Roger Gregg is a dramatist, poet, musician, actor and performer. Over a long career on radio and theatre, he’s had dozens of plays performed all over the world, and written and recorded numerous radio dramas as ‘Crazy Dog Audio Theatre‘.

Today Roger continues to record and perform, with his ‘Bee Loud Glade Cabaret’. Bee Loud shows fuse poetry and music, giving new life to verse, mythology and storytelling.

Roger appeared in episode one of Mad Scientists of Music, and this episode continues our discussion. Roger talks about everything from his radio influences, to his career in Irish theatre, to the inimitable power of sound.

Download: Mad Scientists of Music – Bonus Episode – Roger Gregg

Tracks Used

Crazy Dog Audio Theatre – Studio Cuts

This recording is released under a non-commercial, no-derivatives Creative Commons Licence.

So last night I was lucky enough to see the incredibly talented radio producer Roman Mars perform a live episode of his show 99% Invisible, at the ever creepy Freemasons Hall in Molesworth St. The event was a part of the inaugural Sounds Alive festival, which brought together a bunch of radio folks like legendary storytelling collective the Moth, and Belfast’s Sonic Arts Research Centre, as well as curating several rooms of world class radio around the bizarre magical landscape of the Freemason’s Dublin Command Centre.

I had genuinely forgotten that Sounds Alive was also running a competition, called ‘Your Story Your Sound‘, curated in part by Roman Mars himself. So it’s with enormously still disbelieving bejaysusment that I report that a segment from my recent doc series ‘Mad Scientists of Music‘ (created for Dublin community station Near FM) took home the award. The piece takes us on a musical journey into the hills above Brighton, where avant-garde music finds a home in an ancient landscape.

If you like what you hear, we’re running a live show to promote some of the artists featured in the documentary. It’s on 16th September in Dublin’s Twisted Pepper, and tickets are only 5 euro! You can also download or stream to the whole series at this website, or on itunes.

Update: Luke at Culturefile was kind enough to rebroadcast the piece yesterday.

https://garethstack.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/hiding-music-in-the-mountains.mp3

Irish electronic musician Ewan Hennelly (HERV / ZPG), has developed a way to combine his two passions; hiking and electronic music. Climbing the hills and valleys of the South Downs, Ewan takes part in geocaching. Tracking down geocaches (tiny boxes for marked on an online map) with his GPS, Ewan leaves cassettes of his experimental music albums for curious travellers to encounter.

The Instrument of the Law‘ examined how changing technology and copyright laws are impacting music. This bonus episode fills in the blanks, addressing additional issues we didn’t get to talk about in detail, like creative commons, the legality of mashups, copyright as a promotional tool, and alternative business models at a time when music sales are in decline.

https://garethstack.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/bonus-copyright.mp3

Issues Raised in the Programme

Great article on ‘The Economics of Girl Talk’, the mashup artist whose ostensibly illegal releases have somehow escaped the ire of the recording industry.

David Bowie’s predictions, a decade ago, on the future of the music industry.

More information on the proposed Irish Household Broadcast Charge.

Information on the work of the Irish Copyright Review Committee, including their final report, ‘Modernising copyright‘.

All the information publicly available on the secretive Trans-pacific partnership agreement, the new transnational agreement which will dictate which laws domestic governments can pass or amend to govern copyright.

If you’re interested in releasing or discovering work that uses a Creative Commons licence, here’s a link to the various Creative Commons Licences.

Article on recent Indian legal decisions relating to patents.

Eye opening article about the privatisation of Copyright Enforcement in Brazil.

Credits

Thanks to interviewees – Kieran Dold / Kara Kara, John Leech / Siam Collective, Dr Eoin O’Dell, MarQu VR, Ewan Hennelly, Meljoann, Simon Kenny (Bitwise Operator), Ed Devane, Andrew Edgar.

