Parangoles, Tropicalia, Bolides y mas






Hélio Oiticica (1937-1980) was one of the most innovative Brazilian artists of the twentieth century and is now recognised as a highly significant figure in the development of contemporary art. Oiticica produced an outstanding body of work, which had its origins in the legacy of European Modernism as it developed in Brazil in the 1950s. But his unique and radical investigations led Oiticica to develop his artistic production in ever more inventive directions.

Through his work he was to challenge the traditional boundaries of art, and its relationship with life, and to undermine the separation of the art-object from the viewer, whom he turned into an active participant. Among Oiticica's most original achievements was his inventive and uncompromising use of colour.

Text by Ann Gallagher


And Part 1 of HO (1979, Ivan Cardoso)





Part 2



What? It's summer.








Deegz

Women VS Children

Tomorrow night will be our first public display of noise antics. Long time coming, hope to not disappoint. Bring your earplugs, ya noise pugs.





Please join the Fellows of Contemporary Art for Call Me Lightning, an evening of performance-based works organized by Vincent Ramos. Presented as a part of Performing Economies, the current exhibition in FOCA's Kitty Chester Series of Curator's Laboratory Projects, Call Me Lightning will take place in FOCA's Chinatown exhibition space at
970 N. Broadway Suite 208, LA 90012.

Artists:
Sara Hunsucker
Kelly Kleinschrodt
Nick Lowe
Lauralee Pope
Women vs Children
Friday, June 26, 2009
8-10 PM



"The most important thing in art is the frame. For painting: literally; for other arts: figuratively - because, without this humble appliance, you can't know where The Art stops and The Real World begins. You have to put a "box" around it because otherwise, what is that shit on the wall?" -Frank Zappa As a participating artist in Performing Economies, I was given the opportunity to program an event during the run of the exhibition. Instead of creating an overall sensibility via a traditional thematic structure for this event, I opted to simply provide each participating artist the platform to execute one of their own performance-based pieces. That the individual works are poles apart and don't necessarily "make sense" together is its ultimate strength and goal. This evening is not about a collective sensibility, but one invested in the idea of the artist as individual; filled with unique "powers", in a constant state of flux, and capable of producing ephemeral yet compelling works at any given moment.

Call Me Lightning brings together Sara Hunsucker, Kelly Kleinschrodt, Nick Lowe, Lauralee Pope, and Women VS Children (Greg Curtis and Diego J. Garza). These artists are all participating in my project, included in the exhibition, and they all incorporate various performative elements within their own separate practices. To continue on with the subject of dance (inherent within my work in the gallery), or better yet, the dance party, the best parties are those that contain a multitude of interesting characters peppered throughout; close confidants, familiar faces, total strangers, the token weirdos, etc.

Once these disparate individuals make their way to the dance floor, loaded with their complex idiosyncrasies and overall dance-floor-prowess, that is when things begin to manifest outside tradition and new hybridized forms begin to emerge. These artists and their pieces exist, for tonight, in the center of this metaphorical space and through their given actions, aim to bring this visceral experience to the forefront. This gesture is ultimately done in an effort to extend the dialogue to a live audience willing to immerse themselves in each one of these artist's unique admixture of poetics through action. Vincent RamosLos Angeles, 2009



The Problem with Music, By Steve Albini

Just saw Shellac twice this past weekend. And when I mean twice, I mean they kicked my ass the second night. They played harder, faster, than previous times. It was worth stopping everything in the world for a few hours. Quite memorable, and even more so inspiring.

So the 90s have come and gone and I'm almost 30 and still feel more pissed off then when I was 16. I remember reading this article years ago and I'd love to share it with you all. Of course, written by Steve Albini himself:

The problem with music

by Steve Albini

This is an article from Maximum Rock n' Roll #133 written by Steve Albini, and it details the problems encountered when dealing with a major label. Reprinted without permission.
Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some of them good friends, some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of this trench. I also imagine a faceless industry lackey at the other end holding a fountain pen and a contract waiting to be signed.


