Music

Intermezzo: Headphone Festival

Well the :plug3: headphone festival is done. Thanks to the deletist for putting this together once again.

I'm going to have to keep my report short, given that I have to focus soon on tonight's performance and the tour. So here are a few photos:

The above photo, which features Cypod performing, also gives a sense of the venue and how the audience works. The venue, “The Lab”, is an art gallery and performance space. The audience were clustered around stations where they could see the performers, but listen by plugging headphones into provided jacks.

Attendance was somewhat sparse, but people seemed interested. And the calm, sparser audience also worked with the venue, which had relatively minimalist media art on display, and plenty of empty space. All of which puts me very much at ease, it's part of why I like playing galleries.

Below, we see Bruce Bennet and Michael Zbyszynski performing:

And in the background is another friend no.e from Santa Cruz, who performed after me this year.

So here we are, all set up and ready, including the obligatory animals (cat and fish):

Unfortunately, someone seems to have gone wrong with the audio interface (E-MU 1616m) just as performance time approached – everything was still on, but not functioning, which I have seen happen occasionally with the E-MU interfaces and sadly means an embarrassing silence and reboot – fortunately I was able to recover by playing the evolver while rebooting, and I think the set came out OK in the end.

Unfrotunately, one of the casualties was being able to make a recording, so no podcast from yesterday :(.

But it was still and overall good experience, venue and people-wise, and thus worth the effort.

It might also be worth noting this was the first performance where I listed myself as “CatSynth” on the bill…

Preparing for the :plug3: headphone festival

This evening I set aside some time to prepare for the headphone festival, which is happening the Sunday in the middle of all the other craziness.

As usual, I am using a small rig, consisting of the PC laptop (with the E-MU 1616m and Emulator X), the Evolver, a MIDI keyboard, mixer, and of course headphones.

So this performance will use the PC laptop, while the others will be using the Mac. This means I have to schlep both laptops around this weekend, but what can you do?

I'm using the same collection of patches as last year on Emulator X, which on surface seems lame, but I think there is a lot I can do with them that I didn't do last year (think of it like a piano or string quartet). Additionally, I am using one of the Microkitty patches from the RPM album. And this time, I am going to be using the Evolver – I was little wary of doing so last year, but I have selected a small set of stable patches. And the sequencer gives me some beats to play with – I intend to use rhythm more as a humorous element in this performance (as in, “hey, he's using beats“).

I have a “script” that outlines the overall performance, with the details left to improvisation – which is of course what I generally do in my live performances.

Although this will be a fun set, like last year's performance, and not to technically difficult, somehow I feel like I'm not really putting the effort I should. And maybe that's true, with effort going towards the tour and finding employment. But we'll see what happens, after all it will likely be newer for the audience than for me…





Bay Area travel madness

Living in Santa Cruz can be a challenge at times. One of the major challenges is getting to and from places in the Bay Area, where most of my musical, job-search, and social activities located.

For San Francisco trips, one takes Highways 17, 85 and 280 (or 101 as suggested below) into the city:

If I am not in a rush, highway 1 along the coast is always a rewarding experience.

For the east bay (Berkeley, Oakland, etc.), one instead follows highway 17, which becomes I-880, along the east side of the bay:

The trick is avoid the bridges. Sometimes this is unavoidable, and one ends up making a “grand circuit” to and from Santa Cruz around the bay.

The trip is about 70 miles each direction (slightly longer on the east bay side), and about 90 minutes unless one hits bad traffic. Really, it's not so bad, and I have been doing trips like this for years for music and art events, or to see friends, family, and such.

But when it becomes several times a week, and nearing every day, it starts to wear on you. Almost all of my job interviews are in the bay area. Then there is the upcoming performance schedule, back-to-back shows in SF and Oakland followed by the tour.

And this weekend will top them all:

Saturday. Rehearsal for Polly Moller and Company. Then br'er performs in San Francisco that night. It's quite a coincidence that br'er is touring the west coast right now, just as I am about to go on tour. Indeed we will also be crossing paths again in Seattle when we both play on October 20th.

Sunday. Rehearsal again. Then the :plug3: headphone festival in San Francisco. I have a solo set at 7:30PM.

Monday. The tour's kickoff show at 1510 8th Street in Oakland. I have a solo set in addition to our group show.

Tuesday. I need to stay overnight so that…

Wednesday. We leave on tour from SF and Oakland bright and early.

This is out of control. Not because of the activities themselves, which are manageable, but the fact that it is far from CatSynth HQ every day. I have options to stay overnight to make things easier (and will likely do so some of the nights), but that means being away from home, away from everything that needs to be done here, away from Luna (which also means setting up more cat sitting arrangements).

Living in Santa Cruz is becoming one huge liability. It was fine when I was working every day here and going up to the city once a week or so, but now my life and all the action in it seems to be back in the bay area. How long can I keep this up?

New Podcast: br'er: Rory Snake Handler


Click here to subscribe.

We're trying to open up and grow the CatSynth Channel, with releases on Tuesdays and Thursdays in addition to the Sunday release. Especially after going silent for two weeks, it seems like a good time to launch the expanded series.

