In September the Sonic Sideshow joined the House of Fairytales’ Travelling Art Circus once again for The Mayor’s Thames Festival - we used junk, water and electricity to make a moist and marvellous racket! Our venue was a beautiful little red and yellow small-top tent stood in the park by Gabriel's Wharf, on the south bank. There we set up our interactive junk sculpture - the Musical Mayhem Machine - and a Waterwheel Powered Beat Sequencer newly built for the event. The Beat Sequencer operates on a similar principle to Daphne Oram's 'Oramics Machine' and looks like a Heath Robinson contraption for making a really good cup of tea! It was built to interactively demonstrate the principle of renewable energy harnessed from the water cycle, and the concept of cyclical beat patterns in music. To create beats the audience draws onto a disk of card which is then read by light sensors as it spins on the waterwheel powered turntable. I addition to our machines, the boys from Noisy Toys built an excellent contraption of see-saws and water-shoots that amplified the dripping and sloshing sounds using under-water microphones. All together we produced quite a din!

Over two days a seemingly endless stream of punters filed through our tent including school-children, teachers, parents, grandparents, intrigued passers-by and an inquisitive dog. Visitors contributed so many drawings to be processed by our machine that we had to continually send out for new pens. Divine intervention struck midway through the weekend with a visitation from an entire Hari Krishna Orchestra - now that’s what I call fusion!

Find more information about the Waterwheel Powered Beat Sequencer here.

We have had an event-full summer this year with highlights including stage performances with White Mischief at: Journey to the Centre of the earth, Paradise Gardens and Bestival, walkabout for House of Fairytales at Tate Modern and Miss Merlin's Interstellah Cabaret at The Glade, and appearances  at RedSarah's Perverse Universe and Viva La Vida, - both at The Big Chill.
This years Glastonbury Festival saw us performing with TrashCity  and brought Amundsen back on home turf at "The Gombeen Has-been-Sheebeen"  -the new incarnation of Spacecraft's legendary Underground Piano-bar.

Slade flew solo at The Edinburgh festival for a series of guerilla cabaret performances-guest starring the talented Miss Ophelia Bitz on vocals and chainsaw, including an appearance at  Dreams of Steam at the Big Red Door cabaret.

Most recently Amundsen & Slade are fresh back from performing for a third time this year at the remarkable Carnyville, the astonishing creative extravaganza produced by The Invisible Circus.

For now its “back-to-the-lab” for plotting, stock-taking and refurbishments. For news, performances dates and astonishing flights of techno-fancy, check back to this page for regular up-dates.