Memphis Concrète
Jun. 27th, 2017 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ateolfSo it happened! It motherfucking happened! And it went well and was pretty damn well-attended! Setting the fucking thing up I was sure it was just going to be a money pit for me and I was fine with that as I was interested in having a great time and making connections. But it was pretty much a success from every direction. Jacques and Paul came over to help load and we got going only a little late. Though on my way there I realized I'd forgotten the wad of cash I'd gotten for it so I had to turn back around. We get there and start setting stuff up. A little behind but not too bad. I had my raspberry pi and python script ready to go and that worked alright. A lot of people were there in the beginning for that, surprisingly enough. Talking and hanging out so it was a little layer in the background of all the voices with the overlayed repetition of the talking and a little of the room feedbacky sound. One kinda shitty thing about the first day. I had plugged the recorded into the wrong outputs (monitor instead of record) and everything that day recorded way overdriven and clipped. I'll see if there's something I can do for it, but it might just be fucked up a bit. Also it meant the movie recording picked up the movie sound as well as our performance (the movie sound wasn't set to go out through "recorder", sigh).
I was getting a little nervous as the movie started a few minutes behind (and we didn't have a ton of time between the movie and the first set), but things went smoothly. The sound for the movie was me and Cain (Tatras) and Zach (of Nonconnah). As expected, good crowd for the movie, but the surprising thing was it kept up for most of the day on Saturday. The movie seemed to be a good crowd-pleaser which was nice. "The movie," christ: Forbidden Planet, motherfucker! Yeah!
Few things that went differently. Brought Dominic's PA speakers and mixer but only used his mixer to the house speakers. That worked out for the best, as the venue's ipad mixer wouldn't've cut it and their speakers are conveniently hanging from the ceiling. Also brought that screen (to make a kinda backstage) but didn't use it at all, just used the hallway that's actually kind've almost a real backstage. That worked out much better anyway. I'm running around trying to make sure everything's happening as smoothly as possible. Also, I shouldn't be trusted with cash. I dropped wads of cash out of my pocket SEVERAL times like an idiot. Thankfully people kindly returned it and I eventually had the brains to move it to the pocket with a zipper.
In spite of my worries the first set started on time and every other set transitioned according to schedule! I'll happily claim my crown of guy who keeps stuff running on time. I'll also say that every goddamn set was astounding! It was so incredible to be a part of it all and to have it all happen successfully. Fuck, I put on an experimental electronic music festival in Memphis. It fucking happened, how insane is that!? Had a few cancellations but we made it work. Oh, the goddamn food truck cancelled like an hour before it all started. Was really pissed about that. Mary Beth went out to pick up pizza from Midtown Crossing just around the corner. So that saved us a bit. Three acts cancelled but we made it work seamlessly anyway.
Aster was first and had his nice, beautiful modular texture. Revenge Body (Jacques) was next and he had awesome industrial beats with noise. Next was BlanketSwimming (from Hattiesburg, MS). He had some really nice noise. The guy from that is also in NEPTR so when his set was over the other two guys just came up and joined in on the same setup. They were both awesome sets, though a little hard to remember where one began and the other ended now. Ben Bauermeister was next. He had some awesome modular stuff with a little bit of a beat smattered about. Division of Labor (also Hattiesburg) had stuff based on prepared guitar with lots of tabletop effects. Nonconnah was excellent as always. This time I got to see 'em with Denny (she had to work the last show I was at and Dominic filled in). companyofquail never showed up (had a bit of a feeling as he never responded to any emails once I started sending 'em out, I mean, lots of people don't respond a whole lot, but he never did). So I let Nonconnah extend their set and Belly Full of Stars (Nashville) extended hers as well and meet in the middle. Her set was really good. Very ambient. Not sure if I mentioned how snwv couldn't make the drive from Pittsburgh due to some stuff that came up last minute but he still wanted to play so he worked out a livestream (using software called "butt" seriously that's what it's called). The livestream was successful. I ran it from my phone. He set it up so it was real easy to connect. His set was awesome as always, even if he wasn't around. Count Zero Interrupt had his Buchla and his sound is pretty awesome. A bit of early industrial hard-hitting noise (that description doesn't quite feel accurate though, maybe more heavy than noise-noisy but a little bit of noise, just not like power electronics harsh noise). Qemist closed the night and turned it into a dance party. Here's the thing. I was up and dancing. I don't dance but I did. It was a whole fucking lot of fun too.
