Join host Charles as he sits down with Giuliana Funkhauser, a U.S. East Coast-based transdisciplinary artist, to delve into her unique blend of digital code and synthesized audio for creating story-driven art installations. Giuliana shares her journey from her first concert experience at the Radio 104 Fest to her most memorable performances, including the Halloween Industrial Music Fest and an unforgettable Iggy Pop show. Giuliana also discusses her collaboration with Elizabeth Verosa and their group Snowbeasts, their live performances at the New England Synthesizer Festival, and the creative process behind their EP 'MMXXI'. She explains how they use data sonification to enhance their installations and compositions, and the unique improvisational methods they employ during live performances. Tune in for an engaging conversation that explores Giuliana's fascinating world of music, art, and technology.
In this episode of Seeing Them Live, host Charles Berman interviews Giuliana Funkhauser, a transdisciplinary artist known for her innovative blend of digital code and synthesized audio to create immersive art installations. Giuliana, based on the U.S. East Coast, completed her graduate studies at the San Francisco Art Institute, concentrating on art and technology, with a particular interest in sound synthesis. Besides her artistic endeavors, she teaches courses on data sonification and video game development. Her collaborative projects include working with musical artist Elizabeth Verosa and visual artist Alison Tannenhaus, performing excerpts from their EP '2021' in events such as the 2022 New England Synthesizer Festival. Additionally, Verosa and Funkhauser's track is featured in the Rewoven Transmissions collection, a remix of Cathode Raytube's works.
Giuliana's shares how she got introduced to music and her unique concert experiences, ranging from middle school outings to witnessing legendary bands like Everclear, Judas Priest, and Iggy Pop. She recounts attending the Radio 104 Fest and vividly describes how Everclear was not her favorite but ended up being the main act she saw due to time restrictions. A humorous and memorable moment emerges from a misunderstanding that led to her attending a performance by Mono of Japan instead of the expected European band Mono, a life-changing encounter that profoundly influenced her musical tastes
Giuliana also narrates her experiences at the Halloween Industrial Music Fest during Hurricane Sandy, where she saw numerous notable acts like Author & Punisher and Theologian in an incredibly intense, weather-challenged environment. Her story culminates in recounting the remarkable Sunn O show, a visceral and intense performance where the sheer power of the sound and visuals led to a memorable audience connection.
Throughout the discussion, Giuliana elaborates on her creative process, revealing how she and her collaborators use data sonification and visual cues to guide their live performances and improvisations. Listeners are invited to explore Giuliana's work further on her website gfunkhouser.com and through various platforms like Bandcamp that feature her recordings.
BANDS: Animals, Author and Punisher, Big Brave, Bohemia, Butthole Surfers, Candlebox, Cathode Ray Tube, Cracker, David Linton, Dead Voices on Air, Dear Woman, Dishwalla, Everclear, Flock of Seagulls, Freeze Pop, Go Go's, Harpy, Iggy pop, Inkanti, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, King Gizzard, Lady Purge, Local H, Lush, Mogwai, Mono, Otto von Schirach, Police, Semisonic, Snowbeasts, Stabbing Westward, Sunn, The Pretenders, Theologian, Tony the Floyd Dementia, Uriah Heep
VENUES:
Club X, Radio 104 Fest
[00:00:00] Charles: Our guest today is Giuliana Funkhauser. Giuliana is a U.S. East Coast based transdisciplinary artist who combines digital code and synthesized audio to produce story driven art installations and compositions. Funkhauser completed her graduate studies at the San Francisco Art Institute focusing on art and technology with a specialization in sound synthesis.
[00:00:27] She teaches courses and workshops on data sonification and video game development. Giuliana and her musical collaborator, Elizabeth Verosa, performed excerpts from their EP, and I'm gonna spell this out for everybody, it's in Roman numerals, so it's MMXXI, which they refer to it as 2021. And with these excerpts, they use these, visuals by Alison Tannenhaus, as a visual musical score in the fall of 2022 during the New England Synthesizer Festival.
[00:01:02] A track by Verosa and Funkhauser appears on Rewoven Transmissions Collection, remixing works from Cathode Raytube's A Bright Eyed Creature, which is currently out on Band Camp. Giuliana, welcome to Seeing Them Live.
[00:01:18] Giuliana: Thank you so much, Charles.
[00:01:20] Charles: Yes, this is so interesting. Some of the stuff you're doing. And, um, I listened to some of your music and I watched some videos and such, um, from your musical collaborator.
[00:01:34] And, um, we'll get to that cause I've, uh, I've always liked synthesizers, you know, when I see bands and stuff, But, I don'tknow what they do. It's like magic. There's some person twisting some knobs and pressing keys and sounds great. But yeah, I'd, I'd like to talk about that a bit more, but I thought, you know, as is our, format, we'll go through some of the concerts you've been to. I thought we'd start out with your first one, when you were like, you said you're like 14 or 15 years old.
[00:02:05] Giuliana: Oh, yeah.
[00:02:06] Charles: Yeah, it's the Radio 104 Fest. This is in 1996.
[00:02:11] Giuliana: Yes. In Connecticut.
[00:02:13] Charles: Were you there to see Everclear or you just, you thought they were maybe the standout of the group? Cause they're of the groups that were there. Cause there, there's a lot of them. I have written down, Candlebox, Cracker, Dishwalla, Local H, Lush, Semisonic, Stabbing Westward and Everclear. But, were you there? As an Everclear fan or how, how did you get there?
[00:02:37] Giuliana: So, my, man, we were, that was like middle school, maybe early high school, us, um, we, my friends and I loved to listen to the radio, and so when the radio station we loved to listen to threw a festival, we demanded to go, uh, and my mom volunteered as tribute to drive us up. Everybody just chaperoned. She was like super not into it, but she said, fine, you can go.
