Propaganda for The War on Television Tour 2002.
War on TV Propaganda (jpeg - 617 KB)

CHRIS CUTLER and THOMAS DIMUZIO
The War on Television Tour 2002

10-21-2002 - The Black Box, Oakland, CA with FRED FRITH
10-24-2002 - The Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco, CA
10-25-2002 - Knitting Factory, Los Angeles, CA with FRED FRITH
10-26-2002 - Spruce Street Forum, San Diego, CA
10-29-2002 - Blackbird, Portland, OR
10-30-2002 - I-Spy/Nation, Seattle, WA
11-01-2002 - Open Space Gallery, Victoria, BC
11-02-2002 - The Western Front, Vancouver, BC

with FRED FRITH
Monday, October 21, 2002
The Black Box
1928 Telegraph Ave., Oakland, CA
(510) 451-1932
8PM $10

Thursday, October 24, 2002
The Luggage Store/509 Cultural Center
509 Ellis Street, San Francisco, CA
(415) 255-5971
8PM $6-10 sliding scale

with FRED FRITH
Friday, October 25, 2002
Knitting Factory
7021 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA
(323) 463-0204
8PM $15

Saturday, October 26, 2002
Spruce Street Forum
301 Spruce Street, San Diego, CA
(619) 295-0301
8PM $15

Tuesday, October 29, 2002
The Blackbird
3728 NE Sandy Blvd., Portland, OR
(503) 282-9949
10PM $10

Wednesday, October 30, 2002
I-Spy/Nation
1921 5th Ave., Seattle, WA
(206) 256-9667
9PM $10

Friday, November 1, 2002
Open Space Gallery
510 Fort Street, 2nd floor, Victoria, B.C.
(250) 383-8833
8PM $10

Friday, November 2, 2002
The Western Front
303 East 8th Ave., Vancouver, B.C
(604) 876-9343
8PM $10

CHRIS CUTLER and THOMAS DIMUZIO
The War on Television Tour - October, 2002

On their last visit Cutler and Dimuzio demanded reinforced stages and warned of dire consequences for buildings and bodies within a mile of their shows. Of course this was all hype for their overblown 'Quake' CD. Came the day, hardly any damage was actually done to the Californian infrastructure. But they shifted units. Now they're back, this time with 'Dust' a vacuum cleaner tie-in album, which they claim is a gentler, wiser and more mature product. Oh ha ha ha.

Turnover is fast these days and entertainers soon settle into their fame and lose their edge. Certainly megastardom has done little to improve this duo: Cutler is still hammering away at his 'interactive kit' - meaning a bunch of percussion and some miscellaneous junk obscured beneath a snow of microphones, cables and processors - sounds space age? Think Rube Goldberg. And Dimuzio? Well he splurged his royalty millions on NASA style banks of flashing lights. Do they do anything Tom? Still, when this duo beckons, promoters heel. There's just no bucking that massive silicon valley fanbase.

If Quake was a faulty copy of "The Exorcist" at a drive-in dur ing a Richter 9.7, 'Dust' sounds like a traumatised world adjusting to the aftermath. As Neil Slavish observed in his New York Times Review ' they're back - and they're still bad'.

When it comes right down to it, what can you expect from an astrophysicist and an authority on early Saxon poetry? Perhaps we'd all be better off if they just concentrated on their day jobs? It's probably too late for that; their brains are already irretrievably addled by too much fawning and too many bank deposits. Evidence? Look no further than their gimmick this time round: 'The War on Television'. - Is this a spelling mistake or a profound socio-political intervention?

I think it's a spelling mistake.

CC and TD play at the __________ on ___________.

In brief

CHRIS CUTLER
Percussion and Electronics

At the start of the seventies, he co-founded The Ottawa Music Co. with Dave Stewart, a 22 piece Rock composer's orchestra, and eventually joined British experimental group Henry Cow, with whom he toured, recorded and worked in dance and theatre projects for the next eight years. He went on to co-found a series of mixed national groups: Art Bears, News from Babel, Cassiber, The (ec) Nudes, P53 and The Science Group and was a permanent member of American bands Pere Ubu, Hail and The Wooden Birds. Apart from a succession of special projects he works regularly with John Rose, Fred Frith, Zeena Parkins, David Thomas, Iancu Dumitrescu, Peter Blegvad and Stevan Tickmayer - and performs widely as a soloist with his extended electric kit. He also founded and runs the independent label and distribution service ReR/Recommended, edits the New Music magazine Unfiled and is author of the theoretical book File Under Popular - as well as numerous articles and papers published in 14 languages. He lectures intermittently on theoretical and music related topics and has appeared on over 120 recordings.

Recent projects include Radio pieces with Lutz Glandien and Shelly Hirsch, Timescales for Quartet and calculated pulses, a live Soundtrack for several movies, Life On Earth for the Hyperion Ensemble and Signe de Trois - a music theatre piece with Stevan Tickmayer and Marie Goyette.

He is currently running a daily year long soundscape project for Resonance FM Radio in London.

THOMAS DIMUZIO
Live Sampling and Processing

Thomas Dimuzio is one of those unsung artistic figures whose influence and abilities have substantially outstripped his visibility. Composer, multi-instrumentalist, sound designer, experimental electronic musician and recording studio owner, Dimuzio has been busy doing his thing(s) since the late 1980s with critically acclaimed releases issued by the legendary house of audio misanthropy, RRRecords and former Henry Cow drummer Chris Cutler’s well-regarded ReR Megacorp label. Equally fluent in nearly every contemporary post-techno style, Dimuzio’s work clearly demonstrates an insider’s knowledge of older experimental musical forms such as musique concréte and electro-acoustic, as well as contemporary ambient-industrial and noise.

As a collaborator, he has contributed to numerous artists and ensembles, such as 5uu's, David Lee Myers, Tom Cora, Fred Frith, DJ Q-bert, Dan Burke, and Paul Haslinger, and has toured North America and Europe as a solo act. His solo CD releases include 1997's double CD 'Sonicism',and the reissued classic, 'HEADLOCK'. ‘Mono::Poly’, released by Asphodel in 2002, anthologizes Dimuzio’s live work on his own and in collaboration with fellow experimental musicians.

PRESS QUOTES: Quake - Chris Cutler & Thomas Dimuzio (RéR Megacorp)

"...droning, rumbling, scraping and clanging soundscapes... these guys take delight in triggering strange and unsettling sonic waves." —Mike Joyce, Washington Post

"...Cutler's abrasive percussives, and gritty electronics supplying the microsonic detail, with Dimuzio expanding these textures and unleashing his own ominous stormcloud drones." —Chris Blackford, The Wire

"A maelstrom of subterranean scrapings, violent tectonic displacements, and occasional cataclysmic beats." —Forced Exposure

"I hope this combination of improv outings becomes a more common format, ...great imaginative sonic creation."
—Caleb Dupree, All Music Guide

"...Its haunting vibrations set off convulsive bursts in the synapses." —Sam Prestianni, SF Weekly

"...quite a dynamic electronic/percussive duo!... Another treasure to savor from the fine folks at Recommended." —David Beardsley, Downtown Music Gallery

"...a very nice mixture of improvisation... the whole CD comes like one long flow. A nice flow indeed." —Frans de Ward, Vital Weekly

"... low-end rumbling and shifting textures sustain a thrill topped only by the rippling body of Mother Nature herself."
—John G. LaBriola, Westword Weekly

"...insistent scrapings, raucous breathings, tectonic frictions, raspy breaths or electrostatic hammerings... imitates sub-bases of the earth's crust." — Traverses