This video captures a live performance by The Crystal Method (Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland) in the studios of KCRW.
Formed in 1993, The Crystal Method started out in native Las Vegas (and some forgettable four-track stabs at vocal jazz music), but found their home in the early-’90s L.A. rave scene.
it all sounds like the theme tune to NCIS (which they composed) I think they haven’t changed in style much since the 90’s and thats a bit sad..
exactly why are you required to change?
Admin: Personal attack deleted. Please keep your comments on topic and constructive.
alright – apparently using a real world example of why change is good is considered a personal attack…
i bet y’all hate that people don’t think the world is flat anymore, either
You change so as to show personal growth worth hearing rather than becoming a bloated parody of yourself. You change because it would be a real shame to use a synthesizer for the same thing for years, never reaching for anything more than just slicker production values. You change because you get restless with the Same Ol’ and wish to use your synthesizer as more than an audio peter pump. You change so you do not become stale.
Actually, they weren’t the ones that did the theme for “NCIS” but they did do the theme for “Bones” and I believe “almost human”.
Very good performance…
1.But if you play live, please do not use vocal samples, only live vocal, if you need vocal.
2. Yes you are old, but if you play live, you do not looks like old, and life is over.
3. If Iguitarist play live, but not gutar sounds, only synthesizer, this is minimum strange.
Vocal samples and live vocals are not for the same use. They use samples for a specific voice sound and manipulate it realtime. They also can’t hire a vocalist for every different sound bite like one guy for just a “yeah” and a girl for a female “yeah”. Samples are used for the specific touch they give. I’ve seen bands like Death In Vegas or Coldcut who don’t mind playing live their own videoclips with the studio vocals instead of having the vocalist on stage (but that would still be at least 5 different ones), so, I’m happy I’m watching, for free, a band using samples AND a live vocalist, no wait! A female AND a male vocalist, AND a bass player. Yes, he’s a bass player and we can hear him a lot. Regarding the looks, I don’t know… Maybe they could hire young hot dudes pretending to play their instruments at their place? Kidding!
I didn’t see them yet but there’s ALSO a guitar player we can clearly hear in the second half, AND a drummer. Amazing vocals, by the way! Nice intrusion of a rock and roll voice and guitar into acid. Any chance this can be made available for mp3 download? Pweaaase (insert puppy eyes icon here).
And since this is a synth freak website, (why I’m here), can someone tell what they use, beside the obvious Nordlead and Casio XW-G1?
enjoy these guys.
is that danny lohner on bass?
sweet
i believe it is. Lohner posted on twitter the other week that he was playing live with them.
Oddly enough i don’t hear anything radically different to what they where doing 10 or so years ago.
If anything it’s exactly the same with a slightly more contemporary production aesthetic.
The live elements definitely help with the groove and feel of the arrangements but and this material would probably translate a lot better away from a studio environment and out in front of an actual audience.
To the above poster – your definition of old is a little bit disconcerting.
Old to me would mean you know, elderly as in, in your 70’s.
Plenty of young folk tie just as lack lustre a performance and how many ties can you watch someone pushing play and faking delusions of grandeur with phantom knob steaks and eq sweeps.
I personally don’t like a lot of brash mid-range (frequency wise) production that seems to be all in vogue these days and its something they’ve clearly adopted here but each to their own.
They’ve obviously rehearsed this rather tightly as unit – clearly a lot work went into this.
It’s more a step sidewise and than an evolutionary leap for them, the tracks in the +30 minute mark “Play for Real” for example where probably done better and in a similar vein on Depeche Mode’s Songs of Faith and Devotion back in the day but I digress……..
Saw those guys play live few years ago, they were pretty good, liked them better than their studio work.
Saw them do a dj set and they really sucked!
that one guy holding that one key, wangin on that nord leads knobs like its hired haha
What happened to the M-Audio Venom they were singing the praises of not so long ago? 😉
Wow, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with most of the guys posting on this but I, for one, am *incredibly* relieved that Scott seems to have made a full recovery, I can’t wait to see what else CM come up with, and I’m very happy to get to see how they work their live rig. Keep on kicking ass guys!
Thanks for posting this video, I for one really enjoyed it.
I think I had to pay a large upgrade fee to enable all of Live 8’s built-in instruments, but Bitwig seems to include them in the box, which is nice.
blast, something went wrong and this ended up on the wrong page – sorry! 🙁
“And the power of their source…The Crystal!”
Anytime I’m in the mood to see somebody put in their place, I can always rely on the comments area of this forum. To be doing everything the stale old fashioned way, they sure have been hella successful with cd sales and television work. I wish I could come close to being as good as a failure as they are. My bank account could use it. If CM had deviated from their original recipe to conform to what today’s supposed “in” crowd thinks is cool, there would be an equal sized group calling them a sellout. You can’t win…..oh wait….they did! Thanks for the post.