HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!
I have a special trick and treat for you today!
During the 1980’s, Herd Of The Ether Space produced spooky improvised recordings on the Halloweens of 1987, 1988, and 1989. Released by Taped Rugs Productions in 1990, the cassette album: “Halloween Masks Look Almost Real!” blends together recordings from October 31st, 1987, and October 31st, 1989, into a scary presentation that can liven up any All Hallows Eve gathering.
The first two pieces from the cassette: “Lacing The Candy” and “Witches To Char” are mixes of recordings from the 1989 session, featuring Charles Rice Goff III and Robert Silverman. The session was held at the home of Silverman’s girl friend, Debra Burger, in Berkeley, California, in a room where the walls were cracked and crumbled from the Loma Prieta earthquake, which had taken place less than two weeks previous (on Goff’s birthday). Trick or Treaters who came to Debra’s house that night were tricked and treated with some genuinely frightening noises. The recordings from that night were made on a stereo cassette deck; no tape loop system was used.
To create the other two pieces on the cassette: “Giant Bat Flies” and “Tongue Of Lizard Certain Death,” Goff mixed recordings from the 1989 session with recordings from the 1987 session. The Herd’s line-up for Halloween, 1987, consisted of Goff, Silverman, and Killr “Mark” Kaswan. This improvised sonic adventure into the underworld was made with the Taped Rugs Frippertronic-style tape loop system at the Taped Rugs Studio on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, California.
The full archive from the cassette, presented here, kicks off with Debra greeting some costumed innocents at her front door, then features the Herd playing a wide variety of instruments and inputting sounds from all sorts of Halloween tapes and records, evangelical recordings, scream generators, etc.
Copyright 1987, 1989, 1990
