History Music / Negativland

* BlackComedy: "Happy Hero" and "The Greatest Taste Around" are songs based around dark humor.

** ''Helter Stupid'' is about the media and how they are terrible at their job, especially their reaction to Lyons' prank exposing sloppy news research.

** ''The World Will Decide'' is about humanity's relationship with technology, and the narrowing border between the two.

[[caption-width-right:350:Names from left to right: The Weatherman (David Wills), Mark Hosler, Don Joyce, and Richard Lyons]]

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Joyce's other characters, most of whom were involved with UMN, included psychiatrist Dr. Oslo Norway, Chairman of One World Advertising; Izzy Isn't, music historian who ran the years-long "How Radio Isn't Done/How Radio Was Done" series on ''Over the Edge'' (the last character he played before his death); Creator/WalterCronkite-like reporter Leland Googleburger; lugubrious moon-base computer voice Wang Tool; right-wing host Rolin Royce, from a bizarre early episode where KPFA (seemingly) converted to a conservative talk radio format; auto expert Bud Choke; on-the-scene reporters Rex Everything, Omer Edge and Waxley Molding. Lyons played Rev. Marsha Turnblat, a fanatical [[MoralGuardians Moral Guardian]]; Rev. Richard "Pastor Dick" Seeland, a low-key ministerial counselor; master debater Dick Bush; auto expert Dick Goodbody[[note]]in RealLife Richard bought, reconditioned and sold old cars[[/note]]; media personality Dickie Diamond, "star of stage, screen and satellite"; and Dick Vaughn, a Dick Clark-like host who was (actually) partly responsible for the creation of the '70s Nostalgia radio format. UMN's biggest competitor is ABS, the American Broadcasting System, which runs "The [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Piddle Diddle Report]]", investigating and criticizing Friday and his empire. Jon "Wobbly" Leidecker continues this tradition, playing Mike Worm, aspiring President of General Injectables and Signals, and possibly others.

* AlphabetNewsNetwork: The Universal Media Netweb, often referred to as UMN. All of Joyce's creations including ''Over the Edge'' were presented under the aegis of UMN and its mind-breaking or mind-controlling (or mind-liberating) agenda.[[note]]Joyce said, "In 1981 [i.e., before the World Wide Web existed], I made up "Universal Media Netweb" as the name of the fictional, appropriating radio network that presents our ''Over the Edge'' program. Now I have an actual email address that ends with the made-up word, @webbnet.com, and sometimes I just have to smile at the way art and life play their echo game, imagination turning into reality in no time."[[/note]] UMN was founded by C. Elliot Friday, the wealthiest man in the solar sphere, who lives on [[UsefulNotes/AmeliaEarhart Howland Island]], runs Fridatronics Industries and still (despite [[AuthorExistenceFailure Joyce's death]]) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-DGA7xBfSs runs for President of the United States]] every four years on the Universal Party ticket. Casual listeners are probably most familiar with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evrht0Q46lQ Crosley Bendix]], UMN's Director of Stylistic Premonitions and Cultural/Arts Reviewer.

* {{Feelies}}: ''A Big 10-8 Place'' came with a bag of grass. Not the illegal kind... ''actual'' grass. They later took this to another level with pre-ordered copies of ''Over The Edge Vol 9: The Chopping Channel'' which came with two bags: one containing an original radio cart made by late member Don Joyce, the other containing a portion of his ashes. [[https://vimeo.com/187211091 Here's a promotional video]] showing Jon Leidecker as "Dave" spooning Don's ashes into plastic bags.[[note]]"This is not a hoax. We've decided to take the Chopping Channel concept to its logical conclusion by 'productizing' an actual band member. It is also a celebration of the degree to which no idea in art was ever off-limits to Don, and offers a literal piece of him, and of his audio art, for the listener to repurpose and reuse. We are pretty sure he would have wanted it this way." And from [[https://clrvynt.com/negativland-interview/ Mark Hosler in an interview]] with ''Clrvynt'''s Dan Weiss in December 2016: "What he was concerned about was that Negativland kept going. That’s a conversation we had with him very directly. It was a weird one to have, but given that he was a very important part of the brain trust, we asked him, "When you're gone, what should we do?" He was the most fully committed human to his art practice of anyone we've ever known. I always felt like a flake by comparison. He lived it, he breathed it."[[/note]]

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

The ''New York Times'' says the band uses "improvisation and scavenged audio detritus as raw materials. It is an evolving experiment in which the notion of a band is a framing device to explore issues, including media, religion and global capitalism; in an interview this week, Mr. Hosler called it 'a giant conceptual art project about intellectual property and the privatization of culture.'" [[https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/negativlands-mark-hosler-embraces-uncertainty/Content?oid=23236389
Hosler detracts the right-wing use of culture jamming]] to confuse and manipulate viewers/listeners: rather, Negativland is "trying to get people to look at things in a different way, trying to create a more educated, thoughtful, compassionate, kinder, better world. In our own weird-ass way."

