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Radioactivities: The Life and Times of Mr. and Mrs. Kraftwerk

June 20, 2022 · 5 Comments

I knew David and Jennifer long before they became Mr. and Mrs. Kraftwerk. Actually, David and I used to pal around in college, performing on-air hijinks on college radio stations and attending Butthole Surfers concerts. There was always a performance art aspect to David’s humor, probably spurred on by the mischievous subcultures you’d find sneaking around late ’80s campuses. As the Subgenius slogan went, “Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.“

The honorary title of Mr. and Mrs. Kraftwerk was unwittingly foisted upon David and Jennifer. As you’ll learn, David is the fabled Florida man who changed his name to ‘Kraftwerk.’ Or so they say.

As self-described ‘super fans’ of the German uber-group, David and Jennifer at first happily embraced getting tangled in the mythos of Kraftwerk. Now they unashamedly encourage and propagate it. If this were one of those movie ‘expanded universes,’ you’d have to now refer to their contributions to the Kraftwerk story as canon.

This post breaks down the timeline of David and Jennifer’s Kraftwerk-related activities, projects, and art pranks. A common theme is the automobile — what begins with a memorable driver’s license photo ends up with the five-figure purchase of the very Beetle spotted in 3D at Kraftwerk’s current shows.

You won’t be surprised to learn this list is incomplete. There are the gingerbread cookies, the BBC Radio interview, the Computer World computer project, the new concert-going outfits, the teletubbies, and so much more. Like musique, this project is non-stop. The tale of Mr. and Mrs. Kraftwerk is an ever-developing story.

The transcript below is taken from a much longer conversation — nearly 45 minutes, in fact. The full interview goes into many other Kraftwerk-related shenanigans and some nerdy details. You can listen to it all in the handy audio player below.

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FLORIDA MAN CHANGES HIS NAME TO KRAFTWERK

David: When we moved to Florida, we had to get new driver’s license photos.

Jennifer: And David went to the DMV as Man Machine. And specifically asked the photographer to make sure that his — I don’t know how you managed to pull this off — but get your shirt and tie in the photo because they always cut it off at the Adam’s apple. The fact that you were able to ask for that, without it raising any red flags or strangeness, and them doing it — kudos.

Michael: Was that the same day that you took all the other photos of Man Machine out and about?

Jennifer: Yes. Because since he was already in costume, why not continue taking photos, documenting this costume, and then doing things that are out of character for a Kraftwerk robot.

David: You mean like having humanity?

Jennifer: Yes. Like doing something other than standing motionless on a stage.

David: So we fed some ducks, put some gas in the Subaru, and enjoyed some delicious iced coffee. Then at the end of the day, I went to bed.

Michael: Then you posted the photos online.

Jennifer: Yes. It took about six or eight months, and then somebody found them and just made up a story. They didn’t reach out or contact anybody.

David: It was Dangerous Minds. And they made this whole story up based upon the photos. Florida Man Changes His Name to ‘Kraftwerk.’ I woke up that morning, had a cup of coffee, and took a quick look at my social media feed. At that point, I’d already had like 50 notifications, and I was puzzled.

Michael: And then it ballooned from there!

David: Nevermind that Vice Magazine interviewed me, and Road and Track got in contact because of the DMV end of it. Oh, and New Music Express wrote a story. Nevermind that. We were in Lakeland, Florida, of all places, at a record store, and somebody started whispering, “Hey, it’s that’s the guy. That’s the guy who changed his name to Kraftwerk.”

Jennifer: It was finally a bit of fun news about a Florida man. Nothing that involved an alligator or an arrest.

David: It was probably the first positive Florida man story to be written in a decade.¹

THE KRAFTWERK WEDDING

David: We were planning on getting married, and I half-jokingly said to Jennifer, “What about Kraftwerk as a wedding theme?” And she wasn’t half-joking with her answer. She was full on.

Jennifer: So a red shirt and black tie were obvious attire for all of the wedding party, including me. Then we made two Kraftwerk podiums. They’re like lecterns but are actually the cases that they stand in front of when they perform. We found some traffic cones that didn’t have stripes and proceeded to mask them off and spray paint them, give them stripes. And when we went to see Kraftwerk in Atlanta, both of us had the foresight to collect as many discarded 3D glasses on the way out of the venue as possible.²

Michael: And everyone dressed as Man Machine.

Jennifer: Yes. That was the only request.

Michael: And the wedding got written up in a bunch of places, including in Germany.

Jennifer: Yes, in the Rheinische Post in Düsseldorf.

KRAFTWERK’S NEW PRESS PHOTO

Kraftwerk (?) at the Dimensions Festival 2018, Croatia.

Jennifer: We reached out to a photographer friend named Jon Wolding. Sort of last minute, maybe a month before the wedding, and told him our idea.

Michael: This is the photo taken at the end of the night, replicating the Man Machine album cover.

Jennifer: He managed to pull it together in the back parking lot; that’s the exit staircase of the second level of Ella’s. He stuck some red photo paper to the outside of the building with gaff tape, and he and his, team managed to set up and light that amazing photo.³

Michael: Then, unexpectedly, the photo starts appearing in strange places.

David: It was at a music festival in Croatia. The Dimensions Festival 2018. And, on their website, they used our photo as the photo of Kraftwerk, the festival’s headliner. And if they printed flyers and posters like that, I would pay a King’s ransom for one.

Michael: I think what happened is somehow, through rampant sharing, the picture built enough SEO credibility that it somehow marched its way to the top of an image search result for ‘Kraftwerk.’

David: Yeah, apparently that’s what happened. And then there were other things as a result of that. Like bandanas and other apparel being sold on Amazon with our wedding photo on them.

KRAFTWERK SKY DANCER

Michael: What was the next project?

Jennifer: We carved the pumpkins for Halloween. Then, soon after, around Christmas, the neighborhoods here are full of those inflatable Yodas and Santa Clauses and stuff. And I thought, “Wouldn’t it be fantastic to have a Kraftwerk sky dancer?” I mocked it out on packing material paper and got some ripstop nylon, and sewed it together.⁴ And I found a guy on Craigslist that had a surplus of wind sock fans. I don’t know why. We did a test run out in the front yard, and it worked! But now we need to find someplace with a nice backdrop for a video. So we guerrilla-style drove up in the backside of the Tampa Museum of Art, put the hazards on, wheeled the fan and the sky dancer out, and plugged it into an outlet. That’s the video that you see of the sky dancer video on YouTube.⁵

David: You should make it very clear: we tried to get them to sign off on it. They just looked at us like we were offering a lightly fried weasel in a bun. So, we had to take matters into our own hands and just go do it.

Jennifer: Since we had met Wolfgang Flür,⁶ it seemed logical to put his face on the sky dancer. So it’s a Wolfgang Skydancer, which he thoroughly loved. And he’s used that video footage in his recent concert backdrop video.