[00:03:06] And it has to be a, during the daytime show. So when we looked at the times we said, okay, well, Everclear is the one we want to see the most of all the ones that are on there if we can't stay during the night. And so, I don't, you know, I, I looked up who else was playing that day, cause I was like, really? Everclear? Is that who we're gonna go see? Cause they were like, oh, they were okay. I think even then I was like, they're not my favorite, you know, but, amongst my friends who I went with, that's who we all landed with. And it was funny because there was a band that wasn't listed in the lineup when I was trying to double check what year it was, and it was the Animals, who were on before Everclear.
[00:03:47] The Animals are a lot older band than Everclear, but they really rocked! And I remember specifically going, wait, guys, like, who are these old dudes? I love this. And we started, like, I got picked up. I got so excited that everybody thought it was cute and they picked me up and I was crowd surfing to, like, the Animals it was really nerdy.
[00:04:10] Charles: So, yeah, I saw that too. And I'm like, God, did she mean is that like Eric Burdon and the Animals. Yeah. So what, how did they, how did they get on the bill with all of these modern bands?
[00:04:22] Giuliana: No idea.
[00:04:23] Charles: It's bizarre. But you liked them. You said they were great.
[00:04:27] Giuliana: Well, I do like rock, you know, I like metal, some of those metal bands. Man, I saw Judas Priest just a few years ago. Those guys have been rockin and rollin forever.
[00:04:38] Charles: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:04:40] Giuliana: Uriah Heep. Those are all old dudes, and they're, they were amazing. Very good.
[00:04:46] Charles: Yeah, I have that as a question mark. The Animals here are like, okay.
[00:04:50] Giuliana: That was the surprise. Yeah, I know it was fun. At the time, I think we were there for Everclear, but when you go to a music festival, you don't know who all is gonna play I don't back then you couldn't just google everybody and listen.
[00:05:03] Charles: Yeah, right.
[00:05:04] Giuliana: You either had the money to go to the record store or some friends who had a cool collection or a record collection or something or whatever. I was the one who liked music though. And I liked a lot different kinds of music. And I don't know, the punks really, like people would be really segregated about what kind of music they liked. And I'm like, I was forbidden from listening to anything besides like classical until I got my own radio at my house.
[00:05:30] And so that time, was just like trying to absorb anything I could. And my mom did like, you know, rock and roll, like Beach Boys and rock and roll And so it's not like I never heard it or you didn't hear it out, out in a shop or something. But yeah, I was just trying to absorb anything and everything.
[00:05:48] So I love going to concerts when I don't know who the heck's all going to be there, because that's how you learn. It's like to a library or a music shop and just listen. I always buy one random album it with me, even though I'm at the shop to buy somebody's album who just released something, you know?
[00:06:06] Charles: Well, that's what I like about doing this podcast because some of the bands you listed here, um, I mean, I've heard of some, but there's a lot that I've, I no idea. Never heard of them before. I mean, I've listened to some of the stuff, but, um, yeah, we'll, we'll get to those.
[00:06:21] Cause then I, I learned from the guests and then sometimes if these bands come through Chicago, I'll go see them. Giuliana recommended Snowbeasts, so I'm gonna go check them out, you know?
[00:06:32] Giuliana: Yeah.
[00:06:33] Charles: So your best concert, there's a toss up between a lot of, a lot of different shows. You didn't really just pick one.
[00:06:40] Giuliana: Difficult.
[00:06:41] Charles: You know, it seemed like there were a few. So, the one I have listed first was in 2012, um, In November, this Halloween Industrial Music Fest at this place called Club X. And I looked up online, I don't know how accurate these things are sometimes, but the capacity of that club, it said was about 500 people. So, kind smallish.
[00:07:03] Giuliana: Yeah.
[00:07:03] Charles: So yeah, you went to this thing and Hurricane Sandy was making landfall on the first day of that festival, right?
[00:07:11] Giuliana: Yup.
[00:07:12] Charles: Okay, so you want to just talk about, did you go to just like one of the days? Cuz it's like a three day festival.
[00:07:19] Giuliana: Oh, no. No, no. When we heard that festival was announced and we saw the lineup, um, a couple of friends of mine at that point, I was living up in like somewhere in Boston, kind of near Cleveland Circle. And then I had some friends living in Cambridge and we used to go up to see noise shows a lot, around that area.
[00:07:41] And we heard there was this like massive festival set up by one of our friends who usually runs a lot of cool stuff around town. And we said, whatever he sets up is going to be wild. And look at all the other people producing this. This is going to be amazing. Let's just get a hotel together. And like make a whole weekend trip out of this and it was crazy because so many people were trying to evacuate or like get the heck out of dodge because of the hurricane at the time and it was like a really crazy weekend to be sort of traveling.
[00:08:12] But we, you know, we we booked in advance this hotel. And we decided to make a whole, like, noise orgy weekend out of it. Because lot of acts that we had all individually decided were some of the coolest ones we had ever seen live, we're going to be in some tiny space together and so some, my friends went down there together and had the intention of being there all day, every day, as much as possible.
[00:08:39] Charles: Did most of the bands show up or did somebody have to cancel because of the weather?
[00:08:42] Giuliana: Most of the bands showed up. Some of them had to cancel some of it. It got complicated for some of them, but most everybody showed up. It was a, it felt very diehard and intense, but it worked out. It was amazing. It felt kind of homey because of it too, because we're all like, well, we made it and now we're going to do this weird thing for hours and hours every single day.
[00:09:07] Charles: What were some of the standout bands at that festival?
[00:09:11] Giuliana: You know, some of the ones I hadn't known about before, but I guess, I mean, you look them up. So I, I don't research every single band before I go to a festival because I like to be surprised. It's like, don't read reviews of a movie before I go into the movie. I want to just full frontal figure it out in the moment.