Nobody can see what's printed on the contract. It's too far away, and besides, the shit stench is making everybody's eyes water. The lackey shouts to everybody that the first one to swim the trench gets to sign the contract. Everybody dives in the trench and they struggle furiously to get to the other end. Two people arrive simultaneously and begin wrestling furiously, clawing each other and dunking each other under the shit. Eventually, one of them capitulates, and there's only one contestant left. He reaches for the pen, but the Lackey says "Actually, I think you need a little more development. Swim again, please. Backstroke. And he does of course.

I. A & R Scouts

Every major label involved in the hunt for new bands now has on staff a high-profile point man, an "A & R" rep who can present a comfortable face to any prospective band. The initials stand for "Artist and Repertoire." because historically, the A & R staff would select artists to record music that they had also selected, out of an available pool of each. This is still the case, though not openly.

These guys are universally young [about the same age as the bands being wooed], and nowadays they always have some obvious underground rock credibility flag they can wave. Lyle Preslar, former guitarist for Minor Threat, is one of them. Terry Tolkin, former NY independent booking agent and assistant manager at Touch and Go is one of them. Al Smith, former soundman at CBGB is one of them. Mike Gitter, former editor of XXX fanzine and contributor to Rip, Kerrang and other lowbrow rags is one of them. Many of the annoying turds who used to staff college radio stations are in their ranks as well.

There are several reasons A & R scouts are always young. The explanation usually copped-to is that the scout will be "hip to the current musical "scene." A more important reason is that the bands will intuitively trust someone they think is a peer, and who speaks fondly of the same formative rock and roll experiences. The A & R person is the first person to make contact with the band, and as such is the first person to promise them the moon. Who better to promise them the moon than an idealistic young turk who expects to be calling the shots in a few years, and who has had no previous experience with a big record company. Hell, he's as naive as the band he's duping. When he tells them no one will interfere in their creative process, he probably even believes it.

When he sits down with the band for the first time, over a plate of angel hair pasta, he can tell them with all sincerity that when they sign with company X, they're really signing with him and he's on their side. Remember that great gig I saw you at in '85? Didn't we have a blast.
By now all rock bands are wise enough to be suspicious of music industry scum. There is a pervasive caricature in popular culture of a portly, middle aged ex-hipster talking a mile-a-minute, using outdated jargon and calling everybody "baby." After meeting "their" A & R guy, the band will say to themselves and everyone else, "He's not like a record company guy at all! He's like one of us." And they will be right. That's one of the reasons he was hired.


These A & R guys are not allowed to write contracts. What they do is present the band with a letter of intent, or "deal memo," which loosely states some terms, and affirms that the band will sign with the label once a contract has been agreed on.

The spookiest thing about this harmless sounding little memo, is that it is, for all legal purposes, a binding document. That is, once the band signs it, they are under obligation to conclude a deal with the label. If the label presents them with a contract that the band don't want to sign, all the label has to do is wait. There are a hundred other bands willing to sign the exact same contract, so the label is in a position of strength.

These letters never have any terms of expiration, so the band remain bound by the deal memo until a contract is signed, no matter how long that takes. The band cannot sign to another laborer even put out its own material unless they are released from their agreement, which never happens. Make no mistake about it: once a band has signed a letter of intent, they will either eventually sign a contract that suits the label or they will be destroyed.

One of my favorite bands was held hostage for the better part of two years by a slick young "He's not like a label guy at all," A & R rep, on the basis of such a deal memo. He had failed to come through on any of his promises [something he did with similar effect to another well-known band], and so the band wanted out. Another label expressed interest, but when the A & R man was asked to release the band, he said he would need money or points, or possibly both, before he would consider it.

The new label was afraid the price would be too dear, and they said no thanks. On the cusp of making their signature album, an excellent band, humiliated, broke up from the stress and the many months of inactivity.

