Our friends at the Spanish-language site Hispasonic.com are streaming Theremin music live for free worldwide from the Ethermusic Festival in Moog country, North Carolina. (Pictured, right: Randy George.)

Hispasonic TV

When it’s not live, the previous recording plays on continuous loop. From Hispasonic’s Xabier:

Now we are just replaying the yesterday concert. The next live webcast will be at 2:30 AM (GMT+2) - 08:30 PM (GMT-4).

And speaking of Moog, here’s an update from Frank Schubert, who played at the show, regarding Moog’s new guitar:

The show was great.  We opened up and then did a piece with Justin from Moog who was playing the guitar.  Then they did the formal announcement, described the guitar and then Justin and his band played a 25 minute set with the guitar.  Kevin Kissinger played a great set and then was joined by Justin on the Moog guitar as well.  There were a bunch of people shooting video and photos.  They will most likely make them available – I will let you know when they are posted.  We did not take any video.

I did get to play the guitar for a minute.  It felt great.  It also sounded great when played.  So I think it is official….

In comments — a correction to Frank’s description:

Jason Daniello from MoogMusic demonstrated the new Moog Guitar and his band’s name is The Broomstars

Okay, so that bit where I thought it was an April Fool’s joke — sorry! (Yeah, my April record hasn’t been so fantastic, since the Ableton Vocoder also appears to be in development.)

If anyone has other photos/video, drop us a line!

As the Monome, the sustainably-produced open controller hardware, spreads, it’s going from one-person gimmick (i.e., “look what I’ve got!”) to club and community (”let’s get together and monomate!”). Laptop circles like Share in New York have already introduced the digital drum circle, but Monome owners may soon be converging, as well. Last weekend, Monome users met up in Princeton, New Jersey. Kempton writes::

A quick recap, there was a little show and tell, a few instructional sessions showing what people do, and several jam sessions during which people walked around and were able to watch each other in action. MLR was the most used app, though many others were used, including some homemade apps. Everyone seemed to be coming from different genres, which created a wild mix. I think everyone walked away saying that we need to do it again, so hopefully you can make the next get together!

Monome users in other places, how about you? Perhaps a Monomefest in the device’s hometown of Philadelphia?

Here’s a time-lapse video of the NJ meetup. Granted, not any big win for, um, diversity (not visibly, anyway), but that, too, may change with time — and any time we get out of our bedroom studios and together with other folks is a welcome change:

East Coast Monome Jam (4/19/2008) from makingthenoise on Vimeo.
More Monome Meetup Videos From Around the US

Also on Vimeo:
See the Portland Monome meetup
and the Los Angeles Monome meetup — with none other than Monome celebrity Daedelus. (Daedelus, I like to think of you as Monome’s Keith Emerson.)

West Coast vs. East Coast Monome — fight!

There’s a simply insane amount of electrified music happening here in the US this week:

• Bent Festival NY: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights are concerts at the Bent Festival in NY, not only of circuit bending but other DIY sound, as well. Stop by Saturday during the day for a day full of workshops. (also on Facebook)
• Thursday, Bent NY sponsor The Tank will be hosting Warper Vs. Splice, a 2-floor audiovisual collision in downtown NYC; I’ll be on music + eyethings in the middle of the evening. (See Facebook)
• Saturday, The Tank hosts the 8-bit crowd, also concurrent with Bent, at the regular Pulsewave, in case at that point you’ve had your fill of bending and higher bit depths
• Bent Festival Minneapolis does it all again next weekend (Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights) for the middle of America, with workshops during the day. Don’t miss our friends Beatrix*Jar (above) and CDM’s Mike Una giving a free workshop — get there early for one of 12 MIDI-to-relay kits to use.
• Ethermusic Festival in North Carolina won’t just have a lineup of all the world’s great Theremin players, with people like Dorit Chrysler (below), Lydia Kavina, Sheuh-Li Ong, and other important people, plus CDM readers Scott Burland and Frank Shultz doing a Theremin + lap steel duet. (Thanks to Frank for the heads-up!) It’ll also have something else…

It sounds as though Moog Music is going to officially announce the thing they’re making that involves subliminal guitar images during Ethermusic. So, if you’re there, bring a camera for any one of those reasons.

