In talking about festivals past at Decibel, the Transmissions Festival in Chicago came up.  Transmissions ran from 1996-2001 or so in Chicago.  I had the pleasure of playing my visual music there in 2001-- Cid and Eric also came out, so I got to introduce my friends to the pleasures of one of my favorite cities, including the Earwax Espresso Shake and Wicker Park Gunfights.  I had short hair and big glasses then, and played some stuff I cringe a little at now, but you have to start somewhere.  I remember my G3 laptop crashing on that gig, and not having much to do onstage while I rebooted.  After that I decided to learn some funny jokes just in case, which I have since forgotten.

I found some pictures of the festival by Nick Krebill which I thought were lost to time.  They are here: here they are. Richard Chartier played--I remember the performance well.  It was the first time I saw him, and not the last time at a wildly inappropriate venue.  I think the magic of his hyperlowercasesoundart is the extent to which it is forced, almost by definition, to come off badly.  You experience the performance in terms of various shades and modalities of failure.  It’s inherently confrontational.  Like Andy Kaufman.  And if you don’t think he gets the joke, consider: when I first introduced myself to Richard in Montreal, he was gleefully buying an Adult. record.

One question we sometimes ponder is: what happened to Vote Robot?  The great visuals of crashing cars behind KFO’s set at Decibel reminded us a bit of their masterful “Motorcycles and Stairs” video from Transmissions.  Which I really wish I had copy of, but probably don’t deserve.  If you know the whereabouts of these two young men from Kelowna, please send tips, anonymous or otherwise, to our tip line. 

posted by randy
8:11PM, 19 Sep 2006