I had a lot of fun at this show. Many of my friends and family had known I played for years. However they had never actually seen it. So it was a nice and warm audience that stood behind me that night.

I started preparing the Retro Live show way back in January 2009. I've always been told that I sounded 80's and like my heroes Howard Jones and similar 80's synth pop icons. I used to get kind of annoyed by that. My good friend and fellow seasoned entertainer, Joey C. Jones, told me that I should be honored to be compared to such icons. After hearing that I kind decided to go after that era of sound for at least a little while and just have fun with it.

The main key thing for me to do to keep things simplified was to eliminate the use of a computer for sequencing. I took my best songs and stripped away the massive layers of sounds. The new-old or Future-Retro versions of these songs would consist of a primitive drums machine sound with limits of just kick, snare, toms, claps, hats, cymbal and agogo. I painstakingly programmed these sounds to mimic the 1983 EMU Drumulator (http://www.vintagesynth.com/emu/drumulator.php). The sequenced notes would emulate a pair of 1980 Sequential Circuits Pro Ones (http://www.vintagesynth.com/sci/seqpro1.php). One for bass and one for phrase sequences.

That is it, in terms of what's going on underneath what is being physically played.

Each song would get 2-5 pre-programmed patterns or phrases consisting of 2-4 measures. Very simple programming. Because in those days memory was scarce. I wanted to apply similar limits to my programming. Phrases would be assigned to the lower keys of a Roland XP-60. By utilizing Roland's RPS (Realtime Phrase Sequencing) technology, any intro, verse, bridge, chorus or solo could be arranged live in realtime and kept in synchronization via the internal clock of the keyboard's sequencer.

In addition to these already stark old sounds, I spent a great deal of time creating custom patches to emulate pads, strings, etc.... from late 70's and early 80's synthesizers. Roland already has an extensive library of vintage synths in their SR-JV expansion series for the JV/XP family of workstations. I just like to tweak them a bit more.

I use a Roland JP-8000 for the thick bass chops and lead stuff. There is a preset called Dual Minis that I suppose represents to Mini Moogs. This required no programming. Lovely.

Last, I took a Novation K-Station and created a Moog Prodigy lead that I'm still trying to perfect.

All of January I programmed and began practicing. On February 7th I did my first live audition in front of a few friends to get a feel for how it would go. I filmed myself so I could find out if I was staying tucked away behind the keyboards and neglecting the audience. As any good performer knows, you have to work the audience. People want to be entertained and that was/is my focus.

Having said all of that, September 18th at Liquid Lounge in Dallas, TX was my first performance of Retro Live and the 'Big Deal' album release show.

Everyone seemed to have a good time. I like to be true and tell what my experience was like as well.

Intro and 'What's All This Confusion For?'
I had Joey introduce me and execute the verse phrase. That all worked great. My voice felt good and all of the music was going to plan until I executed the bridge phrase. The internal sequencer clock was never started. With the clock going, one phrase will finish the last measure before switching to the new phrase. Without the clock it will start the next phrase immediately when pressed. In the midst of putting on a performance it was a subtle 'What just happened?' in my mind but didn't fully realize what was going on until the second time it happened going into the first chorus. I'm sure no one cared or even really noticed. But if you listen to the recording of that night, you will hear what I mean. You can't fix something like that in the middle of the song. Well, I didn't want to attempt to. So, I coped with it. I think it worked out really well regardless.

'First Thought, Last Thought'
Everything went smooth even if I did cross a few lyrics. I think someone told me that night that this song reminded them of Thomas Dolby.

'Tortured'
I must have gone through my set at home dozens of times. I forgot to bring my set list to the show and drew a blank on stage and had to act quick. It was very dark on the stage and the light was making it hard to see the display on the XP-60 (main board). I hadn't planned on playing Tortured and loaded it by mistake. I thought I had loaded up 'Thoughts of the Day'. So, when the song started I was playing B Flat Minor over a backing sequenced programmed in B Minor. This must have sounded terrible. Not sure if anyone noticed. I was disoriented for a moment. I sang through a few lyrics long enough to get my bearings on the situation and made the transition to the correct key. I just felt like stopping and moving on. However, the natural flow of 'Tortured' allowed me to finish smoothly even though prematurely.

Howard Jones' 'No One Is to Blame'
To clear my head and get a fresh start I decided to go over to the piano and play a song the audience would be familiar with. I think everything went ok. My performance was hindered slightly by a foot pedal plugged into the wrong place. It was meant for sustain but was plugged into sostenuto. So, instead of getting those long angelic notes, they became very short and plucky. I had to overcome this by playing differently. Funny looking back, because earlier that night on the dark stage I had made a comment to my brother that I didn't know why the piano had two sustain inputs. SUST and SOST is hard to see the difference.

'Here Comes the Man'
This, of course was the highlight of the show and the song I was most eager to play. When I first wrote the song and the lyrics, I imagined performing it on the Liquid Lounge stage. Everything went perfect. The K-Station patch I had going was supposed to have this mono synth with a very long decay. For some reason with the Roland AX-1 shoulder keyboard plugged in, there was no decay at all. It still worked well enough and the audience were very receptive to the barefoot man plunging into the audience playing the Egyptian theme and 'Oh! Susanna'.

'Thoughts of the Day'
Finally, my favorite song from 'Big Deal' went over spectacularly.

Information Society's 'Tomorrow'
I probably shouldn't have even said anything to the audience about this being an INSOC song. I think they were expecting 'What's On Your Mind? (Pure Energy)'. Maybe there was a die hard in the audience that knew the song. Anyway, I think I lost the audience towards the middle. I threw in some Thomas Dolby 'She Blinded Me with Science', Gary Numan 'Cars', Harold Faltermeyer 'Axel F' (Beverly Hill's Cop Theme) and Howard Jones 'What Is Love?'.

'Stranded on the Moon'
With my set list completely improvised I had about 4 minutes left to play and pulled out this song that my friend, Robby likes because of the lyrics and a private joke about the song's literal meaning. This song brought the third 'I really liked that one. You should do more like it.' from someone in the audience that I didn't already know. This song is still a work in progress and I don't think I've ever played it the same way twice.

So, that's how it was for me. People were really cool and so were the club staff. Refreshed and encouraging. I think once again, it worked excellent from the audience POV. At least the feedback was positive. But, there's a lot going on that people can't see or ever understand. I'm finding new ways to disconnect myself from trying to get it all perfect. I just want to do everything I can to deliver the best entertainment to those who are willing to make the trip out to see me.

Thanks again to all of those who could make it and to all of those who helped make it a great event.

Jerry

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