(DISCLAIMER: The following is a seven thousand-word manifesto with voluminous supporting evidence (mp3, jpg, pdf, url). Anyone who reads (a category that includes most people) knows this requires more than just a few minutes. If you're looking for a "short biography" of Bambouche click here.)

I was fortunate to be introduced to underground music early on in life. Cassette tapes copied from cassette tapes copied from punk records that belonged to someone's older brother. Often I'd get a name on the tape, and occasionally a list of songs--rarely anything else. While the packaging was often dismal, the music was truly distinct, and unlike anything I had heard on the radio (this was the era before music videos). Mono-maniacal, genuine, remarkable new sounds. Those records weren't the result of committee decisions. They were the result of crazy thinking and wrong-headedness. I found them more engaging than mainstream artists to whom I was exposed every day--the ones who were completely dumbed down and filtered through a preconceived "excellent marketing strategy" designed to yield high sales.

So began my interest with music that was made with little thought of its audience, music that was created with little or no outside entanglement, and my involvement with others who enjoyed this freedom. This music had to be acquired through independent sources, and I found the local indie record store owners to be generally more approachable (and knowledgeable) than the folks at those big chain stores. Also, the musicians behind these records were upright and approachable themselves, as were the independent labels that released their music. Often these labels sold their albums directly. I started mailing money orders to labels, getting new releases with little handwritten notes from the labels thanking me for my support. I learned of older releases that were out of print, and started writing to band members inquiring about remaining copies that may be kicking around their basement. My interest in independent music began with punk, but that inquisitiveness (born of a boredom with the mundane) catapulted me in all directions at once.

I took specific interest in the turnabout of pre-existing media by the industrial and hip-hop artists of the early '80s. Beyond the obvious cultural critique that sampling offered, this piracy showed that people were creating with whatever means they had; using remnants of "popular" music to make their own was the only way to get started. Much like punk musicians who relied on sheer rejection of the norm to make music, the industrialists and hip-hop set were making interesting records with little more than a record collection and a sampler. Turning Eric Clapton's characterless cover of Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" on its head over a funky drummer loop and rapping about "Elvis was a hero to most/ But he never meant shit to me." That was fucking radical! A strike against the ruling class's monopoly over the access to making art. This new "art," which had been previously excluded from cultural production, was defining its own terms of production and using "who gives a fuck about what they like" as an exclamation point to its entrance. Of course, the power monopoly, offended and seeing an opportunity to co-opt and benefit from this new form, began taking legal action. The cultural elite were deeply offended by this "noise" that was, after all, a product of what they had funded. I find it amusing that people complain about rubbish whose lives have been dominated by every kind of rubbish.

In the early '90s, after playing in punk bands as a teenager, I moved in with a friend who was kind enough to let me stay home and fiddle with his electronic recording equipment. I was unemployed and would while away the days with his drum machines and keyboards. The first "songs" I ever made were the result of cutting across the grooves of my Nuremberg War Criminal Trials LP with a razor to make it skip, sending one channel of the skipping phonograph to the tape deck, while the other channel was plugged into a drum machine run through a distortion pedal. The skipping record created a vocal loop that faded in and out of time with the drums. My early recordings were so far ahead of their time they are still avant-garde by today's standards. (And by avant-garde, I mean completely unlistenable.) A few years later, the same friend who let me live with him rent-free worked at a pro audio store, and "helped" with my finance papers so that I could buy my first sampler, the Ensoniq ASR-10. It's a bit of a dinosaur now, but back then 5 megabytes seemed like eternity. The ASR-10 was sampler, keyboard, sequencer and effects unit all in one. I cut my teeth on digital music through that machine, mastering the intricacies of MIDI, SMPTE, FSK, polyphony, envelopes, waveforms, oscillators and time stretch. Over the last fifteen years, I've added many elements to my process, but the basic principle is still the same: I want to explore areas of agitational art.

I realized early that the whole music industry was a game, or a commodity--or a game of commodity. I chose not to play just like those I admired. First, I discovered there were thousands of people interested in the same acts of perversion, single-mindedness, agitation, subversion, humor and independence that I was. Second, I slowly came to realize that when I'd separated myself from the spectacle, I'd separated myself from the need to give a shit about what people think. This freedom provided me with access to those all too rare moments when I act for myself, affording no external manipulation. It is only when I accede to the dispossession of my self that I risk petrifaction amidst the names of the things which oppress me. Freedom is in independence: Independence from trying to compartmentalize oneself into those pre-ordained "good" sales strategies; Independence from having to answer cuntish questions; independence from the deadly dullness of the unacceptable human condition; independence from wearing that blindfold, adhering to those "rules." Whatever you possess possesses you in return. Everything makes you into an owner and adapts you to the order of things.

