d e a d c e o

Philip von Zweck came over to my apartment one day in Spring of 2002 to be harassed by me on tape. Philip is the host of Something Else, a radio program focusing on a variety of "experimental" music. Something Else airs every Sunday from 10pm to 2am on WLUW 88.7 in Chicago. Philip also performs in the electronic trio MORA and has recorded solo as Seafoam.
-Woody Sullender

Woody: What is Something Else?

PvZ:It’s a radio program on Sunday nights from 10-2 and it exists in order to play work that doesn’t get played on the radio. Its all submission oriented. There is no budget for the show. No work is bought. We play work on any media although cassettes are a pain in the ass and we don’t play excerpts. No work is ever excerpted. We try to play it the way the creator of the piece intended for it to be played. So, if its four hours long, we’ll play the whole four hours. It may only be played once but it does happen.

I try to have guests on every week to perform. Right now I’m booked up for the next two months and I could be booked further. I just try and figure out what people want to do and make that happen. We have limited technical capabilities but if someone wants to do something three hours long then they’ve got three hours to do it and I just don’t think there is a lot of space on the radio for people to do that.

So, why is the show submission based?

Primarily, it’s actually considered community broadcasting. So, I do this in order to keep it democratic and to not set up a hierarchy between the famous people and the not famous people. Or these are the people with funds behind them, these are the labels with funds behind them, or these are the labels without funds behind them. It’s equal opportunity. You can send a cd-r or minidisc and you’ll have as much likelihood of being played as someone with a label behind them.

I’m sure you get a lot of stuff. Do you end up playing most submissions at least once? How do you choose what does get played?

I try to play something off of every submission. Meaning, if a cd has fifteen tracks, it doesn’t mean every track is going to be played once but there’s also the skill of being a dj, where you try to make things fit. So, it might not necessarily be played the first week that I get it but I do sincerely try to put everything on the air.

I know you play a lot of electronic based stuff and some free improvisation. It mainly seems to be the avant-garde of electronic stuff. What about, I don’t want to say "avant-rock", but take a band like, you know the Starfuckers…

well, I have the Starfuckers. Well, it’s on loan to me.

I mean if something like that was submitted.

I wouldn’t be opposed to it. The Starfuckers are something that could potentially go into rotation. They are a difficult band because you can’t say the name on the air so you have to find another way to play them. Strictly speaking, I’m not opposed to playing "avant-rock", if it fits into that category of not getting played anywhere else or won’t be played anywhere else.

The show does tend to focus on electronics. Although it is all submission oriented, the work I tend to find myself most interested in and therefore request people to submit tends to be electronics. I don’t play a tremendous amount of free jazz because WNUR does such a great job of playing free jazz that that is represented pretty well in Chicago already without me. My feeling is that this sort of sound art, soundscape, electro-acoustic sort of stuff is the stuff that isn’t getting as much play in Chicago. I think its getting more play than in ‘95 when I started the show. I’m just trying to present stuff that I really don’t feel is getting play.

Talking about this sort of electronic, electro-acoustic, sound art stuff I’ve heard described as "difficult" music, especially for radio, mainly because a lot of the music requires concentrated listening. When you’re in the studio, how do you picture your audience? Like, you have the headphones on. You’re at the mic. There are people out there listening. How do you see them listening to Something Else?

I think one would listen to it the same as… well you listen to some of these records at home and its not really the appropriate stuff for vacuuming and doing dishes. One of the good things about it being on later at night, and its on Sunday nights so its before your work week, so its quiet time. I know people who listen to it in the bathtub. They take a long bath on Sunday night and listen to it. Well, not the whole show for four hours. But I think it tends to be more quiet time. More sitting and actively listening, not passively listening like when I put on a rock record while doing dishes. It is stuff that requires more active listening and the audience probably responds appropriately.

I know people listen in their cars, I get calls from people who say they’ve been listening in the car. It’s one of the things I like about radio. You don’t really know. Like, you’re kind of invading all of these different people’s lives and the work can get totally recontextualized depending on how someone is listening and where they are when they’re listening.

How does this work as well with live performances? You have somebody performing this music live but yet, on the radio station. This music doesn’t necessarily require a visual but do you think this functions differently than say a live performance at 6Odum?

I think it functions really differently and in some ways I think it’s really better sometimes to do it on radio. Especially, for the performers because there isn’t a stage fright, especially if you’re playing laptops. Those shows can be really uninteresting to watch but they can be great to listen to but there is nothing to see. So here, we sort of remove that. You no longer are focused on what you’re looking at it because you’re just listening to it. The performers then don’t feel a need to entertain and have a visual presence in front of the audience.

The other thing that works well is that most of the performances tend to be electronic and that’s mostly because we don’t really have the equipment to do anything but electronic. From time to time other performers do come in and play acoustic instruments. The nice thing about having electronic performances is that the performers can talk to each other because there is no live mic. So, performances on radio come off better than performances in front of an audience because they can be holding a conversation about "in two minutes I’m gonna drop out and you need to come in" and they can strategize as they are performing in ways that doesn’t really happen in front of an audience. Not that it always needs to happen because some people have been performing long enough together that they can be really intuitive as to what’s going to happen.

Also, I have a relatively short attention span especially when I am at a concert and I tend to think some of it has to do with a lack of performance of laptop and electronics people that there is not much to see. I really don’t like it except in rare occasions when people go over twenty minutes live. I think if you want to play an hour, its better to do three twenty minute sets than it is to do one hour long set, unless it’s a specific composition or specific piece. I think live tend to compensate by using video which doesn’t always work that well for me.

I think on radio it works better. Although it is actively listening, it is removed. So if you get antsy while listening then you can move around and not disturb your fellow concertgoers.

We’ve been talking about live performance on the air vs. live performance in person with all of this music which requires attentive listening. I wanted to ask a much more general question then of what do you feel is the social function of music in general?

Hmmm, in some ways it seems like, the music is almost secondary to me. Doing this show has been personally a great way for me to meet people that I am really interested in and a great way to start conversations with really fascinating people. I’ve become pretty good friends with people who I’ve only met once and who live on the other side of the country. Its through having this vehicle of music that we can sort of find commonality and become friends. Most of the people I socialize with now are people I’ve met through this community although we have a lot of other common interests aside from…

electro-minimalism?

yeah. It’s sort of another way to find a group of like-minded individuals. It’s about the scene. Sometimes, almost more than individual concerts.

I think you’re one of the few people to actually admit to this.

I think there are a lot of other people who would agree. I’m at the station and I don’t get many phone calls. I’m like "if you like this stuff, call me, I’m there"…

"Let’s just chat…"

I’m your support network. [laughs]

That’s kind of scary when you’re sitting in downtown Chicago.

Downtown is a big enough place that they’re not gonna find the station. I do periodically get calls from people. I mean I hear of someone moving to Chicago, I’m like "okay, I want to know them. So, you’re coming to Chicago, you do this stuff, we should be friends!" And that’s how I met Andy from Panicsville…

That’s how I met you. I was doing it with the cd comp ["Winter Construction"].

It works. Experimental music can get you friends… just not girls.