With a flyer boasting quotes from both J.G. Ballard and Colonel Kilgore of Apocalypse Now, by the time my chum Luis and I arrived at NYU a few weeks back for a special lecture we knew we’d be in for an interesting discussion.

Steve Goodman, aka Kode9, dubstep producer and owner/chief curator of the massively great Hyperdub record label, was talking about his new book Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear. (MIT Press)

Introduced as a “rogue academic” and member of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit, it wasn’t immediately clear if the talk was going to be highly abstract or grounded, but it turned out the latter–lucid, well researched and informative. Here are some notes.

Goodman started by saying he was at first interested in “taking literally the way certain currents of electronic music culture were describing themselves using military metaphor,” for example, Underground Resistance. But he found most was an outpouring of male fantasy and conspiracy theory. Then, he turned to non-lethal weaponry, which is now essential in an overexposed world with real-time televised events.

“[It's an] arms race in which the opponent is the general population,” Goodman said, noting microwave pulses that can modulate behavior without supposedly lasting effects or visible traces. In his definition of a sonic weapon, it’s something that can cause modulation of feelings and behavior, be it violence, pain, seduction, trickery (advertising!), deception, unease or fear.

Most politics of music, he said, deal with content and language, text that can be deconstructed and lyrics that can be reinterpreted. More fundamental is how sound and music affects and modulate the body and mind, but not always consciously or representationally, part of the “vibrational relationships between things, sometimes humans,” as part of a continuum of vibrational forces that have been colonized by different groups.

Military research into acoustic weapons tends to focus on to repelling people, dispersing crowds and essentially making a group into individuals. Seduction indicates branding, to induce consumption behaviors and to get people to buy things. In music culture and sound art insidious frequencies to attract crowds, bring people together.

So we have forces of repulsion and forces of attraction.

Goodman then moved on to the origins of sound produced in the military, as a fanfare to call to arms, and drumming to discipline the troops in time: a soundtrack to war.

He went into the Urban Funk Campaign and Operation Wandering Ghost¹, two Vietnam era projects to experiment with sound in battle, and talked about the ghost army the allies set up in World War II.

Goodman then went into his three definitions of “unsound”–that is, having suspect methods, “politically unsound”, below the threshold of hearing, or most interestingly, things you can’t hear because they haven’t been created. “The potential between the vibrational field, what futurism in music culture has always been intereted in, the shock of the new.

This leads to an interesting premise: “what a body can hear is not something that is fixed in time.”

Hearing aids let us hone in on certain frequencies, hi-tech prosthetics. “We don’t yet know what the sonic body is capable of.”

Much of the talk around sonic warfare (that isn’t waging it) consists of debunking military press releases, according to Goodman, and names Dr. Jurgen Altman as a leader.

Most effort in that field is involved in directional ultrasound, things like sonic lasers. Rather than use sub-frequencies (like Goodman and many musicians) the military tech focuses on directional devices that create hole-y space, and pockets of audition.

He talked about how military technology trickles down, as of the case of the vocoder, initially a speech encoder so Roosevelt could talk to Churchill. Then came two great quotes, that I may have mis-attributed, or under attributed in my notes; I have “Kintler”. Anyway, the quotes are (on seperate lines because they’re great):

All entertainment media is an abuse of military media.

The discoteque was a boot camp for World War 3.

The latter meaning it was subtly improving our nervous systems to function in a situation of sensory overload.

He touched a bit on the Mosquito, post-9/11 urban culture and its pelethora of sirens, the LRAD, playing Balinese gamelan on the greatest soundsystem known to man and studying the brain’s response, sonic booms and sonic warfare as war crimes, the monopolization of the means to experiment with frequencies, schizophrenia as “split voice”, Project Jericho and more.

Goodman’s keeping a blog on various topics related to the book here. You can preview it on Google Books.

UPDATE: Luis adds this. Very appropriate.

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1. From WFMU: “The Urban Funk Campaign is something much more evil. It was employed by the CIA Audio Harassment Division in Vietnam and Laos. The idea: bombard the local citizenry with sound instead of bombs. The desired effect: rouse the populace from their hideouts and destabilize their resolve.

   In 1972, 13 choppers were equipped with Sound Curdler Systems (costing $50,000 each). The Curdler is a small oscillator unit that is capable of hundreds of hours of uninterrupted operation from a simple 9v. battery. It emits a shrill pulsating shriek at 120 decibels at 10 meters. (Standing on a runway during takeoff of a 747 measures 112db, in other words, potential aural harm.)

