Some of the story so far ...
The first jams and then into having first recording and gigging group was while in High School in Oakton , Northern Va. in 1976-'77 , that group was The Rudements :
Our first song was "Imagination" and the live version of that can be found on the
"30 Seconds Over DC" Compilation which was originally released on Skip Groff's Limp Records and rereleased in 2004 on District Line a new label venture by Henry Rollins & Ian Mackaye . Rudements members : Tim Cornish guitarist vocals and writer ,
bassist Bruce Blumberg and myself on drums and vocals .
We managed to play at a couple parties and debuted on the flowering punk scene at the Atlantis Club which was later much better known as the 9:30 Club in DC
and The Psychedelly 4/28/'78 .
We had written our first 4-6 songs and recorded some of the best ones @
Don Zientara's then new Studio
New Wave Vaudeville Show 1978
This was fun , still new in town Lisa had me meet Tom and Susan Hanniford and they were going to do this New Wave thing at a new place called Irving PLaza .
I got to draw the original poster and performed "Imagination" in those shows .
Those 2 nights marked the debuts of Klaus Nomi and Come On , Ann Magnuson , plus Tish & Snooky , ART , Kristian Hoffmann and other groups and acts .
Great party afterwards too
The Futants 1978 -1979
Short lived but intense post punk - No wave - electro group = as a 3 piece consisting of Frank (Michael Finley) on Stratocaster and also my good friend Martin Fischer on synths and vocals and myself on drums and vocals (RIP Martin)
The last tapes I had of the group were either burned or stolen from the Apt. on E 11th St. in the fire and destruction that rained on the tenants after 'the Pope' ,
the large semi legendary pot dealer was shot outside the building by friendly block locals. The Futants played Tier 3 , a great CBGB's Benefit with Material and others , at the Squat Theatre's '24 Hours of music'weekend with all kinds of great music like DNA , Lounge Lizards , Defunkt .
On a couple summer nights Martin set up his synths up on the roof of our loft down on Warren Street and playfully bounce tones off the big glass building downtown from us ...
Ike Yard 1980 - 1983
This musik was an evolution from a bass , drums , guitar & synthetics lineup to one in which the members were all playing synths and were synched up with the drum machine and synth modules that Fred was running .
Our first show was @ Chase Park with Suicide and
13.13 (Lydia with members of Screamers),
Ike Yard played with New Order at The Ukrainian National Home gig and with Section 25 @ Peppermint Lounge and Maxwells.
Ike Yard did their first EP with the Belgian Crepescule label 12" Ep "Night After Night" in 1981
and the more electro-acoustic 6 minute pieces that made up the Factory America Album in 1982 .
Ike Yard's "NCR" was featured on Gomma's "Anti- NY" Compilation 2000-2001.
Dominatrix 1993 - 2006
"The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight" 12" 1984 on UpRoar/Streetwise/Warlock CD.vinyl'92,
numerous Compilations , samples, rip offs that continue to this day.
WEA Int. handled the record overseas (Thank you Rudy M)
Dom Sdtk for "Innerware: the Prinzessin Ambient Lingerie Catalog" 1994
Rereleased on DJ Hell's Gigolo label in 2003 ,
the music video by Beth B resurfaced on Gigolo's Freak Show DVD last year.
New release alert: "The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight" Black Strobe remix ends the Abe Duque mix for American Gigolo 2 out now on Int. DJ Gigolo Records
More to come from Dom ...
Death Comet Crew 1984 - 2006
"At The Marble Bar" 12" Ep 1984 on Beggars Banquet UK only release,
"Exterior Street" on various compilations; Gomma's "Anti NY" 2000 , "Power Cuts" 2002
DCC rerelease "America" EP 2003 , "This Is Riphop" CD Album 2004 on Troubleman
"Riphop" Japanese release 2005 on Delic Records , Tokyo
"Riphop" remixes CD & 12" 2005 on Delic /Phunk Records Tokyo
New Ep & Album coming in 2006 ... TBA
The Voodooists 1989 -1992
One of the many projects that my man William Barg , engineer /Co Producer Steve Breck and I got into in the later '80's.
Haitian cyber voudou inspired by William Gibson's Count Zero and Brooklyn voudou.
Recoprding these tracks with Yvon and his 2 mambos in the Studio with a bottle of whisky was intense , the track would end and they would be just soaring into intricate chants.
"Married To The Mob" Sdtk 7" B side to Debbie Harry/ "Queen Of Voudou" '1989
Voodooists 12" Ep on Warlock 1992
"VideoVoudou" LaserDisc 1992 Ask/Kodansha/Toshiba/EMI Japan release
black rain 1989 -1999
Hard, gritty NYC post punk industrial quartet running on Misfits song structure mixed with ENB inspired primal tribal muscle , oil drum percussive sets.
