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performance

Live @ Rehearsal Video Concert – November 1st, 2016

November 3, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]After a month of piloting Facebook Live lunch rehearsal concerts to my network of friends, this week I unveiled them on my Facebook page!

 

Setlist: Shake It Of w/Shake Your Body Down (to the ground), A Few Bars of Goodbye, Saving Grace, a totally off-the-cuff and unrehearsed cover of Lady Gaga’s Million Reasons, Bucket Seat, Saving Grace, and a special encore duet with EV on We Are The Crystal Gems (the theme from Steven Universe)

lar-20161101-status-quo-500pxPerformance Notes:

With my first solo performance in a LONG time under my belt two weekends ago, I’m starting to get a feel for my solo repertoire again.

For me the standout here is “Status Quo.” I invoked it in this year’s anniversary post, and this is one of the strongest versions of it I’ve performed. It has all sorts of extra ornamentation I’ve never done before. Definitely wish I had that one in studio quality!

“Shake It Off” was a decent rendition, and I’m starting to get the muscle back to pull off three whole minutes of those hammers (seriously, it’s a workout).

I was really focused on keeping “A Few Bars of Goodbye” on the slower side since I tend to gain speed on songs in 3, but the tempo focus distracted me from some of the lyrics. That said, it’s great to hear it at the right speed (and I got the final chord right)!

“Million Reasons” was a bit of a train-wreck, but that’s the fun of doing this live and not as some big studio project where such things would never sneak through. Early Trios featured plenty of beautiful wrecks. I need to take the key slightly up from there to get to a better place in my range for sustained notes – you can hear how much trouble I’m having with breath management. It’s a statement to how damn good the song is that the quality still shows through my shaky performance.

As for the pair of Arcati Crisis songs, “Saving Grace” and “Bucket Seat,” I’ll simply say the transition to doing that material sans the incomparable Zina on drums hasn’t been the easiest.

##

FB Live presented an interesting technical challenge, because FB offers nary a means of broadcasting video from a desktop device. I tried for a few weeks by using my phone, but discovered that the cap on its WiFi upstreaming capabilities meant that live music just didn’t sound great.

After a bit of research, I found a magnificent walkthrough on JoelComm.com that explained desktop-based streaming and even included an applet to generate your streaming key! Once I installed the excellent open-source software OBS I was ready to stream (the next best solution is hundreds of dollars).

The next hurdle is achieving studio-quality sound. The sheer volume of me clips any standard cellphone or laptop mic, plus those mics aren’t great with dealing with reflections and echo and can make even the most pitch-conscious singer (which I am not) seem out of tune. Unfortunately, OBS doesn’t play very nicely with my studio setup, or else this would already be a solved problem. It’s a work in progress.

Filed Under: my music, performance, rehearsal Tagged With: Arcati Crisis, Lady Gaga, Live@Rehearsal, Video

Gigging the Smash Fantastic

January 2, 2013 by krisis

When I started my musical journey half a lifetime ago if you had asked me if I would ever play “Eldery Woman Standing Behind the Counter in a Small Town” to a packed bar at a post-Christmas party in DelCo, my answer would have been, “Hell no.”

I mean, there are few things I enjoy less in life than 90s Pearl Jam, the fickle music tastes of bar crowds, and Christmas. Also, half a lifetime ago I was straightedge. (I’ve always thought Delaware County is pretty decent, though.)

Yet, half-my-age Peter would have been entirely incorrect in his judgmental utterance, because that is just what I found myself doing on the day after Christmas as Ashley and I played our first legit headline appearance as Smash Fantastic.

And you know what? I liked it.

Smash Fantastic mid-song, as shot by Tara B.

All last year Ashley and worked on our repertoire of cover songs as our non-work project together (the teamwork of which made us an even more killer pairing in the office). What started out as a sparse 30 minute set in June has now blossomed into more than three-hours of a mega-pop acoustic jam in which you will quite certainly recognize nearly every song.

This presented a dilemma. Ashley is a Clarkson-level trooper when it comes to wailing through the tricky vocals in our set, but not even The Original Idol herself can rock for that long uninterrupted without getting a little hoarse. Thus, when we scored our DelCo bar gig, it was left to me to quickly add some solo covers to our repertoire to give Ashley an occasional mid-set breather.

Except, Ashley is singing my solo cover repertoire – all Madonna and rocker chicks! She’s doing my “Like a Prayer,” my “Bad Romance,” my “Since U Been Gone” … we even mashed up my formerly solo “Man in the Mirror” into a righteous duet in the original key.

