Open Ears festival report...

[ditch wrestler <ditchwrestler@yahoo.com>]

 

The local biennial freaky music festival (Open Ears – www.openears.ca)  in Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario just wrapped up and thought I’d pass on loop-related bits.

 

Tony Conrad, godfather of drone, played and had two Akai Headrush’s on stage – a blue and silver model.  His two sets were rather disappointing, though seeing a electric mandolin played like a violin was interesting.

 

Other than that, an RC20 (or 30) and a DL4 were spotted on the floor for Toca Local and Tanya Tagaq Trio, respectively.  Needless to say, but laptops were pretty much everywhere - I got very tired of staring at the apple logo, like it was a white-eyed HAL plotting my destruction...

 

On the recent p.a. thread, the touring arm of the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (aka Sideband) had a neat set-up.  Beside each member was a subwoofer (looked a home stereo model) underneath a five-sided dome that had a speaker in each face and on the top, another speaker facing upwards.  As explained by Jascha Narevson (member of the group and local boy done good), this way the sound comes out in a dome, not in a straight line and gives it all a more acoustic characteristic.  Full details here: http://silvertone.princeton.edu/~skot/plork/delorean/  As a double bassist playing with effects, this kind of set-up has instant appeal...  I wonder if laying a cabinet on its back may yield a similar result.

 

And an LD’er was mentioned – during the intro of Jascha, some of his commissioners  were mentioned, including one from Todd Reynolds, who I assume the self-same on the list...

 

No looping, but for the guitarists, Matt Rogalsy’s Discipline was a wicked cool installation.  I see a few days ago he put a vid here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsKeRLzkSyw.  In a nutshell – 12 guitars, each tuned to one note (though over different octaves), p/u’s are reverse wired and generate a signal matching the tuned note.  The signal is a classic rock radio station, that has the signal route and split up.  The strings vibrate when that note is played on the radio.  Very ethereal!  The sound was like 12 e-bowed guitars, but the sound waves were slow and gentle or string-rattling...

 

 

 

ted harms.

Or would you sing somethin' different. Somethin' real. Somethin' *you* felt. Cause I'm telling you right now, that's the kind of song people want to hear. That's the kind of song that truly saves people. It ain't got nothin to do with believin' in God, Mr. Cash. It has to do with believin' in yourself. Sam Phillips, "Walk the Line"