The ''New York Times'' says the band uses "improvisation and scavenged audio detritus as raw materials. It is an evolving experiment in which the notion of a band is a framing device to explore issues, including media, religion and global capitalism; in an interview this week, Mr. Hosler called it 'a giant conceptual art project about intellectual property and the privatization of culture.'"

Joyce's KPFA program ''[[https://www.negativlandtruefalse.com/ote Over the Edge]]'' was (and is) devoted to themed mixes of sampled sound, commentary, and the all-important call-ins from listeners ("receptacle programming"), with snappy satire, crazed humor and a Firesign Theater-like cast of lunatic characters. You may still [[https://kpfa.org/program/over-the-edge/ hear it at kpfa.org]] on Thursday/Friday nights at midnight Pacific time, hosted by Leidecker or by Rob "Krob" Cole of the ''Puzzling Evidence'' show which usually follows ''Over the Edge''. Past episodes, including nearly all of Joyce's shows, are at the [[https://archive.org/details/ote Over the Edge Radio Archive]] (as of June 24, 2020, [[https://archive.org/details/ote?and%5B%5D=addeddate%3A2020 150 of the very earliest episodes have been uploaded]], and on July 24, 2020, 201 more were added!!)[[note]]Mark sez, "While the early Negativland live mixes on ''Over The Edge'' were truly freeform examples of media collage, they also show Don Joyce's penchant for labyrinthine, slowly evolving and densely scripted radio narratives from the outset. Every second of media collage featured on this program is in fact broadcast backwards in time, a memorial made out of audio artifacts left behind by Earth culture - artfully combined and recombined by humans and the machines that succeeded them, for the entertainment of those surviving remnants of humanity, circling our dead planet in a manmade orbital cube. That is to say: the Universal Media Netweb provides Receptacle Programming for The Star. Just enough of a thread for you to find your own way through these early episodes, all of which pioneered improvised culture jamming for a select group of early Monday morning maniacs - the likes of which many of us never thought we'd get to actually remember for ourselves. But don't trust your memory."[[/note]] and post-Joyce episodes are on the KPFA website.[[note]]Negativland also has copies of the more recent (post-Joyce) episodes, in 2020 temporarily unavailable while they change things at their website.[[/note]] Some of the best episodes were issued on tape and CD, and the band continues to make them along with the occasional in-studio album.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: ''Negativland'' and ''Points'' are mostly just minimal ''musique concrete'' without the social commentary and dense montage of their later work.

* AlphabetNewsNetwork: The Universal Media Netweb, often referred to as UMN. All of Joyce's creations including ''Over the Edge'' were presented under the aegis of UMN and its mind-breaking or mind-controlling (or mind-liberating) agenda.[[note]]Joyce said, "In 1981 [i.e., before the World Wide Web existed], I made up "Universal Media Netweb" as the name of the fictional, appropriating radio network that presents our ''Over the Edge'' program. Now I have an actual email address that ends with the made-up word, @webbnet.com, and sometimes I just have to smile at the way art and life play their echo game, imagination turning into reality in no time."[[/note]] UMN was founded by C. Elliot Friday, the wealthiest man in the solar sphere, who lives on [[UsefulNotes/AmeliaEarhart Howland Island]], runs Fridatronics Industries and still (despite [[AuthorExistenceFailure Joyce's untimely death]]) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-DGA7xBfSs runs for President of the United States]] every four years on the Universal Party ticket. Casual listeners are probably most familiar with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evrht0Q46lQ Crosley Bendix]], UMN's Director of Stylistic Premonitions and Cultural/Arts Reviewer.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Negativland's music has curse words in it but has never gotten a [[ContentWarnings parental advisory sticker]] because SST and Seeland records are not associated with the RIAA.

* ProductPlacement: ''Dispepsi'' constantly repeats the brand name Pepsi as a way to satirize product placement in media. Mark Hosler said he wanted people to be sick of hearing the word Pepsi by the time the album is over.

