Telecorps "99/33" (video documentation edit)

Telecorps performed "99/33" as the opening act for a concert (organized and promoted by Manny Theiner) featuring The Haters, Caroliner Rainbow Oblivion and The Spo-its on August 13, 1991 at the Birmingham Lofts gallery in the South Side of Pittsburgh.

in this composition, Telecorps performed 99 songs in 33 minutes. the start and stop times of each song were pre-determined using chance operations. no individual song could be longer than 9 seconds. musicians followed a timed score and a clock. (due to the way that the score was composed, individual songs could sometimes overlap and create longer than 9 second periods of sound-making.)

various mics placed around the musicians fed the sounds of each song into a mixing console which was manipulated (per song) by a recording engineer who followed his own timed score (adjusting mic volume input levels, equalization and stereo panning.)

the (manipulated) sounds of each song were recorded to individual numbered cassettes (#1 - 99.) members of a volunteer assembly line packaged each song cassette as it was recorded into manila envelopes and used chance operations (via a program written in the BASIC language for a Commodore 64 home computer), local phone books and a Pittsburgh postal code book to determine mailing addresses in the greater Pittsburgh area for each cassette.

each cassette package also contained a photo-copied page (also selected using chance operations) from Jacques Attali's book "Noise: The Political Economy of Music" with a Telecorps 99/33 song chart on the reverse side.

immediately after the end of the Telecorps performance, 78 completed cassette packages were taken to the U.S. Post Office in the South Side and mailed.

21 of the 99 cassette packages were not completed at the end of the performance and were not mailed.

over the course of the following two years, 10 of the 78 cassette packages were returned due to various postal irregularities.

of the 68 cassette packages that were received at the selected addresses, Telecorps received no replies to the Telecorps P.O. Box return address listed on the packages.

for this performance, Telecorps was:

Edgar Um Bucholtz: voice, Atari 800XL BASIC programming, 99/33 scores, process, audience handout design
Raq. V. B.: bass, bandages
Ray C Ray: drum set
Sam Ward: drum set, clock
Oliver Kollar: electric guitar, fx, clock
Bob Kollar: Commodore 64 BASIC programming, postal address divination
Sarah Wilkes: address divination, addressing
Kate Glicksberg: labeling, packaging
Gary Miklusek: tape deck operator
Marty Miklusek: tape deck operator
Ky Kim: audio engineer
Matt Marcus: asst. audio engineer
Missy Galore: video documentation, costume design for Edgar Um Bucholtz
Jen Saffron: still photographer

this is a 7 minute edit (made on March 28, 2009) of the original 50 minute video documentation master. this edit features approximately 20 songs (of the 99 performed.) the sound for this video was recorded in-camera and thus is not ideal.

the radio music that can be heard in the background during the latter half of this video edit is the result of members of the Spo-its who attempted to sabotage our performance with easy listening AM sounds.



special thanks to Manny Theiner and WRCT.

i plan to photograph and digitize the audio on the unsent and returned cassettes. i'll post it on here when i get to it.