If you’ve been keeping up with Upstate, you know about an incredible funk act from the Cape Cod area known as Funktapuss. The five-piece band has been slowly growing their fan base and making their name known through increased touring. After a late November stop in Buffalo, we tipped you off about how talented these guys really are. Bassist Brian Vanderbeek’s play is often times Wooten-esque and the other four are just as captivating. With the recent tour all wrapped up, the band is now set to record the material they’ve been compiling since their first release.
Announced last week, the funk five-piece launched a Kickstarter campaign, asking fans to help with the cost of recording the new album. This request isn’t coming without its fair share of return though, as the band will give away various prizes depending on your contribution. The prizes start at a free download of the new album and scale all the way up to having the opportunity to actually be on the album. There’s even a prize where the band will setup and play at your house (if you live close enough). This album can’t come soon enough as their inclusion of three new songs at their appearance in Buffalo showed substantial growth and an even deeper groove. Check out the Funktapuss Kickstarter page and help fund some new funk that I know will be well worth the investment.
Getting into this line of work happens serendipitously as told by each of these lighting directors. From being a sound engineer to following a band on tour, each took a different path and happened to be in the right place at the right time. Ryan started as a roadie for The Manhattan Project and says, “It started with learning their gear and how they liked it setup.” There were a lot of shows in that position until the band asked him to become the tour manager. Once each of them discovered lighting though, they were instantly hooked. Luke graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2009, with a focus on guitar performance. Despite all of that time spent on his degree, he says, “I get more out of lighting Dopapod, both personally and creatively, than I ever got out of playing the guitar.”
After that initial taste of photonic creativity, each went all in. Ryan says, “Every extra penny goes into my ‘new lights’ fund.” With that investment, lighting designers begin to develop a collection of tools to use, each with its own purpose. Johnny Goode says, “My go to piece of hardware would be my console; I wouldn’t do a Disco Biscuits show without it.” Luke on the other hand uses a bunch of MIDI controllers and various computers all hacked together. “It allows me to control the rig like an instrument”, he says. These tools begin to shape their style and how their shows are lit. Luke defines himself as using a “top down” approach. He says, “The music defines what I’m doing at all times.” Jefferson takes an artistic approach that pulls from his background in video editing. “I like to describe my style as graceful ballet with dramatic and ominous movements. When I used to edit video, I would put things in slow motion because it felt powerful. Now when the band is playing a million notes per second, I think it’s equally powerful to have a slow moving light rig.” And just as two guitarists can use the same three chords, yet sound different, two LD’s can use the same three colors, but create a completely different atmosphere.
Since the jam scene is driving this, an additional hurdle for the lighting designer is the spontaneous nature of improv that most bands use within their live shows. Where lighting a rehearsed song eventually becomes part of muscle memory, improv adds the possibility of variance. Those nightly musical changes make it next to impossible for the lights to run on auto pilot. Jefferson says, “Because it’s happening in real time, I can be an active participant in that process.” Additionally, varying setlists only compounds the problem. Ryan Bress says, “Knowing a bands music is huge. You can’t depend on a setlist because a band will change it up last minute or even during a set.” Luke from Dopapod only uses one sequence at the moment; the rest of the time he says, “I’m playing the lighting designer’s equivalent of notes, chords and riffs instead of just pressing play.”
With all of this at their fingertips, there’s a lot of room for creativity and endless combinations of color and movement. The key is control and patience though as you don’t want to show your entire hand within the first two songs. Even new LDs understand that point. Ryan says, “If you give away all that your rig has to offer right off the bat, then you have nothing to deliver when the music gets more intense.” Luke echoes a similar point saying, “I usually get through a two-set show using only 75% of my cues and effects. I kind of treat it like a guitar and only use one effect or look in a specific song.” Jefferson Waful explains, “If the band is doing a ten minute improv, I’ll do nine and a half minutes of slow graceful movements. I’ll wait to throw in strobes and additional lights at the very end, otherwise you can lose the audience’s interest.”
As the lights fade, your senses come back down from overload. Music’s deep resonation has found a perfect match in the visual space the lights play in. The show’s temporary nature makes the combined effort more of a traveling work of art; setting up only to tear down again. The role of the lighting designer is only going to grow from here, leaving a legacy that’s equally important as the guys with instruments. There might be a sensory difference with what an LD brings to the table, but their absence would certainly leave the band in the dark.
