Brian Eno’s 77 Million Paintings: 10/28/2011

This ticket was for admission to an art installation by Brian Eno which was part of MoogFest in Asheville, NC. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Eno, he “is an English musician, record producer, visual artist, and theorist best known for his pioneering work in ambient music and contributions to rock, pop and electronica. A self-described “non-musician”, Eno has helped introduce unique conceptual approaches and recording techniques to contemporary music. He has been described as one of popular music’s most influential and innovative figures.” (Source: Wikipedia)

The concept of the art installation is a combination of visual images and ambient music generated through software to create a continually morphing experience. “The title is derived from the possible number of combinations of video and music which can be generated by the software, effectively ensuring that the same image/soundscape is never played twice.” (Source: Wikipedia)

Anyway, MoogFest was a weekend-long electronic music festival, and this year I was doing the full festival (more on that soon). I decided to check out the art installation, to get myself in the proper mental-state-of-being for three days of mind-expanding music. And this definitely did that. I spent a fair amount of time basking in the sights and sounds that can only be described as consciousness-altering. After that, I was primed and ready to indulge myself into the rest of the festival.

This is one of those things that needs to be experienced. Words fail to adequately convey what it was like. As such, here is a link to a 7-minute sliver of Eno’s multimedia masterpiece on YouTube. Check it out. Headphones recommended.

MoogFest: 10/29/2010

This stub was from the first MoogFest held in Asheville, NC. I went with my wife and our older daughter, who was very excited that MGMT was performing. I was unfamiliar with MGMT, but my daughter gave me some of their music to listen to, and it was very cool. Anyway, we got tickets only for the first night of the three-day festival.

There were more bands playing than we had the opportunity to see, and of the ones we did see, some of them we only caught part of their sets, since the festival was taking place at multiple venues (Civic Center, Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, Orange Peel). Of the bands that performed on the Friday night, these are the ones we got to see:

• DEVO
• MGMT
• Big Boi
• Girl Talk
• The Octopus Project

Couple things to note. One of members of DEVO had a death in the family and could not attend, so the remaining members performed with Octopus Project, which was cool. Big Boi we only caught a couple songs. MGMT was definitely the high point. We went up fairly close (they were playing in the Civic Center). It was general admission with an open floor, so lots of freaks dancing to the music. My daughter had a friend with her, and the two of them were psyched. It made my wife and me very happy to be there and to see them having so much fun. Live music is such a great bonding experience.

At the time, I was not a huge fan of electronic music and hip hop, but I really enjoyed the energy and the light shows were mind-boggling. I made a promise to myself that next year, I would go all three days. And I kept that promise to myself. I’ll try to dig up my stub from that show and post on it soon.

MoogFest: 10/26 – 27/2012

This was the final MoogFest held in Asheville, which is sad because Asheville was home to the late music innovator, Bob Moog, inventor of the famous Moog Synthesizer. The Moog factory is still here, and every Moog instrument—synthesizer, theremin, and effects pedal—is designed and manufactured right here. So even though this lineup was weak compared to the previous festivals, I went anyway, and did get to see some cool performances that I would never have seen otherwise.

MoogFest is a showcase of electronic music, and has performers from many genres, everything from prog to rap to new wave to DJs. It is really a big celebration of creativity and technology in music. In addition to performances, there were workshops and discussions and exhibits, everything to make a music-nerd’s heart skip beats.

So here are the acts that I recall seeing:

• Santigold
• Thomas Dolby
• Primus (in 3-D)
• Miike Snow
• Morton Subotnick
• Squarepusher
• Divine Fits
• Orbital
• Four Tet

Primus was disappointing. I’m not a Primus fan, but had hoped for a cool show based upon all the hype, but they were barely mediocre. The high points were definitely Santigold, Thomas Dolby, Divine Fits, Miike Snow, and Morton Subotnick. They were all excellent.

I was only able to find a few setlists online, so here they are.

Santigold:

• GO!
• L.E.S. Artistes
• Lights Out
• Say Aha
• Get It Up
• Disparate Youth
• Anne
• The Keepers
• Creator
• Fame
• Shove It
• Freak Like Me
• Big Mouth

Primus:

• Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers
• Prelude to a Crawl
• Last Salmon Man
• Southbound Pachyderm
• Eternal Consumption Engine
• Jilly’s on Smack
• Over the Falls
• Hello Skinny
• Lee Van Cleef
• Eyes of the Squirrel
• Groundhog’s Day
• American Life
• Hamburger Train
• Tommy the Cat

Orbital:

• One Big Moment
• Halcyon + On + On
• Beelzedub
• Never
• Wonky
• Where Is It Going?
• Impact (The Earth Is Burning)
• Lush 3

Grandmothers of Invention: 8/11/2012

This was a really cool show, featuring members of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention. I had seen Zappa many years ago, and he was great, but as my musical tastes developed and expanded, my appreciation for his music grew.

For those of you who have never been to Asheville, the Grey Eagle is a small venue, basically a bar which also serves some food. But the vibe there is great. So needless to say, I had seats quite close to the stage with my friends Bill and Robert.

Musically, this band was incredible. Napoleon Murphy Brock was brilliant as the front man, chatting up the crowd, making jokes, dancing up a storm, and directing the music. They had a young guitarist who looked a lot like Frank and he was scary good on the guitar. But for me, it was Don Preston on the keyboards who stole the show. He was getting ready to turn 80 and he looked and sounded great. Not only was he all over the keyboards, playing incredibly intricate music, but he also performed magic tricks on stage, much to the delight of the audience. And if that wasn’t enough, he took out hi iPhone, opened a synthesizer app, and played a killer solo on his phone. It was impressive… most impressive.

The band returned to the Grey Eagle again the following year, and I went to see them again, convincing my brother (a long-time Zappa fan) to drive out to Asheville for the show. But that’s another stub and another story.

Here’s a video clip that my friend Robert took.