There's another bit of cliché advice tossed around in music circles. That is, to find some objectivity in the art. "Get an outside opinion." "Have someone with fresh ears give it a listen." The very notion of objectivity presupposes that there will be some external standard of acceptability that might be met, if only one were "objective" enough to recognize it. I dispute that contention. There is nothing objective about making or experiencing great art. I prefer art made by people who are utterly in the throes of it and are consumed by it.

The autonomous artist is often heralded as the great defector. Dylan uses the word "fuck" and sings an eight-minute tune of a Black pugilist victim of racism and he's recorded in the annals of history as the voice of a generation. "Protest Singer." Some artists welcome the label, such as Public Enemy (who wear it as a badge) while others shrug it off, as Dylan does. (see also: Dylan claiming authorship over the oldest form of story poem with no consequence.) When the music industry experts express criticism of such refusal, their shared bitterness stems from the fact that the music in question is a precise critique of the society they don't know how to combat; further, it exemplifies a kind of music they do not know how to make. Disruptive music of this kind opens the door to everyone's spontaneity, if only by proving that in the particularly distorted realm of subversion, it is the only language--the only kind of action--that contains its own self-criticism. Who gives a fuck about a goddamn Grammy?

Let me be clear as to where I stand on the issue of "protest" songs, since some of the songs I write could be labeled as such: I have no real interest in what happens with the record once it leaves our office. I'm happy to sink two years into a record, taking great concern to see that everything is done exactly as I like, and then, when I'm finished, letting the person who buys it decide what it means to him. Seriously. What does it matter what you think? Furthermore, what business of mine is it what you think of something? While it's interesting to hear from people regarding the records, it remains outside the process. This is a large part of "the point" as I see it. The point of making a record is to finish it. And finishing it involves letting it go. The process is there to be gone through again from the beginning. When you know how it ends, you will have a better idea of how to make sense of the beginning. This is as true for me as it is for the listener. If reading this gives you the look of a spectator seeing a funambulist balancing for some perfectly unaccountable reason above a perfectly concrete death below (i.e., what the fuck's he doing that for?), then allow me this tutelage: How can something be measured against nothing? That is, experience is the best teacher... go out on thin ice.

"Before it explodes, a bomb is a single entity in which opposites coexist in given conditions. The explosion takes place only when a new condition, ignition, is present. An analogous situation arises in all those natural phenomena which finally assume the form of open conflict to resolve old contradictions and produce new things." --Mao Tse-Tung

On the contradiction of the context of originality: Let's start by saying that creativity is a gift: [Audience]: "Creativity is a gift." Let's say it again, in emphatic bold: CREATIVITY IS A GIFT! For this purpose, let's put aside the subjectivity of "good" and "bad" and dismiss any grading of creative pursuits. Let's just say it's a gift. If we can go that far, let's say, like everything American, creativity is accessible to everyone. The perfect example of this is a child's response to everything with, "How come?" That child's unbridled need to get to the root of everything is the embodiment of "the use of imagination." That is, creativity. It's engrained, then. We're born with creativity. The choice is every man's to decide whether he should pursue the need, to follow it to wherever it may take him (this is where subjectivity comes in). Something should be said here about the United States Commissioner of Education's hope for children "...to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual."

Those who like to think: A category that includes most people. Creativity is a gift strongly discouraged by the upper echelons of the world. Wisdom is a ruthless business, after all. Coveted. The creative pursuit is risky. Why? The fruits of creativity were clear to the forefathers. What was also clear was that if the ruling class intended to maintain their monopoly on life they would need the labor class to remain submissive. If reading this summons the image of a wacko conspiracy theorist in your mind, please consider: Conspiracies have the merit of making sense. Sometimes it helps to be paranoid. Being creative has been discouraged since this country declared its independence with, "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." While Jefferson was sharp enough to see Locke's original phrase, "Life, liberty, and estate (or property)" smacked of feudalism, he decided two out of three ain't bad. (Speaking of stealing: Jefferson's sampling of Locke's theory constitutes plagiarism, no?) While pursuing property was antithetical to the Declaration's liberty, the right to happiness wasn't. Well, happiness isn't a right, just the pursuit of it.

