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tom recchion

Boo!

About Me

Tom Recchion has been a sound and visual artist/composer/art director & graphic designer in California since the 1970’s. He is the co-creator of the legendary Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS). At the time he discarded object making (though he employs it now) and concentrated on the ephemeral nature of sound. His early practice in low-tech sonic exploration presaged many of the genres exciting developments of the last quarter century: record manipulation, live tape loops, free improvisation, found and invented instruments, installation, and more. In the LAFMS his group The Doo-Dooettes became one of the 3 anchor points for the collectives endeavors as well as playing in AIRWAY, and many other groupings of the collective. He’s collaborated with Half Japanese, Jad Fair, David Toop, Christian Marclay, Mark Trayle, Oren Ambarchi, Keiji Haino, Max Eastley, to name a few, as well as plays in the improvisational group Extended Organ (Paul McCarthy, Joe Potts, Fredrik Nilsen and Mike Kelley). Currently and most proudly he is a secret member of Smegma, under the name Victor Sparks and has formed a ’spin-off’ group The Rodney Forest with fellow Smegma members Ju Suk Reet Meat and Oblivia/Rock and Roll Jackie who have just had a record released on Qubico this year. He’s remixed for Oren Ambarchi, The Electric Company, Sun & Jim Thirwell. He also occasionally writes for WIRE magazine and has many recordings released. The solo releases “Freak Show” (cassette only), “Chaotica”, “I Love My Organ” and “Soundtracks To A Color: Gold & Black” (which accompanied a large scale installation), were released in 2004. In 2006 a new solo CD came out in Italy on Giuseppe Ielasi’s Schoolmap label as their innagural release and a Christmas 7” single was recently released by Meeuw Muszak in Belguim. His work has led him to many fruitful collaborations with film makers such as Janie Gieser. The result of which ended up being selected in the New York Film Festival of 1999 & Kirby Dick, as well as video artists Bruce & Norman Yonemoto and Branda Miller and has done work for the theatre, dance and performance artists. He has recordings on Birdman, Touch, PSF, RRR, Pinokoteka, Barooni, Sub Rosa, Idea, Staubgold, Tigerbeat6, sound. and the Cortical Foundation. He was awarded a 2004 COLA Fellowship in the visual arts. In the summer of 2004 he was awarded Best New Genre/Uncatagorizable Artists by the LA Weekly Music Critics Poll. MOCA commissioned him to design and produce a listening room in support of their current exhibition “A Mininmalist Future?” which lead to the production of a 6 hour DVD survey overview of minimalist musicians and curated 3 concerts which helped give birth to MOCA’s Immersion Concert series curated along with Robert Crouch. He is developing a collaboration with monologist David Greenberger, another with sound artist John Weise. His most recent work was part of MOCA’s Visual Music exhibitions concert series, ‘See Hear Now!’ is an improvisation of sound and image with artist, filmmaker Jonathon Rosen. He also just completed work with film maker/puppeteer Janie Geiser on a theatre piece called “Invisible Glass” for Cal Arts that made it’s premier in April at the Redcat. Afterwards he participated in SASSAS’ summer sound. series in an evening of film makers and composers where he premiered 3 older video and film works from the 1970’s that had never been show. Following that he has performed with the ROVA Saxaphone Quartet along with Fred Frith, Nels Cline and Mark Trayle performing a version of John Coltrane’s Ascension also at the Redcat. He is also a recipient of a Pasadena Cultural Arts grant for visual artists for which he will release a project called ‘78’, which is a 78rpm vinly 10” lp that will be ciculated in pubic spaces. Most recently he performed at the Getty Museum. As an art director/graphic designer Recchion has created CD packages for Robert Wyatt, Terry Riley, Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band, David Lynch & Julee Cruise, Ringo Starr, Los Lobos, Prince, The Carl Stalling Projects, Lou Reed/John Cale, The Band, Merle Haggard, Alanis Morrisette, The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson & Van Dyke Parks, Hermann Nitsch, TamTam Books and many others and a quartet of Grammy® Nominations for Packaging Design.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 11/24/2006
Band Website: birdmanrecords.com/tomrecchion.html
Band Members: me
