Coming in from the category of “How can you make this stuff up?”, today I received a text from my sister-in-law. Her friend’s son just released a new album, and she thought I might enjoy it. She labelled the release as “Noise” Music????
Yes, four question marks.
He’s studying at Temple, so my first thought was to see if he knows Kenny (Dead Door Unit).
My second thought was “How does someone from Martha’s Vineyard manage a connection with Noise?!?!”.
This is Martha’s Vineyard, the land of 70’s soft rock artists James Taylor and Carley Simon. Fire & Rain and You’re so Vain. Has noise begun breaching through? Is there a tidal wave about to hit! Will people bring an amp a pedal set up to the beach and plug into their electric hatchback and play along side of the campfire acoustic guitar crowd? Wonderwall, followed by something off of Pulse Demon??
Such a scenario would be the end of the world as we know it!!
I began to contemplate such a scene. It confused me. But, how can the power of noise be held back?! Given time, all things possible will come to pass. And now, The Times They Are A Changing!!
At this point, at least one of two things is true. We are NOT at the end of the world. And, I may have to have a talk with her, just to preserve the sanctity of the words Noise Music as it is being used by the cool kids these days. Maybe a link to Spallmaker’s band camp page is in order?
This one is FUN! Well, first off, what it is. It’s a 3 Way Split released by SLUG Tapes (Sou Inomoto) out of Tokyo. It’s a Compact Disc storing 60 minutes of sound, along with liner notes from Yatsutohi Yoshida (Government Alpha).
This all started for me when I landed in Baltimore for an overnight adventure with Nine Inch Nails. Relax, I was just there to see a show, we didn’t go out drinking or anything like that. But, I make it to the hotel, open the iPad and I have an email from Greg asking about doing a Split. Hell yeah I’m up for that, plus, I already have the sounds in the cupboard.
I had been making my way through three hours worth of sounds using the rig of the day, which was the Vox monster set-up, the old TOPLAP app by Joshua Parmentor, and a Jarmageddon by Moffenzeef. So, noise written for trio. There are three co-mingling sources on my track.
The first hour of sounds became The Two Minutes Hate (Hospital), and the second hour turned into The Combine (Fusty). The third hour was sitting in the cupboard.
As the project grew into a three way split with the addition of T.E.F., so it just kept getting better. I dug into my stash and pulled out 20 enjoyable (to me) minutes.
Before the dust settled, I learned that Yatsutoshi Yoshida (Government Alpha) was going to do the liner notes. I think Sou has a link to them on his Instagram. And that’s fun because I did a split with him back in 2000, and that he’s still going and strong is great!
When it came time for graphics, I wasn’t sure where to go. The original idea for those sounds was going to end up as “Remember the Maine” and I was planning on a riff on yellow journalism. But with these guys, I was more keen on representing what part of the map I’m from. It is an international release after all.
I’m from coal country, and one of my (admittedly not funny) lines is that to get to the beer store, I have to pass a coal mine. To get to the grocery store, I have to pass two.
When you pull coal out of the ground, you have to break it down to size to sell. With all of these mines around here, we had some huge coal breakers cracking big lumps of coal into little ones. The biggest of the them was the St. Nicholas – largest of its kind in the world actually. Must have made a fantastic racket in its day. They shut it down in ’65, so I never heard it going.
So, the idea to get pictures of it seemed like a good way to go. But it had gone from being abandoned and eerie to being blown to bits while I wasn’t paying attention. There ARE other breakers, but it turned out a Mr. Walter Arnold had been there, and got some great shots. I got in touch with him, and we struck an agreement on using one of his photos.
So that’s a real photo, of a real abandoned coal breaker that we would have to drive past to get to dart matches in Mahanoy City (which, at 3,500 people is not a city, but whatever).
I should have thought to get Walter in on the thank you list, dang it. Some things slip my mind when the time comes. But, consider this a belated shout out!
I was pretty excited when Sou and the guys chose that for the cover art!!
Anyway, you shouldn’t need this info, but since you never know, A Fail Association is Greg from Dada Drumming. If that’s news to you, you should look him up. He’s doing the Lord’s work at his label, and you’ll love his sounds. And T.E.F. is Kevin, who is also a member of Black Leather Jesus. I think you can put that on a resume. Those guys are both from Texas. I tend to tell Greg what the weather here is when I talk to him, and he amuses me by countering with his conditions, and they would melt my soul.
