"But you made the quiches yourself": becoming a better stage performer

 THE FAILURE.

The stage lights burning the back of my eyes. The solitary microphone and the stares from the audience. And the sudden and lurching gap in my memory.

I remember my only attempt at stand-up comedy well: I died on my backside: a brutal failure. The years have not diminished my shock at the experience.

The next time I took to the stage was for Bright Club with a comedy lecture called Gospel According To Aphex Twin. It wasn't stand-up but I played it for laughs and I shook like a leaf. Four years later and, for the first time ever earlier this week, I had a "performer moment". A moment where I wasn't just on a stage reading funny stuff, but I used a learned technique to elicit a response from an audience. Like a Performer, capital P.

THE MOMENT.

The moment happened as I compered Bad Language. A couple of open mic acts hadn't turned up, and at one point there was a risk that it could have derailed the night. I needed to make light of the situation on stage, so I used a stupid metaphor, explained slowly with the best deadpan I could manage. I likened the no-shows to me making five quiches for a dinner party, with only four guests turning up, leaving me to eat the final broccoli-filled quiche even though I hated broccoli.

And then came a friendly heckle. "But you made the quiches yourself."

"Sorry?"

"But you made the quiches yourself."

The heckler shot my metaphor down with brilliantly-timed wit. I couldn't fight the logic. Why would I make a quiche I hated the taste of?

THE CLICK.

Something clicked. For the first time, I could use a heckle to gain a bigger laugh. I feigned a dawning realisation at the audience member's insight, and while I acted this out, my mind wrote a punchline. The punchline went something like: "This is what my life has come to: me making quiches I hate for people that don't exist."

As I spoke the punchline, keeping my timing regular and my voice steady, my brain went into planning mode again. I decided that after the word "exist", I should turn from the microphone. A visual full stop to land the phrase with a decisive thunk. It worked. People laughed.

It was only a small moment, and by writing all this out, I am probably overplaying it. I'm also not trying to tell you how hilarious I am. The point is this: what struck me about that moment was I could multi-task my little brain gremlins to enable me to plan mid-performance. I'd not done that before. I felt like a stand-up.

THE FUTURE.

The heckler apologised afterwards, but he didn't need to. I thanked him for making it funnier than it ever could have been.

I guess the moral is that performance skill can be learned, that's probably worth trusting the moment, that a strong-enough stage presence can withstand almost anything.

There are many stage performers better than me. But sometimes it's nice to look back and see how far you've come - because the energy I still get from that long-past stand-up failure still drives me to be a better performer today.

Glock/Ver10?* Bearded knob twiddler's cover Aphex Twin's Windowlicker

Chug this down your YouTube neck. Here's one-take cover artist Binkbeats with his version of Aphex Twin's Windowlicker. It's a brave attempt, and not many people would survive this with their brain intact.

Brought to the internetwebhole by the ever-reliable Boiler Room.



* a glockenspeil pun on Aphex's Cock/Ver10 even though I'm pretty sure it's a xylophone.

Further Fats: The devil has all the best IDM: Aphex Twin (2010)

Finding healthy pop wheat amid the pop forest fire of, um, doom

THE PLAN.

The plan: find something positive to say about the charts. Music that may be derivative but it's done in a nice way and doesn't carry the baggage of a mysogynistic or gun-addled video.

The result: quite difficult. I think Coldplay's new electronic direction is welcome, but I'm never going to post something by them because it's still like listening to a squeezed dishcloth. And the chart is full of older stuff, like Duke Dumont and Avicii in the mid-range and the likes of Busted and Shaggy near the bottom.

I found four. There's a decent Lana Del Ray remix knocking about somewhere, but I couldn't spot it on YouTube. So...

THE RESULT.

- Kiesza's Hideaway, a snappy 90s house track with some proper Strings of Life synth stabs bubbling under the surface;

- Route 94's My Love, a hypnotic house meditation with choppy pianos and a gorgeous arpeggio throughout, let down by a poor video;

- Klangkarussell's Sonnentanz, with its filtered synth motif, layered vocals and sax parps that are so crap they're probably good;

- Clean Bandit's Extraordinary, a band that used to me more interesting, but this fluff has some nicely executed production. Only just made the list.

