Vancouver electronic musician Longwalkshortdock’s pogo-jumping, fist-pumping, thrashing-dervish antics onstage are a trademark. With his dressed down style, untamed-curls and trucker moustache, he looks like he belongs in the pit at a thrash show, not on stage behind his keyboard/synth/mic/laptop setup.
The explosive solo mosh pit has given himself war-wounds over the years: “I hit my head a few times, I hit myself in the nose with my knee jumping up once. I’ve fallen off a couple stages; I cut my lip on my microphone – stupid stuff like that,” he said in an interview with the Times Review.
LWSD, for short (a.k.a. Dave King), says his signature thrashing resulted from getting “damn nervous” onstage, so he just went with something to fire up the crowd. “Being kind of a clown on stage, really.”
The Calgary-born musician started in Cowtown where he grew a love of 8-bit video game music into an infatuation that set him on the music school path. He played in Guided by Voices/Pavement-influenced indie-rock band Sounds Good on Paper, then jumped to Vancouver for more music school.
On the coast, he met with and collaborated with influential Vancouver electronic music veteran Phil Western. Through that connection, King hooked up with electronic visual artist Tim Hill of Rim Visuals, a long-time collaborator with Vancouver electronic pioneers, such as electro-industrial first-wavers Skinny Puppy.
Rim Visuals will bring their impressive 10-projector visual show to Traverse for the Saturday, Dec. 14 show, but it might not all fit into the venue.
King’s video game roots guide his electronic music genre selection, which is a mix of techno, electro, rock, drone and acid, to name a few. Really it’s a unique fusion that steers clear of more accepted paths to commercial electronic success. King continues to evolve with the addition of a laptop to his previously manual setup.
Adding the laptop, said King, “was a pretty important decision in a sense, because I love the old school way of doing it ... but you certainly put yourself in a time bracket sound-wise with what you’re able to do with that technology versus what you can do with a couple-hundred dollar computer nowadays.”
King said he’ll have a brand-new compilation available at the show.
He’s toured extensively this summer, including a show at Shambhala and the Evolved festival in Nova Scotia.
Oh, and I while I had a hardcore gamer on the line, I had to ask: PlayStation4 or XboxOne?
Answer? PS4.