II. There's This Band

There's this band. They're pretty ordinary, but they're also pretty good, so they've attracted some attention. They're signed to a moderate-sized "independent" label owned by a distribution company, and they have another two albums owed to the label. They're a little ambitious. They'd like to get signed by a major label so they can have some security you know, get some good equipment, tour in a proper tour bus -- nothing fancy, just a little reward for all the hard work.

To that end, they got a manager. He knows some of the label guys, and he can shop their next project to all the right people. He takes his cut, sure, but it's only 15%, and if he can get them signed then it's money well spent. Anyways, it doesn't cost them anything if it doesn't work. 15% of nothing isn't much!

One day an A & R scout calls them, says he's 'been following them for a while now, and when their manager mentioned them to him, it just "clicked." Would they like to meet with him about the possibility of working out a deal with his label? Wow. Big Break time.

They meet the guy, and y'know what -- he's not what they expected from a label guy. He's young and dresses pretty much like the band does. He knows all their favorite bands. He's like one of them. He tells them he wants to go to bat for them, to try to get them everything they want. He says anything is possible with the right attitude. They conclude the evening by taking home a copy of a deal memo they wrote out and signed on the spot.

The A & R guy was full of great ideas, even talked about using a name producer. Butch Vig is out of the question-he wants 100 g's and three points, but they can get Don Fleming for $30,000 plus three points. Even that's a little steep, so maybe they'll go with that guy who used to be in David Letterman's band. He only wants three points. Or they can have just anybody record it (like Warton Tiers, maybe-- cost you 5 or 7 grand] and have Andy Wallace remix it for 4 grand a track plus 2 points. It was a lot to think about.

Well, they like this guy and they trust him. Besides, they already signed the deal memo. He must have been serious about wanting them to sign. They break the news to their current label, and the label manager says he wants them to succeed, so they have his blessing. He will need to be compensated, of course, for the remaining albums left on their contract, but he'll work it out with the label himself. Sub Pop made millions from selling off Nirvana, and Twin Tone hasn't done bad either: 50 grand for the Babes and 60 grand for the Poster Children-- without having to sell a single additional record. It'll be something modest. The new label doesn't mind, so long as it's recoupable out of royalties. Well, they get the final contract, and it's not quite what they expected. They figure it's better to be safe than sorry and they turn it over to a lawyer--one who says he's experienced in entertainment law and he hammers out a few bugs. They're still not sure about it, but the lawyer says he's seen a lot of contracts, and theirs is pretty good. They'll be great royalty: 13% [less a 1O% packaging deduction]. Wasn't it Buffalo Tom that were only getting 12% less 10? Whatever.

The old label only wants 50 grand, an no points. Hell, Sub Pop got 3 points when they let Nirvana go. They're signed for four years, with options on each year, for a total of over a million dollars! That's a lot of money in any man's English. The first year's advance alone is $250,000. Just think about it, a quarter million, just for being in a rock band!

Their manager thinks it's a great deal, especially the large advance. Besides, he knows a publishing company that will take the band on if they get signed, and even give them an advance of 20 grand, so they'll be making that money too. The manager says publishing is pretty mysterious, and nobody really knows where all the money comes from, but the lawyer can look that contract over too. Hell, it's free money.

Their booking agent is excited about the band signing to a major. He says they can maybe average $1,000 or $2,000 a night from now on. That's enough to justify a five week tour, and with tour support, they can use a proper crew, buy some good equipment and even get a tour bus! Buses are pretty expensive, but if you figure in the price of a hotel room for everybody In the band and crew, they're actually about the same cost. Some bands like Therapy? and Sloan and Stereolab) use buses on their tours even when they're getting paid only a couple hundred bucks a night, and this tour should earn at least a grand or two every night. It'll be worth it. The band will be more comfortable and will play better. The agent says a band on a major label can get a merchandising company to pay them an advance on T-shirt sales! ridiculous! There s a gold mine here! The lawyer Should look over the merchandising contract, just to be safe.
They get drunk at the signing party. Polaroids are taken and everybody looks thrilled. The label picked them up in a limo. They decided to go with the producer who used to be in Letterman's band. He had these technicians come in and tune the drums for them and tweak their amps and guitars. He had a guy bring in a slew of expensive old "vintage" microphones. Boy, were they "warm." He even had a guy come in and check the phase of all the equipment in the control room! Boy, was he professional. He used a bunch of equipment on them and by the end of it, they all agreed that it sounded very "punchy," yet "warm."


