Past Projects > Grateful for the Dead

Using electronic sound shaping tools, I produced audio collages that are comprised exclusively of sampled material from dead musicians. Any appearance of a living musician is purely incidental. These mashups are like a visit to rock and roll heaven.

Grateful for the Dead is a tribute to the departed heroes of rock, jazz, blues, country, hip hop, etc., and is also my opportunity to boss around the greatest artists the world has ever known. And there's nothing they can do to stop me because they are all dead.

I am available to DJ your next Halloween party! I probably won't tear up the dance floor with these tracks but I guarantee it will scare your guests. It's not really meant for dancing anyway. I would compare it to the sound collage work of Negativland and John Oswald.

A few years ago, the “Some Assembly Required” show on Radio K had a Call For Artists at the mnartists.org site (and the SAR site). Jon contacted me (and many others) looking for 50 fifty-second tracks, composed of at least 50% recycled audio (sounds found in the broadcast media) for a 50/50 Compilation. The album is 50 tracks, each 50 seconds long, with 50%(+) recycled content.

The GFTD track "3-Way Dueling Mow Mows" was selected to appear on this compilation. It is sort of like “Dueling Banjos” only with Steve Wahrer (Trashmen), Lux Interior (Cramps) and Joey Ramone dueling it out via sound samples taken from each respective version of "Surfin' Bird". It’s a bit obnoxious but hey, it’s only fifty seconds long. It contains 100% recycled material and 100% of the source samples are performed by dead musicians (who, in a sense, are also being recycled by worms!)

Visit www.some-assembly-required.net to purchase the compilation and connect with the great "Some Assembly Required" radio show.

Grateful for the Dead tracks can be found on the Bootleg Remixes, Mashups, & Sound Collages album at Soundcloud.

Past Projects