Interview with Bonnie Banks
By Stephen McMullin
Hail, fellow nervous systems on the Eisteinian Waterways! Hail Maurice! Hail Eris! Hail Discordia! (Why the hail not?)
It’s Bealtaine at last and the Sun has begun its skin cancer-spreading terror campaign in earnest – so what better time to spend the daylight hours hiding in The Lab? The temperature is always a multiple of degrees lower than in the out-of-doors and the chance of getting bitten by a rabid dog is exponentially decreased.
This month The Lab hosts a residency with enigmatic Bonnie Banks and the reoccurring series Godwaffle Noise Pancakes and Brutal Sound Effects.
We made the forgivable error of judgment in asking Bonnie Banks to give a brief explanation of what we might expect from this Bonnie Banks-stravaganza and were slightly overwhelmed by the response. As, hopefully, will you be…
The Lab: What have you got in store for visitors to The Lab throughout May?
Bonnie Banks: That’s a really loaded question. There will be some apesmears on the walls as the gallery requested, but the events are supposed to eclipse all other shows that have ever come to the lab before.
As a gesture to how the mind uses neuron pinball to answer these things I will focus on the most advanced year 3082 guy, VSLS. He will have a robot or something of the ilk working during his show at the end of the month. He had something that would play soccer and not resist the charms of the ‘hands of Treasure Island’ last month. So….coupled with the music that should be nuts.
Slusser works in the sound effects department (and does some composition stuff too) at Pixar so he’s building soundscapes for any goddamn movie that happens into his lab. He is doing a special for the Poodle Sound Effects Festival. Despite it’s humiliating name, everyone has given 200% in the past hammering together a rabid hound to let loose on the ears. Dogs and naked partners on leash with dog mask get in free for this one, as always. We will probably have all the drinks on the floor in bowls other than the beer bottles custom of old.
Beandip Troubadors are a geriatric noise duo that have employed bad sex come-ons, tuba, a kitchen sink and adult diapers to great use. That same show MOM is going to hit the bay. She celebrated a birthday once by shitting in a swimming pool, which was a big win for her. I just really can’t wrap my mind around this one. The last show i saw her at was her crawling around in this tiny dress and blood pie mask with no undies. Everyone was uncomfortable until they saw she could make prion burgurs fly after some fancy dancing.
Rubber (() Cement gave up (and released) the packed dvd of “Butyl RNA World…” mostly finished, but the whole ‘CASA-D’ (like NASA with incurious S. American peculiars) section was missing a few things. Hopefully the entire full length version will premiere at this show on the 26th showing the video coupon for lots in the Sombrero Galaxy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sombrero_Galaxy).
The debut of the “queman” (advanced evolved mistake) at the Solid City State (Rubber ((0) Cement world, which will hopefully include a few flipped cytosine tanks modeled after German-U.S. military) show, The queman be making herquehim (him her organ-cube) (possible sound) debut. Everything is in place. Will it actually be able to drag its waste filled cube body across the floor to impress people with a trail of dirty yellow and pink bloodwaste? Will it die as soon as we feed it thru the crudhole? No idea. It’s a look at evolution in the opposite direction of the tire (queman are cubed and dysfunctional).
Impaled and Agalloch denizens touch on noise dueling with Bran…Pos and Rubber ((0). That should be a first in something. The sound check is the night before. There are a total of 6 compositions that are supposed to collide into each other. Since everyone will be wearing masks of their actual face (even parts of the Cimevox Computer) it might be an apocalypse of instruments plunging into soft flesh all night. The sound check: a place for casualties and cancellation.
We’ve probably lost everyone by now so if they don’t know about Scummerai, Laces, Thom Blum, Elf Ass, Darksmith, Dyemark, Organ of Qwerty… and everyone else on this month’s bill that’s playing the Godwaffles or BSFX shows, they are screwed forever if they miss ‘em. You won’t be able to enjoy life basically. Screwed forever to live in Second Life with digital lassitudes.
2. What pushed you to start organizing the Noise Pancakes/Brutal SFX events? Pancakes and noise seems to smack of divine inspiration, somehow…
Pancakes at Pubis was started by Brutallo Sloumberfugeox around 2000. He quit dealing with it when the club Pubis Noir closed its doors forever. Pond Gallery took up the reigns for an Adobe Books show, then later Artsf for 3 years. It was godwaffle by then. It was such a good idea that Brutallo had that core members kept pushing the batter to new levels of locomotion.
Brutal Sound Effects Festivals started at Club Kommode to differentiate between the rock shows of sombre proportions they let in to pay the rent. It moved over to Clud Teuffel and has been bouncing to wherever. No Fun did a feature show where they stuck some people in the basement to showcase “bay noise”? Some marketing plan that looked great in print, and paid off with an audience of curious chemotherapy audio gobblers. Was that the pinnacle of success or goal for the earbay to get as far away as Brooklyn? The ill defined brutal banner flops on without permanent housing.
3. Can you tell us about the Electronic Puppenhorten? What would prompt someone to create something like Thong Armed Krakenmoths-Jejune-Plug Slubs?
Electronic Puppenhorten was supposed to be from the beginning a shitty puppet show to add some visual spectacle to the elements of experimental sounds that come out of a regular noise show. The first shows had very little in the way of handmatronics and was mostly centered around live action rug wearing frankenpipes. Borderline lame and definitely stupid. Grubear Hump and Sperm Jacuzzi retired (maybe, it’s been 7 years) leaving the live action to constructions that move in hampered gestures. Thong Armed Krakenmouth was barely visible at the last show, and the Listless Pug Slubs were replaced by a last minute Crablowhand from the Scummerai set. Hope to introduce the Pug Slubs when the work force is more organized in the future. The Puppenhorten show will hopefully have the Tip Torso Titans smashing into the crowd like a take on “The Fall of Ekeclema” made with face shedding mottle Baal demons erupting. Hope to have a few apeblades falling from the ceiling and sticking into some clear brains on some pedestal. Again, not all the work is done for that. We have a short time to figure it out using with your robust pray-rubbing seastones together, and our sumotrogforce windscreams to the death of Popewaffen I.
4. Same question for Rubber ((0) Cement … That is some pretty full-on madness, from the yootoob clips, anyway.
I wont answer for them but here’s part of a good interview that was in a Portland zine:
WHY do you do music /art?
We anti-morph music into a bundle of frayed ends, present as a NASA-d action, and top it off with a semi falure/triumph approach. The presentation is usually a function of what we are proposing in our ‘theory’ mode. Many of the elements that we address like passing street cars and tangles in electrical cords are transferred into something a little more excessive in the ‘look at the future—-now!’. One may be trying to march into the ovum of humanity (the crowd), repelled by elbows (chromatin regulators) and eventually seeing the off-balancing javelin bass “needle” which was acting as an aimless “protein transport” into the Butyl World of Errth.
WHAT got you started?
Probably P16.D4 releases, CCCC and most of the rubber suit madness driven war creatures from Toho that still upset Japan weekly.
HOW long have you been doing music/art?
We refuse to accept a valid starting point for ourselves and leave the audience to decide. A future world is what we are aiming for and it starts TOMORROW!”
Full schedule at: http://www.thelab.org/events/443-brutalsoundeffects.html