The risk was established, and the majority sought to declare their independence by meekly inheriting The Great North American Scheme of Things: the necessary blindfold, suburban utopia, gated communities, reality television, sports jerseys, "the nine-to-five," celebrity, commuter trains, idol worship, travel mugs, three weeks accrued vacation per year, etc. To insure the risk, certain financial constraints were put on such pursuits of creativity/happiness. If you so chose to become one of them, it would come at a cost. The statisticians show up on television to remind us of the risk-benefit ratio. Sometimes with pie charts ("What are the celebrities wearing?"), but most of the time with the countless retelling of the "one in a million" tale. We sit and think, "Gee, isn't that guy lucky?" The spin is transparent, and we all acknowledge it with the what-can-you-do shrug? I hate to state the obvious, but what you can do is form an alliance with the future. No one is a devil, if fully heard! Find the crazy particularly audible. Go out on thin ice. Cross Out Inapplicable Alternatives. Wave an Idealist Hand. It's like bringing potato salad to an anarchist picnic. It must be rather grim to hope for nothing except that life might continue indefinitely in its present course.

Let's assume for a minute that the declaration for independence has been made. The artist (you?) has stood up, raised his voice, and said, "This is what I have to say... and I'll gladly accept any penalty that goes with it." Once across that threshold there is a universe of happiness, and a universe of émigrés pulled from the ark that had once been marooned on the rocks of perdition. Your comrades in this expansive freedom who had all, like you, irrevocably burned their bridges realizing they were responsible only to themselves. This declaration has more to do with independence--not to mention life, liberty and realized happiness--than that other Declaration does. The only problem is... there is no turning back. Once the leap is made there is no return. You can't walk out on it because you are forever altered. I am unrecognizable to all my changes. Trying to return to the somnolent state only results in insomnia. A head full of freedom with a neck in the yoke....

On the essence of truth: The pursuit of creative ends is a great risk, arguably one of the greatest in life. Most see the end goal as fame, fortune, recognition. The romanticized idea of risking everything else in life for this one thing; putting creativity before family, friends, security, stability, and hoping you don't end up like everyone else--working as a waiter or a gas station attendant. The less romantic reality is, in fact, that it's a great risk, but it's the safest. It's safe because you can't lose. You stake your life, and even if you land on your face, you find yourself. Your "self" may not be what you imagined, but he's there, inevitably found. It's a great paradox. Try to walk out!

"All that is personal soon crumbles away, and to this destitution one has to submit. This is not despair, not senility, not coldness and not indifference; it is gray-haired youth, one of the forms of convalescence or, better, that process itself. Only by this means is it humanly possible to survive certain wounds." --Alexander Herzon ". . . A being is at each moment itself and yet something else. Life is therefore also a contradiction which is present in things and processes themselves, and which constantly originates and resolves itself; and as soon as the contradiction ceases, life, too, comes to an end, and death steps in." --Friedrich Engels

Not to perpetuate the myth of the crazed artist with a key to nirvana, but I had a rather telling conversation with a friend some years ago that has stuck with me. This gentleman had made his living as a general contractor, building and remodeling homes in a sleepy little community. After years of this life, when his children had gone to college, he took up painting. He had converted an empty room for this purpose and enrolled in a few junior college classes. Quickly he unearthed a passion and creativity that had only previously been predilection. He took every class he could find, submitted for every critique and exhibition he could, and finally his teachers started turning him away saying they had nothing more to offer him suggesting he pursue a master's degree. It was around this time that I spent a holiday with him. As a gift, I bought him a book of reproductions by Francis Bacon as I noticed a similarity between the two in the study of faces. At one point, late in the visit and after reviewing the book, he pulled me aside and told me, "Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night. I just can't sleep. I'll lay in bed for an hour, just thinking about painting. Nothing else. I have to get up, otherwise I'll go crazy just laying there." He told me about the concerned looks his wife would cast at finding him painting in his underwear well before sunrise. Again, not to preserve cliché, but if on the threshold there lingers the question, "Yes but, how do I earn a living as an artist?" The answer is easy. Don't.

