Sunday, April 30, 2006

May 1, 2006: Silica-Gel

May 1, 2006: Silica-Gel

Episode 89 is on the way...

The Q&A this week is with Michael Pilmer of the band Silica-Gel... (In the first photo: Michael Pilmer on the left/Chris Tector on the right).

The last time I saw Michael, was at Creative Electric Studios in Minneapolis. He's been coordinating a traveling exhibition by Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo) for a couple of years now, and I went by to see the show ("Beautiful Mutants") and say hello to the guy who's CD's have been getting played since the very beginning of Some Assembly Required. In fact, the very first complaining phone call I ever got was about Silica-Gel's "Sex with a woman," which is actually not even all that offensive, but the whole episode had been focused on love and/or sex, and by the time Silica-Gel had repeated the phrase "have sex with a woman" about a dozen times, I had to convince my very first irate caller that this was just a theme we were doing that week, and that the focus of the show would not always be so "controversial" - at least not in that particular way...

Pilmer had some work in the Festival of Appropriation one year (2002), along with Mark Gunderson (the Evolution Control Committee). We put it on at the Rogue Buddha Gallery that year. I wanted to do a section on public art installation, and Gunderson had told me about this project he used to do, where he'd paint messages on old shoes, and then bolt them to signs in public places. Michael had told me about his sticker project - the Implied Regurgitation project - which involved taking little word balloon stickers, which say "I threw up," and leaving them on bus posters and advertising, anywhere and everywhere. So, I invited him to send along a bunch of the stickers, and using magazine ads, I created a section for his project, right alongside the shoe project. It was one of my favorite parts of the show that year. Here's a close-up of some of the pictures from the Implied Regurgitation section of the show...

I probably ordered Silica-Gel's only studio release, "50) Noisy Children Party" from Seeland, around 1997 or so. I can't remember. It was co-released by Seeland and Wifflefist. Wifflefist is, or was, a loose collective of artists/musicians from North Carolina. Most of the numerous CDs which resulted are still available for purchase via their website. Of the two additional Silica-Gel CDs available there, I have one: "Do Not Eat: The Unreleased Collection '93 - '97." The title must have something to do with the name of the band... Silica-Gel took their name from those little packets of desiccant - "known for its drying efficiency and water vapor capacity," (according to a website I just found online), which will often warn you: Do Not Eat. Pilmer included a scan of the original packet of Silica-Gel which inspired the band to use the name - so here's a bit of history for you...

Awesome. So here we go - the SAR Q&A with Michael Pilmer, of Silica-Gel...

***

*Name: Silica-Gel

*Are there any additional names used to describe this project: Silica-Gel is the band. Wifflefist was the name of the collective of folks we worked with in NC. Silica-Gel was a stand-alone band, but Wifflefist included other projects like Krapper Keeper, Banana Twins, Repetophile, BeatleSS, Polycarp, and others.

*Members: Michael Pilmer, Chris Tector

*Founding Members: Michael Pilmer, Chris Tector, Jeff Gosztyla (early member who was only with the band for a few months). There were originally 3 members of the band, but Silica-Gel was a duo for most of it's life.

*Tape manipulations, digital deconstructions or turntable creations: I guess Silica-Gel was a mixture of all three. We liked experimenting with sound, no matter what it's source or means of construction. We were particularly opposed to standard vocals/lyrics tracks, for whatever reason.

*Another genre descriptor: Never came up with something nifty like that to describe our noise.

*Is there a story behind your name: Chris Tector and I were heavily into Skinny Puppy and Severed Heads in the mid/late 80's. I acquired a packet of Silica-Gel (the little bags of desiccant which are used inside new product boxes to keep the immediate environment dry), and I was attracted by the "Silica-Gel" logo on the bag...and thought it would make a great name/logo for a noise band. Somehow it seemed like a "Skinny Puppy/Severed Heads" kind of name. Maybe because it started with an "S"?? LOL. I've still got the original packet of Silica-Gel, which I scanned and attached to this email as a jpeg file.

*Location: We started Silica-Gel in Raleigh, NC...where we both attended NC State University. We met at NC State a few years before we started the band.

