[rumori] People Like Us bouncing wildly into spring


From: Vicki Bennett (peoplelikeusATmistral.co.uk)
Date: Mon Mar 11 2002 - 14:47:44 PST


Hi People

Here's the latest...

NEW RELEASES

New album and 12" in April

There will be a new album and 12" out by PLU next month. This
coincides with a PLU mini tour of America (see below).

The 12" will be called "Stifled Love" and feature PLU's love songs,
cut off before they get to express themselves.

The album is called "Recyclopaedia Britannica" - and features
selected works from 1992-2002. Yes, we are now 10 years old, and no
signs of splitting up yet. Just maybe stifling a bit around the
edges. So expect loads of press interest (ha ha ha)

The releases are on Mess Media, PLU's new label, a Soleilmoon
Recordings sublabel.

Both will be distributed through
<http://www.soleilmoon.com>Soleilmoon Recordings (US) and
<http://www.baked-goods.com>Baked Goods (UK).

Recyclopaedia Britannica :
SONGS OF LOVE AND HATE
The work of People Like Us rests gingerly between two dangerous
positions: on the one hand, the risk of fashioning merely stylish
pastiche out of borrowed finery for the sake of self-conscious
kitschiness; on the other hand, the risk of making simplistic, heavy
handedly "topical" audio-jokes at the expense of one's raw material
to a smug effect. If the lounge creeps uncritically snack on their
sonic ingredients and coast on being "groovy", the cads of
pseudo-critique take cheap shots at straw men and call it subversion.
Happily, Vicki Bennett has yet to fall down either precipice, but
yodels down contentedly from her own Alpine audio-cottage. There,
with loving care, she snips and tucks at the lycra jumpsuit until the
fit is snug, places every plastic shrub on the Happy Valley Ranch
just so, and throws another dance record on the bonfire. Undercutting
her own utopian mirages with formal breakdowns and sneaky semantic
pranks, Vicki Bennett is One Funny Lady, with a deadly sense of comic
timing that puts her in my personal pantheon of edit intensive music
makers: Steinski and Mass Media, Hank Shocklee, Tod Dockstader, Teo
Macero, the Hanatarash, John Oswald, Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock.
Serving her birthday cake with a turd, her gags are always lined with
a virulent creep factor. One minute you're laughing until tears roll
down your face at toilet humor, cheese chat and absurdly drawn out
attempts at "making conversation", and then you notice the flashes of
aging, obsolescence, isolation and breakdown darting in amongst the
ruthlessly snipped "ums", "ahs", and "hmms". You get the feeling that
the vacancy and pointlessness of empty speech is being lampooned and
mourned in equal measure. In sticking to this balance of celebration
and critique, People Like Us genuinely hates and loves People Like
You. The least you can do is head up to the Happy Valley Ranch for a
spell and have a listen.
Drew Daniel

LIVE DATES

<http://www.lovebytes.org.uk>Lovebytes International Festival of
Digital Art, Sheffield, UK - (this week)
14-16 March

Premiering People Like Us's digital short film, "We Edit Life". There
will be a presentation of this and the other 2 films commissioned by
Lovebytes, in form of a talk/Q+A session at 2.30 on Friday afternoon,
then a live performance at 8pm Saturday.

2.30pm Friday
Artists working on the edges of digital media show and talk about
their moving image commissions for Lovebytes 2002. The Butler
Brothers present Genitron, an interactive installation which explores
the capabilities of DVD. Steve Hawley presents Amen ICA Cinema, A
Palindromic video, exploring the magical power and absurdity of
things that go forwards and backwards.

People Like Us presents We Edit Life, an exploration into the world
of cut and paste collage, recontextualising found footage with a
surrealistic edge. Never standing still, People Like Us take you on
a journey through layers to the centre of your imagination. Film
content sourced from the <http://www.moviearchive.org>Prelinger
Archives.

Come to this festival, the best we've been to in Britain, see how the
PLU commission has resulted in the commissioning by the National
Health Service of thick rimmed glasses.

Oblique Lu Nights at <http://lelieuunique.com>Le Lieu Unique, Nantes, France
22-23 March

This festival has quite a line up, watch the sparks fly...

