Cracker Jack Kid - Art Strike Mantra

Cracker Jack Kid ( Chuck Welch ) sent out these cassettes through the mail art network back in the late 80's as part of the infamous Mail Art Strike. The idea was that participants added their mantra or whatever they wanted basically to the end of the tape and sent it on to the next person until the tape was full and the last person sent it back to Chuck to copy and send copies to all participants - at least I think that was the idea. I made my own copy just in case this one got lost or for some reason I never got one. A compilation did eventually turn up along with documentation of the project. Hear part of it HERE.

Keith Bates & Roger Radio - Smoke In My Hands

Collaborative effort by two stalwarts of the mail art scene back in the 80's and 90's. Roger Radio ( Stevens ) who lives in Hove is also a poet, musician, educator, artist and all round good fellow. Keith Bates hails from Manchester, known as the Eclectic Hermit he is a musician and maker of fonts amongst other things. The other side of the cassette is a song by "Two 4th year girls - recorded at school " . Hear side one HERE.

Alvaro - Strong As A Bull

Alvaro "The Chilean With The Singing Nose " sent this back in the late 80's or early 90's ( no date on cassette ) from Squeaky Shoes Records in Germany. Just the one song - nothing the other side as far as I remember. Hear it HERE. His Discogs blurb says - Alvaro Peña-Rojas Real Name: Álvaro Ernesto Peña-Rojas Profile: Piano player, singer, and composer born in Valparaíso, Chile in 1943. Known as "the Chilean with the singing nose," he has released several singles with various Chilean rock bands in the early 70's ("The Challengers" and "The Boomerangs") before travelling to London in 1974 (due to exile from the Pinochet Regime), where he met Joe Strummer and formed The 101'ers. He now lives in Germany.

The New Improved Jook Savages - Radical Militant Vegetarians In Naziland

From Holy FunkRecords in San Anselmo in California. Made in 1992. Hear the first couple of tracks HERE.

David Zack and Snowwhite Jung - Add This To Your Lentils..

Long time mail artists and networkers Dave Zack and Snowwhite ( Susan Young ) sent this poor quality SONNI tape back in the early 90's. basically just Dave playing the guitar and chewing the fat about this and that with interjections from Snopes. Hear part of it HERE...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... "Tape is typical of Zack's ramblings and guitar plucking. I have tapes of ramblings and cello scrapings which are similar. The audio quality hasn't improved over the years so sorry for your ears. Keep that sturdy sack handy!
Zack was one of the first mail artists I contacted when I joined the network in 1980. He was very prolific with his letters which were also long and rambling and sometimes took up several sides of A4 and included photo copies of letters to other people on his network and spidery pen and ink drawings. The tapes arrived at intervals and always on very cheap cassettes like the one depicted. Sonni indeed!

"David was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1938 and received his Canadian landed immigrant status in 1970. He died in Texas, in 1995.

He studied at the University of Chicago and Cambridge University and taught at the University of Puerto Rico, San Francisco State College, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the University of Saskatchewan in Regina.

David is known for initiating the Nut Art movement in the late 60s in San Francisco together with Roy DeForest, Maija Peeples, Clayton Bailey, David Gilhooly and others. He became involved with mail-art in the early 70s and became one of its leading figures. He devoted the rest of his life to 'correspondense-art', and invented the Monty Cantsin Open-Pop-Star project together with Maris Kundzins and Istvan Kantor. David also got involved with Neoism in the early 1980s.

David took part in countless mail-art exhibitions around the world. He was also a professional art writer/critic with articles appearing in many publications in the 1960s and 1970s.

A retrospective of his work entitled: DAVID ZACK: Wizard?! Perturber?! Possessed! Letters and other works of a correspondence artist will open at The New Gallery in Calgary, on October 10, 2008, collected, designed and produced by Istvan Kantor."

Ona Doddle - Shop Til You Drop

Ona was a friend of another home taper and mail art practioner O. Jason I think and they lived in the Midlands in the UK during the 80's when I presume this tape was made ( no info on the cassette ). One side is Shop Til You Drop and the other Electric Gift Ideas. Hear a short section of the first side HERE.

