First up a big Hi to visitors from the White Label Music forum (http://whitelabel-music.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=1&sid=15aeaebc03833d3e5e6636c03f7fad0f). And specially to Garry for insisting I write it up - hope you enjoyed the show. :-)
I made it to the venue in record time - 1 hour. Leaving early and having a good grip on the route helped. A significant improvement on the four hours it took to get to that part of the world the first time. So there was plenty of time to set up my gear at a leisurely pace.
Passing Clouds is a Victorian Warehouse. There are two floors - downstairs has a nice sized stage and I reckon you could pack about three hundred people in there without completely sardine-tinning them. There was a basic bar. Upstairs is like a giant chill-out zone - a couple of dozen sofas, and various comfy chairs scattered around, white walls, random objects - a tuned piano, a white wedding dress with hooped shirt suspended from the ceiling, and another bar.
Upstairs and down people were busy setting up sound equipment, video projectors, 16mm film projectors, slide projectors - by the time they were done pretty much every available surface had moving lights splashed all over them. More people were sitting around and chilling. A couple of pizzas appeared and almost disappeared before someone decided to pay the delivery man. Good pizzas too! Mmmm.
I sat and noodled a bit on the theremin, which attracted some attention - mostly from various girls adorning the sofas, but a few boys too, all wanting a go and absolutely loving it. Ha! I even got an offer to date a young lady. I fended her off with my wedding ring, and the assurance that, while my marital status may not matter to her, it does to me. Nice little ego boost though.
One of the evening's poets turned up. I think it was Malgorzata Kitowski (who incidentally has a poem entitled Theremin (http://the-beat.co.uk/theremin/) on the web) but I'm not 100% sure. It might have been Lisa Hayden. We talked a bit about Terpsitones (theremins controlled by dancing) which a couple of people suggested would be a neat idea.
Our poet rehearsed parts of her long poem [i]World War III Woman[/i] whilst moving as if on a terpsitone, with me interpreting her movements on the theremin - it had a kind of Harry Partch in experimental mode sound to it. Then we tried a sort of call and response thing, where she would sing a line and then I would play it back to her. Lots of fun.
I'm getting this idea for a bunch of thereminists, a poet and some interpretive dancers. All busy interpreting each other in words, music and dance.
After a while Ninki V turned up, and shortly after the pointed out the pile of boxes of Vietnamese (or possibly Chinese) food that no-one had noticed arrive. So we tucked in. Got through a couple of bowls before other people caught on and grabbed a bowl.
Next arrived a lady with yet another slide projector, and an empty carousel. I had brought a bunch of my digital slides along on the off-chance. We projected them onto a big white wall while people started arriving, and I pointed out to anyone nearby - [i]that's my daughter, that's my son[/i] etc.
Then all of a sudden, in total disregard of the running order, I was the opening act. The ring-master, for want of a better term, set me a hard act to follow with a long experimental poem in Russian. (Apparently the warehouse had been occupied in the 1920's by Russian experimental poets.)
For Testy Culbert (see above) worked well from a warming-me-up point of view, but I think the audience were a little puzzled. It is very brief and odd. Like the Laurel and Hardy theme on acid. I may well look at expanding and refining it.
My House Resounds went OK, I thought. I did not try to do the words and music at the same time. Rather I read a couple of lines, then played the melody, then a couple more lines, and the melody, slightly higher and slightly
I made it to the venue in record time - 1 hour. Leaving early and having a good grip on the route helped. A significant improvement on the four hours it took to get to that part of the world the first time. So there was plenty of time to set up my gear at a leisurely pace.
Passing Clouds is a Victorian Warehouse. There are two floors - downstairs has a nice sized stage and I reckon you could pack about three hundred people in there without completely sardine-tinning them. There was a basic bar. Upstairs is like a giant chill-out zone - a couple of dozen sofas, and various comfy chairs scattered around, white walls, random objects - a tuned piano, a white wedding dress with hooped shirt suspended from the ceiling, and another bar.
Upstairs and down people were busy setting up sound equipment, video projectors, 16mm film projectors, slide projectors - by the time they were done pretty much every available surface had moving lights splashed all over them. More people were sitting around and chilling. A couple of pizzas appeared and almost disappeared before someone decided to pay the delivery man. Good pizzas too! Mmmm.
I sat and noodled a bit on the theremin, which attracted some attention - mostly from various girls adorning the sofas, but a few boys too, all wanting a go and absolutely loving it. Ha! I even got an offer to date a young lady. I fended her off with my wedding ring, and the assurance that, while my marital status may not matter to her, it does to me. Nice little ego boost though.
One of the evening's poets turned up. I think it was Malgorzata Kitowski (who incidentally has a poem entitled Theremin (http://the-beat.co.uk/theremin/) on the web) but I'm not 100% sure. It might have been Lisa Hayden. We talked a bit about Terpsitones (theremins controlled by dancing) which a couple of people suggested would be a neat idea.
Our poet rehearsed parts of her long poem [i]World War III Woman[/i] whilst moving as if on a terpsitone, with me interpreting her movements on the theremin - it had a kind of Harry Partch in experimental mode sound to it. Then we tried a sort of call and response thing, where she would sing a line and then I would play it back to her. Lots of fun.
I'm getting this idea for a bunch of thereminists, a poet and some interpretive dancers. All busy interpreting each other in words, music and dance.
After a while Ninki V turned up, and shortly after the pointed out the pile of boxes of Vietnamese (or possibly Chinese) food that no-one had noticed arrive. So we tucked in. Got through a couple of bowls before other people caught on and grabbed a bowl.
Next arrived a lady with yet another slide projector, and an empty carousel. I had brought a bunch of my digital slides along on the off-chance. We projected them onto a big white wall while people started arriving, and I pointed out to anyone nearby - [i]that's my daughter, that's my son[/i] etc.
Then all of a sudden, in total disregard of the running order, I was the opening act. The ring-master, for want of a better term, set me a hard act to follow with a long experimental poem in Russian. (Apparently the warehouse had been occupied in the 1920's by Russian experimental poets.)
For Testy Culbert (see above) worked well from a warming-me-up point of view, but I think the audience were a little puzzled. It is very brief and odd. Like the Laurel and Hardy theme on acid. I may well look at expanding and refining it.
My House Resounds went OK, I thought. I did not try to do the words and music at the same time. Rather I read a couple of lines, then played the melody, then a couple more lines, and the melody, slightly higher and slightly
