Wild card at the think tank

[imomus]

Okay, so tonight I play Joe's Pub on New York's Lafayette Street, whose page about the show says: "This singing author, beamed straight in from the Analog Renaissance... whispers pseudo-shy Casiotone enka for quick-thinking omnivores, Jap girls in synthesis, twitchy-fingered 8-bit kids, cosmopolitan sophisticates, postmaterialist sexpots and art students who wear frocks and over-knee socks, get laid but never get the pox, hate rock, and throw pots." Who writes this stuff? Oh, I do. Carry on!

I also have a three-song session and interview on WNYC (New York public radio) show Fair Game this evening at 8pm. I'll be speaking to host Faith Salie and singing three biographical songs, "Erostratus", "Robin Hood" and "Beowulf (I Am Deformed)". It looks as if the show will appear as a podcast on their site from tomorrow.



On Thursday I head off to Denver Colorado, where I'm addressing the AIGA Next conference on the subject of the digitization of culture. Which, incidentally, is the same theme as my next "wild card at the think tank" engagement -- a two-day brainstorming session next week in London with the Institute for the Future of the Book for their Really Modern Library. I'm rather terrified, because I'll be an amateur amongst professionals at these events. But perhaps the synergies will make my outsights useful. In both cases the question is how to tackle the interplay between the tactile and the digital. But it's far bigger than that -- it's basically a big conversation about form and content; about whether the "soul" of a cultural item can be detached from its "body" (in the form of the technology available at any given time to transmit it).

For instance, I think tonight at Joe's Pub (and at my Brussels shows the week after next) I may well do something new. I'll have all the music coming off my iPod and put it in shuffle mode, then just sing whatever songs come up. If the song is one I don't know (for instance, there's a very odd version of "7000 BC" on there, or some bizarre Momus karaoke tracks made with new vocal-cancelling software which removes all the central bits of the mix) I'll improvise new lyrics on the spot, thereby blending a very ancient folk tradition with the latest randomizing digital technology. Does this change the "soul" of my live show? Is it live or is it Memorex? Is the medium the message? Is this "the post-bit atom" or the post-atomic bit? And what happens if I sing Handheld and have to replace the computer vocal in verse 2 with a real voice? Because after a computer sang that song, another computer erased the first one.

Plenty of brain-ticklers there for a think tank wild card!

Comments

hmm

[kabuki2point0.livejournal.com]

Certainly a very interesting prospect... why don't you cast a vote on what Momus songs should be in the running? The top 30, say can be on the iPod and whatever comes up you can sing...
It would be the Momus antidote to those bands who are touring an album as a whole, or doing a 'Best Of' show where the songs are listed in newspaper ads, remeniscent of an advert for a KTel collection.
I think it would be an amazing idea, because you already have that interaction with your fans on other levels.

Re: hmm

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think I'd also like to try inviting members of the audience onto the stage to select the songs they want from the iPod. Or, you know, with a long enough cable you could just pass the iPod around the room and be a sort of mechanical monkey singing whatever song people choose! It could be fun!

Re: hmm

[chuckm.livejournal.com]

That could quickly turn into a game od red light/green light...

Hopefully I can make it out to the show after band practice.

Re: hmm

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The more I think about this idea, the better I like it. I think I'll put Shazna in charge of the iPod, sitting up at the front, and anyone can come up at the end of a song and choose the next one. Actually, anyone could also stop the song in progress, but they'd risk annoying audience members who had chosen the current one, or were enjoying it.

Wikipedia take note: October 10th 2007, the first live concert ever to be controlled by the audience through an iPod interface! (Probably.)

Re: hmm

[chuckm.livejournal.com]

I'm certain you'll get many takers just to get their hands on a touch!

This brings to mind Robyn Hitchcock's last solo tour when audience members could throw song title on stage on sheets of paper. I like the added factor that not even you know what you're about to sing in this case.

Momus. The Human Jukebox.

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

Where´s lol-addicted fangirls?

I mean, I´d be fine with postmaterialist sexpot but I don´t want to be postmaterialist.

[womanonfire.livejournal.com]

oh noooo. you're playing brussels on a monday! :( ;___; ): you finally play near me and i can't/shouldn't make it. ..... .. . ... .... . . . . you're conflicting with my french class.... maybe... you could sing one song in french,... to make up for the lesson i will miss ;)

[(Anonymous)]

Pleeeeease tell me you're going to record some collabs with Sun OK Papi KO whilst in the Bruss! The tracks he did with Illreme on his last CD were fantastic; you're one of the few other vocalists I can imagine who would come up with something fab over his glorious beats and sounds.

Can't wait for the show tonight! I'm off to get a guitar for Nao - the original loaner fell through and I need to get a new one - from the School of Rock, no less! After that, I'm off to pick him up at the bus station.

See you tonight!
-Mikey IQ.

Enlivened by Relationalist performance

[(Anonymous)]

Admit it, you love NY.

We're down but we're not out...

Have to catch you next time...

Re: hmm

[nickink.livejournal.com]

Perhaps Elvis Costello's Spectacular Spinning Songbook is in this tradition too?

Have a great show Nick!

Re: hmm

[youwhowereborn.livejournal.com]

Goddamn you, now I wish I had made plans to attend! I'm in Montreal. Usually your setlists are not so adventurous.