Cain and Ryan (his friend who travelled with him as a kind of roadie) stayed at our place. So I ended up sleeping on the couch. Got up early again to get ready (well, earlier than I'd planned and figured I might as well start getting ready). Had to repatch my modular for my set since I'd changed some stuff for the movie (luckily I drew my patches out!). I got pedals ready for the exhibit. I'll go right out and say it. Sunday's exhibit was a bust. Nearly completely. Thankfully Alex (who wrote the amazing feature in the Memphis Flyer) lent his theremin for it and that was our saving grace. That was the SOMETHING we had. So there was a theremin there to play. And it was fun. Dustin brought Daphne and she was really into it. Was setting all the other shit up and realized that by the time we'd finish anything it would be time to take shit down and start the show (if not longer than that). It would've been cool but a bit complicated I guess. Which is sad 'cuz when I was working out some of the contact mics through distortion it just sounded SO cool. Oh well. We gave up when we realized the futility and went straight to setting up for the show.
It was another day of things going smoothly. Not as big a crowd as expected but it was still pretty darn decent. More than I was expecting. Bruiser (Zach) was first and his set was really good. First time he'd ever played a show of any kind. He had really good ambient sounds. I was next. Felt like it wasn't very good at the time. Lots of things didn't go right. I think a label fell off one of my cables so I wasted time searching for it. Some things didn't go quite right. It's probably fine though. Ara Hanissian was next. He's the kid who's in high school I met at that other show. He had a friend playing with him. It was good. Wasn't sure what to expect. He played guitar and the friend played synth and there were lots of pedals. It was folk music based (the guitar which dominated) but gradually started to get buried in noise and dissonance. Oh, since I was playing I didn't think to have my video cued up so I played with no video. I ran my video during Ara's set though. Most of the artists played to the video Josh made, he had three hours and we looped it all throughout anyone who didn't provide their own video. It was pretty awesome. manualcontrol was next and they were really good. Had light sensors controlling instruments stuck up on the wall. They were a little worried about the setup 'cuz there was a good deal of sunlight in the room even with the curtain and the shades. But it worked out pretty well. Argiflex (Cleveland, MS) killed. Really bangin' experimental techno. Lost Man (Josh!) cancelled as well. Sad face. He said he wasn't able to get it ready in time. We told him he SHOULD have just made shit up like so many of us (I mean, I "wrote" a score but it was pretty loose and since things were going weird I ended up rushing through it on accident and finished not much more than halfway through and fell back on a good sounding drone, from a part that was supposed to be a short burst). Anyway, we did the same thing as before and Argiflex extended her set and Cheap Spirits extended his to meet in the middle. Cheap Spirits was really good again. Vexadrem (sort of Cleveland, MS/sort of Memphis) was really good as well. Similar sound as Argiflex. Ben Ricketts (Oxford, MS) had a really good sound. A bit musiqe concrète sounding though with toy instruments (oh he did have tapes too). Very different from his singer-songwriter stuff. Still relatively quiet compared to some others, but very abstract. Tatras was fucking fucking incredible. Probably my favorite set of the festival. Though my memory of Saturday was a bit fuzzier. I was running around a lot more. Sunday was much more laid back and I was able to focus some more on the music (though I still focused Saturday too). Very dark heavy drone. He bowed a cymbal too. Then there was a fucking one-two punch. The second best set was right after. Pas Moi (Cleveland, MS) had some awesome noise. Samples and shrieking oscillators. This was power electronics or close. It was the same kinda thing as his recording, but live it was just so much more and so...fuck yeah! Ihcilon was incredible as always. minivan_markus also cancelled but his labelmate Qemist suggested filling in. At that point I was just like sure, whatever. He wanted minivan's pay (which the Rare Nnudes artists had an agreement for a certain amount). A little kinda funny but whatever. There was diminishing returns though. I mean he was good again, but seeing it nearly twice in a row didn't have the same impact. Plus by that point we probably didn't have the adrenaline to run on to get dancing again. I'll wrap up shit in another post.
