Quoting from their web site: “The Fuse Factory is an art and technology initiative focused on cultivating artistic production, research, and experimentation with digital media and electronic tools. Our purpose is to function as an incubator for innovation, interaction, collaboration, critical thought, diversity, and artistic exploration.”
 
Among their events is Frequency Friday, which (during its season) features artists/bands in the mostly experimental realm on the first Friday of each month. The March Frequency Friday included Marguerite Sissie, who I was acquainted with from the Electronic Cottage Facebook group. Florida is, of course, a huge state. But through Electronic Cottage I’ve learned of an encouraging number of Florida based artists who live within hours of each other and an impressively vibrant live experimental music scene.
 
Marguerite flew into Columbus from St. Petersburg on Thursday, March 6. I picked her up from the airport, got her settled into her hotel, and then whisked her over to my house where we had dinner, enjoyed a wonderful visit, and I interviewed her. On Friday we visited several thrift stores and an Asian market, which will be explained in the interview below. And then we spent a couple hours hiking along the Scioto River. It was a great day and good work up to the evening’s Frequency Friday.

The show was held at the rustically beautiful Old First Presbyterian Church. The first of four performers was L.A. Jenkins, who played a tasty set of solo guitar. I was curious about him and later did some Googling which revealed an impressive body of work. I saw two of his albums listed at Discogs, both of which seem to be from the 1980s. He must be known in some circles because one of the LPs sold for $200! During his performance I was thinking how great it would be to see him in a band situation and, sure enough, there’s some amazing music on his Bandcamp page.

Marguerite was up next, but her performance will be better appreciated within the context of our interview below.
 
Next up was Blumen, who are the duo of keyboardist/pianist Richard Blumenthal and drummer James Knorel. They played an energetic set of jazz and prog-jazz. Blumen have several albums on their Bandcamp site.

Wrapping up the evening was Thom and Thee Bedlamites, which is Thom Elliott who came from Michigan with his awesomely cheerful mom. I had first seen Thom perform as part of the Gates of Janus duo with Knox Mitchell in Columbus at the July 2023 Cassette Culture Celebration. Thom plays a classic aggressive brand of Industrial that Throbbing Gristle fans would love.

The following interview with Marguerite was conducted the day before the show, so I’ve added some post-show comments…
 
Jerry Kranitz (JK): Tell me about your musical background. You were a drummer playing in bands?
 
Marguerite Sissie (MS): I started when I was 16 years old. I was a traditional kid, sitting in church with my parents. And I was given the choice to either work with the sound team or sit in the pew with my parents. What do you think I’m going to do? I literally started by putting duct tape on floors. And plugging in things. Basically, I learned from the back line, way before I started doing anything like I do now.
 
Another thing is I took tapes apart and made tape loops because I thought it was fun. I thought I was just being nuts, but then I found out years later that I was making tape loops. Or I would do weird things to my tape recorder and make woo-wah-wah sounds or whatever, and I found out later it was tape manipulation. So, a lot of it was just basic experimenting and having fun and learning.
 
The first time I sat behind a drum kit I was told by someone I had no rhythm and shouldn’t be sitting behind a drum kit. Many years later I had an opportunity to go around to different parts of the country teaching people how to play drums. I played everything from djembes, to singing bowls, to pans, to gigantic pow-wow drums. Part of me still wants to find that person. Not because of anger, but to say that you should believe in people even when they first start. Because that’s really important.
 
So, I went from sound technician to just having fun experimenting. My first actual drum I started working with was at my roommate’s house. I was listening to Pink Floyd’s A Delicate Sound of Thunder on his TV. There’s this amazing overcam shot of the stage and I saw the percussionist’s rig. The first thing out of my mouth was I want to build that. Not that I want to play that. I want to build that. Two weeks later when I got paid, I bought my first pair of congas. And every time I got paid I bought another piece of gear. Did I know how to play it? Nope. I just wanted to start building it and start messing around with it in my bedroom. My roommate at the time was a professional bass player. And when I was growing up my dad was a schoolteacher and always had amazing albums. You name it. He had Pink Floyd, he had Chicago, Neil Diamond, Rush, Queen. With my mom we would do lip sync contests in the living room. That’s why I don’t have stage fright, because I’ve been performing since I was a kid.
 
