Starting 23rd December for several weeks of their summer season on ABC Radio National, the radio program The Night Air will be rebroadcasting People Like Us’s show, DO or DIY on WFMU – this means you can tune in on your transistor radio or online, or listen afterwards to the archive. Go along to their website now and check it out – the program details for the first episode are here. People Like Us guested on The Night Air back in 2001, alongside friends Irene Moon and The Evolution Control Committee – you can hear that in mp3 form here.
Codpaste podcast on WFMU
This is the archive page of People Like Us and Ergo Phizmiz’s podcast “Codpaste”. Playlists and archives can be accessed indefinitely at http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/CT. The album Rhapsody in Glue is now available for FREE download at UbuWeb.
Please read on…
Episode 1 – 3rd December 2007 – Cartoon Music
– http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25395
Vicki and Ergo ride their little bicycles with square wheels and honky hooters and tell you about their love of this funny music. Features, amongst others, the music of Carl Stalling, Roger Roger and BBC Radiophonic Workshop, all collaged with conversation and ridiculously pointless repetitions.
Episode 2 – 10th December 2007 – The Chase
– http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25405
Ergo and Vicki show you how fast they can juggle without dropping everything, or at least make very fast music. They play you some of their very favourite speedy rhythms, generally all at the same time, then when it’s finished they start it all over again. Features amongst others, different versions of William Tell Overture and Hungarian Rhapsody, and also the misc of Spike Jones, The Comedian Harmonists and Offenbach.
Episode 3 – 17th December 2007 – Hooked On Classics
– http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25406
In which Vicki and Ergo revisit the 1970’s phenomenon of Hooked On Classics, classical cover versions as well as all things light, orchestral and popular. Features a medley of the best of this fine mulch of classical music with a disco beat, as well as some tangential visits to the world of amateur orchestras. Features Portsmouth Sinfonia, The Swingle Singers, John Oswald and Wendy Carlos, amongst others.
Episode 4 – 24th December 2007 – ThEdit
– http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25429
All about the wonderful world of editing and cutting up of sounds. Ergo and Vicki talk about their favourite editors of life, and demonstrate how one can mess up sound so easily and to such good effect. Features the work of William Burroughs, Negativland, Language Removal Services and cut ups of BBC Radio.
Episode 5 – 31st December 2007 – Fwms Bo Wo
– http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25530
Features some of the best explorers of sound poetry, and general transformers of the spoken word. Is this nonsense? Is it music? Are we serious? Ultimately we don’t know but we really enjoy it, and this is a fun introduction to a kind of audio art that all too often is alienating. Features, amongst others, the work of Jaap Blonk, Leif Elggren & Thomas Liljenberg, Christian Bok and Stanley Unwin.
Episode 6 – 7th January 2008 – Snow Day
– http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25533
People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz examine their obsessions with the classical piece Troika (Sleigh Ride), Queen, Rod McKuen and songs about the weather, plus Vicki tries to mix Mrs Miller with B.J.Thomas and wonders why it didn’t turn out too well.
Episode 7 – 14th January 2008 – Banjos, Pots, Pans and Squeezeboxes
–
http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25819
In which Vicki and Ergo discuss the combination of sampling, live instrumentation and voices. Features Wendy Carlos, Sun Ra and Esquivel, amongst others.
Episode 8 – 21st January 2008 – Collage
– http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25942
When does it stop being completely isolated from the rest of the universe and step into the world of collage, adding another patch to the huge quilt of sounds that have gone before? People Like Us “start at the very beginning” and try to find out. Features sounds from Noah Creshevsky, DJ Earlybird, Brion Gysin and Kid Koala, amongst many others.
Episode 9 – 28th January 2008 – I Can’t Tell A Waltz From A Tango
http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25966
Can you? Vicki and Ergo offer a masterclass in the key of E Minor on all things that you can’t dance to. Features the swinging sounds of Percy Faith, Charles Barlow & His Orchestra, Johann Strauss II and Ferrante & Teicher.
Episode 10 – 4th February 2008 – Nana Mouskouri
– http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25655
Why on earth is it called this? Well, this episode is all about those themes and songs that are just so catchy that we just keep returning to them. Includes such delights as Bert Kaempfert, Lenny Dee, The Swingle Singers, The Comedian Harmonists, and of course Nana Mouskouri.
Episode 11 – 11th February 2008 – Sing Song
– http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25970
In which Ms. Us and Mr. Phizmiz play all their favourite songs and think about how artists fit in with the world of popular music, almost by accident at times. Features, amongst others, the fabulous works of Noel Coward, Winifred Atwell, The Ronettes and Xper. Xr.
