Audience participation in music

Einsturzende Neubauten had a subscription program through their web site through which subscribers could watch and listen to the band’s studio sessions and then leave comments in a forum. So essentially they were letting their fans have a say in the album before it was completed. This wouldn’t work for a lot of bands, but it makes sense for Neabauten. Pigface should do this as well.

Some things Pigface have done: let audience members call up and leave messages on the office answering machine for use in an album (Feels Like Heaven, Smells Like Shit) and more recently let fans send in tapes and CD-Rs of them saying “fuck [something]” to be collaged on a Pigface record (not sure if that stuff ever got used). Also, they let fans vote online for which songs they wanted to hear on the “best of” album.

I was thinking, someone could setup an audblog and have people upload sounds from their cell phone to be used in collage or glitch projects. Or, mixed live at a laptop gig. I don’t know how modern programs like Buzz or Fruity Loops work, but it would be pretty simple to use an old tracking program (like Impulse Tracker or Mod Plug Tracker) and create some “patterns” in advance and then download samples using a venue’s wifi connection during the show and then plug them into the song. A soundtrack of the world in almost real time.