And then things grew and one day I got invited to this really cool Native American grandma’s house that was across the lake. And there was this dude there playing this crazy cool Native American rock ‘n’ roll. And I said, “I have percussion.” He said, “Do you know how to play?” And I said, “No.” And he said, “Well go get ‘em.” So, I went back across the lake and brought them back. He said, “Stand behind me. Watch my foot. Watch my arm.” So, my first gig was standing behind somebody watching their right foot go tap-tap-tap and their arm goes strum-strum-strum. And from that point I realized, when the arm’s doing one thing and the foot’s doing another, if you’re doing something between both of those things, you’re on beat. And that’s how I became a drummer. And it just started growing from that point.
 
JK: You started by learning technical skills at your church before you became a musician. And then you were a drummer in what we’ll call traditional bands. But just by playing around with tapes is how you got interested in experimental music?
 
MS: Yeah, I started by just having fun. One of my friends, his brother was being a jerk one day, so I took apart his new Metallica tape and I put Jerry Falwell in there and put it back in the case. And he thought the thing was possessed! But I never knew when I was younger that the things I was doing were ‘things’. I just thought they were fun.
 
JK: So, it’s not like you were influenced by specific experimental/abstract musicians. It sounds like you just organically got into it.
 
MS: Yeah.
 
JK: I was watching three different performances of yours on YouTube. Let’s step through them to highlight how different you can be from one performance to the next. Let’s start with Hal McGee’s Apartment Music 51 (Nov. 17, 2024). That’s where you had what I only half-jokingly called the Flying Wok-Saucer, which you clarified is called a handpan. Plus, you had bowls, chimes and thumb piano. What struck me was you had electronics in your setup, but they were secondary. You barely used them. That was an interesting setup you had.
 
MS: For that setup I had my handpan. I had my Kaoss KP3 pad. Then I had a set of teacups in water that was tuned. And then a little teeny hand drum. The idea was I was trying to go with the organic side of the handpan and the caustic noise of electronics. And balance the two because that’s how I see a lot of the music I like doing.

JK: You opened your set by walking around and engaging with the audience, serenading individuals with the thumb piano.
 
MS: The original part of that idea came from two things. One is I like spirituality. I remember when I was a kid watching the old school Latin mass and the priest would have the ball of incense. I thought the way the incense would go through the room was beautiful. Because it was like in a way he was leaving his high area and going out into the congregation. And the other part was I was really blessed to work with first peoples. Native Americans. One thing they do in their culture is called smudging. A smudge is a blessing, a prayer. And at the beginning of a lot of my sets I want to give you a blessing, from my heart to your heart. I don’t have to preach it to you. I don’t have to teach you anything. Because music’s music. And whenever that happens while I’m playing, you might giggle, you might laugh, you might give me a head nod. But music’s music, frequency’s frequency. And my hope is always, like if I’m playing a harsh noise set, or doing a singing bowl, that you leave better than how you came in.
 
JK: Then at Hal’s Apartment Music 49 (Jan. 21, 2024) you had the HandSonic that you played like drums, but you also had the acoustic percussion that you told me earlier Hal’s brother Mark provided.

​MS: The HandSonic HPD 20 is a drum synthesizer. But it also has an acoustical value. If I hit it hard it’s going to be louder and if I hit it soft it’s going to be soft. And there’s about a hundred different sounds in it that are digitally captured. I was trying to determine what themes, or what feelings I wanted to play with. One of the things people have said about my sets is that it’s something like what you get in a movie. Something that should be like in Twin Peaks or Dune or something like that. So, whenever I do stuff at performances I like creating a tapestry, so that if you close your eyes, you literally get a movie.
 
JK: That performance had a kind of soothing ethnic vibe. And for that one you wrapped up the performance by walking around the audience with a little percussion instrument.
 
MS: For that one, the beginning electronics… the same beat I did on the songs I did on this little teeny hockey puck hand drum. It’s the same idea where I want to leave something in your mind, in your heart. I like to bring the person in so it’s not just about me on stage. It’s about us being in the space. That’s how I want to enter it and that’s how I want to leave it.
 
JK: When I’m watching these videos it strikes me how I might hear your audio on Bandcamp, but watching you and seeing the gear and setup you have and how you’re engaging with the audience, the visual aspect makes for a much fuller experience. It’s a huge difference.
 
MS: I remember reading in one of the Grateful Dead books… that was their nemesis. Trying to capture in the studio what they played live. And to this day I try to capture on CD what I do live. It’s like trying to grab a dragon by the tail and not letting go. And sometimes I come close to it. And other times I’m like, nope… and I stop worrying about it. Press Play and on Bandcamp you get what you get and live it’s whatever happens in the moment.
 
JK: You had these two very different performances and setups. How do you decide what you’re going to do?
 
