DO or DIY back on WFMU Summer 2009!

We are very pleased to announce that DO or DIY with People Like Us will return to the radio waves and internet tubes every Wednesday evening starting June 24th, right through the summer to October 7th inclusive, bringing you All Things Avant Retard.
The show will be on after the fantastic “Seven Second Delay” (with Ken and Andy) – between 7pm and 8pm NY time. That is midnight Wednesday evening in the UK.
Generally we do a live playlist and enable live commenting so do watch as well as listen if it’s not too much of a distraction from the beeauutiful music. If you live in NY/NJ you can listen on the radio at 91.1fm in New York and 90.1fm in the Hudson Valley. If you’re on the internet then listen anywhere by clicking on Live Audio Stream links at the top of WFMU.org.

For those of you unfamiliar with People Like Us’ radio show, or indeed if you just fancy another listen, move your mouse over to the DO or DIY archives at WFMU.
We’ve also made a number of “Best of” compilations available since 2003, including these two from 2008.
DOwnloadable DO or DIY 1
DOwnloadable DO or DIY 2

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People Like Us “24 Hours Like Ours”

Released August 2004 (Mp3DVD001) – mailorder only

Yes, you can find a lot of this for free online, and we wholeheartedely encourage to go get it! But if you would like us to do the work for you, then here is around 24 hours of PLU, in mp3 form, on a data DVD.

This item is now deleted.  However, you can download the contents for free as a zip here.  (March 2015)

FEATURES MP3s OF:
Another Kind of Humor * 1992 * LP mini album
Lowest Common Dominator * 1993 * CD album
Guide To Broadcasting * 1994 * 3 inch
Beware The Whim Reaper * 1995 * CD album
Hate People Like You * 1997 * CD album
What’s The Use – Live * 1999 * online album w/ The Jet Black Hair People/Wobbly
Hate People Like Us * 1999 * CD double remix album KZSU – Live * 2000 * w/ The Jet Black Hair People/Wobbly
Lassie House/Jumble Massive * 2000 * CD reissue of 95/96 vinyl
WhatÕs Love * 2000 * track for Love Is This compilation CD
Thermos Explorer * 2000 * CD album
A Fistful of Knuckles * 2000 * CD album
Home Roam Play/Work All Day * 2000 * 12 inch w/ Matmos
Swinglargo/Going Out Of My Town * 2000 * 7 inch
Live on Other Worlds * 2001 * ABC Radio National w/ Irene Moon & The ECC
Like * 2002 * Remix of Kamahl for Why Are People So Unkind? 3 inch CD
Preserved Cowgirl * 2002 * Remix for Tipsy Remix Party CD
The National Humm * 2002 * Remix of The Kingdoms of Elgaland-Vargaland
PLU & Friends Volume 1 * 2002 * mailorder CD album w/ V/A
There Goes Nothing * 2002 * mailorder CD album w/ Wobbly
Recyclopaedia Britannica * 2002 * CD album
Stifled Love * 2002 * LP album
Over The Edge – Live * 2002 * w/ Don Joyce and Wobbly
Tremble Peady * 2003 * Remix of Wobbly
PLU Messer Chups Remix * 2003 * for Messer Chups Crazy Price CD
John Peel Session * 2003 * BBC Radio 1
Nothing Special * 2003 * CD album w/ Kenny G
Wide Open Spaces * 2003 * w/ Matmos and Wobbly
Gongexeva * 2003 * track for Ergo Phizmiz CD
Session for Remixology on WFMU * 2003 * WFMU
When I Was Young/Downtown Once More * 2003 * 7 inch
Live on Mixing It * 2004 * BBC Radio 3
Abridged Too Far * 2004 * online album