[00:09:30] David Linton really blew my mind. Then there are these folks who, I forget if they were playing as Dead Voices on Air in the moment, but it was like some people who are apparently like for a hot minute in, they'll be in France. So there a lot of really legendary kind of people playing there that I didn't realize I hadn't ever heard of Otto, I don't even know if I'm pronouncing his name, right, but Otto von Schirach was really weird and interesting way to cap off the whole festival. Those were some of the surprises for me. Going in, I didn't know about them.
[00:10:06] Some of the ones who I was excited to see were Author and Punisher. I'd seen them live a couple times before that and they were always really good. Author and Punisher, Theologian, My Friend Tony was spinning, the Floyd Dementia was playing. I always love his sets too. I guess Inkanti was playing too, he was playing as, I don't remember what his moniker for that was, but there were all these people who I didn't, they had like side projects that I didn't know it was them, and suddenly they were in there, and you know, it was just really amazing, and seeing everybody all set up all at once, all together was intense.
[00:10:47] Charles: And given the weather conditions, there was like a, a hurricane. I looked at the path, from when it landed and it was pretty close to where you guys were. Very, close. So it must have been very exciting with the weather that was going on there.
[00:11:04] And then you also listed this Iggy pop show, which a lot of people, myself included, I mean, I love, seeing Iggy. He's coming to town actually in March, in Chicago. And I might go see him. I've seen him probably five times or so. I usually try to catch him, but, um, so that, yeah, the Iggy show, the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs were there. And, um, I didn't know what, do you recall what year that was, Giuliana? I didn't, um, I couldn't get a good read on the year on that.
[00:11:36] Giuliana: 2003, yeah. I had to sort of think back, because that time was a bit fuzzy for me. I was like, not redoing a semester of school, but I was kind of like taking a little more time to do catch up on some of my schoolwork that summer.
[00:11:52] Charles: Okay.
[00:11:53] Giuliana: So I was living in the dorms at the undergrad I was at and one of my friends was, was also working on, I think she was working on our thesis or something like that. And we ended up hanging out a lot because we were like, some of the only people on campus that semester. But the buses were still running in and out of town. So, you know, free bus into Boston. Can't beat it, you know?
[00:12:16] And, I love music, right? So we were always exchanging music and that sort of thing. And one day she just goes, Hey, uh, you want to see Iggy Pop with me? And I'm like, yeah, we have to go pay our respects. Don't we? Like. I'm not crazy about his recordings, but I bet he puts on a real wicked live show. It was so good. The guy had zero pyrotechnics. It was just him being a complete freak on the stage. And was like that he could have lit up that section of Boston with all the energy that was just like emanating. It's very hard to describe that. I imagine it doesn't even matter if you've got amplification or not. He's just like, you know, lots of energy.
[00:12:58] Charles: Yeah. I saw him in the mid eighties, um, opening for The Pretenders.
[00:13:03] Giuliana: Oh wow.
[00:13:04] Charles: I'd never seen him before and I just happened to have like front row seats because it was at where I was going to school at the time in Chicago. They would give students preferential seating, so the first 10 rows in the center and I was, I was right.
[00:13:18] I was in the first row
[00:13:20] Giuliana: That's amazing.
[00:13:21] Charles: And it was insane, and I'd never seen Iggy, and, like you were saying, he comes out, and the energy, and just, yeah, you just have to be there to see it. It's amazing, because when you had mentioned this, I did find a Yeah, Yeah, Yeah show where Iggy showed up and played..
[00:13:41] Giuliana: Yeah.
[00:13:42] Charles: A song, what's it called, Venus by Shocking Blue. I thought that's the one you were talking about. That's why I thought, to clarify whether he actually did a whole set or just, just an appearance, but it was a whole set. So you were, you came away with, that really left an impression on you then.
[00:13:57] Giuliana: I was, so impressed. I, that was sort of, that was one of the bigger concerts I'd ever seen besides that 104 Fest. At the time, you know, when I was in college, I was near Boston. So I was able to kind of go see shows in Worcester and, um, around mostly around Cambridge and the smaller clubs, like Worcester, you go to the Palladium and all that, but like the Fleet Center was one of the bigger places I've ever gone to see a show. And I don't like it as much because it's not, it's usually just like too loud and too much and too weird, but there was something. This is going to be real stereotypical, but there was a rawness to, there was something very raw and real and it didn't matter how far away the guy was. You could just feel the presence and you could feel the music and it was, at one point he jumped off the stage and ran, and I thought okay he's just doing this is his pyrotechnics but then like, the guards looked really confused.
[00:14:57] I think he just like suddenly decided to run off the stage and he ran like right up to, we were in the middle or something of the Fleet Center and he was as tall as me. And I'm like, this dude is just so tiny and like a super firecracker, and cops are chasing him to bring him back up on the stage.
[00:15:16] And then when they brought him up, he started, like, jumping on the, like, amplifiers. He was a very, he was very happy to be there, I guess.
[00:15:24] Charles: Yeah. He's very, uh, authentic. When you go to see Iggy, you get the real, the real deal.
[00:15:30] Giuliana: He was super excited.
[00:15:32] Charles: You'd also mentioned, and I, and this was another question mark I had, you'd mentioned this show, you saw this band, Mano of Japan. But they were mistakenly booked instead of Mono from Europe or something like what? Two, two bands with similar names and they, they booked the wrong band or something. Could you explainn that to me?
[00:15:57] Giuliana: Yeah, that's probably, I feel like that's a great one to sort of segue into every single other thing because, so the Middle East in Cambridge, I heard your interview with Jim Turbert.
