Date: Friday January 31st
Title:Radio/Voice/Cut-Ups
and Other Rants
Description: Today’s
program features a range of radiophonic productions along with cut-up
experiments influenced from the Burroughs/Gysin legacy. There are also
lengthier Spoken-Word pieces from weel
known artists as well as a host of artists that submitted to PULSE FIELD.
***please
use linked websites for further details of recordings. www.ubu.com is especially extensive.
10:00
This
"film" (if film it be), the last to be completed by the painter and
diarist Jarman before his death early this year of AIDS, is, I'm pretty sure,
the best movie I've ever seen (if it's even "seeable"). One hour and
seventeen minutes of luminous blue 35mm glow, unchanging, calming, irritating,
numbing, and a soundtrack laboriously collaged out of snippets of sound and
music and Jarman's meditations on his encroaching blindness and approaching
death, and on the blindness of the world to its own slower but equally
inevitable demise.
Jarman, the
consummate image-crafter, whose films are quite literally "moving
pictures," coming to grips with the disappearance of all images from his
field of vision, then the disappearance of his own self-image into the
all-transcending blue of death. Realizing that, on the world's screen, he has
no image; as a queer, an outsider, none of the images he has midwifed into the
world will be allowed to have lives of their own and enter the viral
give-and-take of autonomous phantasms that is "culture." So, facing
death, he faces not the immediate post-mortem acclaim granted to those who,
while unbearably unproductive while alive, were, at least, fertile; but rather
the amnesia our society reserves for those whose existence it has never
acknowledged in the first place.
"From the
bottom of your heart, pray to be released from image."
But of course,
none of this stuff is why I wanted to mention it to you; I brought it up
because it struck me, like a bolt out of the blue, as an answer to my prayer in
my anti-review of Dracula, six months ago. A cinema that has transcended its
own images. Even-tually the effect of the droning blue screen is that you are
inside Derek Jarman's head, seeing what he sees (nothing), hearing what he
hears, both outside and inside, and then, when the movie's over...The one truly
human experience, death, communicated, by a master artist transcending the
materials and limitations of his own art by facing his own nonexistence, and
ours.
The film's
ancestors would be the monochromies of Yves Klein (the color is actually very
similar to International Klein Blue), he of the "leap into the void";
it doesn't take very long before the brain (or the world), like a sponge, soaks
up the blue of the screen (the same way it would have fed on the fast food of
images, had there been any) and, in the unified blue of the blue world, we
attain, as the old Tibetan texts say, the faculty of walking in the sky, if
only for this short, magic hour and seventeen minutes of cinematic time.
And so it is
that, at the movie's very end, in the midst of an incredibly lyrical and
erotically charged love song, Jarman is strangely reassuring about the world's
blindness. "Our name will be forgotten, in time, no one will remember our
work," he says, as if this is a good thing, because it allows us to
concentrate on our love, which is what really matters. Freed from
self-conception as artists, queers, or anything else, we are free to become
what only death can make us, human, and hence free to realize the true
potential of our estate. Beyond words, beyond names, beyond subject and object
"In the pandemonium of image, I bring you the universal Blue."
—Gridley Minima
11:00
o Zoë Irvine, Scotland Pulse Field Select Submissions ‘Passport Mix’ 2001-02 (21’00”) http://cara.gsu.edu/pulsefield/
o Kathryn Refi, USA
Pulse Field Select Submissions ‘Speaks’ (39’00”)
12:00
o Alessandro Bosetti, ‘Pinocchio’
2001 (40’00”)
o John Wanzel,USA Pulse
Field Select Submissions ‘Pear’ 2001 (38’00”)
http://cara.gsu.edu/pulsefield/
1:20
o David Snow,USA
Pulse Field Select Submissions ‘The Architecture of Hysteria’ 2002 (33’00”)
http://cara.gsu.edu/pulsefield/
o Dan Gutwein, USA
Pulse Field Select Submissions 1998-2001 (20’00”)
http://cara.gsu.edu/pulsefield/
o Sabrina Aquilar Peña, USA
Pulse Field Select Submissions 2002 (20’00”)
http://cara.gsu.edu/pulsefield/
2:30
Jack Smith, ‘Silent Shadows ON Cinemaroc Island Vol.
