Arts vs Entertainment

JB tape from Lafayette Records coming in May

2012-01-17T18:11:00.001-05:00

For the past four years, I've released music on my birthday. Keeping it going this year with a Joshua Barton tape with Lafayette Records. They've been super busy releasing tons of cool stuff the last couple months. I'm pumped to be on board. More details to come between now and May. Find the previous four volumes of birthday releases here. -- Joshua

Barton/Gallippo - HOPE/STRINGS/ETERNAL

2011-05-21T11:45:00.009-04:00

Two sides of one-take solo guitar done, respectively, by Joshua Barton and Eric Gallippo.
One recorded in a pine-paneled hotel room on the shores of Lake Superior, one in a yellow-walled Ypsilanti basement under fluorescent lights. At the time of this posting, neither player has heard the other's contribution.
Time is made, not found. Enjoy.
p.s. - Happy 30th Joshua!!
<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://joshuabarton.bandcamp.com/album/hope-strings-eternal"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Hope Strings Eternal by Joshua Barton&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

Sunset Television, "Chicken Broth"

2011-04-22T10:48:00.000-04:00

Back in 2009, my friend, Graham Mason, asked if I'd help track a fake commercial for the web comedy collective, Sunset Television. Sunset TV had used some AvE music already for some of their pieces - awesome, surreal, hilarious stuff. I worked on takes for a few weeks, basically trying to re-create a Folgers commercial vibe, but with coffee being replaced by chicken broth. I gave them a final version with vocals, but they ended up using a sped-up instrumental sample of it instead. And that's what's on Pitchfork now. Here's the old YouTube clip:

Here's the original final track with vocals that I sent to the Sunset TV folks:
Chicken Broth by fieldsofindustry

And once that version didn't get used, I decided to use it myself for a little remix:
Chicken Broth (remix) by fieldsofindustry

Fields of Industry & Hospital Garden tracks on free comp download

2011-04-12T15:35:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Ian Howell for putting this together. AvE bands Fields of Industry and Hospital Garden all cozied up on the same free download. It's about time. Tons of other great bands. Listen to / download it here or check out the Obvious Records bandcamp (where there's another free comp available, too).

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://everyonesacritic666.bandcamp.com/album/the-popes-boner"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;The Popes Boner by Obvious Records&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

Fist City Ramblers (Live)

2011-03-16T10:14:00.000-04:00

There's no classier way to do a send up of a girl on her 30th birthday than to trainwreck your way through a dozen-plus classic country songs. Our own Mary Jane Walbridge got the star treatment last fall courtesy of the one-off podunk troupe, the Fist City Ramblers. Named in honor of Loretta Lynn's ode to woman-on-woman violence, "Fist City," the rambling foursome assembled a selection of old down-home tunes sure to make the birthday girl smile and laugh. Whether she was laughing with us or at us is another question, but there are some good ones in there. Many thanks to Ed Gildner for surprising us with this bootleg.

Fist City Ramblers are:
Joshua Barton - vocals, guitar, bass
Cathy Illman - vocals, guitar
Corey Kellicut - vocals, lap steel
Greg Lamb - bass, guitar

Track / Original Artist / FCR vocals
1. There Stands the Glass (Webb Pierce) (Joshua)
2. Fist City (Loretta Lynn) (Cathy)
3. Loose Talk (Buck Owens/Rose Maddox) (Cathy & Joshua)
4. Good Hearted Woman (Waylon Jennings) (Joshua)
5. Pistol Packin' Mama (Al Dexter) (Joshua)
6. You Done Me Wrong (George Jones) (Corey)
7. Weary Blues From Waitin' (Hank Williams) (Cathy)
8. I Don't Care (Just As Long As You Love Me) (Buck Owens) (Joshua)
9. If I Don't Love You (Grits Ain't Groceries) (George Jones) (Corey)
10. Don't Stay Away ('Til Love Grows Cold) (Lefty Frizzel) (Joshua)
11. No Place For Me (Laura Cantrell) (Joshua)
12. Please Darlin' Please (Charlene Arthur) (Cathy)
13. Detroit City (Bobby Bare) (Corey)
14. Happy Birthday, Mary Jane

Download it here.

TEMPLETONS / TEMPLETONS

2011-03-15T12:09:00.000-04:00

Cusp of the 21st century. Behold, E.B. White meets Dee Dee Ramone. TEMPLETONS were four Michigan dudes with no scruples about copping their favorite band's style. Ramones jackets, Ramones shoes, Ramones-style songs. Named in honor of the gluttonous rat from Charlotte's Web, these homeboys ate up basement party fun like a veritable smorgasbord. The boys kept it up from 1999 to 2003, reforming briefly for an anti-Black Friday party in November 2010 - just to prove that they still don't care how much they sound like their favorite band. Hence these resurrected tunes, scraped from the fetid bowels of a late 90s C-45 and vomited onto the internet tubes. Enjoy it. Or don't.