All that hard work paid off. With the help of a video, the album went like hotcakes! They sold a quarter million copies!

Here is the math that will explain just how fucked they are:

These figures are representative of amounts that appear in record contracts daily. There's no need to skew the figures to make the scenario look bad, since real-life examples more than abound. income is underlined, expenses are not.

Advance: $ 250,000
^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^
Manager's cut: $ 37,500
Legal fees: $ 10,000
Recording Budget: $ 150,000
Producer s advance: $ 50,000
Studio fee: $ 52,500
Drum. Amp, Mic and Phase "Doctors": $ 3,000
Recording tape: $ 8,000
Equipment rental: $ 5,000
Cartage and Transportation: $ 5,000
Lodgings while in studio: $ 10,000
Catering: $ 3,000
Mastering: $ 10,000
Tape copies, reference CDs, shipping
tapes, misc. expenses: $ 2,000
Video budget: $ 30,000
Cameras: $ 8,000
Crew: $ 5,000
Processing and transfers: $ 3,000
Off-line: $ 2,000
On-line editing: $ 3,000
Catering: $ 1,000
Stage and construction: $ 3,000
Copies, couriers, transportation: $ 2,000
Director's fee: $ 3,000
Album Artwork: $ 5,000
Promotional photo shoot and
duplication: $ 2,000
Band fund: $ 15,000
New fancy professional drum kit: $ 5,000
New fancy professional guitars [2]: $ 3,000
New fancy professional guitar amp
rigs [2]: $ 4,000
New fancy potato-shaped bass guitar: $ 1,000
New fancy rack of lights bass amp: $ 1,000
Rehearsal space rental: $ 500
Big blowout party for their friends: $ 500
Tour expense [5 weeks]: $ 50,875
Bus: $ 25,000
Crew [3]: $ 7,500
Food and per diems: $ 7,875
Fuel: $ 3,000
Consumable supplies: $ 3,500
Wardrobe: $ 1,000
Promotion: $ 3,000
Tour gross income: $ 50,000
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^
Agent's cut: $ 7,500
Manager's cut: $ 7,500
Merchandising advance: $ 20,000
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^
Manager's cut: $ 3,000
Lawyer's fee: $ 1,000
Publishing advance: $ 20,000
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^
Manager's cut: $ 3,000
Lawyer's fee: $ 1,000
Record sales: 250,000 @ $12 = $3,000,000
Gross retail revenue Royalty
[13% of 90% of retail]: $ 351,000
Less advance: $ 250,000
Producer's points
[3% less $50,000 advance]: $ 40,000
Promotional budget: $ 25,000
Recoupable buyout from previous label: $ 50,000
Net royalty: $ -14,000
^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^
Record company income:


Record wholesale price
$6.50 x 250,000 = $1,625,000 gross income
Artist Royalties: $ 351,000
Deficit from royalties: $ 14,000
Manufacturing, packaging and
distribution @ $2.20 per record: $ 550,000
Gross profit: $ 7l0,000
The Balance Sheet: This is how much each player
got paid at the end of the game.
Record company: $ 710,000
Producer: $ 90,000
Manager: $ 51,000
Studio: $ 52,500
Previous label: $ 50,000
Agent: $ 7,500
Lawyer: $ 12,000
Band member net income each: $ 4,031.25


The band is now 1/4 of the way through its contract, has made the music industry more than 3 million dollars richer, but is in the hole $14,000 on royalties. The band members have each earned about 1/3 as much as they would working at a 7-11, but they got to ride in a tour bus for a month.
The next album will be about the same, except that the record company will insist they spend more time and money on it. Since the previous one never "recouped," the band will have no leverage, and will oblige.
The next tour will be about the same, except the merchandising advance will have already been paid, and the band, strangely enough, won't have earned any royalties from their T-shirts yet. Maybe the T-shirt guys have figured out how to count money like record company guys.
Some of your friends are probably already this
fucked.

