Burden Of Friendship

It seemed like 1000 years ago now , but  in the summer of 1984 while turning the dial all the way to he left i discovered underground music and culture for the first time at the ripe old age of 13.   On this night i heard Punk Rock ,Dub, Reggae Odd Jazz ,spoken word records and other  sounds you would not hear on commercial radio ever.   Experimental / Industrial  music and sound collage were the most unusual to my youthful ears back then . I was blown away that this could be on the airwaves. But all this was emanating from Chicago area radio stations :   WZRD and WNUR , 88.3 and 89.3fm respectively .  It was on WZRD particularly where i heard of  Burden Of Friendship.
B.O.F.  were a noise/sound collage unit /band who existed in Chicago from roughly 1984-1988 with off shoot groups carrying on through-out the early 90's (members still on rare occasion do sets in Chicago under other names).  The members of the group were all on-air dj's on WZRD during this time period too.  When they weren't doing their standard 'shifts' ,  (usually all on Saturdays ) they would turn the airwaves into marathon noise sound collage jams ,utilizing  conventional instruments, synthesizers , turntables and  tape loops,  as well as tools, sheet metals ,breaking glass, pipes ,ect....These would go from late afternoons 'til the wee hours of the morning many times; just bizarre radio , the likes of which i still haven't  heard on the airwaves since.  Eventually, the group played live sets around town and  'released' a few  cassettes on Panic Records by BOF founder Scott Marshall.  Edited material from the radio noise-collage 'Voidwatches' (as they were called) and private sessions at band members homes made up the material on the tapes .   A true Chicago original 'band' .

several links below shed more light on the group.........

Hopefully one of these days  I may upload some video from their live gig at Club 950 in Chicago (1985).

Also,  a box set of  'Voidwatches' would be great!   on cassette of course ,but i won't be that picky.  i have to admit though the market for that may be very, very small unfortunately..... one can hope though.



http://www.discogs.com/artist/210570-Burden-Of-Friendship

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgLTyVPJs7k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkXc1dHlO2I
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpsWmAnqCWk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKnC9SRhF_U



more on B.O.F. and avant-garde  Noise music  written by my friend Arvo ....
http://music.newcity.com/2012/04/04/escape-from-noise-is-this-not-music/
                                      
                                         



         



































   old bumper sticker i unearthed that i had in the sleeve of the 'What is Truth ? Vol. 2'  Lp   (Panic Records & Tapes )                   :

REALITY SCARE

Next entry in the off center, lost Chicago bands that time ( or really , the ever moving, increasingly diverse growing Chicago scene) forgot is yet another group that grew out of the WZRD 88.3fm radio station based in the bowels of  Northeastern IL. University -   REALITY SCARE.  RS existed from about the late 80's- early 90's (as far as i know) and were a combination of Pop/ Avant-Experimental,  but  with slightly more leanings toward Pop , not in a conventional sense like so many so called, buy the books, 'College rock' (later morphed into the commercialized standard term of today's  'Indie rock') bands though .  To me they were more interesting than that crowd.

I got their first tape at the old Tower Records on Clark St. in Chicago, where they actually had some decent local music in the cassettes section, much to my surprise.  "Electric Blanket Statement"  it was called .  No two tracks were really alike.  "Megamouth " has a tribal-ish type rhythm over Celtic sounding  guitar riffing.   "Thought & Action" is an almost hip hop (but faster)   beat driven track with  a rap  delivery in the lyrics, with a main sample taken from Aurthur Brown's  60's classic "Fire" ("I Am the God Of Hellfire!!") with synth's and synth. basswork to drive it along. In all ,a real clever and  carefully constructed track.  It would have been a hit  in a perfect world maybe.  "Oldsmobile"  is a more atmospheric track with  middle section interlude  narration that sounds like Christopher Lee talking??  Throughout , definitely not a boring cassette.   

I'm really not familiar with all of their releases , but they are worth checking out if they are like this tape, which i still own and pull out to listen to on occasion.

Their Discogs entry  is sadly lacking updating  , but here is all the links i could find on them while doing a  Google search  :


http://realityscare.com/bio.html




http://www.discogs.com/artist/627474-Reality-Scare

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-11-20/entertainment/9204160179_1_pink-floyd-airplay-guitar-and-keyboards

I need to upload a track or two by them ( like many others!)  but for now here is collaboration with the late  Lydia Tomkiw ( Algebra Suicide)  : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW_YDltuHMA



Pics of  '  ELECTRIC BLANKET STATEMENT '  cassette (1991) :

http://tindeck.com/listen/bfwg