3 posts tagged “imogen heap”

The Imogen Heap concert was fantastic! She's really someone awesome to
watch live! Live looping, the performance, she's funny and quirky and
dances about the stage and says funny things and really loves the
audience, her live versions soudn very different from the studio
versions, she's a very good piano player and a very good singer
(obviously, but it's more apparent live)... We saw all the songs Kid
Beyond did at the STarry Plough as I told you, except a new trance one which I didn't like that much. I think I like
listening to Kid Beyond's beatboxing a lot (it's totally incredible)
but not his songs that much. They get old fast. Which is sad, I want
to like it, but I don't really, it's just too much noise and sometimes
there are very slight tuning issues when he harmonizes with himself
because it's all live. And I don't really like the melodies he chooses
for his songs. However, Imogen Heap's usage of live looping is totally
different and vastly superior, even for her songs that are just like
Kid Beyond's only in that she uses just her voice and no other
instruments (there was only one song like that, where she only used
her voice and a live-looper. There was one other song where she uses
only her voice and a vocoder: Hide and Seek, of course.) I want a
vocoder so bad. It looks like SO MUCH FUN to fuck around with. And a
piano! Imogen Heap has such a cool voice. I feel sort of like I never
want to sing again, because my voice is so bland and uninteresting and
offkey and whiny and nasally but yet I have dreams of it being good,
so I feel like it can never be as good as I wish it was. Haha. I also
feel so uncreative, like there's nothing in me. I told you I would
write you a song, but I don't know how! And some songs are so
incredibly simple, 3 chords, a simple melody, but they're so
effective. How do they do it? I guess I must study songs, learn to
play them, learn what chord progressions work, learn more chords to
begin with... I think I do have a skill, and that's harmonizing. I'm
very very good at harmonizing, if given a melody. I just suck at the
melody part, or coming up with anything original. Anyway, blah blah
blah. For some songs it was just her onstage, and she'd go back and
forth between all this equipment--her "parrot" as she called her
live-looping machine-thing, and like four midi keyboards (one was a
red keytar), and one electric keyboard attached to a clear
piano-shaped box lined with lights (fantastic!!!!), and an instrument
that I don't know. I really have no idea what it was. Alex says it was
a "thumb piano" and it's wires. ???? She'd play a bit on that, then
start a pre-recorded sequence using a midi keyboard, and sing, and
then harmonize with herself, and then play the piano. For some songs
she had varying numbers of people on stage. There was one really
extremely dorky guy who played a midi sequencer, the double bass, and
the french horn. There was one percussionist who played a xylophone, a
ridiculously tiny drum "kit" ... no really, it was tiny, each "drum"
and "cymbal" was smaller than your palm. I'm serious. I thought it
MUST have been electronic drum pads or something, but Alex says
they're really acoustic, just incredibly small, and miked really well.
That thing was cool. And they clearly had differnt pitches too. Anyway
he also played a regular drumkit. Then sometimes the first guy who
opened (who I missed mostly. I only caught part of his last song. I
was late to teh warfield, sad) came out and played electric guitar.
And sometimes Kid Beyond came out and sang a harmony or beatboxed.
That was pretty darn cool. Actually it was straight-up fantastic.

She played "Let Go" totally acoustically, on the piano, and the dude
played the double bass along with her. It was so beautiful. Gosh,
that's such a good song.

I had good seats. The standing seats were sold out by the time I got
my act together to buy tickets, but I got tickets that were in the
center, in the second row of the upper (seated) level. So that was
fun. And I'm glad that I wasn't standing, because I'd have gotten
tired, and since I was on the upper level I could see everything
better. The drawback of course is that it's harder to dance. =)

Since I am often comatose whilst normal people are active, I miss packages. I can only hope that this never happens: http://www.wanderingpandacomics.com/mrgoh/comic.php?comic=21

Imogen Heap is awesome. So awesome. So, so awesome. I repeat my desire for a vocoder; it looks like so much fun to fuck around with. Also, a piano. And a voice. And talent. And corsets and pretty poofy skirts and an English accent.

I only ever wrote two entries in my concert log: Ben Folds and Chanticleer. And even though I started it in 2002 I still think of it as something I "do" (present tense). Man, I'm sad.

