Magical Utility Gigs
I'm hitting that the personified junk-shop aesthetic that I’m always going for.
I have a gig Friday that a friend’s putting on that’s a bit of a farcical variety show, including a drum battle that doesn’t have real drummers, for example. There’s a puppeteer. There’s live band karaoke. There’s guest singers, and there’s a dance-off.
I’m sure I’m forgetting some stuff, but basically this is a band that backs a bunch of people all the time, doing different musical this-and-thats. Even going on tour with Tommy Stinson from the Replacements.
So, very well versed and I would say locally known for being able to pull together shows like this.
We had one rehearsal. You don’t get pulled in unless you’ve got that ability to kind of figure stuff out and not ask a bunch of dumb questions.
I’m the DJ and co-host, and I’m also singing a song.
The theme is 1977 music and culture. An incredible year; so much to draw from.
One thing that surprised me last night is I thought I had enough songs and cuts, but I’m going to have to totally fill up my SP-404 and get really organized. I’ve got four banks of 16 pads, and I’m going to use all of them.
It’ll be interesting to see where I end up organization-wise. For me, it’s not only about this gig when prepping for something like this. I want to get it right and make sure that I do a great job. But I also want to be able to translate this to other work. Not sure how, but, you know, have faith.
I have to have and be ready with the right songs, the right cuts, and the right timing, which means I have to be organized. And there's not exactly a bunch of tutorials out there for this.
A really tall order, but again, my skill set has presented this gig to me at the time with which I’m able to do it. I’ve got the technology and the different pieces to put it together. Thank the Lord, I don’t have to buy any additional crap for this.
While it would be nice to have another SP-404, I’ve got the Teenage Engineering sampler and that’ll work just fine if I need it.
Really, it’s mainly SP-based and getting around that thing.
And the less gear, the better, although I am going to have djay Pro running straight into the SP via the external input. Or I’ll use the little Teenage Engineering mixer. Lots of testing ahead.
Either way, I’m gonna try to keep it as simple as possible so that execution does not suffer, and again, my timing has to be spot-on. I'll spread the samples out over the most possible pages without tripping myself up.
There’s also a short DJ section at the front.
To me, it’s all really satisfying to be asked and to know that I can execute, given the time I have to prepare.
As I sat in that rehearsal room last night with these guys, singing a song and trying to make people laugh with my sampler, I thought: I’m super grateful to be able to do stuff like this.
Weird world, but there's good fun out there if you want to go out and get it.
But you gotta go out there and get it.