TLASILA/Sudden Infant: Euro Tour 2008 • To Live and Shave in L.A. (Les Tricoteuses, Savage Land Records, France, 2007; painting by Gregory Jacobsen.) To Live and Shave in L.A. (aka TLASILA) rip through sonic boundaries and demolish cultural mythologies with a kinetic mélange of violent, constantly shifting musique concrète structures, splintered electronics, and stark, dramatic vocalizations. Their powerfully evocative compositions can take the form of forty- minute Kuiper Belt freak-outs or dense, demonic, two-minute pipe bomb pop. Their avowed enemy is genre itself, their ultimate goal, unknowing. Hyper-literate texts, ungovernable performances, and a ruthlessly meticulous production regimen yield recordings without referent, sounds that garrote taxonomy. (TLASILA, live in Philadelphia, May 2007.) TLASILA was formed in Miami Beach, Florida in 1991 by Tom Smith, an alumnus of late 1970s-early 1980s dada-improv outsider cabals Boat Of and Peach of Immortality, and the earliest (1985) incarnation of Jon Spencer's legendary Pussy Galore. He was soon joined in TL&S by Frank "Rat file:///C|/Users/ommyth/Documents/My%20Webs/tlasila/tlasila_tour_pdf.htm (1 of 36)3/23/2008 10:36:47 AM TLASILA/Sudden Infant: Euro Tour 2008 Bastard" Falestra, a veteran of many aesthetically disruptive South Florida projects (most infamously, Scraping Teeth, and since the mid-1990s, the Laundry Room Squelchers), and Ben Wolcott, a filmmaker and lifelong circuit bender whose mammoth screeching oscillators sent early Shave audiences running for cover. Now a full-fledged collective comprising nearly 20 members, To Live and Shave in L.A. have released dozens of albums on a variety of international labels and have toured the world with jagged frequency for more than seventeen years. (TLASILA on Murray Street, NYC, during a break in the Noon and Eternity sessions, November 2004. Left to right: Thurston Moore, Ben Wolcott, Andrew W.K., Don Fleming, Chris Grier, Tom Smith, and Rat Bastard.) (Noon and Eternity, Menlo Park Recordings, USA, 2006.) The ensemble has been featured, reviewed, excoriated, puzzled over, and praised in the New York Times, Le Monde, Washington Post, The Wire, Persona Non Grata, Village Voice, Spin, MTV.com, Entertainment Weekly, Kulttuurivihkot, Multitudes, Vice, Signal to Noise, Skyscraper, Voir, SF Bay Guardian, file:///C|/Users/ommyth/Documents/My%20Webs/tlasila/tlasila_tour_pdf.htm (2 of 36)3/23/2008 10:36:47 AM TLASILA/Sudden Infant: Euro Tour 2008 Detroit Free Press, Chicago Reader (and dozens of other American alt-newsweeklies), Dusted, Blastitide, Perfect Sound Forever, Brainwashed, Pitchfork, etc. TLASILA, live, MEG Festival, Montreal, 2006. Left to right: Andrew W.K., Ben Wolcott, Tom Smith, Graham Moore, Rat Bastard, and Chris Grier.) file:///C|/Users/ommyth/Documents/My%20Webs/tlasila/tlasila_tour_pdf.htm (3 of 36)3/23/2008 10:36:47 AM TLASILA/Sudden Infant: Euro Tour 2008 (The official poster for the TLASILA USA 2007 tour.) (TLASILA, live, Oakland, CA, May 2007; from left, Graham Moore, Tom Smith, Weasel Walter, and Rat Bastard. Hiding behind the amp is Rose for Bodhan's Grace Lee.) Tom Smith is also a member of neo-Aktionist quartet OHNE. (OHNE 1, Mego Records, Austria, 2002.) file:///C|/Users/ommyth/Documents/My%20Webs/tlasila/tlasila_tour_pdf.htm (4 of 36)3/23/2008 10:36:47 AM TLASILA/Sudden Infant: Euro Tour 2008 (OHNE in Moscow, May 9, 2002. Left to right: Reto Mäder, Tom Smith, Daniel Löwenbrück, and Dave Phillips.) European Tour April-May 2008 TLASILA For this tour, TLASILA will feature its newest members: Chris Grier (US, guitar and treatments), Andrew Barranca (US, electro-acoustic file:///C|/Users/ommyth/Documents/My%20Webs/tlasila/tlasila_tour_pdf.htm (5 of 36)3/23/2008 10:36:47 AM TLASILA/Sudden Infant: Euro Tour 2008 manipulations), Balázs Pándi (HU, percussion), Sickboy Milkplus (BE, electronics), Patrick Spurlock (US, electronics), Eva Van Deuren (BE, electronics), and founder Tom Smith (US, voice and laptop). Grier, Barranca, and Spurlock will join the tour at various intervals, engendering a shifting, ever-mutating mosaic of sonic deformation. SUDDEN INFANT Joke Lanz (aka Sudden Infant) creates an unique blend of physical sound-poetry and dadaistic vocal expressions, using contact microphones, prerecorded sound loops, and noises. A member of the infamous Schimpfluch collective and long time accompanist of Rudolf Eb*er, Lanz has presented his work for more than 20 years in venues, art spaces, and asylums all over the world. Born in Switzerland, now based in Berlin, Sudden Infant has collaborated with the likes of Z'ev, Carlos Giffoni, Peter Kowald, Christian Marclay, Norbert Möslang, DJ Olive, G.X. Jupitter-Larsen, Christian Weber, Charlotte Hug, Jorge Sanchez-Chiong, Roger Rotor, Strotter Inst, Evil