Just got home! What an experience! I hadn’t worked so hard playing music since a grueling Warped Tour stint I did with my old band, Jupiter Sunrise, a few years ago. This trip was similar in that the places and environments we played were sometimes very charged, but also that getting the show to actually happen could be a challenge (The drives alone were tough, sometimes, 27 hours from Romania to Switzerland!)

For those who aren’t familiar, Arms and Sleepers are Boston-based electronic artists (a duo, actually, who bring along extra musicians and vocalists on their tours). Their performances utilize programmed beats, synth patches, chimes, and abstract atmosphere to put down a bed of sounds that, combined with projected visuals, creates a very immersive and transcendental experience for their live audience. My newer solo music pursues some of these qualities, but A & S really strips away traditional song structure. Though it typically ramps and relaxes in a fairly intuitive way, it’s definitely unencumbered by normal conventions, which has been a nice experience for me.

There were definitely some other firsts for me on this tour, too. The thing I thought about the most was how I usually find that the process leading up to a show to be fairly routine, and then the show itself to be something you have to navigate and steer along the way, by communicating with your audience, reading the crowd, adjusting the set-list as you perform. But this tour was totally the opposite. There were so many logistical hurdles – long drives, little sleep, parking on narrow streets, unloading a ton of gear, setting up a very complicated back line, soundchecking a very nuanced sound-situation on variable PA’s, multiple instruments – that performing was often the most predictable and relaxing part of the trip!

This was, in part, because we usually played a pre-formatted hour and a half set, all synched to the projector, which beamed abstract video clips to support the music behind us. There were no lights on us other than the projector, so this whole set up lent itself to being a set which, though difficult to prepare, was a ride everyone took together without any ability (or the need) to change anything. We’d just go up, play our parts, try to loose ourselves in the music – no need to worry about much other than paying attention to your entrances and such, because once you hit start there’s no stopping the computers and projector. Very different than my aforementioned experiences as a performer, and a nice experience to have, for sure.

I really liked the visual component. Having visuals as part of the show is something I’ve thought about for a long time and, indeed, have thought about for my next record… I’m totally hooked, they add so much! The visuals were edited by Max, from the band, who found the source material, processed it, and chopped it up. While we were rehearsing in Maine, I happen to have some videos and animations I’ve made in the past on my hard drive, so I was able to contribute source material for this tour – it was very cool to see it blown up behind us, such as this video for the song, Steal Me. I was going to wait for my next record to be finished to start adding visuals to future shows, but now that I’ve seen the projections in action, I really want to get it going right away so I’m chopping up images and clips from an online graphic novel that will be released with my new music (this Fall) … needles to say, I’m very excited, can’t wait to share it with you!

So, all that said, this tour has been very valuable for me, allowing me an opportunity to perform in a different way, catalyzing ideas that had incubating in my mind for a long time, not to mention the beautiful drives and wonderful people… so a big-time thank you to Arms and Sleepers for the opportunity to come out with them on this pan-European tour, and many thanks to all the beautiful people we met on our travels – the audiences, promoters – everyone was so appreciative and had very kind and sincere things to say to us.

I’m still going through all the photos and videos I took, but so far here’s where you can find some of the images and clips I’ve posted – I’ll be sure to put some up on MySpace, too…

Facebook Album: Arms and Sleepers w/ BenKN European Tour, Spring 2010

Thank you, everyone, hope to see you again soon and keep in touch!!!