TSC performs at a Tubers Music Event

There were the faint sounds of fireworks exploding in the background, and walls hundreds of years old are great places to see shadows moving.

Dave Birchall invited us [Takahashi's Shellfish Concern] to perform at a Tubers Music event held on November 5th, 2011 at St. Margaret’s Church in Withington.

TSC, was just Rod and I for this performance. On these occasions, when he and I improvise one on one, we tend to invite more space and silence.  It is a different dynamic. (Unfortunately, Anton wasn’t at this performance as he was recording an album with his big band, Beats & Pieces.)

St. Margret’s Church – Tubers Music

TSC at Seeing Sound

On October 29, 2011 Takahashi’s Shellfish Concern performed at the second annual Seeing Sound Symposium, held at Bath Spa University (organized by Dr. Joseph Hyde). Here’s a video of our performance.

Bath Spa University – Seeing Sound 2

UR Performance: Black

UR: Black, (121 x 163cm) Created on June 30, 2011 at Islington Mill. UR Black is a first in an on-going series, coordinated by Helmut Lemke as part of the UR Performance group.

Next week I’ll be attending and contributing to UR: Red, and it hit me that I hadn’t made a post about the first one of these that was ever held–which Takahashi’s attended. This is that entry. I would apologize for its tardiness, but let’s get real: this is one of those dark corners of the internet that only bots come to…and they don’t understand human emotion.

Here are some photos of the event that someone else took, which I found on the UR Performance website.  The first ones are of Takahashi’s Shellfish Concern performing.  The last four are of Andrew Parker and I collaboratively working on a painting that required us to follow some rules we had come up with.

[Show as slideshow]

TSC at the ICMC

TSC at the ICMC

August 2, 2011 – Takahashi’s Shellfish Concern performed at the ICMC (International Computer Music Conference) held this year at Huddersfield University. Because our sound check was at 1pm and the concert didn’t begin until 10:30pm we had a lot of time to kill. This was a good place to kill it. We attend the Unconference where the use of gesture and visuals were discussed. (Some that attended: Freida Abtan, Adrian Freed, and David Wessel.)

We hung out with Scott Hewitt for a long time. One of the things we discussed was the tool Rod and I want to build that’ll allow me to live sample & synthesize sound via the gestures I already make while painting. He encouraged us to build the hardware, just hunker down, and figure out some of the programming so we’ll have a better understanding of what the thing will do. He said it could be a 10 year long project.

The concert was really well attended. It was held at The Graduate, the university’s on-campus bar. Believe it or not, this crowd of academics got a little rowdy, but people were just having a good time (and were probably very drunk). There were four acts and we went on third. While Rod wasn’t too crazy about it I really liked seeing this one guy do some live coding, projected large on a screen, so you could see what he was doing. It was fun to watch.

Our performance went so-so. Rod and Anton think it went better than I think it went though. I just couldn’t get into it and kept repeating myself. The venue itself was really hot, and this was exasperated by the fact that I perform in front of two really hot work lamps not four feet behind me. After 15 minutes I was dripping sweat and black paint.

The painting is now owned by P.A. Tremblay and can been seen in his office at the university.

University of Huddersfield – TSC at the ICMC

TSC with BlankMedia: Cara B = Side B

Video made by Castles Built In Sand

This July we were invited to be a part of an exhibition event put together by the Blank Media Collective. It included a static work exhibition, live performance events, a Q&A session, and a collaboration event with the improv organization The Noise Upstairs, which gave artists and musicians the opportunity to experiment with playing with one another by pairing them randomly by pulling names out of a hat. Some TSC performance footage found in the video above starting at 7:35.

TSC at the University of Sheffield

Takahashi’s Shellfish Concern presented by Small Ideas- University of Sheffield. April 7, 2011

TSC at the Noise Upstairs (Sheffield)

Takahashi’s Shellfish Concern at The Noise Upstairs – Sheffield. January 12, 2011