wire to the ear

There is a website called Animoto that lets you upload or import a set of photos and music and then it will churn out a slick music video for you. Usually when I get back from a live performance the promoter or fans will send me some photos of the show. Why not get these into music video form onto YouTube? Great promotion no?

Of course you can take the time to create a music video from still images in Final Cut Pro, iMovie or Adobe Premier but Animoto is super easy, fast and effective. Here’s how it works: Head over to Animoto.com and sign up for an account. Click “create video” on the top left of the window. Next, you choose “30 Second Video - Animated Short” or “Full Length Video”. The 30 second clips are free to make. If you want to make something longer it will cost you $3.00. There is also a yearly subscription fee for $30.00 which allows you to make as many full length videos as you like. Now you either upload your photos or import them from flickr. Remember my post “Why every musician should have a flickr pro account.“? Here’s another reason why! You can also import photos from Facebook, Picasa, Smugmug, and Photobucket. You can choose a few photos to be featured by adding a “Spotlight” tag on them. Then you add your music and hit “finalize” and Animoto does its magic. A great new feature they just added is the ability to send your creation directly to YouTube.

You end up with a pretty neat music video. Fancy transitions with zooms and pans make your static photos come to life. The thing I personally like is how fast the process goes. Take a look at this short clip I put together from still photos from my show in Espenhain, Germany at Praezisionswerk and my song Now Destructor:

There’s nothing stopping you from using promotional photos and a talking soundtrack or an interview. Why not create a video of your album covers or event flyer’s?

“Animoto is definitely a slick, fun, easy way to compile your photos into energetic videos.” - Harrison Hoffman, CNET

There is one thing I don’t like about the service and that’s the fact that they slap the Animoto logo at the end of the video. The logo appears even at the end of full length videos you pay for. I contacted them to see if there was a way around it and they told me no. Oh one more thing: use Firefox, Safari gave me trouble.

This weekend I performed in Valencia and Madrid, Spain. To get there I had to use AirBerlin, Iberia Airlines and Easyjet. All the tickets were purchase separately. Airlines have strict weight restirctions. If you go over your weight allowence you have to leave the check-in line and go to the cashier and a pay per kilo charge. For example on Easyjet:

Every item of standard checked-baggage will incur a fee, irrespective of weight, as set out in this section. Up to the passenger allowance of 20kg, each passenger will pay a per bag allowance as follows:

Per bag, per flight (paid at the airport) up to 20kgs): 12.00 € per kilo.

And here is AirBerlin’s “deal”:

25 EUR in economy class for an item of baggage weighing more than 23 kg, but less than 32 kg
125 EUR for every additional item of baggage with a maximum weight of 32 kg
375 EUR for every item of baggage with a weight of more than 32 kg, as well as for bulky items (from 203 cm overall dimensions H+W+D)

Imagine these charges times three flights? I have in my contract that the promoter/club has to pay any extra baggage charge but thats not reality because how are you going to get them to pay after you traveled home? The best thing to do is buy a digital scale and make sure your under the 20kg per bag allowance. The one I own (photo above) is from Pelouze and I think it cost me around $80.

By the way the event in Madrid was a nice one with Sven Vath, Vitalic, Ascii Disco, Dave Clarke and many others. There is already a video clip online of my live show from someone’s mobile phone: click here And if yor interested in my thoughts on Easyjet head over to my other blog “The Berlin Image”: click here

In 1994 I performed my first live show in Europe at a huge event called “Hellraiser Immorality”. It took place in Amsterdam and there was well over 30,000 people going crazy. I was with John Selway and we were performing under the name Disintegrator. I remember being pretty shocked how large the event was. I remember there was an ecstacy testing booth (to make sure your pills were “safe”) and a place to get your head shaved! As far as my memory serves me Robert Hood was also playing that night and several people from the classic techno label R&S. I remember Hood had some issues because he didn’t play hard enough for the Dutch crowd. I remember R&S because of certain things I saw backstage (I was innocent back then!).

