- Songband
- May 26
- 4 min read
Updated: 3 hours ago
We miss playing on Twitch!
As you may know, Twitch (twitch.tv) is a live-streaming platform for video games and all kinds of creative content. There's a lot of stuff that’s not exactly up my alley, but if you poke around enough, you can find some pretty cool things.
Not to be confused with Twitch, the cover band we played with for a while soon after we moved to Berlin.
When the pandemic hit, we weren't allowed to play out anymore, and Lis decided that we had to figure out live-streaming. It turned out that if you wanted to have decent audio and video, it wasn't as easy as hitting the "go live" button. Neither of us are what you might call computer hackers, so overcoming the technical hurdles was very challenging, and is probably why we're only playing offline at the moment. We got it all working for a while, but when some of the software updated itself, and we were informed that our operating system was not compatible, we were effectively locked out.
In the end, we did eighty-five live streamed shows from my living room. The first time was pretty overwhelming, even dislocating. One minute we were rehearsing as we always have, with just the two of us present, and then the next minute, one of us hit the "go live" button, and we could be seen and heard from anywhere on earth with an internet connection. At first, no one was watching - we hadn't announced anything, because we wanted some time to work out the kinks. We'd been told not to expect any viewers for our first few streams. Within minutes, though, we could see a little "1" by the viewer counter. Someone, we didn't know who, was listening to our music and watching us make it. Kinda creepy in a way, because we couldn't see or hear them.
What we could do was interact via a chat window, and soon we were having friendly interactions with folks who wanted to say they were enjoying the music and to make requests. Sometimes they would tip us electronically. It was hard to fathom in a way - folks parting with their hard-earned cash without being pressured to do so, and giving it to people whom they'd never really met or with whom they'd never even been in the same room. These generous folks just really wanted to support the music that they liked, and the people who entertained them.
We were also able to reconnect with people we hadn't seen or heard from for years, which was amazing.
Performing on Twitch was the most intense multi-tasking I've ever had to do. Not only did we have to do the usual concentrating to play the music itself, but there were multiple screens to keep our eyes on so we could note incoming song requests, while simultaneously keeping track of the conversations going on in the chat, and being sure to acknowledge any tips we were getting, and making sure various other technical do-dads and bells and whistles were functioning as they should. For the first twenty streams we did, I got an intense headache right afterwards, and I'm not generally prone to headaches at all. It got to the point where my pre-show ritual included making sure I had something to drink within arm's reach as well as taking preventive ibuprofen. Eventually, I got better at handling the pressure, and was able to relax in a way that allowed me to play drug- and headache-free.
One of the best things about playing on Twitch was making connections with people from around the world who would tune in when we were playing online. It had a real community feeling, seeing folks getting to know each other in the chat as we all took part in what was happening live, but physically distant from one another. Fellow streamers were some of the most supportive audience members. There were so many, including the Scottish singer Scott Watson (twitch.tv/scottjameswatson), Memry Laine (twitch.tv/memrylaine) - an Indonesian couple living in Dubai, the garage rock duo who called themselves Socially Distant Canada (twitch.tv/the_socially_distant) on Twitch, the English shred guitar master Steve Forward (twitch.tv/steveforward), the sometimes musical but usually more visually- and verbally-oriented CivicTV83 (twitch.tv/civictv83), who actually had us as guests on his talk show, the musically and visually talented Crackmother, who pivoted to calling herself thenewfitness (twitch.tv/thenewfitness) , as she works out to vintage VHS exercise tapes and sweats along with the likes of Richard Simmons while cursing and pausing to take bong rips.
I think everyone had a crush on clever and creative singer-songwriter Morgan Grace (twitch.tv/morgangracetv), who was a big inspiration for us.
Just Rob Hounddog (twitch.tv/justrobhounddog) plays accordion and organ, and is one of the nicest guys on the platform.
King Korgan (twitch.tv/kingkorgan) was my Twitch musical hero. At the height of the pandemic, he was doing three three-hour shows a week, and I did my best to stay up late to catch as many of them as I could. He played a vintage organ (sometimes ripping on guitar at the same time), sang great, and had rigged up a time machine that took him from decade to decade so he could play the best stuff from the 60s through the 80s, all with a winsome smile that wouldn’t quit. We actually got to meet up in person when he came through town while on tour, and he didn’t disappoint!
I’m leaving out many others who both entertained and supported us, and we miss them all!
Maybe at some point we’ll get back to doing some streaming…
Here’s our channel: https://www.twitch.tv/songband
This has actually been just a long-winded way of preparing to share some clips from our live streams, which we’ll be posting on social media. Hope you enjoy them!