II’ 1962-1964 (60’00”)
Repressed. Debut on Tony Conrad's new imprint, distributed
through Table of the Elements. This is the second of 2 CDs of archival Jack
Smith material. "The first in a series of remarkable vintage recordings
which feature the protean film-maker, photographer and performance artists Jack
Smith (1932-1989). The material includes readings of short stories and other
audio excursions (featuring musical accompaniment from the likes of Conrad,
John Cale and Angus MacLise), as well as excerpts from Conrad's soundtrack to
Smith's notorious and groundbreaking film Flaming Creatures (1962). Recorded in
glistening monaural lo-fidelity at Conrad's 56 Ludlow Street studio between
1962-1964, these pieces reveal an important facet of Smith's artistic legacy,
and offer a rare glimpse of one of the most influential milieux of the
1960s."
3:30
Nurse With Wound ‘Sylvie and Babs’, ‘1988 (37’32”)
http://www.wfmu.org/LCD/21/nurse.html
4:15
John Oswald, ‘PLUNDERPHONICS’Disc One 1975-1996 (72’00”) http://www.killthepresident.org/ktp/people/plunderphonic.html
Plunderphonics
is a cultural paradox, one of the only truly underground musical phenomena to
emerge in the latter quarter of the 20th century ("This art is more
radical in its social and political associations than the introduction of the
electric guitar"), yet featuring some of the world's most recognizable
music imbedded in novel constellations of sonic subversity by John Oswald.
"Mr. Oswald
flew past the level of mere sampling. He has taken sampling fifty times beyond
what we've come to expect."
This ambitious
package contains 60 memorable tracks, from the Swinging Sixties to the Numb
Nineties, on two hyper-dense discs covering the gamut of progressive musical
endeavour, where punk meets classical, schmaltz marries metal, jazz divorces
rap and electronica kills world.
"Plunderphonics
is recreational savagery... A consistently brilliant record."
Each title
features an instantly recognizable musical icon transformed into an
electroquoted Frankenstein or Hyde with a plunderphoney moniker such as Anthrax
Squeeze Factory, Sinéad O'Connick Jr., Beastie Shop Beach, or Bing Stingspreen.
Often visceral, occasionally poignant, sometimes funny, never predictable and
always challenging collages.
5:30
Steven Jesse Bernstein, ‘Face’ 1990 (12’00”)
http://www.jackstraw.org/archives/sjb.html
5:45
Ken Nordine, ‘Colors’ 1966 (66’00”)
For four generations now, the voice of Ken Nordine has been
a subtle thread in the American fabric. As many can tell Coltrane in two notes,
so with Nordine in a word.
His series of Word Jazz albums make for an essential section
of any hipster's record collection, occupying an honored space next to the
works of Lenny Bruce, Lord Buckley, and Del Close and John Brent. And in many
ways, Nordine's work has aged better than his contemporaries'. While their
spirit and energy are to be marveled at, Nordine has the edge as a speaker,
writer and conceptualist.
"I was going to be a concert
voilinist", he explains, "until I learned that working with my voice
was a much easier way to do it. I think the thing that happened to me is that I
like writing, and I like writing for speaking. It's a different kind of
writing. A good line is like a stone that's been smoothed by water running over
it. In other words, if it's not on the beat, if it's not in the pocket, you'll
know right away. It's like a line in a good jazz solo."
As well as recording, Nordine put his voice to work in
broadcasting. In addition to commercials and voice-over work, he found his way
onto television. Predictably enough, his program was not usual.
"Years ago, when there was just black
and white, I read Rats in The Wall by H.P Lovecraft, and all these horror
stories scared the hell outta kids. And you know what it was used for - the
young people at home were watching this thing in the dark, boys and girls. This
was where the testosterone and the estrogen could get together. It's a good
excuse. I probably was causing all kinds of dysfunctional family life."
As worlds collide, some merge. This is how Colors actually
was born into the world of advertising.