Fields of Industry Mittenfest V bootleg

2011-01-06T17:00:00.000-05:00

Behold the as of yet sole photodocumentary evidence that Fields of Industry did indeed play at Mittenfest V upon the cusp of 2010/2011. Thanks to Liz Skene. I got the sound dizziness at this one; the first time in many years. That perfect nexus of vibrations that damages your equilibrium just long enough to make you feel funny-not-bad. Try it. Put your head between two bass stacks turned to 10 and have a buddy play immediately adjacent notes in stereo. Thanks to EG's work pal for clutching the fancy new recorder that has yielded this bootleg:

DOWNLOAD THE SET

Mittenfest V Day One / Woodruff's / Ypsilanti, MI / 12-28-2010
1. Fiction Writer
2. Dreams
3. So Sad
4. I've Never Been to New York
5. Reverberation (13th Floor Elevators)
6. I'm Not Afraid of a Fight

Less than 24 hours after this set, Eric's daughter was born. Not to mention the baby was present for this, under veil of womb.

AvE Zine no.1

2010-12-30T14:59:00.001-05:00

2010 brings a flashback to 1980, a printed zine. AvE cohort of Fields of Industry, Long Whisker, Hospital Garden and buds assess their year in music listenership. Joshua sliced to bits by paper cuts. How many hours of folding and stapling? Download it, or pick up a copy at Mittenfest V, starting tonight.

Womb diving with Save Me From The Gallup Poll

2010-11-09T21:52:00.000-05:00

Save Me From The Gallup Poll / SMFTGP / Smiffedgip is a one man plunge into the guts of sound. Mixers and effects pedals are bastardized into amateur tinkerings of biotechnological abomination; bleeding, bowel-sputtering androids barely able to murmur "Pleeasseee killl meeeeee." Sound like fun? Check out this house show this Friday, 11/12/10, in world famous Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Just days ahead of this rare out-of-home excursion from SMFTGP, his imprint was able to extract some limited answers on the what and wherefore behind the project. This Ypsi house show on 11/12 will melt you and SMFTGP sightings are fleeting like the sasquatch. Be there, or read about it Saturday in the Daily Mirror or whathaveyou.

AvE: Why do you want to be saved from the Gallup Poll?

SMFTGP: Noise is the blues of the information age.

AvE: You're into recording direct to tape. And making tapes. What's with the tape thing? Is this just ironic experimentation in marginality or is there something aesthetic about cassettes?

SMFTGP: There’s some object fetish at work there, I’m sure, as well as market forces.

The recordings are basically bootlegs of improvisations I played for no one. Recording to tape was just easy to do for the first couple of recordings -- straight from mixer to two track. Then it made sense to dub and release them that way in a really small quantity. If I ever get to a point where I’ve done something worth putting on record or a proper CD, maybe I will.

Malcolm McLaren liked cassettes for their disposability back when they were first getting popular. I think he thought it was a good metaphor for the pop culture they delivered.

AvE: Favorite pedal and why. Go.

SMFTGP: It’s mostly delay and EQ. I use what I have for playing guitar, which I do in a couple of other bands.

AvE: Any thoughts on a link between feedback loops and Oedipal motifs?

SMFTGP: Sounds diving back into the “womb” just to be purged again uglier?

AvE: For the uninitiated, what makes a track of yours good or bad? Noisers can be totally impressed by sounds someone does ("That was killer!"), or totally underwhelmed ("He's so predictable."), but it's hard to decipher what exactly elicits the various reactions. What sound values are at play? Or what beyond sound is at stake?

SMFTGP: My wife says there is no difference; you like noise or you don’t. She might be right. My friend Chris Oposnow says the difference between good and bad noise is the album art. He’s probably right.

More info, including some free releases from SMFTGP here.

Long Whisker - Huge Power

2010-08-21T15:32:00.000-04:00

Jim & Reagan continue to truck along. I've seen them transition through three significant lineup changes, and one faux band-breakup. What's changed in the meantime is, well, drums, mostly. Now they have them; they didn't before. When Reagan first sent me some Long Whisker tunes back in 2008, I was totally floored: clearly early-development songs that worked amazingly well as first iterations, don't think too hard about it, just be what you are, sing what you know and that is frill-less 90's balls and poetry.

That sound continues to prevail on Huge Power but with a thicker production, a better executed recording - thanks to Worm Farm Recordings in Ypsilanti. J&R can be found yelping tag team style or in unison on this record and bashing the guitars noticeably harder along to the splishsplash of hence-departed drummer Elliot Daimler. There is a suggestion of bass, presumably overdubbed by Reagan, to fill in the low end now that keys are no longer present.

