Blatant Plagiarism
Concerts and lectures
Curator: Derek Holzer
Blatant (adj): noisily conspicuous, objectionably obvious.
Plagiarize (v): to appropriate for use as one’s own passages or ideas from another.
Blatant Plagiarism (n): [in music] a style in which elements of popular culture are heavily sampled and placed in a context which highlights their superficiality. [c.f. “bootleg”, “copyright violation”, “culture jamming”, “Digital Millennium Copyright Act”, “intellectual property”, “plagiarythm”, “plunderphonics”, etc.]
One of the oldest Po-Mo tropes in the book, plagiarism and copyright violation became even more Serious Business with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 2000. This act, supposedly penned to protect the “intellectual property” of artists, actually does little more than protect the multi- million profits of a handful of media corporations. Each in their own way, all of the artists in this program have taken aim at this DMCA and what it stands for–in this case, an endless stream of bland, money-making pop music released and bought by the millions year after year.
DJ MCSLEAZY
Impakt Festival Opening
Tuesday 3 June, 20.00h, Stables
Scotland’s own DJ McSleazy will be on hand to kick off this year’s Impakt Festival. McSleazy runs his own website for bootleg records, mcsleazybootlegs.com, which just announced a new collection of ska and punk remixes as well as its usual menu of pop star cage-matches. He also will be playing his own special style of criminal mixology and Frankenstein’s monsters from the closet of popular music.
JOHN OSWALD, MARC GUNDERSON
Couch.club
Saturday 7 June, 16.30h, Cinema
Presentation and discussion by John Oswald and Mark Gunderson (Evolution Control Committee). See ‘couch.club’ on page 14.
TIM HECKER, EVOLUTION CONTROL COMMITTEE
Concert
Saturday 7 June, 20.00h, Stables
Evolution Control Committee were in the house at the dawn of bootleg with their first amazing 7″ record, throwing Chuck D’s vocals from two Public Enemy tracks to the lions of Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass Band. They have been gleefully violating copyrights ever since, taking on everyone from 70s rockers AC/DC to CBS newsreader Dan Rather. Tim Hecker, on the other hand, is a new face from the world of digital music. He turned the scene on its ear last year with his release “My Love is Rotten to the Core”, a swirling collage of guitar riffs and “MTV Rockumentary” interviews which chronicle the rise and fall of rock and roll giants Van Halen.