My start with Bad Language: always blame the monsters

The beginning of 2014 seems like a different year. Time is fragmented. Broken. You know when you drop your diary and all the dates get mixed up because your diary is possessed by a mischievous poltergeist that can manipulate text? That.

When I took on the co-running of Bad Language, Manchester's live literature night, I expected it would be a bit like being hit by a train. I was wrong. It was like being approached from behind by a scaly time-stealing monster and mauled to death. In a good way. I've tried to replicate this experience in picture form (above).

So far, I have hosted two Bad Languages, with authors Stephen May and Luke Brown headlining. If you want to see me shake my stuff, then come along to the Portico on Thursday May 15th for a very special night of readings. We'll have Rosie Garland, Jo Bell, Rodge Glass and Marli Roode. The next regular Bad Language will be on May 28th. Thank pants I'm not doing this on my own - Joe Daly should take at least 54.6% of the credit.

Much of my time is spent planning events. Speculative meetings, meetings that go nowhere, meetings that burst with promise. Watch this space.

Not enough time is spent updating this website. Better get to it. To be honest, I'd ask the time-stealing monster to do it, but its spelling is atrocious.

Incidentally, for those more musically-inclined, I've been listening to Hardfloor, Legowelt and Mixmaster Morris.

Window-kicker: Aphex Twin's 'new' Caustic Window Kickstarter album

(See a 2014 album update here.)

It took mere hours for a budding entrepreneur to raise the $13.5k needed for a new Aphex Twin album.

Well. Kind of new. A bunch of old test pressings under the Aphex alias Caustic Window have been gathering dust since the 1990s. The owner has now decided to release the recordings, and with the permission of all concerned parties, a Kickstarter campaign has started for anyone wanting to own a digital copy.

BEGINNINGS.

The fundraising idea began as a speculative survey on the legendary We Are The Music Makers (WATMM) forum, and it's now the owner of that forum, Joyrex, who is coordinating the campaign for these lost recordings to see the light of day.

Joyrex, himself named after Caustic Window releases, said on the forum:

"I think any Aphex Twin fan (myself included) would dearly love for Richard to release any new material, and for whatever reasons he hasn't yet, this is an opprotunity for the fans to let Richard know there is a demand for even his older material.

"This may not mesh well with Richard's personal wishes (there was probably a reason he didn't commercially release this), but since this is fan-driven, if anything, it will convey to him and the labels the fans are willing to support their favourite artists in unique ways."

BLESSINGS.

Richard D James, aka Aphex Twin, gave his blessing to the project, as did Rephlex label boss Grant Wilson-Claridge. That in itself is remarkable: Grant himself told this blog two years ago that it would be nice if more attention could be paid to non-Aphex things. He's right, of course. Dave Monolith produced one of the best albums of recent years and Bochum Welt is rarely far from my earbuds.

The original idea was for the digital Caustic Window release to be limited to a few hundred backers, but that has now been opened up and the campaign is fast approaching the $20k mark. You can donate here. The original recording will eventually be auctioned, and there is a plan to split those proceeds between Richard James, the Kickstarter supporters and charity.

BURGERS.

It's a long time since I've been on the WATMM forum. I suspect my account's been deleted. But amid the in-jokes, image memes and (I seem to remember) huge numbers of ASCII pictures of burgers, is a dedicated community of electronic music lovers.

This campaign is a rather impressive outpouring of that bleepish, rubber-johnnied window-licking love. In the words of WATMM member, MisterE:

i thought
wow this is interesting
then i went to the rdj rare pics thread and printed like mad
surrounded myself
and wept
and now im here and everything is going to be OK

Further Fats: Ten absolutely fascinating facts about Rephlex Records

Blog your spleen out (with added Balki)

I have been tagged in an awful meme by Tim Footman, and I hate myself enough to rise to the bait. The hook is in the flesh of my cheek. Now pull.

