bandwidth

i thought i'd do the review of bandwidth because i enjoyed it so much, and because i had organised it.

first thing to say was that the red rattler was an incredible venue. a warehouse which has gone to the bother of becoming fully licensed and council approved, they've still kept the vibe of a warehouse, but with great decor, huge comfy lounges, an awesome p.a. and a nice (relatively) big stage. and the people running it were great to work with as well.

anyway, the whole thing was set up to get clan analogue people up on a stage performing for each other and whoever else wanted to come along. so it was an interesting mix of vaguely nostalgic electronics and new offshoots. i enjoyed them both. highlights for me were karoshi (as ever) who sounded great through a big p.a. - dave's drumming (the only drum kit of the evening) as jittery and creative as ever; kate carr just before them who made great atmospheric noises - i loved being able to recognise her work inspite of its apparent random nature, it's the first time i've seen her live since getting her album about a year ago; hearing loopsnake segue his wonderfully strange mash of electronic styles into telafonica via snippets of his remix of japan bell disco; bleepin' j squawkins showing that, in spite of the great things that can be done with blends of electronics and electric/acoustic sound, there's something about a pounding 4/4 beat with lots of squelchy 303 action and filters flying all over the place - they made sly rhythmic changes as they improvised with a pile of synths making all the classic moves. but my favourite part was hearing brand new, never before heard in public, itch-e & scratch-e tracks pumping over the p.a. as andy rantzen played his dj set. it's been too long since i've heard good new dance music on a decent system and just had to do some body moving. but everything was enjoyable - it was a great night of diverse music.

and talking to people over the evening was great - people introduced themselves who had heard us on the radio and come to hear us. got to have some great conversation with nic gray. got to meet some of the old school clan analogue people whom i'd always heard about but never seen or met. got to see 10s of thousands of dollars of classic synths belonging to ryan (electrofetish) who unfortunately didn't get to use them as his main sequencer failed. bec sold two more ipod covers which takes sales up to the point where we can send the money to buy a thai girl a school uniform so she can get an education and not end up in child prostitution.

as for telafonica's set, the response was very positive, but i really found it a hard slog. i missed having eliza to fill in the gaps between songs, and to have a showstopping voice to fallback on. i was also perplexed by our onstage mixer - whenever i tried to mute a mic channel, it caused horrendous feedback - the exact opposite of what should have happened. anyway... we started with cover and that was really great. we set the sequencer going to line check it while finishing off our setting up and gradually brought little sounds in even as blake was moving his gear into place. so the line check kind of morphed into the actual set and it built really organically and smoothly to a nice crescendo. the rest of the tracks went well - blake's guitar playing seems to me to be getting freer and more abstract, but synthesising really well with the electronics.

for apra purposes, our set list was:
cover
your hands
but i lose myself
89
this is the new thing

as a final coda to the night, we stopped in at laziko's for pide on the way home. then, when we turned on the car to leave, what should be playing on the radio but the quest for love aboard the belafonte.