VEC Audio - Auricle in G

VEC Audio ( Rod Summers ) in the Netherlands sent this out in 1982 to collaborators and participants in his VEC Audio Exhange. HERE are several tracks from side Two which features such folk as Bria Burgess, fomt, carel lanters & deiderick van kleef and ruedi schill.

Joe Bussard - Record Collecting

A cassette from Joe in Kentucky? No address on tape, hardly any info. at all except the name. A rambling tale of finding old time, country and blues 78's in the 60's complete with grunts, coughs and amusing anecdotes. A small section from side 1 HERE. He a has a page on Wikipedia - Joe Bussard (born Joseph E. Bussard, Jr., July 11, 1936 in Frederick, Maryland, United States) is an American collector of 78-rpm records. Bussard maintains a collection of more than 15,000 records, primarily of American folk, gospel, and blues from the 1920s and 1930s, believed to be one of the largest (and best quality) in the world. He was the subject of a documentary film, Desperate Man Blues, and his collection was mined for a compilation CD, Down in the Basement. He has gleefully shared his collection, which includes many only-known-copies of records (not to mention best-known-copies) with numerous reissue labels as well as with individuals for whom he has taped recordings from his collection for a nominal sum for decades. From 1956 until 1970, he ran the last 78 rpm record label, Fonotone, which was dedicated to the release of new recordings of old-time music. Among these were recordings by hundreds of performers, including the first recordings by the guitarist John Fahey. A five-CD anthology of Fonotone releases was issued in 2005 by Dust-to-Digital. Bussard currently produces a weekly music program, Country Classics, for Georgia Tech's radio station, WREK Atlanta. He has radio programs on three other stations: WPAQ-AM 740 in Mount Airy, North Carolina, WELD-AM 690 in Fisher, West Virginia, and WTHU-AM 1450 in Thurmont, Maryland. Joe Bussard has always had the collecting bug: in his teens, he and his cousin collected everything from rare coins to beehives to birds' nests. His dislike for modern music, especially hip hop and rock and roll, has been well documented

Diary Of A Fool - Hall Of Records 1

Cassette from the late 80's maybe early 90's from Amsterdam in Holland. Part of Side 2 which includes songs by Queen, except from "The Matrix" soundtrack and Peps Blodband etc. A small section HERE.

David Stone & Thomas Sutter - Multiple Impact Fables

A cassette from 26th June 1995 sent from the Regicide Bureau in Maryvill MO U.S.A. Live improvisations recorded live in Tom's living room it says. David Stone - Horns, guitar, tapes, percussion and longwaves. Thomas Sutter - Horns, turntables, bass, percussion, shortwaves, sampling and harmonica. Here's a short section from side 1- HERE. "Part of the world-wide cabal of experimental home-tapers, St. Louis-based Thomas Sutter, cut his teeth during the heyday of early 1980s underground cassette culture. His Regicide Bureau project has been running strong for 30+ years publishing his exploits as an electroacoustic trickster of sorts. Around 400 cassettes and CD-Rs of his head-scratching and genre-defying sound art and music have been put out to date. Many of these editions are concept albums, displaying a range of sounds from the pensive to the chaotic, with themes relating to esoteric Buddhist teachings released via his own private imprint and through an impressive list of legendary 80s tape labels such as Sound of Pig, HalTapes, Deaf Eye, and Harsh Reality Music. DaoDaoism is a collaboration of an opaque and mystical nature with NNN Cook working merely as an assistant towards Sutter's role as he puts it a "midwife to enigmas."

Michael Townsend - Cat Food

Michael sent this tape back in the 90';s for my Tape Exchange project I was doing through the mail back then. Listen to part of it HERE.