What is a voice, then? Suppose we hurl ourselves from the doldrumic assembly line, declaring our independence, and dive headlong into the surfeit that is "art." Once afloat, how do we find our voice? Meaning, how do we be unique? Is anyone ever spontaneously adroit without being encumbered by stimulus, affect, guidance, inspiration? No. There is no vacuum. It's a development, a process, a study. It follows, then, that our voice is a culmination of every other voice we've heard. To know more, one must conjure up all the lives there are and discard that which he doesn't find suitable. Being creative, or creating art, is not an act (something you do) but a point of view (something you believe). It's the materialization of lived experience. The artist's voice, when broken into its individual syllables, reveals a life of stimulus, affect, guidance, and inspiration. The birth of the artist and canonization of The Artist: these are two ends of a chain that are not without its links. Which begs the question: Aren't we all plagiarists? Palimpsestic shadows of a lifetime of lived experiences?

Plagiarism + Analysis + Criticism = Plagiaristic Analycism (see also: Plagnacism).

Heraclitus said, From the strain of binding opposites comes harmony. If your voice isn't your own, and creativity isn't worth it (but it really is), then how does one navigate the terrain? Developing something genuine, dealing with criticism, handling the commodity, balancing "your art" with "your daily life...." Who fucking knows? I can only speak for myself.

"What we need is music that will not interrupt the noises of the environment." --Erik Satie

Satie's believed himself a phonometrician (someone who collects and analyzes sound) rather than a musician, as he believed nature to be the true musician. In a similar sense, the music I write isn't really mine. It belongs to history (more accurately: publishing companies). I write music to satisfy my own curiosities about found sounds, the outcome (the song) is the answer and usually the catalyst for trying something different the next time. Since my songs are amalgamates of snippets stolen from records, one could argue I don't have the same sense of ownership over them as I would if I picked up a guitar and wrote something "original." I am stealing moments of other's creativity, arranging it in another context, and then presenting it as something new. What I do is similar to a composer's variation on a theme; the reinterpreting or deconstruction of the Dada and Fluxus schools; the collage or détournement used by painters; and the photomontage of photographers. My practice is very similar to methods used by authors. For instance: an author's building of a historic narrative with the presentation of a cross-section of other narratives (research) when writing a biography; the recollection of something from the unconscious (a phenomenon referred to as "cryptomnesia") that was read elsewhere but, when recalled, is thought to be a "original thought" (see Nabokov's Lolita or Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra for example); Ulrike Meinhof's theories of intertextuality in media (and the methods of Roland Barthes), that is the relationship between two or more texts that quote from one another, the interdependence of texts, the continual deferment of meaning through texts, that the meaning of an artistic work does not reside in that work, but in the viewers. The "American Way" is amalgamated from other's ways. After all, we are a "melting pot." Our laws, cuisine, culture, industry, tradition are all samplings from other countries.

"But we, who have made no effort whatsoever to filter, who in our works have made ourselves into simple receptacles of so many echoes, modest recording instruments..." --André Breton

I have always believed in Breton's freedom to transcend rigidity. Sample-based music is often criticized as unoriginal because its inherent base belongs to someone else. In most cases, I think I would agree (the looping of 4 bars to create 5 minutes of music is a race to novelty. I find that kind of exercise beneath triviality. It is decorative, non-substantive fodder), yet what I take issue with is the insistence on obtaining costly license in hip-hop music while other forms of "sampling" mentioned above are largely accepted without any payment. We're made to believe "piracy" is crippling the artists who wrote the songs that hip-hop artists often sample. It's Orwellian that the companies that benefit from the costly licenses sponsor those ad campaigns against piracy. In the majority of cases where the license is paid, usually by major labels, the ownership of those songs are held by publishing companies and media conglomerates who snookered artists into signing show-business contract "for their own good" before they would let "the world" hear their music. I take issue then, with the corporate deception and policing.

While I see no convincing reason to follow policies set by the geriatrics who claim this form of writing to be unoriginal, I can enjoy making fun of myself: Using out-of-context lines from a poem as a premonitory answer to criticism of being "tone-deaf" and "unteachable" married with repetitive chunks from an experimental piano composition (each teacher found my touch oddly wooden) to say, I learned elsewhere from muses unhired by you, dear dotard. Because, really, there's nothing more annoying than those who take themselves too seriously. And I use examples such as these to emphasize the importance of eliminating all remnants of personal property in this area. Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. Like the poem says: "We don't care!"