Our first weekday podcast is a selection from Of Shemales and Kissaboos, the new album from br'er that was reviewed here at CatSynth in September. This release features “Rory snake handler”, which was discussed in the review and also featured on br'er's myspace.

We are happy to feature music from friends and reviewed groups here at CatSynth, and welcome submissions and requests. You can use our handy submission form, or contact us to get your music featured on the CatSynth Channel.

To subscribe, click the “Subscribe” button, or visit the CatSynth Channel page. As always, enjoy.

New Podcast: Suspension, Polly Moller and Company


Click here to subscribe.

After a few weeks hiatus, the CatSynth Channel Podcast is back. This Sunday we are featuring a track from Not Made of Stone by Polly Moller and Company. Regular readers may recall this is the group I am going on tour with in a little over a week, and Suspension is one of several tracks from Not Made of Stone that we will be performing.

“A woman travels into space to forcibly remove the source of her anguish.”

We began are tour rehearsals this weekend, including some changes from our previous performances. A new guitarist, Bill Wolter; and new live electronics processing for flute and voice.

More information on the album and tour can be found Polly Moller's official website.

To subscribe, click the “Subscribe” button, or visit the CatSynth Channel page. As always, enjoy.









"Trailer" for Obama NYC Rally

Watch this “movie trailer” for Barack Obama’s rally last week in New York:

The rally may have come and gone, but the video is still quite funny, as the viewer comments suggest – and in that dry sort of way I appreciate most.

But the real reason I’m posting this is to shamelessly but honestly take credit for the music. Yes, I cranked out this orchestral “film score” piece using E-MU Emulator X2 and Modern Symphonic Orchestra in just a couple of days. Most of the effort is in the back and forth that always happens when working on film or video, but I’m very pleased with the result.

With almost 7000 views as of this writing, it might be my most “heard” piece of music. And it joins a small collection of pieces I have done for (other people’s) film and video, including the East Bloc Call To Prayer, and Neptune: Prelude to Xi. You can hear some other of my film or film-ready music here or at myspace.

And if you need music for your film or video project, drop me a line. . 😉

Preparing for Woodstockhausen 2007

It's only two days until the return of Woodstockhausen.


Woodstockhausen

A tiny, esoteric
outdoor festival of experimental
music and visual
spectacles.

September 22, 2007
7 PM
Glen Alba Gardens
12250 Alba Road
Ben Lomond, California 95005

Gates open at 6 PM
Tickets: $20 (plus $2 service charge) per vehicle in advance,
$25 at the door

I am going to try and keep things simple, given that the performance is out in the middle of the woods, and a total of 12 minutes in length. In fact, I am going for something very similar in setup and programming to the performance we did at the Skronkathon back in July:

It's just the MacBook running Open Sound World (the new version), the keyboard, mic, and the E-MU 0202|USB interface. The program is the same series of wavetables, with several minor modifcations to make the FM patch work without going unstable. For the math and DSP geeks: I simply changed the modulator from a sine function to a sine-squared function, and added a hyperbolic tangent to control the output levels. For the rest of you: I made it so the sound doesn't blow up constantly.

The input sources will be my workhorse Indian string instruments the ektar (on the left) and the gopichand (on the right). In addition, I am using these “acoustic” sources:

That duck has been a great instrument, and a mainstay of my live setup the last couple of years. I'm worried that the batteries will run out one day, and I won't be able to replace them unless I figure out a way to safely open the poor ducky without destroying him in the process.

So we've tried everything out, and should be ready to go. We'll have to make sure this is still the case tomorrow, and again on Saturday. My first performance at Woodstockhausn in 2002 (and at last year's related “micro-hausen” event) have been plagued by unexpected technical problems, so I'm a little cautious. Actually, I will probably make reference to that fateful 2002 performance on Saturday…

For those who are in the Bay Area, or anywhere in California for that matter, and wish to attend Woodstockhausen, the information is printed above. You can also visit the official website for more information.

Midnight Monday Studio Cat

Luna wanders into the (somewhat messy) studio, where I spent much of this weekend working on several projects, including music you will probably never hear and the Sunday podcast. It's a rare shot of both the PC and Mac laptops along with the keyboards and other gear.

Actually, I think the ketzela is more interested in those cushions and bedding than in any musical or technological mischief.








New Podcast: Sean Carson (del *.*), "resting tones 5"

Click here to subscribe. You can also visit the CatSynth Channel page for more info or to listen live.

Sean Carson is the first the first to take advantage of our open submissions for the CatSynth Channel podcast. And we are very to happy to have his piece “resting tones 5”, which very much fits our standard aesthetics, and includes “cat-like” sounds as well.

one of my most bizarre pieces.

there are some cat like sounds made by the cumbus oud. Its a steel string fretless instrument from Turkey

To submit your own music, visit our submissions page. Anything is game, as long as it vaguely fits the aesthetics of the CatSynth blog and/or podcast.

And kids, whatever you do, do NOT type that stage name into your Terminal window ;-).