KRAFTWERK PUPPETS

Jennifer: The puppets were also an idea that I’d had, but, again, how to get from an idea to making something three-dimensional — I didn’t know how to do it. And it occurred to me that maybe I should look on YouTube. And sure enough, Adam Kreutinger has a whole how-to one-on-one series on making puppets.

David: And Jennifer vanished down a puppet rabbit hole, like a wormhole in space and time, not to be seen for months.

Jennifer: So now we’re the proud custodians of four rather large Muppet-sized Kraftwerk puppets,⁷ which we used to shoot a video set to the “Autobahn” cover by New David.

David: New David did a lovely cover of a number of Kraftwerk songs. I think that his cover of “Autobahn” is the most significant because he takes a song that is intrinsically very synth-laden and with no real-world instrumentation, and he turns it into an ode to a drive in the country. And it’s beautiful. We were listening to it and had the idea that this was something that we could do a video for. We began working on an homage to New David’s homage. Then I got in touch with him and said, “Hey, can we use your music for our video?” and he was all for it. It worked out well, and the rest is history.

FLORIAN SCHNEIDER’S BEETLE

David: And then the bad news came.

Michael: Which was Florian Schneider’s passing.

David: Yeah. It was a large loss. You could feel it. For us, it was like, and I guess, how the world felt about the loss of David Bowie except a little more poignant. I wrote a story about the 26 days of silence following Florian Schneider’s death on Medium, and I led that story off with a photo of his Volkswagen Beetle. But we didn’t know about the car going up for sale until Claudia⁸ ‘at mentioned’ one of us on social media about it being for sale on the German equivalent of Autotrader.

Jennifer: The more we thought about the opportunity, it seemed that we should at least make, as they say, the college try. We should at least reach out to the dealer, give him a little backstory on who we are, why we’re interested in the vehicle, what we’re prepared to spend on it, and ask, was he willing at all? Is it possible for him to make any kind of compromise on the going price?

David: Obviously, you don’t have a good idea what sort of value to place on the 1949 Volkswagen Beetle owned by Florian Schneider. It’s hard to wrangle a price, especially when you’re doing it over a phone line regarding a car that you’ve never laid eyes on in person. So I laid out the case for the two odd-ball Americans, so very far away from the Beetle’s homeland in Germany. He felt certain synchronicity with us, and he was willing to do it.

Michael: So then the car had to get on a boat, but did you go there to see it first?

David: Yes. We really wanted to go see this car in its home, before it came over. And so we went, and that afforded great opportunities to meet journalists who suddenly found our purchase of the car to be very, very newsworthy.

Michael: So once again, the news cycle kicks into gear.

David: I don’t remember the journalist’s name who wrote the story in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, but that newspaper is the German equivalent of the New York Times. It has national distribution across Germany, and Germans are fanatical readers of the newspaper. It was a really big deal. And the story was on page three of their A section. It didn’t go in the C section or the D section. It was page three and the entire page, top to bottom, in the A section. Because the Germans took a great interest in the idea that this piece of their cultural heritage was going to get loaded on a boat and go to Florida for two American Kraftwerk fanatics.

Jennifer: And then the car got on a boat for what we thought was going to take a month. It turned out to be closer to four and a half.

Michael: Well, the car finally arrives, and you’re ready for it. And you’re able to fully document the arrival.

David: (Laughter) There was a lot of emotion; it’s going to be here any day. Now we were thinking, with great confidence, they will definitely give us notice before it gets here. Except that there was zero notice. I happened to be up, and I heard a noise outside at 1:30 in the morning. I peek out of the blinds, and there’s this enormous automotive transportation trailer. They’re offloading cars, and I think, “Oh, that can’t possibly be for us. They must have had a flat or something.” I walk out there in my jimjams and my bed head with a flashlight, and sure enough, at the back of the trailer is our Beetle. And we were prepared to have a friend of ours do videography and document the joyful reunion of us with Florian Schneider’s Beetle. And instead, it’s me holding my telephone at arm’s length with bedhead and trying to pretend that I’m happy.

Michael: Would they have left it in the street if you hadn’t been there?

David: I can’t tell you. I regret walking outside as I’d like to know what they would have done.

Michael: So, then, what are the plans for the Beetle?

David: The plan is to bring it to Volkswagen events and show it not only as a fantastic, very close to the war post-war artifact but also as a piece of German cultural heritage. Perhaps with a cutout of Florian Schneider and some Kraftwerk playing.⁹

Michael: Do you foresee driving around in it?

David: Well, we still need to finish its legalization in the state of Florida. But you know, a lot of terrible yet ironic things seem to happen in this world. And it would be just totally ironic and terrible if a distracted person sending a text were to t-bone this car while in Tampa traffic.

Michael: And driving a neon pink modern Volkswagen.

David: Yeah. So, while it will occasionally be driven, it’s only going to be under the auspices of a Sunday morning drive while all the particularly bad people are still in bed, recovering from hangovers. It will get taken to car shows, but we’re going to get a nice flatbed trailer to transport it. To that end, we purchased a tow vehicle: a big white GMC truck. And Jennifer is in the midst of making some amazing vinyl graphics that are going to be on the side.

Jennifer: I’ve already purchased little metal letters for the back tailgate. This truck is now the Kraftwerk Edition GMC truck.

David: It looks very official.

KRAFTWERK IS THE REASON

Michael: I’m curious — besides being big fans, what do you feel makes Kraftwerk ripe for this?

David: It’s the absurdity of having a sense of humor about a band that takes itself so seriously. Or, more accurately, whose fans take the band so seriously. I don’t know that Kraftwerk take themselves that seriously …

Jennifer: Their fans sure do.

David: But the fans do. Talk about a bunch of killjoys.

Jennifer: Kraftwerk has created such a simple and bold pallet to pull from: vivid colors, vivid shapes, iconography, symbols … like visual samples that can be reused and reconstituted and put together in completely new and different ways. And I like putting things together in ways that are incongruent with this severe hard visual aesthetic that’s been put out by the band.

Michael: I also think the mysteriousness of them allows people to fill in their own blanks. And, to me, you’re starting to take on sort of a Kraftwerk-ian version of The Yes Men.

David: Thank you for drawing that analogy. That’s good.

Michael: It’s this idea of these intentionally bizarre things putting a stop to people’s normal brain processes and making them think in ways they’ve never thought before in order to try to figure things out.

David: That was the tenant of the surrealists. And that’s kind of what we hope to achieve. There’s an absurdity that we want to poke at to the point that it makes people uncomfortable. I mean, we are super fans, but at the same time, we’re also kind of trolling the super fans.

The Pomposity of It All

June 4, 2022 · 2 Comments

One of the first bands I was into was Yes (which is why I know a thing or two about Alan White). One could easily find most of their oeuvre in the cut-out bins, so I had all of Yes’s early albums by the time I was 15 — even this one. But soon, punk rock and post-punk reared their shaggy heads. I quickly jettisoned Yes, prog-rock, and anything resembling those to the dustbin.