"Versatile and experienced copywriter, creative director, content developer and broadcast producer SKILLS Expert written communication abilities – copywriting, editing, scriptwriting, online marketing, white papers and more – with minimal ramp-up time and learning curve Diverse experience in financial, technology, healthcare, logistics and economic development communications for local, regional, national and global clients Can make complex subject matter understandable for anyone, crafting benefit-oriented copy for websites, advertising, email marketing, trade shows, outdoor and other tactics Web development strategy, Search Engine Optimization proficiency Audio production, editing and sound design; video editing and video production management ACCOMPLISHMENTS Over 19 years, developed all copywriting and content for Perry & Banks, collaborated with clients and strategists, and managed creative direction and collaboration alongside a wide range of designers, writers, producers and on-camera/voice talent Coined our state slogan, “Maine, The Way Life Should Be” for the Maine Dept. of Tourism in 1987 Wrote and managed production of television and radio advertising for a number of Maine Financial Institutions including Key Bank, Casco Northern Bank, Norway Savings Bank, Androscoggin Savings. "

Bill Whorrall - The A Team

Bill Whorrall sent this cassette "Radio surf - Low Fidelity - Medium Concept " in the 90's - not sure of the date. One of several tapes from Bill through the 90's and early noughties. Listen to part of it HERE. About "I was born in northern Indiana am now living in southern Indiana. I spent 4 years in the Air Force and 9 years in college. I have 3 degrees from Indiana University, 2 in education and an M.F.A. in printmaking. I like to work in all media. I prefer to let the concept drive the materials. I still enjoy teaching, although I am retired now as a full time teacher. "

Blaster Al Ackerman

Sad news of Blaster's death made me rummage in the old tape pile to find this mail art "gem" from the mid 80's I would guess.  Blaster was one of my first mail art contacts. I think Dave Zack probably put us in touch  when Blaster was working on his short lived "White Worm Review". He had somehow seen or been sent a collage of mine featuring a white worm and asked very politely if he could use it in a forthcoming issue.  I said yes ofcourse and our decade long correspondance was born.

Ehse Records says -

Doctor Al Ackerman and "Blaster" are the most commonly used pseudonyms of well-known Americanmail artist and still little-known writer who has been active since the early 1970s. A Vietnam veteran, Ackerman worked in hospitals in Texas in the 70's, where his extrordinarily pessimistic but also highly idiosyncratic worldview further crystallized. He moved from Texas to Baltimore where he became highly collaborative and a fixture of the burgeoning experimental cultural scene from 1992-2010, after being financially encourage by Rupert Wondolowski and John Berndt to make the move. In 2010 he moved back to Texas due to ill health, and currently lives in Austin with his daughter. 

Heavily influenced by post-war pulp writers like L. Ron Hubbard, Theodore Sturgeon, Raymond Chandlerand Fredric Brown (with whom Ackerman corresponded as a young person) as well as by modernists likeRay Johnson, Francis Ponge and the Oulipo, Ackerman's writing has dealt playfully, if obsessively, with themes of madness, derangement, and weird phenomena. He has been described as "the perfect synthisis of Flan O'Brian, Boris Vian, S.J. Perlman and H.P. Lovecraft though  that hardly does justice to his unique, instantly recognizable prose style. 

His visual work is also in the tradition of black humor, often including a trademark character, "thehebephrenic," a demented character with a wide upper lip and two protruding teeth. His output from the 70's to the 90's was primarily in the form of photocopied "Mail art" editions sent to other correspondents, and sometimes featured in gallery shows and underground publications. His most famous character, "The Ling Master" (based on the premise of what Lamonte Cranston (aka "The Shadow") would have been like if instead of being a super hero he had been an eccentric shut-in) has been the subject of considerable attention--including translations of stories into foreign languages, 

In the 90's, collections of his writing and drawings began to appear in professionally produced books. His voluminous output was anthologized in The Blaster Omnibus and given a one-man show at the Chela Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland. Other books include Let Me Eat Massive Pieces of Clay, I Taught My Dog to Shoot a Gun, and Corn and Smoke. Over the past twenty years, he has been mostly frequently published The Lost and Found Times, published by frequent collaborator John M. Bennett, and by theShattered Wig Review published by Rupert Wondolowski, although his massive body of work is difficult to track due to his regular use of a variety of pseudonyms (which he relates to his childhood love of the pulps), including Eel Leonard, Luther Blissett (nom de plume) (a reference to the footballer of the same name), and Swarthy Turk Sellers among many others, as well as regular anonymous and collaborative works. His latest book entitled "Misto Peas: Tiny Special Stories", was published in 2009 by Luna Bisonte Productions. The book contains reworkings or "hacks" of poet John M. Bennett's writing--one of many streams of longtime activity by Ackerman. 

