one of the best, most interesting mixes i listened to for some time!

best wishes, m

I’ll be sure to check out adverse Camber next time I’m in England, hopefully 2006.

And we’re coming across more and more other people with similar ideas (like Toxic Dancehall, Kraked, Wrong Music, etc..) Still hate the fact that financial considerations get in the way of creativity too often, but it’s always encouraging and inspiring to hear about other people getting on with it.

couple of questions for any of you toneburst/soundlab people.. how did you finance your events? – especially considering how hard it is to actually make money doing this kind of thing (esp in london it seems). Also, what has become of the visual artists that were part of toneburst etc..? judging by the music you guys are currently making, i’d be really keen to see some of the visual work.

btw, we were performing in the upstairs room at the RoboOrgy a few months back.. i caught some of dj c and aaron spectre at that and the toxic dancehall event – definitely the most enjoyable and engaging dj sets i’ve seen in god knows how long!

anyway, cheers for the info.. check out our site if you get a mo (needs a revamp but should give an idea http://www.adverse-camber.net )

not that i aint glad it’s free

thanks!

j

I was at Toneburst events from the beginning in Gloucester and Allston onwards. I first helped out behind the scenes at ChildStyle, and did a dance performance with some folks at one of the MassArt events, and I think a few other things. The variety of venues (required by Boston’s wack promoter/venue/social restrictions), the multiplicity of voices.. really the best kind of fertile ground.

And it was Toneburst people who did directly support my first djing experiments (thanks c and flack and sabrina and everyone who gave kind words) – gave me gigs and collaborations, offered sounds and thoughts, and good examples.

Toneburst particularly shaped my belief that it’s possible to live up to the kind of slogans that many party people throw up around their events. Affordable events. Integrated scenes. Treating the people involved fairly and respectfully, including paying them. Multimedia and fully immersive environments that involved carefully thought out pieces, not just pretty colors.

Ideas were always present and living at Toneburst events, you left with some things to chew on, while the sweat dried on your body and the good-tired ache hummed in your legs.

I still try to live up to that and create something like that in my work, haven’t found much higher aspiration for my music.

Some credit is due to our friend Slide, who had been an undergrad student in the Harvard electronic music studio, and in the mid ’90s was attending grad school at Massachusetts College of Art, in the Studio for Interrelated Media. She was organizing a series of experimental events at the time called The Passing Show, which brought together people from Harvard, MassArt, and elsewhere. It was through those events that I (DJ C) met up with Sasha C-S (/splice) and Rafi L (Together they formed Embryo). I was working on my Electro Organic Sound System project at the time, and when I heard Embryo’s ambient-dub infused jungle experiments, I knew I had found kindred spirits. They were the ones who introduced me to Jace (/rupture) who at that time was doing a great radio show on WMBR, the MIT radio station. The first party I did with those guys was called Electro Organic Sound System vs. Embryo, and took place in Gloucester, MA at a place called Artspace. Most of the people who would form the core of the Toneburst collective were there, including /rupture, Mike ESP and Xrae (Spool), Jenn L (Jade), Lynn S, as well as some great DJs from WZBC, the Boston College radio station. By the end of that night a bunch of us had decided to try and keep doing this kind of thing, in alternative spaces, on a semi-regular basis.

Jace, Mike, Raffi, Sasha, and maybe some of the others, had been to Soundlab parties and were really inspired. Jace, Sasha and I started a torrent of emails trying to decide where our first event would be and what it would be called. Jace came up with the name Toneburst (taken from the name of a Stereolab tune). We did our first event called Toneburst at Artspace. I think it was in Oct. ’96. The next month we did an other Toneburst event, this time our first in Boston (Alston). From there it took off, and as time went on we accrued members like DJ Flack, Aaron Spectre, Hrvatski, Moosaka (with Radioactive and Professor Shuman), and many many more.

At their peak the Toneburst parties were brining in 8-900 people to bask in the immersive environments. Ahh the good ole’ days! Ha ha….

And now onto the future!

First of all, thanks for the great write up Kid. And thanks to Jace for that brief historical perspective. It’s great to see some words on Toneburst now that there’re a few years in between. So while we’re talking about it, I thought I’d drop a few thoughts as well.

Some credit is due to our friend Slide

I was really hoping someone from Toneburst would chime in and write about it from an insider perspective since I’m very much an outsider to it proper. My info is a collage of the two members I’d talked to it extensively about it (C and Ripley) and bits I’d picked up from Flack, Moose, and others. And while in practice there are a lot of things that separate TB from Soundlab, my peeps, it is gratifying to know from your description that some of what we were trying to do runs along the same lines (at least, in my perspective of it). Having just heard Spooky talk last night about race/identity/event/music/collage stuff and sort of rolling my eyes and snaking through a lot of it, I was newly energized to seek out people who are tied together by the need to “shake things up” musically and NOT have some sort of giant and heavy handed comment behind their every move. That’s actually why I’ve been pushing the Transplant party so hard, because all the people involved with throwing it are very much coming together and I think that will turn into great events. San Francisco needs a crew of people doing this…

So, thanks for your post, I figured a lot of people who came to this blog wouldn’t have any frame of reference for the mix or why I might be excited to do it. I didn’t want it to exist in a vacuum. I’d love it if other Toneburst people dropped notes here as well.

-KK

dubya.