In my post covering this recent set of mine, the video I shot is missing the last 7-8 minutes. Matt who puts on the event had a camera set up as well and he captured the set in it’s entirety. The footage is of a much better quality as well, enjoy!
Tag Archives: Electronic music
Alphastare @ Luggage Store SF
I believe this was the 4th time I’ve performed at The Luggage Store Gallery at the 3rd different space they have operated out of in the last few years. The current space is in the same building as the old but one immediate positive is that there are a few less stairs to climb as it’s located on the floor beneath the old one. By far my favorite location was the street level space they had across Market St. where the Financial District dovetails with The Tenderloin, there is footage from that in an older post . That space was on a corner and had huge windows, so as you were performing there was still that sense of the hustle of city life going on all around you, cars, busses, vintage SF cable cars…briefcases and pantsuits, street people peering into the windows, a real sense of being submerged in a major city…
This space seemed a bit smaller than the one upstairs but had a nice layout and plenty of local art hanging, creating a vibrant atmosphere.
Tonight I had Rose Cherami with me operating visuals. This added immensely to the set and I look forward to working with this artist more in the future. Rose also hosts a night at The Honey Hive Gallery where I recently performed also with his contribution on visuals.
Luggage Store Pics
For my first number I had to perform surgery on my SQ-1 which decided to die about 30 seconds into my set as I forgot to put in fresh batteries. The SQ was syncing all of my other gear aside from my ipad which had a drone texture playing from the Animoog synth. I had not brought extra batteries but realised I had borrowed a tape player from a friend (event host Matt Davignon). I flipped over the SQ-1 and realized the battery compartment cover is secured with phillips head screws! Hahaha! luckily I had my trusty knife on me and whipped that out like a back alley hood and went to work swapping out the batteries. If it weren’t for the Animoog Drone and the fact that I randomly borrowed that tape player and had something to remove the plate with, the beginning of my set would have been really rough. I took it as it came and soldiered on and had a great set.
The first half consisted of some work on The Mother 32 synced up with 2 Volcas (Sample and Bass) as well as the aforementioned Animoog for drones and texture. Then I switched the focus to a 4 track cassette I had prepared with 4 tracks of loops, which I live mixed and layered other various samples over from another source.
I had to watch it back to appreciate the visual element and I knew it would add a lot to the experience, Rose did a great job and I hope to keep this as a regular element in my sets anytime possible!
Kataryna Kopelevich also performed, you can find her work HERE
Slide show pics by Monica Berini
Susanne Ciani at The Berkeley Museum
As promised in my previous post, here is a follow up with some coverage of Susanne Ciani’s appearance at The Berkeley Museum a week after the main festival of performances celebrating the work of Don Buchla. This was a sort of auxiliary set and also coincided with the ‘Hippie Modernism’ exhibit that runs through May 21st.
I met up with my friend Eric M. and the brilliant folks behind RE-search Pubs V.Vale and Marian to experience this special event.
Susanne came out and took in the crowd which had an obvious overwhelming effect on her as she was back ‘home’ in Berkeley again where she originally worked with Don Buchla back in the early days of her discovery of synthesized music. She had an emotional response which set the mood for the event and made it that much more special. She spoke a bit about meeting Don and how he influenced and affected her whole approach and philosophy about music making and perhaps maybe a bit about life in general.
Something happened during her set as well, it was that feeling you get when someone hits you with a really personal and emotional performance, which usually only happens in a conventional music scenario involving perhaps heavy lyrics or a soul wrenching melody. I’ve never gotten that from a synthesizer set and I realized the same thing happened during her set the previous weekend, I just didn’t really acknowledge it until it happened again, the hair raising on my arms etc. I told her as much afterwards and she almost cried right there! It was an amazing connection.
Enjoy her full set here:
See my previous post for more from Susanne as well as additional footage from The Don Buchla Memorial Shows
Don Buchla Memorial Fest 2017
This was a 2 day (all day and all of the night) celebration of Don Buchla’s creative achievements in music and his development of what became known as West Coast Synthesis. Buchla was a contemporary of Bob Moog who operated out of Berkeley in the early days of synthesizer development and as early as 1963 was developing modules for The Tape Music Center. There is a ton of info out there on him, so I won’t get into his many contributions and long career as a designer/engineer etc.
I was only available to attend the second evening of performances but the entire weekend hosted by Gray Area SF was full of activities and panels and performances by an array of sound artists. Some acts were set up onstage with a few various ‘rigs’ and contraptions set up on the floor which made it an exciting experience as you never quite knew where to position yourself in between acts, it was a great way to experience a show with that format. In fact right from the beginning, walking into the dark hall drenched in red light was a welcoming experience with sound artist Layne set up on the floor working a smaller sized Buchla with some lovely drones and washes, a bit more of an ambient background thing but still very present and engaging. Also set up on the floor in the center was Keith Fullerton Whitman’s modular set-up from which he put down an intense set, melodic with a good balance of tension and release.
This first video is just a few of the artists who performed on Sunday including Layne, bran(…)pos who performed from some kinda whirlybird contraption with video projection and synth wackiness, bringing a carney vibe…there’s also a few minutes of Keith Fullerton Whitman down on the floor with the people!
SUSANNE CIANI
Easily the big highlight was seeing Susanne Ciani her set was also intense at times, you could really see her working to keep the machine under control and masterfully at that. I went with some friends to see her the following week at The Berkeley Museum and both times I felt something…which says a lot when it comes to synthesised sounds. Those may be the first times I have felt something more organic and less technical from a set of that nature, which is a major feat in my opinion. Below is the last 7 and a half minutes of her set.
ALESSANDRO CORTINI
Alessandro and I spoke a bit about our mutual love for 4 track tape machines which is what he used for his moving set to close out the night. He performed, against a projection of home movies, his latest work Avanti. Very personal, very moving and a perfect come down from the event as it was refreshing to hear someone work a simple tape machine after all of the mind blowing tech heavy sounds that we just experienced.
As I mentioned earlier we went to see Susanne again in Berkeley the following weekend so look to the next post for that video!
Also, fellow blogger Encyclotronic posted a variety of videos from the entire weekend, so if you can’t get enough, go check them out as well!
All Video and Pics by Jeff K. 2017