So, I never really got into Vangelis. The pomposity of it all — I filed him alongside the Rick Wakemans and Keith Emersons of the world. My synth heroes were rarely photographed in front of banks of gear, whether Cabaret Voltaire, Chris Carter, or the more humble practitioners regularly featured in Keyboard Magazine, like Suzanne Ciani. Of course, I dug the music in Blade Runner, but I was just into Blade Runner. Though I watched it multiple times, I only saw it via VHS or DVD on television at home. I considered every part of it satisfying as a whole.

In 2007, Blade Runner: The Final Cut was released on the film’s 25th anniversary. This version wasn’t just another ‘director’s cut’ treatment — the visuals and sound were fully remastered, with the latter updated for theaters with surround sound. At the time of its theater run, I was in Los Angeles, staying with a friend and looking for something to do on a lazy afternoon. My friend told me that a cinema within walking distance of his place was one of the ‘test theaters’ used by the film’s technical team to fine-tune this new Blade Runner version. The movie was playing on that particular screen, and, as the film’s techies optimized the ‘remaster’ in that very theater, this would be one of the best settings in the world to see this latest Blade Runner.

I walked down to the cinema. It was the middle of the afternoon on a weekday, and there weren’t many people there. I was able to get the coveted center-but-several-rows-from-the-screen seat. No one sat near me, and, with no snacks to distract me or drinks to inspire a restroom break, I settled in for my first time seeing Blade Runner on the big screen.

The first thing to hit was the opening shot of the city at night, accompanied by that identifiable ‘boom’ sound.¹ The city and all its lights looked incredible, so clear and gorgeous. I was immediately overwhelmed. But then here comes Vangelis. The plaintive opening theme eases in, and I hear it all around me. The high melodic line seems to float around the theater. The music is so crisp, vibrant, and alive — I’m finally comprehending the accomplishment of Vangelis’s score.

The sum of Blade Runner’s parts does combine into something magical, a synergy that doesn’t often happen in collective art. And it’s no surprise to learn that Vangelis composed the music specifically for the visuals and only in service of what was on screen. As he’s quoted as saying, “My music does not try to evoke emotions like joy, love, or pain from the audience. It just goes with the image, because I work in the moment.”

Of course, Vangelis recently passed away. Thinking about what I missed, I’m planning a deep dive and give a try to some classic Vangelis music that I once dismissed (without hearing, I’ll add). If you’re in the same boat, a good starting place is this memorial and career overview from Alexis Petridis.

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Through the recent Aquarium Drunkard podcast interview with Sasha Frere-Jones, I discovered a new-to-me podcast called Weird Studies. The show’s description: “Conversations on art and philosophy, dwelling on ideas that are hard to think, and art that opens up rifts in what we are pleased to call ‘reality.'” Could I be any more on board after seeing that?

I’ve listened to two episodes so far, and they were both delightfully fun and heady. Of course, I started with the philosophical discussion of Blade Runner. And then I naturally moved on to the episode about Brian Eno’s Music For Airports. So many ideas are shoved in each hour+ that it was a little dizzying to keep up. It’s a podcast that might warrant repeated listenings for episodes on your preferred topics.

As the discussion of Eno went on, with the concept of ambient music’s context a recurring theme, I was surprised the hosts didn’t mention the story of Eno hearing Music For Airports played in an airport. Unfortunately, the story is anecdotal, relayed by Brian in an interview I can’t locate. Brian told of arriving at an airport for a highly-trumpeted installation he was giving in the city. The album greeted him as he stepped off the plane and into the terminal. The only problem was that it was playing too loud. “They missed the point!” I recall him saying in the interview with palpable frustration. His reaction makes me think of this classic Far Side cartoon, and, in Eno’s version, you’d replace New Age Music’s Greatest Hits with Music For Airports played at top volume.

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While on the subject of Brian Eno, I need to mention the incredibly indulgent box set recently released by his chum Robert Fripp. The Exposures box consists of a stupefying 32 discs, broken down here by John Coulthart, who possesses one of these monsters:

I’m still working my way through its contents: 25 CDs, 3 DVDs and 4 blu-rays; the CDs all run for at least 70 minutes each so these alone provide about 30 hours of music. The box covers three phases of Robert Fripp’s “Drive to 1981”: his debut solo album, Exposure; his Frippertronics guitar recordings, both live and in the studio; and his short-lived New-Wave dance band The League Of Gentleman. All cult stuff in this house, obviously, you don’t buy 32 discs on a whim.

The average price of this thing sits around $170, which is reasonable for all of that. But this is a niche piece — I mean, I’m big a fan of Robert Fripp, but I guess not big enough as I won’t be getting this. I wonder how many Robert’s team has manufactured. But it’s easy to see the future² of physical releases in Exposures. I’m not necessarily talking about extravagant multi-disc treatments that cost a few weeks of grocery money. I’m impressed by the niche aspect, the catering to the hardcore of the hardcore fans with a limited run edition, and you don’t need the discography and gravitas of Fripp to do it. Perhaps you can issue a disc with a limited zine featuring exclusive insights into the artist’s process. Or a cassette that comes in a beautiful wooden box, each individually painted or hand-carved, signed by band members.

The key is creating the myth — drawn from truths and stories — that swirls around your art and serves the listeners looking for entry into those secrets. No pussyfooting!

More Ghost Than Man: A Spark in the Dark

June 2, 2022 · Leave a Comment

Terry Grant is a painter, a filmmaker, a guitarist, a tinkerer, a voice-over actor, and who knows what else. He’s also More Ghost Than Man, producing music on the knife’s edge of dystopia, meaning his songs seem like they were recorded a few minutes into the future. It’s the sound of NOW while paradoxically vibing out a step or two ahead of the present time. And the path foretold through Terry’s music — and nearly all his work, really — is a dark one, wrapped in inescapable surveillance, technological near-collapse, societal ennui, and lots of shiny, black wires. Yet, despite this potential downer, remember that the act of such creative ambition is inherently optimistic. After all, the artist must assume someone will be around to process and perhaps enjoy all the work. That’s part of the spark that keeps Terry rolling, even though it’s not necessarily a light at the end of the tunnel.

The Worlds We Made There is the latest long-player from More Ghost Than Man, initially recorded just before COVID-times. The pandemic and its ensuing uncertainty, along with deadly tornados and a strange Christmas Day explosion in Terry’s home base of Nashville, forced the producer to rethink his album. Thus the final result may be darker, angrier, and dense with complaints — I’m sure Terry will tell you it is — but the songs are eerily euphoric. It’s not quite catharsis, but a sort of hesitant reassurance bubbles underneath. Terry’s vocals, especially on “Demons For The Void” and “A Penny Sitter,”can’t help their warm invitation. And the album begins with a ‘mission control’ countdown that initially accompanied a rocket launch. That’s obvious, but my interpretation is it’s counting us to the end of what came before and to the dividing line that sits just before the next age. For better or worse, right?

