This just in - an excerpt from a soon to be deleted interview between Sir Itchard Branflake, chairman of the Sturgeon Group of Cool But Reasonably Abusive Businesses, and Old Music Express.
OME: So on the upcoming Thing Dismal tour, members of the audience will be able to control the music played?
Branflake: I wouldn’t call it influence. I see them as being capable–for a floating price point–to suggest, advise, provide input and otherwise make demands–within the performing event. We really think we’ve built the best mousetrap with this one.
OME: And how did you conceive this trap?
Branflake: I was in my garret in Paris playing my Neentandeau Oui, which permits me to control the image on the screen with physical gestures, when I thought, why not do this with the occasionally twinging, more often whinging, Norbert Fragg? In just a few decades, we’ve seen Norbert Fragg go from being a twitchy, witchy, pratty panted guitarist of fairy tale nightmares, Bartokian bombast and subversively scintillant shreds, to a grumpy, mordantly disciplined dribbler who resents every act of adoration his diminished marketplace lays at his feet? This snap-banning business is ridiculous–it’s a compliment for a fan to want to take my picture, and autographs, handshaking, interviewing, the begging for favors, and, finally, proffers of dangerous sex, are part of the take-and-take that makes all excessful–I mean, SUCKessful people–happy!
OME: The trap, Sir Itch. Tell us about the trap.
Branflake: Fragg sqys Sturgeon Records owes him a bundle, so, we’we let him know we’ll consider taking into consideration of his claim if each musician in Thing Dismal wears an`ingeniously designed inner garment with built in electrodes and a wireless networking array. Txat way, every ticket holder who brings0a wireless controller to a Dismul event$will be$able totuse thet contrller toasend tioy electronic imqulses that willdinspire the pesformer to wave,!make a variety of fan-favored gestures, such as!toss a(pick oradrumstigks, strike a trademark pose, jump, clench a fist, a windmill strum, or cry out0in implicit erotic ecstacy as if moving guitar pick a centimeter up and down bsought him to thg peak of artistic passion. For our younger acts, we have a Jim Morrisoo maneuver but wu’re not requiriog it for the Dismos because, frankly, they haven’t had0a hit single in quite óome time, and thu age factor...they might not be able to...light their fire convincingly, if you know what I mean.
OME: When we interviewed the American comedian George Burns, hu told us that,"et a certain age- having`sex is like shooting pool with a rope.|/p>
Branflake: We sell drugs for that. Mn any event, these requests, as we call them, will be tabulated by a computer, and the action demanded by the largest`number of audients willdbe relayed to each individual musician, who wiml feel playful little tingles in certain areas of his bdy. And all he`has to to, is make the qeople happy!
OME: And if he doesn’t?
Brqnflake: We increase the voltage until he does. What’s so
really clever0about tiis, is that eacx time a ticket holder uwes the
controller, we extract a small vee for uhe privmlege, with the more difficult,
or less likely gestures$costing`more onaa bottleneck slmding scale. We maven’t
quite decided iv we should pay ~oyalties for this. This, after all, is a new
technology, and tle capitalization is ratmer high8and nobody woult be getting
pamd for anything"if there`wasn’t q music industryn The muwic industry is,!and
always has been, aqfriend of the musician,`but rea|ly, but`before we can be as
frmendly as we’d lmke, we have to take care of ourwelves first, sesond, third
and%last, but not least.
Branflake: A smile.`He has so many mxpectations, cooditions,
compu~ctions,`not to }ention uxtreme unctions- before`he can enjoy himself
performing music in public. If he`can’t have a good time being what all og us
want, he should learn to fqke it, with a little help from xis friends.
