I'm an award-winning composer, engineer and historian of technology. I present talks, make radio shows and perform live with Spacedog - my band of humans, theremins and uncanny robots.
Talking Canaries and Voices of the Dead
In December 1877, a journalist writing in Scientific American noted there was a now ‘a startling possibility of recording voices of the dead’. He’d just witnessed Edison recording sound on his new invention: the phonograph. And in 1922, a New York radio station switched on the microphones, exited the studio and broadcast nothing but dead air. To mediums and suggestible listeners tuning in, the crackling radio static was alive with voices from the other side.
Radio and gramophones are transmitters of disembodied voices, a feat that seemed so remarkable to the first users, it inspired some curious claims about the paranormal and unlikely alliances between scientists and diviners of the spirit world. In this talk and live demonstration, I’ll explore some of the stranger obsessions of the early adopters of these sound machines, as I immortalise a voice from the audience by recording it on wax, using an original Edison Standard Phonograph.
This event includes tales of ventriloquism, trained budgies, fake psychics, dead air and a little-known curiosity from the eighteenth century, one which may have been used to record short segments of sound 150 years before the phonograph. I’ll perform some live ‘aether music’ and play genuine voices from the grave: ’message records’ posted by soldiers who were lost in battle in the Second World War.
Update 4 July 2011:Delighted to hear this documentary has an honourable mention in The Observer and in this week’s Project Moonbase, the podcast for all your musical, retrofuturistic needs.
Update 1 July 2011:Thanks to Gillian Reynolds at the Telegraph for listening to this documentary and writing this lovely preview.
We know we can teach birds to talk and sing. Here, for example, is an astounding recording of Sparkie Williams, champion talking budgie, 1958. But were birds ever used as primordial, feathered music recorders? Did we use them to bring popular music into our homes on command before the advent of the phonograph, the gramophone and radio?
Philip Marsden ‘The TV Budgie Man’ interviews champion talking budgie Sparkie Williams. The late, great Sparkie is now on display in The Hancock Museum, Newcastle, and June Holmes, archivist at the Natural History Society of Northumbria, is trying to raise funds for a dedicated display.
La Serinette (the bird organ), Jean Baptiste Chardin, 1751
In this new Radio 4 documentary, produced by Neil McCarthy, I’ll be taking this question to biologists, bird keepers, musicians and others and revealing some surprising curiosities in the archives -- oddities that should fascinate anyone with an interest in birdsong, music or early sound recording. This radio piece is packed with some of my favourite bird training ephemera, including 1700s dance tunes and some wonderful 1950s bird training records. Human contributors include ornithologist Geoff Sample, poet Katrina Porteous, behavioural ecologist Tim Birkhead, composer Aleks Kolkowski and Yorkshire’s ‘Champion of Champion’ roller canary fancyer Ken Westmorland.
Documentary: The Bird Fancyer’s Delight, BBC Radio 4, 5 July 2011 (1.30-2:00pm)
Edison phonograph advertisement (source: Library of Congress)
I’ll be getting out the camel hair brush and putting my 1904 Edison Standard Phonograph through its paces at the Catalyst Club, Brighton, 10 December 2009. Hear some commercial wax cylinders from the early 1900s and witness a live recording of a voice from the audience, straight onto a blank cylinder of carnauba wax.
I’ll also be talking a little about Edison’s life and his interest in the supernatural – particularly his thoughts on capturing the voices of the dead.
Hosted by Dr David Bramwell, the Catalyst Club is a monthly Brighton event that pays tribute to the old traditions of French Salon, debating societies and Gentleman’s Clubs.
I’ll be playing again at the Marlborough Theatre, Brighton, at their next Steampunk event on 21 February 2009. Details to be confirmed – but I expect to be appearing with the robotic bells, theremin, saw and Good Companion – a rigged Imperial Typewriter. I may also bring along Uncanny Valerie – the ‘all-knowing’ robotic dolly oracle.
This is the second ever Marlborough Steampunk event – I also played there and briefly demonstrated the Edison Phonograph at their inaugural event last December. This event was curated by Tarik Elmoutawakil who went to enormous trouble to make the room look spectacular.