Recyclopaedia Britannica – Selected Works 1992-2002

Released April 2002 – Mess Media (thru Soleilmoon) MESS1

SONGS OF LOVE AND HATE

“The work of People Like Us rests gingerly between two dangerous positions: on the one hand, the risk of fashioning merely stylish pastiche out of borrowed finery for the sake of self-conscious kitschiness; on the other hand, the risk of making simplistic, heavy handedly “topical” audio-jokes at the expense of one’s raw material to a smug effect. If the lounge creeps uncritically snack on their sonic ingredients and coast on being “groovy”, the cads of pseudo-critique take cheap shots at straw men and call it subversion. Happily, Vicki Bennett has yet to fall down either precipice, but yodels down contentedly from her own Alpine audio-cottage. There, with loving care, she snips and tucks at the lycra jumpsuit until the fit is snug, places every plastic shrub on the Happy Valley Ranch just so, and throws another dance record on the bonfire. Undercutting her own utopian mirages with formal breakdowns and sneaky semantic pranks, Vicki Bennett is One Funny Lady, with a deadly sense of comic timing that puts her in my personal pantheon of edit intensive music makers: -Steinski and Mass Media, Hank Shocklee, Tod Dockstader, Teo Macero, the Hanatarash, John Oswald, Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock. Serving her birthday cake with a turd, her gags are always lined with a virulent creep factor. You get the feeling that the vacancy and pointlessness of empty speech is being lampooned and mourned in equal measure. In sticking to this balance of celebration and critique, People Like Us genuinely hates and loves People Like You. The least you can do is head up to the Happy Valley Ranch for a spell and have a listen.” – Drew Daniel

A Fistful of Knuckles

Released Winter 2000 on Caciocavallo/Soleilmoon Recordings CAD10
SOLD OUT on CD

“People Like Us is simply too good. Why it presents us again and again CD, like a circus. One must win something distance from this music, thus her one not flatly with the endless heavily meaning basic sounds and memories. Here to the world between American white diapers, Pferdchen those the world mean, Kleinkinderklukluxklansofties and other one like Country, donkeys, sakeless Schubidus and cold kriegern in a leckeren soup. People Like US is like cinema, like which old humans at MTV finds so exciting always, these many cuts, only the cuts are not cuts, but, deeply inside into this world from sound the world of the television offers precise interventions to surgical quality, without it would refer to expressly drauf that that really like that it is but supplies actually only for People Like US material, which so unconsciously passed through quasi by us that one can cannibalize it ever further and further. Carefully naturally and with a Manie CUT copy paste of the Artworkings, which one, once belonged never again loose will. ” A Fistful OF Knuckles ” is the terminator point of a long long search to the praised country, which ran from the east coast in long Trecks to the west coast, made a stopover with John Wayne over in People Like US to end.” – translation from de-bug magazine

SOLD OUT

You can download this album from UbuWeb

The Inaugural Poem Remix

People Like Us and many others have remixed The Inaugural Poem, because we felt that the first one needed improving. Take a look at and listen to the entire project, initiated by Kenny G at WFMU, thanks!

Download at UbuWeb

Kenny G’s Inaugural Poem Remix show on WFMU.
The Inaugural Poem Remix project on the Poetry Foundation website .
People Like Us “An Induction Is A Draft Is A Gust Of Air”.
People Like Us “Adjournment-Poem”.

Final DO or DIY of the season

Downloadable DO or DIY, Volume 2

Just like last week, but this is the LAST DO or DIY of the season and People Like Us will be taking the next season off. So here is VOLUME 2 at the WFMU Blog – grab yourself the Best of DO or DIY for the past year’s broadcasts.

Zip file (everything: MP3s, cover art jpgs, tracklist)

Cover art (jpg)

1. It’s Just Amazing
2. More Noice Noise
3. Dancing On Hot Coals
4. Bringing You The Best In 1970s Rock
5. Tijuana Frog Trot
6. Put The Hammer Down
7. Wouldn’t It Be Noise

And at UbuWeb

DOwnloadable DO or DIY DOuble Bill – 2008

It’s that time of the year again, when DO or DIY zip up their bags and… send it right over to you! Indeed, for the two final weeks of the WFMU Summer Season, DO or DIY with People Like Us are giving you an album sized chunk of all things avant retard – a lovely noisy collage, complete with artwork. So listen in live to DO or DIY at 7pm NY Time (that’s midnight UK time) Monday evenings, then go over to the WFMU Blog and grab yourself VOLUME 1 of the Best of DO or DIY for the past year’s broadcasts – or get it below.

Zip file of all tracks, atwork and playlist

or get it separately…

1. Sung Song Glue
2. I’m A Star In NY
3. O Wo Is Mio
4. I Am That I
5. All The Screamers
6. MupPet Sounds
7. We Don’t Go Too Far
8. Tweety Takes A Holiday
9. Look What You’ve Done

Cover art

Also at UbuWeb

Daphne Oram

In January 2005, Sonic Arts Network, the leading UK body for electronic music and sound art, was asked by Daphne’s descendants to care for her collected papers, recordings and other items. It was with the benefit of experimental electronic music practice in mind that Goldsmiths Electronic Music Studio (EMS) collaborated with the Sonic Arts Network (SAN) to bring this collection into the academic community where it could be properly studied and developed. To this end, a grant was awarded to Goldsmiths, University of London in 2007 by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, to catalogue the collection, digitise the audio tapes and initiate related research.
In June 2008 People Like Us were invited into the archives of electronic music pioneer Daphne Oram, to rework them into new compositions, to be presented as part of a day-long symposium at London’s Southbank. Here are the results.
01. Daphne Speaks
02. Daphne Inuit Song
03. Daphne Bird In A Teacup
04. Daphne Everybody’s Calling
05. Daphne Reggae Lady
06. Daphne Waltz
Mirrored here:

