Electronic Music 411 - 10 tips to get booked for live electronic music performance

I'm just jaded because techno had the exact fate of metal... pushed to the corner of the bar. Some genre's need a scene...

Good article though .. nothing I can disagree with. We just got a little off-topic on the seamless ting. sorry.

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05/03/07 + airliner

Nice article. Good to hear people here aren't opposed to non-continuous music, cause i think I'm planning on doing that.

Also, nice mention of Buzz in the article. Though I have to say that I have yet to find a better tool for myself :P

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05/03/07 + theHeat

#1 reason you wouldn't get booked ...you stare at you laptop screen like you are don't something but your just checking your email.

05/03/07 + ignatius

theHeat said: "#1 reason you wouldn't get booked ...you stare at you laptop screen like you are don't something but your just checking your email."

get over it.

[insert sarcasm font]

yeah.. you should definitely dance around like a retard, raise your hands to the sky, do the worm, wear a funny wig and hat and make up and clownsuit to make it look like you are having fun even if you really need to be staring at your laptop to keep all kinds of total chaos from erupting.

and maybe use a guitar as a prop so people have something to look at so they can make some connection to where the music is coming from otherwise people just won't figure out what's happening.... "what.. he's just gotta computer up there. where's the music coming from? music comes from computers? so you're saying the music.. is coming out of the computer? wait wait wait a minute.. so.. there's no band? it's a computer making the music? really? so, what's he doing up there if it's just a computer making music?..." etc etc etc...

i say.. turn off the fucking lights so no one even knows where the stage is and let people think whatever they want.. unless you are matmos w/the crazy videos and engaging stage presence then you might as well have your fucking eyes closed for all i care.

"you used to be about the music man. you used to be about the MUSIC!"

"slag off man. I said SLAG OFF!"

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05/03/07 + quantazelle

@TheHeat: link

:-D

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05/03/07 + adcBicycle

thanks ignatius.... I just LOLed. And yeah, the best laptop show I ever saw was Tim Hecker, in complete blackness, with the audience seats facing the back wall, away from hecker. Or hell, maybe he had a full band, I don't know.

and thanks quantazelle, great article.

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05/03/07 + theHeat

i guess you can sit there in a concert hall a play cd back in a concert hall and talk about the harmonic content of the room.. blah blah art speak art speak postmodern john cage ..
yeah music is music but a concert is performance. There is a difference.

05/03/07 + ignatius

theHeat said: "i guess you can sit there in a concert hall a play cd back in a concert hall and talk about the harmonic content of the room.. blah blah art speak art speak postmodern john cage ..
yeah music is music but a concert is performance. There is a difference."

yeah KISS rules!

is this Gene Simmons? ace freely? that last line sounds like a Kiss mantra or something. personally, it's about the music to me. i like to see a band play and pick up on the energy and i agree ther eis something that can be transmitted there but i see no reason to go buy a keytar unless it's just for my own enjoyment.

just saying "art speak art speak" is well.. ridiculous. ***it's all art.*** i'm talking about letting the music be the focus. i don't need a light show if i'm going to see an artist i like. i'm not talking about "experimental electro-acoustic" music (though i think that shit is dope and i've heard some in theatre type venues and sat w/my eyes closed and pretty much left the damn room because i was so into the music) i'm talking about all of it. i don't know what john cage has to do with any of this.

simple example: autechre's last tour. all the lights off except a little lamp on stage. it was all about the music and it was awesome.

what about all the times i went and heard some DJ who i coudn't even see because he was up in some booth in the corner? i didn't talk about the harmonic content of the room then..er.. or ever...

this debate is stupid. this argument is dead to me. dead to me! you're dead to me argument! you hear! dead!

someone eat some crazy snacks and make a blog so we can tlak about eating weird food.. oh.. wait...

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edited: May 04 2007 + mixedtape

i agree with stevenatius

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05/04/07 + TecknoMan

I mostly do DJing these days, mostly old garage 45s (garage rock from the 60s, not the electronic style) and a reverb. (Analog is still way, way, way, way better than digital. I'm starting to think it always will be.)

I tend to think that doing something that works is more important than necessarily beatmixing or blending, or whatever.

It's like, there are 20 or 30 layers to what makes music good. The technical things are at the bottom of the stack of layers and the conceptual stuff is at the top. Most of the laptop stuff I hear right now is working the bottom few layers really well but doing so at the expense of the upper ones.

05/04/07 + Jetsom

"i say.. turn off the fucking lights.."

This idea rules of course, but health and safety and stuff...Rioji Ikeda or someone said something about that in an interview: They wouldn't let him have total darkness, just very, very dim light. Same when I tried to pull it off at uni. I think it would be ace to have no light for the first half of a show, then very, very dim light for the second, slow fade up.

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05/04/07 + Analog

just have the health and safety lights on but have a massive strobe set at 0.5Hz to blind everyone periodically...

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05/04/07 + quantazelle

I've seen amazing sets at the upstairs room of St. Andrews for the afterparties at DEMF / Movement put on by the Paxahau guys--Deadbeat was great. They threw a bunch of pillows on the floor and had candles along the walls and everyone just crashed on on the floor. great great greag

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edited: May 04 2007 + djugel

In certain settings just the laptop is fine.. but it is just a different form of DJ (once again, rave logic). I used to be one of those "well it's all about the music" people. That was because it was high school and I had 606's, 202's, etc... and all the other kids played guitars and pop punk.

If you are still chasing that 90's rave dream(be it relentless beats or the chill out room).. then the checking your email or staring at your groovebox is fine for now. But I really think.. if we want electronic performance to progress.. you should really have an instrument to play, something that you play very naturally and not forced.. (how about a synth?!)

Yeah .. it used to be all about the music.. but now they're much more people making music.. and much more amatuer's that can hide behind the new technology. Either make the show a bit more interesting to make up the lack of performance(once again I love lights!) ... or prove you're not musically from this new school of artsts still chasing the convenience of an old idea.

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