The oral tradition--stories, epics and songs of the people--which formerly were filed away as set pieces are now beginning to change. The story-tellers who used to relate inert episodes now bring them alive and introduce into them modifications which are increasingly fundamental. There is a tendency to bring conflicts up to date and to modernise the kinds of struggle which the stories evoke, together with the names of heroes and the types of weapons. The method of allusion is more and more widely used. The formula "This all happened long ago" is substituted by that of "What we are to speak of happened somewhere else, but it might well have happened here today, and it might happen tomorrow." --Franz Fanon

It goes without saying that sample-based music is not limited to echoing past songs (as most mainstream sample music is prone to do) or to integrating diverse fragments of out-of-date works into a new one (as most underground sample music is prone to do); one can also alter the meaning of those fragments in an appropriate way, leaving the imbeciles to their slavish reference to "citations." Far from aiming to arouse indignation or laughter by alluding to the original work, I express indifference toward a meaningless (forgotten?) original, concerned only with a certain imponderable charm. Floating in a self-created euphoria.

Being independent of external demands allows a great deal of flexibility. Without the obstacle of having to cater to anyone, or make it "sellable," I can enjoy the pursuit of an idea to its natural end. File under: extremist innovation. To that end, I have some seventy songs that have been written and recorded in the last few years and are slowly being distilled into 5 different albums. It's probably not the best way to work, but it's how it happened. For whatever reason (restlessness), I tend to work towards several ends simultaneously. While the albums have nothing really to do with one another, I see them all as interconnected, a collection of independent expressions that when viewed as a whole contain variant themes producing a synthetic organization of greater efficacy. Perhaps it's a jumbled mess to others, but it makes perfect sense to me.

The five albums I'm working on, which should be released between now and 2010--in no particular order and depending on any number of things--are:

• Agitational Assemblages: A record that fell through the door of creative spontaneity. Sample-based music is the servant of structure; program. It is music that is first functional before any other consideration. Made by an industry to serve a function (i.e., "dance music"). With these compositions I rely less on "finding" snippets, relying instead on outmoding a previous method that has become an obstacle. Meaning, once you've found a formula that works, it's good to destroy it. The point is not whether the song is likable or not, but if you can get beyond the obstacle. (Example: Notes Not Played: Anti-Establishment Sonata)
  
  
• Spectacular Vernacular: An album of hip-hop remixes. This album started after my dear friend Dennis Williams (who listens to more atonal noise than one person should be able to endure) asked me if I'd make him a tape of hip-hop songs after checking out a few CDs from his local library. I made a tape, and then I thought it would be nice to make it so he could hear the original songs sampled by the hip-hop artist, so I made another tape which combined hip-hop songs with the "originals." Then I made another tape in which I made my own loops to use behind the hip-hop lyrics. The idea behind the remixes was to present the songs as they had never been heard before, and not based just on the eccentricity of being different. This turned into 30 remixes, 13 some of which were included on the album. (Example: Flippin' the Scripture)
  
  
• Please Rotate Stock for Freshness: Inspired by a stamp on the bottom of a cardboard grocery box. This album is a genuflection to sample-based music. Paying homage to those who have written works in the ink of action. Correcting the history of the past, modernizing themes, erasing false ideas and replacing them with correct ideas. In other words, taking the hip-hop sample staples and fucking with them. (Example: Breaks Get Broken, part II)
  
  
• [A Concentration on Onomatopoetic Representations]: Still untitled, the majority of this work centers around the formation of theories based on rhetoric sounds. Pursuing improvisation through program. Surveying, through pre-programmed sounds, the jazz idiom of challenging the notion of form that pushed standards into real time compositions bearing no distinct lineage to their antecedent. In free jazz, the pretext of improvisation becomes improvising a pretext for improvisation. The goal of my work in this album is to return improvisation to structure, and program a pretext that seems improvised, but is actually programmed quite precisely. As an aside, I've collected a good number of interview LPs, many of the interviews with jazz artists. I found a strange prophetic reference to sampling in many of the interviews. (Example: Evolution in Styles (This is it!))
  
