All posts by paisleyb

Now Booking: Paisley Babylon Beautiful Chaos

PAISLEY-Babylon-Beautiful-CThe Paisley Babylon show Beautiful Chaos is now available for booking at art galleries, in-stores, venues and performance spaces. Beautiful Chaos operates in a twilight zone between art, music, DJing and performance art. Every performance is different, combining the best elements of live performance, DJing, multi-media barrage and dance party.

Beautiful Chaos features five turntables hooked up to echo boxes and other effects pedals, all going at once, artfully mixed and mashed up live with other sound sources by Joe Wallace, AKA DJ Paisley Babylon. The live mashup performance is only a single layer of the work on display at the Beautiful Chaos show–there is so much going on here you may have to see two or three performances to process it all.

But this is not entertainment through pain–Paisley Babylon isn’t here to torment an audience with sheets of noise. This is BEAUTIFUL Chaos.

In a world where religious extremists on both sides of the war strive to become media darlings, where a country fighting two wars at once is still wrestling with conspicuous consumption, Beautiful Chaos is a mad, dreamlike escape from front page headlines and workday deadlines alike.

Book the Paisley Babylon show BEAUTIFUL CHAOS now by called (312) 504-1264 or e-mailing management[at] paisleybabylon [.] net for more information.

A Paisley Babylon Rehearsal, July 31 2010

turntablePaisley Babylon is in the studio rehearsing for a multi-media performance to be announced soon. What you’re about to hear is an hour’s worth of sonic weirdness–live mashups and mixes using a variety of sources including three turntables all going at once.

It’s a sound collage, music mix and live mashup being rehearsed in preparation for performances in Chicago to be announced soon.

In the meantime, enjoy this one-hour journey into the central nervous system of Paisley Babylon. Have a listen to the Mp3 and please feel free to drop comment on what you think of the clip–keeping in mind that it’s rehearsal quality, not performance quality.

Zombie Disco 2 At Chicago’s Lucky Number Grill w/DJ Paisley Babylon

Zombie Disco 2 DJ Paisley Babylon

Join me tonight (Saturday July 24) at 9PM at Lucky Number Grill for a full evening of disco fever, with zombie make-up done on location and all the boogie-down you can stand. I’ll be spinning the mirror-ball madness from 9 til 2. Come out for some DJ Paisley Babylon fun and a GREAT crowd of zombies from the Chicago Horror Society.

If you can’t make it out to the night’s madness, there will be a special Zombie Disco set list mix posted here later in the week. Stay tuned.

Retro Now: Guitar Hero Commodore 64 Mod

Guitar-Hero-for-Commodore-6

Guitar Hero for the Commodore 64 computer system? Some kinds of madness transcends both the medium AND the message of the presentation. This is all at once the most pointless thing ever done and the coolest. Why would you want to play Guitar Hero on the C64? For the same reasons people climb Mt. Everest–just freakin’ BECAUSE. Forget about “can’t be done” or “shouldn’t be done”, anyone crazy enough to mod an old clapped out computer from the copper age of computing is also probably a total genius.

I discovered this glorious insanity on my new favorite retro blog, Retro Thing, which also features VIDEOS of this in action–definitely worth the flashback value. Bravo, Retro Thing…and the best part of this whole thing for me was the fact that it was on display right here in Chicago. It’s just a shame the post was already two years old when I found it!

Retro Thing is definitely still going strong and well worth a look.