A couple of years ago I made and released a harsh noise "album" in a day.
If the "harsh noise" part of that last sentance didn't make any sense to you then good news, your taste in music isn't as bad as you might think it is.
Take a peek at wikipedia to get yourself up to speed. I had a lot of fun making that release and I always wanted to go further than just playing around in Audacity and actualy start playing around with some pedals/synths/mixers or whatever noise artists use.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago where after witnessing a viscerally brutal set by Bristol Noise artist Roman I mentioned in passing that this was something I'd wanted to get into for a long time.
Beside me was Finn, a good friend of mine who avid readers might know as one of the members of Grandchild.
Aside from being an excellent muscician, Finn (and by other members of Grandchild) runs a promoter called Citizens Of Nowhere and had booked Roman on more than one previous occasion.
Taking my comments to heart, he contacted me about a week later asking if I'd like to perform alongside Roman at The Exchange in a few weeks time.
I jumped at this chance, but also had to remind him that;
I have next to no experience making noise
I have never performed any noise, or music, live
I have no equipment to make this possible
Not perturbed by my lack of experience, a mixer and some pedals were sent my way and another good friend, Jack showed me the ropes on how to create disgusting feedback loops (while also lending me some extra kit).
With 3 days to go, I got my head down and got as much practice in as I could.
Below is a video of me practicing what I planned to be the start of my set. A sample from the Longleat Safari cassette guide that you'd have playing in your car back in the day. The idea being that instead of normal boring *beeeeeep* being played, I'd make some horrible sounds for about 20 minutes.
On the night in question I was a right bag of nerves and the start of my set certainly did not go to plan!
Forgetting to plug in a very particular cable left me with a very uncomfortable few seconds of radio silence after my Longleat sample but a few minutes later I was well in the swing of things.
Cheers to Jack for these videos!
Despite my own shortcomings, feedback from this show was nothing but positive!
Fingers crossed this won't be the last time I'll be doing something like this!