Dirty Hippie Radio: Kid Infinity makes musical history
An Historic Music Event: Kid Infinity – The 3D Experience
It is not the intent of this column to cover the musical happenings beyond the borders of our hometown; however, nowhere throughout the annals of musical historiography has this ever been done. It happened in a stuffy little art gallery in our own backyard, 20 minutes away, in the heart of our county’s downtown: Los Angeles, The Smell, Kid Infinity – The 3D Experience. I have seen the future.
Remember how those crazy dragonflies would flutter above the audience’s heads before buzzing by your face when you saw Avatar in 3D? Ever even considered what it might be like to experience something similar during a live music show (without Dr. Leary’s help)? Well, Ryan Pardeiro and Nathan Huber have considered it; and they’ve considered it done. Saturday night at The Smell in downtown Los Angeles, Kid Infinity took the live music experience to new levels with an impressive 3D production.
Kid Infinity is a high energy, fun-spirited, L.A. based type of electro-hip hop, dance-house, punk party outfit. Really, they are. Comprised of Ryan Pardeiro on mic and vocals, Nathan Huber on electronic equipment, and crowd-hyping, one-man-dance-troupe/lights man Erik Anaya, Kid Infinity refuses to be contained within a definable box.
“We wanna be able to take whatever stuff we like and throw it into a blender…different styles and genres and mix it all up,” says Pardeiro.
Audiences and fans will formulate their own ideas. You could say the possibilities are infinite.
K.I. (Kid Infinity) really does mix it up; though, it’s not mixed up, it’s blended. They’re not merely an erratic hodgepodge of genre and sound – what they do comes across clean, cohesive, sensible, and always fun. But there’s more to K.I. than just a high energy dance party. Much more…
Pardeiro, hailing from Arkansas, Huber from Maryland, met in the art program while attending Southern University in Tennessee. They’ve since lived in Los Angeles for about 6 years and have formed a multimedia creative team (of themselves) which revolves around their Kid Infinity entity. They may put on a good musical show, but they’re more than just another band from Los Angeles.
“It’s hard to be independent musicians and stand out among the hundreds of other bands. Why limit ourselves to just music, right?” suggests Huber.
K.I. is a veritable Mount Everest of artistic ideas, a cornucopia of multimedia musings, a Euphrates River of creativity. They write and produce songs and music together, have been writing short films, and (Pardeiro) directed the latest music video for a band called Luna Is Honey. Most recently they acted as presiding directors over the astounding project: Kid Infinity – The 3D Experience!
“We try to stay at the creative center of all our projects,” says Pardeiro.
“We try to maintain our taste, our flavor, in everything we do,” agrees Huber.
So how about that 3D experience? The brief of it is that Huber had/has been working about 5 months for a company called PLLX3 (Parallax3), a 3D research and development technology company, who’d patented some very cool, innovative visual 3D technology – intended to be marketed toward the live music industry. PLLX3 was on the verge of unveiling their effects with Michael Jackson’s last tour as the launch pad. They’d even built a large LED screen at the Staples Center for MJ’s show; but, of course, he passed away, and the PLLX3 technology went about as far as a stick of dynamite without a wick.
“They were showing me this really cool stuff that no one ever got to see,” says Huber about PLLX3. “I thought it would go great with electronic music.”
Huber pitched the idea of Kid Infinity taking on/testing out the 3D technology, which PLLX3 would eventually like to market toward the live music industry. PLLX3 thought it was a great idea, so Huber and Pardeiro immediately immersed themselves in the pioneer construction of Kid Infinity The 3D Experience. And man did they pull it off! They had a mere month to prepare, but set themselves to task like a couple of prospectors in Scrooge McDuck’s vault.
The Smell was set to extra dark, extra dank at this all ages affair. K.I. took stage, energized adrenaline immediately engaged the enthralled audience. We were rapt with fascination and excitement over something we’d never experienced before. With a virtual stage on the wall behind the band, animation danced as visual effects hovered above our heads, and the added effect of multi-colored glow sticks wizzing through the air enhanced the 3D experience (better than air blowing in your face at the Disneyland “Honey I Shrunk the Audience!” film).
While city sky scrapers, faces, and bizarre rooms or planes took shape behind the band, words occasionally jumped off the LED screen, and at times it looked/felt as if your face was being sucked through a narrow hallway. The production and 3D visuals were predominately cube based.
“You can create a whole virtual stage environment [with this technology]. We kept it basic with cubes,” says Huber.
Basic, but not simple. It looked like Atari had hired Q*bert to lace the audience’s 3D goggles with LSD; that Tetris had developed a mind of its own, eager to leave the screen and take shape over our mesmerized faces. And the climax! Who needs “How The Earth Was Made”, Discovery Channel, or Star Tours when you’ve got Kid Infinity – The 3D Experience? The show climaxed with an explosive astral segment!
“It was a perfect example of what we want Kid Infinity to be. We want it to be more than music – we want it to be an experience,” said Parderio after the show.
“It’s about bringing what’s in your head to life and letting other people experience,” added Huber.
There was a tangible static in the air that night, wether emanating from the band or the crowd’s anticipation; something special could be felt buzzing throughout the general consciousness of the event. After all, the band and attendees alike knew they were witnessing something that had never before been done in the history of live music. Perhaps it was the band’s own nervousness and adrenaline that produced the energized effect.
“It was actually the night before the show that we got the animation fully working,” admits Pardeiro.
Despite all confidence, preparations were so demanding and stressful that Huber recalls, “One time I came home and Ryan [Pardeiro] was like ‘We’ve got to cancel, we’ve got to cancel!’ We knew we were past the point and needed to come through…it was almost emotional for us, we were so vested in it. We knew it would work in theory…we’d tested it quite a bit.”
Come through they did: Kid Infinity applied themselves more fastidiously than a college student appealing for graduation. They even procured their own animators. How do you bring animators onto a project that’s never been (officially/successfully) done?
“It was new technology for the animators too. It hadn’t been done. There were a lot of crazy details. We had to learn it and then create tutorials for the animators. We contacted animators on Youtube…one was from Germany…had to Skype with him at weird hours. It was super tedious…lots of measurements…you don’t want cubes to hit us in the head while we’re on stage,” says Pardeiro and Huber.
It was a total success story. After the show, Kid Infinity exited The Smell to a throng of cheering and applauding fans. I caught mumblings of “I don’t know what to think of reality anymore, my world has changed…” A technology designed to be marketed toward an act as mammoth as The King of Pop, and yet a relatively unknown young band from the L.A. underground got to thinking they could do it; why not? Kid Infinity has secured themselves a place in live music history. Remember, when you witness an explosion of 3D live visual productions from the likes of Air, The Flaming Lips, and Daft Punk: K.I. did it first.
K.I. will be taking a brief hiatus in the wake of The 3D Experience. Although the event was loosely announced as a one-timer, they’re looking into the possibility of doing more 3D shows. Nothing is set in stone, but they definitely want to do it and if they can make it happen they will.
Whatever’s to come, Huber concludes that, “as long as you’re having fun and we’re having fun, it’s cool.”
Pardeiro adds, “Don’t take yourself too seriously.”
You can check out Kid Infinity’s music and video on www.DirtyHippieRadio.com.