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Midstates are a Chicago-based band, describing themselves as avant-space rock. I'd put them down more as indie-prog or some such, but that's neither here nor there. What's interesting is their claim to be the first act to replace band members with an iPod Video for both their musical performance, and a visual one.

Midstates were invited to play support on a fairly major tour, but their keyboard player, guitarist and drummer couldn't make the dates. Rather than turn down the tour, they decided to record audio tracks for the keyboard and guitar parts and to video their drummer in the studio. Mixing it all down into single-song video files on the singer's iPod Video, off they went on tour (with a lot more space in the van than they were used to). At each venue, Midstates hooked up the iPod's audio output to the amps and it's video output to a projector - the audience could hear the full band and see the drummer as though he was playing live via hi-tech satellite link. The two 'real' members of the band could cue up any track they liked on the iPod and play along.

Whilst the projected video drummer is a fantastic idea, there's nothing new about using an iPod for your live backing tracks. London's iDou have been doing this with an iPod Shuffle for ages. The two of them turn up onstage with a bass and a guitar respectively, and an iPod Shuffle loaded up with drum tracks, keyboards and samples hanging from the mic stand. They set it to shuffle mode, press play, and try to keep up with whatever songs come around until they run out of time. Great fun. Fully embracing the digital music revolution, their debut gig back in May of last year is available as a podcast here.