SubG History: NEGATIVLAND

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
Date: Sat, Jan 31, 2004 11:54 PM

In article <h5vn10d406fmfbngk345m134krec3eb4o6@4ax.com>, Jarto
<BraveNewWoild@hotmail.com> wrote:

>
> It says you've worked with Negativland!!!
>
> So, did you? Or have they just used some sound cut-ups that
> you've made over the years. I guess from listening to some
> Negativland they also have a penchant for sound cut-ups.

I really need to get that Timeline done.

Us and Negativland go way back and in odd ways. The devival during
which Dobbs was first killed, in Jan. 1984, "The Night of Slack" --
that was our first devival in San Francisco, and Negativland performed
there. (It was a two-night show... if Wellman had shot Dobbs the first
night, we probably wouldn't have done a devival the second night,
obviously.) As I understand it this was their SECOND live performance
ever. Mark Hosler and Chris Grigg were like 22 or something, maybe 24
tops, BABIES. The Weatherman was the oldest one. Hosler was working in
a day care or something. I had never heard of them but Puzzling
Evidence said they'd be perfect to open the shows so I said okay.

Mark Hosler gave me their three home-made vinyl LPs and told me to
please not listen at all unless I was in headphones and really
LISTENING, and to start with "A Big 10-8 Place." I got back to Dallas
and waited until I was... well... really able to LISTEN while in
headphones.

!!!

I have since seen the actual reel of 1/4" tape that that album is made
from. It is mostly splicing tape. In some places, he says the splicing
tape is 7 layers deep.

Throughout the Devival, Negativland provided "sound reinforcement,"
i.e., tapes and bits of recorded music, mixed and collaged on the fly.
It's heard throughout the old Night of Slack video tape (which has many
shots on ARISE).

At subsequent devivals in SF and LA, of which there haven't been many
really, Negativland also did this, adding nutty sound effects and quick
audio clips behind preachers. Last time, it was Hosler and The Bran
Flakes, Rev. Ottis F. Odder. The Seattle or Portland shows, or both.

At one of those past shows, a Negativland show I think, Mark recorded
me doing the "EYIYIYIYI" salute, and that is heard at the very bitter
end of the song "Christianity is Stupid." Because my name's on the
album, people assume the preacher voice is also me, but while I can now
do a real good imitation of it, it ain't me. No no no it ain't me babe.

Then there's the Don Joyce-Over-the-Edge/Puzzling Evidence "Show" /-
Doug Wellman connection, and also Rev. Phineas Narco. The Negativland
show has been on just before the SubGenius show on KPFA in Berkeley for
I DON'T KNOW HOW MANY years. Decades. Don Joyce is the main guy doing
that show, but he has different collaborators all the time, and
Puzzling Evidence and Phineas, variously, do shows with him. Or he
might hang around and throw stuff into the Puzzling Evidence mix. Last
time I was out there, both shows merged into a 5 hour marathon which I
stretched out into many Hours of Slack.

Hal "Dr. Howll" Robins and Dr. Philo Drummond are the other Puzzling
Evidence show regulars currently. Another person often involved in
these "jams" is Ed Holmes of The First Church of the Last Laugh and the
San Francisco Mime Troop, also Bishop Joey of the Saint Stupid Day
Parade fame. The amazing Rev. Michael Peppe, the original Bubba
Im-Ho-Pep, is yet another frequent participant in the Berkeley radio
insanity.

Another coincidental relationship with Negativland -- in 1995, Rev.
McConville, a student at University of North Carolina, emailed us and
Negativland separately, looking for inventive types who had done all
kinds of wacky stuff with various media but who might not have ever
even heard of the World Wide Web, so the University computer lab could
give us weirdos "web sites" and SEE WHAT WE'D DO WITH THEM. We'd be
their "lab experiments."

We actually jumped on that more than Negativland did, because they're a
rock band, sort of, and are understood by booking agents as such,
barely, and were PLENTY BUSY making "music," but we're not anything but
the Church of the SubGenius, NOT understood by booking agents or by
hardly much of anybody, period (or else ALL TOO WELL UNDERSTOOD!), and
we NEEDED something like the Internet to come along and SAVE OUR ASSES.

