HW: An obvious question

[Carl E. Anderson]

> And just get a damned synth player.

        This is probably the single most important thing that HW could do.
I mean, I'm one of those who think adding Ron was a good move (no matter
what you think of the vocals, let's compare the direction on _Alien4_
or _Love in Space_ or the recent gigs with IITBOTFTBD--better?  I thought
so :) but even so, I don't understand why they simply got a singer when
they could have gotten someone to play the synths!

        I think the sequencers really limit them, musically.  You lose
and incredible quantity of spontaneity.

> Listening to Love In Space (which grows
> on me with each listen) and having never seen them live, I just can't see
> how he can be making all the noises while guitar is blaring out at the same
> time. Perhaps someone could explain this "sequencer" thing? Not bad
> sounding, but I'd just be more comfortable knowing that these noises were
> not generated simply by the press of a button...

        Well, yes and no.  Basically, as I understand their current set up
the swooshy things are pre-programmed sounds which can be triggered
by Dave's guitar playing and (according to Richard) Richard's drums.
Don't know where Allen fits in, though he usually gets some credits here.
This process is performed through the wonders of MIDI (look closely on
Dave's guitar sometime and you'll see some weird-ass pickup configs with
little glowing lights etc.--this looks to be Dave's MIDI link and possibly
a guitar synth _a la_ Roland?  I noticed at Brixton that Abduction finished
with a big synth sound which was accompanied by a dramatic guitar gesture
from Dave (!) but no guitar sound.  I assume we are looking at a guitar
synth or something.
        Linking the sounds to Richard's drums also keeps them in the
proper tempo.  According to Richard, the set-up is flexible enough that
they _can_, to a certain extent, jam ... though they don't seem to be
doing it much.
        A number of people have noted that sometimes the mix of "Space
Is Their Palestine" and "Hassan I Sabha" seems to work, and sometimes it
doesn't.  I think this mostly has to do with the tempo Richard is playing
at.  Other than that, most of the ambientoid instrumentals are fairly
canned sounding/looking.  At Brixton, Dave spent most of Kapal wandering
around his gear poking into the back of it with a torch ;)  On Elfin
Alan actually could be seen to be playing the keyboard directly, but
often it's hard to tell what's going on.

        The best thing you can say about the canned music is that there
seems to be less of it than there was a couple of years ago, and it
mostly serves as linking pieces to give the band a brief break.
        But think how much better it would be to have a REAL synth
player doing something live in real time?  Well, maybe they'll end
up trying to recruit Crum again.

        There's a question: what ever happened to the plan to bring
Crum aboard?  I remember some odd rumor like his wife being against it.
Or maybe that was Simon House?

Cheers,
Carl

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Carl Edlund Anderson                           "So that's Terra.  Oohwee,
cea20 at cus.cam.ac.uk                             look out wenchlings, here
http://wjh-www.harvard.edu/~canders/hem.html    come the Hawklords."
cea20 at cus.cam.ac.uk                                -Lord Lemmy (Hawkwind)
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