The newest More Ghost Than Man single reveals a colorful trip of a video for that countdown song and the unreleased b-side “Christianblood.” On the heels of that, I (virtually) sat down with Terry for a deep chat. We talked about our creative processes and how we philosophically approach making albums. Terry also describes how he grabs the spark I alluded to above and why images significantly influence his audio experiments.

I’ve transcribed a highlight from our conversation, and you can listen to the whole 25-minute chat in the handy audio player. Enjoy.

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MD: Have you seen After Yang yet?

TG: No. I’m dying to, though.

MD: There’s some great world-building. One thing that’s done in the movie, which I love, is there’s a lot of stuff happening that’s not explained. For example, the cars. There are a lot of scenes inside cars. You don’t see the actual car, like in the movie Her where you don’t see any cars because they don’t want to imagine what a car will look like in the future and be wrong.

But inside the cars, there are plants and moss. It’s not very explicit — I missed it at first. It’s like, what is that doing there? And it’s never explained. And then you start noticing other things like there’s a lot of greenery everywhere,

This world they live in maybe had an ecological disaster and they’re trying to move back to this greener world. And it’s little things like that which are left unexplained. That’s one of my favorite things — when any form of art does that, where there’s context beyond the obvious.

So, sometimes when I’m working on songs, I like to come up with a concept in almost a pretentious way. Like it’s a concept album and this is what all these songs are about as a whole. But the difference between me and, say, Yes is I don’t tell anyone the concept. It’s for me only to know. The concept serves only as a thread that ties it all together. Do you do anything like that?

TG: If anything, I might have my own set of emotional goals at the outset if I know I’m going to sit down and make a record, as opposed to just making music. I don’t think I’ve ever made an album where I just record twelve songs and then I’m like, “Oops, I guess I have a record.”

I basically sit down and say, “Okay, I’m embarking on an album-oriented project.” It’s like the Hobbit trying to get back to the mountain and throw the ring in the fire. But for me, I think as complicated as it ever gets I have a set of emotional goals that I’m looking for.

For example, here’s how I’m feeling about the world around me. Right. I’m a little angrier than I was last time I did this. Everything is basically like a touchstone in relation to where I was the last time I put a pin on the map in that respect, compared to the last album. I’m a little angrier and frustrated, maybe a little colder about this, maybe a little warmer towards this. And so I think the music does reflect that in the end. And the album should reflect that if I have been honest with myself all the way through the process, But while making it, I try not to worry about it too much.

I think as long as you’re honest with yourself from the beginning to the end, all the shit in the middle works itself out. But in terms of an overall concept, I don’t know that I’ve done that yet. Although now that you mention that I might try it because I am a big fan of not spelling things out for people and letting them bring their own interpretation to the table.

I mean, not only does art not belong to the artists, but I don’t know that it even really counts as art until someone has looked at it and says, “This is what I think this is.” That’s the moment where it actually becomes art because that’s the moment where it becomes useful.

MD: There are two things that art needs: intention and reaction. I don’t think you can have art without either of those.

TG: And the process of creating is the only part that ever really belongs to us. I’ve been trying to learn to find the majority of my enjoyment of creating art in the process and not from the final result. And then be willing to accept whatever the reaction is because I can’t control that part.

So try to get your purpose and your happiness out of it from purely the creation of it. And then at some point, just let it off into the world where it becomes everybody’s.

More Ghost Than Man - All The Time In The World

MD: I guess the reason why got on a tangent about hidden threads is that your album [The Worlds We Made There], especially after sequencing it, does sound like world-building.

There’s something about it when listening to it as a full album from song to song. One can kind of imagine the world this album is taking place in rather than imagining different tiny worlds where each individual song is taking place.

TG: The whole thing, like when you’re making an album, when you’re in the process of it, it’s like this fever dream. Once you snap out of it, you have a hard time remembering what it was like to be inside the process.

That headspace while making it — you have to channel some other version of yourself or some other energy during the process of making an album. And so it’s hard to think back to what I was really going through emotionally, or analytically when I was making [The Worlds We Made There]. I suppose there is always an element of world-building — you’re trying to tell a cohesive story. Right. An album should be more than just a collection of songs.

MD: But I do think you can get bogged down if you have the mindset of, “I’m recording an album and the album has to be this.” I agree with a strategy of just recording songs and the songs that belong together will find each other. Keep recording until you have those songs. Choose the songs that come together as a concept.

Returning to what you were saying about your music reflecting how you’re feeling at the time or the goings-on in the world, I almost feel like that’s a thread that’s even invisible to you. And a lot of the time it does create something cohesive. This is why we have a Prince vault. He was obsessed with this.

TG: I don’t know about you, but every time I cut a record, if it ends up with 12 songs on the album, that means I had 30 ideas in the demo stage. And then I probably had 20 almost finished songs three-fourths of the way through. Eventually, I choose the 12 that are the most cohesive together when everything’s 75% or 80% done. It’s fully formed enough that you can say, okay, I’ve got an idea what this is going to be like when it’s finished, That’s how I get 12 finished songs. I started with 30 and whittled it down. And so I can absolutely see how someone is obsessive about that as Prince would have endless days’ worth of music hiding out somewhere because I would like to think he probably worked that way, too.

MD: I remember reading an interview with Prince’s engineer Susan Rogers where she said he’d record a song and she would just be like, “This is the best song you’ve ever written.” And then he’d be like, “Nope, not going on the album.” He knows it doesn’t fit. And that’s how these songs appear out of the vault that are amazing. Why did he never release this? It was just because he was obsessed with songs that went together, that fit together.

TG: It honestly has nothing to do with the quality of the idea or how well the production clicked. It’s just if, for whatever reason, you knew that the song was the odd man out, It’s just like when I went back and found “Christianblood” which came out on the single last month. I cut that song not because I didn’t like it, but because it was already too similar to a couple of the things that I knew I wanted to have on the album. Putting that on there, too, would have been like three shades of gray when I only needed the two that were already there. And so I had to set aside.

It’s not like I’m saying I’m going to cut the head off the chicken and it’s going to bleed out. I’m just setting it aside for a little while and maybe I’ll come back to it later and everything will be fine. And it may be even in a different context. And at that point, the only thing that’s really changed is me or what I’m feeling in my approach. So what I was doing when I made that song, you can see something in a whole different light, even though nothing literally has changed about that piece of work.

→ Be sure to explore More Ghost Than Man’s discography on Bandcamp.

An Inside Job

May 31, 2022 · Leave a Comment

It’s the last day of May, so it’s time to reveal this month’s music recommendations. For each month of 2022, I’m keeping track of the great music I run across on Bandcamp — mostly new but some old, but all new to me — and compiling the songs in a BNDCMPR playlist. May’s selection starts jagged and indie-dubby before giving way to an extended run of atmospheric mood vibrations. The DJ in me can’t resist putting thought into the sequence, so be sure to listen in full, from beginning to end. This one’s an inside job.