Influences: Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolfman, The Mummy, Lon Chaney Sr/Jr., The Twilight Zone, The Addams Family, Jeepers Creepers, Jeepers Keepers, Zacarley, The Munsters, The Chilling Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted Mansion LP, The Crawling Eye, The Giant Gila Monster, The Flamingos "I Only Have Eyes For You", John Cage, Gertrude Stein, Marcel Duchamp, Egon Schiele, Andy Warhol, Spontaeous Sound (Christopher Tree), The Beatles, The Rolling Stones (w/ Brian Jones), The Association, Pop Art, Robert Wyatt, Brian Eno & his Obscure Records label, David Toop, Max Eastley, Hugh Davies, Steve Beresford, Terry Riley, FLUXUS, Gavin Bryars, Derek Bailey, Captain Beefheart, CAN, Sound Effect Records, The Velvet Underground, Henry Cow, Allen Kaprow, Alan Splet, Morton Feldman, Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Soft Machine, my fellow LAFMS cohorts: Le Forte Four, Airway, Smegma, Ace & Duce, Dennis Duck, Fredrik Nilsen, Joe Potts, Rick Potts, Juan Gomez, Chip & Susan Chapman, Kevin Laffey, Ace Farren Ford, Joseph Hammer, Ju Suk Reet Meat, Oblivia, Solid Eye, Dinosaurs With Horns, the sounds in everyday life, La Monte Young, Miles Davis, Martin Denny, Michel Waiswicz, Joni Mitchell, Mitch Mitchell, Jon Christianson, Chris Cutler, Christian Vander, Jaki Leibzeit, Tony Oxley, Jamie Muir, Frank Perry, Han Bennink, Pip Pyle, tablas, Akio Suzuki, Toru Takemitsu, Magma, AMM, Sonic Arts Union, Forest J. Ackerman, Luciano Berio, Mauicio Kagel, early Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett, Hatfield & the North, Egg, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, David Crosby, The Red K(C)rayola, INCUS Records, FMP, Instant Composers Pool, David Lynch, Sun Ra, Yves Klein, Viennese Aktionists, Joseph Beuys, Paul McCarthy, Yoko Ono, Jad Fair/Half Japanese, One String Sam/Joe, Kurt Weill, John Fante, Aero-Mic’d, This Heat, La Monte Young & Marion Zazeela, Martin Denny, Jackie Gleason, Les Baxter, Ferrante & Teicher, Guru Guru, Faust, Amon Duul2, Family, Sly & the Family Stone, Spirit, Bernard Hermann, Stockhausen, Stockhausen & Walkman, Gerald Bole, Erik Satie, Morton Feldman, Music Improvistion Company, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Ed Wood, Bozo the Clown, Gore Vidal, Volcano the Bear, Aaron Moore, Robert Smithson, R. Crumb, Jonathon Rosen, Tony Mostrom, Don Van Vliet, Frank Zappa & the Mothers Of Invention, Ennio Morriconi, Nino Rota, Christian Marclay, DNA, Mars, Prag Vec, the Pop Group, Wire, Terje Rypdal, Nam June Paik, The Ramones, Patti Smith, Dusty Springfield, Sandy Shaw, Ronnie Spector, 49 Americans, General Strike, Tristian Honsinger, Alterations, Harry Partch, Van Dyke Parks, Harold Budd, To Kill A Mockingbird, Housekeeping, Sankai Juku, Claes Oldenberg, Giuseppe Ielasi, John Duncan, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Ashley, Percy Dovetonsils (Ernie Kovacs), Roxy Music, Gruppo Di Improvviszione Nuova Consonanza, Intersystems, Syrinx, Wired, The Iron Butterfly, The Nice, King Crimson, Leo Kottke, John Fahey, Factrix, Cecil Taylor, Creed Taylor, Gong, Love’s Forever Changes, Napoleon the XIV, Tiny Tim, Ivor Cutler, Lol Coxhill, The San Lucas Band, Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, the music from Bali, Hawaii, Asia, Africa, Gong, Maurice Ravel, Pandit Pran Nath, Cream, Kahondo Style, Basil Kirchin, Library Music, Conny Plank, Noam Chomsky, Staff Carpenborg And The Electric Corona, Moondog, Grey Gardens, Dawn Davenport, Sally 'Mutant' Webster, Nico, Patty Waters, Lady June, Mrs. Miller, Colleen, Diamanda Galas, Annette Peacock, Carla Bley, Akiko Yano, The Spice Girls, The G.T.O’s, Y.M.O, Oblivia, The Frank Chickens, Divine, Supersilent, Supersister, the mellotron, the tambura, Deathprod, DADA, Bill Fontana, Bill Evans, the Three Suns, the Three Stooges, The Stooges, The Swell Maps, WC Fields, Field Recordings, Esquivel, Marcos Valle, Caetano Veloso, Arto Lindsey, Buffalo Springfield, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Mitchell Brown, Bee Gees, Pentangle, Fairport Convention, the Russolo’s, Led Zeppelin, Pere Ubu, David Sylvian, Weather Report, Jon Hassell, The Necks, Blue Cheer, Thelonius Monk, Meridith Monk, The Monks, The Supremes, Eric B & Rakim, Dr. John the Night Tripper, Bobby Calendar, Big Daddy Roth, Dieter Roth, Roland Kayn, Taj Mahal Travelers, John Huston, Keiji Haino, Nick Drake, Jim Fox, Andrew Peckler, Charles Mingus, Massive Attack, Christoph Heemann, Polar Goldie Cats, Graziano Lella, Popol Vuh, Points of Friction, PJ Harvey, Thomas L. Friedman, Nurse With Wound, early Jethro Tull, Raymond Scott, Scott Walker, Kenneth Anger, Burt Bacharach, Eric Matthews, The Cramps, The Mamas & The Papas, Family, Sly and the Family Stone, Carl Stone, Carl Stalling, Gyorgy Ligeti, The Shaggs, Oren Ambarchi, Organum, Olga Neuwirth, Michael Mantler, Angelo Badelamenti, Ange, Richard Horowitz & Sussan Deyhim, Spooky Tooth, Sonic Youth, Echo & the Bunnymen, Clive Graham and his wonderful Paradigm label, Morphogenesis, Mirror, Christoph Heemann, Daisuke Suzuki, Friend Sound, Jessica Catrone, Gordon Mumma, Neu, Kraftwerk, Aeolin Harps, The Groundhogs, The Cramps, The Bananaman, Bob Dylan, Joy Division, Motown, Meeuw, Traffic, Fats Waller, Metamophosis, Brian Wilson, Phew, Paul Thek, Max Ernst, Bruce Conner, Lee Patterson, Slapp Happy, Seefeel, the Yardbirds, Ya Ho Wah 13, Issac Hayes, Parliment/Funkadelic, Chris Watson, John Zorn & other things.
Sounds Like: a skipping record, a broken radio, a creaking floor, static on the tv, nails on a blackboard, an out of tune piano, a squeaky chair, etc.
Record Label: LAFMS, Cortical, Schoolmap, Birdman, PSF, RRR
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

Extended Organ/John Duncan performance report

last night's performance July 14, 2007:i was having dizzy spells from an inner ear infection that i've had since Rick and Jackie and I played No Fun Fest and almost didn't do the show. Good thing i di...
Posted by tom recchion on Sun, 15 Jul 2007 11:50:00 PST