andrew zukerman not zuckerman

On Rusticated Slant LP on Pleasence now available, etc

2012-02-04T08:22:00.000-08:00

At long last, in a process that took a lot longer than any of us could have anticipated, the first Fleshtone Aura LP is ripe and ready for consumption. What we have here is an honest-to-god plate of jet black 45rpm sensations ready to be had. The record comes in a offset printed sleeve with cover art by Nikki Woolsey, hand-etched labels, risograph/photocopied 32 page book with a laser cut cover and a silkscreened insert. The music? Well it's a collection of sounds. Here is what Tadeusz Michelak had to say about it in the most recent issue of Offerings:

Andrew Zukerman of Gastric Female Reflex fame's curates an intricate & finely tuned landscape of auditory fart jokes and avant-gardism on his first LP as Fleshtone Aura. We are bombarded by the warm energy of a high speed cut & paste dance mix, as if the frantic brain of a 5 year old had been asked to make an aural layout of his attention span, or some sort of table of contents for this LP. This chaos quickly ends with the feeling that all these sounds have been simultaneously thrown off the CN Tower & are falling aimlessly through space, silent before their imminent demise. In their absence, the remaining sounds rumble & clatter in a magnitude of space, it's almost relaxing. A free jazz duet for motorcycle & percussion, gears twisting, ominous maneuvers in the dark. Sound crystalizes refracting in a house of mirrors. Piercing sine waves slice through mundanity, as this chameleon writhes at twitches. Bumping dance beats emerge out of human pauses, and carefully placed electro acoustic junk percussion. A piano note stretches into a harsh rumbling landscape of wind noise, fire crackles, scrapping metal and hushed squeals. The definitive sounds of a world post 2012 disaster.
The 2nd side opens as a 1950's joke factory soundtrack. Classic rock riffs tango with child-ish bleeps & bloops in a bird like call & response. Similar to string of great jokes or slapstick film scenes Andrew's collages gestate forward with an oddly nostalgic undertone. Abrasive screeches and sweeps lead to luscious and decadent tidbits of familiarity, unsettling, as they are comforting in their commodified environment. Something like a recapping of a horse race meets postnasal drip. The bubbling voice of Jabba the Hutt dictates some unknown message from beneath the murk. Heart warming abstractions of a human reality.

The record is available through Pleasence Records and I have some copies as well. Limited to 300. Please do listen to the samples below.

-----------------------

Side 1 sample

Side 2 sample

While I'm at it I'd like to acknowledge the help of Brandon Hocura at Polyphasic who mastered this recording, Nikki Woolsey for the amazing cover collage, Jesjit Gill who risograph printed the book, Steve Reaume at Toronto Laser Services who laser cut the book, Steph Davidson who let me borrow her air compressor, and of course Deirdre O'Sullivan and James Lindsay at Pleasence for making it happen.

animorphic toe

2011-11-30T15:01:00.000-08:00

forgot to mention that you can now download a few of my albums on the mighty Free Music Archive

opponentials gunny sachel creemie bite

2011-11-30T09:52:00.000-08:00

do people still go to shows?

Friday DECEMBER 2nd / 8pm / Halo Halo Village (208 Christie st.) / $10
((GIANT CLAW/HENRY DAWSON/CREAM JUICE)) *[New York]
=++SKIN TAGS++= [Man Made Hill/Fleshtone Aura]
//TUNE SLUDGE\\ [Schlesinger/Seeger Duo]

Sunday DECEMBER 4th / 8pm / Halo Halo Village (208 Christie st.) / $10
~{PON DE REPLAY}~
\^FLESHTONE AURA^/
>!6 HEADS!<

Friday DECEMBER 9th - Sunday DECEMBER 11th / LA BRIQUE (Montreal)
---+++^^^^COOL FEST XI^^^^+++---
GASTRIC FEMALE REFLEX will be playing this epic curatorial feat brought to you by Flourescent Friends... Too many details to list - go here.

Saturday DECEMBER 17th / 9pm / Double Double Land (209 Augusta Ave.) / $5
^||^OFFERINGS^||^ presents:
))ISLA CRAIG((
<\GASTRIC FEMALE REFLEX/>
***TRANSCENDENTAL RODEO***
oioioGRAVITONSoooioiooi

The taste-making power couple over there at Healing Power have recently released another installment of the Transcendental Rodeo cassette backlog. This one's called the Magic Garden and it represents the entirety of Rodeo in it's third-trimester cosmology with over 20 members flooding the Tiki Lounge of the Tranzac. Take a look at Victoria Cheong's blog for more details.

Did you know that the December issue of Offerings is out now? Cover by Seth Scriver. Grip it.

sopped frontispiece

2011-11-10T13:59:00.000-08:00

hey gang - here's a new edition for you to put in your sopping frontispiece: the Back Pain? apron; a perfect stocking stuffer for those gastronomically-minded friends and family members with insidious, crushing arthritic strain.
sorry the photo isn't really up to snuff, it's hard to find models when you're hopelessly alone haha kidding

ok and then i also made some music with beats today - just to see if i can do it and i can so here is an excerpt, i don't expect that anything will come of such material.

careless whisper of a bulldozer performing fellatio on a pack mule

faultline manuever

2011-10-31T09:27:00.000-07:00

I've been terrible with keeping this blog up to date... don't remember when i posted last so here is an assortment of things that happened at some point kind of recently:

Bruce Peninsula - Salesman from Bruce Peninsula on Vimeo.

winston hacking and i collaborated on this bruce peninsula video once upon a time. have i posted this already? shit...

i am pleased to announce that you can now listen to a vagina bison writhe and gesticulate on the radio HERE on the free music archive

what elsssssee...

offerings went to london (ontario) for the culture days art fair at museum london. there was a button making workshop and i got to make some with my own hair. and stuff. a bunch of us made a one-off zine called monsters which seems to be a theme with london artists - one that i can get behind to be sure...