Past selections: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4

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musicjournalisminsider.com

#136: Decadence And Disenchantment

Decadence And Disenchantment I’m Todd L. Burns, and welcome to Music Journalism Insider, a newsletter about music journalism. I highlight some of the best…

musicjournalisminsider.com

#136: Decadence And Disenchantment

Decadence And Disenchantment I’m Todd L. Burns, and welcome to Music Journalism Insider, a newsletter about music journalism. I highlight some of the best…

There’s some fine commentary in today’s edition of Todd L. Burns’ always excellent Music Journalism Insider newsletter. Todd interviews a few folks who are known to write intelligent things about music in each edition. This time one of these is The Quietus‘s Luke Turner, who has some withering words for his peers who focus on writing about artists that grab the most SEO hits:

To focus so excessively on corporate pop often designed to feed tech algorithms excludes not just what was always the underground, but also those who 20 years ago would have been able to have a good underground-adjacent career. It’s an old joke that people say we make up the artists in [The Quietus] ‘s top 100 records of each year, but I wish that more publications did deep dives that ignored genre, profile, the established music industry, what works on social media or what they feel they ought to be covering. I would like to see more focus on creative graft rather than pop grift, and more skepticism of consensus. What’s the point of knocking down the hoary and hairy old rock canon only to replace it with a different yet equally boring one?

Also among this edition’s interviews, TV/podcast producer Greg Heller hits the nail on the head when it comes to why I can’t watch most music documentaries these days: “So often I can feel that the filmmakers want viewers to understand why THEY love these musicians, rather than present who these musicians are to let us decide if WE love them too.” And Greg says he’s working on a documentary series about the “strangest, least likely bands snared in the post-Nirvana dragnet of major label signings.” That sounds like some Butthole Surfers content, so count me in.

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wired.com

This Punk Band Will Definitely Land in Your Spam Folder

It’s a tough digital world out there for a musical group called Viagra Boys.

wired.com

This Punk Band Will Definitely Land in Your Spam Folder

It’s a tough digital world out there for a musical group called Viagra Boys.

The internet age creates additional considerations when coming up with a band or artist name. Usually, that comes down to not naming your band something that’s impossible to have a chance in a Google search on its own, like “Spatula.”¹ But I never thought about names that make the spam filters go into overdrive until reading this piece in Wired:

The misunderstandings began immediately after they formed. “We had a Facebook page, and we were getting all sorts of weird DMs from men all over the world,” says Murphy. “They were like, ‘How much to buy?’ They thought we were some sort of vendors.” And then they’d have the same conversation over and over again. “‘We sent you guys an email.’ ‘No, you didn’t.’ Everything ended up in spam.” Now, clunkily, every promo email from the band promises material from “”V**gra Boys” and then immediately explains “(**= “ia” because spam FILTERS).”

Says the band’s publicist, Ryan Cunningham, “For the past four years I’ve only used that. Their manager, Oskar Ekman, advised me from day one to never write the actual band name in an email. During an album campaign, I check my spam as regularly as my inbox.”

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scientificamerican.com

The Science Is Clear: Gun Control Saves Lives

By enacting simple laws that make guns safer and harder to get, we can prevent killings like the ones in Uvalde and Buffalo

scientificamerican.com

The Science Is Clear: Gun Control Saves Lives

By enacting simple laws that make guns safer and harder to get, we can prevent killings like the ones in Uvalde and Buffalo

Science and facts, with linked citations. It’s essential to know these things, to brace oneself mentally and rhetorically against the gaslighting of being told obvious truths are ‘politicizing’ or ‘propagandizing.’ I doubt this editorial will persuade anyone not already convinced. Still, you and I should stay resolutely aware of the reality (and, yes, horror) of the present situation here in the USA. It’s the only way we have a chance to fight it.

Policy of Glue

May 30, 2022 · 1 Comment

The passing of Depeche Mode’s Andy Fletcher — at 60, far too young — renewed the light-hearted debate about his role in the pioneering synth-pop outfit. “Martin’s the songwriter, Alan’s the good musician, Dave’s the vocalist, and I bum around,” he stated in the documentary Depeche Mode: 101.

Andy was aware of this ambiguity. One could guess it stemmed from the apparent influence of Kraftwerk. No one was certain of the individual Kraftwerkers’ contributions beyond what concert-goers witnessed on stage in the early days. In an interview for Electronic Beats, Andy acknowledged this: “… bands like Kraftwerk or Depeche Mode actually work as divisions of labor collectives. The contribution of each individual remains invisible. And because I don’t push myself to the fore, many mistake me for the fifth wheel.”

There are even jokes about how Andy didn’t even plug in his keyboard for concerts. Well, I saw Depeche Mode in 1991, and I had a terrible seat — if the band was facing in the direction of 6 o’clock, I was seated at ten past the hour. With that view from behind, I do remember looking down and seeing hands resting on the keyboard despite the sound of rousing chord changes.

But then we learn that Andy was ‘the glue’ holding Depeche Mode together, a phrase repeatedly mentioned in music press obituaries. Especially before the band achieved its massive popularity, Andy acted as a sort of manager, handling the band’s business affairs and making informed decisions. I imagine he interfaced with Mute, their label, had a hand in Depeche Mode’s unmistakable branding and public image, and made more than a few tactical recommendations as the band rocketed to fame.

In the 21st century, a band member of this sort is increasingly crucial and more common than you think. There are at least a couple of well-known electronic acts I’m acquainted with where one of the members is the business head rather than a studio boffin. Sometimes these folks are even the ones doing press and interviews, relieving stress from the shy bandmate who’d rather be programming a synthesizer.

The difference from an acting manager is investment. Like Andy, this individual is seen as a member of the band, does have some say on the musical output despite the lack of studio chops, and may even get songwriting credit (and publishing shares) for his or her indispensable contribution.

This arrangement is a great idea, and I encourage bands I advise to think this way. It’s pretty much impossible to get a (competent) manager to handle an act’s affairs before the band has reached some level of success. If self-promotion, social media posting, talking to promoters, and keeping track of schedules and finances bums you out, then add someone to the band with that responsibility. If you’re a solo producer, then become a duo. There are already a lot of electronic music duos out there that are duos primarily based on this idea.

This concept doesn’t downplay Andy Fletcher’s contribution one bit. As we’ve learned, he was ‘the glue’ and the one holding things down, so the others had more space to write and record. It’s hard to dispute that Andy had equal importance to the rest of Depeche Mode’s membership. That glue is the secret to an act’s success, and if it’s missing from your music career’s toolbox, you should find some straight away.

The Art of Alan White

May 27, 2022 · 2 Comments

After playing on famous albums by George Harrison and John Lennon, drummer Alan White joined Yes just before their next tour, on three days’ notice. That’s notable because those Yes songs (and Yessongs, a live set culled from that tour, is the first album Alan played on) are complex, baroque beasts filled with time-switches and dastardly riffage from which no instrumentalist can escape. He passed the audition and was Yes’s key skin-pounder for the rest of his life. And that life, unfortunately, ended for Alan White this week.