At first glance, songs must come easy for these guys. I don't know if that's true or not (I will ask). But I assume that it's true 'cause Jim & Reagan have wits that basically dominate whatever room they happen to be in, however large. We shared a show in Jackson at the historic Michigan Theater back in March. Now, the Michigan Theater is a sad and amazing place. It, like so many other early 20th century theaters, is a crumbling symbol of pre-depression Midwest stability. People were in these states and cities making stuff, getting by, living in industry and, naturally, going to movies and talkies on the weekends. Hence the Michigan Theater came into being as well as it's cohort of doomed architectural specimens in other, similar towns. And now it sits in downtown Jackson, Michigan, foreboding. Its restoration is the pet project of a handful of classic theater enthusiasts, nostalgists. And it's been largely restored, it shows some films, live broadcasts of sporting events, Rocky Horror Picture Show screenings for local degenerates that seem to happen every night (seriously, I don't get this, how often can you dress up and mime the same film?). Anyway, the place is also haunted. And here we are, a couple of quasi-local bands in the belly of this theater beast, with a dressing room reserved for us, at once charming and bizarre. Around the corner is a hallway blocked off by a row of chairs. "What's back there?" "Don't go back there, that's where the ghosts are." The ghosts! So I'm hanging around alone by the ghost hallway and I close my eyes. I hear no ghosts but I do hear Reagan & Jim. They're in the dressing room with some other dudes and the bubble of jokes and laughter echoing off the concrete walls is constant, reverberated to sound decades old, and it's easy to imagine the ghosts of grips, projectionists and dancers guffawing in the style of the roaring 20s, enveloped in cigar smoke.

Jim, Reagan, & former drummer Elliot in the Michigan Theater dressing room. -photo by Ed.

Reagan & Jim. So many quips and turns of phrase at their disposal, the huge power of the language centers of their brains are the unifying force of this band, and therefore Huge Power is the name of the new album. Actually, that's not the source of the album name, probably something more tongue-in-cheek socio-political. My two guesses are: 1.) anti-government (naturally, who isn't?) and 2.) anti-fraternal/greek societies. However, I must grant that Long Whisker, if anti-anything, if opposed to anything - if they are any of that, their resistance must be complicated by some kind of ambivalence, because not only do they provoke nostalgia for small, precious, eccentric things, they also write testament to the grit and real-world stench of towns like Ypsilanti, Michigan. They have a love-hate relationship with the post-industrial. They, I think more than any other Ypsi band, totally take ownership of their town. To them, (I project) Ypsi is about nasty, forsaken places inhabited by fantastic people, past and present. Friends of today and the workers of yesterday. In Ypsi and in the rest of the Midwest. Long Whisker shows a sensitivity to the Midwest situation that honestly warms my heart. They're somewhere amidst the various stages of loss: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. But I think Jim & Reagan are on the verge, in many of their tunes, of taking things a step beyond acceptance. They're finding out what's next, for themselves, for their town and for what it means to be a pair of Midwestern wordsmiths with a band.

Huge Power is available for free download here.

Reverend Doomhammer's Crib!!!!

2010-07-13T21:30:00.000-04:00

AvE's own Reverend Doomhammer shares the intimate secrets of his abode.

Fields of Industry - Trouble House

2010-07-08T22:56:00.001-04:00

Trouble House is a rock 'n' roll record. It merges the competing halves of Fields of Industry that have been festering under the surface for a few years now: that of reverberated bliss and rock 'n' roll darkness. Fields goes all out, with a fuller sound, a more fervent dedication to something-or-other, and a recklessness that is at once tears and teeth-gnashing.

Watch for tour dates from Fields, briefly in late July, and then more shows in the fall. Arts vs Entertainment is proud to issue a short run of the disc, available on Fields' site. The album is also available at digital outlets including iTunes, and emusic

Have a listen!
<a href="http://fieldsofindustry.bandcamp.com/album/trouble-house">I've Never Been To New York by Fields of Industry</a>

Joshua Barton Brooklyn, NY 9/5/2009

2010-05-21T10:40:00.004-04:00

In observation of the ongoing tradition to release something (anything) musical on my birthday, I offer here the audio & video of some backyard tunes recorded in Brooklyn in September of 2009. Though the video makes it look like I was pretty lonely out there in the dark, I was in fact joined by dozens of good friends, and hosted by the generous Gina Pensiero at her 50/50 Space (aka her basement and/or backyard). Gina gives of herself to music in many cool ways, including her band and her blog. Getting to participate in her ongoing monthly series of shows was a fantastic experience, and it was only the beginning of what turned out to be a fantastic night.

Special thanks for this release go out to Dax Monta & Graham Mason for recording it, and doubly to Dax for bringing the final recordings together as a package. I was joined on mandolin for a few tunes by Tristan Dreisbach. Matt Richman helped out with editing.

Download the audio here.

Watch the video here.

Tracks:

1. Introduction

2. I've Got Something To Say To You

3. We'll Always Have The Oasis

4. Going Home

5. Don't Stay Away (Till Love Grows Cold) [Lefty Frizzell]

6. I'll Fly Away [Albert E. Brumley]

7. Eugenia

8. Ypsilanti Is Seething

9. Sick Of America

10. Unknown Legend [Neil Young]

11. Point Of Contention

12. Pillaged Land

13. Roll Another Number (For The Road) [Neil Young]

14. I've Seen A Light

Hospital Garden - Hospital Garden

2010-04-23T21:43:00.003-04:00

AvE has been dormant too long. Leave it to this loud Chicago-by-way-of-Dayton trio to wake us up. Remember Hospital Garden? The post-Bear Mountain Picnic solo demo project of Lucas Hollow? Well those sketches are now a full fledged reality and Hospital Garden are three rather than one.

