Generator at Sediment Arts Richmond Virginia

Generator was in residence at Sediment Arts in Richmond Virginia October 6-29, 2017. For the opening we occupied the store front to create a Generator RVA POPUP store featuring cassettes by anyone who sent us a cassette plus some selections from the Generator Archive.

There was an octophonic sound system modeled after the one at Generator from 1989-1992. Four cassette players were output to 8 speakers - so 4 stereo pairs. This was the preferred way Conrad Schnitzler liked to have his Cassette CONcerts performed.  A six hour recording of Conrad Schnitzler’s first visit to Generator in October of 1989 also played  continuously in the background.

Three founders of Generations Unlimited – Gen Ken Montgomery, Conrad Schnitzler, David Prescott

Generator was re-incarnated at AVA in 2012 and Generations Unlimited was re-launched in 2015 with encouragement and support of Sean Julian and Crystal Penalosa and with the blessings of David Prescott. We produced a C-110 cassette called Generator Twenty-Seven Years Later, a C-110 cassette was released for the Generator RVA show at Sediment Arts in 2016.  It features current voices and sounds from nearly 50 artists who were at Generator or involved with Generator through the post 27 years ago.

Generator Twenty-Seven Years Later is available at Generation Unlimited.

In addition to showcasing and playing tapes from the International Cassette Network, Generator was a hub for the local creative community to perform and hang out reading zines and listening to sounds and music. In that spirit Generator RVA invited performances by local Richmond artists  and international artists calling in remotely using the incoming phone line which was connected to speakers in the space. There were performances by Sean Julian, Chris Penalosa, Tommy Birchett, Will O’Donavan, Ben Scott, Fred McGann, Elizabeth  Nall and Stephen Vitiello; multi-channel channel sound works by Conrad Schnitzler, Gen Ken Montgomery, Rod Summers, Nigel Ayers and DJ Olive; live remote audio-only phone-in performances by Gregory Whitehead, Rod Summers, Dylan Nyoukis, Sam Ashley, Anna Homler, GX Jupiter Larsen, Steve Dalachinsky, BLACKHUMOUR, small cruel party and Cm von Hausswolff & Leif Elggren.

The audio from this month of great listening experiences has been meticulously documented by Sediment Arts at the Bandcamp link below.

A special thanks to Claire Zitrow for inviting me to Richmond. And a heartfelt thanks to Dana Ollestad for recording, assembling and posting this wonderful audio document of Generator RVA @ Sediment Arts.