Anti-music

[AWM]

What do poeple here think about making sound with instruments that is on the very edge of not being music, or done with the intention of not being music? I am stimulated to ask because of the performance i went to last night.

the concert was the Dead C. They are internationally well known for their sonic experimentalism, so i had some (but very little) idea of what to expect. I had been to experimental performances before but this gig was different. When i arrived i paid the entry fee to a person who (turned out to be part of the band) asked me "have you come to hear some music?" This question seemed to be odd, so i just murmured something and went on in. On entering the performance space i was confronted with a loud feedback noise, a stage with a audio tape running round mic stands amps, tape machines, a drumkit, guitars and other insrtuments. While the tape loop was playing somebody asked a band member "when will the band play?" this was answered with "the band it playing". The tape loop continued for a few minutes, then 3 people came to the stage and began playing the various objects on the stage.

The performance was different in that the performers were not really playing together. They would often just leave the stage for a while, use cell phones, smoke, repeatedly drop or kick guitars and generally just do their own thing. The sound was largely feedback, and often formed noisy drones. When the drummer played it kind of turned the sound into almost rock music. They were intentionally not performing under the normal rules of performance. It was very punk in attitude, in that there was really no care for what they were doing, they just kind of did it and made noise. there was no cathartic experience, no great coming together and communication with the audience.

Its not that this was a bad thing its just that it was different. This was arty but somehow not pretentious. You could not judge it by usual terms of good and bad, you actually cant judge it at all. I don't know whether this imunity from judgement is a good thing or not.

So, what does everyone here think about the concept and performance of Anti-music?

[blue hell]

Just some thoughts, I'm not sure what music is, but I'll use the word anyway.

Music has some tradition in exploring it's boundaries, I think fluxus now, or Cage. For me my noodles are an experimiment on the boundary of music, they happen to have no user interaction either (click my name for some or here for live).

There is a distinction between live and having user interaction. I guess.

And art should make one think, I think ?-)

[Kassen]

Personally I think performances like the one mentioned are great and I like attending stuff like that every now and then. Not only does the performance itself give you a nice feeling of being forced to realy listen because you don't know what to expect or what to listen for; I alos found it changes how I preceive more conventional music. When you only listen to, say, modern electronic dance music it's easy to forget that a 4/4 beat is a choice, as is a lead/bass/rithem/(strings) instrumentation.

[RFBB]

I'ev attended shows like this as well. To my surprise they are quite popular (especially in the Rhode Island area). They usually have a young fan base, males mostly between the ages of 18-27. To me, a lot of it is done out of the sake of performance and little time (if any) spent rehearsing. But whatever makes you happy right? I get it, totally. It's a means to a release, a conditioning if you will. I can enjoy this Noise/Dark Ambient/Murdercoreshitstuff for about 10 minutes. It usually peeks in 5 minutes and doesn't really evolve from there. That would be my harshest concern/opinion.

[DrJustice]

I would interpret this as surrealism in music. Perhaps also absurd humor. As such I 'get it' too. I'd like to attend such a show if I ever got the chance - it may well be more exiting than a lot of other non-Anti-music, at least once in a while...

Was Anti-music the bands of term for it?

DJ
--

[ian-s]

Did the band wear pirate costumes?

edit: sorry, thats Ant music, showing my age again.

There does seem to be a bit of a fashion for this type of performance. I don't think its new or even very interesting but, it can still be well done and enjoyable.
The show I saw in Auckland was very loud, more like an experiment in pain thresholds.

[Kassen]

RFBB; you have a point, several in fac,t but I think you are being to negative here. You could just as easily say that clasical music is predominantly for males between 35 and 55 that are doing well economically; sure, it's somewhat true but it hardly says anything about the music.

I find I can take noise about as long as I can take pop, fugas or flamengo; a few minutes for bad stuff and with the good stuff I'll be regretting it will ever stop.

[Kassen]

[DrJustice]

[Dovdimus Prime]

[Mohoyoho]

The Richmond, Virginia area has a very active noise band community as well as the Charlotte, NC area.

