Live at the Bearspace, November 24th 2005

For my first solo show in 8 years i concocted an idea where i would improvise for 6 minutes, film that, and have it projected onto a screen behind me while i improvised over it. This would also be filmed, and after six minutes it'd be played back for me to improvise over again, and so on. By the end of it they'll be three or four of me on screen and one of me live, all improvising together.

It went pretty well, although we had some technical issues. I started the set playing some bowed cymbal and metal eggcup stuff into a 57 through a delay and wah into my amp for some background ambience, then some increasingly aggressive kazoo with plenty of verb on the amp. That took up most of the first 5 minute improv. It was going great as i saw my other half head off to give Steve the camera to DL to playback behind me. I watched the progress bar (wow, that took a long time) as i switched to bowed berimbau and my roberts radio. Steve and my partner couldn't find the file on the laptop, so there was a big gap i had to fill.

Obviously waiting on stage feels like a lifetime and just when i thought 'uh-oh, i might have to fill this whole 40 mins without the playback', there i was onscreen bowing the cymbals. By this time i'd set some more feedback and droning delay and was improvising in D minor on the clarinet into the PA mic (not the one going into the amp); fairly bluesy stuff with some off-key upper register stuff thrown in on the amp mic that delayed around. Had the change been quicker i would've still been on the berimbau, as i'd wanted, but i had gotten bored with it by then so i'd moved on.

The next change was pretty quick (camera to laptop wise) and soon there were three of me as i went back to the cymbal bowing. I watched some of the clarinet stuff with the kazoo for maybe 30 seconds while i drank some tea and lit my cigarette, then dueted with myself on the clarinet which took me to the end of the set; playing 'Brother Mastiff' i wrote for the first draft of my current record. The last minute i started packing up while the two screen mes finished what they were doing. The applause was pretty thick, i said 'thank you' and headed off. Overall i was pleased, but definitely a few technical things to think about were i to do this sort of performance again.