As I write this, both Moog’s and Ethermusic’s sites are hiccupping; hopefully the Evil Carolina Server Hag hasn’t gotten to them. I’m sure all is well as you read this.

Now, I’m embarrassed to admit that I can’t actually play Theremin any better than this cat. Not worse, necessarily. I’m very much on the cat’s level. Fortunately, I won’t be playing Theremin tomorrow at The Tank.

Something strange is happening on local affiliate news programs across the country: Circuit benders and other weirdo musicians are being asked to drop by and discuss their art for the American Public.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d be a little confused and freaked out if I woke up and saw this first thing in the morning (and I lived in Ohio):

And it’s not just Dan Deacon. Dynamic duo Beatrix*Jar had a similarly awkward experience. There’s something strange about what’s going on here. The news people conducting the interviews are are genuinely enthusiastic, but there’s something not quite connecting in their approach. I don’t know if it’s an intentional lack of arts-based analysis or if they just like to keep it light & fluffy for the morning viewers, but the ultimate result is surreal.

Despite the name, the Bent Festival this year promises to be about not only circuit bending, but DIY sound in general. (Circuit shaping? Circuit straightening? General circuitration?) Our friend and CDM regular Mike Una has put together fantastic art installations for Minneapolis. Workshops in NYC and LA dig into the mysteries of sensors and tubes, the potential of video bending, and giant, battery-powered noise to drown out the rest of the world. And there are gobs and gobs of performers.

Like the North American air currents, Bent begins in the West, moves across the Heartland, and into New York City. (Okay, actually, when I first reported on this year’s Bent, the dates were different, so pay attention!)

LA - April 17 - 19

New York - April 24 - 26

Minneapolis - May 1 - 3

And lest you think Bent isn’t as Bent this year, there’s still a Furby Orchestra to cap it all off.

Bent Festival site has the whole scoop, plus Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, and whatever else you crazy kids use today. (Hey! Where’s the AOL keyword?)

If you make it to any of the festivals and document — or if you’re playing/presenting — do share.

Peter Dines, known for his work with Reaktor (don’t miss his fantastic Reaktor Tutorial Project blog) got a first-hand look at the Yamaha Tenori-On’s first North American stop on its launch tour. He brings us some impressions of the launch, and introduces the phrase "switchboard acrobatics" to the lexicon, which I think will have to find a home in these discussions from now on.

I’ll be at the Brooklyn event tonight, so if you’re there, do say hi! We’ll have coverage of the artists and event soon. (Yeah, I cheated — these are London launch event photos.)

Here’s Peter — and yes, it’s interesting to know that those buttons aren’t necessarily immediately intuitive when you’re under the gun!

Since I am an extremely lazy person I had only a cursory knowledge of the Yamaha Tenori-On when I arrived at SAT for its gala Montreal launch. A number of the little blinking beauties were set up at kiosks separated from the loud music of Pheek by the flimsiest of curtains. I waited in line for my turn to have a poke at it, and when I got it I was baffled.

Yes, there were instructions. Step four required the user to hold down a function key while pressing an LED in row nine. Now I don’t know about you but I don’t immediately recognize groups of nine out of an array of sixteen by sixteen identical, evenly spaced das blinkenlights, especially when there’s a queue of impatient people behind me. There was also no obvious way to turn up the volume to a level that would be audible in the venue. Disheartened, I passed the headphones to the guy breathing down my neck, got a beer and settled in to watch musicians who evidently knew the ins and outs of the thing as they worked it on stage.

We’ve seen lots of gadget lust around the tiny Pacemaker mobile DJ device, but could you, say, show up in Miami with one and DJ? Alfred Nerstu, who’s actually an Assistant Art Director for Pacemaker’s maker Tonium (not a PR person), sends along this video they made.

Answer: yes, you can be taken seriously with a Pacemaker, but you’ll have to lose your shirt. (Literally — not just because the Pacemaker costs some dough. And, hey, I’m sure you could afford one Pacemaker for about the cost of a two-night hotel stay in Miami during WMC…) I’m still not convinced I could take a Pacemaker seriously as a primary DJ tool, but it does look like something you could have a lot of fun with or add to your toybox of gear on the road.

