The Thriftshop Band is an automated music machine meant to serve as a backup band for a live musical performance. This project is designed to be the successor to my previous theatrical band The Secondhandpants (
https://www.facebook.com/The-Secondhandpants-13961397039/). I have been working on this for over two years. The sketches included in this album show that the concept originated as a very simple design (See first sketch: a bicycle wheel drum machine). As time passed my ambition grew. The machine now exists as an entire thrift shop wall facade. "But what does it do!?" you ask?, well! The lamps light up to a melody, the vintage radio cabinet's speaker illuminate to represent the bass notes, pots and pans play automatically to serve as percussion, two display mannequin heads serve as automated backup singer puppets who open their mouths along to recorded vocal tracks, a grandfather clock spins it's hands and pulses light to the beat AND the orange shirt claps it's sleeves. All of this was presented in a short stage performance at the Valiant Theatre in Winnipeg, MB, Canada on May 22nd (see photos). Special thanks to Rylaan Gimby and Rick Unger for helping with the technical challenges of making everything work! This performance was filmed as the finale to a documentary chronicling my journey building the machine (working title: The Imperfectionist). The documentary is set to be completed sometime in 2017.
