Gyorgy Bp. Szabo (born September 30, 1953 in Budapest) is a designer and musician. In 1982 he received his MFA from the Moholy-Nagy University Of Art And Design Budapest. He then got his Masters in Typography. His Professors included Sandor Ernyei, Janos Kass, Peter Viragvolgyi and the legendary Erno Rubik, the inventor of the Rubik's Cube. As a graphic designer he designed posters, mostly representing alternative bands. In 1992, he became the co-owner of A.R.C. Studio, and in 1994 started his own graphic design company called Bp. Studio. In 1996 he moved to Los Angeles to work for the well- known animation company Klasky Csupo where he became an art director. In 2004 he worked for Crew Creative, and finally landed the position of Creative Director at Cleopatra Records. His art reflects the way music and art collide. From 1983, his band Bp. Service has reflected the sound of accidental noise discoveries, machines, and the sound of the city along with self-made generators, resulting in uniquely innovative music. His Art reflecting to the pulse of city life; an expression of the rhythms of post modern recycled urban street art, balancing atmospheric dreams and ambient reality. These creations reflect an Eco friendly way to recreate disposed objects into art pieces that are, in essence, a collection of junk. [SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA]
Kraut was a New York City punk rock / hardcore punk band formed in 1981. The original members were Davy Gunner (vocals), Doug Holland (guitar/vocals) Don Cowan (bass/vocals), and Johnny Feedback (drums/vocals).
Kraut's first performance was opening for The Clash at Bonds International Casino in New York on June 11, 1981.
Their debut single, 'Kill for Cash', and second single, 'Unemployed', were both released in 1981 on the band's own Cabbage Records label.
While recording their debut album, 'An Adjustment to Society' (produced by Ryk Oakley), they opened for The Professionals at The Channel in Boston. Former Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones became friends with Kraut and recorded extra guitar tracks for three tracks on the album: "Kill for Cash", "Sell Out" and "Onward". The album was again self-released, distributed by Faulty Products. A video clip for "All Twisted" appeared in rotation on MTV, making Kraut the first independent band to be played on the station.
The band released a mini-album, 'Whetting the Scythe', in 1984, and toured the U.S.
By the mid-1980s, Kraut had added second guitarist Christopher Smith from Battalion of Saints, and developed a more hard rock/metal sound.
Guitarist Holland went on to play for New York hardcore band The Cro-Mags.
A Kraut reunion show with all four original members took place in 2002 at CBGB during the New York Thrash reunion, yielding the 'Live at CBGB's' album. [SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA]
More an amalgamation of various NYC No-wave scenesters in the early 1980s, Aural Exciters were an interesting side note to that chapter in music history. Bob Blank is a producer / engineer who released one of the first disco 12" (Jimmy Sabater, "To Be With You") back in 1975. He owned a studio in Manhattan, Blank Tapes Studios, that produced a lot of hit records in the late 70's and early 1980's. He worked on records by tons of artists (including Talking Heads, Kid Creole & the Coconuts, Lydia Lunch, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, and more -not to exclude Donna Summer, Sting, and Patti Smith). Some of the scenes in the movie "Downtown 81" (2000) were filmed at this studio.
The Aural Exciters was a sort of after hours project that he started around 1980. After the sessions finished Bob used to ask many of his clients if they would play on some of his own recordings. He used a variety of these brilliant artists and musicians, earmarking anyone he could get to play. August Darnel and Andy "Coati Mundi" Hernandez from Kid Creole & the Coconuts wrote almost all the songs, helped with Adriana Kaegi from The Coconuts." The title cut "Spooks In Space" was written by Ronnie Rogers, a regular at Blank Tapes Studios. Rogers later wrote "Deputy Of Love" for Fonda Rae. Some notable musicians are James Chance from The Contortions on sax, Pat Place on guitar, Fonda Rae, Ronnie Rogers on piano, drums, vocals, and many others. [SOURCE: LAST.FM]
Finnish surf-revivalists Laika and the Cosmonauts reunited guitarist Mikko Lankinen and drummer Janne Haavisto, who previously teamed in the like-minded Pluto & the Astronauts. Adding guitarist/keyboardist Matti Pitsinki and bassist Tom Nyman, the group issued its debut album 'C'Mon Do the Laika!' in 1988; 'Surfs You Right!' followed two years later, and in 1993 Laika and the Cosmonauts resurfaced with 'Instruments of Terror'. Subsequent efforts include 1995's 'Amazing Colossal Band' and 1997's 'Absurdistan'. 'Laike Sex Machine' followed in early 2001. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]
Kirsty MacColl, daughter of folk singer / songwriter Ewan MacColl, began her own musical career while still in her teens, singing in a band called The Addix, and eventually signed to the legendary Stiff Records. Her first single, the modern girl group gem, 'They Don't Know', was released in 1979. Though it failed in the charts, it was later a major hit for Tracey Ullman. Kirsty MacColl switched to Polydor in the '80s and landed a U.K. Top 40 hit with the novelty song "There's a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop (Swears He's Elvis)." She followed the single with her first LP, 'Desperate Character', in 1981. In 1984, she married producer Steve Lillywhite and put her solo career on hold, raising their two children and working as a backup singer. MacColl returned in 1989 with a more mature effort, 'Kite', which reached the U.K. Top 40. Two more albums, 'Electric Landlady' (1991) and 'Titanic Days' (1993), displayed great talent and diversity and, above all, good pop sensibilities. On December 18, 2000, MacColl was killed by a speedboat while swimming off of the coast of Mexico. Less than six months later, her final album, 'Tropical Brainstorm', was released on Instinct. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]
Kim Salmon and the Surrealists are an Australian indie rock band formed by Kim Salmon in 1987 when he was living in Perth between the final two tours by The Scientists. When The Scientists stopped, Salmon continued The Surrealists as his main band while playing in Beasts of Bourbon.