... got to spend some time with some wonderful and enthusiastic artists including jason mclean and his family. as with most memorable occasions there was a fair amount of balloons...

later on that day some of us torontonians played some music in a house. i won't go into much detail and direct you here. one thing i will mention is that there was a bar a block away from the venue called the longhorn grill which is coincidentally my DJ name.
here is an excerpt of what i played that night -

Fleshton Aura 111003 London Excerpt

elfin choirs multitasks (left), brain trust demonstrates "monster art dance" music (right)

i DJ'd a few nights ago at the hans-joachim roedelius show at the garrison. it went alright, but listening back to the recording i realize that you can hear some of the unwanted cuing sounds and so it essentially dead to me...
please do enjoy the fruits of my blunders:

first set

second set

third set

i spent some time doing a residency at gibraltar point on toronto island a while ago. the pieces that were started there are not completely finished but i can tell you that they include an A/V collaboration between exploding motor car and the amazing dancer minae omi, small indeterminate paintings and an album that is coming out soon on medusa editions as a split with brian ruryk. here is a sample of that:

fleshtone aura - gino's diarrhea excerpt

there's more too... sooner or later
in the meantime maybe you can tell me what this is supposed to be:

groin again xxxtians

2011-08-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

hey gang -
here is some news from the shows i'm about to play front. accompanied is a 15 minute recording of me practicing for these shows - live, unexpurgated, raw concret-laziness.

Saturday September 3rd/ 10pm
@ Tranzac, Southern Cross Room (292 Brunswick ave.)
Six Heads Record Release
Roman Pilates
Fleshtone Aura
PWYC

Friday September 16th/ 9pm
@ Toronto Laser Services (960 College St.)
Nick Storring CD Release
Fleshtone Aura
Tradition
Khora
DJ Craig Dunsmuir
$8

Saturday, October 15th/ 8pm
Feast In The East VI
@ Dickens Street Theatre (35 Dickens St.)
Dreamcatcher
Gastric Female Reflex
The Dead Are Those Who Have Died
$7, All Ages
Free harvest meal + desert with advance ticket available at Soundscapes, Circus Books & Music, The Film Buff

foxtrot gastro-intestinal hotel

2011-08-18T15:12:00.000-07:00

hey gang - here are some new things that got printed on Monday.
The first is a shirt I designed for Offerings. A few of my good friends have been printing some wild looking shirts recently, so I was reluctant to produce this one... 3 color + discharge print, small, medium & large. $20 each.

I also printed the covers for Six Heads new record, coming out on Wintage Records and Tapes any day now. Two color print on re-purposed dollar-record sleeves. Design by William A. Davison.

crevice unturned

2011-08-09T17:54:00.000-07:00

oh hi
i spent much of last week working on some print-paintings at the garage. it's a set that i started last year and put away for a while since i was too bored looking at them. and so i returned to them with renewed vigor in the interest of getting them out there. and so here they are (click on the picture to access the flickr photo set). most are 22"x30" on off-white stonehenge paper. there is also one that is 38"x50"(pictured in the photoset), another large on wood and one painted on an old silkscreen (not pictured). they all contain basically the same images but collaged and painted together in different configurations.
the one i did on the old silkscreen was a present for (Tower of) Randy Gagne for his birthday. you may know randy as the wild-haired hosier savant behind toronto's most promising electro-psych brain-trust Man Made Hill. i didn't take a photo - but the concept is that of the Work in Progress. every year on his birthday he is to bring his painting back to me so i can update/improve/paint right over it. i'd prefer if i could do this with all of my pieces... and so from now on - if someone were to receive a piece from me i'd give them this option. i just can't accept a piece being finished - just like that. with time, possible alterations and improvements will make themselves known and who am i to deny their completion because the paint is already dry? anyway... yah.

Bruce Peninsula - Salesman from Bruce Peninsula on Vimeo.

oh! and Winston and i spent some time this and last month working on a video for everyone's favorite post-gospel communal vibe-a-thon band Bruce Peninsula. this is your run of the mill painting on film affair, but i like it, ok?! winston and i are working on a few other projects that will include similar techniques so stay tuned.

Offerings! this has been taking up a lot of my time every month and i do it with pleasure... we're seeing this paper through like it's an infant taking its first steps, smoking its first cigarette or dying its first death. and so there is still more ground to be gained. but each step we learn something new...
this issue the cover is by one of my favorite canadian artists Jason McLean and in it i conduct an interview with him, Brian Ruryk, review some things and do some horoscopes. also included is interviews with US Girls, 6 Heads, Jesjit Gill about Zine Dream and more! pick up a copy at somewhere which is conceivably cool. i started leaving copies in subway cars, personally.

and this is a excerpt from the show i did earlier this year in Boston... that's it - bye!

Fleshtone Aura - Live at the Floft, Boston 110507

Mouthgames Juicy Tarot

2011-08-02T09:41:00.000-07:00

Another self-released album is dropping today... It's called Soulless Music because it has no feelings. It's more or less a randomized, semi-automatic barrage of gated field recordings, lousy percussionizing, Fleshtone Aura live shows and electronic source tapes. It portrays a cold and pseudo-intellectual approach but with no conceptual backbone or balls. In fact, I cannot say that I'm totally responsible for the results. It was recorded between 7am and noon on July 28th and the packaging was finished later on. Each cover is printed onto 1930's magazine paper or acid-worn Popular Mechanics book pages. Some are painted. Edition of 50, $5 each.
Here is a sample:

It will be made available at this show I'm playing tonight:

Tuesday August 2nd, 2011/ 7:30pm
@ Somewhere There (227 Sterling Rd, unit 112, entrance off of Bloor at Ruttan St.)