I’ll argue that Alan White is one of the most influential drummers of our time, though I bestow the title fully knowing that his influence is involuntary. You see, Trevor Horn bought a Fairlight CMI sampling keyboard with his formidable “Video Killed The Radio Star” royalties, setting him back a cool £18,000. “You could buy a house,” he says about that purchase. But Trevor sniffed the future. He parlayed this new device to help get his early music producer jobs — bands not only enjoyed Trevor’s production chops but also exclusive access to this wizardry machine. Malcolm McLaren and ABC came calling.

Trevor assembled a team to help out on those two productions, with Gary Langan on engineering duties and JJ Jeczalik managing the ins and outs of the frustratingly complicated Fairlight. The great Anne Dudley also appeared, contributing string arrangements and keyboard expertise. This crew then worked on Yes’s 90125 album, home of the breakout song “Owner of a Lonely Heart.” Yes’s dated prog-rock pomposity unexpectedly gave way to Trevor’s unmistakable sonic touch.¹

As legend has it, JJ Jeczalik and Gary Langan were lingering in the studio after a Yes session, fooling around with the Fairlight. They thought it would be novel to take a discarded drum track from Alan White and feed it into the Fairlight’s Page R sequencer. Wikipedia claims (and I have no reason to doubt) that this was the first time an entire drum pattern was digitally sampled.

Fast forward a few months, and this production team formed The Art of Noise around these Fairlight experiments with the assistance of writer and media wrangler Paul Morley. And, as a result, that’s Alan White you hear sampled, cut-up, and processed-to-hell on the seminal songs “Close To The Edit” and “Beatbox.”

Not only is it likely that Alan White was the first drummer to get captured in a sampler’s Phantom Zone, but those beats went on to inspire whole genres of hip hop, breakbeat, big beat, and so much more. I doubt there’d be a Bomb Squad without Alan White and that night of Fairlight tomfoolery, and, really, that’s all you need to know. Today’s music wouldn’t be the same.

Curious about this vintage alien technology called a Fairlight CMI? Someone made a video with the sampler and replicated the creation of “Beatbox.” The display graphics seem right out of a dashboard screen on the USCSS Nostromo:

Side tale: When I heard (Who’s Afraid of) The Art of Noise? I was instantly obsessed. I couldn’t figure out how this music existed, and I needed to know. In my knowledge quest, I learned about this amazing new thing called a digital sampler. I had to have one, but I didn’t have £18,000 lying around. So I made a list of all the things I’d eventually sample once I got ahold of one: household appliances, my friends vocalizing, various neighborhood pets, and so on. When I finally got my first sampler, a Casio SK-1, I was frustrated by its limitations and couldn’t act on over 90% of my list. But it was still a formative blast. That weird little keyboard and a few tunes sampling the drummer Alan White were responsible for pushing me down the music production path.

🔗→ Previously: Digital Sampling With a Sense of Humor

I’m Screaming Inside

May 25, 2022 · 1 Comment

Another week, another shooting. Another mass shooting — a horrible, unthinkable, unimaginably terrifying act of inhumanity aided by a fringe-boosted gun culture that thinks banning — or even limiting access to! — assault rifles are, I don’t know, a slippery slope to the Harvesters from The Matrix shoving us all in pods. Little kids — children! — were most of the victims. Once again. Seriously, I just typed “once again.”

I wish I were a more seasoned writer as I want to write about this but I don’t know how. I want to write about the horror that this could happen to my nieces or my friend’s kids at school, or to my wife or mother or me while grocery shopping. It’s unlikely but it sure seems likely.

I want to write about the frustration of knowing nothing’s going to happen to prevent other children or people from being harmed. That the ‘well if we just arm teachers’ line is going to be trotted out again by the same people who won’t allow firearms at their convention. And that those people have paid for indifference from those who could actually do something. Meanwhile, the ones supposedly on our side won’t take hold of the narrative and force some political accountability. It’s infuriating, it’s scary. I don’t have the aptitude to write through this.

Oh, and I want to write about the guns. They are the problem, full stop. The nonsensical culture around them is a part of that problem. The lobbying and money pouring into the political system is a part of that problem. The excuses made in public by those who know better are another part of that problem. But it all stems from guns.

My dad was a gun guy, a lifetime member of that organization I mentioned above that won’t allow firearms at their party. And he thought assault weapons should be banned. Most gun guys do. So why is there a problem? That’s the least of what should happen, what should have happened a long time ago.

Maybe someday I’ll get my writing chops in gear and lay down a moving essay that’ll make me feel a smidgen better. But for now, I’m angry. This is a broken, demolished country and it’s impossible to see it any other way. The fact others don’t get this — or are ‘let’s burn it all down’ psychopaths— is pure gaslighting.

It feels like I’m screaming inside. Like all the time.

Here are a couple of commentaries from two of my favorite newsletter writers that I hope you’ll click and read in full:

todayintabs.com

What Are You Willing To Do?

We all know what happened. Now what?

todayintabs.com

What Are You Willing To Do?

We all know what happened. Now what?

Rusty Foster:

Since at least 2016, I’ve been asking myself: what am I willing to do? So far the answer is protest, when there’s a protest happening. I quit my job, and I encourage others to quit their jobs when I get a chance. I vote, for all the good that does. So in total: I’ve done nothing.
[…]
The truth is, I don’t know what to do. I hugged my own third grader goodbye this morning and sent her off to school. The middle school she’ll attend in three years is remote today because they discovered “threats” in a bathroom. We live in a country where statistically, until age 19, she is most likely to die of a gunshot wound. So what am I willing to do? Anything.
Tell me what to do.

annehelen.substack.com

This is What Happens When You Live Under Minority Rule

And this continued inaction is how a government loses its legitimacy

annehelen.substack.com

This is What Happens When You Live Under Minority Rule

And this continued inaction is how a government loses its legitimacy

Ann Helen Petersen:

The dilution of votes in cities is the point, and so long as the minority remains in power, it will continue to make laws (and judgments) that protect against its erosion. Voter registration campaigns are not enough. Reciprocal gerrymandering strategies, not enough. If, in a state like Idaho, you go through the initiative process to try and pass legislation (like Medicaid expansion) that’s actually popular, then the legislation will rewrite the laws to prevent it from ever happening again.
It’s not enough to live in a blue state. It’s not enough to try and send your kids to private school. It’s not enough to donate to an abortion fund. It’s not even enough to have money, or a home, or an education. Privilege can insulate you from the hostility of American society but it cannot ultimately save you from it. Collective and individual action feel impotent. The idea of representative democracy comes to feel like a farce.
[…]
Voting, on its own, will not be enough to change that. We have to decide: what will be?

That Word Doesn’t Mean Anything Anymore

May 19, 2022 · Leave a Comment

Philip Sherburne Loves to Write About Records

a.k.a. An interview with one of electronic music’s most respected journalists.