The final episode of the series looks at the future of Irish experimental music. We find out how techniques like ‘Live Coding’ (where computer programming during a concert, creates the music and visuals in real time), ‘Geocached Music’ (intrepid explorers following clues to discover hidden caches of music in the real world), and new interfaces like ‘Leap motion’ (which tracks users hands as they move through space) will change how audiences can interact with the music. This episode ties together the threads of the series, and offers a glimpse into the future of music, technology and creative collaboration.

Part 1 – Geocaching with Ewan Hennelly

Irish electronic musician Ewan Hennelly, formerly HERV, now known as ZPG, has combined his love of hiking and electronic music in an unexpected way. Climbing the hills and valleys of the South Downs, Ewan takes part in geocaching. Tracking down geocaches (tiny boxes for marked on an online map) with his GPS, Ewan leaves tapes of his experimental music for curious travellers to encounter.

Part 2 – Simon Kenny’s Inventions

Simon Kenny (Bitwise Operator) is a musician and inventor. He takes us on a whirlwind tour of his software experiments, working with a variety of groups like Galway Autism Project. Simon also shows off his cutting edge software synthesiser ‘Oscar‘.

Part 3 – Andrew Edgar’s Weather Machine

Andrew Edgar of Gamepak Collective has a dream. He wants to build a new kind of instrument, a ‘terrarium’ that can be teased into sonic life by musicians ‘like Gods of yore’.

Part 4 – Ed Devane’s Binaural Recordings

Electroacoustic musician Ed Devane has been experimenting with binaural recordings: Sending these hypnotic microphones out to vocalists all over the world. The results are beautiful and dreamlike.

Part 5 – Sebastian Heinz of Patchblocks

Patchblocks are a new invention, successfully kickstarted by Belfast based, German born Sebastian Heinz. Part synth, part midi instrument, they can be used alone or as a programmable effects pedal; with a huge library of community effects to download.

Epilogue – Success in music

Niamh De Barra and Roger Gregg talk about succeeding as an artist in the twenty first century.

Download:

About the Series

Mad Scientists of Music is a six part, BAI funded documentary series on Near FM. The show explores the world of Circuit Bending, Chip Tune, and Electroacoustic music in Ireland. Low cost technology, recycled instruments and a new attitude to tinkering embodied by the ‘maker movement’ are helping to reinvent music. A new generation of Irish musicians raised around computers, the internet and video gaming, see noise as something to be hacked, taken apart, and reconstructed. These artists build their own instruments, whether by recycling toy keyboards, modifying video game consoles, or attaching electronics to traditional stringed instruments. They often share their music online for free, and in doing so challenge our ideas about copyright and ownership. Their playful attitude to technology finds new uses for obsolete devices and brings the collaboration of musicianship to engineering and the arts.

Tracks Used

ZPG – Conjunx Endura

This recording is released under a non-commercial, no-derivatives Creative Commons Licence.

Chuffed to be able to present my first piece for RTE Lyric FM’s ‘Culture File‘ programme. It’s a short on Chipzel, the Chiptune artist profiled in Episode 2 of Mad Scientists of Music. The piece features much of the same material from that report, but presented in a more straightforward way, which was an interesting challenge. I grew up religiously listening to the incredible BBC Radio 4 arts programme Kaleidoscope, and Luke Clancy’s Culture File is a sort of modern day descendent of that show.

https://garethstack.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/chipzel.mp3

This episode looks at how innovative new ways of making and distributing music are coming into conflict with our legal system. Some argue that copyright and patent laws, created to encourage innovation, are no longer in touch with how artists remix and reinterpret our cultural landscape.

Part 1 – Piracy

We learn about copyright law, the ‘copy left’ movement and new licensing schemes like Creative Commons. Eoin O’Dell corrects some common copyright misapprehensions, Ed Devane and Simon Kenny discuss their experiences having their music pirated. Niamh Houston (Chipzel) discusses how small Chiptune artists are challenged by ubiquitous piracy and major label plagiarism alike.