8pm
David Sait - Guzheng
In the late 70’s, my family would frequently go out for dinner to a Hungarian restaurant called Czarda’s. They had amazing schnitzel and the best Hungarian folk band in town. I would wander from the table and stand quietly a few inches away from the zither player and attentively watch his every move. Years later I fell in love with another type of zither called a guzheng that’s rarely paired with schnitzel, but often brings me the same sort of inspiration I felt all those years ago.
www.guzheng.ca

9pm
Fleshtone Aura - Zukerman
Solo for zither, bike and organized sound. Three gradients of sound fragments and synthesized nuances - all neutral colored - played on tapes, through tapes and on top/ about/ who is tapes.
http://andrewzukerman.blogspot.com/

$8

foot and horn

2011-07-09T08:57:00.000-07:00

two variations on a test print i made last night:

gunmetal

bronze

... and an Offerings poster i printed a few weeks ago:

ok thats all for now

The Allergic Child

2011-06-23T04:45:00.000-07:00

Made this guy last night... Another exercise in black and white limitations... But maybe also some red. Used an old brazier advertisement booklet to paste onto.

uberdave scrubulous sheen

2011-06-02T09:29:00.000-07:00

i made a collage last week using an image of an infant climbing out of a crib. the infant looks exactly as i looked at that age. got it out of a book called "understanding human behavior". i showed it to my mother who i guess knows what i looked like back then and she was baffled. here is a detail of said collage. not going to bother showing the rest because it was nothing special.

what else? offerings has a website now: "http://www.offerings.ca".

i also made a mix tape. i'm uploading it here. if you want a real life copy of it that you can put inside a tape player you can buy one for a mere $3. if you want a playlist, well, it comes with the real life tape. otherwise you can play the guessing game because i'm too lazy to type it.

side one

side two

fascist pore inspector

2011-05-23T09:35:00.000-07:00

one of the things i always loved about Stan Brakhage films on DVD is that you can pause at any moment you please and BOOM - there is a singular piece of art that i only wish i could have made. thousands of them! in a row! well i hope that one day i can make a work that has even 1/10th of the screen-cappable moments as some of those films.
here are some screen caps that i chose from a short experiment Winston Hacking and i made for the Transmodern Festival in baltimore this year... not going to post the video right now since there is no soundtrack for it.

... and by the way - if you haven't been keeping up with Winston and Brett's new music videos you are in the DARK, man.

Timber Timber - Black Water

Man Made Hill - Cardboard Ditch

OK and this is what happened in portland a few weeks ago... just a segment. the venue was a silk screening studio which had a front room with a stage and a piano. a pared down version of anti-friend hut played an extremely short set that i wish i had filmed. i think that if i tried to describe it i would desecrate its memory.

Fleshtone Aura - Portland Excerpt

also - the first edition of Offerings is out now. you'll start seeing them everywhere - keep your eye out for it in the places you frequent. now you can know about all those obscure little shows you no doubt wanna see without having to log into facebook. this month's cover is by Michael Snow, next month will be Alexandra MacKenzie. for now - this is what it looks like:

werewolf dentistry

2011-05-16T10:16:00.000-07:00

i've been doing some on and off work for Pleasence Records, one of the few real patrons of Weird Toronto... mostly printing covers and designing the odd 7" or tape. in a month or so i'll have a beautiful Pleasence LP of my own under the Fleshtone Aura moniker. until then you should look at these two records i did some art for. both are brand new and available through the label or the artist:

Tropics Pale Trash 7"

Man Made Hill/ Young Truck Split LP

in other news i've just come home from a short tour with Id M Theft Able and there is a lot of documentation to sift through - some of which will end up on here in the next few weeks. then still more of it will be compiled into a split/collaborative document on Id's label Maang Disc. here's a philadelphia bone for you to chew on for the time being:

Fleshtone Aura live at the Marvelous, Philadelphia 110502

one last thing i'd like to note is that i'm helping out with a local monthly show paper that is launching in june called Offerings. details will be scarce until june, but if you're making music and want it reviewed get in touch. also - if you're not a musician but would like to review you should also contact me. lastly - if you have a show you'd like to have listed let me know and i'll forward it to the appropriate person. there will be a real email address for this shortly.
you might also want to know that Glade Swope is amazing:

GIRTH BROOKS tour 2011: Id M Theft Able/Fleshtone Aura: NorthEast USA

2011-04-26T13:25:00.000-07:00

Wanted to wait to post this info until I got across the border as a tourist...
Id M Theft Able and Fleshtone Aura Spring Dates:

April 28th 2011
Transmodern Festival Opening Reception
@ 14Karat Cabaret, 218 West Saratoga Street, Baltimore, MD

April 30th 2011
w/ Rapoon, Promute, Insect Factory, Skinny Vinny
@ Pyramid Atlantic, 8230 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, MD

May 1st 2011
w/ Shitter, Hex-I-Am, Weedwolf
@ 700 Social Club, Wilmington, DE

May 2nd 2011
w/ People Skills, White, Elliot Klien
@ The Marvelous, 208 South 40th St., Philadelphia PA

May 3rd 2011
taping at WFMU
Jersey City, New Jersey

May 3rd 2011
w/ Cave Bears, others
@ Port D'or, 841 Sterling Place, Brooklyn, NY

May 4th 2011
w/ TBA
@ Feeding Tube Records, 90 King St., Northampton, MA

May 5th 2011
@ Upstate Artists Guild, 247 Lark St., Albany, NY

May 6th 2011
i'd m + Fl'shtone participate in the Anti Friend Hut Cardboard Fashion show, for First Friday
@ The Apohadion, 107 Hanover St., Portland, ME