Hospital Garden is a team. An angry, righteous squad of rock n' roll with roots of influence extending down deep into the 1980s when their ears were very young, but not unreceptive. They are blistering guitar, bass and drums led by Lucas Hollow's feverish lyrical mumble, always seeming on the verge of exploding - the tried and true power trio, in lock-step, on a mission to blow up power chords in such effective time-tested methods that it all sounds new again.

They are a streak of pop core wrapped in the unassuming dirty frustration of an era when Reagan anguish had yielded to resigned Reagan fatigue, and something we all should have seen coming around again having just said goodbye to Bush II. Lucas, Sarah & Ian are re-exemplifying the rebellious good that was at the heart of what became labelled "alternative" before all of that rose to the braindead, cashcow top of college radio and Teen Spirit.

But Hospital Garden are not a historical reenactment of the alternative scene. They are diligent students of what has come before, but with a new vision for resistance - resisting the temptation to disintegrate into weirdness, incoherence and fake frame glasses like all your favorite Pitchforkers. Resisting the temptation to be boring and lame. These kids wear real glasses. Use real guitars. A true alternative to that which presently dominates our attention strapped ears and eyeballs.

If Guided By Voices and the Lemonheads were pop music prophets, then Hospital Garden is the new voice in the wilderness and their self titled work is the call to repentance from all your hip nonchalance in 2010. Purchase it at CD Baby or wait for it to show up on iTunes, Amazon, etc. in the coming weeks.

http://www.myspace.com/hospitalgarden

Save Me From the Gallup Poll – Kawgooshkanick & Brain Eraser

2009-10-30T15:26:00.016-04:00

After a long pause, SMFTGP returns with two decidedly different approaches, both documented nearly a year ago.

First up is Kawgooshkanick, an electric swamp of half-rotted, eel-infested compost muck. Lurk in the bogs of a post-civilized river valley, home to mysterious tribes of telepathic warrior kings whose vengeance broods stealth beneath slime-covered waters. Get it here.

Next comes Brain Eraser, an audio testament to the power-mantra of matter over mind. Like an awful, cheap beer buzz – no high, no motor skills. Just dull thuds followed by high frequency flares, swirling in the cavernous hole that once housed your consciousness. Download this one and move it directly to your PC’s trash bin. Get it here.

Physical releases planned by year’s end. Pre-order yours tomorrow!

Long Tones - Christ In The New World

2009-08-11T09:36:00.005-04:00

Long Tones is the amateur-clarinet and drone project of Joshua Barton that provided the screech and squawk in the soul-grinding Instant Headache collaboration with Save Me From The Gallup Poll. LT's solo short player establishes an entirely different sound of ambient delirium. Christ In The New World is based on a half-realized concept of Jesus Christ visiting the State of Michigan in a mashup of The Grand Inquisitor and Mad Max. But of course you wouldn't know that unless we told you. LT drops two blurry, live-tracked pieces of shifting headspace; the first centered on clarinet and voice, the second consisting of manipulated vinyl.
Download it.
Art by Graham.

Joshua Barton - Thanks, I Missed You, Too

2009-05-21T13:59:00.007-04:00

One year ago yesterday, Fields of Industry dropped Two Dogs, A Television and held a release show in Ann Arbor the following evening in conjunction with FoI singer/songwriter Joshua Barton's birthday. Joshua turns another year older today and thanks the world for another successful year of staying alive with a solo record, Thanks, I Missed You, Too. Operating under his own name, Joshua allows himself to endulge in playful combinations of ambient sample assemblage, country gospel, new folk and the buzzy shoegaze sound that FoI has occasionally employed. In other words, Joshua gets to do all the stuff he's done before, but this time he does it all at once. Thanks... is an effort to reach an empathetic hand to Michigan with the hard-times resignation often employed by FoI, but here it's with a strangely up-key touch. Drawing upon recordings from 2005 to 2009, this was edited and compiled in 48 hours under the intense urge to get something done, an urge that Joshua hopes is contagious.
Get it here. Or over at the JB Bandcamp site.

Tracks 8 & 9 excluded from CC License.

Product

2009-04-10T15:26:00.010-04:00

Straight outta the 20th century, AvE jumps into the material realm with physical releases to collect dust, scratch and get chewed by yr tape deck.

The first is "Swat Team Extractions (There Goes the Neighborhood)," a brand new set from the AvE Ensemble on the Bare Wire Technologies label, home to such AvE favorites as Confusion Reactor, Flussig and Psyhcoptic Occlusion.

Label description: "Swat Team Extractions puts the fear into everyday living. Hear the police scanners emitting sirens and the 80s horror flick suburban neighborhood sounds scraping through to fill your head with paranoia. Reminds a bit of PKD future world where things seem normal on the thin surface until the weirdness creeps into your central nervous system. But that's just one interpretation of this amazing album of out there sounds. Make your own! Edition of 20."

Order it from Bare Wire Technologies

Second is a cassette release of AvE 018 - Save Me From the Gallup Poll's debut recording. 40+ minutes of wandering electronics previously available only as a digital download. Edition of 10. $6 includes postage in the U.S. Email artsvsentertainment@gmail.com to order.

More to come, and soon.

