Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Deadmau5 next week at Oslo Spektrum
I was swapping through TV channels last night, and settled
on MTV Live, which just happened to be showing some choice live sessions from
Roskilde 2011. Exactly at the time I watched, Deadmau5 was performing. I have
to say that I’ve never seen anything quite like it, but to be truthful, I haven’t
been following a lot of the new music for some years now. It got to be too
difficult, with all of the 'one popular song' groups that came and went. I haven't heard of Deadmau5 before, but he has been
around since 2005. Anyway, this was just out and out wild! Really caught my attention,
especially because the main performer--Joel Thomas Zimmerman—wears on his head
what he calls a ‘mau5head’, which is some kind of computer-controlled mouse
head with large ears. This mouse head appears in many different colors and
designs, and the expressions on the face shift and change shape and swirl. A sinister
(Mickey) mouse staring out at the audience from the darkness, into the darkness,
from some chaotic fractal hell. The visuals were fantastic, and for me at
least, it was a rare glimpse into the future, how electronic music will be (probably
a hundred times more sophisticated by that time—let’s say forty years from now) in terms of the digital effects, computer-controlled light
show, use of strobe lights and anything else that musicians use these days to
heighten the effect of their music. These are just a few of the instruments he
uses (and that I’ve NEVER heard of—info from Wikipedia): Nord Lead 2x, Moog
Little Phatty, Voyager RME, Ableton, Fruity Loops, Allen & Heath Xone 3D,
Allen & Heath Xone 4D, Lemur Input Device, Ableton Live, Monome 256,
Reaktor, Cubase, Kaossilator, Nuendo, Native Instruments Maschine, Smithson
Martin Emulator, and Dave Smith Instruments Prophet '08. And in a case of
synchronicity, while I was online reading about him, I saw that he is playing at
Oslo Spektrum next Wednesday, May 30th. So I got tickets. I’m
looking forward to seeing him live. I’ll let you know how it was next week.
Group thinking and things I've learned along the way
As those who know me know, I don't like group thinking. I don't like being told how or what to think by well-meaning but ultimately ...