I was really taken by the crowd’s passion for ingenious mechanical devices and for curious electrostatic machines. It made me feel very at home. I’m new to the whole Steampunk milarky but was pleased to discover my robotic inventions fit into the Steampunk ethos very well. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of my wardrobe. At the last gig, Mike Blow and I hot footed it from a Spacedog rehearsal to get to the event. Mike was there in his jeans and green trainers and I was dressed like an old hausfrau, in an ‘ergonomic’ saw-player’s sack. Any advice on how to overcome the wardrobe crisis looming in February would be much appreciated.
Juice for the Baby, Spacedog's debut album, is here! I'm ducking out of the Kinetica Art Faire this year but am huddled indoors, writing, sleuthing (investigating a recording in the archives) and devising a new biologically-inspired musical instrument - all will be revealed soon.
News: December 2011
Juice for the Baby, Spacedog's debut album, launches in mid-December. Join us for the launch gigs at the Marlborough, Brighton, on 9 December and the Horse Hospital, London, on 14 December.
News: November 2011
A busy month writing and editing the forthcoming Spacedog album - stay tuned for news.
News: October 2011
I'm focusing on my writing this month (so am quite the hermit) but I'm squeezing in the occasional live performance here and there.
I'm looking forward to working with Helen Keen in her Spacetacular on 20th. I'm writing a code-based work for the new label Chordpunch and some owlish music for that fine wordsmith Professor Elemental.
Spacedog are booked into the studio at the end of the month to complete work on our album.
News: September 2011
A busy month writing, preparing a get-together of maker musicians for the Brighton Maker Faire After-show party. I've also been electrifying a teapot for the Chi-Tek - an exhibition by MzTek of female tech artists at the V&A. And with my fellow Spacedog Stephen Hisock, I made an appearance on the 10th Anniversary edition of BBC Click.
News: August 2011
The Spacedog song For Laika is now available on iTunes (and the album is on its way). Meanwhile, we've been busy preparing our set for Green Man, including the first outing of our torch song for Tommy Cooper.
I'm procrastinating over a teapot which I'm going to electrify for a MzTek event at the Victoria and Albert Museum in September.
I took a short trip to a very rainy Edinburgh Fringe where I played at an event for Edinburgh Skeptics in the Royal Observatory and made some plans for a Spacedog show next summer.
Apart from that, I've been busy writing. More news on that shortly, I hope...
News: July 2011
I'm interviewed by Leila Johnston in this month's Wired UK magazine and will be appearing with my fellow Spacedogs at a Wired: The Future of Music on 20 July.
I've rounded up a bumper crop of links and soundclips for my BBC Radio 4 doc The Bird Fancyer's Delight, which is broadcast on 5 and 9 July and is also available on Listen Again. Thanks for all your cheery emails about the doc, to ProjectMoonbase for mentioning it in their podcast PMB038 and for the many national papers who gave the documentary such lovely reviews - I'm glad people enjoyed it! On Sunday 10 July, the doc was featured on Graham Seed's Pick of the Week (Radio 4). A good week!
My latest collaboration with Richard Wiseman is a free and fun magic trick for your iPhone. It's called Paranormality and it's been put together for the launch of his book by the same name in the US. Thanks to Phillis on Derrren Brown's blog for giving the app a mention - thousands of people have now downloaded it and are busy bamboozling their friends.
News: June 2011
Playing theremin for Louise Colborne's homage to Loie Fuller (pioneering cybernetic dancer c1900) and composing sounds for Sonus, an homage to the analogue age with Spacedog, ArtHertz, Rushes Soho Shorts Festival and Ridley Scott Associates. Discovering how easy (or difficult) it is to publicise events in 2011 without Twitter - will report back!
Getting ready for BEAM - a brand new festival of electronics and music at Brunel University (24-26 June). I'll be speaking, running a workshop on optical flow and performing live with my fellow Spacedogs. I'll also be playing a short theremin set at the Speaky Spokey, a new arts salon in Brighton (Wed 22 June).
Putting the finishing touches to a sonic-themed BBC Radio 4 documentary, with producer Neil McCarthy, due for transmission on 5 July 2011.
Presenting a workshop for Hack Circus at Interesting, in the Conway Hall, London, 18 June, and performing theremin at a family day at the Science Museum, 19 June.
Talking Canaries and Voices of the Dead
This is the second ever Marlborough Steampunk event – I also played there and briefly demonstrated the Edison Phonograph at their inaugural event last December. This event was curated by Tarik Elmoutawakil who went to enormous trouble to make the room look spectacular.