[(Anonymous)]

The only thing that worries me about giving the audience control is that they might favor older Momus classics. I want to hear songs from the three most recent albums (my favorites)! I'm going to have to request a new one tonight.

--Patrick, the guy who said hi to you at Sunrise around 12:30 on Monday

[(Anonymous)]

damnitall, i wanted to be the very first ever to say hi to momus.

[jenny-junkie.livejournal.com]

I think I've got the context here to ask you this:
Are you planning to play in Portugal anytime soon?

[schizo-robot.livejournal.com]

i hope they're not too set on IDing tonight... i need a fake ID for occasions like this. maybe they'll just id for drinks? do you know anything about this? being 20 is a drag.

[schizo-robot.livejournal.com]

ps. who did that flyer?

[(Anonymous)]

Shock 'em. Turn up with a 15 piece big band and an Argentine tango troupe.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm also playing the city on Tuesday, at a clothes store. More details soon.

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

Where´s lol-addicted fangirls?

In Los Angeles, sadly. :|

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

I swear to God, whoever is going to this show (and IF Momus actually goes through with the pass around the iPod plan) PLEASE PUT ON PYGMALISM OR SHAFTESBURY AVENUE! Those are my favorites!

Or for the lolz, put on Microworlds!

Re: hmm

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

But what if they put on "I Want You, But I Don't Need You"? Wouldn't that be a little awkward having Shazna sitting up there? You know how people always want either that or "The Hairstyle of the Devil".

[loveishappiness.livejournal.com]

I'm sure Momus appreciates the lolz, but does he ever do anything for the lolz? (http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Did_it_for_the_lulz)

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

You'd be surprised!


(Ooh, I'm being cryptic!)

c'mon now, fixed identity?

[(Anonymous)]

I just saw you play the Joe's Pub show, and I was a bit aghast at your take at ethnic identities. Why, please tell me, do I have to be fixed to exactly one permanently? As a Russian Jew with 10 years spent in the states while most of my family emigrated to Israel, I find myself switching my ethnic identification rather frequently: personalities, like performances, are negotiated with the audience. On that note, the iPod shuffle trick was as amusing as it was disappointing; reveling in the alienating aspects of technology is, well, alienating. This disbelief in a contract with the audience along a reactionary grasp a "European" identity is not compelling.

~Darwin Peacock

[(Anonymous)]

He totally did Pygmalism, and it was fab. The only song he flubbed was "The Age of Information", so he stopped it, and ended up finishing the set with "The Penis Song". Perhaps my favorite moment was "Noah Brill" with the lyrics changed to reflect the fact that he's about 10 or 12 years old now, so he of course is drinking and fornicating and the like. Still dresses up as batman, though. The Momus/Yximalloo "Bishonen" duet was touching, too.

All in all, a great concert!

Re: c'mon now, fixed identity?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Aw, Darwin, the ethnic identities thing was just a bit of teasing banter, tongue firmly in cheek, a chance for me to work in an anecdote about an Upper East Side restaurant and a Leonard Cohen quote. My true view on the issue is perfectly expressed by the anti-rockism of letting a randomizer choose the songs. In music as in cultural identity, the plastic is fantastic!

Re: c'mon now, fixed identity?

[schizo-robot.livejournal.com]

i was actually really surprised how well the set worked out on shuffle. it felt like a pre-determined set list.

Press Delete

[(Anonymous)]

Is wiping the memory an option, then people can recall the superior recorded versions in their heads in total silence. Shhhhhhhh.You don't even have to turn up.

[marsich.livejournal.com]

Hello, Momus,
Just wanted to say 'Thank you' for the yesterday's show :) Liked your songs very much as well as the shuffle idea :) Don't know why but there's something theatrical in the way you behave on the stage:) I made some pretty good shots yesterday, let me know if it's possible to send them to you.

[tonearm.livejournal.com]

Nick -- didn't get a chance to say this in person, so yeah, was good seeing you again. Always a pleasure.

[alphacomp.livejournal.com]

It was a really good show! I wish the computer picked out more "Don't Stop The Night" and "Oskar Tennis Champion", but yeah.

I was the perpetually-smiling/perplexed dude with the green/blue shirt and the trapezoidal brown head of hair.

councilestate wanted me to take a picture of you with a kahrayzee sign for Momus_lolz, but I was kinda shy/kinda forgot.

berlin art blogs

[natehitchcock.livejournal.com]

dear momus,
could you plz snd me some art blogs about art in berlin.. i read all of the nyc ones, artcal and all that, but i cant speak german so i have a hard time finding them.
best, nate
natehitchcock@gmail.com

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

That sounds absolutely amazing! I hope someone recorded it so I could watch it on Youtube!

[directbetween.livejournal.com]

You'll have to tell me what you think of Colorado, as I've lived here my whole life (soon to change as I go abroad to teach English). If you suspect that Denver is a soulless bastion of consumerism and empty progress, then you are onto something. Is it an orphaned child of Manifest Destiny, still plodding along with an enthusiastic yet vague concept of what it's doing in the middle of nowhere?

The city reminds me of your song "Robocowboys."

Perhaps the AIGA conference will give you a different impression.

[memorybabe.livejournal.com]

Love the RAY JOHNSON-esque flyer!