Kit'n' Caboodle

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Kit'n' Caboodle

tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

"Kit 'n' Caboodle (My Homemade Electronics) - pt 1: Function Generator":   I made a function generator from a cheap kit in 1976 & learned to solder & a little about reading schematics & the color coding on such things as resistors in the process.   I just wanted to have a device that could generate electronic sounds & couldn't afford anything more upscale.   The Function Generator produced 6 different wave forms in a range that spanned from below human hearing to above it.   My purposes in making the majority of the gadgets I eventually made was NOT to get into sophisticated technology, it was to experiment with reconfiguring cheap technology to enable me to perform live electro-acoustic music, what I call "Concrete Mixing" (a pun off of "Musique Concrete"), in the guerrilla & audience-participatory situations that I've often found most interesting.   "Kit 'n' Caboodle (My Homemade Electronics) - pt 2: booed usic busking unit":   In 1988 my friend Dave Guercio helped me cobble together a suitcase full of battery-operated devices that I conceived of & designed so that I could present live electro-acoustic (m)usic, or, as I prefer, "Concrete Mixing" (a pun off of "Musique Concrete"), in guerrilla situations.   In "Kit 'n' Caboodle" I present a string of examples of my homemade electronics in use - thanks to the prodding of my composer/violinist friend Ben Harris who asked me to lecture on the subject in a relevant class at Pitt.   The booed usic busking unit enabled me to present both prerecorded & live video & audio in fresh mixes out on the streets of London, Dundee, Edinburgh, & Phoenix; in parks in Glasgow & San Francisco; underneath the Botanical Gardens in an abandoned subway station in Glasgow; & in galleries, clubs, & warehouses in Glasgow, Edinburgh, New York, Chicago, Phoenix, Washington DC, & Baltimore (at least).   "Kit 'n' Caboodle (My Homemade Electronics) - pt 3: The Terrence Dougherty": Terrence Dougherty was an acquaintance that I met at the used books store that I cofounded in BalTimOre in 1990 called "Normal's".   Terrence had built a few simple electronic music devices such as 'wind' & 'wave' generators & the more complex PAIA kit Gnome micro-synthesizer.   Having moved on from electronic music he was generous enough to donate these to my own store of such-like things.   These were joined together with 4 tape-players/radios, multiple 4-channel mixers & sine/square-wave generators, effects pedals & other odds & ends to constitute the rack of gear that I collectively named after Terrence as a way of thanking him for his gifts.   I toured with The Terrence Dougherty from August to September 1992 with The "Official" Project (our name changed every time we played but followed a pattern that usually included "Official" in it), a group I cofounded with instrument inventor / musician / artist Neil Feather.   In December of the same year, my girlfriend of the time shot footage of me playing my "Official" Last Man on Earth session made as a solo mourning the deterioration of The "Official" Project.   This featured my main footage of my playing the TD.   This footage has since been adapted as the source of samples & of new edits under the name "The Last Man on Earth" that are used in performance.   This piece has been performed in Pittsburgh & Boulder.   There's a French version (translation thanks to my friend Dick Turner) that's, unfortunately, never been performed.   "Kit 'n' Caboodle (My Homemade Electronics) - pt 4: Speaker Switcher Suitcase": As with all my homemade electronics dabbling, my intention hasn't been to develop sophisticated computer-controlled high-fidelity interactive systems.   I've never had much money & still live somewhat 'hand-to-mouth' even at age 60 (even though life has gotten much easier in some respects).   As far as my explanations for what I do go, there are times when I'm probably entirely too self-deprecating to be taken seriously & other times when I point-blank self-proclaim audaciously.   The point is that if I hired someone to make some device for myself & then gave it a very respectable name & humbly made it clear to everyone that what I'm doing is important than I might just get appreciated more by people who have entirely too little ability to read critically.   SO, fuck that.   Instead, I solder together thousands of tiny wires & potentiometers & switches & amplifiers & RCA jacks in a suitcase in an attempt to make a primitive portable speaker switching unit that I can route a multitude of inputs to so that I can have an insect buzz appear in one speaker.. & then in another place..   & then in another place..   while a looped trombone sequence that I've created out of my own trombone playing sampled fades up in 2 other speakers, etc, etc..   Thanks to Lizard Media Systems for taking me to an electronics Flea Market (probably more properly known as a Ham Radio Flea Market or some such) to help me pick out the parts.   I was 'over my head' - but I didn't let that stop me, I built it anyway.   By the time I was done, I never wanted to solder again..   & it worked about halfway..   No matter.   The whole thing's built from very cheap supplies, if I hadn't done it myself no-one else would've done it for me, & I've used it a few times in performances & a lecture in Pittsburgh.   The speakers used are mostly trash-picked but, as I say in this movie, their lo-fi becomes a "special effect".   I can move a sound from one crummy speaker to another savoring the subtle differences in their respective poor frequency ranges.   Instant EQ!   "Kit 'n' Caboodle (My Homemade Electronics) - pt 5: Total Mobile Home Microcinema Suitcase": Having pretty much burnt myself out on elaborate solderings with the Speaker Switcher Suitcase (see "Kit 'n' Caboodle (My Homemade Electronics) - pt 4: Speaker Switcher Suitcase") & having finally acquired some snazzier digital commercial equipment thanks to the generosity of friends & the cheapness of stuff now considered 'obsolete', I was now ready to make another suitcase device of a lesser magnitude than the "portable booed usic busking unit" & the "Speaker Switcher".   David Sherman & Rebecca Barten founded what's sometimes called the 1st "microcinema": "The Total Mobile Home Microcinema" in San Francisco in late 1994 or early 1995 & Rebecca asked me to create some music for it.   I took excerpts from the pieces that I was doing as a part of my "Triple-S Variety Shows" made from a sampler, a sequencer, & 2 wave-table synthesizers & recorded them to a 12 minute loop.   This loop was then put in a portable tape player hidden in a suitcase & rigged in such a way that it would only play when the suitcase is horizontal, as if for unpacking, & with the lid open.   I don't recall whether the original idea was to send this suitcase to The Total Mobile Home folks but I know that I never did.   I probably sent them a copy of the loop tape.   I don't know whether they used any of the music or not because we lost touch with each other soon thereafter.   This is yet-another great portable battery-operated tool for performance & lectures.   My intentions, typically, aren't rooted in what's often entirely too narrow-minded: a notion of 'beautiful' or 'good' music.   Instead, my rough 'n' ready booed usic Concrete Mixing is thrust into the world through channels both intended for such purposes & through others that're not (see part 2 especially).   I'm NOT trying to produce work safely sheltered in a nurturing Ivory Tower environment, I've taken it to the streets, I've taken it to YouTube.   NONETHELESS, my revisiting all this stuff is thanks to my friend & collaborator the composer/violinist Ben Harris who asked me to lecture in his Electro-Acoustic Music Class at the University of Pittsburgh in March of 2011.   Thanks Ben!   - July 8, 2014 notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE