Member Since: 4/18/2007
Band Members: zed mizar: words, music, programming, vocals.
Influences: birdsong, insect music, bach, beck, bjork, massive attack, meat beat manifesto, igor stravinsky, oliver messiaen, steve reich, essa-pekka salonen, arvo part, john cage, leon theremin, dj shadow, the avalanches, honeycut, jazzanova, chemical brothers, fatboy slim, lamb, q-burns abstract message, future sound of london, aphex twin, roni size, portishead, unkle, kool keith, pharcyde, a tribe called quest, jimi hendrix, radiohead, todd rundgren, the doors, talking heads, king crimson, zappa, james brown, prince, laurie anderson, firesign theatre, rachel kann, miles davis, king sunny ade', black uhuru. poets: james tate, apollinaire, charles simic, bill knott, russell edson, baudelaire, mallarme, mary karr, maria negroni, dante, david.
Sounds Like: most people tell me i don't really sound like anybody else. some ask where such ideas come from. some say "wow, that's really creative, fresh & unique" & some say "that's too weird, i don't get it." whatever. i'm sick of 3-chord songs & mind-numbing drivel, i'd personally rather hear something like i've never heard before. some of the elements that go into my sound are: the big beat electronica of meat beat manifesto, the chemical brothers & fatboy slim, the cool way rachel kann marries poetry & electronic music, the beckish word-salad lyrics & ironic rap, the funny cut & paste vocals of "frontier psychiatrist" by the avalanches, the psychedelia of dub, trip hop, acid rock & ambient/trance, the way the doors mixed poetry & music, the way bjork combines classical & electronic music, the wacked-out comedy of firesign theatre, modern classical music & bach counterpoint, the zappa-like quick shifts of style, the goofy 80's party-nerd spirit of devo/b-52's/talking heads, & the performance art of laurie anderson.
my literary influences are virtual-reality type science fiction like that of philip k dick, the literature of the new fabulists like jonathan carroll & neil gaiman, the cyberpunk of william gibson & neal stephenson, transdimensional fantasy & fairy tales like c. s. lewis, lovecraft's "dream quest" & lewis carroll's "alice through the lookng glass," the poetry of the french symbolists & american surrealists. i show my pop culture influences in some of the cover tunes i do, stuff like "texas radio" by the doors & "they're coming to take me away ha ha" by napoleon XIV, songs with rap vocals from before hip-hop came along. i'm certainly not a rapper or a political slam poet. what i'm about is tuning my mind to the coolest wavelengths so i can offer something fun & surprising to the artistically-aware people who are interested. everything else is just falling in love with space chicks & trying to keep the bleepnids from bringing me down."