[00:16:11] Charles: Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:13] Giuliana: And when you guys were talking about TTs, I was laughing because he and I talked about Some of the ones that you guys talked about. And so right next to TT The Bear's, which is now a different club, it's this place called the Middle East. And there's an upstairs and a downstairs. Now the upstairs is a little smaller and the downstairs is kind of longer and cavernous and in a basement. So here we are in the Middle East upstairs, which is next to this, like bar where there's belly dancing.
[00:16:42] And then these, you know, places where lots of bands come through. It's a pretty intimate, slightly smaller than TT's kind of venue that like, I feel like every college student in that area eventually ends up at some concert in one of, you know, in the upstairs of the downstairs. It's just like a right of passage in that little, like, garden of fun for college students in Cambridge.
[00:17:07] So here we are. Freeze Pop is kind of having a moment. It's this pop band and some of the local people, they just got a tune in one of the Harmonics games. I think one of the guys in the band is a developer at a game company called Harmonics or something. So whatever, they're having a concert with Freeze Pop headlining.
[00:17:30] Charles: Yeah. You listed this band Freeze Pop as a headliner.
[00:17:34] Giuliana: Yeah, they're very poppy. Like, do do do do do do do the guy who runs the band, or you know, one of the bands is the new wave synth dude who likes to dress up all, you know, with the little, like, shoulder pads and the little shades and his crop hair, you know, and then the other ones are all, like, cute with, like, dyed hair and stuff.
[00:17:52] And it makes me think of like Flock of Seagulls or something really corny like that. And it's really fun and boppy, right? It's, a little bit more saccharine than the sort of thing I'm into, which tends to be like, you know, like heavy. But here we go. I needed to, I needed a pick me up and that was the perfect thing.
[00:18:15] I don't remember what the other bands were. There must've been like three other bands headlining. I was familiar with the band Mono that I imagined would be billed with Freeze Pop because, I don't know if it was in a movie or something like that, but like, something that would come up in my like, sad girl playlists was like, On Janoo, ooo, it's this like, moody, like, sad song by this band I think from the UK called Mono.
[00:18:45] That is not the Mono that they billed. So we have this band from the UK, which is Mono that sings ballady kind of stuff. I don't know them very well I just know them from the one song that somebody you know at this point. We're all exchanging like mix thumb drives or CDs to each other. So you kind of learn music from like one song at a time from a band. I figured they would have the Mono from Europe, but it was not Mono from Europe.
[00:19:12] It was these Japanese people, like really skinny, small Japanese people get up on stage and there's three of them and they look really, you know, their hair is all falling in front of their face and they look kind of sad. I'm like, ah, it's so sad. Is that what this band looks like? Like, is this the band? This is the one headliner right before Freeze Pop too so the room is packed, everybody's wearing bright colors, people are ready to bop their little hearts out and maybe be a little emo and sad. Oh my God, then Mono of Japan gets on stage.
[00:19:44] Charles: Ahh, different Mono.
[00:19:46] Giuliana: They start playing their song. It 's this build up, dirge of intensity and just like extreme wall of noise that just gets built up and up and up and it's the frequencies of all the sound being compressed and squished into your heart and your bones and everything you can feel the vibrations in different parts of your body how intense it is and then you're just like slammed by these like walls of sad noises and it's just like total despair and it's these three tiny people just like thrashing around and here I am with my, I'm, at this point I'm like my favorite thing is to go to live shows and take photos as much as I can. The whole room clears out because the noise is so intense, it's the very opposite of pop music, the most antithetical thing you can possibly feel to pop music, this is like, Uggghhh! Ha ha ha ha!
[00:20:41] Charles: So it didn't really fit into the, lineup, the music?
[00:20:45] Giuliana: No. It completely, completely cleared the room..
[00:20:50] Charles: Okay.
[00:20:51] Giuliana: Of all but maybe three or four people. And the funny thing is that it turns out that a few years later down the line, those other three people in the room were going to be some of my best friends.
[00:21:03] Charles: So you, so you enjoyed it.
[00:21:05] Giuliana: I loved it! I said, you know, I came here for the silly pop music, and now I'm hooked on whatever the hell this is. Because, you know, I've listened to things like Mogwai on the radio, or like Buthole Surfers on the radio, or just like whatever the hell weird shit was coming out, sorry for the swearing, whatever was coming out of Boston, you know, if we were driving by Boston, there was some weird college radio stuff going on that sometimes you'd hear this really dark, dissonant amazingness, but because you can't figure out what it is without them telling you, there's no lyrics or anything you can look this stuff up for.
[00:21:45] So how, like, how do you look up a Mogwai song and you don't have any friends, and when you play the tape where you caught it on, I'm like, what is this? And then even the record store guy doesn't know who it is. You're like, I'm so alone. I'm so alone. And I don't know what this is and I want more metal, but I don't know how to ask for it. And I thought it was all metal. So there I was in a show where it was happening and I'm like, okay, whatever the heck this is, I'm going to buy their CD and then I'm going to find more because, this is it. This is it. This is my jam. That was a complete game changer for me.
[00:22:20] Charles: So it was deliberate, the scheduling, probably from the, promoter, right? But you thought you were going to get something else.
[00:22:26] Giuliana: It was it. So I asked, cause I noticed the Freeze Pop was on the sidelines and you know, like two of the band members were like, holy crap, what do we do? Everybody just left the concert. And then the one in the middle is like, Yeah, you I love that. He loves like dark music. Nerd guy, you know, some of their newer stuff for a little while was sort of dark and they did an offshoot too.
[00:22:51] But yeah, I think it was a mistake. I think there was actually some kind of a mistake that happened that day. And it was hysterical because like the people who knew Mono, like that Mono were ready for it. They came for that. The three people in that room. I had no idea. because I don't really, you know, I was like, I'm just going to go to the show and be entertained.