Badgerlore


"...a meeting of some of the finest minds in the whole darned scene, we have Rob Fisk (ex-Deerhoof), Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance), Liz Harris (Grouper), Tom Carter (Charalambides), Pete Swanson (Yellow Swans) and Glen Donaldson (Thuja, Jewelled Antler Collective) ganging up together to create a record of epic proportions."







Part 2:





Part 3:





And with these words I leave Badgerlore on your lap, it's been a hellava week. And Im about ready to pass out.
xo
Deegz

Middle Of The Week

Today is midweek and July couldn't come any faster.

Turbulance: there is an odd chaotic subtle peace to this space but it is hard to get to; as much of the surface that I scratch off, I still can't get to the diamond.

Deegz

There Is No Authority But Yourself.

...And if you don't have a gazillion dollars for a bass amp, build one yourself. Have a good friend with some knowledge and a soldering gun, gut out some old cones from smaller amps, I don't know - - there's always a way. I bourg'd out and purchased a cone. Since everything I have ever owned has been garbage and sounded like garbage (a sound I'm quite fond of) I was kind of eager to hear what a louder and cleaner sound could be produced with my bass guitar.

I'll just post some pics, I think they're pretty self explanatory:





This is the amp I got from Timbo, a Crate solid state 200 something something or other.



Here is das CONE. 15 INCHES.






Some HOME DEPOT action.




The initial build. Im building it large enough to later include some other subwoofers, maybe some 5" or 8"...not sure yet.



Here is Timbotronic soldering with his nifty blader runner-like third arm.



So far so good, it's sturdy as hell and loud as F when we tested it. Thinking now about how to finish the wood--lacquer, or resin, or stain...




It's all coming together, A-Team style. We put in a few braces to support the cone, which was more than enough, and luckily the cone weights NOTHING. All in all, steady as it goes!




Tim insisted we listen to The Cure while we put it together, I think a few tears of pain landed on the cabinet, so I'm guessing that's good luck. My tears, that is.




Installing the cone:



El Producto:



TOTAL. FUCKING. NERD OUT:


And there you have it my babies. A cabinet. An amplifier that rocks with an EQ. And a sound so warm it can make you take a nap, especially with all the June blue that's been kicking around lately. But I'm not complaining.


For your patience, some treats:

part I:
_01 Man Is The Bastard - Kai Lai
_02 Sleep - Dragonaut
_03 Sunn O)))/Boris - Akuma No Kuma
_04 Unwound - December
_05 The Soft Machine - Why Are We Sleeping



part II:
_06 Guru Guru - Electric Junk
_07 Sun Ra - Moon Dance
_08 Suppression - Dissect
_09 Telomere Repair - tugboatjetboat
_10 The Thrones - The Suckling
_11 OM - Rays Of The Sun _ The Shrinebuilder



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Carnivorous Canidae

The test. But I like cats, too.

Long live Van der Graaf Generator!



Wow, a flickery web-ad fell upon my eyes the other day and the retinal-burn left a charry vision of the following:



VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR
New York, NY [Nokia Theater]
Sun, Jun 21, 2009 08:00 PM



Over and over again, blinky blinky.

And yes, I've left enough space for the message above to burn into your very own eye balls, especially for those in the big rotten apple. Oh how I envy.

Well, I had heard of their (numerous) reunions, but I thought that had ended. To my suprise, Peter Hammill, Hugh Banton, and Guy Evans are the current line up of Van Der Graaf Generator and will be performing this summer. Exciting!



No seriously! Prog out with me for a second here. Van Der Graaf are like the dark side of the progressive rock moon. Don't you think? I think it's hot that they avoided using solo's, and that organ...oooh, to die for. Peter Hammill's lyrics and voice on The Aerosol Grey Machine (which was first to be released as Hammill's solo but some issues with the recording label forced them to release is as VDGG, 1969) are a bit rough, but as they continued to release albums they seem to have gotten better and better, peaking at around Pawn Hearts (1971).



