Sunday, December 27, 2009

the Cranial Fishers

the Cranial Fishers

The Cranial Fishers are actually just one person, Ohio's Craig Chambers. He's been working as the Cranial Fishers for about twenty five years, and is an active participant of the online sound collage community, Snuggles. The group got its name from a Negativland song, and its start as a Negativland fan club, and has morphed into a productive online artists community. The cooperative has produced at least three compilations of their own material, including The Droplift Project and Dictionaraoke.

Chambers studied music and composition in school, and played in a band before turning his creative attentions to sound collage. You can check out some of his work HERE. The Cranial Fisher's online compilation site, "Snuggle This!", also hosts over three dozen different tracks by sound collage artists he's met online. Check it out HERE.

Without further ado, here's the SAR Q&A with the Cranial Fishers...


*Name: The Cranial Fishers

*Are there any additional names used to describe this project: No

*Do you use a pseudonym? Just the Cranial Fishers, but I use CraigCo as a "corporate" name. I'm considering releasing some of my non-sample-based stuff as the CraigCo Aural Gratification Ensemble.

*Members: Craig Chambers, although I did use C. William Chambers for things I wrote in college. It sounded more "arty".

*Founding Members: I take full responsibility.

*Tape manipulations, digital deconstructions or turntable creations: I consider it more digital reconstruction than deconstruction. Perhaps "media manipulation". I use a lot of samples from TV and movies.

*Another genre descriptor: When I try to explain it to normal people, I just call it audio collage.

*Is there a story behind your name? Someone told me that every time you learn something, it creates another wrinkle in your brain...cranial fissures. A bit of creative misspelling, and there it is. I never looked it up to see if it was true or not. The small "t" on "the" is a graphic choice. I just like the way it looks.

*Location: Dayton, OH, but when I started I lived near Rochester, NY.

*Original Location: Dayton, OH

*What is your creative/artistic background: High school band geek (trumpet), went on to study composition and marketing in college, dropped out, attended the Recording Workshop in Chillecothe, OH in summer of '76, spent some time as a roadie/tech/bassplayer at the lowest level of bar-banddom, now I make noise as a creative release from the real world.

*History: My first attempts at sound collage were around 1984-85. I started out with a couple cassette decks and a VCR, (you can hear me pushing the pause button on some of my earlier stuff), had a small 4-track studio for a while, but now it's all done on computer. My actual output is pretty small for 25 years, but I have lots of unfinished stuff. I don't play out or do anything live.

*Born: Dayton, OH, 1955

*Motivations: I've always had an interest in composition, and this enables me to make music/noise without dealing with other people’s opinions or egos. I got really tired of hearing "you can't do that" when I was in school or other groups.

*Philosophy: I'm not sure there is one, but I like to feel that it's entertaining, and possibly thought provoking at times.

*How would you like to be remembered: I had an answer to this, but I forgot it. (rimshot.wav). I would like to think I had some small part encouraging others who do this kind of thing, even though no one's ever heard of me. Sometime in the mid-90's, I'm not even sure when, I joined a mailing list called "Snuggles", a community of like-minded artists, and then put together a website to allow members to post a track for public consumption. It's called "Snuggle This!", and it's now up to about 40 tracks from various audio collagists, including many who have been featured on SAR. There is a track by the artist/group, a link to their website, and usually an e-mail address. Some tracks are available nowhere else, some people have since disappeared. I believe it was one of the first on-line compilation sites. There's a 10 year anniversary somewhere out there, but I didn't really note when it started (Quick shout-out to Pan at Sensory Research, who provides space for the site and moderates the list, and to all my fellow Snuggleers). I encourage anyone who is interested to join Snuggles, and to submit a track for Snuggle This! Snuggles members are also the people behind The Droplift Project and Free Speech For Sale, as well as Dictionaraoke and Deconstructing the Wall.

*Web address: http://craigco.sensoryresearch.net
Snuggles: http://lists.sensoryresearch.net/mailman/listinfo/snuggles



www.some-assembly-required.net

Episode 246, Some Assembly Required

Episode 246, Some Assembly Required

01 The Bran Flakes – “Autumn”
02 Douglas Kahn – “Chuck and Rona”
03 E-603 – “Lights Out”
04 People Like Us – “Guide to broadcasting”
05 Greater Than One – “Learn With Pleasure, Knowledge Is Power”
06 the Cranial Fishers – “Deadline”
07 DJ Danger Mouse – “Moment of Clarity”
08 Cassetteboy – “Clever girl”
09 Lasso The Moon – “Religion in the wind”
10 Bernard Parmegiani – “Du pop a l'ane”
11 Colatron – “Faithless Praise"


