Q & A

Q: I’m a little confused. Apparently you’ve done concerts in rock venues, in kindergardens, AND played for seniors? Who are your target audience?

A: Humans. Human beings.

Q: Aha? Ok, let me rephrase, do you have a different show when you play for a hungry mob of students than when you play for two year old kids?

A: You would be surprised how similar the two shows are. However, we do make certain adjustments to be sure we’re on the same wavelenght as our soon-to-die or just-born-need-breast-feeding audiences such as more storytelling and lower sound for the young, and a bit harder more clubby feel for the grown ups. Ah, it’s just peace, love and understanding anyway, - what’s so funny about that?

Q: I’ve also heard that you have a shadow puppet group. Are they always travelling with you? What do they do?

A: Seeing as we sing in norwegian they help us get the stories across to audiences abroad, but in general they enhance the whole live show with their mix of data animation and shadow puppets. We prefer having them with us, and they usually are, if they’re not getting married or having babies etc. etc.

Q: Oh, we’ve only reached the fourth question and I already understand much more. Thank you! Except for that part about “human beings” being the target audience, I really really would prefer a target audience. I get so easily freaked out if I can’t link music to a target audience.

A: Calm down. This is our job, this is what we do, trust us. We’re just keeping kids off the streets, nothing to get freaked out about.

Q: And what about these work-shops that you do? What projects have you been involved with, and what did you set out to achieve?

A: Well, so far we’ve been involved with two different work-shop models. We’ve done a work-shop in the centre of Bergen to celebrate the death of famous Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg (yep, 100th anniversary of his death), where we made music played out through a large wall of grass. The installation/work-shop was built in collaboration with Bergen Art Academy, and made as a homage to Grieg for being the world’s first “sampler” seeing as he incorporated musical references to Norwegian folk music and nature sounds in his works. What we did was sample passers-by and city sounds which we then played out through speakers in the grass wall to make it seem like the music came out of the grass itself.
At the Sous La Plage Festival in Paris 2007 we set up a playground for kids and made music on a musical workstation with speakers put up inside the playground. Small microphones were attached to the different toys, and a trampoline became a bass drum, looping the sound of a jumping ball turned into a funny rhythm, rattling from a helter-skelter became a small melody +++. The idea was that the kids would fool around with the different toys for themselves later to realize that they’ve actually made music whilst playing in the playground. You’ll find a lot of amazing footage on this done by photographer Sandra Jecmenica at our myspace. We’ll do a similar work-shop at Festspillene in Bergen late may 2008.

Q: So, let’s say I’m an arranger of a festival. Can I book Casiokids show for grown-ups, a kids show AND a work-shop?

A: We can do it, we have done it, and we’d love to do it again. Our dear manager and booking agent Chris Wareing will happily take this offer and bring it to us. Then we’ll have to look at a number of practical and logistical questions like finding a suitable location and maybe also adapt the work-shop part to the different individual requirements of the venue or festival.

Q: Can I book you as DJs as well? What kind of music do you play?

A: Sure! We can DJ! It’ll probably be a lot of pop and electro stuff, music we’re influenced by or music we just love: New wave stuff, afro-techno, space-disco and Jens Lekman-ish pop (pop you can shout hurray to). We’ll also bring a couple of microphones and some synths and do some Casiokids MC-ing, as well as play on a couple of our own tracks.

Q: I love you!

A: Go home. That wasn’t a proper question anyway.