After taking in the screening of “Metropolis†with a live musical accompaniment by the Alloy Orchestra at the Ozark Foothills Film Fest, I stood in the lobby with the rest of the festival-goers chatting about the amazing performance we just witnessed. From across the room, I caught a glimpse of a guy at the merchandise table sleeving a 45 record. Curiosity immediately peaked and I marched over.
The guy was Roger Miller, guitarist for Mission of Burma and member of the Alloy Orchestra. He was selling two 45s of his own work which he barely had time to describe before I was fishing for money. I brought both records (only $5 each!) and proceeded to completely geek out as Miller tells me how John Cage had complained that recorded performances are frozen with no life to them which caused Miller to create “Pop† Record/Evolving  – a record that is the starts, in-betweens, and ends of other records. In other words, the surface noise of a record itself. The more the record is played, the more the vinyl degenerates thus a record that has live and changes with each “performance.â€Â And seeing as I am always fascinated with the life of vinyl records – the scratches, pops, and warmth of analog, I see it has a great addition to my collection.
The other 7-inch (that came with a free download) is also in the experimental category with sides label “X†Angled Scene and “Yâ€Â Feedback Guitars for John Cage and I was pleasantly surprised at the repeat-listening quality of the tracks. For experimental music – what some might call noise art – I like it and plan to check out more of Miller’s work. He apparently does a lot of soundtrack work outside of the Alloy Orchestra. Additionally, I’m ecstatic to find more proof than vinyl records are not just a thing of the past.