May 7th 2011
w/ i'd m + Angela Sawyer duo, Shayna Dulberger + Chris Welcome, Kit Demos + Flandrew Fleisenberg + others
@ The Floft, 381 Congress St. Boston, MA

May 8th 2011
w/ Geoff Mullin
@ Amherst St, Providence, RI (details pending)

May 9th 2011
Andrea-Jane Cornell + Emilie Mouchous
@ somewhere in Montreal, QC

more GFReflex/Ruryk one-off covers

2011-04-07T07:53:00.000-07:00

me and Nikki Woolsey did a little bit of a sesh yesterday utilizing a sprawling pile of unused collage materials that were gathering dust in my studio. here are some record covers for the painfully in print Gastric Female Reflex & Brian Ruryk split LP. if you don't have a copy these are all for sale - cheap!

... the first two and last one are Woolsey's.

lysteria flying in droves and cake

2011-03-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

hey gang, here's one that i printed up yesterday for the michael hurley book launch/ tribute next month. this promises to be a weird and wonderful showcase of hurley impersonations and readings. in case this poster is not sufficient for your eyes, here is the informationses:

l'Oie de Cravan press presents
a triple book launch and musical tribute
The Words to the Songs of Michael Hurley

with musical performances by
Sandro Perri
Evening Hymns
Bry Webb & Jennifer Castle
Lisa Bozikovic
Charms
Gabe Levine
Tradition
Fleshtone Aura
Matt 'Doc' Dunn and band

Byron Coley - reading from C'est la guerre (early writings)
Jeff Ladouceur - Holy Moly

Saturday April 16
doors 7:30, music 8pm
Tranzac Main Hall
$10 at the door

"Whether weaving a yarn about a mysterious hog or comparing the human heart to a mechanic's toolbox, Mr. Hurley creates elaborate vistas in a musical version of outsider art" - Ann Powers, New York Times

"Hurley remains one of the elusive masters of American folk" - Chris Morris, Billboard

"...I don't know what else to say about what he writes and sings, other than that it is gosh-darned great. What kind of music is it? Hell, what kind of weeds does God grow? Let's just shut up and listen and go to where Michael Hurley is. After all, we can always turn around and come back. He can't." - Nick Tosches

http://oiedecravan.com/

i've also uploaded a segment of the gastric female reflex performance from march 14th that you can listen to... it was a line recording so it ended up sounding different, or in other words, like it wasn't being squeezed like club soda through an icing bag in the freezer via bad speakers. we're kind of sounding like a low rent throbbing gristle here, but it all didn't sound like that. probably going to edit this together and make something real out of it, so this is all you get for now...

gastric female reflex - 110314 @ somewhere thing

halleluja smelling loaf relief

2011-03-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

oh and here is a cover i did for canadian noise legend Knurl and his new 3" cdr on the ever prolific toronto head label Inyrdisc. the cover comes in 3 different flavors; blueberry saliva, chemo vomitus mint and ANA uniform tongue. all three were printed on Jesjit Gill's risograph printer.

here is what it looked like before it became knurled:

i DJ'd the beaver last night and recorded about half of the set. for those of you who couldn't make it i am posting this for you. no track list as usual and there are a lot of things i took liberties with, mixing several recordings together, etc... there's some world music, miles davis, moog kitsch, teiji ito, commode minstrels in bullface, milford graves and youtube thrown in the mix. that's what comes to mind, at least. here:

Fleshtone Aura

2011-03-18T10:14:00.000-07:00

It's the name I've been working under musically for the past few months. It's likely to change but I've set out to document it well before it goes in yet another direction. I'm not going to provide too much explanation as to what it is because it's part of something bigger that I've been working on and I'm not ready to show it around yet.
So here is two new (as in the only) Fleshtone Aura things to see and hear. If you'd like a copy of either let me know about it. One tape, one cdr - here we go:

c-16, edition of 75

cdr, edition of 30

unreleased practice reel (excerpt)

In other news I've been taking photographs again. First time since high school, pretty much. There are some album covers with this work on them that will be coming out pretty soon, so I'm reluctant to show too much... But here is one that I did of my roommate Doc Dunn:

... and here is the same technique but applied to video. Please excuse the heavy black frame, I know not what I do.

sham in weaves clothing journal

2010-12-31T11:03:00.000-08:00

just finished a collage journal called Sham in Weaves Clothing. i took photos of all 86 pages and posted them in Flickr here. if you have a chance take a look, otherwise here are a few selected spreads:

mink poon

2010-12-21T10:09:00.000-08:00

i made this mix tape... there really is no theme here except for that all the music is from vinyl. everything from grachan moncur III to ludo mich to donovan - so it's a little all over the place and there is some warbling in places and, well, it sounds like it was recorded off of a tape, which it was.
so give it a listen if you want. no track listing - have fun figuring out what it is.
happy holidays

side one

side two

shits and aids

2010-12-21T06:42:00.000-08:00

here is a video by exploding motor car that i made some movement sounds for... i've been told that the video was roundly rejected by pitchfork, stereogum, etc. who'd most likely in other circumstances accept a video submission from this band (which is called AIDS WOLF but wouldn't touch this pile with a latex glove on. hey - listen, whats wrong with a little shit once in a while? is it not something we all do at least once a day? dunno if i think that using this item of our mutual experience is immature or an inspiring bit of non-exclusion, either way i think we've all had a good time with potty humor before, so enjoy:

