First outing of this project, at the wonderful Sheffield Scratch Contra, a venue specifically designed to tolerate new and experimental things. I played most of the gig as half of Flying Cat, my 2-piece band, interspersed with these tracks as they worked for the dances that came up. I coded backing, while James played tunes on melodeon and chromatic button accordion.
The room is an acoustic challenge, which made it hard to hear precisely what’s going on. Because of the shape of the room, you hear low percussion from the back of the speakers, and high percussion a bit later reflected off the back wall. Reminded me that it’s important to set up really solid monitoring for myself and whoever’s playing with me.
As expected, I had the most problems with getting people to start and stop. Intros were too quiet and not really clear enough, and outros were pretty much non-existent. I should have given my callers more warning what to expect in the intros so they can help the dancers start at the right time.