Friday, December 13, 2013

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today


(Well, maybe not EXACTLY today, but close enough)
...that Uncle Willie closed up shop at UWEB; the  Residents fan club.

While I regret not having taken advantage of all of the "members only" Residents cd's offered there, I can still look back with some satisfaction for having taken advantage of the pool of like-minded musical minds to be found among the members there.

Ca. early 1992 I sent the following letter to Uncle Willie:

The result was a musical project which had 10 musicians (plus one who could substitute for any participant unable to maintain the strict schedule), each initiating a four-track cassette which would be sent around its own particular route, reaching all the participants twice, each person adding his or her part anywhere on the cassette (a total of 4:30 - 9:00 each time,(depending on the speed of the recorder). Each person thus had equal time and equal opportunity to choose whether to work alone (building up all 4 tracks alone), or adding their own part(s) to any existing part(s) played by anyone else,wherever and whenever an empty track allowed.

I received a number of letters (remember letters?) from respondents who wrote too late to join the project, one of which contained a very interesting cassette.(Many of the respondents sent me cassettes of their music). I thought it a shame that he could not participate in the "Buddy Project", and so I asked him if he would like to collaborate with me and one other Buddy whose music I found similar enough to inspire the idea of doing a side project of Christmas music.

This project took the name of BooDooRoo X-Mas.

It had 3 cassettes making the rounds of we three until they were full.
Boo recorded at regular or double speed
Doo recorded at double speed
Roo recorded at regular speed.

this created the unusual situation where only one of the participants (Boo) could actually hear the music made by the other two at the proper speed, while Roo heard Doo's music at half-speed
and Doo heard Roo's music at double speed.

It also created a situation where the mixdowns made by each of us sounded distinctly different, not only because of the preferential musical choices of each of us, but because of this speed discrepancy.

This is a selection chosen from the mixdowns made by Roo (about one half of the total music), in which Doo is heard usually as the slow,low sounds in the mix, Roo at regular speed, and Boo at either, depending on whose part he considered the primary focus when he added his part.

Boo is: Boojer Golder, later Foe Foe Foe Foe Foe. (Canada)
Doo is: Dr. Eyescope (Canada)
Roo is: Kim Kangaroo (Belgium)

Hope you enjoy it.
Merry Christmas Too All, and to All a Good Night.





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P.S. Be forewarned that the music here is distinctly LOW-FI.

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