Live shows in C Squat , Tomkins Square Park for Anniversary of the Riots surrounded by cops , CBGB's ( we had to 'audition'for Hiily's daughter), The Bank (lit the stage on fire) and on the bill with GG Allin in what turned out to be his last perf @ The Gas Station on LES.
black rain was Bones on bass , Thom on drums , Shin on guitar ,
me doing vocals , metal perc , tape fx with original vocalist Dave Vulcan ,
Gavin on guitar @ ABC No Rio and Roy Mayorga on guitar and drums in 1993 for the T SQ. and GG Allin shows . Roy was in Thorn and went on to do Soulfly , he did great stuff with us .
black rain mach 2 went on to do a few sdtks and also the 2 albums
"1.0" CD Album on Fifth Column Records
"nanarchy" CD Album again on Fifth Column Records .
black rain rerelease is on the horizon too ...
During these groups were various subgroups, short lived units like
Will To Power'1983 with Melanie S that did shows with Whitehouse twice.
Many soundtracks for artists like Robert Longo and Gretchen Bender ,
authors William Gibson , Bruce Sterling and Jack Womack .
Also demos for films that didn't happen ( a version of La'Jette , Sci Fi collaborations )
TV shows that didn't work out (Peter Wagg's post Max Headroom show 'Cyberforce',
TLC's Police Force)
and multimedia that didn't get off the drawing board ('Bugwars' CD Rom , LA & Japanese video game projects) things that sounded great but didn't come together in the end , *uckups and fizzles , but some of those process' were fun too ...
Dozens of them DID happen though and the best of those sdtks wil be compiled for a Soundtracks 1983 -2003 Compilation.
Along the way through the 1980's i began putting together compilations with
the first one being the Colloquium 1 collection (1996) that came out on
Carlos Peron's (x Yello) Dark Star/Strange Ways label out of Hamburg Germany;
with Voodooists ,black rain , biProg , Martin Rev , Severed Heads and Carlos' silly Soccer in Space as first trk
Next came request to do a NYC Hardcore Compilation for a Tokyo new Clothing line
Anti Good.
Enlisting Jimmy G of Murphy's Law , he pulled together a hard rocking collection of NYC's best circa 1998 for the "Brotherhood Of AntiGood" Japan only release
In 2000 I had become a Board member of Harvestworks and embarked on a fact finding mission for artists to include on a downtown electronic musik collection i call Nowthenafter . This one is unreleased as of now but that may change this fall ...
Then for the last years I have put together a collection of NYC No Wave proto electro groups musik that began as a project Shin from DCC & black rain and I were pitching to Bathing Ape in Tokyo.
After months , the bean counters there decided to pass and so began the journey to find the home for it.
Look out for New York Noise 3 out on Soul Jazz UK around mid year ...
It's got stuff you may not have heard before.
There was another productive period between 1997 -2000 when I was hired to do TV drum programming and eventually kyboards for soundtrack music for client NY Times TV.
We did about 80 1 hour shows for Discovery Channel and TLC when TLC had set up their 'Adrenalin Rush Hour' with posters on buses all over town , etc.
We did "Trauma:Life In The ER" and in the process introduced Drum & Bass to Cable TV and being nominated for an Emmy in 2001 , also "Science Times" , "Police Force",
"Breaking News" and "Maternity Ward" , ESPN's first "The Season" and Granada TV/NY Times TV's "World Birth Day"
In 2002 we kicked the idea of The Rammellzee doing his own Album to Matthias and Jonas over @ Munich's Gomma Records and in 2003 that was released to alot of great reviews and positive press , Made The Wire's Top 50 list (barely).
Last year we took The Bi-Conicals Of The Rammellzee on tour with crazy shows @
The Venice Bienalle Sept.21 and cont. through Berlin , Paris , Ghent Belgium and Toulouse where we had a ball at a Cartier sponsored Festival with Airborn Audio and The Bug for 3,000 people Sept.30
In the same period I did both the TUSSLE remix of Don't Stop for Troubleman 2004
and also an unreleased 2002 remix for DFA of LCD Soundsystem's Beat Connection
and some Co production of 2 hiphop electro tracks for Kukoo Da Baga Bones Album in 2004
By now though there are only so many rereleases left , some out this year ...
But also by now the new musik project and new group are underway as I prepare the first sisters EP and Dystopians sessions with Bones started on Mon happy to say !
