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Negativland

This nOde last updated June 8th, 2003 and is permanently morphing...
(4 Cig (Owl) / 4 Zots (Bat) - 56/260 - 12.19.10.5.16)

Negativland
"Media hacker" band who appropriate material from the airwaves and elsewhere to provoke and provide pointed commentary on the culture industry's machinations.

Members:

Mark Hosler
Don Joyce
Chris Griegg

Hosting Over the Edge, a weekly three-hour improvised radio show on San Francisco's KPFA-FM. In 1988 the artistic pranksters fabricated a Midwestern "familicide" allegedly inspired by their track _Christianity Is Stupid._ The resulting media hoopla was documented on the album _Helter Stupid_.

In 1991 they released _U2_, a single that sampled both the Irish pop stars and wholesome DJ Casey Kasem caught in a foulmouthed moment.  Negativland documented the case--which cost their label SST a substantial settlement--in Fair Use: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2 (1995), which delineates the paradoxes and pitfalls of artistic use of copyrighted material.

Don Joyce: "The corporate music mind is in a desperate, horrified turmoil over the potential of free music on the Net. They will lash out to  protect their greedy living based on the private ownership of all music until their last breath is gone." Joyce said the Napster fight might be simply the beginning of what he  calls a war between digital art and "artifact commerce."
 

"The traditional music biz simply can't accept the fact that music no longer needs to be an object, and once that happens it doesn't need to be owned or bought or sold by anyone in particular, either.  I fear they will drag yet bigger weapons to the battlefield  where music is being shared for free," he chided. "Next: poison  gas?"

• track _Helter Stupid_ MP3 off of _Helter Stupid_

 

• sample: "Words! Just Words!" from the film _The Road Warrior_ (vhs/ntsc)
• sample: "Gentlemen!"; "Tonight...is...thrill night!" - Lenny Bruce from the routine _Religions, Inc._ MP3 (64k)(9:49)
• culture jamming
• censorship
• "Christianty Is Stupid.  Give Up." t-shirt

• release _Dispepsi_ on Seeland (1997)
  • 1. _The Smile You Can't Hide_
  • 7. _Hyper Real_
  • 11. _Voice Inside My Head_ MP3
• track _Smelly Water_ MP3 by Negativland/Chumbawamba off of _The ABCs Of Anarchism_ CD on Seeland #020 (1999)
• release _Free_ on Seeland (1993)
  • 3. _The Gun & The Bible_ MP3
  • 12. _Our National Anthem_ MP3
• track _Why Is This Commercial?_ MP3 (160k) off of _Adbusters: Live Without Dead Time_ MixCD mixed by DJ Spooky

• featured in the film _Sonic Outlaws_ directed by Craig Baldwin
• release _Points_ 12" (blue translucent vinyl) on Seeland #002 (1981)

• a2)   _The Answer Is_
• a6)   _Clutch Cargo '81_
• b2)   _A Nice Place To Live_
• b3)   _A Bee Fly_ MP3
• b4)   _Potty Air_
• release _Escape From Noise_ cassette on SST (1987)
• _Announcement_ MP3 (192k)
• _Quiet Please_ MP3 (192k)
• _Michael Jackson_ MP3
• _Escape From Noise_ MP3
• _The Playboy Channel_ MP3
• _Stress In Marriage_ MP3
• _Nesbitt's Lime Soda Song_ MP3 (192k)
• _Over The Hiccups_ MP3 (192k)
• _Sycamore_ MP3 (192k)
• _Car Bomb_ MP3
• _Methods Of Torture_ MP3
• _Yellow Black And Rectangular_ MP3 (192k)
• _Backstage Pass_ MP3 (vK)
• _Christianity Is Stupid_ MP3
• _Time Zones_ MP3 (160k)
• _You Don't Even Live Here_ MP3
• _The Way Of It_ MP3
• _Endscape_ MP3

 
• video _Negativland_ (vhs/ntsc)

_U2_ 7" on SST

• samples Casey Kasem off-air remarks

 
• _Casey Kasem Sounds Off_ MP3 - full version of what Negativland sampled
transcript:
• [perky] "Now we're up to our long distance dedication, and this one is about kids and pets, and a situation we can all understand, whether we have kids or pets or neither. It comes from a man in Cincinati Ohio, and here's what he writes.

     'Dear Casey, This may seem to be a strange dedication request, but I am quite sincere and it will mean a lot if you play it. Recently there was a death in our family. He was a little dog named Snuggles, but he was most certainly a part of...' [despondent] let's go...start again"
    "Coming out of the record, play the record, ok. Please..."
     [perky] "That's the letter U and the numeral 2 . The four man band features Adam Clayton on bass, Larry Mullin on drums, Dave Evans, nicknamed The Edge on..."
 

     [angry] "This is bullshit! Nobody cares! These guys are from England, and who gives a shit! It's a lot of wasted names that don't mean diddly shit!!!"
     [seethingly quiet] "Emmm...too many... Come out of those goddamn up-tempo numbers, man, It's impossible to make those transitions. Then you gotta go into somebody dying! [raises voice] Goddamn it if we can't come out of slow records. I don't understand it, Why aren't we doing these instrumentals, too? Do we got 'em?"
     [shouting] "Will somebody find the goddamn answer?"
     "OK"
     [livid] "I want a goddamn concerted effort to come out of a record, that isn't a... a fucking up-tempo record , every time I do a goddamn ...DEATH Dedication! This is the last goddamn time. I want somebody to use his fucking brain to not come out of a goddamn record that is a ... up-tempo,  and I gotta talk about a fucking dog dying!!!"
     [beside himself] "What is this... this is fucking ponderous, man..."
     [perky]"This is American Top 40, right here on the radio you grew up with, Music Radio 138... Oh Fuck!"
 

• Negativland; U2; U2 CD5 (Note: This was the infamous U2 single that was sued out of existance by Island Records. The source is from a pirate tape that Kasem is not too happy to have circulating as well)

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