I scanned a photo of my first electronic music improvisation gig in 2002.

It counts as the first gig, for it was the first performance in front of an audience that did not include anyone I know. I also played a complete set with an electronic instrument for the first time. The concert was probably in late 2001 or early 2002, and I don’t remember much of it other than bits of incidents and happenings. A personal keyword unifying the gig is uncomfortable.

• It was the second time in my life traveling to Brooklyn.  When I arrived at the performance space, everybody except me seemed confident about what they were doing. I was forcing myself not to show my newbieness. It felt weak to show how impressed I was with others’ art and sound.
• The event organizer introduced himself as Doc. Doc provided a place to hang out in an apartment and food for all the performers. He made a soup (a chili?) with too much ginger. After hurrying to eat the soup among people I didn’t know, I stayed in the apartment’s hallway.  In hindsight, everybody was nice to me. I just did not know how to react to kindness from strangers.
• I don’t remember much about the performance. From the looks of the picture, I was performing nervously and seriously. I had the attitude of playing in a college recital hall, but the stage was a folding table in a dark basement with DIY lighting. I did not make eye contact or interact with the audience.
• I felt I did not belong to the event and the culture it belonged to. So I slept early in a room of a person I do not know, woke up at dawn, and hurried to the bus stop. I didn’t say thank yous or goodbyes.

That was my first and queasy gig. The quality of the music I presented was OK, but the quality of social performance were bismal. I could have made friends and fans, but I ran away. Now that 20+ years have passed since the first gig, I feel comfortable socializing with strangers (if needed).  It took me a while to feel like that. Perhaps teaching helped.  I share this experience with my students, who are younger than the 2001 me, to let them know that it is OK to feel bad after the gigs. The career does not end there. Just do more performances, make a few more mistakes, and find a way to feel comfortable showing what you love in front of people you do not know. 

I wish I had audiovisual documentation of the performance, but I had a Motorola cell phone at the time. However, I found a backup of a video demonstration Luis and I made a few weeks after the Brooklyn Performance. It is delightful to see how much my musical practice has changed and remained the same since 2002.

I used a loaned Radio Baton, and my friend Luis Maurette used my Phat-boy MIDI controller. We built a Max patch for the machine and ran it on my very first iBook. The video was shot in an ensemble practice room at Berklee College of Music. Luis and I were Electroic Production and Design students (back then, the major was called Music Synthesis). Ableton Live was just released a few months ago.