Roth Mobot Experimental Electronics Events

via the Roth Mobot Newsletter:

1.Crowdsourced 1.0 @ The Empty Bottle

Sunday, April 10, 2011, 7:00 - 10:00 PM

The Empty Bottle, 1035 N Western Ave., Chicago, $3

Photo by Scott Rettberg

To the unfamiliar, "crowdsourced" means that the content that is the most popular "rises to the top" via votes--as in, the crowd chooses what's the most relevant. Threadless is a good example: only the designs that are voted hottest actually make it to production.

Electronic music fans and supporters were asked to vote on a number of submissions from Chicago artists to determine the lineup for a night of entertainment at the Empty Bottle. Approximately 600 online-votes later, the results were in, and the top four acts were picked, and will perform in order of the number of votes received.

Crowdsourced 1.0 Lineup:
dreamlogicc 9:15pm
Protman 8:30pm
Roth Mobot 7:45pm
Polyfuse 7:00pm

2.Tim Kaiser & Roth Mobot, Live @ TRANSISTOR

Photo by Tom Young

Friday, April 22, 8 PM
TRANSISTOR, 5045 N. Clark St., Chicago
$5 suggested donation ~BYOB~

TRANSISTOR presents experimental circuit bent performers Tim Kaiser and Roth Mobot. According to Art Tape, "Tim Kaiser not only creates compelling musical soundscapes, but he does it all with instruments he has built -- truly hand-made music for the atmospheric aficionado." Says Kaiser, “My music is atmospheric; I’m not as concerned with melody or rhythm as I am with texture and feeling… …perhaps I’m creating a kind of folk music from the future.” (Source: Theatre Intangible interview with Tim Kaiser). More of Tim's work at www.TimKaiser.org.

Roth Mobot's Patrick McCarthy and Tommy Stephenson have been transforming music composition from an activity of composition and "correct duplication" to exploration and "sonic discovery" with their strategically improvised "recursive jazz" performed on home made experimental and circuit bent devices since 2005. More at www.RothMobot.com.

3.The Boys & Girls Club of America

Photo by Michael T. Kennedy, Ph.D.

Recently Roth Mobot was invited by Northwestern University to give one of their lecture/demonstrations of experimental musical instrument construction to a the local Science Club chapter of the Boys and Girls Club of America.

Patrick explained the principles of constructive failure, acoustic exploration, and rudimentary experimental electronics hacking to a group of approximately twenty students and their teachers.


4.Roth Mobot Written Up in the DuPage Courier

The College of DuPage's student newspaper, the Courier, recently published an interview with Tommy and Patrick in their Arts section. It's a nice write up, focusing on our approach to music, our re-purposing of discarded technology, and our academic focus on community building.