And on UbuWeb

Sonic Arts Network/Oramics at the Southbank left website
Daphne Oram Collection at Goldsmiths website
Daphne Oram website
Thanks to WFMU’s Beware of the Blog and UbuWeb

Continue reading “Daphne Oram”

Exclusive Digital Single From People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz

We are pleased to announce two brand new downloadable tracks from People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz, available to the web exclusively from WFMU’s Free Music Archive and Beware of the Blog. The Music to Run Fast By digital 7” is based around the idea of “The Chase”, where Vicki and Ergo sourced from and collaged as many fast moving sounds as they could possibly think of! This music was originally conceived for a live soundtrack to Christian Marclay’s film “Screen Play”, performed by WFMU’s delightful duo in London last year. It was then developed into “The Chase” episode of their “Codpaste” podcast on WFMU. Check out more very fast music from People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz in the Codpaste archive at http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25405
Download the mp3s at the WFMU Blog .

If you own a horse then do take this on your ipod next time you go out for a trot.

Documentation of the People Like Us Retrospective at alt.gallery

Documentation of the People Like Us Retrospective at alt.gallery
alt.gallery (entry via alt.vinyl) 61/62 Thornton Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4AW.
http://www.altgallery.org/
16 May-12 July 2008

alt.gallery is pleased to announce the first retrospective exhibition of work by People Like Us (aka Vicki Bennett).
ARTIST INFO
For the past seventeen years 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. The exhibition will focus on the concept of collage, showing an edited selection of her work, including twenty album releases, numerous singles and remixes, live sets, seven films and over a hundred and fifty radio shows. 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 Center 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.
MEMORY STICKS

Every week during the exhibition a different collection of special downloads from the People Like Us archive will be available from the gallery, bring your memory stick along for a free take away!
ESSAY BY DR DREW DANIEL
A specially commissioned essay by Dr. Drew Daniel of Matmos accompanies the exhibition. Download pdf here. Drew’s essay can also be linked to here

Download a larger version of this flyer here
Download the poster (featured top right) here
The exhibition also included a framed essay by Rick Prelinger on The Virtues of Preexisting Material. Here is an excerpt:
On the Virtues of Preexisting Material
© Rick Prelinger 2007
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License
1 Why add to the population of orphaned works?
2 Don’t presume that new work improves on old
3 Honor our ancestors by recycling their wisdom
4 The ideology of originality is arrogant and wasteful
5 Dregs are the sweetest drink
6 And leftovers were spared for a reason
7 Actors don’t get a fair shake the first time around, let’s give them another
8 The pleasure of recognition warms us on cold nights and cools us in hot summers
9 We approach the future by typically roundabout means
10 We hope the future is listening, and the past hopes we are too
11 What’s gone is irretrievable, but might also predict the future
12 Access to what’s already happened is cheaper than access to what’s happening now
13 Archives are justified by use
14 Make a quilt not an advertisement

Download a pdf of the full text here, or link to the essay here.


The exhibition will also launch a new CD curated by Vicki Bennett for Sonic Arts Network called ‘Smiling Through My Teeth’, a compilation of humorous music and sound art.

SPECIAL EVENTS
People Like Us Special on WFMU
Thursday 15 May, 11pm-midnight (UK time) www.wfmu.org/playlists/ER – To celebrate the exhibition opening Ergo Phizmiz hosts a People Like Us Special on his show ‘Phuj Phactory’ on WFMU, both on terrestrial radio and live internet stream.
People Like Us Talk and Screening
Friday 16 May, 7:30pm
Star and Shadow Cinema, Stepney Bank, Newcastle
Vicki Bennett presents a selection of films by People Like Us.
The Late Shows: Smiling Through My Teeth CD Launch
Saturday 17 May, 7pm-11pm
alt.gallery
www.altgallery.org

The Late Shows form part of NewcastleGateshead’s world-class festivals and events programme. www.thelateshows.org.uk

Many thanks to Rebecca Shatwell for inviting us to do this retrospective, it was great fun to work together. Rebecca is now director of AV Festival.

Continue reading “Documentation of the People Like Us Retrospective at alt.gallery”