[00:23:12] Oh my God, life changer. You know, of course, all the people came back for Freeze Pop, but at that point I was like, I love you, Freeze Pop, but your whole room just filled up again. I need to just go like have a drink now. I need to go home and listen to this Mono record I just bought. Oh, it was so good. Yeah, some of the people in there ended up being my co-workers and turned out they were like music people around Boston, too.
[00:23:36] Charles: That's cool.
[00:23:37] Giuliana: It was very cool.
[00:23:39] Charles: I experiencedd a scheduling or promotion snafu like that at Chicago Fest, which would place on Navy Pier every summer. And we went there to go see Iron Maiden.
[00:23:52] Giuliana: Oh my gosh.
[00:23:53] Charles: They had booked this band called Bohemia, which they say they're a punk band, but when I saw them, they were New Wave, and that did not go over well.
[00:24:05] Giuliana: Iron Maiden and Bohemia, no?
[00:24:07] Charles: Yeah, there was cups and things raining down on the stage and we were really close to the stage. And so, yeah, I was fearful for my life that I was going to get hit with something. But, yeah, those two genres, just way, way off on that one. But, it made for an interesting story, I guess.
[00:24:24] Giuliana: It makes me think of, I was in a library a little, you know, like, a few years ago. I found a, a book called, um, I think it's like, Heavy Metal Rocker's Guide to Horror Movies or something like that. And there was so much hate for like, disco and like, synths and stuff in that book. And like growing up when I did, like listening to the radio, not having like any friends to talk about this with until the two thousands, I didn't realize how much hate, like you don't put the guitars with the synthesizers. And I'm like, what are you talking about? I grew up in like the alt rock 90s. It's funny how things change over time, right?
[00:25:06] It is. My friends and I, we went to that, but we also saw like Flock of Seagulls. Go Go's, The Police. But, just certain, certain genres of music, they don't mix in the same space, I guess, kind of like your story with this Mono of Japan.
[00:25:23] That was a lifesaver for me.
[00:25:25] Charles: But Giuliana, , I was looking at some of these other bands or performers you were talking about, or you, you'd mentioned also some of your best concerts. And I noticed, towards the end of your list, they seem more visual and sonic, I guess.
[00:25:39] I don't know how to put it necessarily, but like, I watched some videos of Harpy.
[00:25:45] Giuliana: Oh yeah.
[00:25:46] Charles: And Lady Purge.
[00:25:48] Giuliana: Lady Purge. Yeah.
[00:25:50] Charles: So, segueing into your music and your work.
[00:25:55] Giuliana: Mm hmm.
[00:25:56] Charles: You'd listed Snowbeasts at this As 220 in Providence, Rhode Island and you also had said, like, your Snowbeasts concert shirt, is in like, high rotation. If you're gonna wear a concert shirt, you wear that one around. And so, one half of that group, right, is your collaborator.
[00:26:17] Giuliana: Mm hmm.
[00:26:18] Charles: Elizabeth Verosa, right?
[00:26:20] Giuliana: Yes.
[00:26:21] Charles: So let me just back up. So you go to this AS 220 place, which is in Providence, and that looks like it holds about 120 people.
[00:26:29] Giuliana: So there's a Black Box space there, which is a smaller capacity. And then there's a, like a bar in the middle, and then there's like a wider hall that has a stage. You know, Black Box, it's all dark and you can kind of do what whatever you want in there. The other one's got windows and the gallery view out to the street. It's in Providence, uh, and they have, like, artist studios and stuff there too, so.
[00:26:55] Charles: Okay. Yeah. Cause I saw like, yeah, the Black Box holds about 90 people. And then the capacity of the other place is about 200 standing or 120 seated. But my question was, when you saw Snowbeasts, were you already working with Elizabeth or is that how you kind of met her and then you guys started doing your own thing? Or, how did, how did that work?
[00:27:17] Giuliana: Oh, man. The way we started working together, cause there's so much lore, the way we started working together was, I actually put out a demo for some of my work. I put out a demo for a song that I'd been working on and holding on to for a while. And I just decided to release it in 2020. Just to share something, cause I had been working on a few different kinds of projects on my own that were still related to the work I was doing in graduate school. But I had like, just to entertain myself right before lockdowns, I had started kind of making some songy type songs for myself, um, using some of the techniques, like production techniques that I'd learned.
[00:28:00] And when I released it, it was within about a month or two of Beth releasing her first solo album, which is called Inner Worlds. And, I loved that album so much. It was like my favorite album that year and I was really shocked when I released my demo that Beth and Rob reached out to see if I wanted to collaborate with her on some songs. I was like, guys, I'm in the West Coast, like completely locked down and far away.
[00:28:32] And they're like, that's okay. You know, we could like exchange files and stuff together. And I said, Okay, well, I mean, if you wanted to jam out with me virtually, there are some, some ways we could do that, too, that are pretty good for recording and everything as well. And we ended up exchanging a lot of files, doing some jam sessions together, and exchanging files, and just mostly improvising, and then going back and forth until we had enough for like an EP.
[00:28:58] That's how we started. It was roughly around end of 2020, beginning of 2021. And then I moved back to the East Coast, from San Francisco the summer after that, and we kind of wrapped up the album then.
[00:29:15] Charles: Yeah, cause they, cause the other half of Snowbeasts is Robert Galbraith. Is that how you say his last name?
[00:29:22] Giuliana: Yep.
[00:29:22] Charles: And they have a record company, right? Or a label?
[00:29:25] Giuliana: They do. It's called Component Recordings. I love the Witch Eyes releases on that. There's a lot of really nice stuff on there. Rob and Beth. So Rob I met ages and ages ago around Boston. He used to play out a lot more as solo as Rob Kotick. And he's the first person I ever saw anybody playing modular synthesizers live.
[00:29:50] Charles: Okay.
