DIK DOK - New album by Ergo Phizmiz

Ergo Phizmiz & Care in the Community Recordings present DIK DOK, the third part of Ergo Phizmiz's IDIOT TRILOGY. 

 

EIN TOKSVIG. Not a tribute to Sandi Toksvig, this song was written and recorded long before I'd ever heard the News Quiz. Now I have, of course, I think Sandi Toksvig is a marvellous little teddy-bear. The song itself, Toksvig aside, is heavy-metal nonsense. T.S. Eliot described Edward Lear's later nonsense poetry as "the blues" - this is my answer. Nonsense metal. The rock'n'roll of non sequiturs and Toksvigs. But if the attitude of Lear's poetry defines it as "the blues", it is necessary for nonsense metal to fully adopt the necessary attitude of rage and testosterone. I recorded this song dressed entirely in leather, and had my nipples pierced for the occasion. The holes have since closed up.

HEAVY METAL PEOPLE. This is what happens when you bring William Burroughs to the mosh-pit.

MERZYBEAT. This is what happens when you bring Kurt Schwitters to the disco.

PUN YOUNG. This is the after party. Schwitters is DJing.

THIRST CLASS. Composed and recorded on a train, on one of those strange occasions where a first-class ticket is cheaper than standard-class. The people in first class didn't like the sounds emanating from my headphones. But that's ok. I didn't like them.

MICKEY MOUSE. Funeral music.

DON'T LET THEM SEE US. Of course. (or, Hassan goes to a much more discreet disco).

THE PLAINTIVE HEATING GRIDDLE. The melancholy of inanimate objects. An abandoned kettle looks forlorn. A product of the Institute for Caressing Machines.

SCRATCH. The sound a very dry back makes.

MR PUNCH FINDS A MACHINE GUN. And does very bad things with it.

SATURDAY MORNING FLEA CORALE. That could be what caused the scratch.

MISER RARER. Dedicated to Cynthia Strings.

ANNA BOOM. This is my "Bohemian Rhapsody". Recorded in the Lake District with Elvis Herod, using Kurt Schwitter's Merzbarn and objects inside it as a percussion instrument. Anna Boom is in the cupboard at a party. Her husband isn't pleased. Anna won't come out of the cupboard. All hell breaks loose.

"Anna Boom" is probably my favourite track from all these piles o' shite I've thrown out.

This track was originally released by Bad Panda Records some time ago, and a marvellous film was made to accompany it by the brilliant collage film-maker Jared Brandle.

And why not dip into the first two parts of Ergo Phizmiz's IDIOT TRILOGY, "IDIOT" and "QUALITY & SERVICE".

Catch Ergo Phizmiz live at the Shacklewell Arms, London, December 19th 2013, with the mammoth line up of PETE UM and MUCKY SAILOR.

Ergo Phizmiz & The Pub Band at the End of the Universe - now available for bookings

- Ergo Phizmiz & The Pub Band at the End of the Universe -

Now available for bookings

Ergo Phizmiz & The Pub Band at the End of the Universe, a raucous, unkempt, ramshackle, and eminently danceable troupe of maestros or ne'er-do-wells or both, present all your favourite songs from the 1950s to the present.

Over the past twelve years Ergo Phizmiz has developed some of the most unforgettable and unique cover versions and re-inventions of the history of popular music ever made, which have been downloaded by in excess of 500,000 people. 

Beginning with the notorious "Ergo Phizmiz & his Orchestra plays Aphex Twin" (2002), eaten up with relish by Richard D. James but loathed by the Aphex Twin community, through his cover of the entirety of the Velvet Underground's "White Light / White Heat" (2004). 

"Arff & Beef" (2005) and "Dadaphone" (2009) presented a cross section of pop music fed through a style-mincemeat-machine.

In 2010 he took on the task of covering the entirety of The Prodigy's "Music For the Jilted Generation" on UpItUp Records.

"Now That's What We Pump at the Party" (2010) & "Nic Blu and the Travoltings" (2012) took Ergo's unique take on cover versions and fed it to an unrehearsed band of musicians, artists, and DJs.

Ergo Phizmiz & The Pub Band at the End of the Universe continues in this vein, but as a live act more entertaining than a pirouetting rhinoceros. 

No one performance or version of a song will ever be the same, rather the history of pop music is taken on exciting little rides where no particular member of the The Pub Band at the End of the Universe quite knows where it will end up but it will get there in the end. 

All this time Ergo Phizmiz brings his inner pub band frontman to the core, and struts about like a demented peacock, juggling with melodicas and cheap synthesisers.

The Pub Band at the End of the Universe are available to play at your disco, pub, party, club, house, clubhouse, boat, house, boathouse, downstairs bathroom, concert hall, stadium, festival, vestibule, or prison.

Drop us a line at ergophizmiz at gmail dot com and ask nicely... you know it makes sense.

The Pub Band at the End of the Universe are Robert Lee, MC You Do The Mathewson, Kung-Fu Zen, The Travelling Mongoose, and Flora Cavalino Bertolli. Or permutations of the aforementioned. Give or take a few.