Moisture, Small Cruel Party and many others. Lanz has also composed music for contemporary dance, theatre, sound-installations, and short-films. Innumerable albums have been released on many international labels, including Entracte, RRR, Tochnit Aleph, Blossoming Noise, Artware, Klanggalerie, and SSSM. Artist residencies include Berlin (1999) and London (2004). Lanz also receives composition assignments from the Pro Helvetia Arts Council of Switzerland (2006). (Joke Lanz, aka Sudden Infant.) # TOUR DATES (Dates marked "Venue TBA" are confirmed; we await additional information.) April 9 Lille -- CCL 59 April 10 Brussels -- Domino Festival April 11 Antwerp -- Scheldapen April 12 Tilburg -- 013 April 13 Rotterdam -- WORM April 15 Groningen -- Audio Office April 16 Hannover -- Baukasten file:///C|/Users/ommyth/Documents/My%20Webs/tlasila/tlasila_tour_pdf.htm (6 of 36)3/23/2008 10:36:47 AM TLASILA/Sudden Infant: Euro Tour 2008 April 17 Århus -- LJUD April 18 København - Klub Argot April 19 Lüneburg -- Jeckyll & Hyde April 20 Berlin -- Festsaal Kreuzberg April 21 Wroc•aw -- OPT (Osrodek Postaw Tworczych) April 22 Warszawa -- Aurora April 23 Poznan -- Rozbrat April 24 Praha -- Chateau l'enfer Rouge <Sudden Infant leaves the tour> April 26 Bratislava -- urbSounds Collective April 28 Budapest -- Venue TBA April 29 Zagreb -- Venue TBA April 30 Split -- Venue TBA May 1 Ljubljana -- Menza pri Koritu / DRMK May 2 Trevsio -- Venue TBA May 3 Bologna -- XM24 May 4 Rome -- Venue TBA May 5 Torino -- United Club May 7 Marseille -- L'Embobineuse <Gaybomb joins the tour> May 8 Barcelona -- Venue TBA May 9 Valencia -- Red Shoe May 10 Madrid -- Venue TBA May 11 Getaria -- Gaztetxe May 12 Toulouse -- Le Lieu Commun May 13 Lyon -- Sonic Lyon May 14 Lausanne -- Cinéma Oblò May 16 Geneva -- Club 12 May 17 Leipzig -- Noch Besser Leben file:///C|/Users/ommyth/Documents/My%20Webs/tlasila/tlasila_tour_pdf.htm (7 of 36)3/23/2008 10:36:47 AM TLASILA/Sudden Infant: Euro Tour 2008 May 18 Hamburg -- Venue TBA May 20 Paris -- Instants Chavires # (TLASILA, live at the Syrup Room, Brooklyn, 2006. Left to right, Ben Wolcott, Graham Moore, Tom Smith, and Don Fleming.) BIO To Live and Shave in L.A. was founded by Tom Smith in Miami Beach, Florida, USA. Smith had previously been a member of Boat Of (Athens, GA, 1979-1983), Peach of Immortality (Washington, DC, 1984-1990), and Pussy Galore (Washington, DC, 1985-6); the first TLASILA demos were recorded in July 1990. A Short History: Smith met Frank "Rat Bastard" Falestra in 1991 at South Beach's Sync Studios. A co-owner of the dank, rambling facility, file:///C|/Users/ommyth/Documents/My%20Webs/tlasila/tlasila_tour_pdf.htm (8 of 36)3/23/2008 10:36:47 AM TLASILA/Sudden Infant: Euro Tour 2008 Bastard quickly joined Smith in the nascent collective. Two years of continuous recording and local performances (under the Peach of Immortality moniker) followed. By the autumn of 1993, Smith and Bastard had amassed a larder of eighty songs. During a Miami Beach rooftop party in the summer of 1993, Smith met electronics whiz, undisputed global oscillator overlord, and soirée host Ben Wolcott. As Miles Davis' Dark Magus album was the only music allowed on the stereo throughout the event, an invitation for Wolcott to join TLASILA was reflexively extended. Ben was convinced to join the burgeoning collective soon after. Following a lengthy post-production regimen, To Live and Shave in L.A.'s debut album, 30-minuten männercreme, was released on the Love Is Sharing Pharmaceuticals label. (TLASILA's 1994 debut album, 30-minuten männercreme. Sleeve design by Sam Patton and Tom Smith.) After the release of 30-mm, TLASILA engine went into overdrive. Between 1994 and 1996, they recorded the primary elements of twelve studio albums. See DISCOG below for details. In late 1996, Ben Wolcott spun off from TLASILA to join the remarkable mega-freak ensemble Frosty. A revolving cast of avant-garde and underground malcontents soon entered the Shavian fray... European tours in 1997 and 1998 featured Nandor Nevai, Billy Taylor, Greg Chapman, Julien Becourt, and for one exceptionally bizarre gig in Paris, Harry Pussy's Bill Orcutt... The 1999-2000 edition of To Live and Shave in L.A. comprised Bastard, Smith, Nevai, Weasel Walter (of the Flying Luttenbachers and myriad aggregations), and Misty Martinez. By the summer of 2000, To Live and Shave in L.A. 2 had arrived, and soon after, a full-fledged clone explosion. Smith decamped for Europe to begin OHNE with Dave Phillips, Daniel Löwenbrück, and Reto Mäder. By December 2003, Bastard and Smith decided to haul the Lamborghini out of deep salt storage and get back on the demolition derby circuit. Ben Wolcott quickly re-upped, and Mark Morgan, Don Fleming, Andrew W.K., and Chris Grier followed.