Gary Numan In Conversation from Machine Music on Vimeo.
I’ve always thought Gary Numan was highly underrated. Go back today and listen through his albums and see if you don’t agree. Honest loud real analog synths and interesting vocals. They don’t make them like they used to.
“Gary Numan (born Gary Webb on 8 March 1958) is an English singer, composer, and musician, most widely known for his chart-topping 1979 hits “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” (with Tubeway Army) and “Cars”. One of the first musicians to use electronic synthesizers successfully in rock music, his signature sound consisted of heavy synthesizer hooks fed through guitar effects pedals. Commercially unsuccessful for many years of his career, Numan is nevertheless considered a pioneer of commercial electronic music. His use of themes from science fiction, and his combination of aggressive punk energy with electronics, have since been widely imitated.” – Wikipedia.org
The official Gary Numan homepage: http://www.numan.co.uk
This entry was written by , posted on March 2, 2010 at 4:43 pm, filed under interviews, live performance, music, synthesizer and tagged 1980's, concert, Gary Numan, interview, music, new wave, Recording Studio, synthesizer, synthpop. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miFFZe0X7_w
Depeche Mode has long been one of my most loved bands. If you didn’t already know I won a contest and went on tour with DM which ended up as the movie Depeche Mode 101. You can see me in it as a young mohawked 17 year old. I personally feel there best work was when Alan Wilder was in the band so it was so very nice to see he took the stage this yesterday with his old mates.
Former Depeche Mode keyboardist Alan Wilder appeared on stage with the British synth pop band for the first time in 16 years…. Wilder appeared with the band during the encore to help perform “Somebody,” which appears on 1984’s Some Great Reward. “Dave contacted me a few weeks back and asked if I’d be willing to join them on-stage,” Wilder wrote on his website on Thursday (Feb. 18). “He assured me that everyone in the band was into the idea. I was very happy to accept, especially as it was all in a good cause and we were long overdue some kind of reunion of this sort. “It was great to see everyone again and catch up a bit, and it was also the first time I have actually ’seen’ Depeche Mode perform!” – chartattack.com
via Maurice Roy
This entry was written by , posted on February 18, 2010 at 2:59 pm, filed under live performance, music, video and tagged Alan Wilder, Depeche Mode. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The Horrorist Live – Malta 2010 from Oliver Chesler on Vimeo.
Well I finally have a few hours this afternoon to chillout. Day job plus night job took its toll on me. After my weekend in Malta I had to report to the energy business early Monday. I’m not complaining at all its just coffee isn’t working on me anymore. As you can see from the video above I did my best letting the people of Malta know where they live, “Malta!”. I know its silly in the video but at 2:00AM it worked just fine. I played a new intro and a new song during the set and I was pleased. I love surprising DJs who don’t know my show with my antics. Billy Nasty took it in stride and smartly played some good party techno after my set.
“Malta, officially the Republic of Malta (Maltese: Repubblika ta’ Malta), is a developed southern European country and consists of an archipelago situated centrally in the Mediterranean, 93 km south of Sicily and 288 km north-east of Tunisia, with Gibraltar 1,826 km to the west and Alexandria 1,510 km to the east.” – WIkipedia.org
The promoters of this event SHIFT are always fun and professional. Visit them here: shiftmalta.com
This entry was written by , posted on February 4, 2010 at 2:04 pm, filed under live performance and tagged EBM, live, Malta, techno, The Horrorist. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I am performing live this weekend in Linz, Austria. The event is called Independance and the other main headliner is Pet Duo from Brazil. It will be a mostly hard techno night but I will play a few slow weird songs to freak people out some. Since they put me in an Ibis Hotel I am sure I won’t have internet access. My contract states 4 stars and above only but rarely does an Ibis fit that bill. The rooms are usually one large piece of molded plastic. You shower and the entire bathroom gets wet. It’s slightly futuristic but in a really cheap way. Another feature of the Ibis chain is a bunch of heavy smoking/beer drinking groups of 30-50 year old men hanging in the lobby which yes doubles as the bar. You can check in/out and order a beer from the same person. The groups of dudes all wear the same shirts although I don’t think it has anything to do with sports. It’s more like some weekend group escape thing they do. Any Europeans can chime in and let me know why I always see this weird phenomenon. This show should be a little different because my friend Gabri (who records under the name Richter) will be on stage with me. He’s an incredible keyboard player and I’ve loaded him up with samples. The event is in the Cembrankeller which is a giant wooden wine cellar. I’ve played there before (photos: here) and it sounds quiet good.
For more info: thingstocome.com/events
This entry was written by , posted on December 18, 2009 at 8:07 am, filed under live performance and tagged Austria, Linz, live perfromance, Pet Duo, The Horroist. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCa8prvT9yM
I’ve said many times the Roland TR-808 is the king of all drum machines. It has the sharpest deepest kick with the most attack, snares and hats that sound like lighting and a sequencer that makes any beat sound incredible. I love this machine so much I think I subconsciously liked songs because they had an 808 on them (all before I even knew what a Roland TR-808 was!). I love this video above where a bunch of classics with 808 drums were recreated on an Korg Electribe SX. I own everyone one of these songs on 12″.
