Somerset House Interview: Opening Doors
Vicki Bennett explores the processes of making audiovisual content, working with archives and found footage. Using collage as a compositional tool opens up endless opportunities to create and experience results that are more than the sum of their parts, opening doors (and windows) to let light in and move beyond limited and repetitive ways of creative thinking.
In this Somerset House Studios podcast, we revisit Vicki Bennett’s talk as part of The Wire magazine’s Music By Any Means series, which was part of Grounding Practice, a rolling programme shaped by and for creative practitioners and critical thinkers.
Part of The Wire: Music By Any Means.
Grounding Practice / Somerset House Studios
Audio produced by Weyland Mckenzie-Witter as part of The Creator in Residence Programme at Somerset House, supported by The Rothschild Foundation.
DO or DIY with People Like Us on WFMU
Since Autumn 2003 People Like Us have been doing a weekly show on WFMU, called DO or DIY. The aim of the show is to mix highbrow with lowbrow to challenge whether there is much difference. Archived playlists of at least 200 shows from 2003 to the present day can be found at www.wfmu.org/peoplelikeus
Vicki Bennett also curated/programmed RADIO BOREDCAST in Winter 2011/Spring 2012. It was first broadcast on basic.fm and now is archived at WFMU. More recently, Vicki Bennett has programmed OPTIMIZED!, a week-long expanded radio stream on WFMU 6-10 June 2016.
Subscribe to the Podcast of DO or DIY by clicking here – it will prompt your iTunes program to open, where you will receive the podcasts.
About DO or DIY
DO or DIY is a freeform sound art radio show broadcast weekly by Vicki Bennett (project name People Like Us) on WFMU.
The philosophy behind the show is simple. That within the realms of avant-garde and experimental sound art the goalposts defining “accessible” and “inaccessible” are constantly moving. As the radar rises and dips, fragments and shards of underground creations unearth, and popular culture and artist resonate, shifting shapes accordingly with one another in reflections of changing spotlights.
The avant-garde and popular culture rely on each other’s energy. People Like Us collage both “hard to listen” works and popular listening matter, showing that in fact, beyond the restrictions of genre, genre IS the restriction and it is possible to like many kinds of art and music. The key is finding the door – DO or DIY leads the way into new and unusual realms of listening and hope to show the way in.
Each show consists of collages made of sound works from the 20th and 21st century, often layered and looped many times over, resulting in an album type effect on each show.
The pun “All Things Avant-Retard”, a rhyme with “All Things Avant-Garde” literally means All Things Forward-Backwards. Essentially by using sonic extremes and apparent opposites we find some sort of central point or balanced perspective on music and sound.
Suggested Listening: DO or DIY fill in for Ken.
New Free WFMU iPhone/iPod Touch app!
Also, if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch we are also pleased to announce that you can listen to not only the regular WFMU stream on the move at a glorious 128k, but also all of our special streams, recent DJ show archives and DJ podcasts including all of DO or DIY!
You can download the much improved updated free WFMU app right here.
DO or DIY returns to WFMU Summer Schedule 2017
We are very pleased to let you know that DO or DIY with People Like Us will return to the WFMU air and etherwaves this summer. The first show will be Monday 5 June 2017, and will run weekly through to and including 4 September 2017. The show time is 6-7pm NY time (that’s 11-midnight UK), and all shows will be archived shortly after, and podcast.
Graham Duff on DO or DIY
Graham Duff presents Dreamhouse Girls
on DO or DIY with People Like Us on WFMU
Monday 17 March 2014 @7pm-8pm NY Time
(that’s 11pm on Monday evening UK at the moment because US have already changed to daylight savings time whereas many of us elsewhere haven’t!)
Listen http://wfmu.org & broadcasting at 91.1 fm New York, at 90.1 fm in Hudson Valley
Tonight’s live playlist is now set up: http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/54851
Graham is an actor, producer and screenwriter. He created the TV comedy shows ‘Ideal’, ’Dr. Terrible’s House of Horrible’ and ‘Hebburn’. For radio he’s written the long running sci-fi sit-com ‘Nebulous’ and the comedy drama ‘Stereonation’. As a script editor, he’s edited seven series of Radio 4’s Sony award winning ‘Count Arthur Strong’s Radio Show’ as well as the recent Alan Partridge movie ‘Alpha Papa’. He’s also a part time DJ and full time music obsessive. http://www.grahamduff.co.uk
ERGO PHIZMIZ on DO or DIY
ERGO PHIZMIZ Shoots Peas on DO or DIY with People Like Us on WFMU
Monday 10 February 2014 @7pm-8pm NY Time (that’s midnight on Monday evening UK) Listen http://wfmu.org & broadcasting at 91.1 fm New York, at 90.1 fm in Hudson Valley
PLAYLIST here http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/54387
Ergo Phizmiz takes us on a magical mystery tour into the workings of the world of his Wild West dream odyssey “PEASHOOT“, which opens in August 2014 at Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival, London. Expect an artist’s notebook falling to pieces, 1920s English versions of Cowboy tunes, a yodelling extravaganza, Jodorowsky waltzing with Morricone, thunder, lightning, rain and Marlene Dietrich.
http://ergophizmiz.blogspot.co.uk/
DO or DIY radio show returns to WFMU!
