It has been said that if you want to create change, you have to get your message out. It has also been said that a good message appeals to the greatest number of people possible.
Neither of these messages was apparently taught to todays artists.
San Francisco area “experimental music” group, Negativland, makes some of the strangest tunage you will possibly ever get the chance to listen to. Using “found” sounds, and other public sources of sonic vibration, they pieced together some very interesting stuff during the 80’s and 90’s.
I would, at this time, like to request that those who know of Negativland already not speak of their most famous prank played on the Bay Area media. We’ll get into that on next week’s Soundboard, mmm-kay?
Basically, around 1986, the owner of the indie record shop in my town had dropped the cassette of Jam Con ’84 into the tape deck and I have to have it. Just the sheer strangeness of it all made it perfect to use as comical background noise during study sessions.
The next year, Escape from Noise hit the shelves and I had it in my hot little hands before I could spend it on school supplies.
Much to my surprise, it was full of leftist claptrap. I came to the conclusion that I hadn’t listened to the JamCon tape closely enough, but upon my next listen, I was able pick out a couple liberal talking points in there. Nothing overt, just a bit subliminal.
But on Escape from Noise, there was anti-commercialism, anti-firearm, and even a couple anti-nuke tracks.
Unfortunately for me, they were so damn entertaining that I couldn’t stop listening.
And once again, unfortunately for them, I didn’t fall for the bullshit.
Today’s tracks are of the milder stuff, possibly not even noticeable if you weren’t looking for it.
Yellow, Black and Rectangular is an anti-nuke track, mocking those who worried about the Soviets by using an old fallout shelter PSA as the main vocal track.
Time Zones is just strange and I think was made in protest about the dropping of the Fairness Doctrine as it was produced just as the Doctrine was finally being put to sleep. Also, for over two decades now I’ve been trying to figure out two things: Who the talk radio host is in the recoding (probably a Bay Area talker), and also if the closing bit is from some sort of audiobook version of 1984?
