SC Symposium and TodaysArt Festival

Last Thursday to Sunday I was in The Hague, checking out the SuperCollider Symposium and then spectating and finally performing at the TodaysArt Festival. There were many interesting presentations at the symposium, the ones that stick in my mind are IXI Quarks nifty composing and synthesis environment, Nick Collins' automatic synth-pop music generator, and a talk on dissonance curves. Thursdays electro-acoustic concert was a proper sit-down affair, with harpsichord, violin and flute performances all being put through the digital mangle in fine and spooky style. On friday evening, I had a wander around the TodaysArt event, which saw about 12 venues in the city hosting various gigs and events on the weekend. Pierre Bastien was playing in the Grote Kerk ("Great Church") and was entrancing as ever. I took him to see Kool Keith afterwards, but KK wasn't on stage unfortunately, it was someone else in a hood who was a bit boring to listen to. I didn't want to wait to see if he'd turn up, since I'd already seen him a few years ago (rapping about masturbation and throwing porn mags into the audience at the Parc de la Villette in Paris - most entertaining) but had never got the chance to hang out with Pierre before, so we went for a drink instead and had a good chat about music making methods and our touring experiences. Afterwards I went to lend an ear to Galaxy 2 Galaxy, the new Underground Resistance allied funk band. They were playing slap bass and excruciating saxophone solos over the top of Detroit classics such as Jupiter Jazz. It was even worse than my description, so I didn't stick around to witness the new incarnation of Model 500, featuring both Juan Atkins and Mad Mike, apparently. I heard it described as "nostalgic".
The next evening it was my turn to piss on my own legacy. After several short and stimulating sets from various SC posse members, I broke out a revised version of my live set with added sound tweaking elements. There were many unintentionally glitch-tastic moments as I struggled to control what was going on and pressed all the wrong buttons, but I managed to have fun by the end. It didn't feel like performing a piece of music though, more like attempting to complete a technical exercise a bit beyond my brain capacity. Still, a good dry run for the Japan trip next month.