this audio cassette from 1992 (or 1991?) was the first self-issued Telecorps release--even though we called it a "bootleg." it was our attempt to make a live record as shitty as "Confusion Is Sex." we succeeded hugely. it is pure shit. it consists of audio edits of Telecorps rehearsing in the living room of the band house on Hobart Street in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. i made these edits using the shittiest tape decks available and without listening to the source material nor what i was editing.
our friend, songwriter/guitarist Gary Anderson who could never quite grasp what Telecorps was ever trying to do, commented on over-hearing these rehearsals that it seemed we were "really reaching out." hence, the title.
House of Duh was a conceptual and real noise and rock label run by Ray-C-Ray of the bands Propane Beef Dog, Salt Chunk Mary, Telecorps and Infinite Slab of Electric. this release is House of Duh 98.
the cover design and song titles are by Markus P. Spanglestein of Revo/O.R.I. (Edgar Um Bucholtz may have assisted.)
the only time Telecorps played State College (on the "Healthy Lifestyles" mini-tour with Fly Wallpaper a.k.a. Giorgio, Salt Chunk Mary, and Tiny Little Help featuring Duane Jones), we gave away or sold this fake bootleg cassette. Edgar Um Bucholtz's step brother, John Archer, was at a house party in State College a few years later and found one of these cassettes underneath a bathroom sink. or maybe it was a toilet.
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.
this is a two camera edit of a live performance by Telecorps in the basement of the Turmoil Room in Wilkinsburg/Pittsburgh on New Year's Eve 1992.
a projected film-loop by MIchael Johnsen accompanied the performance.
on this occasion Telecorps was:
Edgar Um Bucholtz - voice, cornet, orders, timing clock, jumping about Missy Galore - voice, tinsel Raq V.B. - voice, ass cheeks, candle-phallus Ray C. Ray - drums, skree-tar, fx Sharyn Frederick - bass, hair Buffy Um Kollar - bowed dulcimer, dominatrix outfit Ian Williams - guitar, thrashing about, drums Jen Saffron - violin Catherine Randecker - electric blinking bug alien Gary Miklusek - rhythm guitar, hat flaps Michael Johnsen - film-loop
plus
taunting by Damon Che
video by Gern and a tripod assisted by Michael Johnsen(?)
The Feral Family play in the background at the beginning when Michael is speaking.
This video documents the only time Telecorps rocked in a live setting. It was an accident.
Ray C. Ray plays drums on the first half with Ian Williams on guitar. For the second half, they switch.
Thanks to Brian Dean Richmond for asking us to play this gig.
I make odd sounds in Fuck Telecorps, Cock Scene Investigator and sometimes solo. I play vinyl + digital records (DJ Edgar Um) and organize concerts and misc. events at the Shop (an all-ages art and performance venue in Pittsburgh, PA) and elsewhere.