There was a Dutch act called Haarlem Hardcore Source also performing that night. It turned out they were fans of our music and I noticed a strange red box in their live set up. When I asked what it was they told me, “A home brew TB-303!”. Then to my amazement they offered it to me… for free! You simply don’t turn down offers like that. It didn’t have the interesting sequencer of a real 303 but the basic sound was extremely close. With careful Midi programming (back then on Atari Cubase) you could fake the slides and accents that made the 303 so wicked.

I stayed friends with the HHS crew for some years. I went out to Haarlem and recorded a 12″ with them called “Future Fuckers United“. The title made sense back then for some reason. HHS doesn’t exist anymore but one of the group members William Jordens is a well known DJ in Holland known under the name The Rapist! William also works with Multigroove which throws huge events and has his own event business called Your Dance Company. He books me several times a year. How’s that for a friend? The red clone now lives with a friend of mine in NY who records under the name 8-bit. Over the years I also owned two real TB-303s but they were stolen in the 90s. These days when I am looking for the acid sound I open Audiorealism’s Bassline 2. Using the software let’s me have as many 303s as I like. I challenge you to be able to pick a real one vs the software especially inside a mix.

Being as I am a “techno producer” and travel around to different countries to perform the Grooverider story grabbed my attention. Grooverider who’s real name is Raymond Bingham is from London and is known for Drum & Bass. Here’s what happened:

On 24 November 2007 Grooverider was arrested at Dubai International Airport for possession of 2.16 grs of cannabis, hours before a sold-out show at superclub The Lodge. He claimed he had forgotten it was in a pair of his trousers. On the 19 February 2008 he was sentenced to four years imprisonment followed by immediate deportation. - Wikipedia.org

There are two obvious reactions to this story. First, you have to think, “What an idiot to travel to a Muslim country with drugs on him.”. Second you think, “4 years in jail for a small amount of weed. Dubai is a nasty place!”.

I’ve been throughly searched countless times. I remember in 2001, back in “messy” times. I performed in Amsterdam with a friend of mine who will remain nameless. I’ll admit we were both pretty wasted after the show to the point we changed our flights back to New York to leave two days later. The last night I finally wanted some sleep but he went out again. He borrowed my jacket for some reason. A week later back in New York I went out and discovered a full bag of cocaine in my jacket pocket. I wore that exact jacket from Amsterdam to New York! Imagine I was flying to Dubai? Whenever I tell an old drug story I like to point out that I’ve been sober more than a few years now (applause please).

There is an online petition to get Grooverider out of jail: click here
More info on Beatportal: click here

So what do you think? Did he deserve it? Would you ever touch ground in Dubai?

photo credit: Daniel Heaf and pbo31

Here’s a slice of my life from this weekend. I wanted to live blog this but I couldn’t bare to spend about $35 USD on internet access from my hotel room. Why do they charge so much? The cheapest Café will give you free net with a $2 cup of coffee.

I had a booking set for Geneva, Switzerland at a club called LeZoo at Usine. The contract was signed and the advance and flights were paid so everything was go. From checking out the websites and MySpace pages of the promoters (myspace.com/feelingandsound) and other bands performing I knew this event would be a cool one. I’ve performed in Switzerland before in Zurich, Bern and Lausaunne and all those were also quite excellent. The only major hitch was the flight time home was brutal, 8:35AM back to Berlin!

Every show starts for me a full day before I travel. On Thursday I laid out all the equipment and went over my check list. The reason it’s important to do it 24 hours before is if anything is missing that gives me time to buy replacement stuff. In NYC, where I used to live everything is open all the time, but in Berlin (my current address) if I am missing a cable or adapter it’s not always given I will find it too easily. Worse case scenario if I can’t find something at least I can contact the promoter to help me search their city with some warning. I also check the live show in Ableton, make some backup CD-Rs, do laundry and a few other things.

I wake up pretty early everyday. I don’t have blinds on my windows and once the sun is up my cats think it’s time for me to get up too. So even though it would have been smart to somehow sleep late on Friday I was awake around 7:00 AM. The flight to Geneva was at 2:20PM. Normally I take a taxi to Tegel airport for 20 euros but this was a Easyjet flight from Schoenefeld airport and it’s far so I took the U2 to Alexanderplatz then a special S-Bahn train directly to the Airport. It’s all easy and only cost 2.10 euro but you do have to leave a bit earlier. I think I left my house around noon.