Part 2 – Sampling

Ewan Hennelly and Meljoann talk about the culture of sharing. MarQu and Meljoann describe about how ready access to the internet enabled them to learn techniques and exposed them to niche scenes that would have been unavailable historically; and how our always on, connected society is reshaping music. MarQu VR discusses the endemic and transformative use of samples in VJing and parody.

Part 3 – Illegal Art

Karakara (Kieran Dold) and Siam Collective (John Leech) discuss the idea of remixing as a crime and illegal art as a wilfully provocative act.

Featured Interviewees:

Eoin O’Dell, Colm Olwill (DJ PCP), Seb & Emma of Deathness Injection, Niamh De Barra, Simon Kenny (aka Bitwise Operator), Ed Devane, Meljoann, Ewan Hennelly (also known as HERV / ZPG), MarQu VR, Andrew Edgar, Kieran Dold (Karakara), Niamh Houston (Chipzel), John Leech (Siam Collective).

Download:

About the Series

Mad Scientists of Music is a six part, BAI funded documentary series on Near FM. The show explores the world of Circuit Bending, Chip Tune, and Electroacoustic music in Ireland. Low cost technology, recycled instruments and a new attitude to tinkering embodied by the ‘maker movement’ are helping to reinvent music. A new generation of Irish musicians raised around computers, the internet and video gaming, see noise as something to be hacked, taken apart, and reconstructed. These artists build their own instruments, whether by recycling toy keyboards, modifying video game consoles, or attaching electronics to traditional stringed instruments. They often share their music online for free, and in doing so challenge our ideas about copyright and ownership. Their playful attitude to technology finds new uses for obsolete devices and brings the collaboration of musicianship to engineering and the arts.

Tracks used

Chipzel – Only Human Foilverb Remix (RoughSketch)

Lobat – my little droid needs a hand

Siam Collective – Melatronic Mission (unreleased rough mix)

This episode takes us on a tour of workshops and hack spaces, and explores the relationship of outsider electronic music to the fine art establishment.

Teaser – Andrew Edgar takes us on a tour of the A4 Arts Collective.

Part 1 – Ed Devane talks about the relationship between self taught musicians, hackers, artists and the “new music” (contemporary classical music) establishment.

Part 2 – The Dublin Laptop Orchestra introduce us to their own unique take on electronic music. Performing using digital setups with midi controllers, the group focus on making a performance which combines physical movement with electronic collaboration.

Part 3 – Stewart Geelon of Luxury Mollusc & Primal Barber Quartet introduces us to the Dublin ‘harsh noise’ scene, where electronic improvisers taking their queue from industrial and early 20th century avant-garde music, create challenging dark soundscapes from found objects.

Part 4 – Artist Aine Belton, talks about combining language and musical sound to enhance the impact of poetry and creative writing. Aine, a trained musician and visual artist, became fascinated with combining music, language and visual media. This work has resulted in a practice which includes instrument making and zine culture alike.

Interjection – Ed Devane talks about sound as art, the different purposes behind experimental music, improvisation from a visual art / sound art background, and the creation of work that elicits a ‘sense of awe’.

Part 5 – Dublin postpunk-neokraut-nowave-neopsychadelic multi-instrumentalist improvisers No!, discuss collaborations at their open door Concrete Soup Experimental Music Afternoons in Twisted Pepper.

Download:

About the Series

Mad Scientists of Music is a six part, BAI funded documentary series on Near FM. The show explores the world of Circuit Bending, Chip Tune, and Electroacoustic music in Ireland. Low cost technology, recycled instruments and a new attitude to tinkering embodied by the ‘maker movement’ are helping to reinvent music. A new generation of Irish musicians raised around computers, the internet and video gaming, see noise as something to be hacked, taken apart, and reconstructed. These artists build their own instruments, whether by recycling toy keyboards, modifying video game consoles, or attaching electronics to traditional stringed instruments. They often share their music online for free, and in doing so challenge our ideas about copyright and ownership. Their playful attitude to technology finds new uses for obsolete devices and brings the collaboration of musicianship to engineering and the arts.

Tracks Used:

Ed Devane – Arcane