*Original Location: I'm originally from Ohio.

*What is your creative/artistic background: I've always been drawing & creating artwork in many ways. I remember really getting into illustrating back in the mid 70's when I was 8 years old. Started out drawing lots of pictures of KISS/Gene Simmons. Later I moved onto drawing robots, Kraftwerk, DEVO, Dungeons & Dragons characters (although I couldn't stand playing the game). Most of my childhood art projects were fueled by a constant stream of rock music oozing from my SoundDesign home stereo. The next phase of art for me was sticker graffiti in the early 1980's, then standard spray-paint graffiti art in the mid to late 1980's. I was in a few bands spanning from 1985 until the early 2000's, including these bands: Rabid Salesmen, Silica-Gel, Krapper Keeper, THOR & The Ass Boys, and a few others. A friend and I created some noisy drum & bass noise in the mid/late 1990's under the name "Motor Tic Posse". In the mid 1990's, a friend and I started the Implied Regurgitation sticker campaign, which is still going strong today: www.ithrewup.com I think that covers most of the art/music I've been involved with.

*History: Silica-Gel disbanded in the late 1990's, and started in 1993.

*Born: I was born on Dec. 11th, 1967 in Stow, Ohio. (near Akron). Not sure about Chris Tector or Jeff G.

*Motivations: I loved making noise and playing with sounds, and the collage aspect of Silica-Gel music really appealed to me.

*Philosophy: Play with sound. We would always say that one way to a great sound is to "sample it, slow it down, f*** with it".

*How would you like to be remembered: As far as Silica-Gel goes - as some guys from NC who made some interesting and entertaining noise.

*Web address: Silica-Gel doesn't have one yet, but you can find a little info here: www.wifflefist.com (hasn't been updated in ages, though). Feel free to contact me directly: ithrewup@ithrewup.com. Someday there will be a Silica-Gel web site. I've got tons of stuff to share - images from shows, flyers, and stories about how the songs were created, and the specific sounds that were used.

Nothing to do with Silica-Gel, but it's my most recent art project:
www.ithrewup.com

***

Thanks to Michael Pilmer of Silica-Gel, for being the subject of this week's SAR Q&A! And speaking of seeing him at Creative Electric Studios... I completely forgot to mention, last week (when posting the SAR Q&A with Mark Hosler of Negativland) that Some Assembly Required is a proud sponsor of Creative Electric's next exhibition, titled: "Negativlandland." The show opens on Friday, May 12 - so if you're in the Twin Cities, or nearby, come on down to see some visual (and aural, of course) art by Negativland. Doors are at 6:30pm, and the gallery is located at: 2201 NE 2nd Street, in Northeast Minneapolis. For questions, call the gallery at:612 706 7879, or visit their website, at: www.creativeelectricstudios.com

Stay tuned for Episode 89, featuring over 107 tracks! Yes, one hundred and seven tracks... There were a couple of shows previously where I'd tried to see how many short tracks I could play in one episode, but this time I beat every previous record. 107 very short tracks by sound collage artists across all genres - including three tracks by Silica-Gel. On the way...

Thanks for listening!
Jon Nelson

www.some-assembly-required.net

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Episode 90, Some Assembly Required

Episode 90, Some Assembly Required
featuring an interview with Negativland's Mark Hosler

01 Negativland – “Theme from a big 10-8 place”
02 Negativland – “(debut CD, track 2)”
03 Negativland – “(debut CD, track 7)”
04 Negativland – “Dear Mary”
05 Negativland – “Christianity is stupid”
06 Negativland – “The perfect cut (rooty poops)”
07 Negativland – “The way of it”
08 Negativland – “You must respect copyright”
09 Negativland – “The gun and the Bible”
10 Negativland – “Why is this commercial”
11 Negativland – “Our National Anthem”


Use this address, for your pod software:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/some-assembly-required/JSpD

More information about Some Assembly Required online, at:
www.some-assembly-required.net

April 24, 2006: Negativland

April 24, 2006: Negativland

This week's feature is the band Negativland, as this week's podcast (episode 90) features an interview with Mark Hosler. Stay tuned!

