Carrie Gates DJing at the Connect Festival Chill Stage on Saturday Night

Sound Art and DJing

Since 1994, my sound art practice has included experimental turntablism performances, electroacoustic music improvisation with contact microphones, and DJing late night glitch and freaky beats at raves and music festivals.

While DJing under the name “The Lady Gates” (aka “The Lady Gates Experience”, as named by DJ Deko-ze) I hosted an all-night radio show called “Deep Nocturnal Trance Missions” (DNTM) on CFCR 90.5 FM for about 8-9 years.

There is much, much more to tell :)

It’s rare for me to do live music performances anymore (since I discovered VJing!), but I thought I would leave a digital paper trail for your research pleasure and to remind myself that I really should post some more of my archives from that era here sometime!

You can find some of my other releases of experimental music, turntablism, and live DJ performances from the 90s and 2000s on places like Archive.org, BricoLodge (the net.label I used to run with Jon Vaughn [more info soon]), noType, Panospria, non-Capable Records, electrocd, Discogs, Soundcloud, MUTEK, and in all sorts of fabulous other places that aren’t coming to mind right at the moment. Hmmm…I wish I would have backed up that one old huge hard drive of these archives before it died on me. Back your data up twice, since we can’t do backups of our brains yet, ok everyone?

Please drop me a line if you have any recordings of my music or pics from my shows over the 10-15 kazillion years I was DJing Hawaiian music and breakcore at raves, mixing 60s experimental music with Fisher Price turntables, or making contact microphones out of doorbell buzzers to amplify glass ashtrays and balloons!

Latest Live Music Performance

Combining visual elements with sound and performance art has always been my jam, so there is usually some crazy theme to the performance that takes it far beyond what most people would generally call “DJing” these days.

Lady Gates at the 20 Year Reunion Rave

The most recent DJing / sound art performance I did was in July of 2019 for Saskatoon’s “20 Year Reunion” rave (read up about that interactive DJ performance over on the Reunion post on my website).

The performance included an animated “Rave Activity Powerpoint” that I used to guide the lovely audience through a series of activities together, including a raver kandi bracelet making contest (hosted by the fabulous Kandi Longlegs), semi-sentimental improvised shoutouts to rave community leaders, and RAVE KARAOKE. For a good time, see my RAVE KARAOKE playlist on YouTube and RAVE KARAOKE sign up list in Google Sheets.

Too bad we didn’t make it to the live readings of Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music and fortune telling from my circuit bent Barbie head and broken Pee-Wee Herman doll! Ahhhhh…next time!

Raves and Music Festival DJing Performances

Interestingly, DJing at raves and electronic music festivals for about 10 years is probably what people know best about my musical performance history, but I barely have anything recorded from those days! It was pretty fancy stuff to actually record a DJ set digitally when I started out ;)

I started DJing at raves in 1996, when DJ Deko-ze booked me to close off the Ascendance party (the first massive rave we had in Saskatoon), then was fortunate enough to get to travel around the Prairies a fair bit to perform. I would usually do a set between 12-3am or so on the second stage at festivals or the chill room at raves, playing a mix of noise, breakcore, trip, hop, psychedelia, and weird sound effects. Sometimes I would do closing sets at parties, but those ones would pretty much always have a really tight theme (like only 50s Hawaiian music, etc.) that I would do just for that occasion.

Anyway, here’s what I’ve got in the archives to share for now…hopefully more will turn up one of these days!

Carrie Gates and Jon Vaughn – Live at the CONNECT Festival in 2002

This is a set of two recordings from DJ sets by Carrie Gates and Jon Vaughn (Saskatoon, SK, Canada), collaborating at the annual outdoor electronic music festival, CONNECT.

View on Archive.org

More Lady Gates Rave DJing Stuff

Some Other Random DJing Worlds of Mine

DJ Rug Doctor

Before that….HMMMM…ah yes, I did a DJing/performance art piece under the name “DJ Rug Doctor” in about 2004 or so.

That was an especially fun show, as “DJ Rug Doctor” was more of a performance piece where I trainwrecked Miami Bass as fast as I could in a rainbow fur coat, black turtleneck, and ratty wig and asked everyone to do everything for me (aka “DJ Rug Doctor SUCKS” lol).

DJ Swizzlesticks

In 2002ish(?), I did a DJing performance for the Saskatoon Anarchist Book Fair under the name “DJ Swizzlesticks”.

DJ Swizzlesticks plays a mix of 50’s tropicalia and noise music, dressed a bit like a dandy version of Albert Einstein on acid.

Wow Who Knows

This appeared on one of my hard drives from the MySpace era. There is a possibility that I was possessed in this image.

Sometimes I wonder about the meaning of life.

