Live Fix Is Ready For You

Just in case you didn't get the first update, Live Exhaust has moved to the New Live Fix Blog. You can find it at www.christophercatania.com. We look forward to seeing you over there. It's pretty cool. You should check it out.

Live Exhaust Is Moving…

I’ve written a few posts about the inconvenience of venue changes, but as I’ve mentioned before, sometimes the change is for the better—and this venue change is a definitely a great one!

Why the new name?

As Live Exhaust developed from your comments and feedback, I decided to sharpen the vision with a new name: Live Fix. I originally came up with Live Exhaust because I wanted to express my thoughts as I examined the important after affects and subtext of the live concert experience. And after a year I felt the vision could be sharpened since what I’ve really written about is our communal need, addiction or “fix" for the live concert experience. This is what inspired me to create the new tagline “experimenting with our addiction to live concert culture.”

I’m excited to make the transition to Live Fix, and as always, I welcome your feedback and comments about what you do and don’t like, or would like to see more of on the new Live Fix. As before, Live Fix will continue to take a deeper look into the live concert experience and explore all topics and news about live concerts.

Live Fix will also replace my existing website www.christophercatania.com by combining the blog and all my past work. I’ll still be covering live music and writing about it for other publications, so all the reviews, interviews, feature articles will be collected in one convenient spot.

Here’s the new Live Fix address: www.christophercatania.wordpress.com.

This is the first phase so if you subscribe to Live Fix in a RSS Reader please keep an eye out for when the final merge with www.christophercatania.com occurs. I’ll send an announcement for that, too.

This will be the last post on liveexhaust.blogspot.com so I look forward to seeing you at the new Live Fix address.

Thanks,

Chris

When M. Ward Comes to Chicago

Ever since its release in February, M. Ward’s Hold Time has been on constant rotation in all my musical playing devices. And much thanks to NPR All Songs Considered for sharing one of his solo live performances and an interview that really gives great insight into Ward's songwriting and the creation of Hold Time.

If you haven't had the pleasure of seeing Ward live, I hope you can catch him during his current tour. He's a gifted storyteller and his songwriting and performances are timeless, bordering on spiritually transcendent.

My experiences covering Ward in 2007 and last year at Pitchfork Festival, having me looking forward to his Chicago stop in April.

What shows are you looking forward to?

The Live Trials & Tribulations of Peter Bjorn and John

As reported at this year’s SXSW festival by the Associated Press, over-coming technical difficulties seems to be an ongoing challenge for Swedish rock trio Peter Bjorn and John.

“The hundreds of bands are rushed on stage rapidly at the annual Austin music conference and festival, and they rarely get enough time to properly set up or tune.

The start of the first show by the acclaimed Peter Bjorn and John on Wednesday night was delayed and, when they finally started playing, equipment problems caused long interruptions and ruined the set. The unsympathetic crowd heckled and booed.

"It was an awful show," said Peter Moren, the band's lead singer, able to smile painfully about it in an interview Friday. "But it's also good that stuff like that happens occasionally. Otherwise you become bigheaded."

When I read this story about PB&J’s SXSW problems, I was reminded of similar challenges they faced at Lollapalooza 2007 when we waited for almost an hour to whistle to “Young Folks” because of "technical difficulties."

But it seems that PB&J is keeping it all—and their egos—in proper perspective. I guess if the show doesn’t go the way you plan, you have to find a way to learn what lessons you can and keep moving on.

As the article points out, the hectic nature of SXSW can be a determent to the goal of live music, which is to actually hear and experience the music as closely as possible to what the artist intended. So it's a little disappointing that some of the most high profile music events are not designed to benefit the artist, their music, or the fans.

There's definitely a give and take with live music festivals. But sometimes it's hard to tell who really benefits from the giving and taking.

Questions & Videos

To put it all in perspective I compiled a short video collection of Peter Bjorn and John’s progress as they seek to overcome live show adversity during their three SXSW shows.

But first I have a couple questions for you:

Artists:

Do you have any stories about how you learned from bad shows or performance adversity? What did you do to adapt? What live show problems taught you valuable lessons, or helped you build your performance character?

Fans:

What are your thoughts about seeing an artist get short-sticked due to technical issues and less than desired set up conditions?


