Electronic Musicians Don't Actually Perform Live - Fight Me

I'm probably going to piss a lot of people off here but help me understand.  What the fuck is up with live electronic music?

I enjoy a lot of electronic music but I just don't understand electronic music that is being performed live.  I mean, you made this music out of samples of other music and sounds by turning knobs and pressing buttons on your computer, so it's basically just you and your laptop playing shit through big speakers?  How is this  "live performance" any different from someone playing it on their ipod through a PA system?  

Some of these “artists” are self described as DJ’s.  I guess that’s fine but what do DJ's do? Traditionally they play records other people made so people can dance to them.  Some have better taste and can read a crowd to play what they might be into more.  I get that. But at no point did a DJ ever think they were a musician… or do they now?  This is where I get confused/irritated.  At what point does a DJ become someone who makes music and at what point does that music that is mostly pre-recorded sounds become something that can be performed live?  They don't sing or play instruments, typically.  What do they do, physically/musically at a live concert that requires a human to be there doing it?  I mean what if I made an album in my bedroom with drum machines and guitar apps and said come see my band perform live and it was just me and an iPad plugged into a PA system?  That would not go over well.  That's what electronic music performed live seems like to me. 

killin' it

The only thing I can honestly think of that they physically do in a live setting is adjust the knobs to boost intensity on certain parts, control the lights and start and stop different sounds or repeat certain parts that the crowd is into and stuff like that.  But mostly that to me is not much more than a DJ picking/blending songs in a booth at the roller rink.   A lot of that I’m sure takes skill and dexterity but are you performing actual music live?  

Help me out here.  Other than you getting off on being sweaty, high, geeking out to loud thumping dance music and being able to brag, and name-drop on Instagram, what do you get from seeing this kind of thing live that you can’t get from just someone playing their CD? 

Bjork for example. Her music is very electronic and she still did a MTV Unplugged that blew me away.  100% acoustic instruments. Traditional and very non traditional instruments playing the electronic stuff from her record.  I’m not sure if she has a live band at shows usually but this was incredibly artistic to me. 

Anyway, fuck me I don’t get it I guess.  You're all fucking stupid and I hate you. 

#fuddydutty

#oldperson

#Iplayrealinstruments 

#checkoutmyband

#getoffmylawn

My Band Did a Thing! 🎵

So this punk rock band I've been in for like 6 years, Dead Drift finally got off our butts and recorded some stuff.  We didn't want to spend any money so we used free recording software and started out by setting up our 3 crappy microphones to record my drums in Benji's attic where we used to practice.  Plugged the guitars into a computer and hit record.  Used the "good mic" for vocals and tracked and mixed it all using Garageband and mastered it with Audacity on a laptop.  It's not ideal but definitely a step up from the cover of Best Friend's Girl we did when we used the microphone that is built into the laptop.  I remember standing around the computer yelling into it to record vocals.  We've come a long way.  Still tho, we don't really know how to do a recording so we just kind of went for it and learned as we went along.  After about a year of back and forth, waiting and fucking around we finally got it all done.  It might just be because I've listened to it 1000 times in the last month trying to get the levels right but I think it turned out pretty fucking okay.  I doodled cartoon versions of us and slapped a logo on it for an album cover and put it on Bandcamp yesterday.  Our worldwide debut.  Give it a listen! 

We decided to sell it for "set your own price" so you can be a cheap bastard if you want but you also have the option to kick down a little to support us so we can like make shirts or buy a new microphone or something.  If you download the album as a whole album there's a secret bonus surprise!

Let me know what you think!