That meant I had to learn to sing songs original performed BY OTHER BOYS. Ugh. Even worse, they couldn’t be a bunch of obscure Rufus Wainwright and Elliott Smith, because the whole point would be to keep the bar crowd interested while Ashley caught her breath.

Thus the Pearl Jam. Everyone knows it and, despite my enduring disdain for Mr. Vedder’s vocals, I can match him pretty effortlessly right down to the warble.

(Not as good as Wes does, though. I really need to record that for posterity at some point.)

After an opening salvo from Ashley, “Elderly Woman” was the first song I played solo. As I started the circular 5-4-1-4-1 chord progression I took a moment to reflect. This is the first time you are ever in a bar playing a song they want to hear, I mused. And they did. I think. It wasn’t the biggest crowd-pleaser of the day (which was surely “We Are Young” or “You & I / What’s Up,” and maybe my “Forget You”), but people nodded in recognition and kept on drinking.

No fleeing the room. No snide, very-audible remarks about my bad singing or theoretical sexual orientation. None of the stuff that I always hate about bar gigs.

At the end of three hours we closed with a killer “Like a Prayer” and encored with “Behind These Hazel Eyes” and a roaring “Rolling in the Deep” and I pronounced with great certainty that we had just played one of my favorite gigs of all time – yes, complete with Christmas and bar and Pearl Jam and all of it. It was 100% fun and 0% stress, and I got to hear three hours of music I love … it just so happened that I was also playing it with one of my friends.

In a weird and slightly twisted way, “Elderly Woman” was the highlight. I might write my own music and prefer to cover Gaga to any guy out there, but when it comes down to it I now have the performance chops and the confidence to hold down the mic on just about anything – whether I actually like the song or not.

As for our repertoire, next up from my most-loathed list is a little number by Jason Mraz.

Filed Under: bitch, performance

Arcati Crisis @ Studio Luloo

November 16, 2011 by krisis

That was the best semi-unplugged electric rock set i’ve ever played with Zina on brushes for the first time and, technically, laryngitis.

That’s the summation of this story, but it’s not the whole of it.

When Gina and I were getting confident about Arcati Crisis (generally defined as starting with learning “Apocalyptic Love Song”) we made a list of all of the open mics in the area and tried to go to a new one every month. Some of them were utter trainwrecks. Others were so snooty we never really clicked.

Also, there is the possibility that sometimes we were terrible.

In this campaign of taking Philly by storm we happened upon Studio Luloo, which is actually in Oaklyn, NJ. It was a row-home-width first floor with a couch and chairs placed nose-to-nose with a stage area ready for a four-piece band. Owner and host Sara O’Brien cultivated a total open door policy for her local community, which meant we saw studied experts as well as kids playing in front of people for the first time. She also bought us all pizza. The featured artist was our now-compatriot Ryan Williams and their monitor mix was superb.

We were hooked on Luloo. We later returned as a featured artist (maybe around when we started playing “Better”), but hadn’t been back since we graduated to Zina on drums.

A few weeks ago I noticed Sara and co-conspirator John Shaughnessy talking about a new space for Luloo that would allow them to broaden their mission of bringing arts to kids in the community, and I asked if that meant they needed some featured artists. Thus, we found ourselves in Oaklyn last night playing a full band appearance in a Luloo’s new converted retail shop front, adjoining a pizza parlor.

SNJ band Best Wishes, who turned in a cool unplugged set that they abbreviated on our behalf. Can't wait to rock at full length and volume with them at a later date. © Gianna Vadino 2011

(This was after Jake and I mistakenly wandered into a children’s dance studio, where I realized our repeated peeking in to ascertain if it possibly doubled as Luloo surpassed looking out-of-place to cross-over to appearing slightly lecherous.)

The new Luloo is at least three times the size as the old one, has room to talk and mingle, and an actual raised stage with a bonus drum riser in the back! Plus, all the same welcoming vibe from John and Sara, who hold casual chats with the performers on stage and never let them leave without a chant of “One! More! Song!”

While we enjoyed  unofficial house band Best Wishes knock out a special acoustic set, Sara leaned over my shoulder. “You have drums now, huh?” she asked. I affirmed that we indeed did.

Apparently, Sara was easing into the noise-at-night situation with her new neighbors, and we trying to put the rocked up open mic acts earlier in the evening. Except, we are rocked up and the evening was no longer early.

Not wanting Zina’s commute to go to waste, Best Wishes graciously bowed out after two songs to allow us to set up and make with the rocking at the most reasonable volume we could muster.

What made this interesting was (a) I was still on the tail-end of my laryngitis after largely not speaking for four days, so wasn’t entirely sure I could rock at all, and (b) Zina would apparently be playing with brushes, which I didn’t even realize she owned. To accommodate, our electric was turned down to unplugged levels, and Jake was similarly quiet on bass. We were at half the volume of a rehearsal.

