Its been a little while since I've posted and I wanted to apologize for that. Life has a way of getting ridiculously busy at times ;-) At any rate there are a few things I wanted to post about.
First off, electronic musician and fellow blogger Mark Mosher has recently re-done his music website and added some new music for folks who sign up on his mailing list. He also has revamped his online store and has t-shirts for sale. I suggest you check out his album "Reboot". Its good stuff. You can find his site HERE.
Secondly, Groove 3 & Findremix has teamed up with Ohm Force, Camel Audio, Prime Loops and Systems Recordings to host a remix contest. Remix Timothy Allen's track "Bugger it" by May 31, 2010 and compete to win a variety of software, samples and a spot on Timothy's new release. For more information go HERE.
Last but not least, the Austin Songwriters Group is holding their spring songwriting contest. Compete in a variety of categories including: Americana - Folk - Bluegrass / Country / Rock- Alternative / Pop / Jazz - Classical - Instrumental / Blues / Christian - Gospel / Singer-Songwriter ( the songwriter is singing the song) / Bare bones (one voice one instrument only ..no harmony, harp, anything...) / Lyrics Only / General / Reggae - Hip Hop - Rap /
The grand prize includes a SXSW showcase slot at Threadgills and free entry to the 2011 songwriting symposium. Entries are due June 15th, 2010. More information can be found HERE.
Until next time... which I promise will be sooner than later...
Recoil, which consists of ex-Depeche Mode keyboardist, Alan Wilder is currently doing his first tour since he started doing Recoil in 1996. The tour is supporting his new album "Selected", which will be released in May. He has already performed quite a few dates in Europe and he has announced his first date in the US, which happens to be in Austin, Texas at the Elysium on May 15th. Supporting Alan Wilder on stage will be blues-man Joe Richardson who was featured on Recoil's album Sub-Human released in 2007. Also supporting the show is Allesandro Cortini who used to play keyboards with Nine Inch Nails and now has a solo project called Blindoldfreak.
You can pre-order tickets for the Recoil show in Austin at Secret-October.
Last Saturday, March 20th, after the Austin Handmade Music workshop I was lucky enough to catch performances of two cool experimental electronic groups at the Salvage Vanguard Theater: Loud Objects & Bodytronix.
Loud Objects is a duo from New York who in real time create 1-bit noise circuits on a glass plate on top of an overhead projector. It starts out silent, obviously, and then as the circuit gets built and they play around with connections you can hear the noise change. Its loud and noisey and I wouldn't call it musical, but it was definitely interesting to watch and hear. It was probably one of the most unique art sound performances I've seen. Below is a picture of Loud Objects creating the circuit, you can see the two guys below huddled over the overhead projector.
Here's a another picture of the progression of the circuit during the performance.
You can see more pictures of the circuit on my Flickr page if you're interested.
The second group I got to see was Bodytronix which is an Austin duo made up of Eric Archer and Erich Ragsdale who do live electronic jams with a couple tables overflowing with odd handmade electronic instruments and retro gear. The philosophy behind Bodytronix, jamming with homemade gear & retro gear, isn't new but what is so appealing about this group is the musicality of their jams. They are able to take this mish-mash of oddball gear and make music that is refreshing but has a musical sensibility about it. They walk the line between experimental and popular music with a mad scientist edge about them. The prize piece of gear at the show was Eric Archer's new vocal synthesizer which he had singing in english throughout the performance. The heart of Bodytronix is the spontenaity of their live performance, but their recordings stand up as well, so I suggest checking them out on MySpace if you get a chance. Below is a pic I took of the group jammin' out.
Last wednesday I went to the Data Pop 3.0 festival at the Highball bar in Austin, TX. The Data Pop festival is a re-occuring event in Austin that features the best and most popular chiptune bands. Chiptunes for those of you that are unfamiliar with it, is music created by using the audio chip from old video game consoles, most notably the Nintendo Gameboy. This particular event was timed with the SXSW music conference happening here in Austin last week and went on for 2 nights. Due to my inability to be spontaneous we only made it to the second night of the festival, but we had a great time.
First I just want to take a minute and gush over what a great venue the Highball is. The Highball is on South Lamar in the same shopping center as the Alamo Drafthouse (incidently the Drafthouse was also hosting free showings of the chiptune documentary: "Reformat the Planet" in conjunction with the show). Its a funky bar that features old 1950's style bowling lanes, skeeball, karaoke rooms, a dance floor complete with disco ball and light show and a fantastic menu and bar. The place has alot of class and a great vibe for hanging out and having fun in.
Ok that aside, the show was alot of fun. We got their early so we could eat and make sure we got a table before the place got jam packed. We listened to Talk to Animals while we ate. The music and beats were well programmed and interesting, but I think what I liked best was watching how nerdy the whole crew looked bobbing around on stage. Occasionally an extremely bookish looking girl would take to yelling in the microphone. I'm sure this is what Atari Teenage Riot sounded like in middle school. Good stuff.
Next we heard Starscream, which rocked the house with a real drummer accompanying their Gameboys. I liked the contrast of the live drums with the electronic music. I thought it worked pretty well and it was fun to watch. After Starscream, Henry Homesweethit the stage with his mix of video game music and techno driven beats. Henry danced about the stage frenetically and did a great job of getting the crowd hyped up for the next band 8BK:ok.