Philip Sherburne Loves to Write About Records

a.k.a. An interview with one of electronic music’s most respected journalists.

SR: During the past decade, there’s been a larger reevaluation of pop music and its merits—what many refer to as poptimism—and it’s prompted a major shift in music journalism, especially at outlets like Pitchfork. Do you think that’s been a good thing?

PS: I do in the sense that people are taking seriously styles of music that for a long time were just written off. It’s caused journalists and readers to rethink a lot of assumptions about what constitutes value, and it’s undone a lot of prejudices about women and people of color making music and what styles are valid for critical appraisal. At the same time, when it comes to contemporary pop, what I find frustrating as a reader and a listener is that I sometimes find the discourse to be far more interesting than the music. For many records, there’s not a lot of substance there beyond the fame of the artist, and I don’t think that the critical discourse acknowledges that. Still, it’s hard to generalize, and my opinion probably reflects my own tastes, which are quite experimental and idiosyncratic.

PS: … if we’re using the word underground to talk about dance music that’s made primarily to fill nightclubs where the business model is based on alcohol sales, then that word doesn’t really mean anything anymore.

PS: … as the scene has become more diversified, not just in terms of demographics but also in terms of geography and styles of music, I think it’s become harder to do an electronic music publication that represents the breadth of everything and still feels central. There’s been an explosion of musicians, DJ and venues; maybe the answer is to go back to more locally focused publications. That might be a better way to represent what’s actually happening in electronic music.

A few of my favorite takeaways from Shawn Reynaldo’s in-depth interview with veteran music journalist and reviewer Philip Sherburne. All instances of emphasis are mine. The full piece goes up behind a paywall tomorrow so read it while you can (if you’re a paid subscriber to Shawn’s excellent First Floor newsletter then you’ll continue to have access).

Gardening Not Architecture

May 12, 2022 · 1 Comment

There was an article about me yesterday in the Orlando Weekly. Written by long-time friend Daniel Fuller (who you may remember as danielfuzztone), the piece is a sort of ‘where is he now?’ explainer for the curious. Of course, I’m not hiding — I’m here on the blog and involved in many public-facing projects. But, locally, I’ve left the scene behind. Remember: I was a Q-Burns Abstract Message once, and for a decade or more, you could find me DJ’ing in Orlando at least a few times each month.

Daniel did a fantastic job summarizing what I’m up to. And the article is fascinating (at least to me) when paired with a prior Orlando Weekly profile from 1997, also written by Daniel. If only I knew then what I know now etc. etc.

There are a few things in the article I feel like elaborating on. I thought about calling this the ‘director’s commentary,’ but, in that comparison, I think Daniel would be the director. So these are my liner notes:

How Orlando’s Michael Donaldson left global DJing behind to reconnect with music (and life)

Q-Burns’ abstract journey

How Orlando’s Michael Donaldson left global DJing behind to reconnect with music (and life)

Q-Burns’ abstract journey

“I got into DJing initially because it seemed like an extension of what I was really into as a punk rock kid … I was really into the idea of the band being the facilitator for the show; they weren’t necessarily the stars.”

The main draw of punk rock for me in my teenage years wasn’t the music, though I liked a lot of that, too. Instead, it was the concept of fans and bands occupying a level playing field. One was as crucial to the scene, the show, and the ‘infrastructure’ as the other. As a result, punk rock felt like a co-op. (Here’s the point where, once again, I recommend Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life. This book describes the grassroots independent music scene that shaped all my opinions and feelings on how decentralized communities really work.)

As I grew up, punk rock did, too. Suddenly, many of these bands were preening on magazine covers and making major label compromises. They became the stars, and we became the fans in the crowd, a hierarchical separation. I lost interest.

Then, I discovered underground dance music around 1990. At that time, the independent dance/house/techno scene had a lot of the elements that brought me to punk rock: the dancefloor as equal (or maybe more critical) to the DJ, a self-distributed ethos, and an international network furthering the music through zines, small clubs, and independent distributors. Of course, there were always DJ ‘stars.’ But what interested me were the scenes that developed around specific labels, crews, and parties. The DJs or their names were inconsequential, which is partly why many early producers kept changing pseudonyms from release to release. It was also common for the DJ to be hidden, maybe behind a wall with a small opening. Or in the center of the dancefloor without a spotlight. Like the band in my quote above, the DJ was there to facilitate the goings-on.

But, yeah, that aspect of underground dance music dwindled as the boom years of the mid-90s hit. The trajectory followed that of punk rock, with more and more DJ cover stars and heightened commercial aspirations. The DJ booth became a place under spotlights, and by the mid-2000s, one couldn’t DJ without a line of people watching instead of dancing, like the DJ’s doing a guitar solo or something.

I recognize that I found myself on a few magazine covers and did the major label thing — I wasn’t immune to these aspirations. But by the late 2000s, I was over it. Underground dance music lacked most of the things that initially brought me into it. DJ stars got upgraded to superstars, festivals were ascendant, and that whole Boiler Room thing of ‘let’s watch the DJ’ became the norm.

I realize some pockets retained the original spirit, and some probably still do today. But I couldn’t connect with the place I found myself in — and I’m partly responsible for occupying that place — which made me uncomfortable. I wanted out, cold turkey. And then the keratoconus hit.

“It became a little tougher for me also because I had this eye disease called keratoconus that made it really difficult to see in dark rooms — so it became less and less fun for me for that reason as well,” Donaldson says.

You can learn more about keratoconus at this link. I knew I had a problem when I was playing a warehouse party in San Francisco under my ideal circumstance — no spotlights! — and I couldn’t see the record covers. I’m thumbing through my vinyl bag and have no idea what to play because I couldn’t distinguish one record from another. That sucked! A DJ named Joey Youngman was there and saw the trouble I was having. He happened to have a penlight and gave it to me, my knight in shining armor.

Not-so-fun fact: Scott Hardkiss had keratoconus, too. We used to commiserate over it whenever we talked. I miss that guy.

But after seeing Meat Beat Manifesto perform, he bought a sampler and began creating his own dance tracks …

I tell the whole story of how Meat Beat Manifesto led to my first sampler and how that encounter eventually resulted in a tour with them in this episode of the Scotch and GOOD Conversation podcast.

For the curious, search for “Animation Festival” on Bandcamp — a Butthole Surfers-esque group he was in during the late ’80s.

I would rather you didn’t search for that, but here’s the link as I know you will anyway. Please don’t start with the first song as it’s distorted all to hell.

Animation Festival wasn’t a band but a solo effort I recorded on an old four-track recorder. (My then and still close friend Les added some guitar to the last tune.) I was teaching myself music production and setting up challenges for myself. The goal of this project was to see if I could record a ‘continuous album’ on four tracks. In other words, to have the separate songs fade into each other. If you’ve ever tried recording an album on a four-track — especially in stereo — then you know this is tough! I was successful though not without mountains of tape hiss.

