So right off the bat i’ll let you know that 90% of your favorite artists play to a big time backing track. I mean they’re basically lip synching. Whatever it ain’t no thang most of your hipster flash in the pans haven’t been touring for 4 years and don’t have time to fuck up.
Appreciate them for their production not their live show.
anyways JFK from MSTRKRFT weighs in on the “live” show many house acts now have (no doubt referencing justice and daft punk).
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someone wrote to me last night on myspace, saying we should play live and wear the masks etc. instead of DJing.
it got me thinking about what is passiing for live now. as you all know, i spent about 12 years playing 100% live for people around the world. thats how ALP and i met.. playing drums in diff bands that played together. i know what playing live really is. i know what it feels like and what it looks like… and i know that other than some of the techno artists, no one in this genre is playing live. sequenced ableton performances arent live. midi secuences arent live.
i actually find it insulting to hear people speak about thier faux live performances with me. anyone who saw DFA79 or femme fatale play knows how real a live performance can be. no hiding behind props or lights. not a fake moment or unnecessary item on the stage. no matter how hard i tried, it would never be the same every time. impossible. in true live music, there are just so many variables… every day is a new experience. calling these pre-arranged performances LIVE is like calling a DVD movie ‘theatre’. know what im saying?
what gets me is that it seems like kids are actually buyin this fake shit. what punk rock still lives in me wouldnt let me look in the mirror if all i was doing was playing with filters behind a lightshow. if youve seen us DJ a few times, you know its always different. some nights we are off and some are incredible… thats cause its real. i dont feel right being anything but honest with the audience. maybe thats why i dont have that ashlee simpson money. even though we DJ, al and i have too much respect for live performance to ever call anything we could do as mstrkrft ‘live’. the most live act in this genre is just working with midi sequences… so no one is actually PLAYING anything. theyre just turning knobs. fuck that.
so, lets not call that shit live anymore. call it A SHOW. cause thats what it is. call it A PERFORMANCE…. but please, dont refer to that as a live show. its not. the reason al and i havnt devised any live setup is because it would never really be truly live. im not sure if anyone even cares about honesty anymore, but i do and thats why youll never see that bullshit from me.
j f k
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Your thoughts? What defines a “live” show anymore? I’m starting an emo band, just so I can play live again. Me and greg from acid girls just talked about it I swear.
13 responses so far ↓
1 larry // Apr 28, 2008 at 11:48 pm
what about any laptop dj?
isn’t this the same golden standard?
2 Jason // Apr 28, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Good call. Saw Rjd2 live the other day, but thats because he stepped from behind the tables and played everything on stage. Numark rocks like that too, well its been a while with that one, but I hope he still does.
Pull out some instruments and jam out. Let me know, I will support.
3 Skeet Skeet // Apr 29, 2008 at 2:30 am
if you read the article larry, thats what JFK is talking about. Laptop DJ = “sequenced ableton performances arent live. midi secuences arent live.”
unless you mean serato which is entirely different.
4 melissa // Apr 29, 2008 at 7:38 am
love it….. go JFK……
5 Tyler // Apr 29, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Skeet fuck man this is epic.
but bringing up DFA79
i live just outside Toronto, and the old drummer and vocalist from DFA79 Sebastien Grainger lives around here and he puts on alot of live shows at little bars around the city and honestly man there fucking amazing and always different i have seen him countless times and its always differnet but always good.
sorry if my grammar is shitty in this im on a cell phone.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=125167756
but skeet if you start a emo band hook me up and let me join.
6 Sky // Apr 29, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Lets be paramore
7 ahchal // Apr 29, 2008 at 6:34 pm
So skeet midi why is serato different do you considere serato performances live?
8 ahchal // Apr 29, 2008 at 6:36 pm
i meant why is serato different from midi? do you consider serato live ? sorry about the previous comment lol i was playing gta 5 shizzle its insane jaja cheers skeet
9 ahchal // Apr 29, 2008 at 7:20 pm
so skeet what do yo recommend more torq or ssl?
10 Skeet Skeet // Apr 29, 2008 at 10:42 pm
as far as why serato is “live” versus say pushing play on ableton.
Well with serato you can interact with a crowd, at least good DJs do. I can feel the energy build and act accordingly. With ableton it’s just not gonna happen that way.
11 caca // Apr 30, 2008 at 4:51 am
you idiots, including jesse keebler, are reading way too into this shit. it’s called “LIVE” because its made in ableton “LIVE”…. i honestly think this whole “live” performance fiasco started because some turd writing a press statement about justice or something mistranslated their first “ableton LIVE” performance as being their first “LIVE” performance… and this can’t be in reference to daft punk… daft punk may have used ableton, but their light show alone is more complex than any cowbell laced piece of shit jesse keebler has farted out
12 eh // Apr 30, 2008 at 6:55 pm
helllllllo. being a dj is not the same as being a musician.
13 matt // May 8, 2008 at 2:22 pm
thats the great or bad thing [depending on how you look at it] about electronic music. you don’t necessarily need to be an amazing musician, you can build things around samples, and never play it live. Really the only group/person that truly transcends this in my opinion is soulwax. daft punk too i guess, they re-record a lot of their samples which is quite interesting in its own right and do put on one hell of a show.
I love a great dj set, but I also don’t think you can entirely dismiss an Ableton Live set as something inferior. I think anyone whos seen Surkin, Dj Falcon or Para One to name a few, understands that they all have their advantages and short comings..I think in the end its all about how you use it.
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