Personal reflections on Wire Salon

I was recently asked to appear on the Wire Salon panel at Café OTO, entitled The Ways of the Hacker. A real honour. The other panellists were Tom Bugs, Leafcutter John and late addition Kirsten Reynolds

I got down there and set stuff up. As usual, the fact that I tend to spend less and less time in front of a computer stumped me a little in getting up and running but I still managed to do so in a timely fashion. Frances (Morgan – who led the discussion), Tom and John popped for some food whilst Kirsten and I popped to get some cheap water from the shop. With hindsight, maybe some food BEFORE the Westmalle Tripel might’ve been a good idea but at least it got me in a chatty mood.

Despite the liquid relaxant, when I saw how many people had come I was rather nervous. I had been forewarned by Richard Whitelaw of Sound and Music when I met him earlier in the day that it can get packed but I was used to such events attracting less punters than panel members. My pre-conceptions couldn’t have been more wrong; twas RAMMED.

The discussion started with each of us having an opportunity to introduce ourselves and then later our projects. I had prepared a few slides to show people and covered my Sonic Graffiti project when prompted by Frances. I wasn’t sure whether I’d get the opportunity to outline other aspects of my work but I hoped I might later on…

As it turned out the discussion was free-flowing and even reasonably intense at times. Some themes which I consider to be reoccurring in my field came up, including: how technology for the sake of it is no answer, how performance is key in live electronic music (and how our approaches aim to address this), how we earn a crust doing this stuff etc. It was a good debate with some interesting questions afterwards. The audience seemed pretty into it and hopefully it will be put up here in due course too: http://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/in-conversation/ (a source of much inspiration)

Afterwards, I hung out with Kirsten some more, Jo from Badtiming and my dad; who had come up from Cornwall for a couple of days in London with me. A few people came up to discuss stuff but they seemed more wowed by Tom and John’s lovely boxes. Understandable, they are lovely!

A great event I thought. The only change I would make is to have a better overview of how things might run and how much time will be given to different bits. I guess that’s hard to predict, however Frances did mention that due to some stuff not being fully covered she is considering holding a Round Two of this discussion to tease out a few more thoughts. There was plenty more scope, so that would be fantastic!

Lastly, apart from the boost I got from being asked to participate in this, (Leafcutter) John took time to say some very nice stuff about my work after the event. He identified a purity of approach in my practice. This is something I consider really central to what I do, so it was great to have someone like John spot this. In general, given how new I am to doing this stuff full time, it was very heartening to start to feel I was amongst peers at such an event, especially given that Tom Bugs was a notable influence in me starting out with instrument building!

Lastly, lastly, I’d like to thank Frances and Tony of the Wire magazine for inviting me.

Love for Bedford

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with running workshops. On the one hand, they are a lot of work and require me to put in a lot of effort to engage people. On the other hand, the outcomes are often amongst the most pleasing I experience in my practice. Specifically, I like to think that after my workshops some of the attendees will be inspired to act differently or will continue making noisy things.

I recently visited Bedford College to deliver a Noise Box workshop to a group of about 12 students, over two days. In the run up to this I had my concerns. What if I couldn’t engage the “youth”? What if they didn’t like what we were up to and stormed out? What if they started fighting…with soldering irons!? I’m really not one for thinking the worst in such situations but I hadn’t delivered a Noise Box workshop to a group so young before and I guess having two parents who taught at college might have tainted my view slightly ;)

As it turns out this was the most rewarding workshop I have ever run!

Everyone turned up on day one and was really attentive, asking questions, getting on. They worked mainly in pairs and by the end of the day there were six finished noise boxes. I was shattered but Leah Kardos (the lecturer who got me down for this – and a damn fine musician too!) looked after me and by day two I was ready to make some more noise!

Day two was a really pleasant surprise. As day one had gone so well I wasn’t sure how much we might have to keep everyone occupied on day two but everyone was still full of enthusiasm and we added various things to do on an ad hoc basis, which worked really well. I knew it was going to be cool when a chap called Tom turned up with a part built step-sequencer that attaches to the extension on the synths they had made overnight, and another lad (Miles) turned up with an old radio, keen to build his synth into it. ACE!

Those who had worked in pairs on day one got on with making their synths, with the help of the person they’d helped make a synth the day before, whilst others stuck their synths through Logic to add effects etc. There were a couple of impromptu performances.

Additionally, people were asking about circuit-bending a lot after I introduced it at the start of the first day. One lad popped to his car to get a toy belonging to his daughter and two people chipped off to the charity shop at lunchtime. It was great, a real hive of activity.

I worked with various people through the day to make sure they got the most out of it. My only regret is that close to the end we broke one of the circuit bent toys – despite my best efforts to salvage it. I worked with Miles to make sure we used as many of the original radio controls for his synth and Tom finished his sequencer, which he put in a see-through envelope at the end of the day exclaiming that he had now made a Noise Box and a Noise Bag. HAAAAA!

A really rewarding workshop! I genuinely got the feeling that people were inspired to at least dabble some more. Miles seemed keen to try something more elaborate and we (MortonUnderwood) hope to commission Tom to complete his sequencer so we can see what the demand is like amongst owners of our synths. Hopefully something useful for his CV!

Lastly, I’d like to thank Leah for inviting me down (she’s a star!) and her colleague Richard for his help over the two days. It is always nice to have a helper that knows what they are doing. He makes cool stuff: customguitarprojects.co.uk / Facebook page. I hope to head back to Bedford College because that was very rewarding indeed!

Call for works: music videos / animations

I have been asked by the delightful people at Worcestershire Film Festival to present a selection of music videos / animations as part of the festival in November.

The emphasis of the festival is to highlight locally created work. Self-made or something the band has had made is ideal. I won’t necessarily restrict it to local work if something really great comes up (as there is nothing wrong with presenting work from further afield if it’s really inspiring) but I am not interested in showing the latest ueber-flashy video commissioned by a major label. I’d much sooner uncover a hidden gem produced in a shed in rural Worcestershire!

So, if you think you have a video that might be right for showing in this context, fire away! Please post your links in the comments to this blog post or email me to make any other arrangements.