I almost got Hosler and me and Jesus and Nickie and everybody killed
one night in Austin after a show when I turned in front of an oncoming
car like an idiot and scared everybody half to death. That event is one
of the many things that will always keep me feeling like I could do
something idiotic at any second.

In Seattle after one of Lil's devivals, Jesus, who was single then, and
Mark Hosler, did some girl-chasing if I recall -- the former editor of
Internet Underground was involved somehow; I think that's who they were
chasing, she being really good looking and friendly -- I ended up
stranded the next day, guarding our giant stack of swag luggage,
outside a motel, with poor Phineas Narco, with no way to go get
breakfast, having one of my early hypoglycemia crashes where I'd freak
out and get REAL REAL mad... hmmm, that's another of those memories
that keeps one humble. (The hypoglycemia seems to have gone away, or
maybe with Princess Wei's space-cooking, I've again got enough body fat
to live off of, just for a few hours.)

That was the last known Drs. 4 "Bob" performance -- all of the original
Doktors happened to be there, except Janor. Phineas did a killer Janor
imitation which I don't think pleased Janor later when he heard about
it. Since Mark Hosler was also there you could probably call it a
"Doktors 4 "Bob"" with Negativland" jam.

Nenslo was there but he was not jamming. He had SUNG, unplugged, his
own songs, earlier.

During the 1985 L.A. shows, Sterno, Janor, and Mark Hosler, and I (!),
were staying at Mark Mothersbaugh's house in the Hollywood Hills,
which believe you me, made us po'buckers feel special, and all of them
but me went to attend a Nina Hagen "UFO Temple" service at her house.
(I had to WORK, or possibly sleep.) She held these solemn, corny
UFO-love, OM-chanting spiritual meetings. So she and the space-brother
boys and hangers-on were starting to chant OM, and Sterno, Janor and
Hosler were getting uncomfortable and maybe Omming a little, when
Mothersbaugh started loudly but very slowwwwwwly chanting,

"NNNNNnnnnnnnnnniiiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggggggggggggeeeeeeeerrrrrrrr
Puuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuussssssssssssssssssssssssssssssy"
in front of all these New Age Los Angeles Well-Healed Wellness Healers,
who were getting perplexed...

This I suppose would be called the "Doktors 4 "Bob"/Negativland/DEVO"
jam.

Like I said, I was not there.

That same trip, Mark Mothersbaugh was showing off his new-fangled
"SOUND-SAMPLING COMPUTER MACHINE", a Fairlight, and made a loop of
Sterno and Janor doing the Drs. 4 "Bob" Theme Chords and Chant. He then
took his huge speakers out onto his patio and pointed them down the
hill towards the house of his neighbor, the singer Stevie Nicks I
believe it was, might be another of those singers, same difference, and
Mark turned up that IRRITATING loop as loud as it would go and LEFT IT
ON while everybody went out to eat or something.

What a bunch of pranksters those fellers were, why, back in them
days... heh heh... why we was like to spry as a tom cat monkey-fucking
a picket fence, back then. Ah yes. Had all muh teeth and credit then.
And none of this "third arm interface" and all them implants and all
that new fangled baloney. We was just FREE MEN back in them days. Kids
these days, they all got rabbit in their blood. They call that stuff
music? Fooey.

--
4th Stangian Orthodox MegaFisTemple Lodge of the Wrath of Dobbs Yeti,
Resurrected (Rev. Ivan Stang, prop.)
P.O. Box 181417, Cleveland, OH 44118 (fax 216-320-9528)
A subsidiary of:
The SubGenius Foundation, Inc. / P.O. Box 204206, Austin, TX 78720-4206
Dobbs-Approved Authorized Commercial Outreach of The Church of the SubGenius
SubSITE: http://www.subgenius.com
For SubGenius Biz & Orders: call toll free to 1-888-669-2323
or email: jesus@subgenius.com
PRABOB

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Original file name: Hist-Negativland.txt - converted on Saturday, 25 September 2004, 02:05