Easyjet corrals you into a room to wait to board and that room has less seats in it than any in airplane. This is some evil experiment I am sure. Standing for an hour to board pisses me off even more when I know I’m not going to be sleeping that night.

I’m picked up at the airport by the promoters and taken to the hotel. “How was your flight?” and the usual banter ensues. I’m uber happy to be performing but to be honest I’m totally jaded when it comes to certain things. I really never want to every tell anyone how my flight was ever again. It’s always the same. The airplane goes into the sky and lands. Thats it. It’s amazing for sure but it’s always exactly the same. That’s an ass-y thing to say I know but imagine 20 years of being asked the same question.

It was now 6:00PM and because the venue opened at 9:00PM they asked if I could drop off my clothes and do sound check right away. This was fine with me and off to sound check we went. I met one of the other acts Mimetic. His music was kinda noise mixed with breaks running of a Macbook and Ableton, no vocals. After setting up and testing my audio I had the usual argument with the “visuals” people concerning the fact that when I perform I don’t want any lights or their video playing. I have my own video that plays in sync with the music. Why is that so hard to understand sometimes? My show is only an hour they can spit smiling faces and fractals all over the club for the other 11 hours! Actually the video guys at Usine were great and they did have a cool set up of screens and the imagery they used was a nice mix of live footage from the evening and basic logos.

It was now almost 9:00PM and I wanted to see some of Geneva so a friend of mine who lives there met me and we walked around. Geneva is a wealthy and nice city. Plenty of Ferraris on the streets. It sits on Lake Geneva and the Rhône River runs through the center of the city. It’s surrounded by the snow tipped Alps. The streets were full of people dressed up heading out for the night. I heard a decent mix of French and English being spoken.

After walking for a few hours I realized I better get back to the hotel, shower and get my show clothes on. My show time was 2:00AM so I told them to pick me up at 1:00AM. I don’t like hanging in clubs before the gig. Nothing kills my mood more than standing and screaming over loud music some mundane conversation. Even worse is being backstage with whatever bands have been drinking there since soundcheck.

I always request a four star hotel. The main reason is I need to know for an absolute fact I can get 24 hour room service. Why? Because at 1:00AM I need some dam coffee! Guess what? This hotel’s room service was closed. Down I went to the lobby and although there was a coffee machine in the office they “weren’t serving” any that late. Four stars my ass. I had the instant coffee in my room, with the instant creamer shit and sugar and got myself an instant stomach ache.

Yeah so they pick me and I get to the venue and they tell me everything is delayed a bit. I go on at 3:00AM. Ok so now I have to stand and banter for an hour an a half. Remember I’ve been up, traveling and walking all day. You can see why bands do loads of speed/cocaine right? Although this blog post would be a lot more interesting if I did some lines… I didn’t.

3:00AM and I go on. This is the part I love. I really do enjoy performing live. As soon as the music starts I’m happy screaming my head off and running around. It’s what I do best… my true nature comes out. During the show I trying and attach to the audience as much as possible. I jump and and off the table and stage a bunch of times, sweat a lot, etc… I make sure not to “go through the motions” and really tell the words I am singing. I keep a fresh memory of being 17 and seeing bands like Front 242, Bauhaus and Neubauten live and what that meant to me and what makes a live performance incredible. I also keep in my mind that everyone in that club paid money to see me. It’s my job to make sure they get what they paid for. It’s my job to exceed their expectations. Amazingly videos from the show appeared on Youtube already (they are the ones on this page).

After the show I throw the equipment into the cases and go backstage for about 40 minutes. I get paid and a ride back to the hotel. A few years ago this part would be very different. It would involve all the excesses you could imagine. But to be honest I want to live to see my 80s so this post about this weekend stays PG.