How We Made: AIDS Wolf - Catholic For Rent from explodingmotorcar on Vimeo.

cretin silverchair kitchen

2010-12-09T07:17:00.000-08:00

this entry is to rectify yesterday's when i posted a dramatically slowed down version of the Total Panic soundtrack. here is the corrected version which is 27 minutes... down from 93 minutes. i'll leave the stretched out one just in case you want to hear it (doubtful).

oh and here is another recent release - this time from Brian Ruryk's new anti-label Eye of the Phallus... a label with no directive except to abolish itself through carelessness and lack of resources. this is my favorite label right now. here is what Brian has to say about this:
as if the world needs another shit noise cassette release !! “16 new releases this week!” “Special numbered edition ! only 11 made !!” this one’s been on the bench for years, recorded mixed and edited by an idiot, using live and studio elements. The more copies I sell the more money I lose ! don’t even bother.
hard love in times new roman was basically a monumental misunderstanding between three people; Amy Lam, Jeff Garcia and myself. it moved from something like a type-face-concept/found-object thrash band to tongue and cheek noise failure opening band to 14 tape recording/playback obnoxious headliner. Amy didn't last long. we're still a band, albeit one that has only performed once in the past few years and that was in Brian's basement. the tape documents one of our many aural abortions; a set from the press club opening for Id M Theft Able, No Man Band, Brian Ruryk and Parkade. if my memory serves me right we were particularly horrible that night, but i can't be sure - i haven't been able to get the tape out of the packaging yet.

patriot alimony sky scrapes the mustard failure

2010-12-08T10:50:00.000-08:00

so i broke my arm and stopped updating this blog. i'm slowly coming around to it again although i'm afraid that the output will be paltry in comparison to some of my more active contemporaries... also - i'm running out of explanations for my condition, so if you have any ideas please forward them to me. so far i've used
- slipped on a banana peel
- "bad bad things"
- inactivity
- channel changer
- "you should see the other guy"
- a chicken

a few weeks ago i received copies of the Gastric Female Reflex collaboration with Id M Theft Able. this was an album several years in the making but now it's finally ready for mass consumption. The Oink Inside comes in a digi-pack in an edition of 500. if you want a copy contact me, Skott or Humbug who was kind enough to put it out.

front and back cover of The Oink Inside

one side of the insert

and here is the amazing promotional video that Winston made for it:

in other gastric news, the project was included in Rafał Kochan's Encyclopedia of Industrial Music. this thing is epic... our entry in in volume 2 which covers D-I, so by my calculations there should be 4 or 5 volumes in print. only having seen this particular volume i can tell you it gets pretty in-depth; everyone from Front 242 to Hanatarashi is covered. here is a scan of our entry:

a gastric track also managed to make its way onto the compilation cd included with the book... this is something i edited together from some material we've been toying with for the as of yet untitled LP upcoming on Pan-Act...

Topol Camouflage in a Coffin Bay Hay Ride

mannn there is a lot of backlog to fish through here...
here are some photos from the Goin' Steady Monster Mash which happened on October 30th at Lee's Palace. there is more about this somewhere, i'm sure.

setting it up a bit

more stuff happening here with mushrooms which turned out to be jellyfish

again with the jellyfish mushroom confusion

a photo of what the projection set-up looked like that night

last month Alia O'Brien and i scored/performed the music to Zeesy Powers' performance Total Panic at Gallery TPW. much of the soundtrack was performed live with Alia doing her organ & flute thing and me playing pre-recorded material, electronics and bowed objects (one of which turned out to be Jeff's natty filipino hair). can't find much on this right now except for this photo courtesy of David Waldman:

and here is the soundtrack in its entirety:

theres more but really thats it for now

halo halloweener and beaners

2010-10-24T15:39:00.000-07:00

this is a trailer for this year's Goin' Steady Monster Mash that i made with Winston Hacking, the sinewy brainchild/monster-movie maverick behind Exploding Motor Car, an experimental-video/film collective i am proud to say that i am a member of... we are, along with the rest of the EMC crew, in the midst of assembling our horror-themed, psychedelic light-show/fun-house for the aforementioned event which takes place this saturday (october 30th) at lee's palace.

Goin' Steady Monster Mash Promo from explodingmotorcar on Vimeo.

expect plenty of photo-documentation from this

boys is intellences

2010-10-06T16:15:00.000-07:00

hey listen

Sunday October 10th, 2010
at Teranga (158 Agusta Ave)
Doors: 7pm Film Screening: 8pm Performances: 9pm
$8

if you're interested in all things Sublime Frequencies, you'll be happy to know that the newest film This World is Unreal Like a Snake in a Rope will see its first Toronto screening at Teranga this Sunday. the film is a collection of images and sound - as most films are - but this time of INDIA! Robert Millis, the brains behind such illustrious projects as Climax Golden Twins and Victrola Favorites, is the man responsible for this and he will also be playing music... i have the pleasure of opening this show up with jacob in our pseudo-alcoholic, nausea-inducing vanity project Gastric Female Reflex. Six Heads will also be doing their neo-surrealistic dream-state ramblings, tiptoeing on the cusp of some yawning andalusian void... here is a trailer for the movie:

