Negativland

Last updated
Negativland
Negativland performance.jpg
Negativland performing in 2007
Background information
Origin Concord, California, United States
Genres
Years active1979–present
Labels Seeland, SST, Revolver/Midheaven Mailorder (distributor)
Members
Past members
Website negativland.com

Negativland is an American experimental music band that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. [1] The core of the band consists of Mark Hosler, David Wills (aka "The Weatherman"), Peter Conheim and Jon Leidecker (aka "Wobbly"). [2] Negativland has released a number of albums ranging from pure sound collage to more musical expositions. These have mostly been released on their own label, Seeland Records. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they produced several recordings for SST Records, most notably Escape from Noise , Helter Stupid and U2 . Negativland were sued by the band U2's record label, Island Records, and by SST Records, which brought them widespread publicity and notoriety. The band is also part of the Church of the SubGenius parody religion. [3] Negativland coined the term culture jamming in 1984. Don Joyce added it to the album JamCon '84 in the form of "culture jammer". [4] [5] The band took their name from a Neu! track, [6] with their record label Seeland Records also being named after another Neu! track.

Contents

History

1980s

Negativland started in Concord, California, [7] in 1979 around the core founding members of Hosler and Richard Lyons (who were in high school at the time). The band released its eponymous debut in 1980. [8] A number of releases followed in the early 1980s, but it wasn't until after the release of their breakthrough sample and cut-up sonic barrage Escape from Noise in 1987 that Negativland gained wider attention. Vinyl copies of the album came with "CAR BOMB" bumper stickers, in reference to the album's song "Car Bomb".

Following the somewhat unexpected success of the album, Negativland faced the prospect of being prompted to tour, which they had an inept budget for; to prevent this, they made the decision to craft a hoax press release that claimed that Negativland were prevented from touring by law enforcement, citing "Federal Authority Dick Jordan", because the song "Christianity Is Stupid" from Escape from Noise had supposedly inspired the then widely covered case of 16-year-old mass murderer David Brom killing his family. To deliberately cause tension with the media, the press release went on to vigorously deny the purported connection between Negativland and the murders. The claim that Brom's crimes were inspired by Negativland was disseminated and discussed, generally skeptically, in local media as well as the Village Voice, with at least one Bay Area television station apparently believing the claims of the press release to be factual. [9] [10] The incident became the conceptual foundation for Negativland's next release, Helter Stupid , which featured a cover photo of TV news anchorman Dave McElhatton delivering the Brom murder story, with the album prominently sampling news coverage of the hoax.

U2 record incident

Negativland's next project was the U2 EP, with samples from American Top 40 host Casey Kasem. In 1991, Negativland released a single with the title "U2" displayed in very large type on the front of the packaging and "Negativland" in a smaller typeface. An image of the Lockheed U-2 spy plane was also on the single cover.

The songs within were parodies of the group U2's well-known 1987 song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", including kazoos and extensive sampling of the original song. The song "The Letter U And The Numeral 2" features a musical backing to an extended profane rant from well-known disc jockey Casey Kasem, lapsing out of his more polished and professional tone during a frustrating rehearsal that had gone out to many stations as raw feed and was taped by several engineers, who had been passing it around for a number of years. One of Kasem's milder comments was "These guys are from England and who gives a shit?" (U2 was actually formed in Ireland. Moments earlier he had read from his script, "the Irish band from Dublin".)

U2's label Island Records quickly sued Negativland, stating that placing the word "U2" on the cover violated trademark law, as did the song itself. Island Records also contended that the single was an attempt to deliberately confuse U2 fans, awaiting the impending release of Achtung Baby , into purchasing what they believed was a new U2 album called Negativland.

