Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Homebuilt CrackleBox

The CrackleBox "was probably the first commercialy available portable selfpowered alternative 'keyboard' analog audio synthesizer with inbuilt loudspeaker ...
Nowadays many people refer to the The Cracklebox as the archetype of 'glitch' or 'circuit bending'.
The old Cracklebox has become a collectors item.
Since the new Cracklebox has been released in 2004 various performers are playing this instrument on stage amongst others: 'Mouse on mars' and 'Coil'.
"

Master-recyclist fibra has built his own CrackleBox into a cigar-box. The seven screws are touchpad-contacts, forming a V-shape convenient for both-handed play.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Krach the rocking robot


Krach the rocking robot is to be considered a regular at the annual ROBOEXOTICA Cocktailrobotics Festival.

Last year he rocked the final night at Arena's Dreiraum (which rhymes the Freiraum in MQ, where the exhibit was and will be this year).

Somehow he started falling apart from the start. Probably a main cause were his difficulties getting on stage, two guys failed lifting him, and he ended up crawling onstage on his back. At this point the audience was in tears laughing!

Here are three clips documenting his musical disassembly: One - Two - Three

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Il Senor rocked Jazzfest Wien

Senor Coconut and his orchestra performed tonight at Jazzfest Wien in front of Vienna city hall. Here are clips of a laptop-solo, Smoke on the Water and Kraftwerk's Autobahn. (Thx Fra!) Update: here comes Smooth Operator - in a better sound quality as i didn't convert the avi-file ... this also means the file is bigger than the others.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

3rd man composer's 100th birthday

Yesterday, Anton Karas, the composer of the famous 3rd man theme featured in Carol Reed's 3rd man, would have turned 100 years yesterday.
The 1949 movie, which takes place in post-war Vienna made the Vienna Heurigen-musician's tune immortal.
Here's a cover version by my local friend Oskar Fischer.