As mentioned previously, I have uploaded a practice set for an upcoming live performance (45min, 88.5Mb MP3) of original music for your consideration. Since the event is three weeks away, I expect the list of tracks and appropriated samples to change so stay tuned…

I’ve been busy preparing for an upcoming live performance (Nofi @ Tron1c Thursdays/ Chilled-out bleeps and techno beats: Facebook event, Myspace event). My last shows were at a house party in 2006 (mp3) and at an ‘old-school reunion’ show in 2002 (mp3), and my approach has changed significantly since then.

With a lot of electronic music, ‘live’ is a relative term. In most cases, beats, patterns and synth patches are pre-sequenced, and samples and loops are pre-recorded. A performance can be a hybrid of on-the-fly composing, arranging, conducting, DJing and mixing—depending on the artist and their tools and instruments. I used to lug a bunch of cases of equipment to a show to have my whole studio on hand. My sets left a lot to chance, as I enjoyed the pressure and spontaneity of playing in the moment.

These days my iBook, controller and wireless mouse ARE my whole studio and fit nicely in a backpack. Ableton Live blurs the lines between everything listed above. I’ve been working with a number of favorite tracks I’ve posted in podcast mixes over the years, as well as more recent, unreleased material. I’m also dropping-in interesting samples from other artists, as an homage to my musical influences (new wave, post-punk, alternative rock, hip-hop). One downside to laptronica is there isn’t much of a stage show for people to get into. I’m bringing some of my animation vids for some visual stimulation, and I think there’ll be a strobe light. Hellzyeah.

I’ve done a few practice runs over the last week, and I’m looking forward to playing. Maybe I’ll record one or two jams and post them here for your consideration. Regardless, you’re invited to join me for a drink while I kick out some original tunes. Also, there will be free buttons.

• Hands-on with Bloom, New Generative iPhone App by Eno and Chilvers - I bought it. It’s cool; truly generative music on a mobile device
• DatA Clip - cool retro motion graphics
• CollabFinder
  
• A Multi-Touch Interface for Ableton Live, with the New Lemur Firmware
• Design Is More Than Packaging - Design Thinking 101
• Wong Kar-wai’s Phoenix Project
  
• Life.Lab’s Colony brings location-specific art controller to the iPhone
• Sketchnotes from Jason Fried’s talk at Discovery World
• Discovery Mac 3.0 - Virtual analog synthesizer with 8 oscillators and more

The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by frost. — J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973).

I found the above quotation while searching for synonyms for wither (as in the state of recent posts on this site—I’m not inclined to apologize though, since there are plenty of other blogs to tread in this sea of bits). I’ve been feeling the need for a news fast, since there seem to be innumerable clarions of the apocalypse perched on every corner, hawking their doomsday scenarios; social, political, economic, and on and on.

I finished the last of Raymond Chandler’s novels and have now read all of his fiction in the order they were written (at least that he wanted still read). His work seems livelier in the middle of his career. Maybe all those goons from ‘these dirty streets’ finally got to him. In searching my shelves for something ‘lighter’ to read, I found some early Steve Erickson novels (the polar opposite of lighter, as it happens), which I hadn’t thought about in years. Reading the cover blurbs made me realize I’ve read a lot of surrealist/magical realist authors, e.g. Jorge Luis Borges, Philip K. Dick, Thomas Pynchon, Richard Powers, Jonathan Lethem, William Gibson, Rick Moody, Paul Auster, Tom Robbins, Kathy Acker, Kelly Link, China Mieville, Shelley Jackson, Italo Calvino. Who’s next?

I was also going through some backup CDRs of my old music tracks and recalling what I was reading at the time, based on their titles and moods. I’ve written it before, but it’s interesting how music can be interlaced with literature. I’ve never posted any of these tracks, in part because they’re my juvenilia, my Girly Sound.  FWIW, some of the CDRs won’t read any more (cheap media and labels), so I may remaster them from the old 2- and 4-track cassette tapes. Someday.