I first heard of Negativland from a roommate, in 1993. He brought home a cassette copy of "Guns" several years before I'd done a proper release of my own, or come up with the idea for Some Assembly Required ...and I can't remember if I was encouraged to discover that there were other artists working with sound, or completely crushed that there was someone else doing something I thought I had come up with on my own - but either way, it eventually influenced me to continue with some of the sound collage projects I'd started in high school.

(the photos are publicity and live shots from the band's live tour in 2000)

I remember sending away for one of their releases at one point, and including a visual collage in the letter, thinking they'd be impressed by something like that. Of course, if they had a nickel for all the half-assed art projects they've received in the mail, I'm sure they'd have been able to pay for all the legal advice they've needed over the years, thanks to their role as canary in the coal mine, as Mark puts it, when it comes to issues of copyright and sound collage. But, I go into some of their legal issues in the bio, below...

The band's very busy, you see, and I couldn't wait for them to come up with answers to the Q&A. The Hosler interview was scheduled to podcast today, and since Negativland is the only artist played this episode, and since I made a commitment to post a new Q&A every week, I had to answer the questions myself. I'll probably end up having to do this from time to time, but don't worry, I was relentless in my fact checking (read: I went to the Negativland website, and doublechecked their entry at Wikipedia). So, you can feel confident that these are the facts... more or less.

If you want to hear it from the horse's mouth, just download this week's podcast - featuring an interview with the band's founder, Mark Hosler. Negativland got it's start in the suburban high school bedroom of a young Mr. Hosler, and he tells us all about it over the phone, in this week's program (episode 90). Check it out!

Without further ado, here's the SAR Q&A with Mark Hosler, as assembled by yours truly, Mr. Some Assembly Required...

***

*Name: Negativland

*Members: Chris Grigg, Mark Hosler, Don Joyce, Richard Lyons and David Wills all contributed to Negativland’s breakthrough 1987 release, Escape From Noise. Chris Grigg and Don Joyce appear to have gotten involved with the project around the same time as A Big 10-8 Place was released (1983). Wikipedia’s entry on Negativland also reports that Chris Grigg has since left the band, and Peter Conheim (Wet Gate) has joined.

*Founding Member: Mark Hosler, Richard Lyons and David Wills

*Tape manipulations, digital deconstructions or turntable creations: Negativland would appear to be using multiple tools and techniques to compose, including the use of a variety of traditional and non-traditional musical instruments and samplers. In concert, I personally witnessed cart machines being manipulated by Don Joyce and turntables by Mark Hosler, so that’s tape manipulations and turntable creations, at least… I’m sure at this point the band must use some sort of digital editing software/hardware as well.

*Another genre descriptor: Culture Jamming

*Why you use this descriptor: The band is often credited with the creation of this term, (see their 1984 cassette release, JamCon ’84), and its been popularized over the years by cultural activists of all stripes. Wikipedia has an excellent entry on the subject of Culture Jamming. Here’s just a portion: “Culture jamming is the act of transforming existing mass media to produce negative commentary about itself, using the original medium's communication method. It is a form of public activism which is generally in opposition to commercialism, and the vectors of corporate image.” Check out the rest of the story, HERE.

*Location: The members of Negativland have since spread out around the US, but the band was originally from California.

