to make tracks)
sat down with the phones on and started tweaking. He was in hog heaven --
nothing but knobs and weird noisemaking devices. A continuous stream of
people came up and said "wow lookit this stuff" and things like "that juno60
is some bad shit man". I had some extra phones on the mixer, so for
the next few hours, 15 or 20 people got their own personal PA from Jason
and I.
Finally about 12:30 the amplifier showed up and we started making noise.
Since the main rooms were upstairs and more congenial to ravers (lasers,
blacklights and nonstop hard banging techno) we never had more than 15-20
people at a time in the room, but I gave it my best. The star
of the show was the Korg X911 filtering the 606. That combo alone makes
precisely the kind of squelchy rhythmic noise that people want to here.
The Putney was perfect for nasty intermittent howling noises, and the
LP I have of a Jesuit priest from Milwaukee giving marital advice to
young couples added that wonderful negativland ambience to the affair.
Josh Locke came down from Cedar Falls and played some decent acid
stuff on a very small rig. He's a great guy, and is just starting
out making tracks, and from what I heard can he make the most of
a very small gear setup. One of the big bonuses of playing this
gig was getting to talk to literally everyone who makes tracks in
the east half of Iowa. I'm hoping some interesting collaborations
can come of it.
The rest of the night I alternated between doing 20 minute live sets,
spinning records and CDs, letting other guys DJ. What could be better
a loud PA, your favorite records, the mountain of gear, and being in charge
of what gets played. Some random observation on tracks we played:
Rob Williams "Tempest" 12 on Head in the Clouds is way cool. Starts
out in Nintendo soundtrack mode and wraps into Jeff Mills territory and
back out again. Jump back, Mario and Luigi!
I'll say it before, and I'll say it again "125th Street Congress" by
Weather Report is perhaps the funkiest song on earth. It builds and
builds and builds and by the end you're ready to jump out of your
skin.
Tour De France (remix) by Kraftwerk kicks some major ass and is
as fresh as when it was released. Man o Man! Crackity Crack percussion
and breathing noises.
Jupiter Jazz (off the UR World 2 World) is just plain great. Funky,
melodic madness. Kicks major Ass.
Bump Talkin by Paul Johnson is the massive house groove. You drop that
and heads snap around and people start grinning. Roller rink organ riffs
and the kick that ate Chicago.
Many amazing jungle tracks got played, but not by me. Photek stuff is
grand, and someone had the Artcore compilation on vinyl, which has
most tasty stuff. The Subtropic CD is still aces by me. The first cut
rocks way hard, and had enough bass to thoroughly shake the pepsi
machine the speaker was sitting on.
We went until about 5:30 and then packed it up and went home. Jason
had spent so much time playing with my gear that he earned a new tag --
DJ Tweak. He doesn't really like it, so of course that's what we'll
call him from now on.
Respect to Tyson Howell for putting the party on -- it was his first
party and it went off fairly smooth. Thanks to DFT in Davenport
for donating their amp for the evening. Thanks to the Rock Island Police
whose station is across the street from the Y for not harrassing anyone.
Big up to all the raver chix and doods who came for not stealing or
breaking anything.
Next time out, I'm going to A) be better prepared and B) carry less
gear! My achin' back...
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unintentional Internet Humor (and I'm not making this up!):
"watch out fo the norad and such, they only clam analogness" -- Tim Goldman
"Could someone please define 'AMBIENT' (This question is completly
rhetorical)" -- some guy called 'JPM'
Kent Williams kent@inav.net
(319) 338 6053 (home)
(319) 626 6700 x 219 (work)
(319) 626 3489 (fax)