What would you do...?

pulsoc · Post by **pulsoc** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 9:00 pm

the_planet wrote:Yeesh, this thread is making me feel self-conscious with my sorta-sequenced scenes in session view. I do plenty of knob twiddling though. It's ok, right guys? RIGHT?

Riiigghht

pixelbox · Post by **pixelbox** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 9:53 pm

I personally have mixed feelings about this. I mean, it is noble for COSM to just let it go and everything, but to me, I still feel it necessary to try and keep laptop music with a little bit of integrity, and thus, I can fully understand why Tom was debating on what to do.

If I go to a club, sure I'll pay a cover charge to listen to a DJ mixing CDs, and if it happens to be the artist who is pressing play on the CD changer, well then fine.

However, if you as a club owner or laptop artist are charging more for the live experience, it should be a live experience. Whether or not it looks like you are checking e-mail or not, you could do the work involved (and take the risks of screwing up) by setting up your tracks in at least SOME sort of live fashion where the possibility of capturing one of those synergistic moments with the audience can occur. It (at least in the audience's eyes) considerable skill to produce music in a live situation where anything can happen.

Am I making any sense? I need more coffee.

Nod · Post by **Nod** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 10:15 pm

pixelbox wrote:take the risks of screwing up - by setting up your tracks in at least SOME sort of live fashion where the possibility of capturing one of those synergistic moments with the audience can occur. It (at least in the audience's eyes) considerable skill to produce music in a live situation where anything can happen. Am I making any sense? I need more coffee.

Perfect sense. A mechanised, perfected performance, for the most part, isn't very exciting for the performer(s) - it's those moments when your flying right on the potential edge of disaster that really feel alive. They're even better when you look across the stage and see your bandmates grinning back at you because, even if the audience didn't spot it, WE know it almost went the shape of the pear

Personally for me it's actually musically rewarding to see people start to screw up, and then save the day, as a measure of a) their talent and b) the fact they are actually fucking doing something up there...

COSM · Post by **COSM** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 10:17 pm

*edited to cover my ass, sorry*

Nod · Post by **Nod** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 10:22 pm

COSM wrote: - I saw no action from any of the live gear over the 20-30 minute perioud I was watching/filming them - They were advertised and pushed as being a live act.

Case closed. Milli Vanilli

popslut · Post by **popslut** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 11:18 pm

Nod wrote:WE know it almost went the shape of the pear

Or as an old friend of mine used to say:

"It's all adopted a form not unadjacent to that of a pear."

COSM · Post by **COSM** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 11:24 pm

Things have esculated a bit to far and I need to tone this down a bit due to some of the personal responses I have had, apologies for doing this.. I have a lot to think about.

Thankyou for all the help

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 11:25 pm

COSM and Pitch Black need to sit down with them and show them a thing or three.

popslut · Post by **popslut** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 12:52 am

I think you should concentrate on your own shit and stop being righteous about what others are up to.

I once got accused of faking my live set by some guy on a forum who thought he was being clever because he'd spotted the Discman CD player gaffa taped to the side of my mixer.

If he'd asked me I could have saved him a great deal of embarrassment by telling him it was for playing 30 second interludes between tunes whilst I loaded up the next song.

These days I keep a pre-mixed stereo "live" set on my HD just in case I arrive at a venue to discover that the onstage monitoring consists of one knackered JBL foldback wedge with a blown tweeter, 20 feet away on the floor.

Anyone who plays smallish gigs [in Britain especially] will know that this is not an unheard of scenario.

I don't use it very often - maybe three times in five years - but I'd rather that than spoil people's night by making a dreadful racket because I can't hear what I'm doing properly.

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 1:24 am

Popslut, on the unfortunate occasion you've had to use your backup, do you fake it/showboat wildly?

That is the issue here, IMHO. Fakery. Deception. Fraud.

(NOT accusing you of these things, BTW!)

forge · Post by **forge** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 1:49 am

pixelbox wrote:I still feel it necessary to try and keep laptop music with a little bit of integrity, and thus, I can fully understand why Tom was debating on what to do.
.

yeah but really IMO the only way to do that is to make sure YOU do it right

I think the people who care will take it upon themselves to find out what the artist is doing, and as we see here, word gets around - but I dont feel it's really necessary to get into public shaming and all that - the results speak for themselves and the ones who do really impressive 100% live sets will always get more respect

as popslut pointed out, it could haev been a backup set for some technical reason - it would be nice to hear the artist in question's defense actually

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 1:57 am

So we should be no better than clergy in the Catholic Church who closed ranks and hushed up the kiddy-fiddling they knew was going on?

Nogi · Post by **Nogi** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 2:05 am

Even a show with a limited 'live' contribution can provide insight into the artist's message. Consider a book reading. No one gets upset when the artist doesn't re-write the book in front of the audience.

I once saw a performance by Leonard Bernstein were he never touched a musical instrument or gave so much as a glance to his audience until his presentation was over. He also never apologized to his fans for this obvious lack of integrity.

Also, it might be futile to try to reconcile an artist's 'hype' and marketing with their actual act. Marketing is almost by definition a deception. Further, art often advertises itself as one thing but is in fact something else entirely - irony is the go-to weapon for many. Be sure you aren't the thing that is in fact being 'played' when you accuse an artist of not playing an instrument.

As an artist, I have my own concerns but they are mainly about what I do. I wasn't there to experience the performance. It may have been completely appropriate to not play anything and act as though you were. Maybe that aspect got in the way of something bigger they were trying to achieve. Maybe your disdain was the intended effect? The art presented by the artist is the sum total of the statement. Take it in, applaud politely at the end and take what you will from it. Art is always a gamble, the audience isn't owed anything - though I do personally wish the Mona Lisa was bigger.

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 2:16 am

I agree there are many different ways to perform. But if you are conciously pretending to play an instrument, and by your actions, you expect the audience to believe you are playing an instrument, that is not "presentation" that is faking/deception/fraud.

Do you feel Milli Vanilli shoud have their Grammies restored (yes, difficult as one is deceased) if they came out and said "Actually, we were being ironic, and were making a statement about manufactured pop music today..." etc.

The thing was their intent to fool the viewing public into thinking they were actually singing live. The intent to mislead is what was wrong. If an act is advertised and pushed as being a live act, and they are not, that is wrong.

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 2:30 am

Here's the fallout of the Ashlee Simpson faux pas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ_I9Q_T ... re=related

Not sure what's funnier:
1. The talking head robot barbie-bimbo
2. The "professor" who's about 2 years older than my son
3. The commentary and the discussion between the two