Here's the videos:

PB&J’s First Show on 3/18:

MTV’s perspective:

MTV Shows

YouTube fan perspective:



@ Emo’s 3/19:



@ Fader Fort 3/20:

Why Live Music Is So Sensual

Why is live music so sensual?

Well, I think finding an answer to that question begins with our largest organ: our skin.

The one thing that seems to connect live music, sex and sensuality is our sense of touch. This sensitive relationship is both something we take for granted and can't live without.


As I’ve explored before, our skin plays a huge role in allowing us to “feel” live music.

From rumbling towers of speakers and subwoofers to the crowd's decibel-shattering roar to sweaty crowd surfers hovering above smoldering mosh pits, the sensations our skin transmits to our brain’s pleasure center cannot be underestimated.

Why was I thinking about all this?

Well, first I read this Popmatters article by Justin Dimos about erotic website Beautiful Agony. It’s a website that I'm still in the process of understanding but it certainly got my wheels turning.

Now, I’m not a touchy-feely kinda person, but I do understand the power that touch has in human non-verbal communication. I’ve also noticed that sometimes I’m open to being bumped into at concerts but other times it’s annoying and distracting.

Simply stated, whether positive or negative, from big bear hugs and tiny peck kisses to erotic rushes during sexual pleasure, our sense of touch plays a huge role in our lives.

So it makes perfect sense that it would also play a huge role in our pleasure levels during the live music experience.

But for some reason we take it for granted.

Or maybe we just don’t see the connection because the interaction between the music and our touch sensors is invisible. Meaning that we can’t “see” the sound vibrations that flow through the air and connect with our skin’s touch receptors. If we could then maybe we would understand and appreciate the connection on a deeper level.

Or maybe it’s because we're stimulated so much on a daily basis that we don’t even realize how fast our bodies process touch stimulation and influence our pleasure levels during a live concert.

Knowing this, it makes perfect sense that sex is part of the unholy trinity of drugs sex and rock 'n roll. But do we really consider how many similarities there are between sex and live music, or between everyday human interaction and live music?

So then I wondered if there were people who are addicted, or if there are certain diseases that turn our sense of touch against us.

I learned that for Autistic kids tactical stimulation can make having a sense of touch a hyper sensitive nightmare. But on the flip side I learned that Autistic kids have also shown a closer connection to music.

Looking back on past concert reviews, I've often wondered if physical discomfort or pain has influenced my review of a show without me even being aware of it. And the compelling medical studies done recently have shown music helping people heal physical pain. So I might be on to something there.

But what about the fun side of touch?





I can personally attest to having an addiction to the sound and feel of popping bubble wrap. And I’ve often wondered about the possibilities of creating an entire room of bubble wrap to overload the pleasure of full-body touch (and sound) stimulation.

Wouldn’t it be cool if a band played a concert in a venue covered in bubble wrap? What would that feel and sound like?

To heighten the whole sensuality of the experience, nightclubs often go out of their way to add some element of touch to the show via dropping balloons or filling the floor with bubbles and squishy suds. And when it comes to drugs, clubbers and fans are known to use Ecstasy to enhance their sensory experience, and it's one of the most frequently used, and addictive, touch enhancers.

So has this post touched you?

I hope so.

And when was the last time a live show touched you?

Flickr Bubble Wrap pix: Scottok

The Risk Artists Take When Performing Live

I wanted to share this article I came across last week. It’s written by Chicago Independent Music Review and it focuses on a crucial aspect of live performance I’ve always thought about during live shows.


It piggybacks on a thought the writer had after reading an interview where Radiohead’s Tom Yorke reflected on a conversation he had with REM’s Michael Stipe after the release of OK, Computer.

“the expressiveness of a performer can never be reconciled with the consistent need for adoration/ feelings of inequity that undeniably come with the territory. In other words, it is a razor’s edge that the songwriter walks – having to bare one’s soul to the world while praying that the exorcism is thoroughly enjoyed, accepted, and shared by those who may not have the slightest understanding of the experience. To speak even more plainly, to be a rock star, you must be absolutely confident in what you do but, be completely insecure with the broken experiences and shifting reality you’ve created. This creation is a direct cause of massive anxiety and introversion, being that by most definitions, your “art” is defined by how many other people enjoy it. So the challenge, the standard as to what is “good” in opposition to that which is “great” would be the singer/songwriter/performer’s ability to be in two places at once, absolutely sure that they are unsure – this tiny, curious grain is completely instrumental to relating with an audience – and it can’t be taught, there are no lessons to learn it, only an ability that most don’t have, but all can see.”