To make this more palatable, I have peppered this blog post with pictures of Balki Bartokomous from Perfect Strangers. Let's just get through this, shall we?

WHO / WHAT ENCOURAGED YOU TO START BLOGGING?

My ex-journalist ego, probably. Also a man called James and a colourful feline.

Blogger is like a washing machine: ugly, noisy and most of the buttons never get used. One of its more bizarre functions is a 'next blog' button which transports you instantly to another blog anywhere in the world, regardless of subject matter or language. In the days before BuzzTube and TwitBook, this is how I used to discover blogs. Click, click, click.

One of the blogs I was transported to was James and the blue cat, a writing fellow. I probably found him nestled between a Korean knitwear site and a fishing holiday journal. I made a tentative foray into the blogosphere because I wanted to be where other writers were, and I wanted to talk about my DJing. There was Quinquireme too. And Cultural Snow.

HOW DID YOU CHOOSE WHAT TOPICS TO BLOG ABOUT?

I didn't. My first post was in November 2004 and I did tend to plug what I was doing, but it wasn't until 2009 until I renamed it Fat Roland On Electronica and I focused on music previews, Warp Records and various noise noodlings that the blog got any attention.

Blogging is different now - Upworthy, for example, is about click-quantity over content-quality. I've changed the name of my blog and I no longer analyse stats other than an annual auditing process (clicks-per-post down 3% in 2013, dontcha know). The success I gained from blogging now keeps me busy enough to prevent me from blogging as much as I'd like. It's a good problem to have.

WHAT IS SOMETHING MOST PEOPLE DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU?

I once went to Manchester University students' union to interview Travis, but I forgot to put a tape in my dictaphone, so I says "sorry chaps" and never saw them again. A couple of years later, they released The Man Who. In the pantheon of an ever-pedestrian rock scene (thank crap for the Arctics), I now blame Travis for the downfall of rock which is why I stole a time machine from David Bowie to steal that blank tape from past-me.

WHAT THREE WORDS DESCRIBE YOUR STYLE?

Susan techno horse.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE TO DO WHEN YOU'RE NOT BLOGGING?

Are you chatting me up, question? You're such a flirt, question. That's a cute curl you've got on your mark, question. Maybe you and me should go on a date sometime. I'm seeing an exclamatory remark right now, but I can't see that relationship going anywhere because, frankly, no-one likes shouting in restaurants. You're not going to be needy, are you, question? Oh. Don't reply then. Fine. I'll snap off part of your mark, make it into a semi-colon. See if I care. Got to go. Exclamatory remark's calling for me. So loud.

THE END

Was that alright, Balki?

No, says Balki.

Mad March

It has been an extraordinary month that has derailed my blogging into a happy, exhausted but ultimately wordless ravine.

Last month, I was revealed as the new co-host of Bad Language, a leading night of live literature in Manchester. A few days ago, I hosted my first one. The quality of the open mic acts and the headliner, Stephen May, left me somewhat staggered. I performed in a ridiculous hat given to me by this man.

I also got to host a proper discussion with proper writers. I invented this event for Manchester Histories Festival, and the quality of readers and the turnout re-staggered my mental innards all over again. I topped it off with a radio show yesterday alongside my writing cohort David Hartley.

In the spare time I have had, I saw a great show by Jackie Hagan, I've been listening to old techno, I visited Crosby beach to see the strange iron blokes and I bought a bagel on Brick Lane.

Look to the horizon. You can see the smoke rising from the wreckage in the ravine. Look again. It is a smoke signal. It says "blog more".

Shut up, smoke.

British Summer Time is here: let's all listen to John Wizards

It's British Summer Time. Time to crack out the Wizards.

John Wizards is a glorious band from South Africa who have a style like no other. Muizenberg is from their debut eponymous album. Little fact: lead Wizard John Withers makes jingles. Try saying that six times fast.

This video is by cartoonist Sebastian Borckenhagen.