A Live Performance of Kavinsky’s ‘NightCall’ by Barnaby Dixon’s Creepy Face Puppet (and Ryan Gosling)

In October 2018, Barnaby Dixon premiered his “Creepy Face Puppet” — a full-body finger puppet with LED eyes and Dixon’s digitally projected mouth. Creepy Face, who is now part of Dixon’s extended family of regularly performing puppets, performed a “live” version of the Kavinsky song “Nightcall” from the soundtrack of the film Drive. Ryan Gosling even made a cameo appearance. The puppet got really into the song, so much that he became one with the performance.

The track was arranged and played back on the ‘OP-Z’ by Teenage Engineering, however, the vocals and vocoder elements are performed live. You may notice that the puppet is in a similar part of the screen whenever the vocoder is heard, shifting his weight slightly between phrases. This is because I’m using my thumb to play the chords.