Smoke tendrils slither
along the stage floor. The
keyboardist, clad in a blue
cape, conjures ear-busting
sound squalls while the singer,
enveloped in the sensory whirlwind,
sashays in place. Then, as if beamed
from a UFO, a bank of multicolored
lasers scan the crowd. An old Pink
Floyd fan’s acid flashback? Nope,
just another night’s work for Austin,
Texas electro-glam duo Ghostland
Observatory, whose total album sales
add up to a slow couple of months for
Dark Side of the Moon. But Ghostland’s
outlandish—and affordable—stage
show is no anomaly. Increasingly,
upstart indie acts are busting out
elaborate but fiscally responsible
live performances, complete with
handmade costumes, face-painting
that Gene Simmons might call garish,
trippy lighting, and jerry-built props.
For kindred spirits such as Apes &
Androids, Man Man, Dark Meat, Dan
Deacon, and others, the old paradigm
of plug in and play is about as enticing
as lip-synching.

“It’s disheartening to feel like you’re seeing the same four guys playing at every show,” explains folk rapper Tim Fite, whose performances include video projections and a giant flashing wooden boom box. “How many times have you seen a band stand still and headbang? If someone’s going to the trouble of paying to come see you play, why not go to the trouble of putting some thought into your show?”

It turns out that thought is pretty much all it takes to put on a tricked-out performance. Fite started designing stage props and video displays when he realized it was cheaper than hiring a band. Ghostland keyboardist Thomas Ross Turner can run his band’s laser show on the juice from a car battery. For less than the cost of a couple decent tickets to a Madonna

Ghostland Observatory: Living in the limelight, the universal dream

“People are discovering their inner peacock.”
KEVIN BARNES, OF MONTREAL

concert, New York glitzy futurists Apes & Androids create a neon, confetti, and papier-mâché extravaganza (see sidebar). And Toronto queercore outfit Tomboyfriend fashion pigeon masks from Bristol board and fake blood from Jell-O mix. In each case, the band’s creativity is their only serious constraint.

“Being able to buy 15 pounds each of plastic eyes and bouncy balls and 30 pounds of confetti isn’t the hard part,” says bassist Ben Clack of psychedelic Southerners Dark Meat. “What’s hard is coming up with the idea of stuffing those things inside giant plastic eggs and then throwing them against the ceiling so they’ll explode over the audience.”

And audiences are reacting in kind. “People are so used to staring at stuff on MySpace and You Tube and watching brain-dead reality TV that it’s easy to be amazing,” says hip-hop poet Saul Williams, who takes to the stage in a kaleidoscopic feather headdress and war-ready face paint. “If you decide to bring things up a notch, rather than down, the response is incredible. People are fucking wide-eyed.”

For some artists, the extra dollop of showbiz can even be an astute career move, particularly for greener acts whose songcraft might still need a little work. “If the music’s not great, the show becomes especially important. It’s what brings people back to see a band a second time,” says John Moore,

cofounder of New York City concert promotion company the Bowery Presents. “The days of indie-rock shoegazing are over. It’s not just the Tiëstos and Daft Punks that are taking the live show more seriously now.” Apes & Androids guitarist and singer David Tobias agrees: “With the death of CDs, it’s even more important that bands do something new onstage. The live show is the new album cover.” For Tobias’ band, that’s meant everything from handing out plastic kazoos so the crowd can play along to a cover of Gary Glitter’s “Rock & Roll Part 2” to having friends onstage in zombie makeup mimicking the dance steps from “Thriller.”

Of course, this being rock’n’roll, the current wave of low-budget showmanship is at least partly a reaction to the aesthetic austerity of the past decade—Death Cab for Cutie likely didn’t give GWAR any sleepless nights. “People are getting over the fascist mentality that says you have to wear certain clothes to show you’re genuine. People are discovering their inner peacock,” says Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes, whose band’s Bowie-gone-Bollywood bonanzas were an oft-cited inspiration for younger artists. “It’s more interesting to figure out how to do something cool with costumes or leaf blowers or balloons. That’s what’s in the zeitgeist now.”

While dizzying light shows, fantasy outfits, makeup, and exploding eggshells have turned many a small rock show into an eye-popping phantasmagoria, there’s still one thing that no amount of DIY ingenuity can overcome: cleaning up. “Playing a show where I’m spraying the audience with fake blood is amazing,” says Tomboyfriend main man Ryan Kamstra, before sighing. “But there’s something a little humiliating about scrubbing Jell-O off the floor at the end of the night.”

STEP 2 Build PVC tubing frame for hanging mask and route light fixtures for eyes.

STEP 1
Create a basic shape
out of cardboard.
Form details out of
crumbled newspaper
and tape.
Cover in newspaper
strips dipped
in wheat paste.
Once completely
covered, let dry.

STEP 3
Cover dried mask in
a base coat of gesso
(white primer).
Allow to dry.

STEP 4
Spray paint head
silver and mount on
PVC tubing frame/
body.

STEP 5
Cover head in shroud
to conceal crude
edges and plug in
lights for testing.
Your robot/monster
head is complete!
Transport head to
its new home—your
venue of choice.