Synthesizers

Tour Kick-off show in Oakland

The tour for Polly Moller and Company began last night with out kick-off show at 1510 8th Street in Oakland:

We were a trio last night, rather than a quartet. Guitarist Bill Wolter joins us tomorrow for the trip north.

I also performed a solo set to open the evening:


(Photo by Polly Moller)

Once again, I am playing the ektar (single-string instrument).

This is the first performance in which I used two laptops (both PC and Mac), mainly because not everything I wanted to use last night ran on a single system. I also took advantage of the excellent piano present at 1510. I improvised against the electronics, trying to match the timbre and “vague pitches” – the piano was also picked up by the mic for processing. And I opened the set with a brief rendition of “Alley Cat” (which has been stuck in my head after the bad kitty chaos festival from a couple of weekends back).

I will be doing another solo set for our show in Astoria, Oregon.

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…





CatSynth pics: Niki Fried Rice

Remember Niki? Well, she has some more gear photos:

Looks like a Nord micromodular in the first pic. And in the second, is that an E-MU Xmidi? Well, at least someone bought one. I wonder if that is a standalone unit, or the one that comes with Emulator/Proteus X2? (The fact that it's not connected to any MIDI cables suggests the latter)

sigh

New Podcast: br'er: Rory Snake Handler


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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


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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.