  
• For the People's Lieben: An explosion of lived experiences. A dedication to those who did not separate their personal goals from the general goals of the movement. To merge the personal and the political to the point where they can no longer be separated. Violence, Uprising, Revolution... The American Way. (Example: Vanguard Squad Main Title Theme)

Beyond albums, there are several singles in the works, most of which should be out in late 2006/early 2007. I am terribly excited about them, but will let them remain nameless until a more appropriate time.

Often, the sample-based artist doubles as a disc jockey (DJ). This seems a logical sequence of events: you collect records, and use them to make other records, so why not play them in front of people? With no disrespect for the hundreds of loved ones who make their way doing this, I see it as a total waste of time (i.e., I see no handicap in the lack of a live audience). My interest lies completely in writing and recording songs. Playing records at bars and clubs for those patrons who want nothing else than for you to play something they "know" as if it's something other than whiling away hours of boredom with a reflection of that same boredom. The aspect of celebrity that is inherent in the disc jockey culture also nauseates me. By concentrating on the object of identification in a shallow life, the image of a celebrity disc jockey isn't much more than concentrated banality. Besides, I'd get tired of being asked to play "something we can dance to."

He is in touch with himself only by worship of the idol. He has become estranged from his own life forces, from the wealth of his own potentialities, and is in touch with himself only in the indirect way of submission to life froze in the idols... This is, incidentally, also the psychology of the fanatic. He is empty, dead, depressed, but in order to compensate for the state of depression and inner deadness, he chooses an idol, be it the state, a party, an ideal, the church, or God. He makes this idol into the absolute, and submits to it in an absolute way. In doing so his life attains meaning, and he finds excitement in the submission to the chosen idol. His excitement, however, does not stem from joy in productive relatedness; it is intense, yet cold excitement built upon inner deadness or, if one would want to put it symbolically, it is "burning ice." --Erich Fromm

I detest parties. I detest "party people" just as much, probably more. Not to sound like a dick, but they are passionately confused. I realize I am in the minority, but the universe is a minority. My argument isn't that I am not passionately confused, or even stupid. (At the risk of quoting Heraclitus twice in one thesis and being considered unattractive at the time in question [see also: "terribly out of fashion"]), Heraclitus said, "Stupidity is better kept a secret than displayed." There isn't much in it for me to partake in "night life." I'm too old, I suppose, to side with that particular kind of anti-academic rebellion. I'm all about Pro-Academy Rebellion. This particular interest in very cautiously considered content tends to lead me away from mainstream culture. The creative myopia, suburban disillusionment, gated community frame of mind that comes as part of the mass-culture homogenized package and leaves most marooned on the rocks of perdition (ignorant of strategies). For them, the blindfold is necessary, but I don't think they should propagandize on behalf of blindfolds for the rest of us. This idea of faddish culture probably wasn't what Karl Marx had in mind, but he said Socialism ". . . is a society which permits the actualization of man's essence, by overcoming his alienation. It is nothing less that creating the conditions for the truly free, rational, active and independent man; it is the fulfillment of the prophetic aim: the destruction of the idols." And America, land of the free, fought so hard to ensure that Socialism never took hold in the States.

Tsega and I started the Vanguard Squad as an extension of that same Pro-Academy Rebellion, providing a record label as an outlet for our art and the art of our friends. This isn't a shower curtain factory, and as much as I love my mother for her best wishes, the aim is not fame (As for the reward of celebrity, thanks for nothing!). Our goal is to pay homage to those who have written works in the ink of action; to marry our beliefs with our daily experiences--to help people behave as individuals, collectively. The Vanguard Squad, then, operates as an indivisibly individual collective. A vanguard organization should educate by example. If there's any excuse at all for making records, it's to do it differently.

"Its participants did not separate their personal goals from the general goals of the movement. They were independent individuals who had come together for a struggle on a determined basis at a precise moment; and who once again became independent after the struggle had ended." -- René Viénet

Thanks to the wealth of information that independent labels are quick to share, it is easy to learn from their experience (and mistakes). That experience is based on a profit-sharing model, a 50-50 split between artist and label that has proven to be fair and profitable for both parties. This model encourages frugality on both parts, and it is inherently fair: The label only makes money if the artist does, and exactly as much. Most independent labels operate without formal contracts, as contracts aren't necessary when the relationship is so patently equitable (nobody has any leverage on anybody). If the artist and the label enjoy the experience, the relationship will naturally continue. If they don't, it will naturally end. This "halfsies" model is obviously working, and working well, as most of the independent labels that were releasing my favorite albums twenty years ago are still in business, and most of the bands that were on those labels are still releasing records on those labels.