   The system is also called a “People Repeller” when used with a hand portable US HPS1 Public Address System with a 350 watt amp and anti-feedback microphone. This system delivered intelligible speech over 2.5 miles. The system also came with an optional siren system with built-in wail/yelp audio frequency oscillator with adjustments to frequencies from 500-5000hz.

   Code-named “Wandering Soul” because the audio engineers spent weeks recording eerie sounds based on their exposure to local music, foklore, ghost stories. The eerie sounds are similar to the soundeffects employed during a radio mystery play, but transposed to live theatre of Vietnam. These sounds were intended to represent souls of the enemy dead who had failed to find the peace of a proper burial. The wailing soul cannot be put to rest until this proper burial takes place.

   The purpose of these intrusive sounds was to enhance panic instincts and facilitate crowd dispersal and the disruption of troop strategies, village chanting, rites, routines, and celebrations. The target audience (victims) are forced to drop everything to cover their ears. At night the system was at its most effective as it harassed the sleeping and preyed on the sensibilities and superstitions of the target population. It was further intended to destabilize beliefs, disorient the human targets, and enhance intra-community irritability.

   The 10,000-watt airborne systems were mounted on the choppers so as to best project sound downward in a pyramid apexing at 3,500 meters altitude. This was the technological heart of psychological warfare.

   In 1973 the Urban Funk Campaign tested super/sub-sonic and ultra/infra sound with a weapon system called a Squark Box which creates 2 simultaneously inaudible ultrasound tones at pitches of 16 and 16.002khz. These 2 ultrasonic waves of highly directional beams are aimed to coincide at the target point. This interference pattern creates a sub-beat of 2hz outside normal auditory perception and when played at immense volumes causes ars, shoulders, chest wall and buttocks to resonate. It converts the target body into a human tuning fork. Symptoms include headache, visual distortion, epidermal tinglings. the skin actually gets heated by localized ultrasound and gently cooked.” Other effects are the formation of cavities or bubbles in the body, choking, excessive salivation, testicular pain, nausea and giddiness – a technological extension of witchcraft. And when combined with rapid flickering hi-intensity lights it caused systematic disorientation, sensory destabilization. Prototype for the modern dance floor where for an admission price, revelers willingly submit the ennui of their everyday bodies to the photo/auditory-epileptic effects of intense stroboscopic light. Synchronized at between 10-30cps – photoepilepsy will occur during intense prolonged conflict exposure.”

97.9 FM in Detroit has long been home to WJLB, one of the finer R&B/’urban contemporary’ radio stations in the country. While kicking around on the excellent Detroit Radio Flashbacks I found the website featured weekly charts, “hip pocket surveys,” for much of 1984-85. These were the final years legendary DJ The Electrifying Mojo was at the station, so I thought it might be fun to take a look at what was getting played just about 25 years ago. I mostly missed the Mojo era, but JLB was a hugely influential radio station for me; it played loads of local records and was one of my first exposures to live turntablism, with a party/booty show every Friday night. So, I hope you enjoy these tunes. There are some hometown favorites here, stuff that stayed pretty local, and things from the last throes of Motown. Not surprisingly, Rochester Hills’ own Madonna is the only white performer on the list. Also not surprisingly, Prince, a Mojo favorite, appears a few times, both in his own work and through Apollonia 6 and Vanity. Pardon the dodgy embeds, Most of the record companies don’t like it enabled on their YouTube offerings…

24. You Get The Best From Me – Alicia Myers

23. We Don’t Work For Free – Grandmaster Melle Mel & The Furious Five

No video…but here’s a taste of the song.

22. The Jacksons – Torture

21. Tonight – Ready For The World

20. The Last Time I Made Love – Joyce Kennedy & Jeffrey Osborne

19. Solid – Ashford & Simpson

18. Sex Shooter – Apollonia 6

17. Set It Out – Midway

	Midway – Set It Out
	Found at Set It Out on KOhit.net

16. Pretty Mess – Vanity

15. Lucky Star – Madonna

14. Look The Other Way – Isley Jasper & Isley

Isley Jasper Isley – Look The Other Way (Official Music Video) – Funny videos are here

13. Let It All Blow – Dazz Band

12. Jungle Love – The Time

11. I’ve Been Watching You (Jamie’s Girl) – Randy Hall

10. I Promise (I Do Love You) – Dreamboy

I Promise (I Do Love You) – Dreamboy

9. I Owe It To Myself – Prime Time

8. I Feel For You – Chaka Khan

7. Friends b/w Five Minutes of Funk – Whodini

6. Fast Life – Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde

5. Erotic City b/w Let’s Go Crazy – Prince

Prince doesn’t like his songs living free on the web. I’m sure you know these by heart anyway, right?