22nd March
Main Room
20h31 Encre
21h36 Michael Gira
22h39 John Oswald
0h00 Irmin Schmidt & Kumo
1h04 Blectum From Blechdom
2h11 Jak Berrocal
3h16 Fuckhead
and at Salon De Musique
20h01 Room 204
22h09 Portal
23h21 Jefferson Lembeye
 
23 March
Main Room
20h01 Etant Donnes
21h06 Elektroplasma
22h11 Greg Weeks
23h29 Thee Majesty
0h34 People Like Us
1h41 Jim Thirwell and Jim Coleman in Baby Zizanie
2h44 Rechenzentrum
3h46 Kotai + Mo
and at Salon De Musique
22h00 Simon Fisher Turner

Bologna - 6 April
PLU will play in Bologna on this night, at the
<http://www.thresholdhouse.com>Coil aftershow party.
10pm-midnight at Teatro Delle Celebrazioni
Coil live
Midnight-4am at Link Club
Wang Inc, People Like Us and Funkstorung

All details here - view it in Netscape, it doesn't work in Explorer.
http://www.linkassociated.org/gallery/gallery.htm

----------------

PEOPLE LIKE US in America
 
In April PLU will be in America. Here are the details so far. We
don't have all the times and prices yet, so check the PLU
<http://peoplelikeus.org/whatsnew.htm>whatsnew page nearer the date
or contact the venue direct and maybe someone will know but they
probably won't.

11 April
Purchase College, NY (with <http://www.evolutioncontrol.com>The
Evolution Control Committee and
<http://www.detritus.net/wobbly>Wobbly)
13 April
Tonic, NYC (with The ECC and Wobbly) $12
17 April
B-Complex, Portland Oregon (with <http://www.detritus.net/steev>Steev Hise) 9pm
18 April
Madame Butterfly's, Portland Oregon (please note - DJ set only!)
21 April
Maybe playing in LA, but then again maybe not. Get along mule.
25 April
Studio Z, 314 11th Street, San Francisco 8pm doors/9pm show (with
Wobbly and <http://www.lsr1.com>Lesser)
 
- also appearances on WFMU with The ECC, Wobbly and Irene Moon, and
also KZSU. Maybe more, but well, this was supposed to be a bit of a
holiday :)

----------------

OK, then back home again, and bringing some Americans back too -

As part of the Ether Festival at The South Bank, London
Press release <http://www.peoplelikeus.org/ether.html>here

4 May
at The Purcell Room, The South Bank Centre, 8pm £14
An evening of larger than life one person bands in the form of:
 
People Like Us
<http://www.felixkubin.de>Felix Kubin
<http://www.simplesampling.com>Matt Wand
The Evolution Control Committee
Wobbly

OK, that's it. Time to sit down (or stand up) ((or leave)).

GENERAL NEWS

MP3 album online
Wobbly has put up a compilation of live bits and bobs from around
1999 by the trio PLU, The Jet Black Hair People and Wobbly. Entitled
What's The Use, download it while it's still there. It isn't any use
relying on others for entertainment, the best thing is to make your
own fun. http://detritus.net/wobbly/mp3s/whatstheuse/

Mailorder
We are selling merchandise online here. Well actually the
merchandise is real, but you buy it online.
http://www.peoplelikeus.org/buy.html

Discography
A number of people have asked recently for a full PLU discography. So
<http://www.peoplelikeus.org/whatsnew.htm>here it is. As you will
see, most of this stuff is deleted. However Lowest Common
Dominator/Beware The Whim Reaper (from 94/95) will be re-released as
a double later this year through Soleilmoon. People have also asked
if we've any spare copies of the deleted items. Alas, no. However,
PLU stuff pops up on <http://www.gemm.com>Gemm.

For your toilet wall
There is a nice colourful page of PLU art in the latest edition of
<http://www.thewire.co.uk>The Wire magazine, thanks to our friends
<http://www.dfuse.com>D-Fuse.

Lastly a word from our friends WFMU
Dear label friends of WFMU,
This is music/program director Brian Turner at WFMU in the NYC/NJ
area. We're hoping to kick off a free-range guest-spin / experimental
sound / laptop / sampladelic / collage / turntablist / plundersonic
spotlight hour (we're keeping it loose, basically its a show to
highlight anyone who manipulates sound) this summer on our schedule (most
likely at the beginning of June) and we are inviting you aboard. Each
week, we'd like to feature a different host doing their thing on our
airwaves, and we're
interested in submissions on DAT or CD-R to air during these slots (which
will, again, be 60 minutes in length). We're hoping for this to be a great
addition to our freeform spectrum of programming, and a good chance for
our many listeners in the NYC area and the thousands who listen to us on
the web to learn a little about the artists' activity in turn each week.
They can be pre-recorded and sent in, or if the artist in question is in
the NYC area we can cut the session live here at the station. I'd love to
talk to anyone out there that might be interested in participating in this
so we could give more specifics! We'd need submissions by May if at all
possible. Hope to hear from you...

Brian Turner (btATwfmu.org)
WFMU Music Program Director
PO Box 5101
Hoboken, NJ 07030 USA
www.wfmu.org
(201) 521-1416 x223

-------------------

OK, that's all. If you've had enough then reply with "go away".

Bye for now

Vicki
P L U
http://www.peoplelikeus.org
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