I was getting a little nervous as the movie started a few minutes behind (and we didn't have a ton of time between the movie and the first set), but things went smoothly. The sound for the movie was me and Cain (Tatras) and Zach (of Nonconnah). As expected, good crowd for the movie, but the surprising thing was it kept up for most of the day on Saturday. The movie seemed to be a good crowd-pleaser which was nice. "The movie," christ: Forbidden Planet, motherfucker! Yeah!
Few things that went differently. Brought Dominic's PA speakers and mixer but only used his mixer to the house speakers. That worked out for the best, as the venue's ipad mixer wouldn't've cut it and their speakers are conveniently hanging from the ceiling. Also brought that screen (to make a kinda backstage) but didn't use it at all, just used the hallway that's actually kind've almost a real backstage. That worked out much better anyway. I'm running around trying to make sure everything's happening as smoothly as possible. Also, I shouldn't be trusted with cash. I dropped wads of cash out of my pocket SEVERAL times like an idiot. Thankfully people kindly returned it and I eventually had the brains to move it to the pocket with a zipper.
In spite of my worries the first set started on time and every other set transitioned according to schedule! I'll happily claim my crown of guy who keeps stuff running on time. I'll also say that every goddamn set was astounding! It was so incredible to be a part of it all and to have it all happen successfully. Fuck, I put on an experimental electronic music festival in Memphis. It fucking happened, how insane is that!? Had a few cancellations but we made it work. Oh, the goddamn food truck cancelled like an hour before it all started. Was really pissed about that. Mary Beth went out to pick up pizza from Midtown Crossing just around the corner. So that saved us a bit. Three acts cancelled but we made it work seamlessly anyway.
Aster was first and had his nice, beautiful modular texture. Revenge Body (Jacques) was next and he had awesome industrial beats with noise. Next was BlanketSwimming (from Hattiesburg, MS). He had some really nice noise. The guy from that is also in NEPTR so when his set was over the other two guys just came up and joined in on the same setup. They were both awesome sets, though a little hard to remember where one began and the other ended now. Ben Bauermeister was next. He had some awesome modular stuff with a little bit of a beat smattered about. Division of Labor (also Hattiesburg) had stuff based on prepared guitar with lots of tabletop effects. Nonconnah was excellent as always. This time I got to see 'em with Denny (she had to work the last show I was at and Dominic filled in). companyofquail never showed up (had a bit of a feeling as he never responded to any emails once I started sending 'em out, I mean, lots of people don't respond a whole lot, but he never did). So I let Nonconnah extend their set and Belly Full of Stars (Nashville) extended hers as well and meet in the middle. Her set was really good. Very ambient. Not sure if I mentioned how snwv couldn't make the drive from Pittsburgh due to some stuff that came up last minute but he still wanted to play so he worked out a livestream (using software called "butt" seriously that's what it's called). The livestream was successful. I ran it from my phone. He set it up so it was real easy to connect. His set was awesome as always, even if he wasn't around. Count Zero Interrupt had his Buchla and his sound is pretty awesome. A bit of early industrial hard-hitting noise (that description doesn't quite feel accurate though, maybe more heavy than noise-noisy but a little bit of noise, just not like power electronics harsh noise). Qemist closed the night and turned it into a dance party. Here's the thing. I was up and dancing. I don't dance but I did. It was a whole fucking lot of fun too.
