People Like Us will be interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s show “PM” this afternoon about the resurgence of cassettes and cassette labels in relation to their recent release on the TapeWorm label of “Baudrillard – Le Xerox et l’Infini” as read by Patricia & Ellen.
The show is on between 5pm and 6pm GMT. The feature is also included now at this link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/pm/2010/01/cassettes_are_back.shtml
Here’s a BBC news feature on the show – it’s on the BBC NEWS front page as we type this. Very surreal! There’s a screenshot lower down this page since it won’t stay there forever. Probably not anyway. Here’s the feature’s permalink: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8441839.stm
We still have a few copies of Le Xerox et l’Infini left in our shop. Hurry though!
It will be archived for one week at BBC iPlayer. Follow the link to BBC Radio 4 and search “PM”. PM on BBC Radio 4
People Like Us features for a second time in Avant-Garde All The Time, an UbuWeb podcast. This time around the episode The Women Of The Avant-Garde (part 2) also features sound clips from Gertrude Stein, Yoko Ono, Louise Lawler, Shelley Hirsch, Lauren Lesko, Forough Farrokhzad, Pauline Oliveros, and many more. Women of the Avant-Garde (part 2)
Background
Poet Kenneth Goldsmith presents selections from UbuWeb, the learned and varietous online repository concerning concrete & sound poetry, experimental film, outsider art and all things avant-garde. Schedule: Every Six Weeks. Subscribe to the podcast Avant-Garde All The Time here.
A continued thank you, UbuWeb!
People Like Us were broadcast on “Twenty Minutes” on BBC Radio 3 yesterday – about the Light Music composer named Roger Roger, who we have played a lot of on radio shows. The interview features the usage of it on DO or DIY with People Like Us on WFMU.
The new A/V performance by PEOPLE LIKE US (created March-October 2009)
Media: Music and Moving Image
Length: 45 minutes
By combining compositing techniques, audio/music collage, and animation, People Like Us (in collaboration with Tim Maloney) examine the concept of “genre”. By manipulating patterns, syntax, moods, narrative elements, recurring icons, characters and film stars held within selected movie genres/sub-genres (i.e. action, adventure, comedy, crime/gangster, drama, epics/historical, horror, musicals, science fiction, war and westerns), we are creating a humorous, surrealistic, yet informative take on the content held within. The sound is partially taken from the films and partly from music holding corresponding messages, mood and lyrical content. The moving parts are cut around and collaged into each scene, complete with the source’s accompanying audio and added contextual musical collage.
Since 1991 British artist Vicki Bennett has been an influential figure in the field of audio visual collage, through her innovative sampling, appropriating and cutting up of found footage and archives. Using collage as her main form of expression, she creates audio recordings, films and radio shows that communicate a humorous, dark and often surreal view on life. These collages mix, manipulate and rework original sources from both the experimental and popular worlds of music, film, television and radio. People Like Us believe in open access to archives for creative use, and have made work using footage from the Prelinger Archives, The Internet Archive, and A/V Geeks. In 2006 she was the first artist to be given unrestricted access to the entire BBC Archive. People Like Us have previously shown work at Tate Modern, Sydney Opera House, Pompidou left and Sonar, and performed radio sessions for John Peel and Mixing It. The ongoing sound art radio show ‘DO or DIY’ on WFMU has had over a million “listen again” hits since 2003. The People Like Us back catalogue is available for free download hosted by UbuWeb.
This work replaces my previous live performance, which you can now only watch and download at UbuWeb.
We are taking bookings for this concert, which can be performed in cinemas, auditoriums and concert halls. If you are funded festival organiser or curator get in touch through the Contact link on the front page of our site.
Here is a presentation from Vicki Bennett, creator of Genre Collage – at AV Festival 2010.
Genre Collage has been screened at:
October 2011 – Almost Cinema, Ghent Film Festival, Belgium
June 2011 – The Sage, Gateshead, UK
May 2011 – Auditorium of Rome, Italy
May 2011 – Mapping Festival, Geneva, Switzerland
May 2011 – Online on Ken Freedman’s Show, WFMU.org
April 2011 – Open Ears, Kitchener, Canada
March 2011 – Ambulante Festival, Mexico
February 2011 – Transmediale, Berlin
January 2011 – Art’s Birthday Party/Swedish Radio, Stockholm
November 2010 – The British Film Festival, Kiev, Ukraine
September 2010 – Press Play Film Festival, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
August 2010 – Vintage Goodwood Festival, UK
August 2010 – Genre Collage in the Ukraine (Lviv and Sevastapol) presented by Forma and the British Council
July 2010 – Bristol Arnolfini in conjunction with Encounters Film Festival, UK
June 2010 – De La Warr Pavilion, UK
June 2010 – tv.dk – cable TV in Copenhagen, Denmark
May 2010 – Liverpool Sound City, in conjunction with Sound and Music, UK
April 2010 – Baltimore Transmodern 2010
April 2010 – Issue Project Room, Brooklyn
March 2010 – AV Festival, Newcastle, UK
December 2009 – BFI Southbank, London
December 2009 – Grand Café Zum Rothen Krebsen (IFEK Institut für erweiterte Kunst), Linz, Austria
November 2009 – NEW NEW! 2009 – Fleda, Brno, Czech Republic
October 2009 – WFMU Record Fair, NYC
October 2009 – Vancouver New Music Festival, Canada
Here are some stills from Genre Collage. Click on images below to download a larger version. Please note: the film stills are from the original QuickTime movies, and therefore the maximum original size you get them is the size that they will always be, in 72dpi resolution. We have resampled the originals in Photoshop to make “higher resolution” images. If you need it to be a different dpi then do go to Photoshop and resample the image as such yourself.