Photographs by Rebecca Vaughan

New visual pieces by Ergo Phizmiz, November 2013

"An Echo Flagrantly Attempting to Pass Itself Off as an Original Sound" - Wood, bass-drum pedal, toy dartboard, pen, poster-paint, and acrylic on canvas.

"OPERA en DEUX actes" - Staticopera in two acts. Wood, collage, acrylic, watercolour. "Billiards" work-in-progress.

"The Rubber" - Excessive Entertainment Tint of Vintage Print. Acrylic.

Ergo Phizmiz & The Pub Band at the End of the Universe - VIDEO

Ergo Phizmiz & The Pub Band at the End of the Universe filmed live at The Ropemakers by Rebecca Vaughan.

Ergo Phizmiz & the Pub Band at the End of the Universe - Photographs by Rebecca Vaughan

The marvellous Rebecca Vaughan got jiggy with her lens again last Friday at the Ropemakers, documenting the first ever performance of Ergo Phizmiz & the Pub Band at the End of the Universe. Here we are in action...

Ergo Phizmiz & The Pub Band at the End of the Universe

Ergo Phizmiz "THE NOEL COWARD TRILOGY" (2011-2013)

"The Noel Coward Trilogy" (2011-2013). 

Collage Operas. 

Media playing games with itself, with Ergo Phizmiz as slightly cruel ringmaster. 

Image as music, sound as image, re-filming films, personalisation of the past. 

Adventures in intermedia storytelling, and the use of chance to "grow narratives" from the collision of media and time. 

Carousels of images, circles of sonic juxtapositions, slapshod re-contextualisation, silent music, discovery of rhythms hiding in the gaps and the creases.

Animation, composition, found-video, found-sound, found-text. Paper, Scissors, Stones.

The production of the Noel Coward trilogy was assisted by contributions from Martha Moopette, Simon Mathewson, The Travelling Mongoose, and Flora Cavalino Bertolli.

- Part One -

"Aria For Cowards"

- Part Two -

"The Impulse to Shoot at Every Shadow"

- Part Three -

"Every Hitch and Every Hold Up"

"EVERY HITCH and EVERY HOLD UP" - a Collage Opera by Ergo Phizmiz

Ergo Phizmiz Live at The Ropemaker's, Bridport

Ergo is delighted to be playing at his favourite local pub The Ropemakers, Bridport this Friday.

The first part of the evening will comprise a performance of Ergo Phizmiz & The Ramshackle Swank, playing music from Ergo's back catalogue.

The evening continues with a performance by a S U P E R G R O U P comprising some incredibly fine musicians, including Robert Lee, Simon Mathewson, The Travelling Mongoose, Simon Hartung, and Bridport's most famous resident Flora Cavalino Bertolli.

The aforementioned S U P E R G R O U P will play a set of cover versions including 1990s club classics, a spot of Beyonce, a spot of Missy, and a Sister Ray.

From 9.16pm, Friday November 15theth.

FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE for ERGO PHIZMIZ at the ROPEMAKERS

And to wet your appetite, here's Ergo Phizmiz & The Ramshackle Swank performing "Time To Think It Over" at Islington Mill, Salford





And performing "Ophelia" at The Lexington, London

UOEIA - the histories of yodelling - cassette now available

The cassette release of "UOEIA - the histories of yodelling" is now available to buy online. 

This is the first of a new series of limited edition cassette releases by Ergo Phizmiz which will be released through his label Chinstrap Globlal Enterprrises Limitited.

Why cassette? In these days of total media saturation it seems to be becoming interesting to release music and art into the world that exists in non-digital formats, in small amounts of copies. This recording is not available anywhere online, and never will be. By buying cassettes from Chinstrap Globule Enterprisses Limmitted you are investing in little nuggets of unique information that only you and 49 other people in the world will have.

Yes, but still, why cassette and not vinyl? Oh, don't you worry about that. There are vinyl releases of other material also in the works on Chinstrap Globlall Enterplises Rimiteded. But cassettes are accessible and cheap to manufacture, and they make a nice sound when you shake them.

The cassette release of "UOEIA * the histories of yodelling" (Chintape01) is £7 including delivery. Thanks.

"Yodelling: the crack in the human voice when pushed to its limit, the plaintive wail of man against mountains. From the Pygmy tribes in the jungles of Africa, to the mountains of Switzerland, or the plains of the Wild West, to frantic Persian ululations and yelps, yodelling is a worldwide phenomenon that betrays its perceived image as a benchmark of kitsch.

In “UOEIA: Favola in Jodel”, Ergo Phizmiz presents the history of yodelling through music, masks, puppetry, collage, and animation. Based on the books “Yodel in Hi-Fi” and “Yodel-Ay-Eee-Ooo” by Bart Plantenga, and performed by Swiss Family Phizmiz, UOEIA invites you through time and culture, yodelling from cavemen to the modern age."