In June 1992, R. U. Sirius, publisher of the magazine Mondo 2000 , came up with an idea. Publicists from U2 had contacted him regarding the possibility of interviewing Dave "The Edge" Evans, hoping to promote U2's impending multimillion-dollar Zoo TV Tour, which featured found sounds and live sampling from mass media outlets (things for which Negativland had been known for some time). Sirius, unbeknownst to Edge, decided to have his friends Joyce and Hosler of Negativland conduct the interview. Joyce and Hosler, fresh from Island's lawsuit, peppered the Edge with questions regarding his ideas about the use of sampling in their new tour, and the legality of using copyrighted material without permission. Midway through the interview, Joyce and Hosler revealed their identities as members of Negativland. An embarrassed Edge reported that U2 were bothered by the sledgehammer legal approach Island Records took in their lawsuit, and furthermore that much of the legal wrangling took place without U2's knowledge: "by the time we [U2] realized what was going on it was kinda too late, and we actually did approach the record company on your [Negativland's] behalf and said, 'Look, c'mon, this is just, this is very heavy...'" Island Records reported to Negativland that U2 never authorized samples of their material; Evans' response was, "that's complete bollocks, there's like, there's at least six records out there that are direct samples from our stuff." [11]

In August 2007, Joyce provided an audio cassette copy of the Mondo 2000 interview with Evans to the U2 fan website U2Interview.com. [12]

The "U2" single (along with other related material) was re-released in 2001 on a "bootleg" album entitled These Guys Are from England and Who Gives a Shit , released on "Seelard Records" (a parody of Negativland's record label Seeland Records). Negativland may have themselves been responsible for the re-release; although the Negativland website refers to this release as a bootleg, it is available from major retailers like Best Buy, Amazon, and Tower Records, as well as Negativland's own mail-order business.

Negativland are interested in intellectual property rights and argue that their use of U2's and others' material falls under the fair use clause. In 1995, they released a book, with accompanying CD, called Fair Use: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2 , about the whole U2 incident (from Island Records first suing Negativland for the release to Negativland gaining back control of their work four years later). [13] The book ends with a large appendix of essays about fair use and copyright by Negativland and others, telling the story with newspaper clippings, court papers, faxes, press releases and other documents arranged in chronological order.

The Negativland-Island lawsuit was followed by another one brought on between Negativland and SST, which served to sever all remaining ties the two had. To get back at Negativland (while wryly circumventing their name), SST founder Greg Ginn later released the Negativ(e)land: Live on Tour album on SST.

Negativland were the main subjects of Craig Baldwin's documentary Sonic Outlaws , detailing the use of culture jamming to subvert the messages of more traditional media outlets. They also made an appearance in Brett Gaylor's 2009 copyright issue documentary, RiP!: A Remix Manifesto .

ABCs and Teletubbies

In 1999 Negativland collaborated with UK anarchist band Chumbawamba to produce the EP The ABCs of Anarchism , which is largely based around the writings of Alexander Berkman and cut-up versions of Chumbawamba's hit song "Tubthumping", the theme tune to the children's program Teletubbies and the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the UK".

2000s

In 2003, members of Negativland contributed their efforts to Creative Commons, a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to legally build upon and share by providing alternative copyright licenses. In September 2002, Negativland spoofed Clear Channel radio stations in an audio track broadcast by pirate radio broadcasters jamming a Seattle Clear Channel station while the National Association of Broadcasters met in the city. [14] [15]

Former member Don Joyce long hosted a weekly radio show called Over the Edge most Thursdays at midnight on KPFA. Recordings of some noteworthy episodes of the show have been released by Seeland in its Over the Edge series.

In September 2005, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the band, Negativland curated an art exhibit in Manhattan's Gigantic Artspace gallery, formerly located at 59 Franklin Street. The exhibit, Negativlandland, included a number of pieces of artwork from and inspired by Negativland recordings, video projection of music videos created by the band and others, and some artwork created specifically for the show, such as an animatronic Abraham Lincoln figure (inspired by the band's Lincoln cut-up piece God Bull) and a hands-on exhibit featuring the Booper, the audio-processing unit that band member David Wills (a.k.a. The Weatherman) assembled out of old radio parts. The show appeared in Minneapolis on May 12, 2006, at Creative Electric Studios.

2010s

Former band member Ian Allen died on January 17, 2015, due to complications from heart valve surgery. He was 56 years old. [16] On July 22, 2015, Don Joyce, group member and host of Over The Edge, died of heart failure at the age of 71. [17] On April 19, 2016, Richard Lyons died from complications of nodular melanoma following his 57th birthday party in a nursing facility. [18] [19]

The band's album, Over the Edge Vol. 9: The Chopping Channel, was released on October 21, 2016. Select copies of the album include a bag containing two grams of Don Joyce's cremated remains. [20] In 2019, True False was released.