Salmon formed the first lineup of The Surrealists with Brian Henry Hooper on bass and Tony Pola on drums. He formed the band to record the album 'Hit Me with the Surreal Feel', using minimalist lo-fi approaches to recording a basic trio: recording the band live with microphones around the studio capturing the entire sound rather than one instrument per track. The band also played live around Perth in mid-1987. The album was released in October 1988.
The Surrealists did a few songs by The Scientists (particularly "Shine" from 'The Human Jukebox') and had a similar sound in that Salmon remained the leader and primary songwriter, but the feel of the music was notably different, far less tense and confrontational.
The second album 'Just Because You Can't See It ... Doesn't Mean It Isn't There' was recorded more conventionally in 1989 and released in early 1990. Comparing this album with 'The Human Jukebox', there is a similarity in songwriting but a difference in feel is readily apparent. The band's third album 'Essence' was released in 1991, followed by 'Sin Factory' in 1993, which arguably gained the most attention for the band. The sound by now was strong rock riffery, also blending their take on Blaxploitation music.
When The Beasts of Bourbon reformed in early 1988, Salmon started touring with that band too. When James Baker and Boris Sujdovic left The Beasts of Bourbon to go full-time with The Dubrovniks, Hooper and Pola joined to replace them.
Salmon fired Tony Pola from The Surrealists in 1993, replacing him with Greg Bainbridge. Brian Hooper later left after the 'Kim Salmon and the Surrealists' album and was replaced by Stu Thomas in 1995. This new trio put out 'Ya Gotta Let Me Do My Thing' in 1997, touring Australia, Europe, and the U.S. A horn section was added to the band that included trumpet player Leon de Bruin and saxophonist Michael Redman.
In 1999, Salmon renamed the band Kim Salmon and the Business, and released one album -'Record'- in 1999. Stu Thomas remained on bass and Phil Collings was recruited on drums in 2000.
In September 2006, Kim Salmon and the Surrealists 'reformed' for a show in Spain at Azkena Rock Festival. This line-up of Kim Salmon (guitar/vocal), Stu Thomas (bass) and Phil Collings (drums) also played later in Australia.
2010 marked the release of the album 'Grand Unifying Theory', the first Kim Salmon and The Surrealists record for 13 years. Line-up featured Kim Salmon (guitar/vocal/sampler), Stu Thomas (bass) and Phil Collings (drums). The band was recorded live during rehearsals. The results were sifted through by Salmon and co-producer Mike Stranges, spliced together in some cases (ala Miles Davis' 'Bitches Brew'), and made into songs. [SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA]
All female Christchurch band 25 Cents were part of a vibrant, early 1980s Gladstone Tavern scene that also included The Pin Group, The Newtones, The Playthings and The Androidss.
Their sole release in 1982 was one of the early Flying Nun singles (FN009) and just 305 copies were pressed. Complete with violin, the A-side "Don’t Deceive Me" was a rare original for a band that specialised more in 60s and 70s garage and punk covers ranging from The Velvet Underground to Pere Ubu. But it’s their helter skelter version of The Sonics’ garage classic "The Witch" on the flip side that has been anthologised over the years. "Don’t Deceive Me" was finally reissued on Flying Nun’s 'Time to Go' compilation in 2011.
Lead vocalist and drummer Mary Heney went on to The Pin Group, Scorched Earth Policy and The Terminals while her sister Susan (bass) later played in The Terminals and The McGoohans. Guitarist Sandra Smith (now Cindy Roberts), the author of "Don’t Deceive Me", has recorded as Ex 25 Cents (for a 2008 EP also featuring Susan Heney) and Angel Rock. [SOURCE: AUDIOCULTURE]
The New Blockaders may sound like a hip Indie Rock band, and they may want you to believe such a thing to lure unsuspecting listeners. As merchants of 'anti-music,' they embrace Luigi Russolo's 1913 Art of Noise manifesto and although Russolo is widely credited as being the first major noise theorist and there was plenty of noisy music in the various Avant Gardes of the '60s and '70s, TNB brought noise to the fore like no other previously and were the first to progress from the use of noise as assault on tonality to the development of a rich, complex language capable of subtleties of shade and nuance without sacrificing any of its feral power or ability to unlock repressed personae in the listener.
