Skip to main content

CUT-UPS


Ian C Stewart "Cut-ups" MP3

I have a pile of work tapes that aren't really labeled anywhere on the outside. They were usually quick mixes of whatever music I was working on at the time, made to listen to in the car, or on a walkman. Not for posterity. And most certainly not for anyone else's delectation ten years later!

The first of these bulk work tapes says CUT-UPS. And that's the only clue of what awaits inside.

I might've heard Mark Gunderson referring to something he did as a "cut-up" in the mid 1990s. When I bought my first PC from him I guess I inherited a little bit of interest in seeking out and exploiting wacky and amusing sound sources. The more ludicrous the better. Unfortunately I do not share his gift for being able to craft something great out of disparate materials, as this pathetic, one-off tape reveals.

And Wayne Butane, I might've become aware of his work by this point, which would be some time in 1997.

From childhood I've always had a fascination with recording. I probably tried to crudely juxtapose things like my beloved Steve Martin album and whatever KISS record I loved the most that week.

Even though, process-wise, this cut up thing is like a FZZY PMPR demo, it's just a long, unfunny slab of unrelated audio events that I hoped would come together in a grand way. No such luck, despite a couple of promising buildups with a preacher dude and a Mercyful Fate record.

This piece was unreleased until today because it's extremely pointless!

The first few things I did on the PC, using Cool Edit 96, I didn't save any of it to the hard drive. Can you imagine! I made this 8 minute 12 second monstrosity on the fly and slapped it onto a cassette. Otherwise, gosh darn it, the world would never have known about it. Hopefully all of the bulk work tapes won't be this pointless.

I think the sources were................ The Damned from 'the captain's birthday party' live album
The Young Ones "living doll"
Bad News album
Buddy Rich album
the "good touch, bad touch" kids' album
Christian Death "this is heresy"
japanese 45?
Frankie Goes to Hollywood - that one b-side where they do all the talking
Milli Vanilli "girl you know it's true"
Billy Connolly album
Muppet Show album
1970s Israeli soft rock
Adrian Belew "the ideal woman"
Henry Rollins from "family man" - this is where the PC locked up during playback, so brace yourself for a buttkicking in 3-D and Sensurround here!!! Not kidding, it sounds like a machine gun.
King Diamond album
Berklee jazz history textbook cassette
Chris Rock album
a Learn to Speak French tape
Radio preacher dude
Mercyful Fate
Steven Wright album

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Darrin said…
my favorite part was the:

"n' it bothered me......"
"n' guess what?"
"n' it bothered me......"

at the very end.

heh... i laughed.

i thought you were gonna merge into some house tune since it had that nice 'boom chick boom chick' rhythm going.
October 17, 2007 at 10:29 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Unknown Samarkand track circa 1999-2000

Judging by the drum & bass loop I'd say this recording predates any PC multitracking attempts. I was definitely in the zone with the guitar, though. It sounds like an old Cure riff that was abandoned at birth. Maybe it was, who knows. Ian C Stewart - 1999-2000 Unknown Samarkand Track MP3 The other side of the cassette is labeled CLUB AUTO NARRATION SOURCE. My Tokai and BC Rich guitars, circa summer 1987. Posed seductively on my bedroom floor.... in the basement.... Speaking of basements, anyone who came over to my house to jam from 1989 onwards would've had this low-hanging ceiling light to contend with. By contend with I mean leave skin and hair cells upon. The number of times I and everyone else smashed our heads on that thing was quite funny, thinking back.
3 comments
Read more

THESE CHORDS ARE LIKE FAMILY TO ME

Ian C Stewart "These Chords are like Family to Me" MP3 From the 2003 made-to-be-made-not-made-to-be-heard album I Don't Know Why You Think I Won't Kill You .... this is the last song. This was the beginning of my dabbling with intentional randomness in songwriting. The lyrics for the whole album were compiled from albums by other artists that I enjoyed a lot, such as Adrian Belew's Twang Bar King , The Cure's Pornography , Voivod Nothingface , Mercyful Fate Melissa etc. I wrote out entire lines of their phrases and chopped them together. I think at the time I described it as 'sad psychedelic love songs about satan' overall, which is really being too generous. The music was also randomly chosen from tablature found on t'interwebs for favorite songs of mine. In general I played the chords in reverse order to the original songs but I can still kind of tell in a couple of places what the songs were. The titles were my own, obviously. Although I did cho...
3 comments
Read more

EXGIRLFRIEND

SAMARKAND FRENZY WEEK, DAY THREE Samarkand "Exgirlfriend" MP3 This song is from the limited release cassette Sensitive , which was issued in a handpainted edition of 10 in January 1993. Naturally. Sensitive was 60 minutes of almost entirely brand new material, only one or two songs were recycled. It was recorded during what I thought would be my winter break from Berklee in 1992. Of course that turned out to be my permanent break from Berklee in 1992 since the cash had completely run out for my tuition. All the songs were recorded on a borrowed 4-track, possibly Ray's Porta 05. I also had my uncle's massive Carvin PA, Sennheiser mics & Ludwig drums in my basement. All of which feature prominently on this here release, along with the brand new Zoom 9002 effects. Which was an amazing combination at the time, I really felt like the boundaries were down on the equipment end of things for the first time. "Exgirlfriend" is a riff recycled from Domestik Quarrel...
2 comments
Read more