That’s Tonium employee Willem, shirtless.

The best part of the video? The YouTube comments like these, which, whatever they mean, just look insanely cool:

haha fantastiskt

haha pappa willem? skjukt bra film du får fan fixxa rabbat till mig :D //gräsätarn

Fantastiskt, indeed.

Damn, I wish English weren’t such a square language. Keep your native tongues alive, folks.

Pacemaker.net

After the jump, Arthur shares a bit of "beachjaying" — clever idea for a video; maybe I should do this with a Game Boy tracker or something for the geekier among us. I’d better work on my washboard abs first, though, if my tummy is going to be in the shot.

If you want new ideas about design and interaction, ask a musician. Before the Wii remote, the iPhone, Microsoft’s Surface, and Minority Report, musicians were trying oddball ideas for music performance. That hasn’t slowed down, either, from the futuristic and space-y to down-and-dirty acoustic techniques. We’ve got quite a gamut coming up for our madcap, sound and noise-packed hour of competition happening this Saturday at NASA’s Ames Research center during Yuri’s Night, and we’d love to share them with everyone online.

For starters, here’s the rundown of the projects with links to project sites and artists, and all the judges:

Futuristic Music Design Challenge: Meet the Competitors, Judges

Join the event on Facebook

The projects: the Bubblegum Sequencer (previously on CDM), The Box custom hardware with colored lights + Reaktor ensemble, the surface-temperature tangible interface table Weather Report (previously on CDM), the strange polygonal Kromatron wireless instrumental interface, the Thimbletron gloves-as-samplers with lab coated performers project (previously on CDM), the bicycle wheel and analog tape Looping Pedal (previously on CDM), the computer-powered musical saw WaveSaw, the 28-string just-intoned microtonal casmolyra, the turntablist custom software ammoBox and the GrooveStep DS pattern maker (previously on CDM).

I’m also pleased to announce…

The judges:

• Roger Linn, father of the modern drum machine (in my opinion, anyway) and creator of the MPC60 for Akai, plus recent creations — and he plays the mandolin
• Liz Enthusiasm, lead singer of Freezepop (check out their albums or just play a Harmonix game) and evidently an expert on Dr. Pepper
• (Matt) Ganucheau, a mastermind of Yuri’s Night’s music and art, a composer and sound designer (and teacher of sound design for games), an electronic musician, and creator of the NSFW "foreplay robot" Moaning Lisa
• … and yours truly as emcee

Speaking of Roger Linn, Tom at Music Thing just posted an auction on the pre-Akai prototype.

Hopefully we’ll get to do some quick interviews with the judges, as well, for Planet CDM. Stay tuned on yuricdm.com.

Hello from Ground Control: this week, I’ll be coming to you live from CDM’s micro-blog for Yuri’s Night Bay Area, ground zero for the global space rave celebrating human exploration of the cosmos. CDM’s challenge: to bring all the goodness up close and personal to you, from California to wherever you are on Planet Earth.

Watch the minisite now, during the event, and in the couple of weeks following at:

http://yuricdm.com

or subscribe to the yuricdm.com RSS feed.

Yuri’s Night needs special nerdster love for a number of key reasons — a huge lineup of music, art, and science, plus a special CDM event and booth:

• Music: The likes of Amon Tobin, Tycho, Christopher Willits, and many others … and our friend Ganucheau, too
• Motion: Interactive installations and visualists everywhere, including our man Joshua with his incredible Wii-powered SuperDraw, built with Processing
• Space and Science and Games: Here’s where I get especially excited — it’s an event on the airfield at Ames Research Center, not typically a place non-NASA employees can go, and we actually get to play there and listen some of the world’s top scientists. And Will Wright (creator of SimCity, Sims, and the upcoming Spore with its generative music) will be there, too, just in case your geek circuits weren’t overloaded yet.
• CDM @ the Hangar: We’re running a special Futuristic Music Design Challenge competition, and we’ll have the CDM booth for much of the evening where various musical / visual makers will be showing off their inventions (with more of our friends elsewhere at the event). So stop by and say hi.