Here's a four part performance by Van der Graaf Generator - Plague of Lighthouse Keepers (1-4) Thanks to PalepoliChild.

part I.


Part II.


Part III.


Part IV.



And if that's enough, you can read more about VDGG here.

xo
deegz


Love It Or LEAVE IT



I don't know. Suck it up, man. It ain't that bad. It could be worst. I love this city. For those who feel they need to run away from themselves, I offer you a myriad of alleys, piss-stank-filled streets, smog induced hallucinations and the vacant hellos from prisoners (or are they angels??)floating in the clouds of Alameda Ave.

There is something quite unique about this city, and I always encourage to pick at the scab, go ahead. This city itches and it needs you to scratch away the crust to reveal it's flesh and fervor. The class war intensifies under veils of organic foods, scooters and American Apparel ads that glare down at you like gargoyles watching the dungeons.

There is something within the filth. It is beyond 'one man's trash is another man's treasure."

And they're (whoever the fuck 'they' are) wrong, TONS of people walk in Los Angeles. Look harder and look below, they're like ants and cockroaches. No one chooses to suffer and struggle, but we're all in this beautiful garden of misery and mystery and magic. Really, don't take it for granted.
xo
Deegers


(I don't think I need to recommend this book, since it's on it's way to yours truly, but if you're interested, keep reading)

Norman Klein: Bleeding Through--Layers of Los Angeles, 1920-1986 (Book & DVD-ROM)

A crime fiction in which the journey through the evidence is more exciting than the crime itself ... A narrative strategy that reflects Los Angeles ... as open-ended, inconclusive — a series of beginnings rather than any definitive end ... — by David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times Book Review 1/18/2004
Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles, 1920-1986 is an interactive narrative that combines a database detective story with a digital city symphony and a metanarrative reflection on storytelling in this digital medium. Set in a three-mile radius near downtown Los Angeles, this DVD-ROM explores Boyle Heights, Bunker Hill, Chavez Ravine, Chinatown, Echo Park, Little Tokyo and other contested locations that helped shape the city’s cultural history. These ethnically complex neighborhoods are documented through archival photographs and films and through contemporary images that either reproduce or evoke them. This DVD- ROM is accompanied by a book, which contains a novella by cultural historian Norman M. Klein and essays on the production by Jeffrey Shaw, Marsha Kinder, Rosemary Comella and Andreas Kratky.

The interface enables the narrative to be navigated in three ways. Positioned within a small window, author Norman Klein tells the story of Molly, the fictional protagonist of his novella who is based on a real life person and who may have murdered one of her husbands. He invites us to collaborate with him in writing this fictional life. Or we can explore what Molly never noticed—the back-stories of real life people whose mini-memoirs preserve histories that otherwise might have been lost. And finally, the project leads us to reflect on this act of database storytelling and its cultural implications, particularly when set within L.A.’s urban dream factory. The contrast between past and present is most dramatic and uncanny in the back stories, where one can slide fluidly between "bleed-throughs"—old and new photographs of the same cityscape taken from precisely the same angle—which enable us to make buildings instantaneously emerge or vanish.

Drawing on hundreds of photographs, newspaper clippings and films from the archives of USC, the Los Angeles Public Library and the Automobile Club of Southern California with additional material from personal collections, "Bleeding Through" helps us refigure our vision of Los Angeles, particularly if it has been based primarily on representations from Hollywood mainstream movies.

© 2003 Annenberg Center for Communication University of Southern California

About the Author
Norman M. Klein is a professor at the California Institute of the Arts, and the author of The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory and Seven Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon. A critic, historian, and novelist, he has written extensively on the culture and politics of Los Angeles, on cinema, and on architecture.