It’s now about 5:00AM and I need to empty the cases and rubber band all the wires, etc… I’d say about 50% of the time I am stopped for a special check at the airport. It’s pretty wack to open your cases up and there is a huge mass of tangled cables.

I’m 38 and before I get a taxi to the airport (remember the flight back is at 8:00AM!) I have to take some Advil (Ibuprofen). Getting old is weird… tired = pain. Of course once at the airport it’s time for another Easyjet boarding area standing room only hell experiment. This time I’ve been awake more than 24 hours… bastards!

By the time I get back to Berlin it’s about noon again. Time to sleep. Imagine I had another show on Saturday night!?

In about two weeks I start a string of live performances. Every weekend for a few months I will be in nightclubs or concert venues. I usually have to spend a long amount of time each night in the club and often near very loud speakers. I love the music and need to talk to people so I usually don’t wear earplugs.

I used to go to Sam Ash in NYC where they have a bin of free disposable earplugs you can grab from when you leave the store. But they were some sort of foam meets Play-Doh and completely muffled everything I heard.

Tinnitus can be a serious aliment and from everything I “hear” there is no reversing hearing damage. In fact, Pete Townsend said the only prescription for Tinnitus are anti-depressants! Yikes! I don’t have Tinnitus but certainly some high end bothers me. I also prefer eating in uncrowded restaurants. Surely these are signs I need to start protecting my ears.

These facts led me on a search for comfortable hearing protection. What I found was not only a comfy earplug but an earplug that lets some specific audio to enter the canal. This is great because it allows you to hear the music and conversations but blocks out the loudness.

Alpine MusicSafe Pro is supplied with three different exchangeable acoustic filter sets, that lower sound levels and prevent the user from excessive exposure, whilst keeping the frequency response of the music the same. The white filters offer the lowest level of attenuation i.e. for pubs, bars etc, the silver filters offer a medium attenuation i.e. for Live gigs, Musicians and Clubbers and the gold filters offer a high attenuation i.e. DJs. The filters are totally dependant on your listening enviroment select the filter you need to use carefully to ensure you get the right protection. - enhancedlistening.co.uk

Every now and then I will see someone in a club with toilet paper stuffed in their ears. I think these are a better choice.

There are many reasons why I am in love with this video: clear plastic, chrome spheres, multi-color LEDs, laser scanner and Roland TR-808 sounds. I am really happy things like this and other unique sequencers such as the Monome and Tenori-on are being produced. I’m on the verge of either building one myself of buying one.

A tangible rhythm sequencer. Ball bearings are used to trigger drum sounds. Visual feedback is displayed from underneath to indicate the current time and the state of each ball bearing.

Do you want one too?

Peter Bennetts website: click here
via Matrixsynth

This past weekend I played a cool goth-freak club in London called Slimelight. I think it’s the de-facto place for darker music there. The opening band from Germany “Gerechtigkeitsliga” (photo above) reminded me of so many of the noise bands I saw in NYC during the 80’s. I’d like to thank Lenny from their crew for dousing me with his Beer during my set. I will update this post with a link to some photos once I collect and get them online.

The tip of the day as far as this blog’s focus and my trip to London is “the follow up”. It may seem obvious but keeping your focus and game on before and after a gig when meeting people is important. You should really consider your socializing important work. You never know who is there to see you. Never, ever judge a book by it’s cover! The youngest looking weirdo could be your biggest fan who through out his lifetime gets you more promotion then any magazine ad ever would. The old drunk guy missing a tooth could be an A&R scout.

Collect email addresses, websites and MySpace pages. Anyone who came out to see you and then also made point to come up to you to say hello deserves a thank you. Don’t you think so? It’s easy to forget when your in “Rock Star mode” that without fans your shows would be seriously lame!

I know more than anyone what’s it’s like to have some kid with bad ecstasy-alcohol breath try and yell over the music in my ear. More often than not besides the smell and screaming he only “thinks” he can speak English. But regardless how many times this happens to me I remain friendly. You can’t break the kid’s heart. You will feel bad about it later.

