The Charles Rice Goff III Audio-Visual Experience Part I – It’s Psychedelic Baby!

Charles Rice Goff III has been home recording his uniquely personal brand of audio art and music for over 40 years. My own Goff journey began in 2001 when Charles submitted a CD by The Magic Potty Babies to my web zine – Aural Innovations. Since then, I’ve been delighting in a steady stream of Goff concoctions.

Charles is also a video artist, which I became aware of from the DVDs he submitted to Aural Innovations years ago. Goff audio is pure craftsmanship. But Goff audio + visuals is… an EXPERIENCE.
 
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. And then… it spiraled (these things often do). I hurled myself down the rabbit hole into Goff audio-visual Wonderland. There’s a lot there. And it’s a trip.
 
A few weeks and a couple hours of phone conversations with Charles plus many hours of listening/viewing later, I’ve landed on what will be a three-part series that seeks to lure readers into Charles’ world.
 
While working on these articles Charles’ notified me of a new album he’d made available (Transition Transmission) which he claimed might be his most psychedelic yet. That got my attention because everything about Charles’ work is over-the-edge psychedelic, but in a very Goffedelic way.
 
In his video work, Charles’ use of imagery and animation is influenced by an array of artists that will be apparent to viewers who immerse themselves in his work. As Charles summarizes: “People like Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam. And all the way back to the Fleischers (Max and Dave), Chuck Jones, Disney. And then there’s all the Dadaists, I’ve got a big list of those.”
 
To this list I would add that Charles’ video work in a way reminds me of the old Ralph Records videos I bought in the 1980s on VHS. Taken together with his stated influences, readers can imagine the avant-psychedelic cauldron that’s in store.
 
It should also be added that Charles does wonders with lo-fi, inexpensive video equipment: “All the edits and everything else are done on software that was made in probably the first decade of the 21st century, up until around 2011. I’ve functioned pretty much my entire life at the low end of the economic scale. Old technology is my friend, and I do a lot with that.”
 
In this, Part I, I’ll explore four of Charles’ earlier videos. These examples are only the sharpest tippy tip point of not just Charles' audio-visual work but the massive and continually growing Taped Rugs history.
 
The Bible, The Bullet & The Synesthesia (1990)
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The Bible, The Bullet & The Synesthesia began life as a two-hour Dadaist video that Charles showed to only a handful of ‘victims’ and never released. Years later he trimmed it down to a compact 9-minutes that “combines images from an M&Ms ad, a Green Hornet episode, a Real Cheese ad, and a gun show TV promo.” The audio is provided by Charles’ band Herd Of The Ether Space. He explains: “It’s very much a serious experiment in lo-fi. It’s crude, but I think that’s what attracts people to it.”
 
Crude indeed. But the music and imagery are mesmerizing. Air raid orchestra, 1950s sci-fi soundtrack, freeform tinkly, jazzy and trippy spacey music provide the backdrop for a freakish succession of imagery… slow motion rodeo, flying saucer, toy aliens, explosions, geometric shapes, guns… it’s a wigged out parade! Charles packs a lot into 9 minutes.

Panaramania (2002-2004)

Panaramania was the first official Taped Rugs release of Charles’ video recordings. I first experienced it when Charles submitted the CDR collection of MPEGs to Aural Innovations for review in 2004. The 28 videos range in length from several seconds to not quite 2 minutes. Charles later stitched them together for a single viewing experience on the internet.
 
Charles describes the nearly 29-minute contents: “Old and new videos and photographs from various sources were cut up, effected, re-combined, and blended with bits of pre-existing sound recordings from the Taped Rugs catalog to create this collection.”
 
Charles gives the Dada pioneers a run for their money. Images are manipulated, efx’d and set in motion to create an art-video bursting with color and psychedelic brain disruption. There are snippets of actual video throughout, but it’s the color-changing, swirling, pulsating, blurring and every which way but loose collagery fun that takes center stage.
 
Having given up ’substances’ years ago I’ve come to believe that undivided attention/immersion rewards with a much better experience than being under the influence ever did, and parking myself comfortably in front of the computer screen with the speakers turned up supports this belief. (Of course, I speak for myself. Readers can enjoy according to their personal preference.)
 
When I reviewed this in 2004, I would have clicked the individual files but revisiting it all these years later I much prefer sitting back and immersing myself in them as a single experience. The ‘tracks’ are easy to follow so I’ll single out a few personal favorites…
 
‘Gerd Up’ is creatively hysterical. Samples of genuine Gerd ads and/or infomercials accompany animated imagery of the brain and facial features, with a slice of pizza munchy munching into a skeletal mouth. ‘Mister Clean’ is Goff’s take on a Mister Clean commercial, which is extra fun because we’re treated to Charles in singing song mode. ‘Vondgina’ takes what looks like ‘In Search Of Ancient Astronauts’ imagery and gives it the lysergic alter-dimensional psychedelicazation treatment, backed by melodically warped acoustic guitar strumming and effects.
 