Rosemary Comella has been working since 1999 as a project director, interface designer and programmer at the Labyrinth Project. As part of Labyrinth, she developed the interface for Tracing the Decay of Fiction, collaboration between experimental filmmaker Pat O'Neill and the Labyrinth team, and she helped direct The Danube Exodus: The Rippling Current of the River, an interactive installation with filmmaker Peter Forgács. She also developed Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles, an interactive installation and DVD-ROM, in collaboration with cultural historian Norman Klein and the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Germany. She directed and served as photographer for Cultivating Pasadena: From Roses to Redevelopment, an installation and DVD-ROM, including catalog, exhibited at the Pasadena Museum of California Art in 2005. For the past ten years, Comella has been producing new media works ranging from interactive installations and CD-ROMS with various artists to social research projects, children’s CD-ROMS and cultural projects in France. Some of the published CD-ROM titles she has been instrumental in developing include: An Anecdoted Archive of the Cold War by George Legrady and HyperReal Media Productions, San Francisco; Slippery Traces by George Legrady in collaboration with Rosemary Comella, published by ZKM, Karlsruhe; Clicking In by Lynn Hershman, published by Bay Press, Seattle; MUNTADAS: Media Architecture Installations, published by Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and Cosmos, voyage dans l’universe, published by Montparnasse Multimedia, Paris.

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Through the desert I hear: SAND




You know, there's krautrock bands and then there's KRAUTROCK bands, if you know what I mean. Aside from the essential groups such as Can, My Solid Ground, Guru Guru and Amon Duul II, Sand was a group of kosmiche fellows that really took IT there; whether they knew it or not. Like a lot of German bands of the 70s, they produced one or two albums and disbanded. What started out as a larger band in Lower Saxony (Part of Time) rose to some notarized acclaim to become Sand. I could pretend to know their history as good as Julian Cope, but why try, and honestly, he puts it marvelously in the following text [from his headheritage.co.uk] - -


When Gento and Yogi finally fled back to their homes in Bodenwerder, in Lower Saxony, they were looking for normality and safety. As members of the burgeoning Krautrock scene, they had loved their Cologne show supporting Can, and believed that their band Part Of Time could only become bigger and better. But they were all from the fanstastic land of Baron Munchhausen, a beautiful rural area whose biggest local town was the fairy-tale Hamelin, where once had come the famed and legendary Pied Piper. And though each was intrigued by these industrial cities in which they had been called upon to perform, they had all grown up playing in the woods and ancient quarries of the mysterious Weser Valley. Yes, they wanted to play the new rock’n’roll, but all were still mistrustful of the druggies and weirdos which permeated their new lives - full of student demonstration, anti-Cold War attitude and communal living. And so, when the rest of Part of Time decided to move to Berlin, both Gento and Yogi freaked out and quit the band.
Of course, this left the Papenburg brothers in a real fix. Both Ludwig and Ulrich were excellent musicians, but how should they proceed? Their lead singer Johannes Vester was a visionary lyricist, but he was no musician. True, he contributed a mean short wave radio to the soup of their live sound, but it was hardly going to help now that the drummer and organist had both run back to the forest.
However, this was the experimental Krautrock scene of 1972, and anything was possible. Can’s manager, Manfred Schmidt, had been enormously impressed by Part of Time’s performance in Cologne. He had sat up half the night listening to Johannes Vester’s notions of where experimental rock’n’roll should go next. And he had introduced Vester and the two Papenburg brothers to Klaus Schulze, who had in turn encouraged their plans to move to his own city Berlin, where anything was possible, and the weirder the better.



And so Sand was born - a cosmic and drummerless trio with a lead singer who played VCS3 synthesizer and sang mysterious and pedantic English lyrics in a voice like a Frisian Puritan reared on Melanie Kafka and David Bowie. Sample lyric? "He is an old loggerhead - actually long ago he is dead." Reviewer’s comment: Nuff said.
On arrival in Berlin, these three longhairs beat a path to Klaus Schulze’s front door and asked him to produce their first LP, to be entitled Golem. Why did they want to call it Golem? Well, Golem was a mysterious Jewish figure from the 16th century who had been fashioned out of the earth. The members of Sand used ‘Golem’ as a verb to describe the transmutations which occurred when they played together. In the words of Johannes Vester:
"To experience with the unknown, to give life... that was our impulse... [those lyrics expressed] exactly what was in our mind when we Golemned."