It turned out to be a perfect combination. While I was a bit awkward on electric for Gina’s “American Michaela,” our debut of “End With Me” felt incredibly right. “Real End” resolved from a swirling mix of guitars to a swelling rock song. “Better” regained its sometimes elusive sighing resign thanks to the brushed drums and me going easy on my voice. We closed with a measured “Apocalyptic Love Song” less like a lament and more like a warning.

We ended with a full-band interview with Sara (everyone kept stealing “David Bowie” as an influence and favorite album, so my answers were Tracy Bonham and Like a Virgin, respectively). We stayed for another hour or so, until the open mic wound down to friends sitting around a table trading songs. It will take Sara a few months to build the community at the new Luloo to match what she had at the old one, and I’m really happy became a part of it so early.

Studio Luloo celebrates its fifth anniversary on Saturday. It is located at 215 W. Clinton Ave., Oaklyn, New Jersey. It is not the dance studio or the pizza parlor.

Filed Under: arcati crisis, performance

Awake and Asleep with Taxicab Racers, and other stories

September 11, 2011 by krisis


By the time I went to sleep on Thursday night I had been awake for over 24-hours, found a fellow academically-minded songwriter slash comic nerd, invited a rock band from Tennessee back to our place to sleep with us, and nearly fell off a stage due to momentary blindness.

My life, it’s strange.

I. Wide Awake
Thursday night brought E and I to Northstar Bar to play a Filmstar a show, coincidentally two years less a day after our big Blame-a-Thon bash that I helped to organize and Filmstar rocked.

In a similar state of affairs to Blame-a-Thon, I was on my way towards 24 hours of wakefulness and running nearly empty. The freak storm on Thursday early morning woke me up at 2am, and I could go back to sleep (partially because I was freaked out about my friend Kris being trapped on I-76 overnight for four hours).

Our load-in was posted for 6pm. You never really know what load-in means. It could mean, “that’s when we’ll unlock the door,” or it could mean, “be on stage and ready to soundcheck 15 minutes later.” E and I being E and I, we were freaking out that we wouldn’t arrive until 6:20pm. Filmstar being Filmstar, the other half of the band managed to beat us there. [Read more…] about Awake and Asleep with Taxicab Racers, and other stories

Filed Under: Filmstar, performance

Arcati Crisis @ All Fired Up

August 15, 2011 by krisis

Part of the fun of being in a small-time, mostly-acoustic, folk-tinged, dance-rock band is the unusual places we get to play.

I think Saturday’s gig at All Fired Up might be our new current title-holder. We were set up in the middle of a pottery shop, surrounded by shelves of plates, mugs, and the visages of Disney characters. On every side were arts and crafts tables filled with eager painters customizing their pieces.

All Fired Up is a paint-it-yourself pottery shop at 602 Haddon Ave in Collingswood, NJ 08108.

I can’t even think of a runner-up, really (Dorian’s Parlor doesn’t count, since we’d probably have been there anyway even if we weren’t playing).

This was our first outing with Jake on bass, as well as our first time using the new PA system for a show, and our first time playing our new cover, Erasure’s “Respect.”

Oh, and our first time playing a three hour gig in over a year.

Plenty for us to fuck up.

Except, Arcati Crisis has recently entered into a period of ineffable grace… or, at least, unfuck-upable zen. We played all three hours down to the minute, and we played them well.

See that table in the foreground? Imagine that replaced by a hurricane force amount of acoustic rock.

Out of the gate, our “Dumbest Thing I Could Do” finally felt like a real acoustic dance song with Jake’s creeping arpeggiated scale bass line. We reinvented “Real End” yet again, debuting its new upbeat pop take engineered by our drummer Zina. We debuted our Rock Band 3 style “Space Oddity” with each of us singing a different part of the story, and ended on a rather triumphant duo take on “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Afterwards we gave an impromptu encore supporting Jake when he medleyed into Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So” from The Wood Brothers’ “Luckiest Man.”

The part I liked the best was our audience. Actually, the lack thereof. Unlike a bar or coffee shop, people don’t come to All Fired Up to spectate – they come to create! At no point were we playing to an attentive audience, because everyone was spread around the shop, busy decorating their various works of pottery.

I actually prefer a busy, captive audience to any other kind. It’s easier to convert strangers who are doing something they enjoy than to pit your sound against jaded ears at an open mic or who are waiting for the next band.

While I love getting our full-scale rock on at a big venue in Philly, I’ll be disappointed if our songs ever grow to the point that we can’t bring them to these unusual spaces.

Filed Under: arcati crisis, performance

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