^{"THIS WORLD IS UNREAL LIKE A SNAKE IN A ROPE
A film by Robert Millis (Sublime Frequencies)
55 minutes
A collage of sights and sounds from the eternal never-ending collage that is INDIA. A trip through the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu featuring Hindu trance ceremonies, nagaswaram improvisations, impossibly loud cities, processions, blessings, color, abstractions, detail, music and more. India is impossible to know: it is too vast, too rich and too much of a dream. Offered here is one perspective, one dream, subjective and flawed, hanging by a thread. Robert Millis is a musician and artist, a founding member of Climax Golden Twins and AFCGT and a frequent contributor to the Sublime Frequencies and Dust to Digital record labels. His previous films include Phi Ta Khon: Ghosts of Isan and My Friend Rain and was the co-author of Victrola Favorites released on Dust to Digital in 2008."}

i also got a couple new paintings i'd like to show you:

thanks for reading! byee

gruel gullet

2010-10-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

pretty soon Jeff and I will be taking down our paintings from the tranzac... if you are filled in on the situation with the tranzac you will know that it has been in financial straits recently... to show our support we'll be selling off the paintings on a sliding-scale/pwyc basis and giving half the proceeds to the cause. if you are at all interested in this we can set up a meeting there and talk options, email me at andrew.zukerman[at]gmail.com...
these paintings are there, stuff from Jeff's site as well and a some others that haven't even been photographed yet too...

this is an exclusive track to this blog... really, it's just some practicing.

Vagina Bison's first cassette

2010-09-22T08:08:00.000-07:00

just printed and assembled this sucker yesterday with coworker and good friend Deirdre O'Sullivan who has just kick-started her new label Pleasence Records with taste-making mogul James Lindsay. this is the first thing to grace its roster which is projected to rock some worlds in the near future with vinyl releases by Induced Labor, Man Made Hill and Young Truck.

vagina bison is a band that i started in 2007 (or was it 2006?) with Montrealer Emilie Mouchous as our own "wolf project" since it seems like most of the wolf bands that year were doing pretty well. when the name of the project switched from vagina wolf to vagina bison 20 minutes after its conception our hopes and dreams of making it big flew out the window and all we were left with was a ridiculously named project that only performed when one of us happened to be in the others city. it's been a long time since this duo was thought about, but it seems that with a couple of shows this week and this new cassette available this band may just have a chance. i hope 2011 is the year of bison bands. or not.
the cassette contains all of our recordings that weren't terrible and meandering from the active period. that amounts to 30 minutes worth of primordial musical wonderment. recording will commence this week, so you can expect more from the older more mature people i'm pretty sure we've become.
here is a track which is on the tape:

sloppy joseph

2010-09-20T08:38:00.000-07:00

last week i spent a little time at the Juntion's finest salvage hotspot Smash, and probably spent more time and money than is what is within my means... seriously, this place is dangerous for junk store aficionados the same way a shoe store is dangerous for certain women. what matters tho is that all my stuff will comfort me when i no longer have money, like these salvaged drawers that have now been re-purposed for holding some books (the wall collage is all Beniffer junked pages and refuse):

i also got a stack of ancient paper with the shelves. it's all from a confectionery manufacturer from the 30's, its mossy time-beaten look makes it ideal for some quickie one-off collage action. at least if the collage itself is nothing special the paper makes it look important... here are a few i did in the past few days:

if you're going there make sure you have a couple of hours and pack a lunch.

from my itunes to yours

2010-09-16T09:19:00.000-07:00

i'm going to start a monthly mix-thing of only stuff off of my itunes that way i don't think too much about it as i have in the past with mix tapes or whathaveyou. i already have a girlfriend so i'm not going to put any songs on to impress, this is just some fuckin tunes, mannn
here is mostly a mix of novelty/psych/punk/obtuse electronic feelings with an emphasis on bad or obscure recording quality, enjoy...

DORP OUT (September 2010)

1. Joe Meek - Untitled
2. Anal Magic & Rev. Dwight Frizzel -Destruction - Slaying Of Hyperion, Drowning Of Helio, Suicide Of Selene And The Wandering Madness Of Basilea
3. Lucifer - Don't Care
4. Sand - On the Corner
5. 45 Grave - Black Cross
6. Rodolfo Caesar - Curare II
7. Los Saicos - Come on
8. The Chell-Mars - Roumin' Hearts
9. Satan Alfa Beel Atem - Voice Training
10. Swell Maps - Doomette
11. Schmachtfetzen AG - Marschmusik Fur Walrosser
12. The Science Fiction Corporation - Hit Parade in the Light Year 25
13. Delia Derbyshire - Plodding Power
14. Blind Boy Grunt - Dead Girls Don't Cry
15. Butthole Surfers - Hey
16. Joan La Barbara - Song Books (John Cage)
17. The Calico Wall - I'm a Living Sickness
18. Q65 - I Have Nightmares
19. The Rising Storm - Frozen Laughter
20. Thomas Hendrix - Can't Find My Car

kevin lettuce tomato

2010-09-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

hi ok here are somethings that i did in the past week...

this is a cassette package that i designed and assembled for my friend Max:

... there are 6 different covers to this thing and it's an edition of 100. the album will be available any day now through his website, the free digital copy is already posted if you don't have a tape player. if you wanted album art made for you shoot me a line, because that's the kind of thing i do...

in other album news, the Various Artists album from last week's post has been reissued in a devastating turn-around time by Ayal Senior's Medusa imprint. It's not listed on his site yet but it's done and here is the proof:

the art is a one-color print of some scans of the collage boxes of the first issue. printed by the ever-capable Jacob Horwood and laid out by myself. copies will be available through Ayal soon and i have some as well.

this is a quickie 9 copy reissue of the Charles Balls/Crank Sturgeon split cdr on Beniffer Editions from years back. i guess i got sentimental. there'll be a few of these available through Mimaroglu Music Sales pretty soon. I will also have a couple for this short tour thing:

... the dates of which i will post soon. but here is a track from that cd anyway:

Charles Balls: I know what's right for my daughter

HEY - i'm playing a couple shows in Toronto in the next month. i only mention it because it's pretty rare that i perform in town anymore. i also mention it because i made this poster for one of them. You can click on them for the larger version but they're pretty horrible photos, i must admit:

a couple of these i did on 22x30" "quality artist paper" and these i will be selling for money and favors. even fewer are printed on the backs of aborted art school prints that i'm pretty embarrassed of. i painted over them with white latex paint but you can still see it. witness my shame...
here is the same poster but elaborated further:

and the information for that show:

September 23rd/10pm
@ Korova Milkbar (488 College st.)
Jonathan Adjemian/Andy Yue
The Deeep
Vagina Bison (myself/Emilie Mouchous)
Not the Wind/Not the Flag
$5

The other show is Gastric Female Reflex and we'll be performing at the first Angura! event, organized by the junction's own premier japantropists Naomi and Brandon Hocura. Check their website for more information.

i'm in jail

2010-08-31T13:30:00.000-07:00

Yeah it's been a couple weeks since i did anything on here, but that time hasn't been spent pandering about video arcades and 24 hour convenient stores, touch myself in suburban libraries and licking discarded trays of TV dinners. I've been working!
In fact, this week I dedicated myself to making an album which I started and finished in ONE DAY. It's called "Various Artists" and here is the second track on there:

I made it in an edition of 10 individually collaged boxes that I'm letting go for $20. There are still a few left, get in touch if you want to invest - if not, a much cheaper edition should be making itself available in the coming weeks through Ayal Senior's epic label Medusa. Below are some scans of the front and back of the boxes - as always click on the image for the larger one...

I also decided to reissue the "hrvatski" t-shirt, edition of 12 on various colored shirts. First issue was an edition on 2, so obscure..

still got a couple of these as well... And last but not least, some photos of our new studio mate Shouty:

ode to quetzalcoatl

2010-08-06T16:02:00.000-07:00

Just took some photos of some paintings I made this week... These will most likely replace a few of the pieces up at the Tranzac for tomorrow evening's event:

... just click on either to look at the bigger version.

Speaking of tomorrow night, there will be these Halo Halo promo posters, free for the first 20 attendees:

... Chrissy will be making a special drink for the occasion with lime and tequila, posters will be liquidated and gumbo will be available for cheap so come hungry. If you don't know what I'm talking about look here

travelling blues demi god

2010-07-28T10:18:00.000-07:00

i never take any pride in photos... but this one, i think you'll agree, is worth a post of its own:

pint litre flag gram

2010-07-28T09:50:00.000-07:00

I forgot to say that there are some print/paintings hanging in the Tranzac southern cross room now, made throughout the year 2010 by Jeff Garcia and myself.
The closing party is August 7th at 10pm and that is when it will be at the peak of it's multi-dimensional/disciplinary mind-fuckededness, so come then:

SAFFRON SECT will play!

THE DRAPERIES will improvise with nothing in their mouths!

DJ SANDOZ will play a few of the less lucid records in his thoroughly deep crates!

There will also be gumbo to eat, moving images to be projected and times to be had.

Here is a photo of what the Tranzac Southern Cross room looked like circa last Friday when the Ryan Driver Quartet played...

... and here is a photo of the cassette that will be available at all RDQ shows from here on in. This will be made available for the Beniffer Editions Summer Update later this week or next.

... and then some photos of the stamping of a bunch of latex gloves for the Kommissar Hjuler/Mama Baer split cassette that'll also be on said update:

... 150 Mama Baer gloves

... see?

... and then there were 150 more of those guys.

... twins! (not identical)
More documentation of this release will be on the Beniffer website very soon.

camera's back in the game

2010-07-22T07:22:00.000-07:00

I finally decided to get the camera fixed after months of scant documentation. The camera man said that there was a lot of sand stuck in the focus mechanism and I thought of this particular moment:

... So now i can finally take pictures of things like this, my last three one-off, interactive lathes with painted wood covers:

This is a quicko sampling of some of the "music" on these puppies; a random-groove assortment of electronics and taped bamboo sounds:

Here is some documentation of the sisyphusean effort of doing the same thing 100 times over again, otherwise known as the thrills and chills of assembling elaborate silk-screened books. These piles that me and Jacob are collating are to become Diatric Puds and the Blobettes book/7" on Beniffer Editions

Bad at life, worse at blogging

2010-07-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

Well I haven't touched this thing for a while... My camera broke and I have no way of sharing the bigger things that don't fit on scanning beds. So here are some scans of small things I've been doing while bored at work in a mini-Moleskine using only materials from the store I work in. It got so bad that I started using the Vice magazine, see if you can spot their unique aesthetic choices!
click on them for bigger versions:

beard brunch

2010-05-10T14:16:00.000-07:00

a few weeks ago i decided to grow a beard for the first time in my adult life. in the last few days i have come to renounce this decision as it looks and feels like a badger-skin wallet glued to my face with chewing tobacco. shaving it means my sink will look post-pubescent and i'm not looking forward to that particular clean up. ok, so here is the documentation... good riddance face-rug

snakeskin namesake

2010-05-08T04:56:00.000-07:00

these i did yesterday while finishing off a run of Halo Halo promotional posters. i made two different posters but none exist digitally as of yet. you should expect to see them wheat pasted around Toronto soon anyway so I won't bother with that just yet.
with these i printed the poster on watercolor paper and worked into it with water based media and some drawing. i imagine that these will be for sale once the halo halo online shop is set up or at our next event at the studio.
more soon

patriot games

2010-04-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

Been working on this poster for the Hrvatski/Keith Fullerton Whitman cassette on Beniffer. Pictured here is the alternate print which features slightly different coloring, manilla stock and orange action splatter. I'm sure you'll see the original print on the Beniffer Editions blog some day in the near future...