MS: I’m a very processing type person. I think it comes from having two schoolteachers for parents. And when I started doing music, I was the opposite, I was on the back line. Hooking things up and making sure you sound good. Making sure you work good before I go on stage and do anything. I kind of do the same thing when I’ve got a show coming up. I try to look at everybody I’m playing with. What’s their sound? One, I don’t want to take what they do. It’s boring when you see five bands doing the exact same thing. The other part is I want to do something… I want to be moved. I figure if I’m moved there’s a good chance that you might be moved. If it’s boring to me it’s probably going to be boring to you. But I take the old fashioned way of theater. I write my script. I have the set for tomorrow night. And I rewrote the set different ways probably six times over the last three days. Just to see what feels good. There’s also the improv part that comes in the middle of it all. Tomorrow night I might not even do three of the things because one thing I feel needs to go longer. But that’s part of the process. I want to come into a room prepared.
 
JK: You won’t improvise?
 
MS: I like improv. Sometimes I’ll embellish. I mean, I’m a drummer. I love improv. I like having structure. But at the same time, I enjoy both without overthinking it. Same thing with the shows you saw at Hal’s Apartment Music, when I was walking around with the thumb piano. Sometimes I felt I could play longer. If I have a 15-minute set I want to make sure I’m playing that set, but I might think maybe I need to play longer right here. When I was playing the handpan, I liked what I did there, so I wanted to go back and do it again. That’s the magic of the moment.
 
JK: You gave me a glimpse into your process by showing me your notes for tomorrow night. I think you’re saying this is just a guideline.
 
MS: It’s a set list. It’s kind of like if you go hiking in the woods, it’s good to have a map. But every now and then you’ll see a cool tree and want to go hang out there for a while.
 
JK: This third performance I really got into was even more different… the Steep Station (May 25, 2024). That was pure electronics. You really went out into space.

​MS: Steep Station was a fun night. It was a set for my friend Michael Couling’s birthday bash. I was performing that night as a solo project and at that time I was a part of Michael’s band Direwood. My solo works that I perform outside of Apartment Music differ in the size of my setups and the styles I perform.
 
JK: I took a picture of some of the goodies you brought with you for the show. Let’s go through what’s in the picture. You’ve got two thumb pianos.

MS: One’s electronic and the other’s acoustic. The contact mic is by Frank Sturgeon. I just wanted to figure out a way to mic it. That’s the little one. And the big one is my acoustic one.
 
JK: And you’ve got a kid’s toy.

MS: A kid’s toy. It’s a wave drum. It sounds like a wave.
 
JK: You’ve got a traditional harmonica. And what are these dynamite stick things?

MS: Those are thunder tubes. REMO is one of the first companies I think. There’s all kinds of variations of them. That’s an old school telephone mic. An old school telephone we had as kids made into a harmonica mic. I’ve got some deer bones. I’ve got echo delay and reverb. A plastic drum. A modulation pedal with multiple effects. A mixer. Those little teeny chimes are like what Buddhists would use or what someone would use for meditation. They all have their own different frequencies, and the different frequencies react to different parts of the body.
 
JK: We’re going to visit some thrift stores tomorrow because you’re hoping to find some things for the show. Anything particular in mind?
 
MS: There’s this really cool thing from India… they put water in teacups and bowls. And then they use like knitting needles or little teeny drum sticks or chopsticks. And they actually play rhythm off of them. When you put water in the teacup it changes the pitch of the teacup. I did that in the performance with the handpan. You’ll see in my videos on YouTube I’m always beating on pots and pans, hubcaps, and I’ve got a giant brake cylinder from an old truck. As a percussionist I always try to find things to hit that have cool sounds.

​--------------------
 
On Friday we visited a couple thrift stores and an Asian market where Marguerite picked up several dishes, bowls and chopsticks to use in the evening’s performance. I wish I had gotten video of her ‘auditioning’ the bowls by positioning them on the store shelf and playing them with the chopsticks!
 
I indicated in the interview how taken I was with the variety across Marguerite’s various performances. But none of that could have prepared me for her multi-part half hour performance at Frequency Friday. Marguerite is an artist who will defy any expectations anyone might have of her. I would urge readers to watch the entire video. (Please watch the videos of all the performers!)
 
It was a pleasure spending time with Marguerite and seeing her in action here in Columbus. I’ll look forward to catching her upcoming Florida performances online.

Welcome to Part II of the Charles Rice Goff III Audio-Visual Experience. Part I is an essential prerequisite, so if you’ve not read it yet, please start HERE. As I explained in Part I, the decision to write about Charles’ audio-visual work began with a question about a 1991 performance by his band Herd of the Ether Space. After detailed conversations with Charles and hours of deep diving into his videos, I was inspired to write this 3-part series.
 