Cain and Ryan (his friend who travelled with him as a kind of roadie) stayed at our place. So I ended up sleeping on the couch. Got up early again to get ready (well, earlier than I'd planned and figured I might as well start getting ready). Had to repatch my modular for my set since I'd changed some stuff for the movie (luckily I drew my patches out!). I got pedals ready for the exhibit. I'll go right out and say it. Sunday's exhibit was a bust. Nearly completely. Thankfully Alex (who wrote the amazing feature in the Memphis Flyer) lent his theremin for it and that was our saving grace. That was the SOMETHING we had. So there was a theremin there to play. And it was fun. Dustin brought Daphne and she was really into it. Was setting all the other shit up and realized that by the time we'd finish anything it would be time to take shit down and start the show (if not longer than that). It would've been cool but a bit complicated I guess. Which is sad 'cuz when I was working out some of the contact mics through distortion it just sounded SO cool. Oh well. We gave up when we realized the futility and went straight to setting up for the show.
It was another day of things going smoothly. Not as big a crowd as expected but it was still pretty darn decent. More than I was expecting. Bruiser (Zach) was first and his set was really good. First time he'd ever played a show of any kind. He had really good ambient sounds. I was next. Felt like it wasn't very good at the time. Lots of things didn't go right. I think a label fell off one of my cables so I wasted time searching for it. Some things didn't go quite right. It's probably fine though. Ara Hanissian was next. He's the kid who's in high school I met at that other show. He had a friend playing with him. It was good. Wasn't sure what to expect. He played guitar and the friend played synth and there were lots of pedals. It was folk music based (the guitar which dominated) but gradually started to get buried in noise and dissonance. Oh, since I was playing I didn't think to have my video cued up so I played with no video. I ran my video during Ara's set though. Most of the artists played to the video Josh made, he had three hours and we looped it all throughout anyone who didn't provide their own video. It was pretty awesome. manualcontrol was next and they were really good. Had light sensors controlling instruments stuck up on the wall. They were a little worried about the setup 'cuz there was a good deal of sunlight in the room even with the curtain and the shades. But it worked out pretty well. Argiflex (Cleveland, MS) killed. Really bangin' experimental techno. Lost Man (Josh!) cancelled as well. Sad face. He said he wasn't able to get it ready in time. We told him he SHOULD have just made shit up like so many of us (I mean, I "wrote" a score but it was pretty loose and since things were going weird I ended up rushing through it on accident and finished not much more than halfway through and fell back on a good sounding drone, from a part that was supposed to be a short burst). Anyway, we did the same thing as before and Argiflex extended her set and Cheap Spirits extended his to meet in the middle. Cheap Spirits was really good again. Vexadrem (sort of Cleveland, MS/sort of Memphis) was really good as well. Similar sound as Argiflex. Ben Ricketts (Oxford, MS) had a really good sound. A bit musiqe concrète sounding though with toy instruments (oh he did have tapes too). Very different from his singer-songwriter stuff. Still relatively quiet compared to some others, but very abstract. Tatras was fucking fucking incredible. Probably my favorite set of the festival. Though my memory of Saturday was a bit fuzzier. I was running around a lot more. Sunday was much more laid back and I was able to focus some more on the music (though I still focused Saturday too). Very dark heavy drone. He bowed a cymbal too. Then there was a fucking one-two punch. The second best set was right after. Pas Moi (Cleveland, MS) had some awesome noise. Samples and shrieking oscillators. This was power electronics or close. It was the same kinda thing as his recording, but live it was just so much more and so...fuck yeah! Ihcilon was incredible as always. minivan_markus also cancelled but his labelmate Qemist suggested filling in. At that point I was just like sure, whatever. He wanted minivan's pay (which the Rare Nnudes artists had an agreement for a certain amount). A little kinda funny but whatever. There was diminishing returns though. I mean he was good again, but seeing it nearly twice in a row didn't have the same impact. Plus by that point we probably didn't have the adrenaline to run on to get dancing again. I'll wrap up shit in another post.
