Creative Disease and Panic Stricken God -
Since I'm a bit out of touch with the current generation of experimental music makers I can only assume that there is a segment of them that are as grotesquely prolific as my circle of friends were beginning some 25 years ago.
Aside from the horrific hard drive space that's required the digital age offers a perfect environment for reckless composing, playing and recording. But on the other hand the relatively cheap supply of cassette tapes in our early days also afforded an easy way to record nearly every little thing we did.
My particular group of musically inclined friends began when using 2 regular cassette decks for "sound on sound" was the only "multi-track" option available to us. There were also plenty of times when we'd rehearse a bit (or maybe not at all) and just record live onto cassette. Remarkably some of those recordings sound pretty damn good.
Among the gang, Dan Holt was the first to obtain a 4-track - the beloved Yamaha MT44 - a different version of which I still have sitting beside me now. Then Craig Coe copped one of the first Fostex 4-tracks. Within a few more years Dan bought a Fostex 8-track and we were all in avant garde hillbilly heaven.
By the mid to late 80s our collective recording equipment was getting better and we were, for the most part, leaving our Casio samplers and keyboards behind in exchange for actual synthesizers, samplers and drum machines.
Most of us were in often questionably talented bands in the late 70s but by the early 80s we were predominantly obsessed with recording. Different combos and trios of us would occasionally play here and there and for the most part we usually weren't well recieved. If any of us sometimes have a bit of an "attitude" towards the current flood of DJs and laptop musicians it's probably largely due to jealousy of the modern acceptance of non-traditional "bands" and instrumentation. In other words, the next time one of you young 'uns runs into one of us old timers, show a little love - we took a lot of the early bumps and bruises for you.
Not that every one was a Bon Jovi lovin' philistine back then (well, almost) -there was a small audience already grooving to the likes of Dome, Zoviet France, Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, Neubauten etc and these were some of the bands that definitely influenced us.
Basically from 1980 on, one or two or three or four of us would get together, set up equipment in someone's apartment, drink beer, get high and improvise. Typically we'd doink around, letting each of us "get our sound" and play until we hit on something, then start the tape machine and keep going. Occasionally we'd pause to spend more time on a song and try to achieve some structure but probably 70% of the early recordings in particular were almost completely improvised.
When the 8-tracks came around there was a lot more incentive to spend time on songs and that's reflected in the body of work, some of which I will be publishing here soon.
Much of what we recorded was geared towards an ambient-soundtrack kind of purpose. Unfortunately, none of us could afford what decent video equipment cost back in those days, but hopefully some of the music will be finding a new home with contemporary video work.
A good example of our modus operandi is the crop of songs labeled under "Detachment - Music for Entrails" - both in the nature of the music and the fact that I'm not 100% sure who the participants are but I believe that it is from an all-day session in Craig Coe's girlfriend's house in the basement. If I'm right then 'Detachment" at the time was Craid Coe, David Holtek and Jack Ison.
If you've read this far then I'm impressed - or sorry for taking so much of your time. But as more thoughts come to me I'll make this page even excrutiatingly longer.
On behalf of Craig Coe, Dan Holt, Jack Ison and Randy Cheek I hope you enjoy the music.
Oct 2006 David Holtek |