Episode 12 – 18th February 2008 – Comedy
– http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/26276
Funny ha ha or funny peculiar, either way, we love that music with a sense of humour, a sense of the surreal and absurd. Vicki and Ergo reflect on the aftermath of chancing a visit to a village hall full of leaping lederhosen. Listen to, amongst others, Mary Schneider, Liszt, The Goons and a bunch of WFMU DJs.
Episode 13 – 10th March 2008 – Easy Listening
– http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/26488
No, don’t switch off, you like it really, don’t you. Easy Listening, it’s nice. Hear the beautiful noises of Glen Campbell, Esquivel, Nelson Riddle and Martin Denny.
Episode 14 – 17th March 2008 – Finale
– http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/26515 – and at the WFMU blog
The final podcast of Codpaste – a 96 minute mix of the best of the show, which when we play it back, we’re quite amazed at how much we fitted into this series in such a short space of time.
What it’s all about
“Codpaste” is a weekly podcast series in which the two artists People Like Us and Ergo Phizmiz will attempt to compose collage music from the very beginning, in a “work in progress” style, attempting to open up the creative process. The theory is that it is rare to see compositions made from the outset, and usually the audience are only invited in once the piece is finished, done and dusted. It could be that new light may be shed on the creation of art if the curtains are opened and the audience are given access to the raw, the imperfect and the wrong as well as the polished and the finished. This is what we hope anyway!
From 3rd December 2007 WFMU will be hosting the podcasts of: (i) audio sources, the tracks used as the basis for the collage in the episode, (ii) sketches, mixes and collages combining track’s elements, with added instrumentation, electronics, vocals, etc, and (iii) fragments, layers, and multitracks of the collage compositions. These elements will be tied together by snippets of light-hearted, tangential conversations and introductions and occasional mental overload and verbal meltdown.
The previous collaboration “Boots!” experimented with combining free digital downloading with more traditional formats and forms of distribution (record and CD through record stores), and came to the conclusion that the “gift economy” does work – with evidence of increased mail order sales and reports from stores hosting the record that customers also bought things at the same time. As a result, we will compile these weekly programmes into a mp3 album of the same name (“Codpaste”), taking selections of the free podcasts, shaping them into a finished pod-album format, for sale on iTunes. Once the project is completed, all elements will be hosted in perpetuum at WFMU’s Free Music Archive, allowing the good work to continue once the artists are done with it!
It is a rare and new thing to be making work-in-progress in front of an audience – and hopefully will prove to be both fun and an inspiration for artist and listener (and ultimately listener as remixer), and a vital exploration of unique ways of making work in a market more than saturated with products.
Background on the collaboration
Since 2002 People Like Us and Ergo Phizmiz have collaborated on a number of compositional projects; including a radio show, two albums and two live performances; “Boots!” and “Screen Play”. “Screen Play” was a live soundtrack for Christian Marclay’s film of the same name, performed as part of the Wire 25 celebrations in London in November 2007. “Boots!”, a year-long project (2006-2007), was presented online as a free downloadable 5-hour long archive (at UbuWeb), including compositional elements dissected into component parts, demonstrating creative processes that led to finished works, making it remixable by downloader. The project received radio play on BBC Radio, Channel 4 Radio – plus 450 subscribers to our subsequent 10″ record – “Honeysuckle Boulevard”, and an additional 200 who were too late to participate.
You can subscribe to People Like Us and Ergo Phizmiz’s other solo podcasts, also on WFMU, at DO or DIY with People Like Us and The Phuj Phactory with Ergo Phizmiz.
Codpaste timeline
July 2007 – So it begins: collecting sound sources and visual material, discussing structure, audio collaboration begins
The simultaneous collecting and making of work. The podcasts will to go out as the artists are making the work, so that the outlet is time sensitive to the creation. The creating and outputting will be going on throughout the following stages until completion in March 2008.
3rd December 2007 – Weekly podcasts begin on WFMU
A weekly podcast will go out at the same time each week – subscribe through http://wfmu.org/podcast, with playlists and other information added both on this website and also http://wfmu.org/playlists/CT
March 2008 – Develop the material into an album
The artists will steer the collaborative material in the direction of it being collated in “album” form. So in other words, this timeline contains a number of simultaneous and overlapping events – the making of material, outputting and collating.