*Original Location: Concord, California

*History: Negativland’s first self-titled CD was released in 1980. It was followed by Points (1981), and A Big 10-8 Place (1983). Escape From Noise was released in 1987 and from there things get interesting for reasons above and beyond the music the band was producing. Needing a reason to cancel a tour in support of the album, the band concocted a press release claiming they had been asked to cancel the tour until authorities could investigate claims that a song off of Escape From Noise had somehow influenced a real-life murder in Minnesota. The murder was real, but the connection was false. The media, however - all too familiar with similar events - ran with the story without doing much fact checking. This helped to give the band some much needed exposure, while making the news outlets look very foolish, which was of course amusing, and fodder for the band’s next release, Helter Stupid (1989), which told the story in detail. The next two studio releases were EPs. U2 (1991) got the band into some trouble, thanks to a big “U2” on the CD cover, which led Island Records to investigate the recording, where they discovered material which led to their claim of copyright infringement. Casey Kasem, another major sample on the record, also got involved at some point, and the record was yanked from store shelves. To fill the gap, the band rushed Guns to their label at the time (SST), which was released in 1992. The band has since left SST, due to these unfortunate events. Free (1993) was the next studio release by the band, and Dispepsi was put out in 1997. Neither record caused much trouble for the band, while both were well reviewed, and saw major college radio aiplay. Negativland has also done some publishing in conjunction with CD releases. Fair Use was released in 1995 and Death Sentences of the Polished and Structurally Weak was put out in 2002. Their most recent release, to date, is 2005’s No Business. Negativland has also collectively released ten or more albums of material from their long-running radio program “Over the Edge” (which airs in Berkeley, California on KPFA), and have several singles and collaborative CD releases as well. The band celebrated their 20th Anniversary with a major tour called “The True/False Tour,” in 2000.

*Motivations: Musical motivations aside, Negativland has never tried to hide their anti-consumer stance. Dispepsi, in particular, was focused entirely on the negative effects of so much advertising on American (and international) cultures. They’d like to see the end of Capitalism, at least as its currently practiced.

*Web address: www.negativland.com

***

Thanks to Mark Hosler for the phone interview featured in this week's podcast (episode 90). It should be live in just a few moments here. Be sure to check out Negativland's website, and join Some Assembly Required at myspace, while you're at it. We've set up a page there to further promote the program online. Thanks for checking out the show!

Until next week - thanks for listening,
Jon Nelson

www.some-assembly-required.net

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Episode 91, Some Assembly Required

Episode 91, Some Assembly Required

01 Mr. Dibbs - “Redout Brick Hemmorage 3.5/Mental Herpes”
02 Professor Brown w/ DJ Jambox - “Four color spin”
03 Corporal Blossom - “White Christmas”
04 Pepe Deluxe - “Call me goldfinger”
05 Cassetteboy - “Gold small cat”
06 PLU/JBHP/Wobbly - “Pet goldfish”
07 John Oswald - “Brown”
08 Antediluvian Rocking Horse - “Orange”
09 David Shea/DJ Grazhoppa - “Blue trunk”
10 The Tape-beatles - “Green, blue beautiful place”
11 Christian Marclay -“Brown rain”
12 Project Data Control - “Red eye”
13 Wolfram - “P.I.N.K.Y.”
14 Mag Wheels - “Japanese video gold”
15 John Oswald - “White”
16 The Tape-beatles - “Another blue night”


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http://feeds.feedburner.com/some-assembly-required/JSpD

More information about Some Assembly Required online, at:
www.some-assembly-required.net

April 17, 2006: Corporal Blossom

April 17, 2006: Corporal Blossom

Spring is definitely in the air! I don't want to speak out of turn - I'd hate for Mother Nature to feel she had to take me down a notch and prove me wrong - but I've got all the windows open and I am loving it. It feels so good to wake up with that spring breeze and sunshine hitting your face. Fittingly, though this week's program (episode 91) was of course produced quite awhile ago (as the podcast project is currently an archive of old episodes from last year), the theme this week on Some Assembly Required is COLORS - which we're seeing a lot of right now, as Winter fades away. I believe we've pretty fairly represented the color wheel - let's see... Brown, White, Red, Orange, Gold, Green, Blue, Pink... If you count Gold as Yellow and Pink as Purple, then we're doing ok...

The featured artist this week is Corporal Blossom! I first encountered Corporal Blossom, when Illegal Art put out the now legendary Deconstructing Beck. I'd say my favorite tracks on that very noisy (and excellent) release were by Steev Hise, Jane Dowe, Spacklequeen and Corporal Blossom. If you don't remember the release - it was a concept album. There was a notice put up somewhere, a call for submissions, asking for sound collage tracks composed from nothing but samples from various releases by the pop artist Beck. It made quite an impression, by DIY standards anyway, and its gotten a lot of airplay on Some Assembly Required.

