You never forget your first time at doing anything… your first kiss, first car, first time getting chased by a gang of ruffians. This is especially is the case with your first time playing music live in front of an audience. For me, the first time I got to play my electronic music live was during a Chiptune Party at Tic Tax Pong Club in Shenzhen, China.
Many thanks to my brothers in music and video Project Soda (aka Arne Venema) and Michael Chan for videoing some clips of my performance. Check out the video clips and also a full audio of the set below. And then read the full story about my first show afterward.
The Full Story…
It was the summer of 2018, right before I was to move back to New York after 9 years of living the Hong Kong life. I had just gotten restarted producing electronic music and I was invited to play a gig at Tic Tac Pong club in Shenzhen, China Project Soda (aka Arne Venema) who was also playing a set that night.
I was nervous about the gig on the ride up. This wasn’t the first time for me playing music live, in general. First time ever for me was actually back in high school at the annual “Battle of the Bands/Talent Show”. A few buddies and I formed a band called Ganja Weed and we attempted a somewhat grungy, somewhat epic version of Tom Petty’s “Free Falling”, complete with back up singers and back up dancers? (moshers?). By the end of the performance, I would end up passed out in front of the amplifiers with the sound of guitar feedback filling the audience. That was a performance that would go down infamy, but it’s also a story for another time.
Back to the Chiptune show though, I was nervous because I was still a mere newbie to the world of producing electronic music. I had created some tracks before as soundtrack for short films I had worked on, but this was a true test if my dance music would actually make a room full of strangers actually, well… dance.
Arne tried to assure me that I was going to do a fine job and I believed him, but I also half jokingly told him that if things started going not so right during my set, like if it got really bad and awkward, to just be prepared for a sudden slight pause in the music and then, for the the rest of my set, I would sound exactly like Deadmau5.
Arne chuckled at the joke and brushed it off, again saying I would do fine. Like I said, though, I was only half jokingly. I make a point to say this because later, after the show, I told that part of the story to another fellow friend and Arne asked me “yeah, I was meaning to ask, what did you mean by that?” So I told him.
While prepping for the show, I also prepped a backup plan, in case I really sucked. I had prepared an iPod with a playlist of Deadmau5 tracks. My plan B was that if my live hardware set really, embarrassingly sucked, I would disconnect my hardware, connect my iPod to the sound mixer, and finish the set with the playlist I made. I would “sort of DJ” a mix of Ghosts ‘n’ Stuff, I Remember, and other Deadmau5 selections. I picked Deadmau5 in particular because he was pretty much the only currently popular electronic music producer that I actually knew at that time. Most of the electronic music I knew and listened to was from the 80s and 90s
Back to plan A however, another thing to note was that it a Chiptune set and I had only recently been introduced to this genre right after Arne invited me to play. So, I had to take my set of techno-ish, synthwave-ish electronic music tracks and 8-Bit-ize them. I ended up doing this with the help of the Chiptune Dreams Novation Circuit Pack. Many of the tracks, I was busy still modifying on the train ride up to Shenzhen and even in the lounge before my set.
We got to Shenzhen and met with the whole gang of musicians and DJs that were playing sets that night. Most of them had played with each other before except for me and another guy who was invited by one of the other DJs. Unfortunately, I had forgotten his name, but we soon referred to him as “Backpack” when retelling the story later as he refused to take off the backpack that he carried his gear in. Even while playing his set, he still wore his backpack.
I bring him up in the story, in particular, because, for starters, since we both were the two newbies in the crew, the opening slot of the show would be one of us. After some discussion amongst the Chiptune show veterans, it was determined that Backpack would start the show and then my set would follow. Arne told me that he strongly insisted to the rest of the crew that I not be first one to play and that Backpack should start the show.
Thankfully that gave me a bit more time to finish tweaking my set, I was still sweating bullets that I would be able to do a good job and not have to resort to Plan B. I thought that’s why Arne insisted so much that I not start the show, but he told me later that the big reason he insisted so urgently was because he spoke to Backpack about his set up and was pretty sure it was not going to go over well… at all. In fact, every nightmare that I had about how I was going to do in my first live performance ended up being the case for Backpack.
Now, I hate to talk badly about another artist and I feel terribly for him about how it went, but it just goes to show that before you do a live show, you definitely need to make sure you have a handle on your own gear. I was nervous about getting playing with one piece of gear right, just me and my Circuit. Backpack brought like five different pieces of gear that were meant to be hooked up together to make a this complex suite of ambient 8-bit sounds like an orchestra of video gameyness, including a Sega Game gear, a Korg Monotron Delay Ribbon Synth, and a couple of other devices that I had never seen before and failed to remember.
While I was working on my set in the corner, I saw him trying to hook up all these pieces of gear by the DJ booth and a couple of the guys from the crew and even the manager of the place were over there helping him hook it up. Occasionally, I would here a big, amp shattering “BWONG” coming from the speakers that would have everyone in the place covering their ears, followed by a “beep boop beep…. beep boop blip”. There weren’t too many people in the place at that point, so I figured he was doing like a soundcheck. As the occasional over loud “BWONG” and oversoft “beep boop blip” would come out, I remember thinking to myself “man, I feel bad for the guy, having a hard time getting his gear to work. I hope he gets it ready by the time soundcheck is over.”
Suddenly, Arne runs up to me, “Grab your gear! You’re up!”
“Wait, what? What do you mean I’m up? For soundcheck?”
“Soundcheck?! No! I mean, you’re playing your set! Now!”
“But what about Backpack? He’s still prepping his gear for his set!”
“What are you talking about? That was his set? He just got kicked out of the booth. The manager of the place couldn’t take his set any longer. You got to play yours now! And it’s gotta be good otherwise he might shut down the whole show.”
“Ummmm…”
“No pressure. You’ll be fine!” Arne said as we scrambled to hook up my gear to the sound mixer.
And so… the moment of truth had come and…. well, I was fine.
I won’t say I brought down the house, but I got the party started. After getting the first track going, I got into my groove. By the second track, I see out of the corner of my eyes, a random dude shuffling. And I got through my one hour set… and them-some. Since Backpack’s set cut short, the DJ that was on after me wasn’t ready yet by the time I faded out the last note of my set. So as I was ready to disconnect my gear, I hear from the other side of the booth, “KEEP PLAYING! I’M NOT READY YET!”
With no more new music ready to play, I yelled out to the still early in the party crowd “DID I HEAR “ENCORE?!?” and started playing, I think, track 7 from my set for a second time. Eventually, Arne jumped in as well with his Digitakt and we even jammed out a new track to make up for the time.
The rest of the show went without a hitch and it was a good night. Still, I felt bad for Backpack having the night that I had envisioned in my worst case scenario. It’s a shame that he didn’t have a plan B prepared, but I hope that the experience didn’t completely turn him off from playing live again one day.
As for me, I was just relieved that at no point in the night did I sound anything like Deadmau5. 😉 😉