[aristoxenus]

Electronic music still hasn't found anything near an ideal mode of performance -- this guy's guitar may provide a glimpse into how that can be achieved. Imagine a dionysian Jimmy Page up on stage, orchestrating a wall full of synth processors on this light-saber of an instrument. Much more compelling than the DJ-style performer stuck behind a control console.

[wheels]

This is far from state of the art for electronic music controllers; really it looks like a toy. Synthesizer controllers / triggers that look like normal instruments have been around (and used in performance) for 50+ years. And then there are things like the theramin, which came out in 1928, which is a physical synth controller.

[aristoxenus]

What's great about his axe isn't that it looks like a normal instrument -- it's the way it maps touchscreen interfacing to the guitar form. I'm an electronic musician too and have seen plenty of history and modern experimentation; something that takes his touchscreen-guitar idea to the next level (full touchscreen neck?) has much more expressive potential than a normal guitar with a MIDI-transcribing pickup.

Plus it doesn't throw away one of the biggest lessons of rock: people will scream for a guy with a guitar in a way that they won't for someone behind a piano (or god forbid, a theremin).

[anigbrowl]

Check out Squarepusher, who has been doing this for years, but using an actual bass guitar with MIDIfied pickups to drive the stack of synths (in addition to being a sound source in its own right). Or if you want total eye candy, Jean Michelle-Jarre likes to control a wall of synths with a laser harp.

That said, I have no problem with keyboardists or knob-twiddling...perhaps because I'm not especially moved by stage theatrics or arena-size performance.

[wheels]

Interesting historical note: it was someone much further from electronica that originally popularized MIDI bass: Phil Lesh, of The Grateful Dead, while Tom Jenkinson (Squarepusher) was still a kid.

[z8000]

Some say that Tom learned his trade from Richard and then became the true electronic music master. I love how he incorporates bass into electronic music. Just excellent.

[tbgvi]

You'll be interested in the JazzMutant Lemur - a touchscreen MIDI controller for live DJ performances. Some well known DJ's like Deadmau5 use it - that's how I first heard about it. Check it out at http://www.jazzmutant.com

A video of it in action is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_BMnwIbWJw