Corporal Blossom showed up again on another Illegal Art concept album: Extracted Celluloid. Same concept, except instead of Beck samples, all the source material was supposed to be culled from films. My favorite tracks on this CD were by Natasha Spencer, Wobbly, Pedro Rebello and Corporal Blossom, who contributed the plastic surgery-themed "Plastic Job." One of the great cut and paste tracks, in my opinion - no pun intended.

He's been a writer, tape editor, bass player and engineer, and has worked in television and commercials. He has one full length CD, which is no longer available. The only other material I have by Corporal Blossom got a lot of play during our special xmas mix awhile back.
Corporal Blossom Presents A Mutated Christmas (another Illegal Art release) is probably my favorite xmas record ever, not counting some of the records which got burned into my subconscious as a child, of course. DJ Olive, Fognode, The Grassy Knoll and DJ Kudzu's xmas tunes were featured alongside several inspired tracks by Corporal Blossom, whose "White Christmas" lends itself well to this week's color theme ...though not to the feeling of springtime which surrounds me as I am typing this. I usually like to wait until July before breaking out the xmas music... but that's beside the point, really. Its a great track, whatever the season!

Without further ado, here's the SAR Q&A with Corporal Blossom...

***

*Name: Corporal Blossom

*Do you use a pseudonym? Yes, this is a pseudonym - not my birth name.

*Members: Layng Martine III

*Founding Member: Just me.

*Tape manipulations, digital deconstructions or turntable creations: Really none of the above. It's usually a mixture of found sounds and performances.

*Another genre descriptor: Micropop

*Why you use this descriptor: I've always loved songs and pop song structure. I still think of my compositions that way and try to keep things very concise. Most of my time goes into trying to compose the piece in a way that feels natural and keeps your interest, like a good pop song would do. I'm talking about classics like "All I Have to Do Is Dream.” The micro came from the fact that there's usually a lot of minute detail, and it's music that is dependent on digital manipulation / computers.

*Location: I'm currently in a very rural area at the far end of Long Island, New York.

*Original Location: I grew up in Nashville, TN.

*What is your creative/artistic background: I have a degree in creative writing from the University of Colorado. I'm glad I just got to say that, because that is the first time it has been useful for anything. I worked as studio assistant to producer Bill Laswell for a few years after I graduated.

*History: I think Corporal Blossom music first started appearing on records in 1994.

*Born: Weird question... '69 in Greenwich, Connecticut. Please don't print my SS#.

*Motivations: That I can't explain. It's built-in somehow.

*Philosophy: I just try to keep it fun and keep it interesting for myself.

*How would you like to be remembered: As someone who lived life well and was fun to be around.

*Web address: I don't really have one right now. Recently I found myself with 5 websites for various projects. I had to simplify. Most of my work has been in commercials / television for the past few years. That work doesn't come in through a website, so I lost some interest there. I'm sure I'll put one up again for the next record.

***

Thanks to Layng Martine for being the focus this week. Be sure to tune in to episode 91, where Corporal Blossom is one of 16 sound collage tracks featured in our "colors" themed episode. Uploading as I speak - Check it out.

Until next week... I'm out to take in some springtime.

Thanks for listening,
Jon Nelson

www.some-assembly-required.net

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Some Assembly Required: EASTER special MIX

Enjoy the Some Assembly Required Easter special MIX!

Some Assembly Required: EASTER special MIX

It was time to do another special mix, and Easter is just around the corner, so it was inevitable, I guess, that this DJ Mix would have a theme of religion. Christianity, specifically, as Easter is essentially a Christian holiday, though its celebrated far and wide, by a variety of people, of course.

