Bent: Before you got into circuit bending, what type of music or art where you into?
Electronic music, experimental, avant-garde rock, underground dance music, ska, punk
Bent: How did you get into circuit bending?
Gravichords, whirlies and pyrophones showed up in my favorite local music store in petaluma in 1996. My friend Tavys (BIG TEX) bought it, and shared it with me and our high school buddies. The Q.R. Ghazala Speak 'n Spell track and write-up got us interested and informed about bending. We started collecting thrift store toys, did a lot of wet finger bending. I didn't hardwire anything myself till 2002, as I had burned myself badly with a soldering iron in 1993, and wasn't too gung ho on picking one up again for awhile.
Bent: Where do you find inspiration for your work?
The past, the future, the everything, the nothing. Also I want to make people have a good time dancing. My recent work (2006-present) has been highly influenced by the underground acid house movement that began in the mid 80s. In the early to mid 00s I did many free jazz noisy breakbeat cult bending performances inspired by John Cage, Bogdan Raczynski and my peers. Overall it could be distilled to re-using / re-interpreting my favorite technology and media for underground music and entertainment forms.
Bent: What is your take on the bending community at large? Where are you in it?
Having experienced workshops and communities in LA, SF, MPLS, NYC & Tokyo I think the bending community is quite positive in general. It's a gateway for the curious and inexperienced, and a deprogrammer for the pedantic mindset. It is a positive creative force that leads most benders deeper into electronic exploration and surprises you when
you least expect it. I have rarely encountered a bender who isn't happy to share advice and techniques, as the open source DIY aesthetic prevails over the byzantine secret keeping style or we wouldn't be a community. My involvement in the community of recent takes place a few short bursts of performance and/or documentation each year now that I live in Japan, Bent Festival being the largest, with occasional smaller experimental shows in Japan. My long term involvement is the Circuit Bending Documentary, for which I have been shooting footage since 2003. This has transformed into the Bent Festival DVD project of late, but shall be a full feature project when I can get some editing and post assistance (it's tough doing it alone in Japan when your project is mostly in English and you live in boondocks and have a full time job teaching).
Bent: Is there anything you want to accomplish while you are in New York?
Document, interview, perform, maybe DJ, make new friends and contacts, and have a great time.
Bent: Who are you most excited to see at Bent? Why?
With most of this years lineup being new faces that's a tough question and I can't choose just one. I'm quite excited to see and interview ::vtol:: as he is the first Russian bender I will have met and I have no concept of what bending is like there. After e-squared's amazing performance last year, I'm really excited to see what they do this year under their new title "Bodytronix", as their circuit building is top notch. The sound and instruments of Gannon is looking to be full of win. Also excited for Iain Sharp's circuit bent video mixers as circuit bent video devices are a goldmine yet to be fully tapped.