Rocks about to punk ≠ Punks about to rock.

A friend of a friend saw me run around with a camera the other day and asked if I wouldn’t take some pictures of him and his band as they were playing at Henriksberg yesterday. So in skinny jeans and with a leg pouch I climbed all over a small stage, trying to take pictures of The Bang. Usually only my mom asks me to play photographer — “and please don’t make them ‘arty,’ just make them good” — and I’m always nervous whenever I’m supposed to perform. It’s like peeing in public; I’m not a professional enough urinator to be comfortable doing it.

Reviewing the pictured I guess they’re good enough, especially when beaten into submission in post, but it’s so odd looking back at myself and not really remembering what it was I wanted to accomplish with the live shoot. Either you’re documenting live because 1) the light and set and so on are unique enough to warrant taking advantage of the situation, or 2) because you want to document the audience somehow, put the band there and then, bearing witness.

What with every other person in the audience watching the show through viewfinders or cellphone screens, I’d like to see some more effort put into making even concerts like this media friendly. Perhaps a live Bluetooth dump linked to a screen at the bar? Lighting that goes from almost pitch black to living-room, allowing the full range from fanboy to ironic girl to get their desired image. You know, like fenced hunting; The hippo might have nowhere to run, but you’ll still feel rather good about shooting it just so. (As long as you bring ear guards.)

On a side note, I might be coming down with a fever and should go to bed now. Let’s start Monday on a really shiny happy note, shall we? Try not throwing an epileptic fit looking at Jon the drummer above.

Sound art, performance, perserverence and endurance

My new years resolution (Technically, I came up with this a couple of days later, when Anna asked if she should sign me up for a reality tv show) was to say yes to things rather than my hitherto standard replies no, hell no and the occasional how much would you pay me to perform that?.

So I joined some of my newly made friends from the sound course to Musikens hus here in Gothenburg to watch three bands have an improv night.

I’ve always had the nagging suspicion that “improv night” meant “you have to be a musician to enjoy this, ’cause ours is a music for the brains, and you have an oh so tiny brain”. I wasn’t totally proven wrong.

I came in late for the first group, a three man jazz combo that played with a lot of umpfh. The band after that was called ‘Boogie’ (what’s the matter with the bad taste in naming things here in Gothenburg? Two days ago I listened to a classical music quartett called Kvart i ett which is a pün or play on words, meaning ‘a quarter to one’ and sounding like ‘kvartett’! Don’t your sides just split in despair over this?) and consisted of a drummer and a singer (and assorted bells and whatnots). When they didn’t improvise it sounded kinda like Coco rosie, which is double-plus good, and when they improvised it sounded like improvisation and bells and whatnots, which is un-good.

Anywho. It was nice and my simple mind could appreciate the beats and the singing. Short break, I go smoke, finish my beer and sit back down, and listen to 25 minutes of this:

[audio:Recording3.mp3]

And this sort of combined three elements of stuff I really can’t deal with:
* Performance
* Live show
* Experimental sound art

I don’t like performances on principle. It has something to do with my gut reaction of “what the hell made you think this was a good idea and how come no-one stopped you?“. Then again, I can’t watch embarrassing moments on TV either, so it’s probably just me being squeamish and such.

I don’t like concerts ’cause it’s so seldom that the music coincides with my fancy at the moment (When I’m sulking, I’d like to have Nick Cave standing by, but at other times I probably wouldn’t appreciate him as much), so most often I’m just not in the mood.

Finally, I’ve listened enough to experimental sound art to know that what they were doing had been done in the 70s and was abandoned because after the dust settled all you were left with was a bunch of noise that could only be appreciated while on drugs or heavy theoretical academia. Yes some people can probably relate to it. Yes it sorta pushing the boundries of how we interpret sounds and musical narration.

It’s just not very interesting. And it really doesn’t matter that those who are playing are very talented within their fields – There are a whole bunch of people who are really good at what they are doing, but what they are doing is shit.

Anywho. The three bands are going on tour. They hit Oslo next, and then Stockholm.