Anchorage - Fancy sunglasses protected the invited artists' and officials' sensitive eyes against the blinding Northern Light. If it were not for the frozen outdoor swimming pool of the Anchorage Baptist Bible College, where the official Contemporary Music Golden Disks 1993 were awarded, you might have thought you were in Santa Monica. For sure, the surreal location could as well have been chosen by the Young Farmers Claim Future themselves.
In 1991, after being banned for four years from the local cultural scene, two minor composers from a minor town in Belgium decided to do something about their impact factor. They both bought a computer, wired them together and divided one software program equally over both machines. By the time they managed to get sound out of this weird set up, they convinced two wandering American performers to share their spare time with them. They first performed as Young Farmers Claim Future in the summer of 1992 in an obscure bar called The Green Frog in their hometown of Ghent. Fortunately, that very same night Wolfgang von Stürmer, Label Manager of the Knitting Factory (NY) happened to be hanging out there for a beer on his way to Amsterdam (Holland). He immediately recognised their innovative style and introduced them to an international audience. Soon, their tapes were distributed among major record companies. After declining many offers, they decided to release their first cd in the Avant series on John Cage's personal label Mode Records.
The four Farmers signed a contract and left for Luxembourg, where they recorded a massive amount of material in no time. For that purpose they transformed a medieval dungeon into a high-tech digital recording studio. When the four artists discovered that they had been misled and had apparently signed up with the Avant Sons label of a Ghent based Arts Centre,they were greatly astonished. Unfortunately, the Farmer's first CD The Newspaper Sessions was already released and definitely going for gold.
We admit that we printed a special contract with the word Sons much smaller than Avant , but that was for mere aesthetic reasons,
Mr Wabbes, the new label's spokesman, declares at his arrival in Anchorage. His assistant nods, nervously trying to slip out a copy of the contract from Mr Wabbes' briefcase. It drops, dispersing the whole lot over the frozen swimming pool.
Inside we meet Young Farmers Claim Future at the Divers Of Saint John Club Bar, hypertalking about future projects.
We always cared more about our music than about our management. We were used to investing all our own money and energy in a project, that usually failed. That is how we work, we take risks. Everybody who hooked up with us, also went down with us. It is funny that this time, we seem to survive while the others go bankrupt,
Farmer Guy c. Jules Van Belle proclaims, anticipating the outcome of the lawsuit between Avant and Avant Sons.
And we are experimenting with more advanced means of distributing our material anyway,
he adds.
Indeed, in their short, explosive career Young Farmers Claim Future leave behind a trail of financial disasters. The place where it all started, The Green Frog, is soon closing down. DAF, the Dutch car manufacturer who supported their last video Advances In Reverse (Variomatic), is having difficulties and is forced to dismiss a vast number of employees. Steve Jobs' NeXt had to shut down the hardware assembly line, shortly after the quartet had shown interest in the platform and had proposed a plan for necessary adjustments. In addition, . Ping, the interactive multimedia studio, that gave them three years of free studio time to experiment at will, is moving to an unknown location, to escape bill collectors. And this is probably not the end of the list yet.
We don't feel comfortable about all this. And we are particularly worried about the awkward financial position we forced Avant Sons into,
Herbert Van de Sompel says.
The effect on future releases already shows. A friend of ours, the underestimated composer Johan de Smet, had to finance his Simpletones cd Einfach entirely from personal savings.
On the other hand, we don't feel too responsible. After all, you have to be quick in this business and that is how we can survive,
Asbach 1920, currently caught up in the tour management of an International Circus, adds.
Hoity-toity!
the others shout in the back, adding to the confusion of the moment. It is obvious that these people have too much energy to compromise, which makes, at other times, a dull event an intriguing one. Even the handing over of the Contemporary Music Golden Disk 1993 did not happen without incidents.
It is aggravating that for the first time that we get a swimming pool, it is frozen. I must say that it is almost symptomatic for the way in which contemporary artists are rewarded,
Markest Tate pointed out to a clearly embarrassed International Society of Contemporary Music chairman.
Later on that evening, we had an interview with Young Farmers Claim Future about their promising future. They are currently in a process of integrating music, visual design and performance with interactive media. The first outcome of that venture is to be expected in a few months. They hope that the award they received in Anchorage will facilitate the realisation of future projects, despite their bad reputation as
Money-spenders, techno-gypsies and pig-headed eccentrics; just impossible to work with!
as Mr Wabbes exclaimed angrily later on that night. Mr Hebbelinck, who is currently co-ordinating the music events for Antwerp '93, cultural capital of Europe, contradicted this immediately by pointing out that he has been following their individual careers for years , and was offering the band a contract one of these days.
The evening ended with a live performance. It was not clear whether they really performed or were just manipulating projections, hovering over the ice, accompanied by dense swarms of noises and musical sequences - sometimes eerie, at other times heavy, but never mellow or familiar. The real-time digitally treated voices by the two vocalists were fully integrated into that landscape. It was certainly an intriguing glimpse of forthcoming concerts and releases. We must admit, this year's Contemporary Music Golden Disk goes to an apparently controversial band, but with genuine qualities and an innovative power. Somebody said
Young Farmers Claim Future are prepared for an unconventional future,
and I tend to believe it.
In tomorrow's edition we will feature an interview with Young Farmers Claim Future about their favourite topics: cultural politics, cyberTrash, collaborative creativity, techno-moralism and anti-metaphysics, simplicity as a too complex device, and a lot more ...
All this material is property of Young Farmers Claim Future and may only be abused with permission:
Young Farmers Claim Future
Herbert Van de Sompel & Guy c. Jules Van Belle
Herbert.VandeSompel@rug.ac.be