I can listen to a noise artist(s) for a while, and then I get bored. But then again, perhaps I haven't heard a good one. Sometimes I'll hear small passages that are inspiring.

[mosc]

Noise music can be musical. This kind of thing is not intended to be musical.

I attended a John Cage concert at Mills College in Oakland one time. It must have been 1971. The concert was to start at 8 PM. We were sitting in the concert hall and there were no performers, not announcements, no nothing, just the sound of people moving furniture in the hall next to the concert hall. People started leaving after about 1/2 hour. Most were pretty disgusted that Cage never showed up. The audience had a lot of members of the general public, not just music students. I myself hung out for about one hour talking to friends.

The next day we found out that it was John Cage and Gordon Mumma moving the furniture.

In the intervening years, I've attended some similar events. Personally, I don't care for this stuff. I can appreciate challenging conventions and pushing people beyond their confort zonea, but I much prefer to hear musicians who are expressing themselves and trying to reach their audience.

[blue hell]

[greaseenvelope]

I am deeply involved as both a musician and a listener with the "noise/experimental" music scene, and have to say that the performance by the Dead C which you are describing sounds pretty lame to me. I find it insulting that lazy John Cage ripoffs detract from all the brilliant innovative sound experimentation, often being distributed in cassette editions of 100 or less, happening in the US today. The problem is finding the gems among the piles of feces this whole scene is currently outputting in spades. It is an unfortunate legacy of Cage (who was brilliant in his day... which has long passed) and "Industrial music" (same deal as Cage) that innovative but "difficult" music must coexist with this juvenile "couldn't care less" Whitehouse-ripoff attitude. This is exactly what was mentioned earlier pervading the whole Virginia/R.I. scene, largely talentless Wolf Eyes and Hair Police imitators (who are perfectly nice guys btw, fun to dance to). I find it just so TIRED. What you said hit the nail on the head: their sets are only interesting for the first five minutes and they last twenty (or forty if your really unlucky). If they can get past the initial "wall" and go somewhere interesting you might have something, but most are just filling air with empty aggression and distorted oscillator tones.
There are a handful of really good noise artists on the west coast, all of whom would get way more press if they were willing to lower themselves to such softmoric performance art tactics. I view these people as continuing the work of Stockhausen, Pierre Henri, Desmond Lesie, and other musique concrete artists. Just attended a great festival in Seattle with a very good "signal to noise" ratio as far as the artists in attendance were concerned. Saw a lot of innovative music performed and walked out of a few embarrassing cacophonies but that's just par for the course with this stuff I suppose.
Serious Offenders I have had to sit through the sets of to see something good in the last two years: Magik Markers, Black Dice, innumerable acts at the No Fun Fest, Pedestrian Deposit and anyone else with more than 10 stompbox effects units chained together in feedback loops on a table with an indierock haircut, also numerous bands/individuals in Portland I won't mention in case this ever gets back to me.

"Noise is the new Grunge".

todd

[mosc]

[greaseenvelope]

No, but that looks interesting. It was called the Wooden Octopus Skull Pfest. Here's a URL: http://www.electricheavyland.com/woodenoctopusskull.html

Caroliner is totally off the hook, and all the musical sideprojects of it's members (Loachfillet, Tarantism, Rubber-o-Cement, Spider Compass Good Crime Band and Hans Grusel's Krankenkabinet) were all highlights in innovative electronics use and surrealist theater (and sound/look totally different from each other). Another shining star was Fe-mail (Have any of you Dutch/Northern European guys heard them? They are fom Norway and also in a group called "Spunk"), who I saw play the next night to a different audience a totally different and equally amazing show.
Also Smegma, Metalux (<=!!!), Sixes, Anti-Ear, Noggin, Aaron Dilloway (who played with Smegma during their set), and John Wiese all played excellent sets. Saw a lot of great homemade synths and bent electronics. Steve Stapleton (Nurse with Wound) is a funny guy to hang out with also.