And so it happened that Klaus Schulze recorded five strange and extended ambient ballads by a trio of little people from Lower Saxony, who each knew precisely what sound they wished to achieve. Some of the songs hung around from their days as Part of Time, but these, now without drums or organ, were considerably extended in duration in order to consciously create "reduction, frugality, monotony, even mantric principles and elements", as Johannes Vester would later comment.
And so long as the results sounded like nothing else ever heard before they would all be quite happy. And quietly and seemingly quite easily, they achieved this goal. For Golem is a beautifully mystical and hauntingly empty record, inhabiting those same pre-industrial landscapes in which they had played as children. The songs were occasionally propelled by picked glassy acoustic guitars and pulsing monolithic bass, as though powered by the heartbeats of frost giants delicately picking their way through their ancient Saxon township in outsize and ill-fitting seven league boots. But often-as-not the music was left to hang in mid air, as hauntingly weird translated lyrics, strangely sung in some undefined post-apocalyptic space-cockney sauntered and cooed out their bee-zarre message over washes of belt-driven synthesizers and a-rhythmic agricultural ur-folk music.



read the rest here

So this is the part where I usually insert a little mixy mix of the sounds that blow my fucking mind away. And i'll get to that. But the story of Sand is sooo good, that I hope you finish reading Cope's history. And if you get the chance, his Krautrock Sampler is to die for.

A bit more on their history:

Sand were a one-record oddity from the early 1970s who might have been lost to obscurity if David Tibet of Current 93 hadn?t discovered their album Golem in the record collection of Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound. Sand?s record of strange surreal music is a highly original masterpiece of Cosmic Krautrock. The group was originally from the small town of Bodenwerder, in Lower Saxony in the northwestern part of Germany. Inspired by Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, and other psychedelic bands, Vester, the Papenberg brothers, and a couple other musicians formed the group Part of Time in 1970. They played many gigs, and after a short while, moved to Cologne where they met the members of Can as well as Klaus Schulze. In 1971 Vester transferred to Berlin to study psychology and the Papenberg brothers followed him, and as a trio they became Sand in 1972. By now they were becoming more influenced by the experimental rock scene of the city as well as the revolutionary politics of Berlin?s underground. At the time Klaus Schulze was developing a special recording process with engineer Manfred Schunke called Artificial Head Stereo Sound, which like Surround Sound created the illusion of the sound coming from everywhere. As Schulze had already met the group in Cologne, he chose them to record one of a series of records that would demonstrate the special recording studio. In 1974 the album Golem was recorded with Schulze as the engineer, and released that same year on the Delta-Acustic label, as part of a series of Artificial Head recordings from that same year. The group wasn?t actually too happy with the loss of dynamics caused by the Artificial Head technique, though it lends the music a far more trippy air, especially with headphones. Sand split up shortly after the record came out, and in 1975 Vester started a solo project, with the unwieldy name Johannes Vester and His Vester Bester Tester Electric Folk Orchestra. This group went back into the Artificial Head Stereo Sound studio to record a never-released album Born at Dawn, while the brothers Papenberg trundled back to Lower Saxony and other careers. Stapleton and Tibet eventually got in touch with Vester and in 1996 released the double-CD Ultrasonic Seraphim, which contained all of Golem, some other Sand recordings and alternative takes, and three of Vester?s Born at Dawn tracks.
I golemned it from here

Please enjoy, and if you can blast this on your headphones, I wont stop you.

Sand - 1. Helicopter
Sand - 2. Old Loggerhead

Tracks 1 and 2 are from the original album. Thanks to Stapleton and Tibet (Current 93), Golem was rerelased with more tracks, a small taste of the cosmos for you:

Sand - Doncha Feel
Sand - Burning House


Until next time sonic seekers.
xo
deegz