4. Cool It Now – New Edition

3. Computer Age (Push the Button) – Newcleus

2. Centipede – Rebbie Jackson

1. AJ Scratch – Kurtis Blow

What do you think, there are six more charts to close out ‘84, should we count ‘em down? Let me know in the comments.

MC Hammer, of all people who’ve mastered the dark arts of social media, wrote an Op-Ed piece for Ad Week extolling the virtues of Twitter for connecting to fans without intermediary media. (Though some have suggested it was the work of a ghost writer.)

While new social media platforms seem to pop up every day, I’m strongly behind Twitter, a micro-blogging tool that has become a game changer for me. The platform offers celebrity brands the means to build and develop relationships in an intimate and personal way. The friendly and efficient interface links to video and audio and integrates with various other social media outlets with ease. That means my brand can live on a wide variety of platforms where fans might find me.

(Emphasis mine.)

Unfortunately, ten days later, his cousin, a co-star of his reality show, is accused of raping a woman who he met via Twitter in a Livermore, CA hotel room. I will refrain from a lay-up, empty-netter of a joke out of respect for the gravity of the situation.

photos by Billy Whitfield

It’s always interesting when punks get old. That’s why my emphatic finger-point this week is towards a story in Vice by former Born Against frontman Sam McPheeters. McPheeters ventures into one of the Midwest’s  strangest regions, the wealthy suburbs of Michigan’s capital, Lansing, to profile Doc Dart, former frontman for hardcore group Crucifucks. Dart, who calls himself “26,” appears to be suffering from several forms of mental illness, and has become a suburban pariah in the Mason-Okemos area.

While that area in mid-Michigan birthed a few great bands, notably the above, the Meatmen, Negative Approach and the Fix (whose drummer, Jeff Wellman, is now a real estate salesman in my parents’ town, according to Wikipedia) it remains close to the ignorant edge of small-town Michigan and has all but purged that rebellious tic that seemed to emerge from MSU in the late ’70s and early ’80s. It was nice to see the piece open in the Tuba Museum, a strange little restaurant in the area I had forgotten about.

Though we never find out why Dart is now calling himself 26, McPheeters writes a decent profile. He’s not a bad critic, either. Decipher some of his lyrics and you can see that. But he’s done a pretty good job of refining his style (and is hopefully able to make something near a living doing it). A few years ago, when he was having a closing-down-shop sale I picked up a bunch of old zine issues, but it appears they’re still available here. Dear Jesus, Error, Shooting Space and now Clog; it makes you remember, back before we just pumped words into processors and they emerged, a sort of literary mechanically separated meat, creative and interesting people were putting together homemade things a lot more painstakingly than this stuff. Stylistically, I’d argue that was much more beneficial for developing your technique; in Sam’s case, he isn’t a bad visual artist either.

McPheeters posts regularly on his blog, Loom of Ruin (though recently has been recycling older stuff in hiatus mode) and you’d be well served to let his views into your Internet-cruising route. And, it appears, he’s in New York next week for a few readings. Go check him out.

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In other news I’ve added a Reading List page, to keep track of this year in books. As always, your recommendations are greeted like relatives from the old country, at first crowded up in the guest room but soon shirtless on the couch with legs splayed and a beer in hand.

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Back to the music, a couple of buddys’ band, Gold and Gunmetal,has their first record out. It’s exciting. Prog indie rock. You should listen to it. True students of the freeconomy, G&G’s record label, Triple Down, has the album up for you to download until January 26th–why not sample it?

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Lastly, this just in from the Solidarity Dept.: A few friends saw their jobs up and disappear this week. We’re here for you, and have eyes open. Everybody out there, if you know someone in the media who got “right-sized” (ugh!) or otherwise shitcanned give ‘em a hug and take ‘em to a movie or something.

Move D Looks Up, originally uploaded by nparish.

Here’s Move D, from his appearance earlier in the summer at Brooklyn’s best techno party on the Gowanus at The Yard. Read more about it in my Earplug review. But don’t take my word for it’s dopeness–listen to the set at the Sunday Best downloads page.

There’s only one place I’d rather be in a few hours, and that’s good old Köln for the Total 9 party. The compilation itself comes out next week, and buying it is the smart thing to do. It’s very, very good.