2020s

The album The World Will Decide was released on November 13, 2020, and features contributions from Allen, Joyce, and Lyons. [21]

Legacy

Rivers Cuomo of Weezer wrote a song titled "Negativland" about the band in 1993. The song was eventually released in 2011 on Cuomo's solo album Alone III: The Pinkerton Years.

Artists such as Girl Talk [22] have cited Negativland as an influence. Fatboy Slim sampled a Negativland song that, according to Hosler, itself sampled a Christian children's album from the 1960s in an unauthorized fashion. [23] Vice writer Peter Holslin wrote in 2014, "These days, what Negativland does is pretty much di rigueur in Internet meme culture—collage, mashups, reappropriation, recontextualization. But these guys were doing this stuff long before the age of YouTube and Tumblr, decades before it was cool." [24]

Discography

Albums

Videos

Over the Edge radio series

(CDs edited from Negativland's weekly live radio show. The first four releases were also manufactured on cassette)

EPs

Live albums

Related Research Articles

SST Records is an American independent record label formed in 1978 in Long Beach, California by musician Greg Ginn. The company was first founded in 1966 by Ginn at age 12 as Solid State Transmitters, a small business through which he sold electronics equipment. Ginn repurposed the company as a record label to release material by his band Black Flag.

Over the Edge is a sound collage radio program hosted and produced in the United States by Jon Leidecker ("Wobbly") and Robert Cole ("KrOB"), who took over in 2015 after the death of longtime host Don Joyce.

<i>Escape from Noise</i> 1987 studio album by Negativland

Escape from Noise is the fourth studio album by Negativland. It marked the band's first release on an established independent record label, SST Records. On the album, they continued to develop their experimental style, as well as incorporating elements of pop music with shorter tracks and more conventional melodies. "Christianity Is Stupid", a track featuring samples from the propaganda movie If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?, proved to be an enduring signature song: the band and the release gained widespread attention a year later due to an SST press release falsely implying that murderer David Brom had listened to the song before killing his family members.

<i>Helter Stupid</i> 1989 studio album by Negativland

Helter Stupid is Negativland's fifth studio album, released in 1989. It is a concept album focused on the media coverage of a hoax formulated by the band claiming that "Christianity Is Stupid" from their previous album, Escape from Noise, had inspired David Brom to murder his family in Rochester, Minnesota, as well as other moral panics related to popular music.

<i>Over the Edge Vol. 2: Pastor Dick: Muriels Purse Fund</i> 1989 compilation album (Edited Radio Show) by Negativland

Pastor Dick: Muriel's Purse Fund was the second volume in the Over the Edge series, which distills the best moments from Negativland's radio program Over the Edge, broadcast on KPFA. This album was edited together from several different broadcasts recorded between 1982 and 1986.

<i>Over the Edge Vol. 3: The Weathermans Dumb Stupid Come-Out Line</i> 1990 compilation album (Edited Radio Show) by Negativland

The Weatherman's Dumb Stupid Come-Out Line was the third volume in the Over the Edge series, which distills the best material from Negativland's radio program Over the Edge, broadcast on KPFA. This album was edited together from several different broadcasts recorded between 1982 and 1984.

<i>The ABCs of Anarchism</i> 1999 EP by Negativland and Chumbawamba

The ABCs of Anarchism is an EP by American electronic group Negativland and British rock band Chumbawamba. A three-track collection, it incorporates samples of songs from Chumbawamba's Tubthumper (1997) as well as music by the then-current artists including Ice Cube and the Spice Girls, and television shows such as M*A*S*H and Teletubbies. The release's lyrics focus on political theory and children's media.

<i>U2</i> (EP) Negativland EP

U2 is a withdrawn EP by Negativland, released on SST Records in 1991. The EP and the band gained notoriety when lawyers representing Island Records sued Negativland over the EP's unauthorized sampling of the U2 song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and misleading artwork. The EP's two tracks and related material were later collected on the compilation These Guys Are from England and Who Gives a Shit.

<i>Over the Edge Vol. 1: JAMCON84</i> 1985 compilation album (Edited Radio Show) by Negativland

JAMCON '84 was the first volume in the Over the Edge series, which distills portions of Negativland's radio program Over the Edge, broadcast on KPFA. This album was edited together from at least three different broadcasts recorded between January and July 1985.