I remember fondly getting a ticket stub autographed from Jean Luc Demeyer from Front 242. It was after a live show they played at Irving Plaza in 1987. I was 17 and he was gracious and friendly. Because of that fact every time I look at the my Front by Front CD in which I keep the signed stub I smile. Imagine he told me to fuck off. What would I be writing on this blog today? Get my point?

There are other advantages to keeping your fans as friends. They probably know ten other people who were at the show and can gather together some show photos for you. If any slug tries to steal your equipment if your a liked person chances are people will stop the fool. The list goes on…

Update: Photos from the live show are now posted on flickr: click here 

photo credit: Nikki Entwistle

Imagine showing up to perform at a nightclub and there is no table for you to set your equipment up on. Imagine there are no monitor speakers. Imagine the stage is accessible to anyone in the club so you have to stand there all night watching your stuff. Sounds bad huh? In fact, there is a list of items I need to be happy and if any single one is missing I will be miserable.

There are three strong reasons to make your Kit List / rider with images instead of just text. First, if you perform in a another country and they don’t speak your language and you send only text well your screwed. Even if the promoter spoke English to you in emails that doesn’t mean his tech guy will understand you. Next, be aware that some items are called different things depending what country you are in. For example in the USA we say LCD Projector. Everywhere I have been in Europe calls them “Beemers”. In the USA we call patch cables 1/4″. In German they are called Klinke. Don’t learn this the hard way. Lastly, believe it or not a lot of nightclubs are permanently dark. Give the sound guy an easy to see visual guide and he will reward you with bass!

You can use a number of programs to make your visual guide. Over the years as I updated my own Kit List I went from Quark Express to Adobe InDesign to now Apple Pages. Whatever you use to create it export it as a PDF so anyone can open it. Name the file something like “The Horrorist Kit List.pdf” this way who ever you send it to will easily find it on their computer.

I create two sheets. The first is titled “What we bring with us.”. This is everything we use in the live show. This give the tech guys a good idea of what your doing. The next page is called “What you are required to provide.”. Yes this is the important page and yes here you list all the things you need or the show won’t happen.

Another thing to mention is it’s a good idea to bring a copy of your kit list with you. If something gets stolen you have a visual guide to show the local police. Finally, if your returning from your gig and you get stopped at customs your Kit List is proof you brought these items with you. Especially important if your laptop looks new.

A few weeks ago I walked out of my apartment in Berlin and down Schönhauser Allee to Alexanderplatz. At Alexadnerplatz sits one of the coolest analog synthesizer stores in the world called Schnieders Buero. It’s full of amazing toys and Herr Schneider loves to show them all to you.

At Schnieder’s I got focused on the Doepfer R2M Midi Ribbon Controller. It consists of a control box and the Ribbon Controller itself. The Ribbon Controller is fantastic. It’s rests nicely inside a sculpted metal bar. The “position sensor” as Doepfer calls is a substantial 50cm long. The sensor is also pressure sensitive. The control box allows you to hook the Ribbon up to any Midi sound source such as a hardware synth, software synth, or effect plug-in. Being that this is a Doepfer product it also allows the Ribbon to control things via CV hence any real analog synth with such inputs.

You may have seen the R2M in a magazine review or on the Doepfer website but oh baby to touch it is to understand. This thing is really fun. It feels great and the pressure sensitivity works as you would want it to. It turns any decent sound source into a nice playable “instrument”. The control aspect and concept reminded me a little of the Perséphoné by EOWave which was also sitting in Schneider’s office.

I began to realize the R2m could breathe new life into my workflow. It can see myself arming a long track in Ableton Live’s arrangement view and rocking out an extended solo part. The control unit allows you to set up different modes such as Trautonium.

“Trautonium” mode: in this special mode only a single note on message is generated when the position sensor is touched. After that only pitch bend messages are generated until the finger is lifted off.”

You can also adjust the Ribbon’s scaling, Pitch Bend resolution, Pitch Bend width, quantization and Gate parameters. Are you getting some ideas yet?

More and more desk and laptop musicians are looking for new fresh ways to interact with there music. I highly recommend trying the R2M out.