Warning: Leaving Garyd Land
Under the stage name (Die) Master Monkey, I am a prolific contributor to the "Live Lo-Fi Beats" and avant-garde performance art genres.
In an effort to avoid confusing potential employers, I'm going to explain why this side project is so dang weird, below.
Enter the Lo
If you've never heard of lo-fi as a genre, then first know that yeah it's a real thing [Wikipedia].
The "lo-fi" genre eschews advanced "dance music production" tools and techniques in favor of low-tech sampling, live remixing and the methods of the early hip-hop underground. An emphasis is placed on authenticity and a "raw, real street" feel. Live performance techniques are favored over extensive production. MIDI is frowned upon. Sequencers are blasphemous.
You will find lo-fi to be noisy (not as in loud, but as in "crappy"), confusing, disjointed and probably repetitive if you're not an emcee.
A textbook example:
Master Monkey the Geek
Almost predictably, some geeky projects have still found their way onto the Master Monkey show.
Remote Control Cameras Spawn Geek Show
With only one camera and wanting to offer my audience more views, I stayed-up one night and wrote an Arduino/Java-powered system to put chat users in control of a webcam mounted on a servo.
I did this at the conclusion of one of my shows, simply sitting down and coding, wiring and debugging my way through it in a marathon 9-hour live stream.
Thus was born not just the Internet Toybox project (see Gadgets) but also a weekly Geek Sesh live stream where I code, make and hack on-air.
Bigger projects are at the Hackaday at http://hackaday.io/diemastermonkey
So - ironically - much of my geekiest activity now takes place under my stage name, and I'm now cultivating an audience of . . . code-loving lo-fi beat fanatics?
Some things that have happened in Master Monkey Geek Sessions:
Primer on Seedable PRNGs for Procedural Generation
Primer on ATTiny programming via USBTiny
Viewers driving a Lego NXT Robot from chat via Bluetooth
Soldering a home-brew Arduino relay shield
Hot glue gun accidents
All the Geek Sesh replays are collected in this playlist, there's at least one a week.
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLotf46N6x33EJpy3EhOagvw0TpojsP6QN
This is probably the latest. Or oldest.
If you're a fan of hip-hop you may recognize the signature sound of that genre's "most dope". Time and again, the raw, skeletal style of the lo-fi genre produces unique and unexpected audio textures - which is a gem sought by rappers as backing over which they can do their thing.
I'm not even into hip-hop (now that is blasphemy) - but hip-hop has made its mark as well on the lo-fi community, and beats feature prominently in my shows and in everyone else's.
Master Monkey is Weird
Technically, my act lives on the outskirts of the predominantly hip-hop obsessed genre. It adheres to the lo-fi ethos while adding avant-garde and conceptual performance art concepts from my influences including Laurie Anderson, Christian Wolff, John Cage, and Captain Beefheart.
I'm reasonably well-received by the beat-obsessed wing of lo-fi, but my core appeal is to the audiences of conceptual and improvisational performance art, experimental "noise" and video art.
So again, to emphasize: Yes, this is weird. It's an art project.
Master Monkey Rabbit Hole
Okay I guess I've disclaimed enough. Here ya go! :)
YouTube http://youtube.com/diemastermonkey
Hackaday http://hackaday.io/diemastermonkey
Twitch http://twitch.tv/diemastermonkey
SoundCloud http://soundcloud.com/diemastermonkey