Should laptops be banned live?

oh, and there's a search function...

Things they should do to make laptop "performances" more entertaining
How long has the world been prejudiced against LAPTOP NOISE?
Can the laptop IDM set please leave the noise to the "bored with hardcore" people and get back to making us dance?
live electronic music and the laptop
Laptops

Thanks for the pointers, I often forget the search bit

sorry, man. i'm just being a dick... morning here. no coffee yet...no offense meant

san francisco. okay, just after noon, now. coffee in hand. demeanor: nicer

people who are there simply for the music vs. people who need to see something to enjoy the music

when non-musicians watch guitarists do they actually understand exactly what the guitarist is doing? or do they just get off on how fast the guitarist is moving his fingers. does it matter? must a musicial performance be theatrical?

i do laptop stuff, sometimes with a drummer. the bit that gets me mad is when people come round to where i'm playing and look at what i'm doing, what software i'm using and just stare! its funny, if i'm using ableton live (software that allows you to control the arrangement by loading samples, very easy to use but potentially very powerful) they act as if i've commited some sort of crime, 'so you're not actually making the sounds then'. yet, if i do a set with reaktor, or max which i have set up with a few sequencer-synths loaded and just fuck around with some sequences i'd made earlier they act as if i've just walked straight out of IRCAM after a session with stockhausen. i'm usually good with these people although one bloke released the mental side of my geekness, "what the fuck, do you really expect me to morph the sound of a rattling snare drum into a cello in REAL TIME, cuz i'm not that fast with my maths..."

i don't really understand the need to watch someone performing. i do however, feel it helps to be able to see something (such as visuals or a light show!) helps because it makes it easier to lose that sense of self awareness and become lost in the music, especially in an audience-stage environment.

if i'm honest, when watching a performer i'm usually analysing their technique, whether i fancy them or not, their clothes etc more than paying attention to the actual music. some of my best musical experiences have been surround sound tape/laptop pieces in a darkened room where you're pretty much staring at the back of the composer's head the entire time.

the atmosphere at most diy or rock style gigs doesn't really work well with the laptop scene methinks. in my opinion there needs to more of a relationship between the type of music being performed and how the event is organised. i always imagine japan from the way david toop describes it to be much more like this.

Having said that, Kraftwerk live > monolake so some kind of visual experience can add to the performance. Though I probably would enjoy kraftwerk over monolake even if it was just them and their laptops with no visual element.

As an electronic 'musician' my viewpoint on live gigs is that the live performance gives me the opportunity to present existing pieces in a new way and to weave in lots of new material, so that each live set is unique.

This mashup of new and old is what I hope I will hear when I go to other electronic musician's gigs.

A conventional band act doesn't appeal to me because there is not the variety of material being played (at least not with newer bands). They seem to be scared of playing anything that might not contribute directly to their latest album sales.

Dan

Do you ever go to an orchestra and say "that was really boring, it was just a bunch of people in black suits just *sitting* there playing violin and stuff, the only bloke who bothered even *trying* to perform was some bloke with a little baton"?

Performance is an artform and a talent, not necessarily the same artform or talent as the ability to *create* music. I've seen more than my fair share of boring shuffling blokes with acoustic guitars who have no more stage presence than your average laptop boffin.

We try to compensate for this by having a variety of singers performing and dancing and creating a visual focus for the music.

My experience often finds that laptop sets - and electronics in general - allow for a far greater difference in musical performance than most rock bands.

You should have gone to see Steve Barnes anyway, much better than Monolake!

I yearn for the days when I was a young lad of seeing the Kraftwerk performing with their analog drumpads and primitive robots. That, chaps, is live entertainment!

We deal with the performance issue by sticking me in back of the stage

Basically musicians are lazy and laptops are a lot less hassle than a living breating drummer. We can't be arsed carrying drum kits about, let alone finding an extra car for them. To he honest, we can't be arsed with drummers full stop. Frankly, we resent them claiming equal billing when all they do is smother inappropriate fills all over the place, hampering the audience's appreciation of the latest genius way we've managed to combine three shitty Boss effects pedals whilst droning an E chord and staring at the top of the doubles-bar optics like we're the Wikipedia entry for "wistful".

There are far too many benefits of a lappy compared to what any drummer can offer you to make a stick-pounder a good choice these days. A laptop does exactly what you want to for a start, you can even set the desktop wallpaper to something you like - unlike a real drummer who'll constantly wear some 10 year old band t-shirt that's frankly embarrasing as it runs against the grain of whatever your trying to appear as. All-in-black? Wella Ad? Mimsy Gypsies? Heaven forbid we should be allowed to turn up and play in our skivvies and not be dressed up in some pre-defined uniform like we're a fucking Sim.

A drummer is a huge visual focus for a gig and many say performances feel a bit naked without them. Boo fucking hoo, Mr. Audience. If you want something that fits your nuns-vadge-thin ideas of what's visually acceptable then go watch the Stones, or some tribute band to the Stones if you can't afford it, which you probably can't you spotty know-it-all undergraduate fuckstain. Why the fuck should We, who actually make this shit, have to fulfill your visual requirements for a performance? It's got fuck all to do with what's coming out of the speakers and last time I looked at our job remit that's all it entailed.

Personally I blame decades of piss-poor soundies mixing the vocals too far down at gigs to the extent that people have now forgotten that songs are occasionally about things and aren't just there to make it impossible to talk to your friends so you can stare at the token female bass players Taj-Mahal tits without looking like the sex-starved waste of taxpayers money you truly are. If you're that concerned with visual spectacle go back to your natural habitat of searching for more grisly additions to your psychologically-revealing porn jpeg collection.

my drummer:

http://www.sonicftp.com/synth/lcasesynth/s-3.jpg

cost me fifty quid off ebay.

Neither can I to be honest.

But on the other hand, I get cross with *all* musicians who don't bother to make some kind of effort at putting on a performance onstage, whether they're twiddling knobs on a laptop, or posing with a guitar. You might as well stay home and listen to the record.

This doesn't mean that every band has to be all-singing, all-dancing all the time. But if there's not some added extra... *something* why bother playing live at all?

One was taking an act that was very lo-fi, very cut-and-paste and on the insistence of The Money turning it into what in their heads would be a passable live act with both live instruments and a lappy. It was an infuriating experience to say the least - especially for the laptop controller. What use is there for him to press a button that triggers a sample at an exact point? The only thing that is leaving open is the chance he'll miss his cue. It's not like there's any intonation or room for improvisation when he's just pressing a key at an alloted time. In the end he was playing along with full keys parts that weren't in the original songs and it all started sounding like a pub rock band covering the material we were supposed to be showcasing.

There's an impasse. You can't impose a set of values for live music on an element that isn't live. The same way you can't get an Iron Maiden MIDI file that sounds passable. It amuses and infuriates me watching stuff like The Streets live and hearing how much it ends up sounding like A.N. Other live pop music at der Awards Show. Live performances are still the number one promotional tool, there's still no way around it for a lot of things other than caving in to one of the rather naff compromises on offer. Which is the problem, all the compromises are, well, naff.