May 2008 – Releasing the album plus hosting elements on WFMU’s Free Music Archive
The album, entitled “Rhapsody in Glue” is now available at bleep.com! Watch this space for bonus tracks which will be hosted at WFMU’s Free Music Archive shortly!
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. “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.
Rhapsody in Glue is available exclusively at budget price from http://www.bleep.com
3 June 2008 – Digital Single derived from Codpaste on the WFMU Blog
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.
If you own a horse then do take this on your ipod next time you go out for a trot.
Download the mp3s at the WFMU Blog or at UbuWeb
Teaching Pack
We have produced a teaching pack to accompany the Codpaste series, in pdf form. Don’t forget you don’t need to subscribe now the series is over – just go to http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/CT to listen along with this!
Download the pdf here (30mb)
Codpaste – Peaching Tack by People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at www.peoplelikeus.org/piccies/codpaste/codpaste-teachingpack.pdf
This project is supported by Arts Council England and WFMU.
click on thumbnails for larger downloads ONLY use for joint advertisements for both artists
DO or DIY – Wet Sounds – WFMU download
In keeping with what is now becoming a tradition, the last on air edition of DO or DIY with People Like Us is being delivered alongside an album sized chunk of a megamix with the bitesize title of “Wet Sounds – The Best Of All Things Particularly Avant Retard 2007”. Not only that, but it has fantastico artwork and a delectable bonus 15 minutes on top of what we are playing on the last show of the season. AND no mic breaks prattling on while you’re trying to relax and realign your soul to this calming and cooling sonic breeze. People Like Us will be taking the next season off, but will resume podcasting in November, after a short break, so stay detuned.
Zip file of the whole album (including the cover art)
Also on UbuWeb
WFMU Sixty Second Song Remix Contest
People Like Us have remixed John Cage’s legendary 4:33 (Live at the Barbican) down to one minute, the concept being WFMU’s Ken Freedman’s, who is hosting a one minute remix song contest at the WFMU blog
4:33 Live At The Barbican
For more Cage related People Like Us remixes, take a listen to Cage Silenced!
Honeysuckle Boulevard
The online edition of People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz’s album, “Honeysuckle Boulevard”, which came out at the beginning of 2007 as a free ten inch vinyl release and is now deleted, can now be downloaded for free here, and at the WFMU Blog here. It includes vinyl label artwork, an info text file and also two bonus tracks. The bonus tracks have never before been made available for release or download. If you love vinyl we have a few on sale in our shop, by way of Paypal – price includes Postage and Packing.
Download the audio either as a zip file containing all the tracks, or grab each individual MP3.
Honeysuckle Boulevard (Zip File, contains all files below)
MP3 Tracks:
Side A, Harpo Honeysuckle Suite
A1: Harpo Boulevard
A2: Beyond Perpetuum
A3: Honeysuckle Rose and Perpetuum Mobile
Side B, Merry Go Mambo Suite
B1: Merry Go-Round
B2: Fat Henry’s Mambo
B3: Oh No Not Another Cha Cha
Extras:
Bonus Track 1: Bad Restaurant Boogie
Bonus Track 2: Social Folk Dance
Album Label Artwork
Informational Text File
Ergo Phizmiz website
WFMU website
For more background information on this project, please read on.
Honeysuckle Boulevard, a self-released 10 inch record (Limited Edition 500 numbered copies) was available from selected record stores/galleries (in exchange for a voucher)
from January 15th-March 31st 2007. This offer is now expired (although we have a few copies for sale in our shop for a very cheap price)
Archived press release (January 2007):
This is the debut collaborative release by artists People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz, available for free at selected galleries and independent record stores in the UK, the continent and US.
Both artists operate on the cusp of both experimental and pop culture, creating radio, audio and DVD releases, film and A/V multimedia. Their work combines an irreverent approach with a probing curiosity that explores crossover points between media. By appropriating and recontextualising found footage, they craft collage with equal inflections of wit and impending doom.
This record presents a progressive change for both artists involved. It references their past works, but moves into new territory, resulting in a very collaborative work, much more than the sum of two parts. The music is fundamentally electronic (but not usually sounding so), with references to 1920’s ballroom music, 1950’s easy listening, jazz, cartoon and classical music, seamlessly melding diverse elements into a dynamic, rhythmic patchwork. They combine appropriation with live instrumentation and vocals, with very open tangential musical structures. With nonsense lyrics that are equally Brothers Grimm and Edward Lear and accompanying slapstick interjections, the result is in an exciting and humorous work.
