We talk about tools a lot, but it’s really learning how to make tools expressive in your productions and performances that matters. DubSpot, the music tech production and DJ educational center here in New York, brings its multi-city Ableton Live Sessions tour to its hometown for several days of parties and workshops. If you’re in NYC and on a budget, we have a discount on the paid events and also some free events you can check out. If you’re not in NYC, we’re working on bringing free video coverage to the global CDM community shortly after the event.

This really isn’t a pitch for Live, either – part of why I’m excited to be able to hang out for the weekend is that I expect to learn quite a lot from some of the world’s most skilled Live users and producers.

Headlining the event is none other than global techno star Richie Hawtin – the Minus impresario some of our readers love to love and others love to hate. I hope we get to hear more about his unique Plastikman live rig – see the controller at top, with more details from our friends at visualist corps Derivative, whose TouchDesigner live visual tool powers 3D imagery in those sets. Hawtin will join in a conversation with Ambivalent about what the Minus musical process is about. Hawtin and friends will also play a real gem of New York’s club scene, Love on MacDougal Street – it’s a fantastic space that lives up to its name.

On the dub side, Scientist aka Overton Brown, one of the world’s real stars of dub, a King Tubby protégé out of Jamaica, will return us to the roots of electronic dance music and show off his own take on the use of this technology. Scientist and Dub is a Weapon play Le Poisson Rouge and Scientist will close out the Live Sessions with a dub battle versus Badawi.

KJ Sawka – Hell, Yes, Chops

Before we get into the lineup, here’s just an example of how cool the faculty of this event is – KJ Sawka. Sawka is, of course, what we dream of in live laptop music. His musicianship is fantastic unplugged (see a rooftop set video, apparently sponsored by PBR), so the laptop becomes simply an extension of that.

KJ Sawka will have a full Drums workshop on Saturday as part of the paid program. If you’re new to Live, though, he’s doing a free intro on Thursday evening.

Here’s what to see and how to get the exclusive CDM discount.

By the way, if you’re in Los Angeles, that’s the next stop on this tour; stay tuned for details.

We’re inundated with event info, and one of my general rules is to avoid lots of event listings. But the lineup for famed audiovisual fest MUTEK looks simply epic.

Highlights, just for a taste:

• Moderat. Apparat and Modeselektor. Like peanut butter and chocolate.
• A\VISIONS looks, as always, like an essential event in audiovisualism. Wolfgang Voigt will present GAS and Herman Kolgen has a new piece.
• For the first time, Club Transmediale gets its own showcase.
• An unusually eclectic lineup adds dub, acoustic-electronic, and cross-genre collaboration.
• Robert Henke (Monolake) and Christopher Bauder finally bring their 64 illuminated helium balloon installation (ATOM) to North America.
• Akufen returns to live performance.
• For techno lovers, Resident Advisor brings in the likes of Mathew Jonson, Dandy Jack, and Carl Craig to keep you up all night Saturday.
• Not just Berlin: People from all around the world are making sounds, and even events like the Decibel Festival get highlighted, so you get a great cross-section of a lot of scenes. (I have to bring this up, because I’ve already seen stories claiming Mutek is basically Berlin in Montreal, and from the lineup I see below, that’s a misrepresentation. We love Berlin, but glad as always to see representation from scenes elsewhere.)

MUTEK Lineup at MUTEK site (which has also been posting podcasts with the artists)

And, actually, almost everything looks like a highlight. Not only is it Mutek’s one-decade anniversary, it feels like it’s a special moment for electronica and audiovisuals in general, like the forces of goodness are again converging planetwide.

I think even Mutek aside, some good times are ahead – and Montreal could be a great place to celebrate. Speaking of which…

CDM Coming to Montreal – Get In Touch

I was unable to attend MUTEK last year, but this year should happily be different. I know the Warper crew from New York City are planning their own live music party separately, and CDM may be able to put on an event. If you have a venue or are interested in collaboration, let us know. I’m also available to do the workshop thing while in town. Mostly, it’d be helpful to connect with folks in Montreal as I’m in town, since it isn’t my city. If we can get a daytime space, we may be able to do some additional interviews of Mutek artists and Montreal videomusicological citizens.

You can reach me and the CDM gang at our contact page, or email me directly at peter (at) [thenameofthissite.com]

What’s Going On

Heck, let’s break the rules and run the whole press release, as it will have fans of this event salivating:

Our stream experiment worked – thanks for enduring it! So, we did get a very basic stream going and were able to successfully broadcast over 3rd Ward’s network. I imagine it was generally not so interesting if you tuned in (we had some equipment and camera placement issues). However, it functioned a proof of concept, and in future we can actually make it much more interesting, with videos of projects queued, more interaction, and camera + audio that actually brings you the event. So thanks for those of you who helped (who also clued us into making chat work on IRC as well as ustream), and looking forward to our first proper livecast!

This is entirely experimental, but I’ll be broadcasting live from Handmade Music tonight in Brooklyn. Drop by and have a look at what’s going on. 7:30pm Eastern (that’s GMT -4) is when the event begins. We may be able to switch on earlier than that, but I’ll at least try to have something up by then. Note that we may not be able to have someone live on chat through the evening, so you could get a fishtank experience, but I’ll try to get folks to come say hi through the evening.

And of course, if you’re in the New York area, you can just drop by yourselves and have free beer.

Here’s a cruel joke for you: the first day of Frankfurt’s Musikmesse trade show? The date on which all the music tech press releases for the show have dated their embargo? April First.

Now, to me, the whole point of April Fool’s is surprise, or at least humor. April Fool’s has become so obligatory that everything from faux press releases to blog posts are dedicated to the topic whether they were inspired or not. So, you know what? No April Fool’s Day here. Anything covered on this site tomorrow will be – to the best of my knowledge, anyway – real. (Or as near reality as we ever get.)

Ironically, news in our world is so unsurprising, any interesting news is immediately suspected of being fake. Teenage Engineering’s Operator-1 is so cool looking that, aside from concerns it may not ship, some of you have gone so far to worry the whole thing is an elaborate April Fool’s prank. (One clue that that’s nonsense: it was announced on March 30. It even missed the Ides of March.)

But there you go: case in point. Reality actually can be cool. So we’ll stay away from the pranks this year, and any foolery will be of the technological kind. Enjoy.

I’ve just finished my first full day of the Game Developer Conference. While this is not Create Digital Games, there are some real highlights here, from ideas in music and visual production and experimental interface design to the work to promote and codify interactive music at the Interactive Audio SIG. Between GDC and the usual cast of characters in San Francisco, there’s a remarkable roster of folks. Text is in drafts, so stay tuned. The fundamental contradiction of all writing is that of being and recording your being. But to me, beneath headlines about development products or new games, these things are never-repeated assemblages of interesting people – and they’re usually the ones with the stories. If you happen to be around, give a holler.

I’m also connecting with our friends at Boing Boing and Boing Boing Offworld, and we’ll have some joint coverage this week and next. They’re crazy enough to be doing a live video stream, so if it’s during the day West Coast time you can see what they’re up to: