Tag Archives: live theremin

Paisley Babylon Performs at WindyCon Saturday November 15 2014

Joe Wallace and Theremin

THIS SATURDAY! Paisley Babylon does a TWO THEREMIN performance at Windycon, which is held at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center, 70 Yorktown Center, Lombard IL.

The  Paisley Babylon show is in Windycon party suite 1543 and begins promptly at 8PM. There will be not one, but TWO theremins used in the performance as well as a nice helping of bizarre, surreal visuals and a merchandise table featuring pay-what-you-prefer pricing for the very first Paisley Babylon CD ever, released way back in 1998 by Uncle Buzz Records.

Paisley Babylon will perform all new material including a nicely strange looper performance that involves spontaneous, on-the-spot song creation using the amazing Electro-Harmonix 45000 looper box.

Paisley Babylon has been compared to the soundtrack work of John Carpenter, Fabio Frizzi, Stereolab and Funki Porcini. If you enjoy surreal, hallucinatory sounds with a dash of voyeurism, this is the event for you.

Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind performance. Stand by for weirdness and BYOB. Join PB at Windycon THIS WEEKEND for the Saturday performance in Windycon party suite 1543 and begins promptly at 8PM.

WINDYCON is held at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center, 70 Yorktown Center, Lombard IL.

Theremin Babylon Live In Chicago Saturday 1 Feb 2014 @Jerry’s 1938 W. Division

Joe Wallace Theremin-Paisley-Babylon-Chicago analog moogAs all of Paisley Babylon, I write a lot of music using the theremin, and as half of Binary Partners I perform live using the theremin exclusively as of late. My last five shows have featured the theremin as my main instrument, and the one coming this Saturday 1 Feb is no exception.

I will perform theremin duties once more on stage as half of Binary Partners at Jerry’s, located at 1938 W. Division Street in Chicago. This show will likely be the most insane one to date as I’m running a ridiculous number of effects pedals and creating a theremin sound so large and threatening that some could mistake it for natural phenomena.

That’s NOT to say that this is a NOISE show per se–it is NOT that–but with this setup the theremin is capable of damn near weaponized volumes of sound. I prefer to use such things as punctuation, not as the whole sentence, as it were. But the loud-quiet-loud approach worked great for The Pixies, so why not with BP?

I’ve been using the theremin more and more in my soundtrack work and it’s gratifying that more people are interested in these sounds. It should be said, I’m no Clara Rockmore–I have no interest in playing sonatas with my instrument. Call me the J.G. Thirlwell of the theremin and you’re barking up the right tree.

Come out on Saturday to Jerry’s to see what all the fuss is about.

–Joe Wallace