not a comprehensive list
16 February 1980 “So Questioned”, for voice, turntables, tape recorders,
Artists’ use of Telecommunications show, at The Farm, San Francisco (premiere performance)
24 February 1980 “Check It”, for voice, organ and tape mix, Target Video, San Francisco
17 March 1980 “Aldo’s Bar (Life Sentence)”, for voice, organ and tape mix, Aldo’s Bar, Broadway, San Francisco
12 February 1981 “Says #s 1 & 2”, for voice and 2 skipping turntables, Savoy Tivoli, San Francisco
22 February 1982 “Rant #12”, for voice, 2 skipping turntables, cigars and cocaine, EVIL show, White Columns, New York City
24 May 1982 “Past 2 Days”, for voice and 2 skipping turntables, Martinson hall, Public Theatre, New York City
19 September 1982 “Save The What?”, for voice and tape mix, Het apollohuis, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
2 October 1982 “When You Look At A Thing”, for voice and tape mix, Final Academy show, Ritzy Cinema, Brixton
7 October 1982 “…I used To Be”, for voice and tape mix, Musik Auser Kontrolle Festival, Zurich, Switzerland
11 June 1983 “Life Sentense”, for voice and tape mix, Houdini Theater, Zurich, Switzerland
more material will be added to this section over time
uns: 3 superscope C105 vari-speed cassette players , Shure 4 channel mixer, Farfisa ‘professional’ organ (smoke damaged and donated by Carl Stone), fuzz box, bull-horn voice amplifier, maestro echo-plex, Peavey ‘musician’ amp, and Cerwin Vega 15 inch speaker
the cassettes were used to provide the rhythms – i had taken sound effects records, and caused them to skip, and then recorded them on 1m cassette loops
by mixing the loops, and being able to vary their speeds i had provided myself with a sort of analog rhythm machine
anyway
Steve Tupper of Subterranean asked me to do the LP as Z’EV, but as ‘Shake Rattle & Roll’ was about to come out on Fetish, l suggested taking this opportunity to make uns (conceptualized in Fall ’79) a reality, and thus embarked on my Persona piece [for further info on Persona Piece].
However, the week before that I was invited to do a performance at an art event happening at The Farm. A three way collaboration between Bonnie Ora Sherk [The Farm], Carl Loefller [La Mamelle] and Joe Reese [Target Video], entitled The Artists Use of Telecommunications.
The live performances were ‘broadcast’ through a satellite link, to Willoughby Sharp’s loft in New York City.ALDO’S BAR
uns: 3 C105 cassettes, Shure mixer, Farfisa ‘professional’ organ (smoke damaged and donated by Carl Stone), fuzz box, bull-horn voice, maestro echo-plex
Peavey ‘musician’ amp, and Cerwin Vega 15 inch speaker
This recording provided material for: Life Sentense, various Magneet Bond and Music for Organ and Tape recordings, and parts of the original uns Mother Tongue sessions
LIFE SENTENSE – uns / S.Weisser – cassette – Subterranean – Oct. 1986
My favorite title. It was from original recordings made on 17 March 1981 at Aldo’s on Broadway in SF, downstairs from a massage parlor, which provides come context for the lyrical content of SLOW MUSIC.
I took one to three second bits and over a 72 hour hack beginning 26 June 1981, I built up multiple one minute pieces and then wove them together at O.D.Studios
The recordings had the voice in one channel and the sound in one channel
If it is played in mono there is a mix of elements; in stereo, depending on the panning, there is a real-time mix potential open for the listener to create
100 7×7″ magnetic tape boxes were painted by SWeisser using real bronze powder mixed into a clear ink base
so each box was unique and had a substantial texture
the boxes contained the cassette and a brass ring-bound lyric booklet and were filled with shards from a 7″ 45
I broke Mark Pauline’s sledgehammers breaking the 100 records that were used to fill the boxes ,o
boxes signed S.Weisser / uns Archive / 1/100
BRC, Strange Girl, and BOXES These three tracks were included on One Foot in the Grave
They were produced for an LP’s worth of material intended to be an uns ‘studio album’
The title of the album was to be ‘Mother Tongue’, which would have been the first emergence of that context
Source material, recorded at Aldo’s and uns shows at the Mab on 8 and 13 March 1980
This is just another example of the support that Dirk Dirksen so magnanimously extended to me,
that is, being able to perform 3 weeks in a row at the Mab
So because of this I was able to develop the project ‘under fire’ as it were.
SAYS – Savoy Tivoli, SF, 12 Feb. 1981.
uns: ‘Vibration’, ie. my name for the ‘band’ behind uns. 2 ‘skipping’ modified ‘VU Matic’ turntables, 2 Sanyo mono cassette portables, Realistic 4 channel mixer,
aluminum foil microphone, Peavey ‘musician’ amp, Cerwin Vega 3 way 15 inch speaker system
records used; Aside and Beside by ‘TO’ (we managed to have 100 copies pressed in 1976/77)
This was first performance using the Vibration turntables, i had taken 2 VU matic turntables out of their cases and mounted them together in a single frame
the skipping was controlled by attaching a nylon monofilament line to the tone arm, there were also 2 heat exchange clips mounted on each end of the frame
the clips were at the same horizontal level as the tone arms, such that the nylon line could be held by the clips, thus stopping the
PAST 2 DAYS – Martinson Hall, Public Theatre, NYC 21 May 1982
uns: ‘Vibration’, aluminum toil microphone face-mask, a 6 foot long black staff.
records used: Production and Decay of Spatial Relations (Backstreet Records)
I found the staff backstage, it was probably a prop for some other production –
with it i could stamp the stage, which would cause the needles to jump on the turntables and they would continue tracking until they reached their skipping position