The Flying Karamazov Brothers - Music and Technology

Music and Technology

The Karamazovs incorporate music into their performances through the use of special clubs adapted as percussion strikers, allowing them to play drums and marimbaphones without breaking their juggling patterns. Most past and present Karamazovs are adept with a great range of conventional instruments, including brasses and woodwinds.

One of their most widely known musical performances is Rockpalast Night 8, held in Essen, Germany, on March 28, 1981. The main acts were The Who and the Grateful Dead. The Karamazovs guested with the Grateful Dead on the "Drums > Space" part of the Dead's second set, performing their act while playing various percussion along with the Dead's drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart. The show was broadcast by German TV channel WDR and has since become a classic of Grateful Dead bootlegs.

In recent years, the group has steadily added technological components to their repertoire, at times with the help of the MIT Media Lab. Clubs, gloves, and other props and wardrobe can include accelerometers, gravitometers, speed and position radar, and radio transceivers that allow the equipment to communicate with each other as well as a backstage computer. The Karamazovs exploit this technology in continually evolving ways, ranging from music and lighting that change in response to throws and catches, to games in which the jugglers must constantly adapt their throws, patterns, and passes in response to cues that the computer chooses on the fly, often based on the computer identifying a juggler who's out of position and therefore unlikely to be prepared for a toss.