If you’re here and you want one, check out my shop. If I have copies, it’ll be listed. If not, or if it’s closer to you or you just want the download, here are some links.
I went through the process of getting rid of a ton of physical media recently. I’m working on the VHS tape collection, and found to home made tapes from ’98. I remember doing a show in Worcester Mass. and meeting a guy who did a cable access tv show based on quirky video and a noise soundtrack. Madam Chao’s Theater.
In exchange for some sounds to use, he hooked me up with a copy of one o his shows. And he tossed in a tape of a live show from the UFO Club in Japan that had performances by:
Mo*Te Xome Yukiko Shortwave Radio Suicide (MSBR, K2, Government Alpha, Rudolf and Andy Bolus) Facialmess Kazumoto Endo Gomikawa Stimbox And Crack Fierce
So, I rescue those from tape onto digital. I was going to put it on Youtube, but YouTube said it was too beaucoup. So, inspired by RRRon, I decided to do something out of the ordinary with it.
I got five usb sticks, loaded them up with the video files (it’s about 3 1/2 hours worth of material), and a ReadMe.txt file. They were each given a name, from the list of five interstellar space probes, and sent out into the universe of noise artists and free spirits.
Anyone who receives one of them in the mail can download the files for themselves, add their mark to the ReadMe file, and pass it along to the next person with interest. They can also use the opportunity to include some mail art as well.
So, out there somewhere, these guys are making the rounds.
How do you get your hands on one? I don’t know for sure. Spread the word would be my advice. Tell people if they know where one is, that you’d like it sent your way. Talking leads to trading, and trading leads to joy!
Big thumbs up and it makes me smile. Frans De Waard wrote (compiled?) a book on Ron Lessard. Buy it, read it (because the idea is not just to own it as part of our collection), be a happier human because of it. 🙂
Things I didn’t learn early enough in life . . .
RRRecords is pronounced with an extended “R” sound at the beginning of the word. It is not the letter R spoken twice followed by the word “records”. I learned that from an interview with Dom Prurient.
Ron put out the lock groove records, and they were functional pieces. You can read how they functioned in the book. But they were like . . . useful.
How much I appreciate the Recycled Tape Series – which are all still available for the cheap from Ron. There’s a line where I’m like “Just because you can pick up dozens of hours of sonic joy for $50, doesn’t mean you should be asking this guy to dub a dozen tapes for you”. That’s for me. You can do whatever you want. Maybe I’m wrong.
How cool the Pure Series was.
That Ron and Emile Beaulieau were like Harvey Dent. Imagine not knowing that right from the get-go.
That Ron – spoiler alert here – was so groundbreaking that he could tell Merzbow “Hey, most of this is good, but I’m gonna need two more tracks because two of them don’t cut the mustard”.
Enough with the spoilers. I don’t think the book is available on Amazon, I got mine from Scream and Writhe. You should get yours, doesn’t matter where.
The man is a treasure, and if I took away anything from the read it is “if you feel like doing something you think might be fun, do it”.
“For anyone who wants to make noise for others to listen to, I have been instructed to tell you, don’t. Do not make noise for others to listen to. Make noise for you to listen to.
Listen to your own noise as often as possible. Improve it so that becomes noise you want to listen to more. Any reasons or intentions you may have beyond this are your own and are not for anyone else to dictate to you. Whatever it is that you wish to achieve from the creation of noise or in the noise itself, be sure to clearly define that for yourself. What is it? Be specific. Has that happened? If not, keep doing it before expecting someone else to want to listen.
Once it has, congratulations. If you had any desire beyond what you would already have at that point, you probably should have gotten way more into dubstep.”
That’s from a Madame Chao interview. I’m on board.
There’s also a quote that I haven’t committed to memory from Vomir from a WCN podcast interview where he says something to the effect of “Perhaps you listen to my sounds. and you say, these are no good, I do not like them at all. I am ok with this!”. I now own Reject Principles. Comes with a cool little poster.
I heard a Steve Wozniak interview and they were talking about the creation of the personal computer. People in power wanted to know WHY he was building a personal computer. the answer was because he wanted to. Works for me.
Hey everyone! As you can see, I’m getting around to putting this site together. I expect it will happen in levels, and this is the first level. I also expect it will take a good bit of time until I get on top of this thing and make it look and work the way I would like best. We can still use it in the meantime. So, welcome, and this is the start of things you’re seeing.