The article elaborates on the truth that, as songwriters, artists take a massive risk.

What risk is that, exactly?

Well, as the writer points out, when an artist writes a truly expressive song, that song is inspired by a deeply emotional event. And in a live setting it’s almost impossible to truly convey that experience and have the audience understand that experience in its entirety.

So, as Stipe points out to Yorke, artists either do or don’t have the ability to overcome the fact that the complete meaning of a song won't fully "connect" with an audience, or worse the meaning might be misunderstood.

The part I love about this short article is how it speaks to the fact that the audience might not get the entire meaning of the emotional outpouring. And that, ultimately, the song that the artist created alone in their "bedroom" with such deep meaning is now, destined to “be defined by how much other people enjoy it.”

But can a song really change, or lose, its meaning based on how a crowd responds to it live?

This really made me rethink my take on songs being used in commercials, especially after I heard the Smashing Pumpkins "Today" used in a Visa commercial recently.

This article made me rethink how the same thing happens when a band gives their song to be used in a commercial. Both live performance and commercial use take a certain amount of willingness on the artist’s part. And in both cases, the song and the emotions behind it, are undergoing a similar emotional reskining, or in extreme cases, a complete emotional rewiring.

It’s hard to face that fact that there are similarities between the two, but the truth is that very rarely will a crowd tap into the exact set of emotions an artist conjured to create a song, whether it's during a show or while watching a commercial.

What usually happens is that, at a show or at home, a fan ends up somewhere in the ballpark of the songwriters intended emotion depending, of course, on what the fan's emotional state is like during the show, or how the song is used in the commercial and what they're selling.

Then, whether the artist is ready or not, the fan is now in complete control of the song's emotional steering wheel. And that’s a huge risk for any creative person to take.

But does this emotional transition impact really change the “meaning” of the song. Is the song still the same? And does the audience know that they have that much power over the artist?

It’s hard to think that a band’s performance can be so open to interpretation and end up being so far from its intended meaning and original emotional epicenter.

But as Tom Yorke reflected on the advice from Stipe, this is the risk a songwriter takes when you decided to share your art with the world.

I’ve told many people that whether or not I think their music is good or not, I respect all musicians these days for many reasons and one in particular:

Being an artist in this day and age not only involves the risk of having your music emotionally reskinned, or completely rewired by a live audience, but, in the age of The Long Tail, there’s also the risk of going through the whole songwriting process and never having the chance to play in front of an audience at all.

In short, as an artist, you give up a lot when you decided to move from the safety of the bedroom to the uncertainty of the stage. So you best be ready for the challenge.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Wilco songs “What Light.”

There's a couple verses that always choke me up when I hear it.

Because the truth in these verses speaks directly this topic.

“And if the whole world’s singing your songs
And all of your paintings have been hung
Just remember what was yours is everyone’s from now on

And that’s not wrong or right
But you can struggle with it all you like
You'll only get uptight…”

And I think this fan gets the point. But how about you?

Hey, I Think You Dropped Something?

Is this your dollar?

Did you know you dropped it at the Slightly Stoopid concert at the Congress Theatre on Friday?

If you are the one who dropped this dollar, I would like to thank you.

At first I joked on Twitter and Facebook about donating it to the Stimulus Package or the AIG bonus fund.

But, it made me think about how even though the economy is tanking, fans are still willing to “drop” their cash for live music, and even leave it on the floor for other fans to pick up.

This dollar also reminded me of the economy (not the greatest thing to be reminded of at a concert when I'm trying to escape.) But it also made me think about how many shows this dollar and the person who dropped had been to.

Over the last two days I’ve thought about donating it to some type of live music fund, so if you’re an organization who needs a good solid dollar, then drop a comment and we’ll talk.

Any other suggestions for this dollar?

I promise not to spend it until I get a good solid suggestion on what to do with it.



Until then, here's the video for "Money" from DJ duo N.A.S.A