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.

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.