💵 HarriSYNTHburg vol. 15 @ Sagebird Ciderworks, Harrisonburg, VA

Background

In October 2023, Jaguardini came through Ithaca, going on a brief Upstate NY tour with my friend Chris. Jaguardini does this really wild synthwave / darkwave performance that involves various synthesizers (including a gameboy with the synth add-on!), guitar, wearing a hollowed-out TV as a helmet, VHS tapes playing workout videos (he feeds the audio into his mixer through an FX processor and incorporates it into his sets). Incredible entertainer.

He is from Harrisonburg, VA, and runs a bi-monthly (as in “every other month”, not “twice a month”) show at a spot in town, called “HarriSYNTHburg”. He will have local and touring acts, and sometimes play himself. Would I be interested in coming down?

Absolutely.

Several months later, spring of 2024, he tentatively booked me for “late August”, and then a couple months after that we firmed up the date: Aug 24. I would be playing a 90 minute set in the middle of the evening.

Setlist

A couple weeks before the event, I started planning my set. I asked Ivan (Jagaurdini) some general questions about the crowd, what kinds of stuff they like, etc. I like to get a sense for at least what direction to go in, in terms of BPM, genres, etc. He had posted some promo videos on instagram that featured a couple songs I had played in my practice sessions, so I figured that would be a reasonable thing to build around.

I went through 5 or 6 iterations (okay, maybe 7 or 8…). One of the early iterations even involved doing an hour of straightbeat, and then transitioning into Drum & Bass for the last 30 mins. This seemed like it was a bit to “clever” so I scrapped it.

The last iteration I practiced, the night before, was pretty good, but there was still some rough spots. I had this experimental mix involving a Kimbra track (“Replay”) but it was challenging and I wanted more time to practice it.

The morning of the event, before my 6 hour drive down to Virginia, I did one last dig through my shelves, pulling some records that I thought would fit the vibe. After getting to the venue and setting up, I spent 20 or 30 mins going through each and trying out a few mixes with them. In hindsight, I think this was the right move; they fit really well and helped a few of the genre transitions go a little more smoothly.

The middle of the set, between “Possession” and “Viola”, I had never practiced in full and was completely improvised.

1. Cass & Slide - Perception (Vocal mix)
2. Remark - So Pure (Finger Fest Inc. remix)
3. Bitcrusher - Vision sucks
4. Timo Maas - ECLIPSE
5. Killahurtz - West on 27th (Original ‘Subway’ Mix)
6. Art of Trance - Love Washes Over (Moshik & Zidan mix)
7. Joshua Ryan - Buildings Inbetween (remix)
8. Sarah McLachlan - Possession (Rabbit in the Moon Mix)
9. Ocean Wave - Velvet (Original mix)
10. Altitude - Marrakech
11. Silvio Ecomo - Standing (Halo & Hipp-e remix)
12. Travel - Pray to Jeruzalem (Incisions Remix)
13. Oliver Lieb - Subraumstimulation (Sander Kleinenberg remix)
14. Moogwai - Viola (^tektonik mix)
15. Ghostland ft. Sinead O’Connor - Guide Me God (Vandit mix)
16. Paul van Dyk - Vega (Starecase Remix)
17. Paul van Dyk - Words (For Love)
18. Libra presents Taylor - Anomaly (Calling Your Name) (Granny’s Epicure Mix)
19. Three Drives - Carrera (Nu NRG Mix)
20. Conjure One - Redemption (Max Graham’s Dead See Remix)
21. Paul van Dyk - Forbidden Fruit (BT & PVD’s Food of Love Mix)
22. Nigel Richards - Come On
23. DJ Misjah & DJ Tim - Access
24. Joshua Ryan - Pistol Whip

Reflection

This whole event was phenomenal.

The opening act, Mickey D (and some of his friends) was really awesome. He’s a local rapper and producer. I caught the first half of his set, and I wish I could have watched more but I was so nervous that I was back in the green room doing deep breathing and stretches, to prepare. I did catch the last few songs from the stage-left entrance, though, in between stretches.

Jaguardini’s set, after mine, was a phenomenal piece of performance art on multiple levels (ok, quick aside: when he performs, he wears a hollowed out TV set as a helmet; at this performance, he had a smaller TV with a bellydancing instructional VHS tape playing; the audio was feeding into his mixer. The visuals guy had a camcorder pointed at the smaller TV, and was feeding that into the main projection feed, modified. During the performance, audience members near the front started emulating the bellydancing instruction in unison, leading to this weird-but-awesome scene of a TV-head playing music and a crowd passively doing synchronized stretches… surreal)

I was really pleased with how this set went, both technically and just overall. My hand was shaking through the first three records, but leveled off after I got into a groove. The first blend, even though I had practiced it at least a dozen times in the past week, was so nerve-wracking. I was experiencing so much impostor syndrome in that moment. The first 10-15 minutes, I’m not sure the crowd knew what to do; a few of them were dancing, but it’s possible my performance was such a foreign spectacle to them that they were struck with inertia. After that, though, there was a lot more movement. I tend to be pretty heads-down while I’m playing because I get so hyperfocused on the song development, timing, and keeping the beatmatch in sync; I looked up occasionally. I think being heads down is also a coping mechanism for stage anxiety too.

I forgot to start my timer initially so I had to estimate during the second or third song – when the timer was about to expire, I asked Ivan, miming, how much time I had left – he said to play another 10 minutes (later he told me to play another 5 minutes) – altogther the 90 minute set ended up being 110 minutes long!

The setlist I had curated for this event only planned the first 75-80 minutes (and really only the first hour was firmly planned). I had several possibilities for the last 10-15 minutes. When Ivan said to keep playing, I just started pulling tracks that were high energy and generally crowd favorites (hence the last several tracks being perhaps a little out of place for the rest of the set).

One blend I was particularly proud of, but was completely unplanned, was the Paul Van Dyk -> Nigel Richards mix late in the set; the latter has this “boop!” sound in it on beat 1 every 2 bars (increasing to every bar, and then every beat, and then becoming a rhythmic element later) – the mid-song build in “Forbidden Fruit” happened to coincide perfrectly with that steady build in the incoming track. I didn’t plan for this but realized what was going on as it happened – this is the importance of learning good cue / phrase timings! I think this is what the kids today call a “Double drop”.

I also experimented with sampling in “Just close your eyes” from the “Possession (Rabbit in the Moon Mix)” intro: I cued the record to the sample, and then played it on beat 3 of the 4th bar of the carrying track (“Buildings Inbetween”). This was a nice previewing effect that helped to compositionally blend the two tracks together.

I’ve listened to the recording several times, in review, and while there were minor mistakes here and there, overall it felt solid, and I’m proud of what I did there.

I think this will likely be my last DJing performance for the year. I need some time to clean the rest of the my record collection, and also to just have a break for a while to catch up on other creative work.

This was a paid event.