Here’s a few ways into 808 land: AcidLab Miami (German recreation) $1399, GoldBaby The Tape808 (samples) $24, D16 Nepheton (virtual plug-in recreation) 139 EUR
“Recreations, again by ear, of some classic early 80s beats that were originally made on a Roland TR-808 drummachine. This became the signature sound for freestyle music and later for house. Mantronix – 808 Beats, Shannon – Let the Music Play, Freeez – IOU, Man Parrish – Hip Hop Bebop, GLOBE & Whiz Kid -. Play that Beat Mr. DJ, Nineteen – Paul Hardcastle (iTunes link), C.O.D. – In the Bottle, Marvin Gaye – Sexual Healing” – Harlem Nights Music
For more info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_TR-808
This entry was written by , posted on November 16, 2009 at 6:21 am, filed under hardware, live performance, music and tagged drum machine, Electribe, Korg, Man Parish, Mantronix, roland, Shannon, tr-808. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpvH47SlrOQ
I’d like an installation like this permanently in my living room. Created in Berlin by Joerg Piringer he calls this work [untitled] and describes it as “an interactive sound poetry installation”. Be sure to check out Joerge’s other interesting installations too. I like the one’s that spit out random Twitter feeds.
“the visitors speak, shout and cry into a microphone to evoke a dynamic world of letters and vocal sounds. image and sound are created immediately by speaking and vocalizing into a microphone and modifying the voice through signal processing while the software is analyzing the sound to create animated abstract visual text-compositions.” – jörg piringer
For more info: joerg.piringer.net
This entry was written by , posted on November 14, 2009 at 7:43 am, filed under Uncategorized, live performance, video and tagged art, installation, joerg piringer, poetry. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
multi-touch the storm – interactive sound visuals – subcycle labs from christian bannister on Vimeo.
I received an email yesterday from Christian Bannister of Subcycle Labs asking me to view a video of a project he is working on. This is another example that shows how transforming touch screens are going to be for musicians.
“This is part of a series of sketches exploring the potential to bridge the gap between sound visualization and musical instrument. With multi-touch interaction it is possible to manipulate multiple characteristics of a sound—visually, and simultaneously. This shift has the potential of bringing the experience of synthesizer as music instrument to a whole new place. This approach allows the performer to have a more tactile and immediate experience of the synthesizer and also creates a visual reference for the audience. In the performance of electronic music it is fairly common that the audience is alienated from the process and performance of the musician. This project hopes to create a common visual language and experience for the electronic musician and the audience by enhancing the perception of sound and music on both sides.” – Christian Bannister
For more info: www.subcycle.org
This entry was written by , posted on October 11, 2009 at 6:56 am, filed under hardware, live performance, video and tagged Christian Bannister, multi-touch, performance, Subcycle, touch screen. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssDLe3Tlvg0
Les Paul, the inventor of the electric guitar and 8-track died this week.
“Lester William Polsfuss, known as Les Paul (June 9, 1915 – August 13, 2009) was a musician and innovator, famous for being a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar which “made the sound of rock and roll possible.” He is credited with many recording innovations, including overdubbing (also known as sound on sound), delay effects such as tape delay, phasing effects, and multitrack recording.” – Wikipedia.org
For more info visit his official website: www.lespaulonline.com
This entry was written by , posted on August 15, 2009 at 7:07 am, filed under hardware, interviews, live performance and tagged 8-track, electric guitar, Gibson, guitar, Les Paul. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
This weekend I played a large summer festival called Dominator about an hour and a half outside of Amsterdam in a area called Leidschendam. The event is put on by an organization named Art of Dance and they are one of a small group of companies that control the Dutch techno scene. There were a few stages ranging from 2-5,000 kids in front of them. It was a daytime festival and luckily it was all sun and there was a nice lake to sit by too. They put me in the Hilton at the airport and unfortunately we got stuck in traffic on the way to the gig so I arrived and had to rush to the stage and instantly start performing. It was only when I was plugging in my wires I realized I forgot my Macbook Pro’s power adapter in the USA! I had to run the live show + M-Audio Firewire 410 (Amazon link) off the internal battery. Luckily it worked 100% fine and I had a great time performing. I have a checklist that I go over several times before I fly so it’s strange I made such a basic mistake. At many of these large events like this one they only give live acts 30 minutes to play so I edited a lot of my songs down to the nifty neat parts. I played two new songs, jumped up on the turntables, ran down into the audience and made a costume change (took my coat off!). See you next summer!
Related post: Soundcheck checklist. Are you ready?
This entry was written by , posted on July 27, 2009 at 4:53 am, filed under live performance and tagged backup, Dominator, live performance, M-Audio, The Horrorist, The Netherlands. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Last week my father called me and said his wife Yoshimi wanted us to all go to see a concert at Irving Plaza (also called the Fillmore). The band was called Vamps and like Yoshimi are from Japan. I had no idea what to expect and was surprised that when we reached the venue the line was around the block reaching Union Square! Most of the people online where Asian or NYU students in their early twenties. The music itself seemed like some sort of very safe rock n roll copy. However, as you can hear by the audio recording these guys have a serious fan following.
I was at Irving Plaza twice before the Vamps concert. The first time was 1988 Halloween night. I went to the West Village Halloween parade with my first girlfriend and after to Irving Plaza to see Skinny Puppy live. There was a cheesy new wave opening band and then Skinny Puppy came on and dissected a fake dog with blood gushing and all. Some of my friends in the front where covered in blood by the time the concert was over. Thinking back it must have been the VIVI Sect VI (iTunes link) tour. Year’s later I looked at my ticket stubs and noticed the name of the opening band: Nine Inch Nails.
The other time I was at Irving Plaza was to see Granddady (iTunes link). I heard them on WFDU 89.1 earlier the same week for the first time and fell in love with the music. I had no idea if they had any fans or not but went by myself to see them play. I was pleasantly surprised to see hundreds of hipsters also knew this band was incredible and it wasn’t too long after that they became very popular. Too bad they broke up because I sure would still be buying their tunes.
http://www.myspace.com/vampsofficial
This entry was written by , posted on July 13, 2009 at 5:12 am, filed under live performance and tagged Granddady, Irving Plaza, Japan, Japanese, live performance, New York, Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy, Vamps. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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