Donald S. Joyce was an American musician who was a member of the experimental music group Negativland. He also hosted a weekly radio program called Over the Edge on the Berkeley, California, radio station KPFA, for more than 30 years.

<i>Fair Use: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2</i> 1995 studio album by Negativland

Fair Use: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2 is a 270-page book and ten track CD released in 1995 by Negativland detailing their lawsuits with U2's record label Island Records for their EP U2, including many legal documents and correspondences.

<i>A Big 10-8 Place</i> 1983 studio album by Negativland

A Big 10-8 Place is the third album by Negativland, released in 1983. It was the first album with the involvement of band member Don Joyce. The album's title is a reference to the radio ten-code "10-8," which means "back in service" or "available for next call" in the context of common CB radio usage. The lyrics and collage sound clips on the album make frequent reference to the CB radio hobby, as well as mischief like jamming.

<i>These Guys Are from England and Who Gives a Shit</i> 2001 compilation album by Negativland

These Guys Are from England and Who Gives a Shit is a 2001 compilation album by Negativland. It contains the two tracks from the band's 1991 EP U2 alongside related recordings from the band's Over the Edge radio show and tracks recorded live at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. As the U2 EP had been withdrawn due to a legal dispute with Island Records, the album is billed as a bootleg and ostensibly released under "Seelard Records", a misspelling of the band's Seeland Records. Several of the live tracks sample the same Casey Kasem outtakes that had appeared on U2, including a spoken portion quoting "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction". Other tracks reference the band's struggles with their former label SST Records and the 1960 U-2 incident.

<i>The Letter U and the Numeral 2</i> 1992 EP by Negativland

The Letter U and the Numeral 2 is a 96-page magazine and 25-minute CD by Negativland detailing their conflict with the band U2, over Negativland's EP of the same name. It was released in 1992 as a limited edition of 4000 copies. Two months after its release, SST Records blocked its distribution with a lawsuit claiming, among other things, copyright infringement based on reproductions of press releases sent to the press by SST; "in essence, suing the band for printing (their) threat to sue the band". SST's lawsuit is similar to the "Streisand effect".

<i>Negativconcertland</i> 1993 live album by Negativland

Negativconcertland is a 1993 recording of a live concert by Negativland. It is a bootleg recorded from the audience. At the time of its release, Negativland had never officially released a live album. SST later put out "Negativ(e)land: Live On Tour" against their wishes to compete with Seeland's Dispepsi album. In 2006, they released an official live recording, It's All In Your Head FM, made on the tour of the same name.

<i>Over the Edge Vol. 1½: The Starting Line with Dick Goodbody</i> 1985 compilation album (Edited Radio Show) by Negativland

The Starting Line is composed of two program presentations, both of which are highly edited versions of shows that were originally broadcast on KPFA's Over the Edge radio show, hosted by Don Joyce weekly and featuring members of Negativland. The first program, "The Starting Line," is Tracks 1-5, and features a mock call-in radio show focusing on various aspects of cars, hosted by a character named Dick Goodbody. The second program, "The Rototiller Singalong," takes up Tracks 6 - 9, and is hosted by two people claiming not to be involved with Over the Edge, but are in fact David Wills & Richard Lyons. The program features a recording of a Rototiller, and over-the-phone "karaoke," where callers provide the vocal parts for music being played in the studio.

<i>Over the Edge Vol. 4: Dick Vaughns Moribund Music of the 70s</i> 1990 compilation album (Edited Radio Show) by Negativland

Dick Vaughn's Moribund Music Of The '70s is a collection of recordings edited from a wealth of material broadcast on KPFA's Over the Edge radio show, hosted by Don Joyce weekly and featuring members of Negativland, as well as material recorded at a Live Negativland show just after the "U2 Scandal." The recordings are broken up into two discs, and within that contain bits and pieces of many different Over The Edge Shows.

<i>Over the Edge Vol. 5: Crosley Bendix: The Radio Reviews</i> 1993 compilation album (Edited Radio Show) by Negativland

Crosley Bendix Radio Reviews is a collection of recordings edited from a wealth of material broadcast on KPFA's Over the Edge radio show, hosted by Negativland member Don Joyce weekly. Each recording on this particular disc comes from a different broadcast, all featuring the character Crosley Bendix.