We are pleased to inform you that we return to the WFMU radio air and etherwaves (as well as archives and podcastworld!) with a weekly show from this coming Monday 2nd December 2013, through to 2nd June 2014. The show broadcasts at 7pm NY Time (that is midnight Monday night UK), and is accessible both on FM radio in the NY area and online worldwide.
Here is the new schedule:
https://www.wfmu.org/table?period=32
Playlists and archive for DO or DIY with People Like Us are archived here, going back right to 2003.
http://wfmu.org/peoplelikeus
DO or DIY Radio Show on WFMU, 1 May 2013
DO or DIY will be doing a fill-in radio show between 7pm and 8pm NY time on 1st May on WFMU!
Tune in live at http://wfmu.org or at 91.1 fm in New York, at 90.1 fm in the Hudson Valley.
Alternatively if you miss the show live you can find the show archive at http://wfmu.org/peoplelikeus – it will also download automatically if you are subscribed to the DO or DIY podcast.
Hurricane Sandy hit WFMU hard – please help
The 24 hour DO or DIY program archives remain safe and our 24-hour stream server was broken for several days following Hurricane Sandy, but now it is back! Just in time to take it down again to make an entirely new stream in weeks to come… but more on that later…
Hurricane Sandy also broke a lot of electrical equipment, damaged the WFMU transmitter sites and caused the cancellation of a huge source of income for the station – the WFMU Record Fair. DJ’s houses have been flooded and battered and many are just getting their power back now – and many are still in darkness, without light, heat or any means of leaving. The station is really in need of your support, being listener funded – the running costs for the station are just under 2 million dollars a year – it’s a big set up, and as of the last week we’re running on reserves of the reserves of the reserves.
Station Manager Ken Freedman will do a State of the Station report this Wednesday 4th November, but in the meantime here’s a sort of State of the Station with Prog Rock and Psychoanalysis with Ken and Clay Pigeon.
http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/48009
Please help the station – you can even get a t-shirt, DJ premium CD (and other items)… thanks.
Pledge WFMU
… on the edge of the Hudson River, Jersey City, NY. Need we say any more? OK then…
WFMU’s Silent Fundraiser is still on, but we’re segueing into Disaster Marathon Mode as we uncover more and more damage at our studios and transmitter sites, combined with an enormous loss we’re taking due to the cancellation of the Record Fair. Because of the Hurricane damage, the silent drive has been extended and is going loud and proud. We only just nudged past the 75% mark of our October goal, which doesn’t even take the Hurricane damage or Record Fair loss into account. Make a pledge now and help WFMU recover from electrical, water and financial damage suffered during the Hurricane. Disaster or no, we have a great new Turntable T-shirt or holiday music compilation, WFMU’s War on Christmas (featuring an exclusive unreleased mix of Big Star’s “Jesus Christ”, plus James Pants, Klaus Nomi and more).
Oh.. and the DO or DIY 24 hour stream server is completely fried. Kapotte!
If that ain’t enough, here’s poor Station Manager Ken trying to cycle to WFMU (and failing), leaving his home basement in 4 foot of water.
More DO or DIY podcasts on their way
We may be taking some time off of the regular WFMU schedule, but this doesn’t mean you go without DO or DIY. We were busy earlier this year with Radio Boredcast, which included a bunch of DO or DIY and/with People Like Us radio shows. And we’ve gathered them together to be delivered weekly as part of our DO or DIY podcast on WFMU.
Over the coming weeks you will hear shows called Earworms (about those songs that get stuck in your head), 1234 (about counting and ordering of information in music and sound art), Blather (a journey through noises the mouth makes in sound art, ethnopoetics, music, comedy and beyond), Boring (where friends interviewed their children about all things boring!), Broken Music (about the manipulation of the sound source, cutting up, breaking and bending things out of shape), and a Spring Equinox show (!!)…
To subscribe go to http://wfmu.org/podcast and scroll to “Do or DIY with People Like Us”. If you are already subscribed then the episodes will arrive when you next open iTunes.
People Like Us featured in two recent Radio Web MACBA podcasts
People Like Us recently featured in two different Radio Web MACBA Podcasts/PDFs…
Firstly, Jon Leidecker’s ongoing Variations series all about sampling, which you can find here:
http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/variations7_jon_leidecker/capsula
Secondly, Kenneth Goldsmith’s interview/lecture Memorabilia. Collecting Sounds With… all about his music collection, which you can find here:
http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/memorabilia_kenneth_goldsmith/capsula