contact
- watson at watsonsound dot ws
- Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/watsonsound
- Facebook: facebook.com/pages/Watson/111363992215940
- Twitter: twitter.com/watsonsound
- Myspace: myspace.com/watsonsounds
- Vimeo: vimeo.com/wat
about
Watson is Frank Watson Rose IV. Currently living in Santa Fe, NM, he (I?) began making music of the electronic variety after discovering the monome in 2009. The sheer audacity of creating a device that dosent actually do anything was what impressed him (me?) so much. I (he?) started making music at age 10 after picking up a guitar, quitting, and learning drums. He has played in bands in Seattle and Houston, from grunge to punk to ska with names such as The Housewives Choice, Toilet Bowl C Monkeys, The NicOteens, and Tu Madre. Frank eventually moved on to hand drums and then left music entirely to pursue an art degree. Now, having burnt off that particular karma, it's time to make some noise!
shows
Brad Smith Gallery, 714 Canyon Rd., Free
Venue TBA
Venue TBA
Easy Credit, 316 Main St.; 21+
Venue TBA
Venue TBA
Santa Fe Complex, 624 Agua Fria St., $10 suggested donation, $5 students, no one turned away, all ages
Monome Community
So I’ve been involved in the monome community for almost a year now. I discovered the monome after stumbling upon the Tenori-On. It was a revelation to think about music making in a more visual way. However, the Tenori is quite limited in that you have only a certain amount of functions and small sound bank. It has also had some issues with synchronization which may or not be resolved. These limitations led me to the monome which is just the opposite. One could say that it actually does nothing in and of itself. The software and hardware of the monome has been open-sourced so that anyone who can program can write applications to utilize the monome in some way. One can also build their own with the right parts.
This attitude attracts some pretty great people who make up this community, most of whom make their music available for free online. Here are a few good, recent examples:
-Maersk
-Making the Noise
-% and galapagoose
-GLIA
Recently, a member of the monome community, Pau Cabruja (pauk) and his wife Lara stayed with Kara and I for a few nights. They live in Girona, Spain and are traveling cross country on holiday. I was able to arrange a gig in Santa Fe at our Tuesday nights sessions. Really, really great to say the least. It was probably the most intese music I’ve ever seen performed at the cowgirl. Here’s a video of his last performance in Barcelona:
We had a wonderful time. We had a little mini “monomeet” with another artist here in Santa Fe. We hooked up all our devices in all their geeky glory.
Three 256’s = 768 from watson on Vimeo.
This same kind of easy camaraderie has led to the monome community tour taking place in September. In a relay style sort of tour, a member in each city will organize the show and various members will play one show, maybe more. I’ll be playing gigs in Austin, Houston, Boulder, Denver, Santa Fe and hopefully Boston and NYC. Lima, Peru is also on the agenda.
Also, I’m working on a space-themed EP with a monomer, i am genko, who is based in Lima. Should be cool.