My good pal Jimmy told me a fun Total story from a few years ago, when his friend ran up to Wolfgang Voigt, maybe a bit intoxicated, and surely in awe of the whole affair, and told him “Wolfgang, you’re my hero.”

Wolfgang gave him a smile and calmly said “When we make a party, we are all heroes.”

Ain’t that the truth.

Partizan Lab’s Erik Lerner has directed this cute little animated video for one of my favorite artists, Rex the Dog. The song is “I Can See You, You Can See Me.” Rex’s debut album, which may be called “I Can See You, You Can See Me” (at least that’s the title on the drawing of a CD on his MySpace page) The Rex the Dog Show, is out soon.

Of course you remember Rex from his big big song “We Live In Daddy’s Car” from a few years ago, as well as his aural affinity for the KORG 700S synthesizer.

Follow along at his site. There’s even a nice little preview mix and stickers, too, for the faithful. Just sign up for Rexy’s fan club.

Oh, you know, just another day at the office writing about Radiohead, lasers, and the folks that love them. Last week I talked with James Frost, the director of Radiohead’s new “House of Cards” video. I’m seeing the group play for the first time at All Points West next month; I’ll report back if the stuff from the video is used at all in the live show. It’d be a bit of a shame if it wasn’t; this look is too closely connected to this song to be utilized in a fresh way anywhere else. So Radiohead might as well keep trotting it out with “House of Cards” when they play it live. Come to think of it, as amazing as applying this technology to film the crowd and band during a live performance would be, it’d probably be impossible to render the data in time to produce anything but the crudest preview. But I’m sure you stopped at the link to read Frost say that in our talk and have already ruled out that possibility.

Good thing, too, as who knows whether that LIDAR stuff might cause some impromptu LASIK for audience members, like these dodgy Russian rave lasers.

Oh Wighnomys.

My favorite technarchists from Jena are back with a great mix.

But Metawuffmischfelge? What does that mean? Well, it doesn’t hurt to ask (along with a technical Q):

from Wighnomy Brothers
reply-to Wighnomy Brothers
to nick
date Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 1:59 AM
subject AW: a quick question for Gabor…

good morning nick …

i recorded the vinyls but i mixed the hole stuff in the computer!
metawuffmischfelge? it´s a fantasy word!

greetings!
robag

…in other news…a cool change at earplug; DJ charts now include bits about the records written by the DJs charting them. And no one knows why dance records work better than those playing them to make people dance. The linked installment is from Justin Simon aka Invisible Conga People (on Italians Do It Better). Don’t confuse him with Mike Simonetti, IDIB’s founder (and I’d say one of the people instrumental in getting those punk kids dancing when he was doing Troubleman). One of my favorite reads, Cosmic Disco, did an interview with Mike and is hosting a guest mix I’ve been enjoying. Check ‘er out.

At Soul Skate, originally uploaded by nparish.

I can easily award my ‘favorite weekend’ crown to Memorial Day; since the inception of Detroit’s electronic music festival, whatever you might call it (DEMF, Movement, Fuse-In) I’ve been in town catching up with lovely friends and family, hearing amazing artists and stomping around one of the world’s most intriguing cities. I take a little pride in only missing one festival, in 2001, and have seen it go through all sorts of changes. Compared to previous years, 2008 was professional in concept and execution, with Paxahau, the party promotion company which took reins over last year, honing an already strong element of expertise to managing the three-day event. Each year is a little different, but this was on balance one of the best yet, with a huge array of options.

I’ve written a review for Earplug, where I go into most of the music. I’d like to mention a few things that weren’t germane there. A caveat to the main review–I didn’t see everyone. I didn’t even try. There were over 100 artists involved. And I didn’t soldier through afterparties as much as usual. I guess that’s a good place to start. I missed a few people, Matthias Kaden, Alex Under, Cassy…despite what felt like a really sharp swing toward poppy/progressive stuff (benny benassi, moby, girl talk [all of which from a few glances had crowds going nuts]) there was still enough great techno to go around at the festival.

There was a big dearth of vinyl this year, and it was a little sad. Carlos Souffront & Zip were some of the few I saw at the festival playing only records. That may have contributed to what seems like no consensus ’song of weekend.’ I figured I’d hear mumbling yeah a few times but didn’t at all. I think ghostly was the only vendor that was actually selling records. Bummer. Afterparty-wise, soul skate on saturday was a genuinely positive experience and a good respite from a day of pounding. folks say the real intensity on Saturday was at too far gone…no way back…, thrown by Interdimensional Transmissions. We had to be up at 4am for our flight over so there was no chance of going super late Saturday.