This is an Easter themed DJ Mix, assembled by a strict agnostic, so you can expect it to be pretty much all over the place, with regards to respecting the religion its focused on. If you're offended by any of this, please remember that if anyone should have a sense of humor, its gotta be the "man upstairs," and I believe that if he were to hear this, he'd have a good laugh. Of course I have no idea if he's even there, or if he'd listen if he was, but... I think you get the idea.
:)

The word Easter, in fact, comes from the name of an ancient goddess, who took the name, in turn, from an ancient word for Spring. So, while Easter is generally considered to be a religious holiday, its origins have more to do with Spring time, from what I understand. After a particularly nasty Minnesota winter (especially right at the very end), Spring is definitely something I feel like celebrating this year. But, I couldn't find a lot of sound collage tracks about Springtime, so I went with the much easier theme of religion. You'll hear an awful lot of cut-ups of preachers, and children's sunday school records this time around. Enjoy!

Here's a list of the sound collage artists in the Some Assembly Required Easter mix, in order:
The Evolution Control Committee – “Don't Miss The Great Snatch” * Escape Mechanism – “Today” * The Bran Flakes – “A Susie Moppet Singtime Sing-A-Long Song” * Lecture On Nothing – “Truckload Of Bibles” * Negativland – “Christianity Is Stupid” * Brian Eno & David Byrne - “Help Me Somebody” * The Tape-Beatles - “The law of repetition” * John Oswald – “Power” * The Bran Flakes – “Let Us Praise Him Children!" * Christian Marclay – “His Master's Voice (Excerpt)" * John Schnall – “God" * People Like Us – “Jesus F Christ” * Splatt - “Freecore for Jon & Pastor Miles” * Escape Mechanism – “No Reason" * Negativland – “I Am God" * The Button – “For the lord" * Laso Halo – “One Jesus” * Hal Wilner – “What A Friend We Have In Jesus Revisited”

Enjoy the podcast and be sure to visit SAR at Myspace...
www.myspace.com/soundcollage

Thanks, also, to all of you who supported Some Assembly Required during our pledge drive a week or two ago. We raised just enough to send out the next batch of episodes to all the syndicating stations, so I'd call that a success. The Support page will remain at the Some Assembly Required website, of course. We've got three months to raise enough money to send out the next batch! So, if you haven't already made a donation, please consider supporting the only radio program known to focus exclusively on Tape Manipulations, Digital Deconstructions and Turntable Creations...

Thanks for listening, and have a happy Easter!
Jon Nelson

PS... use this address, for your pod software:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/some-assembly-required/JSpD

www.some-assembly-required.net

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Episode 92, Some Assembly Required

Episode 92, Some Assembly Required

01 Steinski - “Bboy Breakdown (You Got The Job Mix)”
02 Kid 606 - “Rebel Girl”
03 Corporal Blossom – “Little drummer boy”
04 Mr. Dibbs & 1200 Hobos- “B-Boys Revenge 96 Porkopolis Turntable Jazz”
05 The Former Yugoslavia – “The Transformed (Pitch) Man”
06 Freelance Hellraiser – “Step on man”
07 Donna Summer – “The Man Who Was Thursday”
08 Freelance Hellraiser – “Wonderwoman”
09 Jeff Sconce – “Women trouble”
10 Myeck Waters – “The old woman and the old man”
11 People Like Us/Wobbly – “Woman“
12 Messerchups – “Allo, Gitarkin man“
13 Mustard Keanu – “Old man drivel”
14 Myeck Waters – “A little man in a striped suit”
15 Steve Dirkx – “The music, man!”
16 Messerchups - “Sex Change”


Use this address, for your pod software:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/some-assembly-required/JSpD

More information about Some Assembly Required online, at:
www.some-assembly-required.net

April 3, 2006: Jason Forrest

April 3, 2006: Jason Forrest

Holy Cow - the clock jumped forward a whole hour today for no reason whatsoever, so I've only got a 1/2 hour to post to the blog and upload the podcast before scrambling to get to work. I hear it's due to something called "Daylight Savings Time." Very odd.

This week's featured Q&A is with Jason Forrest or, as I like to call him, "The Artist Formerly Known As Donna Summer." Seems he tired of the pseudonym and, throwing caution to the wind, switched names mid-career. Well, I'm sure he's got many records yet to produce, so perhaps "mid" is a bit premature. An awful lot of the reviews I read of his latest record would have you believe that he's only just arrived though, so perhaps the name change came at a perfect time.