Ron Lessard, head of legendary US Noise label RRRecords, cites TNB's debut 'Changez Les Blockeurs' (1982) as, 'The first true Noise record of the modern era.' Their manifesto, which accompanies their debut, proclaims, 'Blockade is resistance. It is our duty to blockade and induce others to blockade: Anti-music, anti-art, anti-books, anti-films, anti-communications. We will make anti-statements about anything and everything. We will make a point of being pointless.' Everything about TNB entails refusal. The title of their collection 'Gesamtnichtswerk' is important here. It reminds of Wagner's dream of the total art work -the Gesamtkunstwerk-, but the art is replaced by nothing.
Lazier souls would place TNB within the pantheon-lineage of UK Industrial, although they are seem as a free-standing unit with more in common with the Futurists and (maybe) Einsturzende Neubauten (without the 'songs'): Electrical tools, metal, ear-shredding static noise -the very definition of nihilism through sound. Superficial similarities exist to forebearers like AMM's free form music aesthetic, Throbbing Gristle's 'Second Annual Report' and Lou Reed's one-off decadent, noise-loop experimentation 'Metal Machine Music'. TNB differ in that they have never burdened themselves with writing excessive, sleazy Rock Pop put on, prone to current Pop culture sampling obsessions or attempts at confining unruly, nihilistic sounds. They create a true musical sound cluster of destruction to such an extent that their so-called 'anti-music' transcends nihilism into positivism/optimism suggesting new music.
TNB always suggested more than a band or musical project. They are bent almost as much on philosophy and literary ambitions, issuing manifestos and texts and referencing the likes of Debussy and Nietzsche. TNB never set out to be part of a self-glorifying youth movement where pompous, romanticized bullshit dies hard in an endless, capitalistic magic show. Instead, they depict the emotional tonalities of an ambivalent, ambiguous new century with no form or direction. Their musical legacy offers respite from the fraudulent herd of co-opted streamlined sounds, which masquerade as experimental.
TNB served as a major influence on legendary Noise pioneers such as Merzbow and made a lot of the ‘90s 'Noise-boom' artists look like charlatans. Their influence on the current crop of popular crossover Noise artists such as Prurient and Wolf Eyes is immeasurable. Collaborations in recent years with artists such as Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore have brought their anti-sound to a younger and diverse audience. The metal-bashing of K2, the awkwardness of Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock, the density of Macronympha and the abrasiveness of Merzbow all owe something to the anti-music of TNB. They, more than any other, define the essence of true Noise music both in art and in act. [SOURCE: THE NEW BLOCKADERS]
Philip Best (born June 15, 1968) is an English pioneer of power electronics, who formed the band Consumer Electronics in 1982 at the age of 14. He joined the group Whitehouse, led by William Bennett, in 1983. After a nine-year hiatus starting in 1984, Best rejoined and remained with the group until departing again in 2008. In the early 1980s, Best also ran his own DIY label Iphar, releasing compilations of power electronics. Through the circulation of these controversial cassettes he succeeded in promoting the burgeoning extreme noise genre. Among these cassette releases were 'On to 83', with Gary Mundy, 'Torture Music' by Iphar Clinic, a solo project, and 'White Power', a fake neo-nazi various artists compilation with artists such as Maurizio Bianchi, Sutcliffe Jugend, and Best's other project with Mundy, Consumer Electronics.
Best has been a frequent collaborator with Gary Mundy on projects such as Ramleh (c. 1987–1997).
In 1995, under the Consumer Electronics moniker, Best joined forces with Japanese noise musician Masami Akita –along with several Ramleh cohorts– to release 'Horn of the Goat'. In 1998, Best published his doctoral thesis at Durham University entitled "Apocalypticism in the Fiction of William S. Burroughs, J.G. Ballard and Thomas Pynchon", and later received a doctorate in English literature.
In 2010, a collection of Best's artwork entitled "American Campgrounds" was published by Creation Books, with a foreword written by Peter Sotos. In December 2016, Infinity Land Press published "Alien Existence", a book of over 200 colour reproductions of original artwork by Best, as well as 40 pages of his creative writings, and an extensive interview conducted by Martin Bladh.
Best continues to tour and release music as Consumer Electronics. The current line up includes Best, Russell Haswell and Best's wife Sarah Froelich. [SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA]
Toll was Gary Mundy's short lived mid-eighties project following the cessation of activities from his power electronics outfit Ramleh in 1984 believing they had achieved all that they could. Toll featured Gary Mundy, Matthew Frith, Tim Soar with guest contributions from around the globe including Tim Gane (Un-kommuniti, who'd later gain acclaim as part of Stereolab), Controlled Bleeding and Pacific 231. Toll represented a strong move away from the power electronics of Ramleh, replaced by a loosely structured song based material to free-flowing noisescapes.
There's a harshness and spontaneous feel which at times throws up the dense, sludginess of sound that would be elaborated upon by the reactivated Ramleh and in Mundy's work with Skullflower. In hindsight Toll is something of the missing link between the two very different manifestations of Ramleh. It surely must have raised some eyebrows when originally in 1986. It's a less easily identifiable sound broaching harsh soundscapes, the sludge-rock type of things- with electronics! It's certainly deserving of wider exposure, especially amongst industrial archivists. [SOURCE: COMPULSIONONLINE]
