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Don Joyce discusses Negativland’s 'over the edge' philosophy and confuses me
3 February 2000
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For the past 19 years Don Joyce has produced Over The Edge, a remarkable 3 hour weekly radio show on Berkeley, California’s listener sponsored KPFA radio station at 94.1 FM. The show is also available live via RealAudio on the Web.
Over The Edge sets you on an auditory rollercoaster constructed from samples, inserts from live callers (which Joyce terms “receptacle programming”), loops, and collected sound that amuses, bemuses, and provokes.
Joyce also happens to be a member of the Berkeley modern noise band known as Negativland, who have been particularly effective at turning the mass media’s voracious behavior against itself. A phony press release in the late 1980’s, falsely acknowledging that a Negativland track led to a killing spree, brought the band the sort of publicity and fame that money cannot buy.
They have successfully campaigned for a change to the Recording Industry Association of America’s position on Fair Use of copyrighted material, and have captured positive attention from National Public Radio, the Washington Post, and the New York Times—and not so positive attention from Pepsi and U2. The Negativland Web site includes a no bullshit legal resource page for individuals and groups concerned with intellectual property issues.
Meanwhile, Don Joyce’s weekly radio show cracks open the airwaves with a wild and wacky good time that cannot be found anywhere else.
Rockbites: With nearly 20 nonstop years under the bridge, how do you keep Over The Edge fun?
Don Joyce: I don’t know, it just is. Personally speaking, radio is my favorite medium of all, the most powerful of all, and much more continuously satisfying than the tedious studio process which takes forever and results in the briefest of highs when it’s done. Weekly radio is entirely different, providing an ongoing outlet for much more whimsical forms and ideas, and it’s a great creative release which matters a lot and yet doesn’t matter at all.
“Negativland is about to launch a US tour, called Negativland’s Two Thousandth TRUE/FALSE TOUR Idea.”
Luckily, most of the time I have new ideas on a weekly basis so OTE is just perfect for getting rid of them, as well as being able to uniquely refer to the latest news or the particular cultural mood I happen to be in that week. It’s IMMEDIATE in its execution and in its effect. Records are many months old before anyone gets to hear them and they’re necessarily oblivious to all those extremely timely momentary references and daily recognitions radio is so well suited to.
When George got stabbed, I scratched with “Beware of Darkness” etc. Live radio is a different kind of “right now” emphasis unavailable ANYWHERE else in mass media. So it’s fun!
Rockbites: Could you describe the preparation for an Over The Edge broadcast?
Don Joyce: First, usually over the weekend, I come up with a hook, an idea, or a theme I can collect material around. These ideas may be out of the blue or based on some new, as yet unused material I got. (This weekly 3 hour show eats up TONS of material in no time and I try not to repeat stuff for years if possible.)
Then I collect, dub, or edit stuff throughout the week. Then I take it all up to the station on Thursday with only the barest of plans as to sequencing it all. In terms of pre-planning, I concentrate mostly on the beginning and the end. You’d be surprised how good beginnings and endings can tie together a lot of utter nonsense...
“This is no longer a shared culture we live in.”
Then I mix with it all live, having loaded all the station’s equipment with various divided aspects of the idea—tape, vinyl, CDs, DATs, etc. I rarely do much live on-mike dialog at all but when I do there will usually be written scripts for that. Mostly it’s a spontaneously arrived at, continuous live mix for the whole 3 hours with a good idea of what I have at hand to work with.
Any amazement in this process is contributed to by “cultivating coincidences” which I can’t explain and don’t fully understand myself.
Rockbites: Among other things, Negativland stands for honesty and fairness. What are the best weapons against greed, exploitation, and hypocrisy?
Don Joyce: Exposure, humor, and the ability to widely distribute the first two.
“The RIAA continues to play the master control freak role for the corporate music industry”
Rockbites: What have been some of the effects (positive or negative) of the 1998 amendment of the RIAA’s CD Plant Guidelines, which Negativland worked so hard to win?
Don Joyce: There have been absolutely no effects that I have seen. The RIAA continues to play the master control freak role for the corporate music industry, and the plants still run scared from their threats and intimidations. If you don’t submit payment or permission paperwork for any form of recognizable bit of sampling the plants may discern, you have a likely refusal to press.
Technically, the RIAA has acknowledged the possibility that a sample may be Fair Use, but they have not provided ANY means for the plants to determine whether or not it actually is, so plants prefer to play it safe and take no chances and deny every sample altogether—exactly what was happening BEFORE the RIAA added the Fair Use footnote.
Rockbites: Any thoughts on Sony’s alleged illegal use of tracks by Atari Teenage Riot and Underground Resistance?
Don Joyce: I’m not acutely up on all the details of this case. I’ve only heard a little about it. I suppose it is, more than anything, another good example of how EVERYONE working in creative fields these days wants to include aspects of cultural appropriation in new work. Madison Avenue leads this tendency among the creative departments of large corporations. All this does nothing but prove the point that this creative technique is, for many reasons, terribly attractive to modern humans in general who now all live in a world saturated with “capturable” media and media history.
“Radio is a great creative release which matters a lot and yet doesn’t matter at all.”
Thus, it is surreal and absurd for these corporate entities to continue insisting that any use of THEIR creativity in new work by others is “theft” and legally impossible without payment and permission. They attempt to control and censor this perfectly natural creative impulse in other creators while obviously desiring to practice it themselves without bogging down their impulse trying to get endlessly delaying bureaucratic clearances from owners they may not even be able to identify.
It’s hopelessly too bad when private economic interests and private economic control completely suppress and inhibit such common good and common sense in the creative process itself. As long as the source material used is fragmentary and/or transformed in the new context, this practice should be available to all equally without charge and without charges.
But this is no longer a shared culture we live in. It is a privately owned one, and all the extremely fruitful historical traditions of free cultural cross breeding leading to a natural evolution of cultures are completely dead in the (unnatural) modern world. Thanks, commerce, but who put you in charge!
Rockbites: Chumbawamba, the English anarchist collective with whom you’ve worked, has signed up for this summer’s Roskilde Festival in Denmark. Any chance that Negativland will play?
Don Joyce: No chance at all. However, Negativland is about to launch a US tour, called “Negativland’s Two Thousandth TRUE/FALSE TOUR Idea” This will probably begin in early April and run into early summer. The TRUE/FALSE TOUR will include much new material about the difficulty of telling true from false in modern electric life, includes a puppet show for all ages, and an appearance by Pastor Dick, himself. Look for us in a town near you.
Rockbites:
Uh... this is a joke, right?
Don Joyce: No, it’s real.
Rockbites: OK. Anyway, what does the future hold for the radio show?
Don Joyce: Over The Edge will continue for as long as I’m able to do it.
Rockbites: Anything else on your mind?
Don Joyce: Yes, how long will I be able to do it?
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Negativland’s Don Joyce