Ackerman's deep influence on extreme cultural figures far outstrips his public visibility. His influence in the 80s was strongly influential in the formation of Neoism and on Neoism founder Istvan Kantor, Neoists tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE and John Berndt, performance artist Andre Stitt, photographer Richard Kern (who published Ackerman's writing in his magazine Dumb Fucker) and musicians Genesis P-Orridgewho used one of Ackerman's letters as the text of Throbbing Gristle's song "Hamburger Lady." Many of his stories have been made into videos by his longtime friend Steve "Sleeze" Steele, and one story, about a man who give his life over to the creation of a garment made of Vienna sausages, was given feature-length film treatment by Catherine Pancake under the name The Suit.

In 2005 a long playing record of his spoken performances, titled I am Drunk, was issued on Ehse.

Blaster Al Ackerman  -  If Not This Then What?

Angela & Peter Netmail

A cassette from February 1992 when Angela & Peter were on their world tour delivering mail art by hand in countries such as Russia, China, Indonesia and Australia. In melbourne they were invited to talk about their journey on Radio Melbourne with Warren Burt ( Netlink Co-ordinator ) and about their personal Net Mail Delivery Service. I met up with them some months later in a cafe in South London close to where I worked. Hazel and I were just about to have a special delivery of our own with the arrival of our son Archie in October so didn't really have time to talk to them about their journey as much as I'd hoped.

Read more about Angela and Peter HERE - http://www.netmailart.de/

Angela & Peter Netmail - Side One

GRIME

As far as I remember this tape from the 80's or the early 90's was the result of a mail art project by C. Reider where you had to send in bits of found audio tape - the strands you sometimes used to find by the side of the road. The resulting motely strands were cut into suitable lengths and spliced together to form a cacophonous mix which sounds rather like radio surfing.

More about C. Reider = http://vuzhmusic.com/artists/reider.html

GRIME - Side One (extract)

Damn Fools

Nunzio (James Cobb) sent me this tape back in the mid 80's. It's a band comprised of Nunzio -guitar, melodica, vocals and doubek drum. Godfrey Daniel - vocals, sax, flute and tone box. Arthur Sarkis - moog opus 3, casio MT-68 and bass.

Read about Nunzio/ James Cobb http://www.cueartfoundation.org/james-cobb.html">HERE

Just four tracks each side of this 60 minute tape -

1. We Want To Eat Your Feet

2. Under The Woof

3. Suburban Fantasy

4. Blood On Shirt

Damn Fools - Side Two

O. Jason (Jason Skeet)

Not sure who O.Jason was or if it was his real name. Just one of many mail art contacts through the 80's who came and went. Lived up in Staffordshire I think? An art student maybe? Anyway, here's a snippet of a long rambling tape of conversations and sound bites.

Did some trawling and found this -

"There is no established principle of methods for exhibiting mailart and the nature of display is frequently dictated by budget. English networker, O. Jason (Jason Skeet) has used the interesting strategy of retaining all the works unopened until the aptly named 'opening' of the show at which he invited the public to open the contributions.42 The involvement of the public turns the 'exhibition' into an 'event' and can be seen as being in the spirit of mailart. Although involving the public in opening the 'work' addresses some of the problems surrounding exhibiting MAPs, the very nature of the falseness of the situation of the public opening the mail, as opposed to Skeet sitting at home opening each contribution as it arrived prevents the participators experiencing the thrill of expectation each morning and the exciting thud on the door mat. It is important to note though that in this project, Skeet announced in his fliers that all contributions would be retained unopened until the preview.43 This would in itself have affected the nature of the contents, but does nothing to alter the fact that the viewer still misses-out on the reciprocal aspect of mailart, although in this instance they could have chosen to note down the addresses of the senders of the envelopes that they opened and to reply to them."


