[scarabic] Gordon Klock is half of Tantric Lobotomy Commission (production and creation of animation and projected visuals) with Chris Yardley. He's a surreal painter and illustrator whose art has graced periodicals and album covers, not to mention several Cyber-Psychos AOD covers and interiors. He also did the art for Forbidden Gospels of Man-Cruel Vol II (by t. Winter-Damon and Randy Chandler), which should theoretically be out around Death Equinox '98. Gordon is an electronic noise composer as well and has been in such bands as Tragic Shores and Elan. A year ago he released a solo CD, Fresh Dead Bird Satellite, under his own name. He was on the A/V crew for Death Equinox '97, and will be again for '98.
(SNIP through introductory questions.)
[scarabic] Uh... What process (steps, details) do you use in creating noise/music?
[Gordon] I start with a time-beat then decide if I'm going to screw up the time signature during the song & how will I then proceed to compose on top of it strictly adhering to music theory, then I go and screw up bits further where I see fit in order to usually convey feelings of awkwardness, fear, giddiness, silliness, embarrassment and confusion. The best audience response would be all of this at once, but I'm not sure whether I can pull it off...
[scarabic] What would be the preferable activity for audience members to commit after one of your shows?
[Gordon] Doing nasty thing to each other in a vat of pudding then assaulting strangers with dead squirrels and tin foil. There are many things, but that is what came to mind.
[genexs] You use both the Intel and Alpha platforms in your work... Can you address their strengths and weaknesses?
[Gordon] Mostly Alpha now, the Intel blew up. Intel seems faster, but Alphas crash less. Pretty much both decks do the same functions (granted Alpha is less friendly and requires a bit of tweaking), but both decks behave almost the same when used for graphics-animation.
[genexs] What OS do you use?
[Gordon] Windows nt (though I'd prefer unix).
[genexs] I was really impressed at DE '97, with your set-up. Will you be offering workshops again?
[Gordon] Yes, I'd like to do something for other fledgling video artists (it's a complex and vicious field). I've been animating like crazy, trying to make things look real. At the workshop I could cover equipment, the business hype vs. creative freedom. I've seen guys with amazing equipment do very little that was interesting, then I see a kid with just a cheap mixer... I could also show people with limited equipment a lot of evil-neat tricks, like how to screw up the signal through cheap radio shack grade equipment. One that comes to mind is the insane feedback you can get with a "color equalizer", a device one should never use for pro video in that it mangles the signal but used as a feedback filter it is without equal. Magnets are fun too. Granted many of these tricks are liable to destroy the equipment but if it is cheap equipment... Maybe I should start scouring pawnshops etc.
[genexs] What work have you done with bands and concerts?
[Gordon] I used to build weird spinning paintings that had weird presence with strobe lights put in front of them, show multi-exposure photo slides and film animation for several local bands in the 80's, then slowly moved into video using large TV sets. Later Chris found a nice large vid-projector. I had a mixer, Chris had a Toaster, and we found ourselves doing several high end raves & several bands paid us for live performance\"rock video"s. This has mellowed in the last few years, partly due to the scenes changing & partly due to me & Chris finding more lucrative ventures elsewhere... I could tell very long winded amusing tales about some of the bizarre situations Chris & I found ourselves in during those times but it would take too long.
[scarabic] Is there a short version? =) I could tell about the time you accidentally let fly the fellatio shot at a Futura performance for lame fanboys... Heh.
[Gordon] Well... I'll try to shorten this as I go, there was this guy who was a drug dealer wannabe promoter who was one of the strangest people I've ever known (which is saying a lot!). He fancied himself the "new" Charles Manson of the industrial scene. He had blocks of sheets of acid and threw a party with five bands, invited several hundred people, with a prerequisite that everyone there had to eat a quarter sheet... I won't go into the chaotic clusterfsck that transpired that evening (there were people invoking Tiamat in one room while a group of skinheads were freaking out in another). I remember still seeing the trails from a spinning beer bottle as it shattered on the wall sending trails the other direction. Chris was in the middle of this riot trying to protect his projector, while I tried to help several people restrain one especially psychotic skinhead--who we danced into the bathroom and shattered the toilet with his head. The skin was split from his forehead to his neck but he still wanted to "mosh some more". Meanwhile this dealer-promoter was busy dosing an undercover narc in the kitchen sending him on a suicide trip. We had to take turns making sure he wasn't going to blow the place up with the gas stove (he tried all night). Many younger people were on their first trip that night, it is a miracle that this party didn't get busted. Maybe all that weird energy...
[genexs] The narc was trying to blow the place up? Did the projector make it?
[Gordon] The narc was indeed trying to blow the place up. He was on a continuous crying jag and constantly apologizing for being a narc (this poor bastard was very fscked up). The projector has survived many a situation. We recently thought that it finally died, but it looks as though Chris has got it running yet again.
(SNIP through big dangerous muppets.)
[scarabic] As a staff member and programming participant at Death Equinox '97, what was your general impression of the event?
[Gordon] A chance to get potentially like-minded people together to share interests, knowledge, etc. But, most importantly, have a lot of fun doing it. It was fun last year, though a bit nerve wracking of course. I hopefully have a working idea of what to expect this year.
[scarabic] What were some of your favourite aspects/events?
[Gordon] My favorite bits were some of the debates, your reading (of course). I was a little bummed that I couldn't watch the strange movies Traci brought. It would be nice to have more weird science stuff but it is hard to pull it together & keep it working.
[scarabic] What do you think you got out of Death Equinox '97 on a personal level?
[Gordon] Aside from having more fun than I expected, I sensed a weird feeling that things might not be so bad that lingered through a few months. I usually get very depressed in the midwinter. I met a few interesting people, and felt a sense of my eccentricities making sense in their own way. Normal people seemed less intimidating. The world however still looks as scary as ever.
(SNIP through chatter.)
[scarabic] What does the name Borgoplex mean to you?
[Gordon] It was a name that just came to me while I was staring at a lump of mangled patch cables, later a weird personality formed in my brain that would not leave me alone. He's kind of a surrealist version of a Lovecraft monster... Kinda like Max Ernst's LOPLOP, only more tech-industrial. Thinking of which, I recently heard about some HAZ-MAT people finding these weird radial worm things living in pools of liquid vinyl during a cleanup.
[scarabic] What do you have to be thankful to The Jellyfish for?
[Gordon] The bizarre DNA parade of evolution, knowing that we are not the only ones alone... The hope that humans will be dealt with accordingly (I've heard a rumor that humans may have been genetically pre-ordained as some awful suicide glitch in the chain but can neither validate nor refute that claim). The sound effect of a single cricket :) ?
(SNIP through end.)
Back to the DE IRC Interview index.