Could someone explain the appeal of 'Laptop' musical performances for me?

[iAmBaronVonTito]

This guy one the 2007 Battle:

one=won

come on, laurie.




at any rate, ive seen shows that involve laptops amongst traditional instruments.  it was good.  i suppose i just have a hard time being blown away by laptop music as a show.  at that point, i might as well grab a drink and go hang somewhere away from the speakers, making friends.

[Laurie]

This guy one the 2007 Battle:

one=won

come on, laurie.

I was distracted by Otto von Schirach's face.

[iAmBaronVonTito]

This guy one the 2007 Battle:

one=won

come on, laurie.

I was distracted by Otto von Schirach's face.

...was it the crazy eyes or that ridiculous smudge of a moustache?

[Laurie]

This guy one the 2007 Battle:

one=won

come on, laurie.

I was distracted by Otto von Schirach's face.

...was it the crazy eyes or that ridiculous smudge of a moustache?

The nose, actually.

[bobby.]

Annie Clark of St. Vincent commented on this in the NY Times a few weeks ago, in an article about solo performers:

When I mentioned the ever-more-frequent use of laptop-based samples onstage, however, Clark narrowed her eyes. “That’s tricky,” she said. “I did a show once, and the guy who was on before me played a D.J. set using his laptop. To the crowd, it had the appearance that he was deeply engaged in thought — you know, really working those buttons — but I took a peek from backstage, and I saw that he was actually playing solitaire.” She laughed. “So you definitely have to be careful.”

hahaha, Annie's a star.

For tape music (electroacoustic, etc.), it's pretty much unavoidable, but I certainly wouldn't be entertained by a laptop entertainer.

[Phantom Hugger]

I saw aphex twin live, and while I'm pretty sure he wasn't doing that much to his music, there was a pretty great stage show with dancing bears, a fire eater, and a naked-ish girl.

I think I went to a show on this same tour (unless the performances are always similar from year to year), I had the opposite reaction to the stage performance, furry pride is best left in the closet.
And buddy was in some sort of booth so for all i know he was making sandwiches for the road.



Bo-ring.

[yesno]

the aphex twin show I saw was in 1997 or 98. I don't think his show has evolved much.

The magnetic fields' music is pretty much all electronic, but they just come up with live versions to do anyway. Definitely a better approach. Though the "acoustica" live symphonic recordings of aphex twin music are really really good.

[eljezel]

I saw Ulrich Schnauss at the World Financial Center last week and it was all him and a laptop.  I would've been a little disappointed if it weren't for the projections behind him and the fact that it was a free show.  Not like I expected a live band, but I thought there might be some live vocalists.  I left after about 6 songs.

Ben Neill was the only other decent laptop show I remember going to because he has a crazy mutated electronic trumpet that he plays over the laptop stuff.

[Emily]

I was at that show too.

I was thinking that a benefit of laptop shows is being able to hear the music at a volume that i can't experience at home. You get to hear the music at a concert-level volume, so that's nice.

Also, the physical space of the Winter Garden is pretty neat, so it was a cool place to visit.

It didn't so much matter that it was live, but I guess that's what brought people together to listen to it & if you're a big fan, maybe you can meet the artist afterwards.

It's just a thing, I guess it's silly but it can be fun too.

(I really need to get some new adjectives into my vocabulary -- sigh.)

[jamesp]

I saw Girl Talk do a show at my college and it was fun. I think the laptop performance works for him because he's just a DJ doing sampling off his laptop. If it was a show just in a theater with people sitting (like I've heard of some laptop performances) then I'd be skeptical.

[scsiduck]

I saw an AMAZING laptop-only performance by Pita and Marcus Schmickler a couple of years back that totally sold me on computer music. I guess the point is that if the music is great enough then it doesn't really matter what the performer does. Sure, you could stay at home and listen, but especially with more 'beatless' stuff, the performer has a lot more going on than some dude who just pre-sequenced everything and pushes buttons for show. Anyways, the ratio of fakes to geniuses is no lower in computer music than it is in every other kind of music you might see at a bar.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QbBBczzDeCA&feature=related

[Beth]

Music is music, that's what I say. I embrace laptop/ipod bands as long as they fully entertain me. People like Anna Oxygen for example. I have a few friends who do this as well, and it's all about interaction with the audience and having fun. Who needs instruments to have fun?

Also isn't Girl Talk technically a DJ? I mean, he uses other people's music entirely and does mashups right?

Although I guess the line between the two is getting blurrier every day.


EDIT saw your post, jamesp, so I guess my DJ comment is redundant. However, I still think that a  sitdown perfomance laptop music can be wonderful (saw greg davis and keith fullerton whitman perform a few years ago...they had projections and a few extra gizmos but it was principally a laptop show and I loved it).

[Patrick]

i saw a video on Youtube of OCDJ (used to bat clean up on the New Power Tuesdays) performing on a laptop with a live drummer.  it looked like fun.

there seems to be a lot of debate among the DJ community about the use of laptops and programs like Rane's Scratch Live VS. vinyl.  it seems to me that a lot of DJ's that use Scratch Live are still doing a lot of mixing on the spot.  i did however witness Rob Swift get yelled at by someone that he was some how "cheating" because he was using Scratch Live.  Rob's reply was to tell the guy to carry around 200 albums for 20 years and then tell him he was "cheating"

as far as "laptop" music, like all music there is A LOT of crap out there, and there is some real good stuff too.  i have heard the Girl Talks live shows are not to be missed....  however the new album really is not cutting it for me.

[KickTheBobo]

Thanks for all the input. One of the reasons why I posed this question/grumble was that I've been making some tunes that incorporate live guitar with tracks on the laptop, and am wondering whether or not it could be translated into a live performance. At first I think that maybe if there were some 'trippy' visuals playing it might add to the experience, but part of me thinks that that is a bit of a cop out/ played out (unless they are top notch ala Emergency Broadcast Network or Skinny Puppy). The whole super-8 footage on a white bedsheet seems to have done it's duty many times over.

I think the only way it might work is if the focus is not on the musician(s), but if they are there to simply add ambient sound/music to the room. I guess I'm gonna just have to step up and experiment with this and see if it's successful, and if not, make it a cd/mp3 only deal.

[Emerson]

You can also engage the crowd directly. Momus is a good example. He performs his songs to track, and there's technically very little going on, but half the show is crowd banter, which can be tense and hilarious. When I saw him, he improvised biographical songs for $5 each.

Most of the hostility toward laptop musicians comes from their aversion to anything resembling charisma, but that's not a requirement of the medium. There are many paths up Mt. Entertainment, and not all of them require a Flying V.

In answer to your question, I was blown away by Tim Hecker, but that's mostly because I was drunk, and because the Empty Bottle has a much better stereo system than I do.