It’s the end of the Summer Season on WFMU and so time for DO or DIY to unplug the ethernet cable, give the ol’ modem a bit of a dust and take the next season off. But before we go we haven’t forgotten that it’s somewhat a tradition to make a downloadable collection of the best of all things avant retard for your ears and eye-pods, you lucky people – complete with downloadable artwork. So here it is. I always say there’s nothing like art, and this is nothing like art.
People Like Us have been working on a brand new live set entitled “Genre:Collage”, which will be given a world premiere at Vancouver New Music Festival 2009. Other dates are being lines up for Genre:Collage in these coming weeks, including WFMU Record Fair in October (which will be free once in the fair), BFI Southbank in London, and also Linz, Austria – both in December 2009.
VANCOUVER NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL 2009
COPYRIGHT/COPYLEFT
A festival of sonic collagism, and the art of sampled and repurposed sounds and images.
21 – 24 October 2009
Show starts 8pm each night
Free Artist Chats at 7pm each night
Negative Landscapes: free symposium on 24 October 2009, 2:30pm
Scotiabank Dance Centre
677 Davie Street
Tickets $20 regular, $15 students/seniors each night; available at Zulu Records (1972 West 4th Avenue), Scratch Records (726 Richards Street), through Tickets Tonight (www.ticketstonight.ca; 604.684.2787; surcharges apply) and at the door.
Passes for all four nights $60 and $40, available only through Vancouver New Music (604.633.0861) and at the door.
Wednesday 21 October 2009
Andrew O’Connor and Doug Horne
Jackson 2bears
John Oswald
Thursday 22 October 2009
Eric Hedekar
DJ Tapes
Chris Cutler
People Like Us
Friday 23 October 2009
Sonarchy
Holzkopf
Scanner
David Shea
Saturday 24 October 2009
Mark Hosler
Uri Caine
plus free symposium
We are very pleased to announce that the recently deleted “Rhapsody in Glue” digital album by People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz from 2008 is now available for the first time for free download!
Following the success of the critically acclaimed “Perpetuum Mobile” CD of 2007, renowned UK collagists / composers People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz reunite for “Rhapsody in Glue”, a cycle of bricolage-ballet-music, skewed-waltzes, and skewiff-pop.
There is a story behind every album, and with “Rhapsody in Glue” we find a unique approach to constructing a record. Both long-term contributors to New York radio station WFMU, People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz decided to publicly tear apart their respective practices and create an album “in the open”, presenting on a seafood-filled-platter the process of collaborative collage composition – informally discussing and jabbering nonsense to one another, resulting in the “Codpaste” free podcast series (which we have also recently made available as an mp3 download). “Rhapsody in Glue” is the culmination of the ideas explored in the podcast series.
“Rhapsody in Glue” continues in the bizarre ballroom vein of their previous efforts together, however, increasing the sonic palette into textural depths previously uncharted in their work. If “Carmic Waltz” is an expressionist painting by aged ballroom dance teacher who’s eaten the wrong kind of mushrooms in her soufflé, then “Gary’s Anatomy” is a slice of pure absurdist pop shot through with slabs of exotica and Ethel Merman. Recurring through the record is an apparent obsession with Prokofiev’s “Troika (Sleigh Ride)”, which merges and mashes with Burt Bacharach and Queen on “Snow Day”, and lapses into pure fantasy on the almost entirely acoustic “Withers in the Whist”, jarring with Ergo’s strange, Victoriana obsessed lyrics. Then on “Dancing in the Carmen” we discover what happens if Nana Mouskouri is thrown into a pot with Peggy Lee and let simmer for 10 minutes, whilst “In The Waking” shimmers along on multitracked guitars, meandering melodies, and music boxes.
Also you don’t need an mp3 player/ipod to play a podcast – all it is is an mp3 that gets delivered to your computer as soon as it’s available – how about that?
If you’d prefer to just listen to archives you can listen here in just SO many ways. We’ve even got a fancy pop up player –
