QUESTIONS FOR THE ART OF NOISE

by Stevie Steele

 EMIL BEAULIEAU

CRANK STURGEON

PRURIENT

 APOP Records, Columbia, MO—09/14/2004

 Musing some time ago upon the notion of a machine that served no practical function other than to generate noise--all kinds of noise--I lit upon the fanciful idea of marketing a “Noise Machine” which the public would, I felt, surely embrace, if only for its advertised novelty.  The idea of such a machine was borne from discarded children’s toys, which, though no longer interesting playthings for children, generated some diverting sounds, at least in a predictably cyclical pattern. The real disappointment of such devices is their apparently limited repertoire, the select sampling of prerecorded sounds. What would it take to create a device, this unbridled fantasy continued, that would be capable of generating seemingly limitless chaotic sound, disorganized both in its execution and reception? Look, I say, no further than the “Noise Artists” working today, Emil Beaulieau, and, to a much lesser extent, the withering performance art(s) of his protégés Crank Sturgeon and a young man whose one-man rant uses the non-sequitur stage name ‘Prurient.’

 That these three should travel as if on a Kerouac-like mission in the same car on a cross-country tour, sharing the same “sound equipment” and serving as a guaranteed audience for each other when real ones are elusive, render the enterprise a success, quite apart from any substance behind the ‘art’ itself. After all, in the most abstract Cagean sense, music might also be the listeners’ response(s) to what happens (or doesn’t) in a performance space. What, then, is the appropriate dynamic between grown men earnestly seeking to generate as much disorganized noise, as if seeking to harness or channel it, say, for cathartic or expressive purposes, and a bewildered audience, who are quite left out of the energy mix?  What will the neighbors say?

 This was the precise experiment driving Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music: four sides of vinyl thrown together defying the indiscriminate pop culture consumer to get up and get the needle off of the record groove. In a larger sense it was Lou Reed telling RCA that he was going to get out of two more records on the contract quickly and spitefully, and although in interviews following its release Reed dismissed it as complete garbage, he quickly realized that that might be too cynical a self-appraisal. After all, might he not be capable of Noise art in spite of himself? Wasn’t this a vitriolic testament of inner demons finally letting fly, graced, as it was, with guitars and amplifiers? This story, or spin, would certainly sell more records than announcing it to be trash from its inception. Oddly enough, the Japanese took pains to remaster and repackage the double LP onto CD, valorizing it as some kind of groundbreaking and landmark artistic effort.

 And who knows, maybe it is. But if it is, like any other anti-aesthetic, it is a cultivated appreciation, one which is all the more difficult to capture through the recording studio.   The three above-cited Noise Artists, at least, share their backs and/or buttocks with the audience, to at least let us witness the creative efforts undertaken to engage Noise for what is really is, taking something traditionally aesthetically rejected and producing it consciously for aesthetic appraisal and participation.  Meaning what, precisely?  That Noise, with effort, must not be music.

 So much rides on the energy of the performance, however. Brevity, likewise, being the soul of wit, demands that, for all the Noise, it should not take its time getting to where it needs to be.  We do not need to wonder when the noise will peak, or quit, or imagine that our artist should allow himself time to develop his idea, even as much as he has already decided on an anarchic medium to present his idea.  It is already radical and simultaneously mundane. We are bored before it begins, and once it does, our disinterest looms on every edge, once we realize that there is no real danger.  This is, after all, just Noise. What an artist will do with it is like watching an artist shine a light on objects. Couldn’t we all just have a go at this ourselves?  Then make it worthwhile, show us the artist’s true intent.  

Crank Sturgeon began the show, costumed in nothing but an 8-foot dryer vent hose (apparently an effort to hyperextend his machismo) wrapped up from behind and over the shoulder, a flimsy cape, and a head covering bearing a large hand painted eye on its side. Frayed nerves and malfunctioning equipment were probably not an intentional part of the act, as neither were the goading filmers or aloof souls lurking at a safe distance.  To say that the act aspired to comic hostility might be to overstate the case, but that it became surreally repetitious would not be an overstatement. Of all the Noise someone could make, why the same Noise?

 The sign for the word ‘noise’ in American Sign Language (ASL) is the right middle finger extended forward from the palm, toward the center of the right ear, starting at the ear canal entry and wiggled while moving away from the ear. The deaf, then, interpret Noise as moving away from the ear, not toward it. At least, in my journalistic license I will imbue that meaning into this sign, because when Prurient took the “stage,” we have discarded all presuppositions about what we will accept or not.  Having discarded his shirt anticipating the channeled rage he is about to encounter, Prurient moved two microphones about the front of an amplified speaker and effect pedal, attempting to communicate with the feedback. Apparently it began to speak his language, and also apparently what it said made him rather angry, until he just exploded inarticulate screams into those selfsame microphones. What were we to make of this, or the part where the passion builds so much that he began to scrape the microphones on a cement wall?  And what is so enraging about all this? The poor fellow, when he finally stops screaming, needed to walk off his state. It is a solipsistic primacy, one that must not really care if its audience is able to participate or not. That is the Selfishness of Noise, moving away from my ears with a wiggling middle finger.

 Emil Beaulieau, the main attraction of the Evening of Noise, put innovation to use. Here the artistry is located in the method and not just the output. Here, a sense of balance prevails in a way where we are confused as to whether the artist is committed to an anti-aesthetic or not. Apparently also, Mr. Beaulieau seemed concerned when cries of protest where overheard from distant windows (the ‘concert’ was al fresco).   So much for the aesthetic disregard of the Noise Artist.  At any rate, this reviewer allayed his fears and the show went on. As cries of approval rang out from the cohorts in Noise production, I wondered, how could one solicit approval for an anti-aesthetic? Doesn’t that threaten to turn the whole production into a dared debacle?  As an anti-aesthetic, it ought to thrive on its rejection.   If we all agree to like it, or value it aesthetically, haven’t we rendered this, paradoxically, the Art of Noise?