The cool and strange backing music runs the gamut of Charles solo work, his various other bands, and collaborations with such luminaries as Hal McGee, Don Campau and Bret Hart. For sheer variety, Panaramania is an excellent introduction to the Goff/Taped Rugs audio + visuals experience.
 
Dada For The 21st Century (2006)

A little background on Dada For The 21st Century. On December 27, 2005, then mayor of Lawrence, Kansas, Dennis ‘Boog’ Highberger, proclaimed various days to be International Dadaism Month. In response, Charles ended up organizing what became the April 1, 2006, International Dada Celebration, a 3-hour event held at Lawrence’s South Park Recreation Center. Video of the event is well worth watching but was not filmed by Charles because he was busy as a participant.
 
Of his Dada influences, Charles explains: “Dada video has influenced me. And it started to influence me more when the city of Lawrence, Kansas under mayor Boog Highberger issued an official Dada Month for the city of Lawrence. That was not filmed by me, but there are things in it that are… they helped inspire me. Anyway, all that Dada stuff really kind of reinforced my interest in Dadaism and gave me a good deal more concrete knowledge of the subject.”
 
Which brings us to the 46-minute Dada For The 21st Century, which was inspired by the Dada month and event in Lawrence. Like Panaramania, this was originally released as a CDR with 17 individual MPEG videos, which Charles later made available as a single file for the internet. The notes describe how “contained in these audio/video pieces are altered clips from old films and newer documentaries, old and new photographs, original art, original films, sound samples edited and treated, and original music.”
 
I’ll call out a handful of my favorites… ‘Dada Dada Dada’ is a perfect opener, being a lightshow collage of Dada documentation and posters. ‘Flight Of The Dresses’ is an old silent film of a dancer that has been Goff-O-Vision multi-colorized to look like a psychedelic video watercolor. ‘333’ is a stunner, marrying an eerie, noisy, chaotically musical Dadaist symphony with blurred, moving candles/lights/fireflies, rotating and swaying art and shapes, a constellation of painted and who knows what globules, clouds and more. ‘En Route’ is like a Sunday drive through a colorful pastel countryside painting, as if it were an avant-art version of the old cartoon (I forget the name) where a boy created his worlds with chalk. ‘View With A Horn’ is a fun parade of Dada verbalization and imagery. Other videos feature odes to Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Eric Satie and Francis Picabia. And all are accompanied by appropriately Goff musical mind-play.
 
SanduskscenesS (2008)

SandusksceneS (Charles lives on Sandusky Street) was originally released on DVDR in 2008. Charles later made the six videos in the collection available on the internet, though in this case as six separate ‘tracks’.
 
All the soundtrack music was created by Charles except for the opening video - ‘Newcolor Bomb’, which was a collaboration with Dave Woycechowsky. This video is worth calling out for particular attention as it’s an example of Charles’ animations – He created all the art himself, as opposed to manipulating existing film and imagery. Charles nails the effect in his own assessment of the visuals: “’Newcolor Bomb’ is one of my favorites. It’s a pretty powerful thing, where it’s all crazy colors and stuff coming at you.” Which is exactly right. Shapes, objects and symbols appear, shapeshift, dance about and fade in and out, the colors continually morphing, like a psychedelically dosed avant-garde cartoon.
 
Charles and I got into a discussion about his animations relative to his creative manipulation of images and film. Many of his videos do appear to be animations, though the dividing line is whether he did the drawings/artwork himself.
 
‘Euclid’s Domesticity’ is next and is a mind-bending collage of homes, their contents and surroundings, accompanied by Charles’ eerie guitar plus assorted rumblings and effects. ‘Kauffman Stadium’ takes Charles’ love of baseball and gives it the Goff-art treatment, with a Goffified take on the traditional ‘Take Me Out To The Ball Game’ as soundtrack. The appropriately titled 'Mantis Meal’ features a praying mantis enjoying a katydid meal with humorous robotic narration describing the scene. ‘Trip To The Fair’ uses video Charles filmed at the Douglas County (Kansas) Fair to artfully document the ‘trip’.
 
Finally, ‘Unnatural Selections’ was featured at a couple film festivals in Lawrence, Kansas. Described by Charles as “an adventure in interpretation”, the viewer is treated to a seamlessly evolving, cascading succession of imagery and film. With lots of nature, seashore, insects and wildlife, but also construction, it goes from pastoral nature to industrial and on to more active form of nature in visuals and sound. Along with ’Newcolor Bomb’, this is my favorite of the set.
 
I’ve been writing about Charles’ music for over twenty years and as much fun as it is to share the impressions it all ultimately boils down to… ya gotta experience it for yourself!
 
Have I aroused, inspired, provoked your interest? Charles has meticulously documented his history, with nearly all audio and video releases going back decades available at archive.org.
 
The portal to Goff/Taped Rugs Valhalla 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

Stay tuned for Part II in which I will explore more recent examples of Charles audio-visual work.