I dislike writing about myself. Sure I can and will talk about myself at length and happily, but writing seems so formal and set in stone. And besides I have written too many failed grant applications (not to mention failed job applications) in my life. Perhaps this is one of the reasons I work with sound. You can trust sound, and you can’t misspell things. I come from a family of readers, where words are king…but sound goes where words do not. I have a distinct memory of an old house and a creepy attic; if you went through the creepy part, the attic had a front room, bathed in sunlight. I remember that room having a pile of dusty books on top of which, like a king, sat a portable wind-up gramophone. Old 78rpm records were among the first tangible expressions of what is ephemeral and these “talking machines” that played them still seem magical to me. I am interested in how sounds are mediated through the equipment used to record them and the material on which they are recorded, almost as a composition is mediated through a performer. As a child I loved the foley in old movies and episodes of batman. I loved echoes. Odd radio transmissions. Footsteps in the distance, rustling through leaves. Lines smacking against flagpoles or masts in harbors. Crickets. Water through the pebbles on a beach. The sound in my head while chewing. The rhythms of car tires on uneven pavement. I don’t think I even understood that to most people these noises were different than “music.” To me they were all part of one big sound world: the emotion in a singer’s voice, a guitar, the disquieting squeak of a chair, conversation in a theatre before the movie starts, someone hollering. It all connects. I tried to foist my collage and found sound proclivities on rock bands I was in, figuring that it was all the same, that everyone thought like I did. Eventually Climax Golden Twins emerged from this primordial swamp and growing lungs from gills shambled onto the musical landscape of late 20th century America…CGT has been described in print somewhere as “effusively eclectic”, though I can’t remember by whom. Well, there you go. They would know.

External links:


http://www.climaxgoldentwins.com 

http://www.dust-digital.com/victrola-favorites.htm

Discography    

(as a solo artist, with Climax Golden Twins, or in collaboration with others…including video/documentary work…we’re talking actual plastic or vinyl releases here…though not including compilation tracks of which there are a fair amount…)

AFCGT: untitled (LP, Uzu Audio, 2008)

AFCGT: untitled (10 inch LP, Dirty Knobby, 2008)

Victrola Favorites (Book, double CD, Dust to Digital, Atlanta, GA, 2008)

Climax Golden Twins: 5 Cents A Piece (LP, Abduction Records, 2007)

My Friend Rain (feature documentary, Sublime Frequencies, 2007)

Phi Ta Khon: Ghosts of Isan (feature documentary, DVD on Sublime Frequencies, 2006)

Spirit House(short, DVD on Sublime Frequencies, 2006)

Insect Agents(series of shorts DVD-R Muang Sing Music, 2006)

Climax Golden Twins: Conspiracy  (LP, Conspiracy Records, Belgium, 2006)

Climax Golden Twins: B Side (three inchCD,Testing Ground, Spain, 2005)

Harmika Yab Yum: Folk Sounds from Nepal(CD, Sublime Frequencies, 2005)

Climax Golden Twins: Highly Bred and Sweetly Tempered(CD, NEI Recordings, 2004)

Leaf Music Drunks Distant Drums: Recordings from Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and  Myanmar(CD, Anomalous Records, 2004)

The Phonographer’s Union: Live on Sonarchy Radio(CD, Accretions, 2004)

Climax Golden Twins Live in the 21st Century(CDR, Kabukikore Records, UK, 2004)

Nat Pwe: Burma’s Carnival of Spirit Soul(feature documentary, DVD on Sublime Frequencies  2003)

RMillis/JTaylor (Cassette, Since 1972 Recordings, 2003)

Climax Golden Twins: Lovely(CD, Anomalous Records, 2002)

Messenger Girls Trio(LP, Anomalous Records, 2002)

Climax Golden Twins: Session 9(CD, Milan International/USA Films/Focus Features, 2001)

Climax Golden Twins: untitled (rock)(CD and LP, Fire Breathing Turtle Records, Since 1972, 2001)

Climax Golden Twins: Dream Cut Short in the Mysterious Clouds (CD and LP, Meme  Records, Japan, 2000)

Victrola Favorites (10 volume series of cassettes),Fire Breathing Turtle 1996-2001.

Climax Golden Twins LiveFour record set, volumes I-IV (LPs, Anomalous Records 1999-2000)

Climax Golden Twins: Locations(CD, Fire Breathing Turtle Records, 1998)

Climax Golden Twins: untitled (7 inch, Roadcone, 1996)

Climax Golden Twins: Imperial Household Orchestra(CD, Scratch Records, Canada, 1996)

Climax Golden Hiss (Cassette, Union Pole, 1995)

Climax Golden Twins: Eyeless Fabrication (Cassette, EF Cassettes, 1995)

Climax Golden Twins: untitled (3 inch CD, Fire Breathing Turtle Records, 1995)

Climax Golden Twins: untitled (double 7 inch, Fire Breathing Turtle, 1994)

photo: Mark Sullo