At Atwood Music Hall in September, audience members got to see a pop culture event that spanned a century. On a movie screen played Fritz Lang’s 1927 sci-fi silent movie epic “Metropolis.” And on stage, Madison turntablist DJ Slimzy provided a live, mostly improvised soundtrack on his deck.
The Winnebago Street venue has hosted several silent movie live DJ events since. This Friday, Oct. 10, DJ Slimzy (who offstage is named Andrew Thomas), will host a Halloween-themed double feature, playing live scores to 1920’s “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and 1928’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Like all the screenings, the event is free.
For Thomas, it’s a chance to take his passion for both movies and music in an exciting new direction. He talked with Madison Minutes about how the screenings started, how he approaches his live soundtracks, and the audience member who liked it so much she gave him a thank-you card.
How did these silent movie events start?
I was actually approached by Toffer [Christensen] the owner of the Atwood [Music Hall]. I had initially DJed their soft grand opening, and he floated the idea of these free events. Silent films, most of them are in the public domain, so there aren’t any copyright issues. But also, because they’re silent, it’d be easy to have a DJ bring their own music into it. I had never done anything like it before, but it sounded really intriguing.
How do you prepare for each screening?
I thought it would be a little tedious, and it would take some of the fun out of it if I tried to plan the music out to match the narrative scene by scene. My general approach with “Metropolis” was to create a little more of a soundscape. I do it entirely with vinyl records. I have my two record players and my mixer, so the entire score was done mixing vinyl live.
I had quite a bit of contemporary classical music, and quite a bit of ambient music as well. And then I had some other fun, funky soul music that I would throw in with it [that] felt appropriate. I would say I probably planned out ahead of time about 35% of what I was going to play during particular scenes.
How do you think adding live vinyl mixing alters or enhances the experience of watching these movies?
By not having the music and the movie sync up exactly, it does kind of decontextualize the film a little bit. It kind of opens up an opportunity to reflect a little more on the strangeness and uniqueness of silent film, apart from the actual narrative of the film. You kind of see it as an art piece.
What was the reaction from the audience the first time you performed one of these?
The first one by far was the most nervous I’ve ever been doing a DJ set. It was just so far out of my realm of experience. But honestly it was probably the most rewarding DJ set that I’ve ever done, and the one I’ve had the most fun with. There were all these unexpected moments where the film and the music came together in real time.
There was this elderly lady who spoke to Toffer and me, and she said she hadn’t been out of her house in seven years. And she came to this, because “Metropolis” was one of her favorite films. And she came the next time to see my friend Kelly do “Phantom of the Opera.” And she wrote both me and Kelly thank-you cards. It’s the first and only thank-you card I’ve ever gotten for doing a DJ set.