Honorable people can make money. There is a network of independent labels, printers, manufacturers, distributors, and retail stores that are all comfortable operating outside the mainstream. The behavior and expectations are different. The only defense to formal contracts is to work exclusively with people you can trust. That method works fine for those of us down here. Our operation is not a money factory. Separating ourselves from the prospect of riches frees us from the trappings of most everyone in the record industry. We don't have to sell our songs to monopolizing corporations (or refuse to sell our songs to corporations for that matter) because we operate outside of that industry. The notions of "getting that money," "using the system against itself," "going for yours," "selling out," and "retaining integrity" are all moot when you do not participate in the process. The business is an extension of our beliefs, and our beliefs center around not being assholes. It is a question not of elaborating the spectacle of refusal, but rather of refusing the spectacle. I admire the superheroes of today (Jay-Z, etc.) for being so overtly marionette-like. By embracing the stooges they forego all the hassle of explanation and justification. Granted, there are those who argue that selling your songs to Hummer, or having your own label and clothing line named after a robber baron whose legacy is built on exploitation, racism and deceit, is "flipping the script," but that's a pretty piss poor argument. Not to mention they're still working within the confines of a "script" that puts profit before principle. It's none of my business how others choose to live their lives, and it's not my place to pass judgment on their actions. However, it is my place to be responsible for my actions and that means refusing to adopt standards I find inequitable for my business, and especially as it concerns handling the life's work of my friends. Elvis was a hero to most, but he never meant shit to me.

A note on the notion of playing the game or working the system: There is not enough space to refute this cliché, except to suggest a more careful and less biased review of all things involved.

With minimal restriction on what our collective can do, we find the artists, bands, and individuals involved in our label enjoy working together. There is a certain sense of camaraderie within our little group. Everyone should be happy to do as he pleases, and at a pace he is comfortable with. I find both inspiration and encouragement in this situation, as there is always something to do. Free from the vaulting ambitions about the lights and the lures, we can continue to sustain ourselves making records. It's not the intention of this critique to lay a blanket dismal or deliver absolutes regarding mainstream culture. There are several among the "celebrated" ranks that navigated the record industry and made engaging albums. It would be remiss not to mention the problems these artists endured in the process (see: Nina Simone's expatriate from the States; the stall of Fiona Apple's third album; Charles Mingus' "Fables of Faubus" (on Atlantic) versus "Original Faubus Fables" (on Candid); Maria Callas' suicide; Glenn Gould's retreat from the spotlight; Morrissey's never-ending legal battles, etc.). It shows, among other things, that even the greatest, most famous ("genius" even) have a hard time with the yoke of corporate underwriting. Treating art as you'd treat business. As for the reward of celebrity, thanks for nothing.

On the onomatology of a bambouché: Admittedly (it shouldn't be hard to tell if you've read this far), I am a bit bookish, prone to isolation. Funny then that the moniker I chose, Bambouche (pronounced bam • boo • shay), is often used as a call to party. The name is a derivative from the French bambouchér or bambouchées, which is:

1. To lead away from purity or excellence; to corrupt in character or principles; to mar; to vitiate; to pollute; to seduce; as, to debauch one's self by intemperance.
2. Excess in eating or drinking; intemperance; drunkenness; lewdness; debauchery.

"Bambouché" then, was a term used by West African slaves in Louisiana (governed by France) who practiced voodoo. The practitioners used the term as a call to participate in ritual, dance, celebration, and bloodletting. Seeing as much of what we call "American" is derivative of African culture and was built on the forced labor of Africans, I thought it fitting to continue the appropriation with a considerate nod to the view that what I do with music is largely seen as appropriation--Stealing what's been stolen from the stealer who claimed it as his own and taking steps to prevent the paths of desire from being overgrown.

Like Mingering Mike, I value my anonymity; while I work under an assumed name to protect my private life from the spectacle I feel it is important to provide those who give a shit (if you've read this far, I consider you one of them) an explanation as to what's in a Bambouché. In this way, it's much like becoming your own historian. The "point of it," as it were, then is to be involved in the process. The process is there to be gone through again from the beginning, because when you know how it ends you will have a better idea of how to make sense of the beginning. I am learning new things each time, so it's safe to assume you know just as much--if not more--about what's in a Bambouché than I do.