O. Jason - Side One

IM 98 Documentation

A tape compiled by Vittore Baroni for the 1998 Incongruous Meetings Mail Art project. Side Two features such people as Roger Radio, Birger Jesch and Charles Francois.

The official IM 98 website says -

"Yes, ANOTHER WORLD-WIDE DECENTRALIZED COMMUNICATION PROJECT has been
unlashed on an unsuspecting planet. You waited enough for it, now here it
is:

1998: A YEAR OF INCONGRUOUS MEETINGS
in-con-gru-ous adj. (L. incongruus) not congruous
a - lacking harmony or agreement; incompatible.
b - having inconsistent or inharmonious parts, elements, etc.
c - not corresponding to what is right, proper or reasonable; unsuitable;
inappropriate.

You have done the hard work already, congressing and lecturing in 1986,
re-congressing and networking in 1992, so relax: NOW YOU CAN HAVE FUN.

Participation in the IM98 is open and free to all: mailartists, netsurfers,
musicians, shopkeepers, shoplifters, aliens, subgenii, rabbits, rabbis,
you-name-it.
There is not a single sound reason to meet again but there are all the
incongruous reasons in the world, IF YOU CAN JUST THINK UP ONE: so keep
working-sleeping-consuming or FIND A THEME, ORGANIZE AN IM IN 1998 and take
part in as many IM proposed by others as you wish/can."



IM 98 DOC. - Side Two

Bill Whorral

One of many tapes from Bill Whorral who sent similar compilations and "radio surfs" where he would twiddle the dial while the tape was recording to catch many snippets from all kinds of weird American stations from his area ( rural Indiana ) which featured ranting bible thumpers, crazy adverts and country music.

"Bill Whorrall teaches art at Precious Blood School and Holy Family School in Jasper, Indiana. He lives in rural Martin County, Indiana and has done two books on Southern Indiana, one on Amish life in neighboring Daviess County and three on Martin County. The Martin County history book and the Amish book have been called the best books ever done on these subjects. His new book entitled: The Amish Community in Davies County, Indiana has been praised by the Amish as the most comprehensive and accurate book on their culture ever printed. Anyone interested in Amish life should see this book. His current project is a book that will document the natural beauty of Martin County."



Bill Whorral - Side Two

Dave Zack/ Snowwhite Jung

No date on this cassette from Snowwhite Jung but imagine it was late 80's sometime when she went to Mexico to stay with Dave Zack. Banter between Zack and Snowwhite. Tape is typical of Zack's ramblings and guitar plucking. I have tapes of ramblings and cello scrapings which are similar. The audio quality hasn't improved over the years so sorry for your ears. Keep that sturdy sack handy!
Zack was one of the first mail artists I contacted when I joined the network in 1980. He was very prolific with his letters which were also long and rambling and sometimes took up several sides of A4 and included photo copies of letters to other people on his network and spidery pen and ink drawings. The tapes arrived at intervals and always on very cheap cassettes like the one depicted. Sonni indeed!

"David was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1938 and received his Canadian landed immigrant status in 1970. He died in Texas, in 1995.

He studied at the University of Chicago and Cambridge University and taught at the University of Puerto Rico, San Francisco State College, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the University of Saskatchewan in Regina.

David is known for initiating the Nut Art movement in the late 60s in San Francisco together with Roy DeForest, Maija Peeples, Clayton Bailey, David Gilhooly and others. He became involved with mail-art in the early 70s and became one of its leading figures. He devoted the rest of his life to 'correspondense-art', and invented the Monty Cantsin Open-Pop-Star project together with Maris Kundzins and Istvan Kantor. David also got involved with Neoism in the early 1980s.

David took part in countless mail-art exhibitions around the world. He was also a professional art writer/critic with articles appearing in many publications in the 1960s and 1970s.

A retrospective of his work entitled: DAVID ZACK: Wizard?! Perturber?! Possessed! Letters and other works of a correspondence artist will open at The New Gallery in Calgary, on October 10, 2008, collected, designed and produced by Istvan Kantor. "




Dave Zack/Snowpes - Add This To Your Lentils