[00:29:51] Giuliana: I'd never seen anybody do that. It looked like a little bit of a suitcase that he would open up and put on the stand really high up and you could see all the little weird blinky lights and the cables and things. And I was like, I don't know what he's doing, but he's making real sick techno beats on that thing.
[00:30:06] And he gets really into it and it's very emotive when he's up there. So when I would take photos, they would come out really funny and like dramatic and cool, you know, cause he was really getting into it. Eventually, right as I was moving to the West Coast around 2016, maybe 2015, 2016, he and Beth got together and eventually got married.
[00:30:29] And so I met her briefly before I moved away. I guess we all stayed in touch through music stuff over time. But yeah, the first time I saw Rob before, it must've been sort of like early 2010s or something.
[00:30:43] Charles: You mentioned like he had like this briefcase. That's like with like little knobs and things that they would be twisting and stuff and making these sounds or, because a lot of times I think like a keyboard sort of, but I've seen, you know, DJs. Um, I saw this one guy, there might have been two guys, at this club long, long time ago, they're called Frontside,
[00:31:06] Giuliana: Yeah.
[00:31:07] Charles: Done a song on the Run Lola Run soundtrack. They came to Chicago and I wanted to check them out, they're in this little club, and these guys, all they did, they had these laptops up, and then they also had these, for lack of a better word, gadgets, these knobs, and they just continuously are twisting and turning on the laptop and it was, it looked like they were very busy. They were doing a lot of stuff. So is that kind of what he does or what you experienced with him?
[00:31:39] Giuliana: So when he's playing as Rob, the thing's actually called a modular synth. And you're taking different components and you're putting them together. You know how like, when you get a guitar and you've got a bunch of effect pedals, you know, you're like running a little chain with different effects.
[00:31:57] Charles: Okay.
[00:31:58] Giuliana: With these, imagine you're doing that, but instead of a guitar, you've got like a the audio, I guess we're getting into the audio synthesis now. And I don't know because I've never set up an audio, like a modular synthesizer set up before, but my understanding is there is a component that is an oscillator and the oscillator makes, you know, like makes the little noises. Usually it sounds like, and then you modify it using different effects.
[00:32:26] And you can like plug and play what effects you want. And then the way that they interact is they have these patch cables, which look kind of like a, you know, like an audio cable that has another audio cable jack on the other side. You know, you mix and match until the sound sounds like how you want to go.
[00:32:43] And then you keep going. That's just one way to make noises for audio synthesis. And the modular synth stuff just blew up in the pandemic, especially when people are like trying to get cool hobbies to do. People went nuts and like everybody's got, you know, like Aphex Twins does this sort of stuff. I'd never seen anybody do that sort of thing live.
[00:33:05] Charles: It is pretty, pretty neat to watch that unfold.
[00:33:08] Giuliana: Very esoteric. Yeah.
[00:33:10] Charles: You're watching it, but then the sound is hitting you. It's really like you know, these people are doing this or they're going somewhere with this, you know, and the whole thing. And I was going to ask you, Giuliana, do you have to know how to read music or get to understand music to, to play, to do that? Or does it help?
[00:33:30] Giuliana: No. You can go up to a piano and start playing if you want. Right? You're just messing around with it if you want. I mean, you're not gonna be able to play instantly any Bach off without practicing or something, you know? But I, I don't know, like I used to play clarinet, for example. And I, for whatever reason, could never figure out how to read the music.
[00:33:52] Am I notes dyslexic? Who knows? I would always listen to everybody around me and then figure out how to play my part. And so I play by listening and figuring out how to make the sound on my clarinet. And that's how I did it. I do it all by ear. And so some people are a little bit more like that than others.
[00:34:13] And I can hear pitches just fine. And I can emulate pitches just fine. So, like, apparently that's, I don't know, that's just something I can do. That's the fun part about music is you can go with notes and whatever, or you could just go do your own thing.
[00:34:28] Charles: Okay.
[00:34:29] Giuliana: That's punk music, man. Like, those dudes didn't know how to play their instruments. I don't know how to play my guitar, but I use the guitar noises to make samples to make other sounds.
[00:34:39] Charles: Okay.
[00:34:40] Giuliana: Know, that's audio sculpting and you can use any sound you want or no sound at all.
[00:34:46] Charles: Yeah, cuz when I see these people do this, like I had sent you that King Gizzard video. I don't know if you had a chance to see it, but, you know, there are like four of them, four of the guys in the band on these synthesizers. They call it a synth table, I guess. And, they're just, kind of making it up as they go along.
[00:35:05] And then the other musicians in the band, they were still playing their instruments and stuff. So it was really something to see. But, I mean, you bring up a good point. It's like, all these bands that you just hear, they didn't even know how to play their instruments when they, you know, set out to start playing gigs and stuff. But hey, it, you know, it worked out for them, so.
[00:35:24] Giuliana: And like Nikki Sixx, steal a bass guitar and just muddle his way through until he could figure it out enough. I don't know. There's all these legends too. They like make stuff up to be exciting. But I mean, you really can just make some noises, you modify the noises.
[00:35:40] Charles: Right.
[00:35:40] Giuliana: What I've been surprised about is learning how a lot of different people when they're playing live, they're actually improvising using their sound that they've come up with. Whereas like, I like to come up with an idea first and then fit some sounds to the idea. There's a bajillion different ways to do it. And also if people don't necessarily know how to speak the same language, or aren't trained in the same ways for music.
[00:36:05] Like for example, clarinet's a B flat instrument, so you can't just play piano music because piano is in a different key. So like the notes don't even match up and if you don't even know that and you start trying to play your like bagpipe music when you're using B flat clarinet, I didn't even realize that stuff and I'm just like, all right, I'm just gonna do it by ear and figure it out.
