Adam Ritchie and his band inside the DMZSteve Schmidt and Link Smith skating in DMZ parking lotSteve Schmidt, somewhere between the heights and downtownGrove Circle Punx - Andy Conrad, Utrillo, Bryan Spinas, Matthew Thompson, Jason White, Josh Bentley (92)
Mark Drenzek added story to The Link Springs Forms
Brad Sims added story to New Wave Festival
Chris Johnson added story to DMZ opens
cHe added story to DMZ opens
Jason Matthews (Livingston, Montana) added story to New Wave Festival
Jason Matthews (Livingston, Montana) added story to Econochrist forms
Jason Matthews (Livingston, Montana) added story to Hatful Day plays their first show
Robert Borden added story to Big Boss Line forms
Michelle Morton added story to Women's City Club Show
The Fakir Experience plays its first and last show
Lincoln Smith // I had met Richard Matson and others at Catherine McRae's palatial residence one night by the pool. Catherine was my really close, female friend whom I secretly wanted to have my children and name at least one of them "Duncan." I had already finished my Freshman year at Bennington and I was back for the Summer, living with Jim Thompson and Chip King. Chip was already neck-deep in his fanzine, Jim had "G" going on. We would screen print t-shirts at the place and go dumpster-diving behind photomats for impromptu, late-night, group art projects... but I felt like I needed to do something that was my own.

That year I had witnessed a musical performance by a quartet consisting of saxophonists Charles Gayle and Hugh Glover with bassist William Parker and drummer Milford Graves who was a professor of mine at Bennington College. This was my first exposure to "free jazz" and I had become an ardent disciple, not only in terms of aesthetics, but also as a catalyst for social change. Jim had an alto-saxophone stashed in his closet and I was noodling away at it, trying to get a feel for the fingerings and such since it was the ... (More)
John Pugh // I smashed a television set at Fakir Experience's first (last?) show. It was a performative symbol of our intrinsic desire to liberate the psyche individually/collectively from the death-grip of imperialist media. Also it was fun.
Richard Matson // As I remember, the original line-up of Fakir was Cory Walker on bass (playing through one of those tiny gorilla guitar amps), Alice Brierly on the elfin flute and me on guitar (probably playing through an even smaller amp). I think the original idea was to be a sea-chanty band or something like that. Cory, Alice and I were in 10th grade and were fascinated when we ran into Link Smith, a stand-up bass major at Bennington, who came up with this "wall of sound" idea. We had no idea he was borrowing the concept from Phil Spector. Cory and I were also fascinated by his stories about dating the first Sassiest Girl in American. I'm not sure why Link felt inclined to join up with our non-band, but when he did, he took it over completely. We quickly saw the ranks swell from 3 to 13 people. Two drummers, Link on sax, I was playing trombone. At the warehouse show Cory mentions, most of the people on stage had never heard of or practiced with the band (our "practices" were more theoretical raving than music playing which was fitting because the band had much bigger ideas than musical talent). ... (More)
Cory Walker // In 10th grade, Richard Matson and Cory Walker really liked to skip class and do crazy things with their minds. Favorite activities included jumping the dip at the bottom of Pine Street in Alice Brierly's Silverado and basketball. On one of these days Richard and Cory decided to start a free form noise combo to pay tribute to Fakir Musafar, the guy in the Modern Primitives book who liked to hang himself by hooks through his nipples and whatnot. It wasn't until free jazz theoretician Link Smith arrived from back East that the Fakir Experience had the momentum it needed. Several obliging friends agreed to assemble and improvise noise-making objects (metal drum, guitar played with electric razor, etc). Hapless Drew Harrison, who was a few years younger, hooked Fakir up with a Pleasant Valley warehouse loading platform to play on, likely thinking the group would be a Trusty-esque rhythm combo and that girls would therefore like him for putting on the show. When the, uh, noise assault started, however, the crowd of mostly 15 year olds looked as if someone had just unleashed an very egregious fart. Some members of Fakir seemed to smell it as well. The show lasted ... (More)
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