8BK:ok seemed to be the crowd favorite. This band does showtunes and disco covers to very frantically paced video game musical backgrounds. Its a great cheesy concept... sort of an Atari karaoke or Bette Midler vs. Pacman if you will. I love it, but I thought alot was lost in the actual performance of this concept. My main complaint were the singers. They were miserably out of tune to the point where sometimes the only way you could recognize a song was because of the lyrics. I'm not going to be too harsh on them, because I do know how a bad monitor mix can play havoc on vocal performance. I suppose I should actually find it refreshing after all of the overuse of autotune in popular music. To their credit most of the crowd didn't care at all and were having a great time. I don't know how many people that night came up to me to tell me how much they loved this band. So uh... don't listen to me. I'm just the crotchety sound person in the back row ;-)
At this point it was midnight and a wednesday so we took off towards home. The next day I had heard that Je Deviens DJ en 3 Jours and Anamanaguchi put on shows I shouldn't have missed. So I guess next time I'll stay longer :)
Last but not least, the bands were accompanied by some great 8 bit visuals put togethor by Paris and output. You can see them in the video I posted below.
Here is a video I put togethor of footage from the night and a little bit of the audio as well. There was so much talking and background noise, that I only used a little bit of the show audio in the video at the beginning and end. The main chunk of it is a piece by Henry Homesweet I really like called: Pocket Monster. Enjoy!
Things seem to be going well for Alan Wilder lately. In February he joined his former bandmates of Depeche Mode on stage at the Royal Albert Hall in London playing piano while Martin Gore sang "Sometimes". Fans were shocked and moved to see him playing with the group again... all this buzz should be good for his new Recoil album and tour.
Alan's solo endeaver Recoil is releasing a new album called "Selected" and for the first time since he created Recoil in 1986 Alan is supporting his album with a tour.
Here's him below describing the tour and the upcoming album, "Selected" which will be released April 19th, 2010 :
Here's Alan's update from Barcelona, Spain where his first show of the tour was on March 12th.
And today, Alan released a video teaser for his new Recoil Album "Selected".
Alan mentioned there would be some tour dates in the states. I'm hoping he gets to Texas. You can keep an eye on tour dates by checking the Recoil "Selected" site HERE.
Saturday night my friend Alex Keller, Austin sound artist, video game sound designer, and mobile sound engineer extraordinaire, and I made our way to the opening celebration of a new store in Austin, Switched On. Switched On is a Music Electronics shop that specializes in "providing repair, restoration, education, consultation and an array of vintage musical instruments".
The opening started at 7pm and we got their around 7:30 to check out the store and and hear Eric Archer play a set of his unique jam-style electronic music. The store was packed with people gawking at the array of vintage synths and drum machines lined up on the walls of the store. There were headphones available so folks could plug in and play around with the gear. I almost felt like I was in a synth museum as I wandered past the Mini-Moog, Korg Mono-Poly, Roland Juno Six, Rythm Ace drum machines, Farfisa organ, etc etc.
The party also extended to the Victory Grill across the street. Where they were serving up free beer and live electronic music from a handful of Austin electronic bands. We hung out there and caught some music and some beers and called it a night. I left the event thinking that Switched On was a cool concept but perhaps they have made too small of a niche for themselves. They seem to focus mostly on vintage synth gear and a smattering of boutique electronics from various local sources (Bleep Labs, 4MS Pedals). Most of the vintage gear, while extremely cool, is very pricey, difficult to maintain and appeals only to a small subset of people who create electronic music. Boutique gear is also very cool but again only appeals to a small niche. My thought is that in order for Switched On to survive they will have to look at also stocking new synths, controllers and (gasp) software. Regardless I wish them luck as I think the store is cool.
For more pictures of the event and the gear in the store, check out my Flickr Photo Stream.
Its about that time again for another Austin Handmade Synth workshop at the Salvage Vanguard theater! The workshop will take place February 28th. This month we are making a stepped tone sequencer called "Pico Paso" and a delay module called the "Space Baby" designed by Nathan Wooster of Wooster Audio. You can sign up HERE
Here's a preview of the Space Baby
I'll have more pics and sounds after the workshop! Stay tuned :)
Starting February 01, February Album Writing Month (FAWM) begins at the FAWM website. The organization encourages song writers to take the challenge and write 14 songs in 28 days. The group's site includes forums for songwriters to encourage each other, provide constructive critisicm and ask questions as well as a user profile for each participant where they can provide links to their new creations. The FAWM site also supplies song writing challenges once a week,(link to past song writing challenges) to help provide inspiration. New this year, they will be tweeting daily song writing ideas during the month long challenge as well. http://twitter.com/fawm. The challenge is open to all styles of music and composer skill levels. I plan on taking the challenge this year... I'll let you know how that goes ;)
The NYC Bent Festival has just announced the dates for their annual event this year. It will be held April 22 - 24th at The Tank in NYC. The festival will feature workshops on circuit bending and DIY electronics & synthesizers as well as showcase artists that create music using these things. Exact info on workshops and artists will be posted at a later date. I'll let you know when there is more info :)
