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Editor's Note by Hal McGee: One of my most vivid memories from the early days of my involvement in the Cassette Culture era of the 1980s was seeing ads in magazines and entries in contact lists for cassettes by a mysterious hometaper in Canada named dk. He did not accept money for his tapes, only trades: And not necessarily for other tapes. Useless objects too! dk discography - Surface Tension 1983 - Bad Taste in My Mouth (1983/4) - Rhythms That Answer Questions 1984 - The Sexual Fix 1985 - Another Difficult Moment 1986 - Factory Seconds: A Compilation of Bands Too Silly to Exist As In Leftovers, The Red Herrings, The Ironic Reeds, F-Art Band, The Incompetents, The Dirty Stinky Toys  scan of Surface Tension cover and cassette, as submitted to Tape-Mag by Hal McGee  Surface Tension advertisement in OP magazine, early 1980s  Surface Tension review in OP magazine, early 1980s
 scan of A Bad Taste In My Mouth cover and cassette, as submitted to Tape-Mag by Hal McGee
 Compilations The Kitchen Tapes (Slang Tapes: Joe Schmidt producer) with dk, Kowa Kato, Lotus Club, Sadistic Gossip, The Twins, Simpletonelectronics, Built-In Ghosts, Mike Vargas, dk, Jan Blondeel & Guy De Bievre, Otto J. E. Grunbauer, Magthea, Tom Furgas, The Opposition, The Haters. Cassette Chaos 1983 X2 (compiled by John Oswald) 1984 A Ratio of Autographs: International Soundspot Compilation (by Miekal And) Ontario Electronic Music Tape Project (comp. by David Butler) Transatlantic Overdub LP, De Fabriek, Holland Coarse Language (comp. by Curtis Wehrfritz) - Curtis Wehrfritz, Tom 3rd, Dan Lander, Jim Paterson, Catastrophe Theory, Meryn Cadell, Bruce Evans, dk, Tom Paterson, KG Cruickshank - with Dan Lander on A Joyful Noise: Dissident Music from Europe, Japan & North America (Sterile Records Cornelius Cardew, Treatise Eight versions by eight artists: Marcel Blum, Ken Clinger, Tom Furgas, dk & the perfectly ordinary*, Bill Lehmann, Al Margolis, Russ Stedman, Eric Wallack. *(The Perfectly Ordinary is Allison Cameron, Lawrence Josph, and Rod Dubey. Words to this version adapted from writings by Cornelius Cardew and Samuel Beckett) Compilation co-ordinated and produced by Tom Furgas (2008) Collaborations with Peter Sramek Hand and Glass 1984-5 with Tom Furgas: Overstating the Obvious 1986 with Dan Lander: Equivalent Insecurity cassette,1989. re-released as CD on Spool Spurn series 2017 1985-1993 Started Marginal Distribution which distributed music including some cassette artists as well as magazines, many music oriented and books. Sub Rosa v.2 n.1 Spring 1992 Noise Issue. Contents: Forward to Noise by Gianluca Vialli Hearing Pictures: The Phonographic Reproduction of the World by Vern Weber Bruts and Bruits: the transistor by Christof Migone Radio Art: The Pubescent Stage by Dan Lander Noise and the Acoustic Environment: Kim Sawchuk interviews Hildegard Westerkamp Making Noise by Rod Dubey Afterword to Noise by Gianluca Vialli Edited by Daniel Kernohan (aka Gianluca Vialli) 1995 Produced a concert/video event called An Evening of Poetry & Jazz which featured videos by Paul Haines and a concert by Michael Snow & Jack Vorvis Started Verge Music Distribution which took over the music side of Marginal as new owners were not interested. 1996 Angel Day Turning (aka Greg Thompson) Artspace Peterborough 1996 sound & video installation by me under pseudonym Greg Thompson Part of the Angel Show with Chris Hardwicke, Dominic Hardy, Calla Shea, David Bateman 1997-98 Started Spool, a label with Vern Weber which has released 46 CDs including recently two of my own projects
2017
Car Dew Treat Us by dk & the perfectly ordinary (Allison Cameron, Rod Dubey & Lawrence Joseph) with guests on each of 10 tracks: Phillippe Battikha, Sean Caighean, Paul Dutton, Caroline Kunzle, Brett Larner, Al Margolis, Gino Robair, Paul Serralheiro, Vergil Sharkya & Ben Wilson interpret 10 pages of Cornelius Cardew’s Treatise. Shed Metal by Equivalent Insecurity (Dee Kay & Dan Lander) a release of music created 1987-1989 which was meant to be released as a cassette in 1989. One track appears on Sterile Records A Joyful Noise: Dissident Music from Europe, Japan and North America. 1990
6 Comments
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dk aka Dee Kay circa 1975
dkI started doing experiments with tapes around 13. Me and some friends heard Firesign Theatre on the radio and attempted to make our own comedy on a portable cassette deck. A year after we got into reel to reel and into bands. Our band went from the blues to prog rock over 3-4 years. All the time me and my buddy Dave kept trying stuff on reel to reels. We were both visual artists but we were also in a rock band. Our musical tastes evolved to include free jazz and experimental music. My friend’s uncle had been an experimental composer who worked as an engineer at the CBC. He supported our interest in visual art but he also introduced us to avant garde music. He gave us 3 or 4 sets from the Deutsche Grammofon Avant Garde series. We started trying to do Stockhausen with household items, sewing machines, pots and pans, portable cassette decks. We all went to art school. I saw Cornelius Cardew perform, with students, a section of the Great Learning. After that was over he then rejected that music as bourgeois and then performed some of his Maoist folk songs at the piano. We also saw David Tudor’s Rainforest. He came and worked with the music students and they built it with him. When I was at York University, Richard Teitelbaum and David Rosenboom were on the music faculty. I took visual arts. The leader of the foundation course was George Manupelli. He was a member of the Once Group from Ann Arbor. He brought Robert Ashley as a guest and he performed during our mass lecture. Because I had already started doing pieces using sound and performance, my graduate TA introduced me to Ashley and he politely listened to one of my early experiments. Archives |
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