Na, nanana nana na na na-katamari damaaacyyyyyy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXfVgyiazcc

i want a vocoder, and a whatever-it-is that enables live-looping (laptop connected to footpedals?), and a sparkly box full of electronic equipment shaped like a piano

edit to add: http://www.imogenheap.com
actually forget it i'll just link to the blog post this picture is from anyway even though her webpeople want you to only access her blog from within her frames: http://www.imogenheap.co.uk/iblog/2006/10/flight-no-ai-111.html i'm so subversive

on saturday, suz brought me to a football game. it was fun. we won. http://calbears.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/recaps/110406aab.html
i like being part of a stadiumful of mass adulation. football is pretty boring--thus you have commentators to amuse you if you're at home watching it by yourself, or if you're there you bring friends and chat away, and follow the directions of the stout people on the field holding up signs that say "NOISE" and hoot and cheer. ucla's support entourage included two cheerleading sections (one like ours--all women with poms and skirts, and the other with giant long megaphones, all tumblers, in pants, who did stunts, which we don't have; i wonder if they still call them song and cheer), a juggler that ran around in front of their band, a 10 or 12 piece colorguard as part of their band formation thingy, and four people to carry flags that spelled out UCLA. whenever they scored, those four flag carriers ran across their endzone and then the tumblers would roundoff handspring backflip across. suzanne even saw a whip (which is like a backflip in that your hands don't touch the ground but not in that you go lateral (like a handspring) instead of vertical). so once when we scored, people from our band ran down to our endzone, and then all the way up the side of the field to their endzone, where they flopped around and threw themselves on the ground to make fun of them. that was amusing.
how does the student section do that holding-up-pieces-of-colorful-paper thing at halftime? it's so speedy, and so perfect! someone said they call out numbers.
marching bands are really boring if you don't know the songs (and if you can hear them at all in the first place, which we couldn't). even though their formations are so cool.
once the people manning the net on our endzone couldn't get it up in time for a field goal so people in the stands far below us caught a football.
at one point we got a touchdown, and amidst the cheering people slowly realized there were two down on the other side of the field, one from each side. the cal one got up eventually and was ok. the ucla one got up, started jogging, and fell down again. that was a little worrisome but he got up after a while and slowly moved off the field, too.
there were some pretty exciting touchdowns where the carrier saw an opening and went straight through it, snapping around in circles to shake off defenders.
the alumni section tried to start a wave but it failed after six or so really pathetic go-rounds and then ucla scored. that was a low point in the experience.
suz and mike made delicious chai (because they had it a lot in india and missed it after coming home) and brought it in a thermos.

the three of us ate at cancun and then we learned that if it's 10:30pm and you're slightly bored and want something to do but are pretty tired, don't play seafarers. but it was fun anyway; they'd never played seafarers (but love settlers) and as an added bonus we played the "discover unknown lands as you build ships" version. i mercilessly cut off suzanne's quest for the gold hex at the end with my glorious great wall of judy, racking up 10/12 points... but development cards led the way to suz's victory soon after, despite/because of her lack of wood the entire game. three victory point cards and largest army!

i'm too sensitive to watch borat for long. i don't do well with abrasion

FANTASTIC KoC with a REAL LIVE TRUMPETER on some bbc show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvfvF_JTva8
!!!!!!!!
REAL LIVE TRUMPET!!!!!!!
knights is gonna be the next single that comes out in the UK, and rumors are that an extended version of assassin's gonna be a bside. which means DEBASE MASON'S GROG?!?!?!?!?!??!?!!? ZOMG?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! god that dmg riff is so good
[edit nov 7: nope. there's only going to be some edit of assassin on the vinyl; the cd is going to have knights and a live performance of supermassive. bah!!!!]

apparently starlight is a "radio single" in the US right now? i'm going to learn about calling in requests. i've never called a radio station before save that one time in 7th grade when anna told me to becuase she'd won something from them the week before (i didn't win anything). i can dedicate it to ryan even though he won't hear it because he is far away. chasing starlight. until the end of his life. IIII JUST WANTED TO HOOOOOOOOLD

Then a great beauty was revealed in him, so that all who after came there looked on him in wonder; for they saw that the grace of his youth, and the valour of his manhood, and the wisdom and majesty of his age were blended together. And long there he lay, an image of the splendour of the Kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world.

that's my favorite phrase. god, it just breaks your heart. it's from appendix A(v), the tale of aragorn and arwen, and i'm glad they worked it into the movie, even if it was a fake scene between elrond and his daughter. i think i've only seen the movie once, and before i read the book, but that's a moment that popped out and i was so happy to see the unforgettable phrase in the appendix

i really love fantasy and period things and long mantles of blue and silver set with stars along the hem and collar made for faramir's mother, an emblem of beauty and grace and first grief for she died young, even though i don't really even know what mantles are (are they capes? cloaks? robes?). i have a cloak! it's black and thick and has a (fake) furry collar. my mom got it for me for proms. i should totally bring it up and wear it around