[ATTENDED: May 17, 2018] Kid Koala’s Vinyl Vaudeville
I have been a fan of Kid Koala since the early 2000s. He’s not a DJ so much as a magician on the turntable. He is able to make vinyl do amazing things. His hands are fast, his timing is impeccable and he uses puppets too!
But I had no idea that his live show would be so much fun. I mean, sure it was called Vinyl Vaudeville, but could it live up to his calling it “the silliest show on earth?” Well, I dispute the silliness aspect because silly implies that it’s not also awesome, which this definitely was.
So what exactly does a turntablist do so it’s not just a guy scratching records?
Well, primarily he uses props. Almost every song has a visual element. In fact the very first song started out in total darkness with a black light and a sloth puppet. I don’t know what the song was called or if it had anything to do with sloths, but it was fun to watch.
There were plenty more puppets where that came from. Like the human-sized trombone players that flanked the stage during “Skanky Panky.” It was really cool to see the performers manipulate these more giant puppets so well.
There were also puppets that I feel like could have been used even more. Like this big creature on the right who came out for a minute and was gone.
In addition to the puppeteers, he also had human burlesque dancers! And it turned out to be Adira Amram & The Experience! They had several different costumes that they wore throughout the show, creating a really fun stage presence.
They also carried props (like this oversized synth) and sandwich pieces (see below).
In addition to playing his own music, Kid Koala also curated some other music as well. “It’s my show and I wanna play some Beastie Boys!” In fact, he played the Beasties twice.
I love that he is so confident in his spinning ability that he doesn’t even hide the fact that he’s cueing up records as he gets ready to spin them. In fact, the backwards spin seems to be part of the fun.
Indeed, what was so cool was how great the audio was by itself. He reproduced songs perfectly (or as “perfect” as a live song should be). One example was “Drunk Trumpet.” This was the first song I’d ever heard by him and I loved it. I was thrilled that he did it live. He said it was dedicated to Louis Armstrong. As he started the turntable, a suitable jazz song began. And then a gigantic eight foot trumpet came out and started “playing” along.
But I was much more interested in what he was doing. I couldn’t believe the way he was manipulating that record to make those sounds. He used two hands on the record to slow it down to make the drunken sound. It was so cool! I saw him after the show and he told me that the record he manipulates is an old brass instrument sampler for music classes–gold in his profession.
About half way through the show, he mentioned Yo Gabba Gabba and how he did a song for that show. When he was invited to go on tour with the show, his wife asked what he would wear. He said a hoodie and jeans, his DJing outfit. She said he would scare the kids. So she made him a koala outfit. Which he then wore for the rest of the show. He played the song from Yo Gabba Gabba and we all rocked out like we were kids: “open!” “closed!”
Perhaps the coolest use of puppets came when the large birds came out on stage and started “playing” a drum machine. It was perfectly in synch and was really funny as well, the way the birds were “exploring” the machine.
At one point it kind of felt like they had run out of time and needed to show us all of the puppets. I really wanted to see these back up singers do their work. And there was this robot who I feel is the quintessential Kid Koala puppet. But he was only on stage for a minute or so and didn’t really do anything.
But that’s okay because there was always another puppet! Like the headbangers who came out to thrash during the Slayer segement. (I am totally serious, I only wish the lighting was a little better.).
Earlier I mentioned the best part, but it’s possible the best part was actually the Octopus DJ. Kid Koala said that he was making a mockumentary and wanted to film us dancing to the Octopus DJ. First he filmed us as the puppet DJ played some awesome beats. Then he told us that he couldn’t afford the high-def cameras for when it got slowed down to half speed. So we would have to dance half-speed for the camera. And the octopus played some more, this time at half speed. It was great how everyone complied.
Kid Koala hadn’t formally released an album since 2012’s 12 Bit Blues. (More on the new release in a moment). So he played a few songs from that album. One of which inspired these burlesque costumes with the fun dance and choreography from Adira Amram & The Experience.
Then he told us that his daughter said “Papa, you know a lot of DJs are using laptops these days.” We all booed and he yelled at us for booing his daughter. But then he admitted that he had written a song entirely on the laptop. And of course, it had props too.
One of the most impressive things (aw heck, it was all impressive) was his mother’s favorite song. He played “Moon River” and dedicated it to all of the 60-year-old women in the audience. He started by playing the song on two (or three) turntables, slowing it down and scratching it up to get it perfectly in synch. And then, he “played a solo” using only the vinyl–placing the needle in exactly the right spot to make the solo sound right. It was jaw dropping.
One of the last songs he played was from 12 Bit Blues: “8 Bit Blues (Chicago to NY to LA).” This song is notable for the samples of “213 to 312” the area code joke that makes me smile every time. But I was even more impressed to see him getting those numbers correct by manipulating the vinyl of someone obviously counting 1, 2, 3. That’s amazing.
Adira & The Experience came dressed out as Airline Hostesses caring a box from Koalairlines. The box contained hundreds of paper airplanes, which they proceeded to throw all around the audience. Who would have thought that paper airplanes could bring so much joy to people.
For the encore, Adira & The Experience brought out a box of kazoos. They threw them to the audience (the guy next to me had one fall pretty much in his lap). And after giving a demonstration of how to kazoo, they invited two people up on stage to have a competition. I thought that was really fun, but I had no idea how into it these two guys would be. I imagined a little kazoo playing. But kazoo challenger #1 laid down the gauntlet and kazoo challenger #2 was not afraid to pick it up.
It was so much fun.
I was sad to have the show end, especially since I can’t imagine when he’ll be touring again, but I would definitely love to see him live again and bring all my friends.
I was in the balcony for the show (I was more interested in watching him work than whatever the show was like on the floor). So I did not get to participate in the conga snail in which everyone conga’d around the room in smaller circles until they were spinning like a record. (A conga snail queen was announced as well). At the very end two of the puppets came up to the balcony to dance with us.
So it turns out that Kid Koala does have a new audio release out. It is the soundtrack to a video game called Floor Kids (hence the weird name of the show). Floor Kids is a break dancing video game which you can download for PS4, Switch and Steam. He played a few pieces from the record, but even more interesting is that he had some video games set up that we could play. The lines were too long so I didn’t but it was neat to see the games in action–I love the visual style.
I have had a lot of fun at a lot of different shows over the years but I have never had this kind of fun. It was awesome.
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