Watch as Atlanta-based producer and synth geek extraordinaire Richard Devine ends a performance in California in style by torching his Open Labs NeKo synth. The unfazed expressions on the onlookers faces paired with the dodgy-looking smoke coming from the synth left me questioning the authenticity of the photo, but the accompanying video and press release from Open Labs proved otherwise:
While browsing the wonderful synth and gear blog Music Thing today, a red and white graphic and the word emergency caught my eye.
I was happy to learn that the item bearing a striking resemblance to the Gabe Benzur-designed Disco Emergency cover art was the brainchild of Chicago’s Liz Knight. We had the pleasure of meeting Liz, a musician, jewelry designer, retailer, and creator of Modsquare, a site for the Chicago experimental electronic music community, at the Detroit Movement Festival last May and more recently when she performed here in Atlanta.
Liz, who performs as Quantazelle, is no stranger to clever packaging: she’s made an entire line of jewelry (Zelle) out of various geeky audio and computer components, and has released a CD entitled “Coaster” which is packaged as, you guessed it, a coaster, complete with a wrist strap and customizable colors.
The Zelle Electronic Musician’s Emergency Kit arms performing electronic musicians with power cords, audio cables, couplers, jacks, adapters and a LED light, all neatly packaged in a fetching red drawstring bag. The kit runs $60.00 and will be available Spring ‘05.
Not a musician but still want to be prepared? You are in luck: a close friend of ATLectro has her own Disco Emergency Kit in the works. The contents are guaranteed to prepare dancefloor warriors for any disaster of the disco variety. Stay tuned for details and availability.
Dust off your soldering irons: Limor Fried, the MIT grad student who brought us mp3 player in an Altoids tin, has created the x0xb0x, a $300 assemble-it-yourself Roland TB-303 reproduction kit. In addition to the classic 303 functionality and sound (achieved using meticulous reverse engineering and by utilizing transistors of the exact same manufacturer and model as the original!), the x0xb0x adds midi, a USB port that allows you to control the b0x using a Java interface, and of course blinky lights.