[Ponk]

[AWM]

(I Just re-read my initial post and corrected some typos)

Dr Justice, i'm not sure if the band actually called it anti-music. i know that Bruce Russell (one of the Dead C) has written essays on experiment/noise, and i think he has referred to it as anti-music (don't quote me on that though). There was a certain kind of absurdist humor to the performance.

Gain, the pain thresh hold idea is kind of appropriate. there was a certain feeling that they were trying to push or agitate the audience, without really caring for the audience.

There are instances of good noise music that can be very envoking. For instance a while ago i saw a performance by Tetuzi Akiyama, Oren Ambarchi, Alan Licth and Bruce Russell that was experimental improv and something just worked between the musicians, it was exellent and very expressive and engaging, yet still very noisy. After witnessing that my eyes were opened to the importance of experimentation (and i found listening to 'formulaic' rock to be unbearable for a couple of months afterwoods)

Past the initial wall of noise The dead c performance did have some small passages that were inspiring, and interesting. But these passages seemed more like accidents. the same results would probably occur if the performers were in separate rooms unable to hear each other.

greaseenvelope, you have a point about having to sift through the crap in experimental music, the thing is from what i have read the dead c are considered one of the gems. however this may be influenced by the fact that to the rest of the world there is a kind of exotic novelty about a band all the way in new zealand making this sound, and to the few new zealanders that have herd of the dead C it is encouraging to find that new zealand experimental music is appreciated. so their musical importance is increased by nonmusical factors. It is possible that i just witnessed a bad performance.

i don't know if you could call what the Dead C do 'juvenile', they have been doing their thing since 1986. i know little about Whitehouse, but the dead C may be one of their contemperaries. Although Dead C did release an album in 1995 called 'White House', they may be more influenced by whitehouse rather than directly ripping them off. but i may be wrong due to my lack of knowledge about Whitehouse.

[greaseenvelope]

I doubt they intend to sound like Whitehouse. The Dead C got a bad rap in my post as my comments were really intended elsewhere. The bottom line is that anything that gets people to listen to something besides the corporate "music" that gets shoved down our throats our whole lives (if we live near western media output) is pretty much ok by me. But when you get your head underground as it were and start to hear all the obscure people making brilliant stuff no one ever hears about and pretty derivative stuff becomes famous.. well.. I get testy. The fact is after hearing so many experimental musical performances, I have become a big snob about what is or is not an "innovative" sound, particularly if it's loud. I have happily given Merzbow, the Acid Mothers Temple, and numerous other worthwhile bands a certain percentage of my "hearing loss allowance" as a musician, and if your going to tax that allowance you had better be damn good or turn that feedback right off, you know what i'm saying? I feel the same way about overwhelming bass drums in techno/trance music. Loudness or messiness as a means to an end holds little appeal for me.
Another thing that you have to keep in mind about improvised music is that people have their off and on nights/moments. Sometimes it's worth it to sit through a clumsy 20 minutes to hear the brilliant 5 minutes coda, but not usually when it's earsplittingly loud, IMHO. Sometimes the whole set is brilliant and on fire and sometimes nothing happens but noodling, all from the same group.
Speaking of New Zealand, your countrymen are famous in the experimental scene for producing a great number of unique lathe cut vinyl series on which some of the most obscure Japanese, American, and otherwise experimental-psychedelic music got distributed worldwide. One of my bands may be releasing a limited lathe cut on a NZ label soon actually. Too bad you seem to think the performance scene isn't up to par with your weirdo record distributers. I love to hear more about it.

todd

[greaseenvelope]

[AWM]

[greaseenvelope]

Thanks for the info. The vinyl lather I was refering to I believe is named Peter King, and the label that's thinking of releasing a lathe of my band Spacehawk is "Shrine Explosion". We'll see about that though.

[illuminated]

Edited

[illuminated]

Edited

[Tim Kleinert]

My problem with all this stuff is that it is so damn easy to do.

Hence I don't see what is worthwile in attending such a performance.