[00:36:25] But, if you can just draw a picture or have a video playing that people are reacting to, you can kind of keep in time with each other when you're improvising. So, I liked that you mentioned, when Beth and I were playing at the synth fest, we're using Allison's video as a score..
[00:36:41] Charles: I see. Okay.
[00:36:43] Giuliana: We were, looking at the video to figure out where to go next with what we were doing in that moment, because we took the sounds from our studio album that we did, but then we added more to it for the live thing, in order to sort of keep ourselves on time together, working through movements. You know, you get like excited when you're up there or nervous or something. Like, we would look at what was going on in the video in order to know, okay, now we're going to switch this color and now it's a different texture.
[00:37:12] So we're going to do that now. That's how we kept in time. If you're busy playing an instrument with your mouth or something, you can't be talking or making noises or whatever. So, we're not inventing this either. This is like improvisation stuff, but that's how we figured out how to improvise together.
[00:37:28] Charles: Okay.
[00:37:29] Giuliana: I like to do it with a score.
[00:37:30] Charles: Yeah, no, that, that makes sense. And like what you're saying, sometimes you have an idea of where you want to go and how this is going to all unfold. And maybe like somebody like me, it looks like it's improvised completely, but the artist already had this idea or in your case, this video or these visuals are playing and you're keeping pace with what is being presented on the screen.
[00:37:54] Giuliana: Yeah, it's like a guide or a game. It's a game we can play together live. And so it keeps it fun.
[00:38:00] Charles: Yeah, that's really neat. Are you guys working on anything currently?
[00:38:05] Giuliana: We're taking a little tiny break right now. We had some stuff in the works, but last year ended up being like a seriously busy year for Snowbeasts and for the label itself and they were busy promoting the heck out of all kinds of stuff and doing big touring and all that. So I was like, we'll see what happens this year.
[00:38:23] Charles: Because, for that Cathode Ray Tube, Rewoven Transmissions, there's eight songs on that album, right? And you guys have the eighth song, and you reworked it. It's called, uh, Extra Life F--ker. So you were contacted or the two of you were contacted to rework that song, correct?
[00:38:42] Giuliana: Yes. That was great. I think if my memory serves me, we actually were tapped for that. We were asked to do that maybe a couple winters ago. It's a little bit of a blur. But, we were given the stems for the song. So, when you've got electronic music or music production music. You t ake the stems or the different pieces that are like in order. And if you put them in order and you play them all at once in a program, it'll play the entire song together, but you can see which parts making what noise when. What we ended up doing was because our stuff is very droney and like dooie a little bit, we, we decided, and the track that we were given was very like, Run Lola Run, like techno flavored..
[00:39:29] Charles: Okay.
[00:39:30] Giuliana: Stuff, we were like, let's just make it drone-y. And so we, and like kind of trippy. And so we took out all the beats. We took out all the like drum beats.
[00:39:40] Charles: That's what you were saying. Yeah.
[00:39:42] Giuliana: And anything that was a drum beat, we kind of like extended it and made it a weird little background or something and totally took the beats out and made it into kind of a spooky ambient track.
[00:39:54] Charles: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:39:55] Giuliana: Added a few more little, I don't know, effects here and there to make it sound sort of spooky and underworldly and that was our treatment.
[00:40:04] Charles: Yeah. Sounds really cool. Just really interesting to listen to your work and that song too. So you guys, aren't currently collaborating on anything yet.
[00:40:13] Giuliana: We had some projects we were working on before, but we like shelved it because some of the things we were working on, we just paused on, because some other things came up.
[00:40:25] Charles: Okay. And so where can people find these recordings and your music? Obviously Bandcamp, right?
[00:40:32] Giuliana: Yeah. Well Component Recordings, we've been talking a lot about different projects on there. They're on Bandcamp as a label and you can go check out Rewoven Transmissions on Component Recordings Bandcamp site. You can also check out the 2021 EP from a couple of years ago now, two years ago now, on there too. And, there are some YouTube videos out there, but they're a little harder to dig up. They're out there though. I have a Bandcamp page too, but, I have just a few singles on there for now. I've been shy. I've haven't been putting up my stuff.
[00:41:07] Charles: Do you ever tour or anything other than that festival?
[00:41:10] Giuliana: You know, we haven't toured yet, but we did just in October last year, I had like a mini super micro tour across Rhode Island and Massachusetts with some friends who came out from the West coast. They're called Dear Woman. And, we had been dying to do a show together cause we kind of hung out a lot and right before the pandemic broke us all up and we had to scatter to the winds, but we had always said we'd love to do some concerts, play some concerts out.
[00:41:38] Charles: So Giuliana, anything else you wanted to talk about, as we're coming up here on time.
[00:41:44] Giuliana: No.
[00:41:45] Charles: I did have one thing if you want it to cover your most surprising concert.
[00:41:49] Giuliana: Sure. If you want. Oh, oh gosh.
[00:41:52] It's usually like a, uh, a guest appearance by some other musician or something, b ut we've had people who said some fight broke out or one of our guests said you never know what to expect, and those are one of a kind answers that you hear a lot. And yours is kind of along that same lines where you were at this Sunn O show?
[00:42:12] Their just called Sunn. Yeah. Kind of like the amplifiers, like the gear.
[00:42:17] Charles: Okay. So it's a S U N N and then there's an O with like three. Parentheses after it, so like, it looks like a sound wave coming?
[00:42:25] Giuliana: Yeah.
[00:42:26] Charles: So these guys are classified as American drone metal band. They're from Seattle and they're also known for their distinctive visual style. So again, it seems like something right up your alley.
[00:42:39] Giuliana: Yes.
[00:42:40] Charles: Sound and visuals and stuff. So yeah. What, what happened at that, at that concert?
[00:42:45] Giuliana: Well, that was wild. I was already very excited to be there, cause I happen to be TAing a drone doom and sonic warfare class in the school that I was about to graduate from.