"It's very interesting. I was thinking
about that earlier. A fellow by the name of Bob Pritkin, a very strange and
talented man, worked at an advertising agency, called me up and wanted me to do
the Fuller Paint commercials. The assignment was to take nine colors, and then
one would be all colors - spectrum. From that I wrote the ten commercials,
starting with 'The Fuller Paint Company invites you to stare with your ears at
yellow', and then we would do yellow, or blue or green. What I did was I wrote
this out, and then I got a group of musicians together to depict - free form -
as we were recording it. For example, 'The Fuller Paint Company invites you to
stare with your ears at yellow': 'In the beginning' (whatever the musicians
thought 'in the beginning' sounded like) 'or long before that' - and it would continue
as light was deciding who was going to be in or out of the spectrum - 'yellow
was in serious trouble'. Well, that was one. We also did another one which was
a yellow canary, or a yellow lemon drop, or y'ello, can you hear me? - a lot of
light-hearted things. At any rate, I wrote the ten commercials and was very
pleased. They were only on the air for thirteen weeks, and then they went off.
People would call up and say, 'Hey - play that again', and they couldn't,
because they were commercials. And so, they caused quite a stir. They won an
International Broadcast Award, which was wonderful, you know - something to
dust. Very strange to win this big award, and that was the end of it. I
thought, 'God, how ephemeral. That was so much fun, doing that, and now it
isn't going to be heard anymore'. So I added about thirteen more colors - we
did forty-four, all told - and I went back to Universal Recording in Chicago,
and did the whole series of the colors, taking out the name of the Fuller Paint
Company and just doing the colors as you hear them on the record. 'Yellow' is
different, but the rest are pretty much the same as they were."
For four generations now, the voice of Ken Nordine has been
a subtle thread in the American fabric. As many can tell Coltrane in two notes,
so with Nordine in a word.
His series of Word Jazz albums make for an essential section
of any hipster's record collection, occupying an honored space next to the
works of Lenny Bruce, Lord Buckley, and Del Close and John Brent. And in many
ways, Nordine's work has aged better than his contemporaries'. While their
spirit and energy are to be marveled at, Nordine has the edge as a speaker,
writer and conceptualist.
"I was going to be a concert
voilinist", he explains, "until I learned that working with my voice
was a much easier way to do it. I think the thing that happened to me is that I
like writing, and I like writing for speaking. It's a different kind of
writing. A good line is like a stone that's been smoothed by water running over
it. In other words, if it's not on the beat, if it's not in the pocket, you'll
know right away. It's like a line in a good jazz solo."
As well as recording, Nordine put his voice to work in
broadcasting. In addition to commercials and voice-over work, he found his way
onto television. Predictably enough, his program was not usual.
"Years ago, when there was just black
and white, I read Rats in The Wall by H.P Lovecraft, and all these horror
stories scared the hell outta kids. And you know what it was used for - the
young people at home were watching this thing in the dark, boys and girls. This
was where the testosterone and the estrogen could get together. It's a good
excuse. I probably was causing all kinds of dysfunctional family life."
As worlds collide, some merge. This is how Colors actually
was born into the world of advertising.
"It's very interesting. I was thinking
about that earlier. A fellow by the name of Bob Pritkin, a very strange and
talented man, worked at an advertising agency, called me up and wanted me to do
the Fuller Paint commercials. The assignment was to take nine colors, and then
one would be all colors - spectrum. From that I wrote the ten commercials,
starting with 'The Fuller Paint Company invites you to stare with your ears at
yellow', and then we would do yellow, or blue or green. What I did was I wrote
this out, and then I got a group of musicians together to depict - free form -
as we were recording it. For example, 'The Fuller Paint Company invites you to
stare with your ears at yellow': 'In the beginning' (whatever the musicians
thought 'in the beginning' sounded like) 'or long before that' - and it would
continue as light was deciding who was going to be in or out of the spectrum -
'yellow was in serious trouble'. Well, that was one. We also did another one
which was a yellow canary, or a yellow lemon drop, or y'ello, can you hear me?
- a lot of light-hearted things. At any rate, I wrote the ten commercials and
was very pleased. They were only on the air for thirteen weeks, and then they
went off. People would call up and say, 'Hey - play that again', and they
couldn't, because they were commercials. And so, they caused quite a stir. They
won an International Broadcast Award, which was wonderful, you know - something
to dust. Very strange to win this big award, and that was the end of it. I
thought, 'God, how ephemeral. That was so much fun, doing that, and now it
isn't going to be heard anymore'. So I added about thirteen more colors - we
did forty-four, all told - and I went back to Universal Recording in Chicago,
and did the whole series of the colors, taking out the name of the Fuller Paint
Company and just doing the colors as you hear them on the record. 'Yellow' is
different, but the rest are pretty much the same as they were."