AvE punks Coldplay

2009-02-10T16:00:00.004-05:00

As anyone who spent their Sunday evening waiting to find out if the Arts Vs. Entertainment Ensemble won a grammy for Best Album in a Drone/Noise/or Improvisational Motif already knows, we totally tagged Chris Martin's piano right before he hit the stage with Hova. Maybe next year he'll accept our invitation for a collab. What we wouldn't give to remix one of those arpeggiated major chords.

Save Me From the Gallup Poll + Long Tones - Instant Headache

2009-02-02T21:18:00.003-05:00

AvE's resident eardrum-destruction rookie and freshman reed shredder/live-action sample scrambler collab for a batch of free trial-size concussions.
Get it here.

Guyz Nyte - Incensed

2009-02-02T21:14:00.003-05:00

The Guyz' are paid a visit by the ghost of shamans' past during this sickening spirit dream of atmospheric wonk and loungey noise. Tone generator/feedback wrangler JB was out of action for close to a week after hot-boxing these infernal fumes, and string mangler EG swears he never played half the notes on this record. A spooky mix of lusty aimlessness and wrathful burn fit for adult contemporary radio in the first few circles of hell.
Get it here.

Guyz Nyte - Awesome Blocked

2009-01-09T22:34:00.004-05:00

Two dudes take a giant piss into the abyss after a day of missed connections and endless fragmentation. First up, a womb re-entry primer of trancing pulses and embryonic drone with J.B. on guitar and E.G. on EQ knobs. Next, a fake jazz demolition hymn with E.G. on guitar and J.B. spinning skronk into gold. Guyz 1, Universe 0. To be continued …

Get it here.

AvE New Year's Live Megablitz 2009

2009-01-01T20:25:00.002-05:00

Starting the year out right with sets from Save Me From The Gallup Poll and Long Tones.

Save Me From The Gallup Poll (Eric)

Long Tones (Joshua)

Fields of Industry at Mittenfest III

2008-12-23T17:47:00.001-05:00

Dec. 26-28 at the Elbow Room in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
See the full schedule here.

Guyz Nyte ft. Oscilabot - Domino's Effect

2008-12-15T11:31:00.003-05:00

In preparation of the transcendent freedom jazz experience of live
Flatlands Collective, the Guyz order a pie and invite reclusive
synth-smasher Oscilabot over for a pre-game of hot mozzarella and
cold-war tension soundscaping. Liberation guitar marches, electronic
missile commands and mixing console standoffs ripple through this
live-to-tape-deck sizzler. Says one hard-to-impress collaborator on
the playback en route to the main event, "This is actually pretty
good."
Get it here.

Gates McFadden - You Can See Russia From Here On A Clear Day

2008-11-03T20:07:00.005-05:00

Gates McFadden's fullest album to date has improviser/composer Joel Schrauben making a digi-romantic Glenn Branca of himself. But not via an army of guitarists; it's just Joel and a laptop - therein being dozens of delay loops and tones. You Can See Russia... is an exercise in infinite repetition; fitting in that the Palin remark appropriated is just one of a series of infinitely repeated talking points this season - repetition to the point of a loss of meaning. Fortunately for Gates McFadden, the loss of meaning here is not a descent into idiocy but one of recontextualization; where repeated tones and sounds layer upon one another building a veritable Tower of Digital Babel that comes crumbling down when Schrauben (as creator) sees fit. Schrauben achieves a unified, suspensefully ambient statement that gives credence to those who may assert that tension and resolution are overrated concepts.
Get it here.

Guyz Nyte - Smmmrtyme Blooze

2008-11-03T09:54:00.004-05:00

In the heat of the summer, two men did not forget what heat and oppression are all about. Summer has come and gone, and the dutiful execution of heat mongering, sweltering summer death and 10,000% humidity by our two prophets of sweat stands as a testament to those months now lost. As you stand in the death-piles of raked leaves, counting the dismal days until you are buried in ice and snow, hold vigil with our heroes, Guyz Nyte, for the taste of the Mississippi Delta that comes to Michigan every year.
Get it here.

Save Me From the Gallup Poll - Buried in Screens - Eric Gallippo solo noise part 2 of 2

2008-09-29T10:44:00.004-04:00

Okay and here's part 2. If SMFTGP's first solo release didn't significantly melt your bowels, Eric Gallippo made a second one to finish the job, just in case. The shrill vociferation of the apocalyptic harbinger is drowned in the gelatinous mire of brown note explosions. A joyous synthesis of dooms.
Get it here.

Save Me From The Gallup Poll - Eric Gallippo solo noise 1 of 2

2008-09-22T14:51:00.003-04:00

If he's not blowing your mind on guitar in either Man at Arms, Fields of Industry or A Paschal Circus; or doing any number of things in the Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble, Eric "Gallup Poll" Gallippo is probably literally going to make your brain explode into gory chunks all over your wood paneled room with his solo noise jams. Just a man, a mixer, and a stupid long string of effects pedals.
Get it here.