Electroacoustic Improv Music

Street Lipo

A couple of years ago, I did an experimental noise music / experimental performance with Lewis Casey (DJ Saucer) under the name “Street Lipo” at PAVED Art’s Drone Day in 2017. I played Fisher Price turntables, prepared records, contact mics, wind up timers, blown up latex hospital gloves, egg timers, some other stuff, and a whole bunch of vibrating sex toys, while Lewis used his mixer to jam it up with me.

Jon Vaughn, Carrie Gates & Scant Intone – Live At PAVED Arts [pan020]

Released on Panospria, 2006

Textures and patterns woven into an aural fabric to create a magical sonic carpet.

View on Archive.org or Download PAN020

 

Tim Olive, Carrie Gates, & Jon Vaughn – Floors & Frames

Released on BricoLodge, 2002

Coaxing sound from electrical instruments with a variety of extended techniques, this album synergizes in an entrancing, delicate, and focussed study in group improvisation, minimalism, and deep listening. This exploration was recorded live on Jan 12, 2002, by Tim Olive (prepared electric guitar) and BricoLodge Directors Carrie Gates (turntable, blank records, contact microphone, sampling keyboard) and Jon Vaughn (prepared electric guitar, no-input mixing board).

View on Archive.org

Experimental Turntablism

Vinyl Interventions Trio

I was part of an experimental turntablist group called “The Vinyl Interventions Trio” with Esther Bourdages (Montréal, QC) and Marinko Jareb (St. Catherine’s, ON). We did crazy wild deeply fun performances with turntables, contact mics and prepared records.

Vinyl Interventions Trio – Live at Ecube [brico019]

Released on BricoLodge, 2005

Cuts, scrapes, slices and dices – no, it’s not the new SuperChopper Fantasy Knife, but the ultra-freaky turntablism techniques of the Vinyl Interventions Trio: Carrie Gates, Marinko Jareb, and Esther Bourdages! Using homemade record needles, toy turntables, contact microphones, pop 45’s, a sweet collection of rare experimental vinyl, mad skills, and an appetite for destruction, the Vinyl Interventions Trio created a stunning work of performative deconstructive turntablism.This album is from a very lively live set at artist-space Ecube in Montreal.

View on Archive.org

Vinyl Interventions Workshops

All three of us in the Vinyl Interventions Trio are also art historians, so we gave academic lectures about the history of experimental turntablism and sculpture with vinyl records.

We also provided public workshops at the legendary DIGIDOME and Phantom Power events.

Once upon a time, we had a dedicated website for the project, but it isn’t online anymore. However…I do have all of the juicy hand coded HTML from the website, so one of these days I hope to be able to recreate the website in a modern framework.

Unlocking the Groove Exhibition

I also curated a gallery exhibition called “Unlocking the Groove” at “The Art Projects Gallery” in Regina back in the early Y2Ks. It featured vinyl record sculptures from artists across Canada, the USA, and Europe. I only have a few images from it handy right now, but I’ll add more here later.

More Crazy Turntable Stuff I Did

“Blank Star” EP

Self-published, 2002

Live turntablism recording by Carrie Gates composed entirely of etched and burned blank vinyl records.

“Unlocking the Groove” Radio Documentary

Commissioned by the send + receive Festival, 2005

Radio documentary about experimental turntablism and vinyl record sculpture and installation art by Carrie Gates.

“Deep Nocturnal Trance Missions” Radio Show on CFCR 90.5 FM

DNTM – Rhumbas, Sambas, and Tangos – Lady Gates

Aired on CFCR 90.5, 1999

This is a DJ mix of Rhumbas, Sambas, and Tangos by the Lady Gates (Carrie Gates), April 8th, 1999 and was performed on her “Deep Nocturnal Trance Missions” (DNTM) radio show, which ran on CFCR 90.5 FM’s from 1995-2005.

View on Archive.org

DNTM – This One’s for the Children – Lady Gates

Aired on CFCR 90.5, 1999

This is a DJ mix of children’s music on vinyl with scratching and voiceovers by the Lady Gates (Carrie Gates), October 2nd, 1999 and was performed on her “Deep Nocturnal Trance Missions” (DNTM) radio show, which ran on CFCR 90.5 FM’s from 1995-2005.

View on Archive.org

DIGIDOME

DIGIDOME was a super fabulous audiovisual art festival that took place in the Ramada Golf Dome in September of 2002. Paved Art and New Media organized this event, with Dermot Wilson, Ellen Moffat, Jon Vaughn, and myself putting together all of the details. I could talk about this event forever, but for now I will leave you with a link to a post on my website where you can download an mp3 release of some of the highlights from the weekend, as well as a promise to write more about this event later ;)