"Shamelessly Exciting" (his latest full length, 2005) IS probably my favorite record by Jason Forrest, but I'm also a big fan of "The Unrelenting Songs of the 1979 Post Disco Crash" (2004), which he released using his old moniker. "This Needs to be Your Style" (2003), was the first Donna Summer/Jason Forrest CD to be featured on Some Assembly Required.

Forrest runs a breakcore collective called Cock Rock Disco. Through that collective, I've become familiar with artists such as Audiogarde, Doormouse, Duran Duran Duran, Food For Animals, Stunt Rock, Vorpal and many more. One cool feature about the Cock Rock Disco website is that you can buy the records online, downloading the entire album and its artwork right there, rather than having to wait for a package to arrive in the mail.

Forrest is also known for his radio program, "Advanced D&D," a specialty show which aired on WFMU for a time. We talked a bit about it's blend of "Breakcore, folk-rock, death metal, dirty 70's disco" and... "raw satanism" in an interview I did with him recently (to be podcast eventually - something to look forward to!) and the shocking truth is... Forrest is not a satanist. In fact, he's one of the nicest guys I've ever interviewed. An excellent artist and all around good guy - what more could you ask for?

By the way, the Some Assembly Required interview with Jason Forrest, since I mentioned it above, will be podcast at a later date. Its a more recent episode and at least for the time being, we're still fulfilling our goal of archiving old episodes here at the podcast. The reason we're running the Q&A with Jason Forrest with this episode (episode 92) is because the theme of this week's podcast is Men And Women, and since Jason Forrest used to go by Donna Summer, it made some sense to run a Q&A with a man who once used a woman's name. Make sense?

Without further ado, here's the SAR Q&A with Jason Forrest...

***

*Name: Jason Forrest

*Are there any additional names used to describe this project: I used to be known as Donna Summer

*Do you use a pseudonym? Not anymore - wasn't really worth it.

*Tape manipulations, digital deconstructions or turntable creations: Humm… I would say rock music with lots of appropriations. But most just call it Breakcore, and don't worry about the details. Some say its "cock rock disco,” but I think they should be separated a bit from the label.

*Location: NYC/Berlin

*Original Location: South Carolina

*What is your creative/artistic background: I worked as a visual artist for 10+ years prior to doing the music thing. I graduated with a degree in photography, but worked also in sculpture and video. I was an art critic as well as a curator in those days too, basically everything contemporary art related. But I always was really into music, and most artists have horrible taste in music (real quote: "that new Lenny Kravitz record is awesome!") so, I was always dabbling in music. At the time, it was basically unfocused and semi-lazy noise stuff. I liked it, but hardly anyone else would.

*History: Basically, I began to do music as a more serious hobby when I moved to NYC and was both broke and also unsatisfied with the art world. So I had time to mature as a musician, and then my first 7" was played by John Peel. That was a real shock, and I realized that I had done more with music than I ever had with my visual artwork, so I pretty much concentrated on the music since then. Of course, I still do some artwork, and a lot of the art involved with CRD is my work.

*Born: Buffalo, NY.

*Motivations: I think this is way way too simplistic, but basically, to make people happy in a fun, but decadent way.

*Philosophy: God, I don't think I have time to get into that. Maybe I can send this answer later. Later: More and more I have been thinking of the "there's always a bigger fish" theory.
Mainly considering the whole idea of "fame" or even just notoriety. There's always someone faster, more cut up, more outrageous, more arty, more quiet, more etc.

*How would you like to be remembered: As a person that did all they could for music, and the people related to it.

*Web address: www. cockrockdisco.com

***

Thanks to The Artist Formerly Known As Donna Summer - JASON FORREST - for being the subject of our Q&A this week. Be sure to visit his Cock Rock Disco website, and tune in to this week's Podcast (episode 92), where he's just one of 16 sound collage artists featured during our theme of MEN and WOMEN.

Gotta run - only 10 minutes to get to work, and I still have to post the episode! yikes...
thanks for listening,
Jon Nelson

www.some-assembly-required.net