<i>Over the Edge, Volume 6: The Willsaphone Stupid Show</i> 1993 compilation album (Edited Radio Show) by Negativland

The Willsaphone Stupid Show is a two CD collection of recordings edited from two different broadcasts on KPFA's Over the Edge radio show, hosted by Don Joyce.

<i>Over the Edge Vol. 8: Sex Dirt</i> 1995 compilation album (Edited Radio Show) by Negativland

Sex Dirt distills a single episode of Negativland's radio program Over the Edge, broadcast on KPFA.

References

  1. ↑ Thomas Bey William Bailey, Unofficial Release: Self-Released And Handmade Audio In Post-Industrial Society, Belsona Books Ltd., 2012
  2. ↑ "The Pioneers of Disruption: Negativland members open up about deceased member Don Joyce, future projects". LittleVillageMag.com. 23 October 2015. Retrieved 2015-10-23.
  3. ↑ "The Church of the SubGenius Finally Plays It Straight". Texas Monthly. November 2, 2017.
  4. ↑ "Don Joyce (2/9/44 – 7/22/15)". Negativland. Archived from the original on 2019-08-29. Retrieved 2015-07-24.
  5. ↑ Lloyd, Jan (2003) Culture Jamming: Semiotic Banditry in the Streets Archived 2013-05-05 at the Wayback Machine , in Cultural Studies Department: University of Canterbury, Christchurch
  6. ↑ Stewart Mason. "Negativland - Neu! - Listen, Appearances, Song Review - AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
  7. ↑ Moore, Sam (2016-10-20). "San Francisco band Negativland offer bandmember's ashes with sales of their new album". NME. Retrieved 2023-12-22.
  8. ↑ Jones, Steve, 1992. The Cassette Underground. In Robin James (Ed.) Cassette mythos. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia.
  9. ↑ "Negativland's "Helter Stupid" 20 Years Later - Cory Frye - Open Salon". Open.salon.com. Archived from the original on November 27, 2013. Retrieved 13 February 2015., page found at archive.org 2015-10-16.
  10. ↑ "Reviews - Escape from Noise". Archived from the original on 2005-11-07.
  11. ↑ "Negativland Interviews U2's The Edge". Negativland.com. Archived from the original on 2013-01-13. Retrieved 2011-06-24.
  12. ↑ "Negativland And The Edge". U2Interview.com. Retrieved 24 June 2011.
  13. ↑ Berry, Colin (1995-01-01). "The Letter U and the Numeral 2". Wired . Retrieved 2022-08-11.
  14. ↑ "News Archive: August 2003". Diymedia.net. Archived from the original on 2010-07-03. Retrieved 2010-08-31.
  15. ↑ KJR Prank Archived 2018-01-22 at the Wayback Machine . "Negativland pranks clear channel, forces radio format change. For immediate release 8/25/2003".
  16. ↑ "The Dead Rock Stars Club - January to June 2015". Thedeadrockstarsclub.com. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
  17. ↑ "Don Joyce (9 February 1944 – 22 July 2015)". Negativworldwidewebland. Archived from the original on 29 August 2019. Retrieved July 24, 2015.
  18. ↑ "Richard Lyons, Negativland Founder, Dead at 57", by Kory Grow, Rolling Stone
  19. ↑ Ratliff, Ben (27 April 2016). "Richard Lyons, 57, a Founder of the Subversive Band Negativland, Dies". New York Times. Retrieved 11 July 2016.
  20. ↑ Hilton, Robin (18 October 2016). "New Negativland Album Comes With A Bag Of A Band Member's Remains". NPR.org. Retrieved 18 October 2016.
  21. ↑ Blazenhoff, Rusty (September 3, 2020). "Negativland's New Album The World Will Decide Drops November 13". BoingBoing . Retrieved September 3, 2020.
  22. ↑ "Girl Talk Chops Pop Music To Pieces". NPR . October 10, 2008. Retrieved December 2, 2023.
  23. ↑ "Fatboy Slim Accused of Sampling Sample". MTV . Archived from the original on December 2, 2023.
  24. ↑ "Discontent with Content: Why Negativland Wants to Destroy the Internet". Vice. March 2, 2014. Retrieved December 2, 2023.

Interviews

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