Pattern is Movement + Fields of Industry + Boywife / 9/15 @ Mac's Bar in Lansing

2008-08-30T14:28:00.001-04:00

Pattern is Movement
Fields of Industry
Boywife

AvE Ensemble with a one-two punch

2008-08-01T09:29:00.008-04:00

Dual EP releases from the Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble kick off the suffocating, steam-breathing weeks of a midwestern August. AvEE gets (half) digital on Gig Guides Don't Grow on Trees pluggin' in plugins of disorientation. Of Chicago chronicles the analog sounds of slow motion violent electrocution on the streets of the jewel of Lake Michigan. Now download the soundtrack to your back to school shopping.

Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble - Gig Guides Don't Grow on Trees
Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble - Of Chicago

Cathartic Pipe - Modern Purgatives

2008-06-19T14:19:00.003-04:00

Cathartic Pipe's sophomore release. The boys are preaching the gospel of impending government-engendered doom and annihilation; a full fledged apocalypse of the bowels and neural network of every man, woman, boy and girl by compulsory consumption of atomic laxatives (of the brain). This is the end of all things, and the finale is hearkened by the bellow of a trombone, bowed electric bass, live electronic boxes with arms and legs, and a buzzsaw for a heart. This is the infernal vision of a single summer afternoon; school is out and the world is over.
Download it here.
Listen on last.fm

Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble Has a Keen Cultural Sense

2008-06-17T13:05:00.004-04:00

The latest from the AvE Ensemble sees the lineup and the sound coalesce around the core of Fields of Industry. Has a Keen Cultural Sense features selected recordings of what were essentially Fields of Industry experimental rehearsals meant to inform the band's live repertoire. But these and additional sessions have taken on lives of their own, to the extent that the band has lately been recording them for their own sake. The resulting improvisational pieces consist largely of manipulated guitars and function generators, live electronics, and live laptop performance with a tiny bit of acoustic instrumentation (e.g. penny whistle). The aesthetic of atmospheric and ambient noise of the first AvE self-titled release remains, but is supplemented here by an affinity for droning krautrock and a greater emphasis on electronics.
Download it here.
Listen on Last.fm

Fields of Industry live on WCBN 5/14/08: Download the set

2008-06-10T22:06:00.003-04:00

We played with no drummer on a Wednesday night in Ann Arbor, stuffed comfortably into Production Studio B of the defiantly obscure and vehemently varied WCBN, transmitting something much more somber than I think any of us expected. Eric tapped a floor tom with timpani mallets between guitar strums; Joel employed the function generators to fill some empty space. I like this set a lot.

Download it here

And check out other artists featured on WCBN's Local Music Show at the LMS podcast. Jason Voss hosts lots of really, really good stuff.

"Point of Contention" video!

2008-05-20T10:53:00.003-04:00

Today is FoI's big day. Two Dogs, A Television is now available on everyone's favorite digital stores, AND the video for "Point of Contention" is finally available. This was filmed on a frigid February day in Grass Lake, MI at Joshua's house with lots and lots of friends. Graham Mason, Dax de la Monta and Yoni Goldstein all worked very hard on this for a very long time and we're all ecstatic to present it to you today.

Fields of Industry - Point of Contention [HD version] from Arts vs. Entertainment on Vimeo.

Fields of Industry - Dogs EP 2005 (re-up)

2008-05-08T15:43:00.003-04:00

Fields of Industry self-released the 3-song EP Dogs back in 2005 in a minuscule batch of 50 copies. These songs were the first to include someone other than Joshua Barton in the recording process in any substantial way; that someone was Eric Gallippo.

With Two Dogs, A Television being just over the horizon (or already here if you got it at a show) we decided to make Dogs available again in an unlimited pressing of infinity copies (thank you Internet).

Get it here for free.

Also, check out the video that Graham Mason made for the track "Ramona Bopper"

Long Whisker debut with Long Live Long Whisker

2008-04-30T18:07:00.003-04:00

Some things are bound to happen, like Long Whisker. The assemblage of Reagan Sova, Scott Hein and Jim Cherewick must be fated since it is so unlikely. All three members come from acts that have made their names in the burgeoning Ypsilanti scene or in the Detroit area to such a degree that they needn't have begun another project (granted, LW may not have happened had Sova's old project Bear Mountain Picnic stayed together). Yet Long Whisker is real and the quickly assembled debut EP is so well executed that it can't be anything but destiny.

Long Live Long Whisker is the proclamation made at the outset and the name of the band's first effort. Cherewick and Sova summon the plodding rhythm and indie sensibility of acts like Silver Jews and imply the nostalgic ethos of The Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society with their acoustic guitars and vocal tradeoffs. The interjecting harmony of Hein's various keys, especially the occasional Rhodes-like sound, is a perfect unifying element for the overall sound. Lyrically, Long Whisker are a synthesis of storytelling and peculiar observation ("astronauts are so expensive to insure because the darkness of space is so unforgiving"). Sova's direct, doubletracked delivery contrasts with the unique emotive croak of Cherewick.

In all their modesty and subtlety, Long Whisker appear to be a modern version of what any number of prestigious bands might have been in the seventies had they not slipped from country-fried to arena rock, or hated each other so much or been such broken, self-conscious rock gods. As grandiose as that may sound, all it really means is that modesty and sensitivity coupled with masterful execution makes really good music and Long Whisker have made a great start. Download it for free here.