I sent this to a Memphis-based tape label called Harsh Reality Music. They put it out! And they sent one to Factsheet Five, and it somehow got a great review. “This is real music,” was the review’s last sentence, which baffles me to this day. But, technically, this is my first album, my first time working with a label, and my first review.

The notes on that Bandcamp page say I recorded the tape in 1990, but that’s wrong. I started recording this in 1987, going into ’88. Oh, and this is fun: I achieved the pitch effects on my voice by twiddling the tape speed on the four-track. That’s how we used to do.

In fact, one of his favorite countries to travel to was Russia, where he DJed more than a dozen times.

I really need to write more about Russia on this blog. I wrote about one experience here.

I wouldn’t say it was one of my favorite places as I loved going anywhere, especially if I hadn’t been. But I started going to Russia in 1998 — a prominent club promoter was an early fan — and, yes, I ended up back there about 15 times.

I made many friends in Russia, and I’m still in touch with a few, though some have long since moved outside of the country for various reasons. I loved exploring Moscow and Russia and was fond of the people I met. But, yeah, the government and its leaders always creeped me out (which led to more than one heated conversation with a Russian friend).

As I kept going back, things got weirder and weirder. My last visit was around 2010. During my visit, I was stopped and threatened with arrest for walking to a diner after midnight, and the club I played got raided by authorities touting machine guns. The possibility of either of those things would not have crossed my mind until my last few trips.

But so many beautiful things happened there, too. Once I was invited by the then-girlfriend of my friend Boris to join her family for Maslenitsa, the Russian day of forgiveness. That was quite an honor, and we ate the traditional pancake-like meal while the father quizzed me in Russian (his daughter translating) about my favorite science fiction movies. After dinner, the father invited me to the drawing room, where we partook in shots of vodka. Then, after plenty of drinks, the father called his daughter over to help translate something for me.

He got emotional. The father explained that during Soviet times he worked on Russia’s nuclear missile arsenal. “I helped with the missiles aimed at YOU!” he said. Then, getting more teary-eyed, he added, “If you had told me then I’d host an American in my house for Maslenitsa, I would have said you were crazy. It’s incredible to have you here. These are wonderful times.” And we toasted and did another shot.

Those were wonderful times. I don’t miss DJ’ing, but I wouldn’t mind returning to that feeling of reconciliation and friendship among those formally separated by state-ordained ideology. And I’m not just talking about people of different countries. But, like my last DJ set, it seems so long ago.

We’re Still Statik Dancin’

May 10, 2022 · 1 Comment

Minimal Compact were (are?) a groundbreaking band that were based out of Tel Aviv in their heyday. They released a series of acclaimed albums in the ’80s on the Crammed label that explored post-punk’s funkier, artsier edges. Minimal Compact are probably more influential than you think — ask a few clued-in art punks.

The band sounded the alarm with “Statik Dancin’,” the first track on their debut album, 1982’s One By One. You could say “Statik Dancin'” helped set the template for the DFA/LCD sound alongside Eno’s work with Talking Heads and other triumphs of sonic mish-mashing from that era. There’s more than one unique element to “Statik Dancin’,” but Samy Birnbach’s disconnected but urgent vocal delivery and Marc Hollander’s spiraling bass clarinet solo are most noteworthy. The rhythm line is an electrical pulse, high tempo but locked in. And this guitar is more scratch than notes and counts as part of that rhythm section. I’m positive you could play this at any dance music club without killing the vibe.

Even wilder: a new re-release of the original version (not the respectable Colin Newman assisted 2019 re-recording) backed by a remixed ‘dub’ from none other than Mad Professor. A dub done well shines sunlight on the bones of the source track — it’s the same skeleton but you can now examine the joints. And what joints are these! The bass and drum (and percussion) drive is as kinetic as ever while Samy’s voice and Berry Sakharof’s guitar twirl in the echo chamber. Mr. Professor adds elements familiar even to those who only know his Massive Attack work, and, despite the absence of bass clarinet (maybe it’s hiding in the mix), the whole thing feels like an explosion in slow motion. What a cut.

There aren’t many people producing dubs as tastefully and effectively as Mad Professor. Unfortunately, many contemporary dub versions are either too heavy-handed or sonically timid. I feel like DAW in-the-box automation, for all its advantages, takes the danger out of recording a ‘version.’ Dub is on the fly, an octopus at the controls, pushing buttons and riding faders. Just check out this video of Mad Professor in action. Or how about Adrian Sherwood for something even more intense?

Let’s leave the subject of dubs and go back to Minimal Compact — or, more specifically, Samy Birnbach. His post-Compact career has been long and wide, including curating the beloved Freezone series of compilations and his SSR label. As DJ Morpheus, he DJs on radio and club decks and is responsible for one of the best sets I have ever heard. It was at a small club in Moscow, and Samy didn’t beat-mix a single record. The music selection and his sly sequencing did all the work, and it blew me away.

Let’s go back further. In 1996, I released a record on San Francisco’s Mephisto Records called “141 Revenge Street.” The 12″ got around more than I could have imagined, and a copy ended up in Samy’s hands. He got in touch with me (maybe by fax!) and suggested I hang out with him in Miami at the Winter Music Conference. I had no intention to go but couldn’t help but think it would be cool to meet the guy behind the Freezone compilations, the guy behind “Statik Dancin’.” So I popped down to Miami — my first time — and met up with Samy, who seemed to know everyone but spent a lot of time with me. He gave me a lot of advice, encouraged my then fledgling DJ/producer career, and introduced me to people like Carl Craig and Kruder & Dorfmeister. Holy cats, I was hooked.

I returned home with a multi-year supply of inspiration and got to work. I started recording what would become my Sunburn single and the next Mephisto release. Samy released “141 Revenge Street” on SSR and got Glenn Underground to remix it. Then someone bought me a plane ticket for the first time, and I flew to Detroit, where a guy heckled me during my entire DJ set. It wasn’t but another year or so that Astralwerks came calling.

I’m still in touch with Samy. He’s been a trusted constant and friend in this business called music. All these years later, we’re both still statik dancin’.

Arabic	Hebrew	Polish
Bulgarian	Hindi	Portuguese
Catalan	Hmong Daw	Romanian
Chinese Simplified	Hungarian	Russian
Chinese Traditional	Indonesian	Slovak
Czech	Italian	Slovenian
Danish	Japanese	Spanish
Dutch	Klingon	Swedish
English	Korean	Thai
Estonian	Latvian	Turkish
Finnish	Lithuanian	Ukrainian
French	Malay	Urdu
German	Maltese	Vietnamese
Greek	Norwegian	Welsh
Haitian Creole	Persian

Arabic	Hebrew	Polish
Bulgarian	Hindi	Portuguese
Catalan	Hmong Daw	Romanian
Chinese Simplified	Hungarian	Russian
Chinese Traditional	Indonesian	Slovak
Czech	Italian	Slovenian
Danish	Japanese	Spanish
Dutch	Klingon	Swedish
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