One of my many projects, Erased Files, had its first show on Saturday. Josh, the other half of Erased Files, was celebrating his birthday that day. The line-up was pretty spectacular:
• Chissum Worthington
• Erased Files
• The Mormons
• Midway
• 8-Bit

Not bad for $7.

I loves me some Electronica. Hell, I've got two Electronica projects. There's a horrible downside to it, though: the inability to perform live.

Electronica has taken music composition to a different level. Computers have given us new control and offered new sonic frequencies. This gives musicians even more to explore and experiment with. It's really a fantastic thing. I highly recommend OHM+: The Early Gurus Of Electronic Music, a great retrospective on the birth of Electronica.

Josh and I had been contemplating this dilema for some time. We'd wanted to be able to play shows but we were also finding ourselves writing things that we could never play. Happy mistakes are a wonderful thing and we always leave the "tape" rolling. As a result, there wouldn't be much to play live.

And that's a problem with most Electronica shows: They're boring. Someone poking around on a laptop and a synth doesn't make for a good show. Half of going to see a live show is the performance. I hate when you can tell that they're mimicking, too. If I wanted to hear the songs on playback, I'd rather stay home and save money than watch someone pretending to play.

That was our problem. Josh, being the genius he is, came up with our solution a couple months ago: Puppets.

We recruited Brandon and Jason to help us as the puppets we found came in a set of 4. Originally we were planning on modifying them, changing their appearance, etc, but once we opened the box we knew they were perfect as-is.

The Friday before the show I ran down to the studio after work.

Flashback: On Wednesday, Josh and I heard Patrick Hernandez's Disco masterpiece, "Born To Be Alive", on the radio. The moment it came on we knew we had to cover it. It's always been a favorite of mine, occasionally performed at karaoke at The Brass Monkey. We also knew we had to have it ready for the show.

Enter Thursday: Can you believe this nonsense? iTunes doesn't have the song. Oh, sure, they have some crappy remixes and covers and a karaoke version—not the original. I did, however, find the video on YouTube. As if I didn't love the song enough already, the video gave me a new-found appreciation for this gem. Absolute genius.

Back to Friday: Work was horribly insane and I got out late. Luckily the studio is a quick jump from the office, so it's not too bad. We recorded the audio from the video into the computer and started working on mapping out the composition. The song sounds deceptively simple, really. I was surprised and it gave me yet another level of appreciation for the track. Seriously. Kudos to you, Patrick Hernandez.

I don't know how we did it, but we finished the song that night. I was anticipating working in the studio 'til about 6am, taking a nap and then waking up 'round 10am to finish it up. Thank everything that wasn't the case. We still had props to buy and then figure out how in the hell we were going to make this all work. Yes, our first and only run-through was the afternoon before the show.

Yes, that's insane. Looming deadlines, though, spark creativeness, I believe.

The show ended up going very well. It was a bit of a gamble. The performance could have easily gotten bland and sour. It worked, though. The set choices and length were perfect enough to hold the crowd's attention. We also didn't get our asses kicked.

That's the sign of a good set.