Mind Reader was a sellout in Beacon
Photos by Lindsey Harris
Last Saturday I had a wonderful time performing in a sellout show with my good friend and fellow mentalist, Vinny DePonto, at the Howland Cultural Center in Beacon, NY.
The show was Vinny’s “suitcase show,” Mind Reader. He can perform this show anywhere as all of his props essentially fit in a suitcase - no set is needed. He makes tweaks to the material he performs each show and I’ve watched the show develop over the last few years. Often I’ll help out with some logistical bits and bobs, and take photographs during the show. This time, I live-scored the entire show.
Nerd alert:
In my constant quest to please Dieter Rams I decided for this show to scale down my usual solo setup.
I figured out I could essentially use one sound source in addition to my saxophone, and be completely covered.
I left the EWI, Novation Peak, Boss RC-600 Loopstation, and Arturia Keystep at home. I ran my sax through a wireless clip-on microphone, connected the receiver to the line in on my Teenage Engineering OP-1 and routed that out to my amp. I could add effects to the sax signal and loop the audio on the OP-1 “tape.” In addition to that the OP-1 is a sampler, meaning a sound can be recorded on to it and then manipulated in many ways. I had sampled my sax and made a few patches so that I now have my own unique instruments that sound like keys, bass and various pad sounds but are all my own saxophone sound. In a world of presets and virtually unlimited amounts of professionally sampled instruments such as concert hall grand pianos or symphony orchestras available to anyone, I wanted to use sounds that I made from scratch, that nobody else had access to.
I may make a separate video of this process in the future, but in the video above, as well as my opening music, first couple of minutes of the show, includes me taking the sound of Vinny striking a wine glass with a pendulum, manipulating that sound, and using it to create an instrument that I use throughout the show. It is a lot of fun and a real challenge to do this live but I think adds an interesting element to the performance. It’s definitely something I want to continue exploring in future shows.
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