The end, then, only serves as a reminder to begin again.

If you haven't figured it out by now, this thesis is built primarily using quotes, references, plagiarisms, variations, samples from the works of others whose words echoed my sentiment, exemplifying the premise of the thesis. While it is written in "my voice," my voice is a culmination of my lived experience. I argue against the homogenization of art, but I can't speak enough about the word-of-mouth recommendations from friends. So, in the spirit of the Amazonesque "Customers who bought this item also bought..."

• The pause tape mix, Reality Rap, from ORTHADOX
• The online collection of Joe Allen's Academic Archive column (that appears generally in Wax Poetics, except for the interview with me, which was pulled for being "too critical" of hip-hop)
• Negativland's Intellectual Property Issues
• The photography of Zoe Strauss
• Solitude, Exile and Ecstasy
• A User's Guide to Détournement
• André Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism
• FUCK YOU HEROES
• The artwork of Emory Douglas
• My Life in Politics by Tim Davis
• Tim Kerr
• Marlene Angeja
• A Gag Reflex
• Swerve Magazine
• Jen Bervin's A Non-Breaking Space (File Under: Fragilely Palimpsestic)
• The counterpoint of the dyke mafia short film, She Who
• Jacob Holdt's book, American Pictures
• Page 308 of Elaine Brown's autobiography, A Taste of Power, which describes her agony the night before she met with executives at Motown Records to release her LP Until We're Free
• The best fucking sing-a-long chorus in the history of sing-a-long choruses. Go ahead, click and sing-a-long:

  I'm tired of being told what to think/ I'm tired of being told what to do/ I'm tired of fucking king phonies/ That's right, I'm tired of you/ No, no, no, no, no, no, Mr. Suit/ You can take your fucking money and shove it up your arse/ 'Cause you think you understand, well it's a fucking farce/ I'm tired of fucking phonies/ That's right, I'm tired of you/ No, no, no, no, no, no, Mr. Suit/ And if you turn and walk out that door/ And take your fucking money, let me tell you what it's for/ I'm tired of fucking phonies/ That's right, I'm tired of you/ No, no, no, no, no, no, Mr. Suit

• Dear Trina,
  Hollywood antics, the douchebag offspring of both "The Rod" and Spelling, and a need for more hip-hop can only be a joke, right? I mean, I'm sure you're a nice woman, but you sound like an asshole. It's a lot like "corprorate codswallop" meets "canceled before the pilot airs." Good luck in antic-filled, hip-hop lacking, music "supervising" Hollywood!
  Sincerely,
  No, no, no, no, no, no, Mr. Suit
• In 1980, PiL was invited to perform on Dick Clark's American Bandstand (watch the video here). Before the band appeared on the show, Clark asked Larry White, PiL's tour manager, "What can I expect from this asshole?" referring to Johnny. When PiL performed, Johnny refused to lip-synch along to the pre-recorded music. And worse, he went into the crowd, and on his way back to the stage, he invited the crowd (with a head nod) to join him. Nobody followed. Nobody? So he grabbed a girl, pulled her out of the crowd and onto the main stage to dance. He left her, and returned to the crowd. He started yanking people out of the crowd and pushing them on stage. That footage is particularly funny, and telling, because it speaks to the whole mentality of punk (or whatever you want to call it). Dudes yell "fuck the system" all day long, but when it comes time to Bumrush the Bandstand, they are stuck to their seats. Or, like my man Vaneigem says:
  

  It is a long way, in hierarchical terms, from the boss to his workers, from the star to his fans, or from the politician to his supporters. Some groups have a much more rigid structure than others. But all are founded on the illusion of participation shared by every group member whatever his rank. This illusion is fostered through meetings, insignia, the distribution of minor 'responsibilities', etc. The spurious solidarities maintained by such expedients are often friable. This boyscout mentality is frighteningly pervasive, and it throws up its own stereotypes, its own martyrs, heroes, models, geniuses, thinkers, good niggers, great successes e.g., Tania, Cienfuegos, Brando, Dylan, Sartre, a national darts champion, Lin Piao.

The end, then, only serves as a reminder to begin again. Now that you know how it ends, you will have a better idea of how to make sense of the beginning.

See you after the "All Clear,"
--Bambouche of the Vanguard Squad