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/longwhisker
Last.fm: http://www.last.fm/music/Long+Whisker

Hospital Garden

2008-04-21T16:00:00.006-04:00

Lucas Hollow left Bear Mountain Picnic behind in Ypsilanti, Michigan in late 2007. Having settled in Dayton, Ohio, Hollow has found a new cohort to launch the project Hospital Garden, which continues the loud, frayed-edged and earnest rock that came out of BMP. Hollow's latest self-recorded songs are now available via AvE as Mailbox Demos. These tracks were originally circulated among friends to allow a testing of the waters, now that Hollow is without his BMP songwriting partner, Reagan Sova. They will be the basis for full band recordings later on. Though all you get here is electric guitar and vocals, one can already tell that Hospital Garden is going to be an intensified continuation of the BMP experience (anyone who saw them live will wonder if further intensity is possible, but those that have already seen Hospital Garden might attest that it is). Think of a fierce crystallization of Dinosaur Jr., Pavement and The Pixies and then imagine it as lo-fi as it can get (almost). Mailbox Demos is available here for free. It's also up on last.fm.

Fields of Industry set to release Two Dogs, A Television

2008-04-19T12:56:00.005-04:00

It's taken a long time, but a release date for Two Dogs, A Television is finally set. The album will be digitally released May 20th by Cerberus Records via iTunes and other major digital outlets. The band is self-releasing the CD on Arts vs Entertainment. Copies of the disc are already available at shows. The album features art by Graham Mason.

Check out FoI's myspace for upcoming shows in and around Grand Rapids, Lansing and Ann Arbor.

Update: Two Dogs, A Television is now up for name-your-own price on Bandcamp.

Goro Doesn't Die

2008-04-19T12:51:00.001-04:00

Gates McFadden returns with Get Out The Tape

2008-03-27T16:38:00.006-04:00

Joel Schrauben, aka Gates McFadden, has wasted no time in filling out his compositional niche by releasing his second album for 2008 within three months of his first. Get Out The Tape re-emphasizes the G.McFad tendency towards patterned construction of songs, approaching a minimalist idm but not quite. If anything, Gates' voice is becoming more mature as Schrauben's techniques become more sophisticated. Get Out The Tape employs repetition and subtlety in variation to beautiful effect so that each moment is a pleasant stasis of sound without becoming disengaging. These eight new songs are written and performed on laptop with some sampling of Schrauben's old band Bear Mountain Picnic thrown in for good measure. Think of mashing Stars of the Lid's heavenly swells with the stylized electronic adolescence of Cornelius. It's up on last.fm now, or you can get it here.

Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble - self-titled

2008-03-19T16:52:00.003-04:00

A delayed notice that the self-titled Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble album is available for free download in full here. Joshua produced and compiled this from incidental recordings made from Jan.-Dec. 2007, mashed into a collage of 6 untitled tracks. Lots of droney, ambient and freely improvised stuff. I think about a dozen people contributed to this, willingly or not.

Swim Club Super Friends Blowout 2008

2008-03-07T17:27:00.005-05:00

In East Lansing, Michigan a select group of distinguished swim clubbers, culled from disparate regions of the nation, ushered in 2008 in the company of Fields of Industry, Goro, and, in their debut performance, The Make-Out Kings. Ripped from the boutique sensibility of an on-cam audio mic, this dirty sound is every lo-fi aficionado's dream. Experience it along with those that attended by downloading the audio here for free (with two special songs performed by FoI that night that we can't put on last.fm), and feel the Michigan winter basement swelter, smell the burning chest hair. Get it.

Rx Gibbs write up

2008-02-21T19:33:00.001-05:00

Check out Eric's piece on Rx Gibbs in this week's City Pulse.

"Sometimes the pieces drone on like an extended wordless hymn; other times they build into soaring polyphonies."

And check out Rx Gibbs on Myspace

Stay tuned for...

2008-02-20T11:46:00.003-05:00

Releases forthcoming from:

Etxa Aranguren - pseudo-Basque-separatist diy folk.
Zach Lockwood - solo leviathan drone
V/A Swim Club Super Friends - New Year's Bash Bootleg (feat. The Make Out Kings, Fields of Industry and Goro)

Also the release of Fields of Industry's long awaited "Two Dogs, A Television" jointly produced by Cerberus Records and Arts vs Entertainment.

What's going on

2008-02-17T21:51:00.002-05:00

This isn't going to be just a series of bios of our bands, as it appears right now. After awhile these bios will disappear into the archive and be linked to in the side bar to the right (over there --->), kind of like a real webpage. In the meantime, bear with us and pardon our mess, as it were.

Goro

2008-02-17T21:20:00.004-05:00

Michigan's four-armed behemoth, Goro, is a tribute to the Mortal Kombat character and to all things awesome. Adam Jaros and Brian Wiers, shirtless and strapped back to back, battle for the microphone to sing their respective lyrics while the band plays metal-influenced, G.G. Allin style rock written by Joel Schrauben - also of Gates McFadden and Fields of Industry. This is sweat-drenched vulgarity that could only have been birthed in a filthy university co-op house.

