Keyboard collection a music ‘candy shop’
Kid Koala Money Mark perform together
When we speak of kid in a candy store, we do so both literally and figuratively. This as it pertains to a literal Kid — musician Eric San, a grown adult who performs under the name Kid Koala — who will get the run of a figurative sweetshop, being the National Music Centre, which he calls the “best keyboard museum on the planet.”
He and fellow finger-playing fetishist Mark Ramos-Nishita (a.k.a. Money Mark) will get the run of the extensive, impressive and rare collection of instruments as they take their place as the sixth and latest NMC artists-in-residence beginning this week, and to say they’re salivating — both literally and figuratively, probably — at the prospects would be something of an understatement.
“It is going to be a candy shop situation for sure,” San says noting the folks at the former Cantos have already sent him a list, so that if there were any specific instruments they knew they wanted NMC’s tech’s would have it ready.
“But the funny thing is once I started checking off keyboards it eventually ended up being the whole list. So then I had to dial it down a bit. And that wasn’t even all the stuff they have there. …
“The things they have at NMC … just literally don’t exist anywhere else. We’re excited.”
Over the past several years, the veteran and much-acclaimed San has made it his mission to hit NMC for a tour every time he DJed in town, filling clubs and venues while spinning Kid Koala sets.
This time will be a little more special though, because other than being allowed a full week’s of relatively unfettered access to the collection, he’ll also get to show it off for the first time to the man whom he calls his “keyboard mentor” and “guru.”
In fact, it was Ramos-Nishita — an American producer, musician and longtime Beastie Boys collaborator — who first told him about the treasure that was in the Montreal-based San’s figurative backyard many years ago.
“I put it out of mind, I took a mild mental note of it but it wasn’t until the Calgary folk fest — I was playing there (in 2009) and NMC had a little tent set up with some of their gear. That’s when I remembered,” he laughs, “‘Oh, yeah, that place is here!’
“Most people, when you think Calgary, you don’t think the biggest keyboard collection on the planet. But now you do.”
The two musicians will kick off their residency with a few performances of the incredibly immersive Kid Koala Space Cadet Headphone Concerts, which will have two sold-out performances on Thursday night and then another just-added one Friday.
The shows feature San performing the electro score to his Space Cadet graphic novel, while images are projected on a screen and the audience takes it all in while seated in inflatable “pods” and fitted with their own wireless headphones.
It’s a show that San has performed now on numerous occasions, and grew, simply, from a discussion about wanting to do something different, do something more.
“As much as I do like your standard concert experience, we were talking about, ‘I want to go to a show where I don’t stand for three hours,’ or whatever.
“So that led to a conversation where it was, ‘Well let’s do a show where everyone is lying down on the floor. But how do we do that without making it uncomfortable? Well let’s build a pod for everybody.’
“One thing led to another and here we are, a few years later, Space Cadet Headphone Concert.”
One those public obligations are filled, then the real work begins for San and Ramos-Nishita — and the real fun. The duo, who only previously recorded together a decade ago on a Money Mark session, have three projects that they’re hoping to complete during their time at NMC.
Each of them is as original an idea as the Space Cadet series, including one that’s been percolating in San’s mind for some time now.
“It’s a puppet musical that I’m scoring about zombies and Raman noodles. There’s no working title for it yet, we just call it ‘The Zombie Raman Musical Thing.’ ” He laughs explaining he’s already laid down some bed tracks that sound John Carpenter-esque.
“The other thing is … I’m going to do acoustic keyboard versions of the Space Cadet tunes, so it’s a Space Cadet: A Night At the Keyboard Museum using some of their several centuries old pianos and harpsichords and whatnot.
“And then Mark and I are actually just going to jam around and start what will eventually be our first collaborative album, even though we’ve been working together since 1998. … We’re going to go in with a blank slate for the last couple of days of our residency there and jam around and see what we can come up with.”
And while it doesn’t sound like there’ll be much downtime where they won’t be sampling all of the NMC wares, San says he does hope to show his mentor some of the other unique things Calgary has to offer.
He’s hoping to take his local pal Fubar actor Dave Lawrence up on his offer to show off another local treasure, Loose Moose Theatre Company, where Lawrence trained and where the annual Chrismoose Carol will be in full swing.
And San is also hoping to turn his friend from south of the border onto some of this city’s more culinary wonders.
“There are all kinds of Calgary food stops that are unlike any other on the planet,” he says. Like, say, Tubby Dog? “Exactly,” he says laughing about the local haunt that visiting musicians always seek out. “I wasn’t going to drop names but, yeah. It’s a great place.”
Literally.