Gotta Start Somewhere Mux Mool

No matter how successful entertainers become, they’ll inevitably always remember the first gig—whether it was disastrous, wonderful, or absurdly strange. Gotta Start Somewhere embraces these nostalgic moments by asking established entertainers to retell the story of the first time they ever graced a stage. In this edition, The A.V. Club speaks to all-purpose electronica artist Brian Lindgren (a.k.a. Mux Mool) about his lousy inaugural gig before he performs Thursday, Feb. 16 at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom.

The A.V. Club: What was your very first live performance like?

Brian Lindgren: My very first live performance of any kind anywhere? I think that would be hanging my blanket up on top of the fireplace and doing the weather for my family when I was 4 years old. That was my first show. After that, I didn’t do anything until a talent show until 7th grade when I did Abbott and Costello with a friend of mine—“Who’s On First?” Then after that, boy, I don’t think I played a show again until 2006 at the Kitty Cat Klub with Cepia.

AVC: You’d consider 2006 your very first live musical performance?

BL: Yeah, it took me a long time to learn enough to just have a live musical performance. I never intended on having any shows ever. I followed up with it because it seems to be working out.

AVC: Where’s the Kitty Cat Club?

BL: That’s in Minneapolis/St. Paul—the University of Minnesota campus.

AVC: What do you remember of that first show?

BL: From the very show, I played some songs off Reason, I played some songs off iTunes, and I got so drunk that I fell asleep at the club. I think I performed and a couple of hours afterward, I fell asleep within a booth at a club by myself. There was nobody really else there and I didn’t even invite anybody, so I just got very drunk and fell asleep.

AVC: What were your memories of the night from an emotional standpoint?

BL: It was terrible. It was a complete disaster, but there had to be a first show at some point somewhere, and I’m glad that was it.

AVC: What made it a disaster?

BL: I obviously didn’t have any fans or whatever. I think I had only released one song so that definitely wasn’t an issue, but it also wasn’t promoted very much or at all, so it all rested on Cepia, but he didn’t have that many fans. It was a Sunday night and nobody came out. It was a combination of problems.

AVC: If you had to guess, how many were in the crowd total?

BL: I mean, really, really, like, two or three over the course of many hours comprising the entire crowd that paid any attention to what was going on. It’s not an exaggeration when I say that few people.

AVC: What were your thoughts onstage and then afterward?

BL: I mean, honestly, I was so fucking drunk at the time, there wasn’t even really thoughts or feelings. I knew people were supposed to go to shows, but I didn't know people went to shows for this kind of thing. I’m playing songs off iTunes because I don’t know how to perform. If there was nobody there, that was fine by me because I didn't know what I was doing anyway. My feeling about it now is that it’s about as bad a show can go, so everything after that has been an improvement, so that’s good.

AVC: Did you get any feedback afterward from anyone in the crowd?

BL: No, not really.

AVC: What kept you going after something like that?

BL: When I started making music and releasing music, I never intended on playing shows. I do it because it connects with people, and for whatever reason, DJs are sort of like rock stars now, but for my part, I thought the entire time when I was making songs, I would just make the songs and sell them to rappers or whatever, and that would be what I do for a living, so it was surprising that I did shows at all.

AVC: At what point did you hit any breakthrough from crossing over from bad shows to good shows?

BL: I’m not sure when that actually happened. That’s a slow process. Because I made all my songs electronically, when it came time to perform them live, I was overcomplicating them for the purposes of being able to figure out a way to play them live, which always seems so strange to me.

AVC: You mentioned in an interview that you’re working on incorporating projection elements into your show—“a booth that kids can go sit in and they’re projected on the screen and I can interact with their projections.” Are you still doing that?

BL: I have not even started doing that yet. I’m working with a good friend of mine who does live visuals, trying to get an interactive live set together that involves projecting audience images onto the screen so I can interact with them and whatnot—trying to create something so that everybody else who is having fun looks like they’re having fun on the screen because I’m looking at my controller. It’s not that I’m not fun, but I’m not as fun as an audience.

AVC: What's your ideal vision of a Mux Mool show?

BL: Boy, I don’t know. I’ve been looking at so many different shows. If I had my ideal show, it would actually be a GWAR show. It would just be total insanity, a total spectacle. It’s hard to translate that cartoonish violence to something [like my show]. I wouldn’t want to make something so violent and I obviously wouldn't have as many people, and I don’t have the budget for such a set, but without all that, it would just either look cheap or like Yo Gabba Gabba! and I’m not trying to put on a kids’ show.

So we’re really just testing it out at this point and seeing what’s going to work. A lot of what’s feeding the live industry now is lights and not music, which is strange to me that people would prefer too see lights over music when it comes to a music show, but hey, whatever. That’s what people want, so I’m trying to play but in a way that’s me—something I actually agree with. It’s not just going to be robotic image-flashing or bright colors or anything like that. I want it to be an immersive thing: something that if you’re on a lot of drugs, it’s going to look really cool, and something that if you are stone sober, it’s also going to look really cool.

AVC: When you say “GWAR show,” does this mean people dressed up as politicians trying to sever each other’s heads?

BL: Yeah, see, that would be fucking awesome, but I don’t know yet. I’ve never built any costumes, but if it could be like that, that would be amazing. I would love to come out there in a demon costume and a huge sword and play Solitaire on my computer, which is what it looks like when you’re playing a computer in front of people, but have something for them to watch.

AVC: Looking back on that first show, how do you think that’s shaped the way you did future live shows?

BL: Shortly after that show, I went to rehab again, got sober, and quit drinking. I’ve been sober for about five years now. That was the only show I ever played where I drank alcohol, so I think that’s really interesting because I know a lot of performing friends [who] don’t like getting up on stage without having a couple of beers first. I like that I’ve learned how to do most of what I’ve learned how to do live completely dead sober.