GMEZB's - mp3

Cathartic Pipe

2008-02-17T21:03:00.004-05:00

The duo of Cathartic Pipe is Reverend Doomhammer and Joshua Barton of Fields of Industry. This side project is essentially a blatant infantile spree of any kind of energy music the boys happen to feel up to at the instant they press record. They have covered the territory of ultra abrasive sheets of noise, microphones in dryers, sensual wood-flute scores on themes of arson, irreverent send-ups of Jimi Hendrix derivatives and crude approximations of hip-hop. Their rise would bode ill.

Pork Hock Chain Saw - mp3

Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble

2008-02-16T14:26:00.004-05:00

The Arts Vs Entertainment Ensemble is the namesake creative endeavor of the AvE label. The ensemble's first self-titled release features collages of a year's worth of live, impromptu recordings. The recordings are primarily improvisational, experimental music with a wide variety of instrumentation and a different lineup of participants at each session.

Untitled 1 - mp3

AvE ensemble on last.fm

AvE ensemble on myspace

Gates McFadden

2008-02-16T11:29:00.004-05:00

Gates McFadden is the solo project of Joel Schrauben of Michigan-based bands Fields of Industry and Bear Mountain Picnic. Schrauben's solo work is diverse and can range from abrasive noise to light electroacoustic compositions. His music is instrumental, often loop-based and largely informed by experimentation with recording technique. In 2008, Gates McFadden's first release from Arts Vs Entertainment, 8 Tracks, showcased a selection of Schrauben's guitar driven work.

Login Please - mp3

Gates McFadden on Myspace

Fields of Industry

2008-02-16T10:59:00.005-05:00

Fields of Industry is a Michigan band that plays minimal, affecting pop music while also dabbling in ambient, psychedelia, and burnout improvisation. Since 1999, they have performed and recorded songs by vocalist and guitarist Joshua Barton with a revolving lineup of bandmates. Champions of crawling tempos, FoI can vacillate between abysmal melancholy and mountainous blitzes of sound. The band also sneaks in the noisy disorientation of bands like Spacemen 3 and The Jesus and Mary Chain, but remains centered on the staid and pious (or anti-pious) minimalism of major influences like Low and the Velvet Underground.

Fiction Writer (live on WCBN) - mp3

fieldsofindustry.com
Fields of Industry on Last.fm
Fields of Industry on Myspace

Reverend Doomhammer

2008-02-16T09:52:00.001-05:00

Michigan's Reverend Doomhammer merges noise, synth pop and gore grind to massive, overdriven effect, conjuring a sweltering, slimy world of pink, bubbling toxic sludge and balloon animals where everyone is happy and no one goes hungry because there are plenty of corpses to satiate the masses of undead every mealtime. The Right Reverend is inspired by Wendy Carlos and Gary Numan as much as he is by Wolf Eyes, Carcass, George Romero and H.P. Lovecraft. Fans of abrasive finesse and creepy glee can't go wrong.

I CAN'T STOP EATING MASHED POTATOES - mp3
Corpse Conservation Recycle Rangers - mp3

Contact

2008-02-16T01:13:00.002-05:00

Email:
artsvsentertainment@gmail.com

Want us to hear you? Want us to write about your music? Send it to us.

Releases

2008-02-16T00:44:00.048-05:00

AVE 001
Fields of Industry / Two Dogs, A Television
Bandcamp - iTunes

AVE 002
The Make-Out Kings, Fields of Industry & Goro / Swim Club Super Friends Blowout 2008 : a live bootleg
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 003
Gates McFadden / Get Out The Tape
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 004
Gates McFadden / 8 Tracks
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 005
Reverend Doomhammer / Prismatic Beams of Cosmic Protuberance
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 006
Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble / Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 007
Cathartic Pipe / s/t EP
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 008
Fields of Industry / Dogs EP (re-up of 2005 release)
Free Download

AVE 009
Fields of Industry / The Night Janitor
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 010
Goro / Henry Kissinger EP
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 011
Hospital Garden / Mailbox Demos
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 012
Long Whisker / Long Live Long Whisker
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 013
Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble / Has a Keen Cultural Sense
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 014
Cathartic Pipe / Modern Purgatives
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 015
Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble / Gig Guides Don't Grow On Trees
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 016
Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble / Of Chicago
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 017
Fields of Industry / We're Circled By Nēnē
Free Download

AVE 018
Save Me From the Gallup Poll / Save Me From The Gallup Poll
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 019
Save Me From the Gallup Poll / Buried in Screens
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 020
Fields of Industry / Fields of Industry (web re-up of 2003 release)
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 021
Guyz Nyte / Smmmrtyme Blooze
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 022
Gates McFadden / You Can See Russia From Here On A Clear Day
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 023
Guyz Nyte feat. Oscilabot / Domino's Effect
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 024
Guyz Nyte / Awesome Blocked
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 025
Guyz Nyte / Incensed
Last.fm or Free Download

AVE 026
Save Me From the Gallup Poll + Long Tones / Instant Headache
Last.fm or Free Download