I didn’t really go nuts on photos; I’m still getting used to this new Ricoh GRII I picked up a few months ago. But Dan Sicko didn’t just write the book on Detroit techno–this year he took the photos too. Check out his great sets on Flickr.

This year having a press pass was, shockingly, a pain in the ass. Last year, a credential got you almost anywhere on the grounds, into the VIP areas, wherever. This year, it didn’t, and wasn’t very helpful. I was so surprised when I wasn’t allowed into the back area behind the main stage (useful for lounging or cutting through when traffic builds up) that I went back to the media area where, when pressed a bit, they explained–top tier press, like Resident Advisor or the Free Press I’d imagine, get VIP badges (which you could buy beforehand as part of a package). The rest just get the basic credential which is a festival entry pass, no more. Weaksauce. If someone in the media relations squad for Paxahau had mentioned I’d be getting a B-list pass I would have quit the tedious application process and just paid the $175 bucks for a VIP badge; that was what all my friends did, and if you were into alcoholic drinks and clean bathrooms the thing more or less paid for itself. If you’re buying beer on the concourse (7.50 per with the silly ticketing currency scheme) the 15 free drink tickets would be equivalent to over 100 bucks. That plus 50 for festival entry and you’re already close to the VIP cost. At any rate, Movement Festival media people, if you’ve got your Google Alert set up like good flacks and see this, I’d have paid the bucks if you’d have told me my publication wasn’t good enough to merit full access. I’m sure lots more would have, either through their editors or out of their own pockets. Everybody wins.

The weekend wasn’t all techno. Juno and I caught up with my parents and went to see the Tigers play the Twins on Sunday, taking part briefly in the Tigs’ misery when Francisco Cruceta broke a 1-1 tie by walking a few batters, working Michael Cuddyer to a 3-2 count and then lobbing a cheeseball over the plate. Cuddyer promptly cranked it some 420 feet. Considering all the potential outcomes of the pitch, it would have probably been less damaging if Cruceta had just thrown it into the outfield himself.

The game had some good examples of advertising as an economic indicator of recession. Listening to the Tigers play on MLB.com’s audio stream, I’ve been hearing radio ads selling things like Little Caesars’ new pizza deal “Feed your whole family for five bucks!” and tourist spots for London, Ontario “Get away from it all and spend half a tank of gas” and have been thinking about examples of economic downturn I might find at Comerica Park. It was a little depressing to compare the luxury electronics advertisers Yankee Stadium caters to (due, in part, to their Japanese TV rights) to what was going by on the electronic signage down the first and third base lines at CoPa. Where the Yanks have things like Hitachi, the Tigers have Murray’s Discount Auto Parts and two hairdressers, BoRics and a salon pegging itself as walk-in friendly. Those softened the blow a bit when I saw an airplane dragging a banner for a scrap metal yard around the festival–though it might have been better for business if you could bring your salvage directly to the festival and trade a few manhole covers and some copper pipe and wire for a one-day pass.

Joking aside, illegal salvage and scrapping, always a problem in Detroit, has become really bad. A friend working in real estate trying to lease buildings routinely sees damages in the tens of thousands caused by people breaking into buildings to rip a few hundred dollars worth of copper out. He says active water pipes are often twisted out, leading to flooding, which compounds the cost. And the scale is getting larger, suggesting organized crime. Recently, my friend said, he got a call from a building owner who went to show off a property and found the lights off. He’d paid the bill, and couldn’t figure out what the problem was. When they went to check the mains, they found the line into the building, a high-voltage wire, had been snipped and the place had been eviscerated of its copper. He also relayed incidents of thieves cutting down power poles for the balls of copper in the overhead cans as well as going after substations, suggesting either a high degree of technical expertise or a total disregard for personal safety. If it’s not just crack heads anymore, maybe Albanians are involved rather than Russians or Italians; it sounds like something on the high risk-low reward end, like ripping ATMs out of drug stores, that they’d be ballsy enough to take on. Maybe once the Freep gets done with Kwame and can free up a few reporters to dress up like the junk man in the last season of the Wire, with a horse and carriage, and take obviously thieved copper fittings around town to expose the salvage yards that enable this architectural brutality. Better yet, if anyone has contact with a gang of copperheads who might be looking for a summer intern, get in touch.