Music and sound journal (part 1) Ive been playing music for most of my life. I guess I was about seven years old? when I got my first kid-drum set, which I loved. My parents set it up in their basement; I remember my glee at the bass drum and cymbal, especially. There was something very cool about the low note of the kick-drum and the high-end of the cymbal together. Eventually Id broken the drum heads and since they were really just paper, I phased out the toy set in favor of an oddball contraption-set. Although Im thinking now that I should have been more inventive and replaced the drum heads with something; it might even sound cool to strike layers of tape, for example, with the right stick, mallet or chopstick. Speaking of the contraption-set, this was made with an ice-cream bucket full of marbles to act as a snare drum, a better quality but still toyish kick-drum, and bike sprockets on a table leg to act as the hi-hat. It was funny and weird sounding; I played in a faux-rock band called SIlver Salutes with my brother Curt Wilson and we sounded like kids between like ten and fourteen trying to play rock and roll. We recorded open-air tapes with the simple bashing drums and basic guitar and voice, with high voices, bad lyrics, Rush and Ac/Dc imitations (poor quality), samples from games like Merlin and Simon, and much much more. By the time we were in our later teens wed passed through our very-much-wannabee- Venom little-kid band, Viper, which actually sounded good sometimes despite some very corny themes and laughable lyrics. But it was all metal, metal, keep it heavy, long hair and denim jackets, and a little bit of the harder punk, so we formed Poison (not the hair metal band, obviously) and were the heaviest quick metal band from our immediate area. We were too young to take part in the metal scene and punk scene in St. Louis, Missouri, but had fun when we could get rides to practice. Poison was David McDonald, Curt Wilson and I, the biggest ultra-heavy goofballs from our high school in the middle of corn fields, and sometimes we sounded good despite ourselves trying so damn hard to be evil. What can I say, I still enjoy the finer moments of black metal and extreme metal musics, though I dont keep up with most new bands to be honest. Anyway, not long after this we were inspired to form Nuclear Winter, the hardcore punk band, and again it was the same three members, with the eventual addition of Mark Rood, Michael Beatty, and Rich Lucas to replace Dave who became busy with other things. We existed from 1986-1990; the last gig was a Halloween show at the T.O.G. house in nearby Edwardsville. I remember getting loaded and having a hard time playing this awkward drum set which belonged to someone else; I broke a stick, couldnt hear the guitars right, and found it an ordeal to keep up with the extreme thrash beats on some of the quicker songs. But a good time was had...far better than the incident at the party with the axe-handle, of course. Dave however stepped up to play bass along with Jim Mcdonald on guitar, for the Nuclear Winter reunion show in May of this year. The video was posted on my page not long after that: i prefer the edited, half-hour version which is also on youtube. Between 1990 and 2006 I conducted noise and found-sound recordings and recorded mostly cassettes under various names, but also took part in Spore Print, Mary Barnes, Frigid Pony and other acts with Curt, Dave, Neal D. Retke, Brian Shaw, William Ragan, Beth-Ann, and others. I also played with folks from Bloom, Lost Cross House, Organic Rain and others in short-lived jam and cover bands during this period. When I lived in the Bay Area for less than a year I made my own noise and tape collages with friends but also played drums for an un-named punk band, very briefly before getting bored with songs and keeping beats. My imagination cant be confined to song structures or the role of time-keeper. I also needed to get out from behind the drums entirely and began playing prepared guitar by about 2000. It was so nice to make sounds that were not easily classified; the prepared guitar can be amazing, although I consider much of my early work rather crude now. Im still not that high-tech although recording abilities have improved. Around 2003 I was in Freed Apes with Tim Iserman and also in the house band Hoverboard; in 2004 I was more exposed to non-idiomatic improvisation courtesy of the people at the 411 Collective warehouse and the spirited potluck musicking that happened there. I helped set up a show for Johannes Bergmark in Portland in 2005, played with Qkcofse publicly between 2006-2009 thanks to the help of friends including Tim, Ogo, Jeane Nova Dawn Gump; there was also a one-shot harsh noise gig with Mr. N.at Rererato in 2008, which I wound up with some video clips from. Several memorable sessions including videos and at least one Qkcofse track, Nascent Oxygen, were recorded with Curt in southern Illinois. Jaan Patterson and Anthony Donovan from suRRism-phonoethics and Class War Karaoke net labels, kindly offered to release my Qkcofse noise on various releases starting in 2010 to the present, and Im still stoked to collaborate with these two and others in the Migraine Collective. If you know me today you might have heard my experimental and heavy noise sounds on the Qkcofse and Orgonome page, so its quite far from keeping a beat or holding a tune, not that I wont make some use of these. I am still thrilled to play hardcore punk music in the right circumstances, but most of the time I play my stand-up drum set with modified chopsticks and do a lot of computer composing since I like to record many things with voice alone, in search of new points of departure. Im also a fan of prepared guitar and lo-fi electronics mixed with acoustic and toy sounds. Recording the third Qkcofse album has made me feel reflective about everything Ive done for whatever reason. I feel just about as far away from music as I could be, but its something I want to make use of in my own way. Its fun to keep a few projects going at a time according to the inspiration.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 07:16:28 +0000
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