shift daddy

june 14, 2006.

Last saturday afternoon, june 10th, Cosmo H. & myself joined Rébus at a small 'music garage sale' on the market of Gif-sur-Yvette, where from early morning seven E. had set up a table with some of his vast collection of guitar and other effects, and wind instruments. If you were living near Gif, and into this sort of thing, this was the chance of a life time ... :-) ... Among the effects not sold yet at the time of our arrival there was a big foot-controlled Danelectro Echo-Pitch shifter, a 'Shift Daddy', built into sort of a toy vintage mobile, including red rear lights. A 'kitchy horror', one in a league with expensively sold crystal Eiffel towers filled with cheap perfumes. Rébus told us he would not dare to use such a thing on stage ...
Ha, but I would ... and I'd love to !

So I bought it! And you just watch my feet work next time you come and see me perform ... There might just be a Shift Daddy somewhere down there ...;))

It was a fine 'n' sunny afternoon. Nice and quiet. And with Rébus selling lots, including a large brandnew trombone made in China ... A shiny treat, for but € 120 ...

After the sale, we drank tasty home brewn 'bio lemonade' at Rébus' house, used dedicated optics to have a closer look at the sun shining down on the Bures gardens, and back inside toyed with a vintage tube mixer including a spring reverb unit ... For sonic snapshot of the day, there's this entry's monophonic podcast ...

fotex #49-51

june 13, 2006.

[quick links: fotex49, fotex50, fotex51]

Roaming soundician Rinus van Alebeek is in Berlin at the moment. I told him about Åsa Ståhl's 'found tape'-event there at Sparwasser's, and Rinus went to take a look. In an email he observed that the difference between the way Åsa 'treats' her found tapes and the way I do mine is like the difference between a girl's and a boy's room ("verschil tussen jouw en haar 'techniek' is als verschil tussen jongenskamer en meisjeskamer") ...
Must be true! Like trains and dolls, say ... ...
(Thanks for this observation, Rinus ... )

Meanwhile there's some new stuff up in my boy's room. I added the tape finds that I have been disentangling and re-mounting in Stichting Intro's Klankwerkplaats during the Kunsttoer weekend in Maastricht (mai 19th-21st) to the Found Tapes Exhibition: montage #49, #50, and #51.

In #49 there are fragments of another bunch of finds done at the 'puces sauvages', along the avenue Galieni in Bagnolet. On Montreuil market days (saturday, sunday, monday) a whole flock of 'illegal vendors' settles on the pavements of the avenue Galieni; often they are summoned to pack and leave, and chased away by the police, quite early in the day; and always they leave a lot of rubbish behind on the pavements and in the gutters, among which there regularly are the broken rests of trampled upon audio cassettes. Or simply audio cassettes left behind, like find nr. 276 : two cassettes that I picked up from the pavement on the avenue Galieni, containing recordings of the 'Fanfare St. Claude' , made in 1979, 1981 and on july 14th, 1987 ... [ The Montreuil market is not far from where I live, so I often try to go and have a look along the avenue Galieni towards the day's end, before street and pavement are swept clean again by the municipal cleaning services. Till now it has been the case that when I go there, I almost always will find some cassette or tape salad ... The 'puces sauvages' finds thus might become some sort of a 'sub collection' ... ]

The first find in acquisition #51 is a strand from a microcassette that I found wound around a metal pole on the pavement of the rue de la Roquette, not far from the place de la Bastille (Paris XI). It contained a dictaphone recording of a conversation (in french). I think it must be a female reporter that is interviewing an artist. Here is a transcription of the first part :

- C'est des figurines ...
- C'est des figurines sur un éschiquier.
- ... sur un éschiquier ...
- D'accord ...
- ... qui illustrent des guerres ... comment l'homme ... est au centre de ces guerres, cherche a détruire [...] et a côté de cet installation il a une série de photographies ... qui sont .. inspirées ... de mon album photo, des personnages photographiées ici et là ... qui constituent donc
une scène de [...] avec quelques illustrations de mon travail, et ... tout cela est confronté avec le jeu d'échecs. Et, eh ... comme dans la grande salle, où il ya d'autres grands dessins, ils vont illustrer [...] et une vidéo au fond, qui va tourner en boucle et montre petit à petit comment les excès, de, de, de produits chimiques dans l'agriculture a mené à ... à une surproductivité, mais aussi à une mauvaise qualité, et ... eh ... [...]

[#285, (partial) transcription]

Fotex #51 comes with 'a montage within a montage', as this acquisition contains find #287 : the bits of tape that, on sunday junuary 15th, I picked up from the floor of the exposition space of the Point Ephémère , fallen from Colin Ponthot's "Monster Happy Tape" ... My Monster Happy Bits contain fragments of Doors songs (from Riders on the Storm, and L.A. Woman), opera, Schubert (piano and string quartet, probably a recording from the radio), spanish lessions and a (economics?) course :

'L'état ne doit nullement intervenir dans l'activité économique, parce que son intervention risquerait de perturber les règles d'un marché animé avant tout par le profit. Or, l'état ne cherche pas nécessairement le profit ...'

[from #287]

[ some recent related SB-entries : Sonofakunsttoer :: axiology for dummies :: found in maastricht ]