Propaganda

Beginning with "This is Propaganda," based on text from an anti-communist film, this open ended series explores propaganda in its many forms. Some of these works might be construed as political. Others are a kind of oblique social commentary.

The works

(This is Not) Propaganda 1995 4:56

Recording: LARVA2: Propaganda

If, like me, you were in school in the 1950's and '60's in the US, you probably saw the films from which the text in this piece was taken. "This is not propaganda," the earnest narrator proclaims prior to exposing the evil schemes of the Communists who are creeping into YOUR TOWN at this very moment.

 

Patented Whitening Agent 1997 4:05

Recording: LARVA2: Propaganda

The title is from a TV commercial. One astonished TV housewife asks another, "How did you get your clothes so white?" The second TV housewife, casually tilting the Appropriate Product at face level, says, "Why, it's the Patented Whitening Agent®!" Well, that explains it.
 

Night of the Violet Ray 1997 8:00

Recording: LARVA2: Propaganda

As the Red and White armies battled over Kiev during the Russian Civil War, both sides won the city several times. Citizens were getting tired of the current rulers fleeing and leaving them to the mercy of the other side. The Red Army was once again poised to take over. The Whites announced that the Reds had a new secret weapon: the Violet Ray. It would kill anyone outside (while not damaging property) and the Reds were going to use it at midnight! As the population hid from the ray, the White leaders snuck out of town.

 

WorkPayObey 1997 9:00

RealAudio: 1:34

Recording: LARVA2: Propaganda

Performance: Music on the Edge: New Electroacoustic Music. University of
     Pittsburgh, 1998

At what point does rhetoric become propaganda? "...work hard, pay taxes, obey the law, and be good citizens...," or words to that effect, recurred regularly during President Clinton's 1996 campaign. It's OK to be gay, for example, if one works hard, pays taxes, etc. The phrase returned in his 1997 State of the Union address. On July 13, 1997, in an article entitled, "President Calls Tax Plan Too Little for Middle Class," The New York Times quotes Bill: "But these families work hard, pay their taxes and play by the rules." This sound clip is from the "Obey" section of the work.

 

All the Way with LBJ 1998 7:40

Mp3. Archived at Sonus.ca

Recording: LARVA2: Propaganda

Performances: Concert of Kyma Music. Engine 27, New York, 1999; International
     Computer Music Conference (ICMC99). Beijing, 1999

On May 27, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson sought help from advisors. What can we do about "...this South Vietnam thing...?" This piece is based on tapes of these secretly recorded phone convsersations. They reveal a man tormented over a decision he feels he must make (to intervene), but, as he says, "I haven't got the nerve to do it." The texts were recorded from the History and Politics Out Loud web site with permission of the site's owner.

 

American Lives and Property 2001 16:30

RealAudio archived at Kalvos & Damien. Look for the broadcast date: October
     6, 2001.

Recording: LARVA04: Life After College

Broadcast: Kalvos & Damien's New Music Bazaar, 2001

This piece is the first of a series of works focusing on continuity and cycles that led to the Ancient Chinese Enclosing Game Compositional Matrix. In addition to musical continuity and cycles this work uses text that reveals a continuity of a different nature: the cycle of armed interventions. The text is a list of 85 such interventions that occurred from 1812 to 1932. The stated purpose of many of these interventions was along the line of "to protect American life and property." Questions such as why was there American life and property to protect in Shanghai in 1927 are left unasked. The list was compiled by the US State department as part of its justification for sending armed forces to Korea in 1950. When I started this piece the US and Great Britian had just bombed radar sites in Iraq. As I finished, 24 crew members of a US spy plane were released by China after making an emergency landing on Hainan. Two months after the piece was completed, terrorists attacked New York on September 11, 2001. So far, the response of the US has been primarily armed intervention with little or no attention given to rectifying the conditions that generated such deep hatred. Just another item on the list.

 

The Influence of the Nickelodeons 2002 5:35

Recording: LARVA04: Life After College

Performance: Electronic Music Midwest. University of Missouri/Kansas City, 2003

This text piece uses notes of a librarians' meeting dated February 10, 1910 in which the influence of the nickelodeons "...upon the reading of the public" is decried. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

 

WMD: Naming Names 2004 6:55

Performance: On Agreement and Conflict. Zèppelin 04 Festival, Barcelona, 2004;
     repeated at Zaragoza, September 2004

Where are the Weapons of Mass destruction? The text in this work consists mainly of the names of nuclear devices detonated since 1945 by the United States and other countries. Iraq is not among them.

Usage note

The sound clips on this page are protected by copyright. If you want to use them as they are, or wish to hear the complete works from which they come, please contact me. However, if you want to sample from these sound clips and mutate, permute and mutilate bits and scraps for your own creative purposes, I encourage you to do so. In the end, it's all one big project.