[00:42:58] Charles: Okay.
[00:42:59] Giuliana: So, half the class was a seminar where we read Sonic Warfare by Steve Goodman together as a seminar, and then we reflected on those things. And then the other half of the class was like a studio class where everybody makes bands. And then they play and the final project in that class was like, do a concert and we had a gnarly noise concert at the end that was really fun. But I also was like, hey, what noise band class, what could we improve it with?
[00:43:26] And so I listed I looked up who is playing in town that semester. Who is like Drone Doom specifically and there were like lots of cool local bands that were playing but I think one of the most I think the people who like made up the term Drone Doom or maybe owned it the most or something and they get like, they're almost like, corny and they're like expression of how they are that thing is Sunn.
[00:43:52] I said, guys, let's go see Sunn. None of my students showed up to this. Nobody showed up. So there I am alone at the Sunn show, but I feel like the intersection of weirdos who would show up to like a Sunn show and be really psyched for the whole thing. So there I am, like by myself. When Sunn comes on, their the headliner, there was a very friendly person at the show.
[00:44:12] And usually I'm used to, you know, being at these noise shows and people are kind of awkward and like not really moving out of the way. And you kind of have to like shoulder your way up, but this guy was very sweet and was like, here, stand in front of me, you short person. And I hadn't worn my tall boots that night, so whatever. The opening bands were really cool. My favorite one of them was Big Brave. They were excellent.
[00:44:33] But Sunn came on, and this band is ridiculous. They have a whole wall of stacked amplifiers. And then they fill the entire stage up with smoke. And I don't know if this was on purpose or not but, like at some point like as they're revving it all up, then the lights go off in this venue. Like the breakers flipped and it's turned off, and we're just stuck in the dark, waiting for the show to start.
[00:44:56] Finally they get the lights back on and like and they continue it on you're like that's how much power there is on this dirt who's so corny and like they start filling this place up with like smoke machine smoke and it's just this it's you're in this like creepy noise cave and it feels very psychedelic and the only indicator of movement on the stage is the lights slightly color shifting, ever so slightly.
[00:45:21] Then these dudes in these robes, they're coming out glacially slowly. And then every time they play, they just raise up their picks. Because of all the frequencies and there's definitely a guy in the back with a synthesizer and he's messing with the frequencies and the colors and all of it felt like some kind of weird, uh, I don't know, it ended up being my Woodstock because I ended up making out with him.
[00:45:44] Charles: Yeah. So, that's what you said, you made out with this guy, you know like a make out session with one of the audience.
[00:45:50] Giuliana: With the dude in the audience. Yeah, the guy who was like, really nice to me in the audience. We were just like, this is so powerful because here's the thing, I forget if it was at the Regency ballroom or another one of the, no, it was the great American, whatever ballroom or something in San Francisco.
[00:46:07] So it was a big stage and a big venue that fit a lot of people. It had like two tiers and stuff. And so, normally when I'm in a noise show or some kind of like viscerally intense situation, I can lie down on the floor or I can lean up against the wall and still enjoy what's going on on the stage because I'm close enough.
[00:46:27] But this one, you're in a crush of people in a concert hall. So what can you lean up against? So in the reason I lie on the floor or on the wall or something is because I can feel the vibrations of what's going on more because you're pressed up against something we just happened to bump into each other, but the vibrations you could feel it through contact on another body.
[00:46:49] And we were like, wow, this is amazing. It was Pretty weird. But we both had a lot of fun just being like really, really pressed up against each other. And then there's all the smoke and then all the weird colors. And definitely the noise was very, um, you could feel the noise, like running all up and down your spine. I mean, I have synesthesia with noise. So like, I probably feel a little bit more than usual, but like, it really was like super intense and hilarious.
[00:47:15] Charles: Yeah, we'll add that to the list, a make out session, the most surprising. I can see that, you know, with everything that's going on, why not, right?
[00:47:24] Giuliana: Why not. Why not. It was fun.
[00:47:26] Charles: All right, Giuliana. Well, anything else would you like to add or where people can find you? I know you've got a website right?
[00:47:34] Giuliana: I was going to say, you can find my work on my website. If you're interested in the installations. I figured I could talk a little bit about, not just the concept, but the research that goes into some of these sounds or like installations that we do. Sometimes we take actual literal data research off of like free repositories online about temperature changes or waves or population migration stuff, and you can sonify that, and use that as another beat or a modulator or something for your sounds. And that ends up like either turning into different elements that, when you're programming digital patches, as opposed to like the synth patches with the cables and stuff, you can use that data to modify how your sounds go, or the effects that the sounds are processed through.
[00:48:24] I don't go into that a whole lot on the website, but like most of the installations that I have featured on my site, involve a little bit of data sonification on there too, which is a whole nother bag of worms and I'm realizing I should put something on the site about it to explain it more. But if you want to see about installations, like the Trembling Giant one we were talking about, you can go to gfunkhouser.com and go to the sound art section.
[00:48:50] Charles: Yeah, I was on there and, you get quite a number of things that you offer there on your website. Yeah, of course the music and there's a lot to take in. I learned a lot today from you about synthesizers and sonic scapes and all that good stuff and some good concert stories as well.
[00:49:08] Giuliana: I'm glad you liked them. I love how I didn't even get into like, synthesynthesizers. You know, like the ones you'd see a rock band touring with? You should ask Snowbeasts about that. They love synthesizers.
[00:49:21] Charles: Maybe we'll have them on in a future episode. Yeah, this has been really fun, Giuliana and, interesting. Thanks so much for being a guest on Seeing Them Live.
[00:49:31] Giuliana: Thanks for having me, Charles. This has been really fun.
[00:49:34]
Charles:
All right, take care.