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

Friday, December 18, 2009

December 20, 2009

December 20, 2009

Seven of the artists in this week's show (Episode 155) have previously responded to the SAR Q&A... There are now well over 150 of these online artist features to browse at the Some Assembly Required website... Check out these seven for starters:

• SAR Q&A with Barbed
• SAR Q&A with The Evolution Control Committee
• SAR Q&A with Dickie Goodman's son, Jon Goodman
• SAR Q&A with Fortyone
• SAR Q&A with Kid Koala
• SAR Q&A with Rob Swift
• SAR Q&A with team9


Thanks for listening,
Jon Nelson


www.some-assembly-required.net

Episode 155, Some Assembly Required

Episode 155, Some Assembly Required

01 Push Button Objects – “Yambooze”
02 Duran Duran Duran – “I hate the 80's”
03 The Evolution Control Committee – “Spandau Filet”
04 Dickie Goodman – “Energy Crisis '74”
05 Dean Gray – “Novocaine Rhapsody”
06 Rob Swift - “Dope On Plastic”
07 Barbed - “Wedding”
08 Fortyone - “Life Is A Game”
09 Kid Koala – “Barhopper 1”
10 dINbOT - “Gay Paranoia”
11 Kid Koala - “Barhopper 2”
12 Doormouse – “Mathematics”
13 team9 - “The Money Song”
14 Mediatronic Research Laboratory - “DJ Rocks”
15 John Oswald – “More From The Case Of Death, By Agatha Smith”
16 Grandmaster Flash - “Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the wheels of steel”


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

Saturday, December 12, 2009

December 13, 2009

December 13, 2009

This week's episode features our 2009 interview with Stock, Hausen & Walkman's Matt Wand. Check it out HERE. We ran the SAR Q&A with Wand last October... In fact, you can check out our Q&A's with the last three artists interviewed on the program, linked to below, and over 150 more at our Interviews Page HERE.

• SAR Q&A with Wayne Butane
• SAR Q&A with Greg Carr
• SAR Q&A with Stock, Hausen & Walkman's Matt Wand

Thanks for listening,
Jon Nelson


www.some-assembly-required.net

Episode 245, Some Assembly Required

Episode 245, Some Assembly Required
Featuring an interview with Stock, Hausen & Walkman

01 Stock, Hausen & Walkman – “Pop Me”
02 Stock, Hausen & Walkman – “Instrumental”
03 Stock, Hausen & Walkman – “Tampooning”
04 Stock, Hausen & Walkman – “Sniffed Up”
05 Stock, Hausen & Walkman – “Untitled (track 7, Stop!)”
06 Stock, Hausen & Walkman – “Untitled (track 8, Stop!)”
07 Stock, Hausen & Walkman – “Lipgloss”
08 Stock, Hausen & Walkman – “Flagging”
09 Stock, Hausen & Walkman – “Skipper”
10 Small Rocks – “Stalacloose”
11 Stock, Hausen & Walkman – “IKEA”


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

Friday, December 04, 2009

December 6, 2009

December 6, 2009

Seven of the artists in this week's show (Episode 154) have previously responded to our ongoing attempt to profile the sound collage artists featured on Some Assembly Required... There are well over 150 of these online features to browse at this point... Check out these seven for starters...

• SAR Q&A with Dickie Goodman's son, Jon Goodman, HERE.
• SAR Q&A with Aggro1 HERE.
• SAR Q&A with Fortyone HERE.
• SAR Q&A with Speaker Freaker HERE.
• SAR Q&A with The Tape-beatles HERE.
• SAR Q&A with The Freelance Hellraiser HERE.
• SAR Q&A with Greg Carr HERE... Be sure to also check out Episode 154 for our radio interview with Greg Carr HERE.

Thanks for listening,
Jon Nelson


www.some-assembly-required.net

Episode 154, Some Assembly Required

Episode 154, Some Assembly Required
(Featuring an interview with Greg Carr)

01 DJ Shadow – “High Noon”
02 Buchanan & Goodman – “Flying Saucer (Part 1)”
03 Buchanan & Goodman - “Flying Saucer (Part 2)”
04 Aggro1 - “Let My Baby Scream”
05 Fortyone - “Not Clementine”
06 Speaker Freaker – “Fear N Speculation”
07 M/A/R/R/S - “Pump Up The Volume”
08 Jacknife Lee – “Get your 9lb **** on”
09 The Tape-beatles – “Joy and Power”
10 Greg Carr – “Spaced out sound mobile”
11 Greg Carr – “Remote viewing in an emptying house”
12 Greg Carr – “Funk dungeon dance lesson”
13 The Freelance Hellraiser – “Night Train '99”


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