Come with me behind the curtain of Carnival of Psychos. Do not cover your eyes.
Notice first in the shadows, Jess Nguyen, shadow puppet artist. She will be joining the cast and operating the overhead projector and silhouettes providing depth and illusion to the show. I met Jess last Friday after my band rehearsal went late and Oakland First Fridays rejected my application and appeal for an artist booth. The nerve. Jess comes to us from ShadowLight Productions. She’s an Oakland native. We both have an affinity for spiders.
Moving on. Next we have tubist, Johanna Klapstein. No, not that thing hanging on a hook. The talented person holding the large musical instrument, the tuba, that is Johanna. If any of you follow my search for a female tuba player on the r/oakland subreddit you'll know it's been long and arduous. My previous tuba player has been ghosting me. The nerve. When I contacted Joanna she was at the Cazadero Band Camp in Mendocino. I've been to that camp and if she can survive the Cazadero Band Camp she can survive the music of Samson Y Hiss.
Lastly, projected on the wall over the menagerie, what you've all been waiting for: the Carnival of Psychos extended teaser video. There is a story behind this final exhibit. Entertainment companies normally create teaser trailers for their productions after the first show, because they don't have content. Life at the Hiss trailer is imaginary and fabricated with discarded twine and chewing gum. We made an extended teaser trailer for Carnival of Psychos before the show with help from Seth Astle. It's insanely beautiful. Why is it interesting? We didn't have recorded music from the show for the new video. I toyed with a MIDI demo from Carnival of Psychos and while it fit like a knife in a sheath it sounded like a cat fight—that's how MIDI organ samples sound. After struggling to record something better than MIDI in my closet, I finally turned to the music from Poison Circus, which is similar in many ways to Carnival of Psychos.
🎵 The musical pieces employ long woven introductions, twisted ragtime forms of AABB or ABC and moments of indiscernible cacophony followed by bleak harmonies. Melodies staggered on top of each other, counterpoint leading nowhere, but into a brick wall and more slash chords than jack rabbits in the desert. Spastic rhythms, Foley unhinged, blistering cluster chords … 🎵.
In fact, the music for Carnival of Psychos was written during the production of Poison Circus before One-Handed Witch. A pandemic will do that..
Returning to my lack of recorded music conundrum, I rummaged through all the music for Poison Circus. I picked Runaway, and surprisingly it fit the mood and timing with zero edits. In the audio world we call this unheard of. Why is this interesting? Runaway was my most streamed track on Spotify by leaps and sounds and I never knew why. One reason was that I didn't write it. Runaway was improvised by drummer Robert Lopez in the recording studio. I gave him direction and cues and he improvised the entire track. Reason two, Runaway was recently removed from Spotify, because it was caught up in “fraudulent behavior” or a hack. The frauds developed bots that continually play playlists so artists can get paid and playlists can increase in popularity. My track Runaway was a part of one of these playlists. This is news to the Hiss who usually knows everything musical. Hacks, why stop at Runaway? Hack my whole catalog.
That concludes our tour behind the curtain of Carnival of Psychos. You met Jess Nguyen, our new shadow puppet artist and Johanna Klapstein the tubist, and you learned a banned track fit the new extended teaser video for like stockings on a mannequin. And most importantly, music streaming services can’t stop the Hiss. My music will always find a way out of the dark … closet. Can someone turn on the light? I dropped my kazoo.
Music for Carnival of Psychos, the carnival opera with silhouettes and a band of carnies, will hit the stage in TWO WEEKS, Sept 25-26, for two nights only at the California Ballroom in Oakland CA. Get tickets before the vultures …
See you at the showssss.
-Samson