Recent works include Ergo Phizmiz’s large-scale piece “M: 1000 Year Mix” funded by the Arts Council of England/Match My Foot Records, and “Wholepole – The Discotheque of Erotic Misery” for BBC Radio 3. People Like Us recently released the album “All Together Now”, and is also Artist in Residence at the BBC Creative Archive. Both artists are currently collaborating on a full length CD release entitled “Perpetuum Mobile”, to be released in April 2007 on Soleilmoon Recordings. In addition, both artists broadcast experimental arts shows on the freeform New York radio/internet station WFMU.
This product will be available in the following stores from January 15th to March 31st 2007.
A-Musik (Cologne)
Aquarius (San Francisco)
Bimbo Tower (Paris)
Earwax (Brooklyn)
Le Bonheur (Brussels)
Matéria Prima (Porto)
Monorail (Glasgow)
Rough Trade, Neal’s Yard (London)
Tate Modern (London)
Worm (Rotterdam)
A uniquely labelled voucher (one per person – all IP addresses are logged) can be requested by filling in the form below, and specifying which of the above stores the customer would like to collect from. Once you have sent your request we ask that you be patient, you will hear from us with a voucher shortly before 15th January, or if you order after this date then very soon.
This venture is totally non-profit, for artists and retailer, and has been met with great enthusiasm from the host stores. In fact the demand from additional stores that wish to participate exceeded the amount of records that can be supplied.
The marketing aspect of this project is partly a humorous self-parody, in that both artists have favoured the internet as their primary means of distribution and now are encouraging people to go into real shops again and “buy” their music for free. This novelty form of distribution combines the tradition of regular shopping with free downloading, stretching the notion of the “gift economy” to its limits. “Below the radar” artists have difficulty with physical distribution of their work because of the poor state of business for non-chart releases combined with saturation of the market. However, this isn’t a reflection of a lack of audience interest; People Like Us’ album “Abridged Too Far” and Ergo Phizmiz’s “White Light White Heat” have collectively amassed in excess of 50,000 mp3 downloads, so there is no shortage of audience to be testing these theories on.
PRESS PICTURES
(click
on thumbnails)
DOwnloadable DO or DIY on WFMU 2006
To commemorate our summer season of DO or DIY on WFMU we have made available a special downloadable edition of the best of DO or DIY on WFMU. We will be skipping the next (Winter) season in order to pursue other projects so grab it while you can (not that it’s going anywhere) in mp3 form here at WFMU’s BEWARE THE BLOG.
Get along little doggies…
Do or DIY with People Like Us is riding off into the sunset to attend to other audio and art projects. Until she returns to the WFMU schedule, Vicki leaves us with a Best of Do or DIY Megamixathon 2006 collection, complete with some high-res CD cover art and an annotated listing of source material, for those of you who still hanker for physical media:
Track 1
Track 2
Track 3
Track 4
Track 5
Track 6
Track 7
Track 8
Track 9
CD Cover
People Like Us on TouchRadio
The Bits In Between [2008]
From the digital gutter, here lie all the soundbytes edited out of mic breaks for People Like Us’s radio show DO or DIY on WFMU from June to September 2005. The show is all about cutting together avant with pop, and the only aspect of this one hour a week that has ever felt slightly out of place has been the necessary mic breaks. So now we do them justice by taking the entire unedited 3 hours, and in Language Removal Service style we take out all the meaning and are left with 34 minutes of delicious background noise, voice glitches and hesitations.
Subscribe to Touch Podcasts here: http://www.touchmusic.org.uk/TouchPod/podcast.xml
Update (2013) – The Bits In Between is now available for download at UbuWeb.
http://www.ubu.com/sound/plu_between.html
More downloadable DO or DIY!
The final show of the 2005 Summer Season of People Like Us’s radio show on WFMU featured a megamix of the best parts of the series – downloadable here!
The Avant Retard mixathon
Artwork here
and here
Playlist here
WFMU website
Moptop Mashups
Here’s something from a Premium CD for Ken Freedman’s WFMU show, 2005 – all in the concept of Beatles mashups… we made the cover for the CD too!
Iron Files – made for The Best Show On WFMU
Here’s a mashup People Like Us made for Tom Scharpling – sometimes known as writer of the TV series Monk, and sometimes DJ on The Best Show on WFMU.
People Like Us – Iron Files
People Like Us interviewed by Kenny G
Here’s a great interview that People Like Us did with Kenny G on WFMU – which led to Kenny and PLU working together ever since. Irene Moon was also in the studio!
http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/7340