... And this is the original collage. I think it probably works better in black and white and printed as such. Next to it is the shirt version.

Something else i wanted to tell you about are these tiles that Jeff and I are making for our washout sink. But i won't tell you here since I already made a post about it on the Halo Halo Blog

devendra's tears of cocaine

2010-04-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

this is my first gif. i think it's a good place to start... it's a bit choppy because i did it with screen captures from youtube of devendra banhastts newest cocaine-fueled abortion. if there has ever been an illustration of a talent gone sour let this be it.

out of this world

2010-04-01T08:32:00.000-07:00

i recorded this from the vinyl and it's a bit scratchy, but it's good enough. check it out - space sounds from the BBC radiophonic workshop...
teeeeeeeeeeh

tel aviv gravy companion

2010-03-31T07:55:00.000-07:00

so these are some one off covers i did last year for the Gastric Female Reflex/Brian Ruryk split LP.
i will go on record as saying i hate the original covers and decided finally to do away with them once and for all, opting to throw together one off covers from detritus lying around the studio every time one sells. of course there are a lot of one offs out there now, most of which i didn't bother documenting, but these ones continue to haunt my personal crates because i refuse to sell them for less than $20. i know that's a crazy price and all.
one other thing i will say about the original cover is that i do not hate the design that Fat Boobs gave us, it was just our own incompetence in printing it is at fault for the way it turned out...

more of that antiquated mayo nationalism

2010-03-30T16:00:00.000-07:00

ahhhhhh ok here is another dumping of old material, most of which was used on old Beniffer Editions stuff.

DHONGEE

2010-03-26T14:29:00.000-07:00

In the midst of not telling anyone about this blog and figuring out what should even happen on here I have been putting off making a tape of this. Posting it here gave me the incentive of finally making a copy and returning it to work... So if you ever find this site this is for your personal delectation.
This is one of those Bollywood soundtracks that I'm pretty sure instigates all that record nerd mouth frothing and the sound of a thousand slippery hands on wallets. It's because it sounds weird. I like it ok, but it's really all about that 5 second clip at the start of hai re hai tera ghunghta that sounds like the hysterical masturbation of a panhandling mime... If you know what I mean.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/zhcnlr

Man Made Hill Release Show still happening!

2010-03-26T14:08:00.001-07:00

So, this is a poster I printed yesterday for the Man Made Hill show coming up on April 8th. The show is being put on by Burn Down the Capitol for a LP that's being released on Beniffer Editions and Healing Power. Should be a nice time... Expect the LP post to show up on the Beniffer blog in the next few days.... I wrote the following blurb about it in that roundabout, purposefully arcane and misleading way I always go about these things:

Have you ever heard a pinball machine collapse down a flight of touch sensitive keyboard stairs? Have you lived la vida loca with marinara coursing through your veins? Have you ever seen or felt the white soul combing the churn of a century-old fox trot interlude? The debut long playing vinyl of Randy Gagne's Man Made Hill is the key to that door. Behind it ceiling fans actively seek out shit piles to fling into the brackish waft of a slaughterhouse dance floor where corpulent slabs of nameless meat careen off their hooks in a mockery of modern dance. Technotronic hot flashes floss the slippery keyboard runs of a synthesized marimba with food poisoning recalling the histrionic hand clapping and mellifluous tinsel pulling of The Flying Lizards. During a sentimental reprieve an overworked farm hand ceases his ploughing and looks up to a horizon riddled with plush clouds and mops his brow with a dirty handkerchief. It's been a long hot day and it's time to do the pump rectilinear the air we breathe.
The result is a sort of pelvis pulverizing one is not likely to forget, with crowd favorites like "Kool Cops", "Get Gout" and 12 other potential anthems for a sprawling gaggle of straggly-haired genetically-indifferent lovers. Tower of Randy for pres!
The record itself is pressed on white vinyl in a silkscreened sleeve designed by Martina Hwang, Bartosz Gawdzik and Andrew Zukerman.

Bourreau and Four Women

2010-03-22T21:32:00.000-07:00

I made this video in bed.

bourreau and the four women from explodingmotorcar on Vimeo.

pickled trophy wife putrefaction meet

2010-03-20T05:16:00.000-07:00

This is was originally a split cassette with Montreal's own Metis Yeti on LSD OTB... The cassette is wayy sold out so here is an mp3. My side was called "Charles Balls: A Diverse Performer"

Some of that ART SCHOOL shit

2010-03-20T03:56:00.001-07:00

Here is some old scrapings from my hard drive, really bottom of the barrel scraps circa art school - the cream of that particular crop is represented here. Mostly old collage musings, some that were eventually made into prints, some that never went anywhere and I'm sure you can guess at why. A necessary evil for the sake of posterity...

Criminal Beef Intake

2010-03-19T17:50:00.000-07:00

this is one of those incidental collages that i love so much.. it feels like someone else made it because it just happened that way, i had little to no involvement in it looking that way. i gave it as a gift and now the only thing i have is this crappy, color shifted photo:

the other day i went to the cemetery with my mother and saw this headstone. i don't know what it is about this graveyard, if it's particular location between burlington and hamilton that makes it so susceptible to this kind of gaudiness, but i digress. but this one is beyond belief! i had to get her to stop the car so i could take the photo:

... and here is some photos of some installation-type painting nonsense me and Jeff Garcia made on monday night... i took these photos while at 2am so that's why they look so sickly like a fermented nugget of crystalized mucous:

DO YOU LIKE ART

2010-03-17T16:45:00.000-07:00

OK, blog. I guess I'll put some art here now...