Part I included background information after which I explored four of Charles’ early videos. With that under readers’ belts, I’ll now survey four of Charles’ more recent videos. And - full disclosure - my intent is to lure, inspire, provoke readers into exploring Charles’ work for themselves and, if enlightenment sets in, the massive 40+ year Goff/Taped Rugs audio and audio-visual catalogue. Lovers of all things creatively cool and strange will be rewarded.
 
Lacquered Intonations (2016)

Lacquered Intonations consists of eight videos Charles produced between 2013-2016 and released on DVDR in 2016. The videos are presented on the internet as eight separate ‘tracks’.
 
For ‘Liquid Assets’, Charles took original video and photos shot around Kansas City and manipulated them into a visual art collage. Assorted waterways and unidentifiable scenery are augmented and overlayed with swirly objects, cascading light, and variously imposed, inserted and melted into shapes.
 
‘Fingering Canned Krab’ is an amusingly psychedelic food show demonstration with Salvador Dalí creating crabmeat concoctions.
 
‘Chains Batons Pipes And Hammers’ takes more Kansas City footage and photos as illustrative of a recording by the Goff/Killr ‘Mark’ Kaswan band Disism. Highways and cityscapes are flashing lights dream machined, textured objects flicker, a tripped out staircase is ascended, a ferris wheel is psychedelically swirled and more. One of my favorites of the set.
 
‘Fun To Be Thirsty’ is another humorous one, adding a Goff composed vocal jingle to an old soft drink commercial.
 
‘The Machine Economy’ takes still more Kansas City video and photos, but in this instance arranges and blends them into a disorienting psychedelic art collage.
 
‘The Goff Family Circus’ is a cute, fun and trippy tribute to Charles’ two cats.
 
‘Fear For $20.15’ is a fast-paced collage of Halloween themes. The imagery is arranged such that we see flashes of ‘normal’ Halloween store video but mostly flashing, floating, distorted imagery. Super freaky and another of my favorites.
 
Finally, ‘Views From The Outside’ is a succession of out and indoor Kansas City scenes that are colorfully and geometrically disfigure choreographed and accompanied by playfully jingly music.
 
The variety across these eight videos makes Lacquered Intonations a good introduction to Charles’ work for those who have yet to take the plunge.
 
Sideshow Distraction (2020)

Sideshow Distraction is a 9-minute video of Goff animated images combined with a collage of Herd of the Ether Space music. It’s a flowing and melting slideshow of Dada meets Terry Gilliam imagery reacting to political dysfunction and COVID death and disruption. The visuals are all black & white and the sensation is like a psycho-Dadaist documentary. The music gets freakily intense and is tightly integrated with the visuals, making this one of my favorites of Charles’ art + music experiences.
 
Sequence Of Non Sequitur (2023)

Sequence Of Non Sequitur is a nearly 7-minute video featuring Charles’ original art and animations. The drawings have a sparse swirly lined look and feel. The animations at times come across like a psychedelic children’s cartoon and at others like an art gallery slideshow collage. And, once again, we’ve got a solid marriage of music and visuals, with Charles’ audio veering from playful to noisy to carnival orchestra.

Discothequeno (2024)

Discothequeno is a collection of four videos that were the DVD accompaniment to a 7” vinyl EP released on Justin Jackley’s Herby Records label. (Justin previously released Charles’ Heartbreaking Randomness LP and a 7" single by Disism.)
 
‘Discothequeno’ is a symmetrically distorted and shaped blend of scenery and art images. The way the shapes keep flowing in various directions, along with the intense sci-fi industrial-orchestral music is a wee bit vertigo inducing.
 
‘Baby Break My Circuit’ consists of dancing Dada shapes, photos, colored psychedelicized video and collaged ads.
 
‘Rockin’ The Hey Wagon’ is a rotating collage of various political, broadcast and other ‘personalities’.
 
And ‘Hip Lip Rip’ is a kaleidoscope of imagery and strobed, lasered, watercolor art.
 
I hope the two parts of this tour have inspired interest in Charles’ work. He has meticulously documented his history, with nearly all audio and video releases going back decades available at archive.org.
 
The magic portal to Goff/Taped Rugs Wonderland is HERE
 
A comprehensive list of Goff audio-visual works can be found HERE

All of Charles' previously published articles at Electronic Cottage can be found HERE
 
Part III will be different, wrapping things up by zeroing in on the performance/cassette album/video that inspired this series. Stay tuned…