!!Tropes associated with Negativland:

** ''The World Will Decide'' is about humanity's relationship with technology, and the narrowing border between them.

** ''Helter Stupid'' has an 18 minute title song that focuses on the media and their obsession with sensationalistic stories -- in this case, about the supposed connection between rock and roll and murder. This is the longest song they have made.[[note]]Lyons, with typical macabre humor, had created a fake press release saying that the band could not go on a planned tour because they'd been warned by the FBI not to leave the state while the investigation of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brom David Brom]] axe murders was going on, as their music might have inspired his sickening deed. Brom really had argued with his family about religion and music; Lyons claimed that the song they'd argued about was "Christianity Is Stupid". The real reason the band couldn't tour is they couldn't afford it, but local Bay Area news outlets picked up on the story and ran it, as Lyons knew they would, [[https://magazine.plazm.com/art-and-commodity-capitalism-8a37be64e9d8 without fact-checking or verifying the sources]]. It got as far as the San Francisco ''Chronicle'' and Creator/{{NPR}} before Lyons revealed the prank.[[/note]]

** ''Helter Stupid'' has an 18 minute title song that focuses on the media and their obsession with sensationalistic stories -- in this case, about the supposed connection between rock and roll and murder. This is the longest song they have made.[[note]]Lyons, with typical macabre humor, had created a fake press release saying that the band could not go on a planned tour because they'd been warned by the FBI not to leave the state while the investigation of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brom David Brom]] axe murders was going on, as their music might have inspired his sickening deed. Brom really had argued with his family about religion and music; Lyons claimed that the song they'd argued about was "Christianity Is Stupid". The real reason the band couldn't tour is they couldn't afford it, but local Bay Area news outlets picked up on the story and ran it, as Lyons knew they would, [[https://magazine.plazm.com/art-and-commodity-capitalism-8a37be64e9d8 without fact-checking or verifying the sources]]. It got as far as the San Francisco ''Chronicle'' before Lyons revealed the prank.[[/note]]

Ian Allen died January 17, 2015 of complications post-heart surgery. Don Joyce died July 22, 2015 of heart failure (he was a lifelong heavy smoker). Richard Lyons died April 19, 2016 of melanoma. Following their wishes, the rest of the band has kept Negativland alive.[[note]]"Negativland is a large enough 'collective,' that, until a few more of us die off, we continue to exist!"[[/note]]

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Joyce's other characters, most of whom were involved with UMN, included psychiatrist Dr. Oslo Norway, Chairman of One World Advertising; Izzy Isn't, music historian who ran the years-long "How Radio Isn't Done/How Radio Was Done" series on ''Over the Edge'' (the last character he played before his death); Creator/WalterCronkite-like reporter Leland Googleburger; lugubrious moon-base computer voice Wang Tool; right-wing host Rolin Royce, from a bizarre early episode where KPFA (seemingly) converted to a conservative talk radio format; auto expert Bud Choke; on-the-scene reporters Rex Everything, Omer Edge and Waxley Molding. Lyons played Rev. Marsha Turnblat, a fanatical [[MoralGuardians Moral Guardian]]; Rev. Richard "Pastor Dick" Seeland, a low-key ministerial counselor; master debater Dick Bush; auto expert Dick Goodbody; media personality Dickie Diamond, "star of stage, screen and satellite"; and Dick Vaughn, a Dick Clark-like host who was (actually) partly responsible for the creation of the '70s Nostalgia radio format. UMN's biggest competitor is ABS, the American Broadcasting System, which runs "The [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Piddle Diddle Report]]", investigating and criticizing Friday and his empire. Jon "Wobbly" Leidecker continues this tradition, playing Mike Worm, aspiring President of General Injectables and Signals, and possibly others.

* ShoutOut: Both the group and its Seeland label take their names from songs by the {{Krautrock}} band Music/{{Neu}}.

* TitledAfterTheSong: They took the name Negativland, and that of their record label Seeland, from songs by the group Music/{{Neu}}.

[-''To create is divine. To reproduce is human. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Ray Man Ray]].''-]

Joyce's KPFA program ''[[https://www.negativlandtruefalse.com/ote Over the Edge]]'' was (and is) devoted to themed mixes of sampled sound, commentary, and the all-important call-ins from listeners ("receptacle programming"), with snappy satire, crazed humor and a Firesign Theater-like cast of lunatic characters. You may still [[https://kpfa.org/program/over-the-edge/ hear it at kpfa.org]] on Thursday/Friday nights at midnight Pacific time, hosted by Leidecker or by Rob "Krob" Cole of the ''Puzzling Evidence'' show which usually follows ''Over the Edge''. Past episodes, including nearly all of Joyce's shows, are at the [[https://archive.org/details/ote Over the Edge Radio Archive]] (as of June 24, 2020, [[https://archive.org/details/ote?and%5B%5D=addeddate%3A2020 150 of the very earliest episodes have been added]]!!)[[note]]Mark sez, "While the early Negativland live mixes on ''Over The Edge'' were truly freeform examples of media collage, they also show Don Joyce's penchant for labyrinthine, slowly evolving and densely scripted radio narratives from the outset. Every second of media collage featured on this program is in fact broadcast backwards in time, a memorial made out of audio artifacts left behind by Earth culture - artfully combined and recombined by humans and the machines that succeeded them, for the entertainment of those surviving remnants of humanity, circling our dead planet in a manmade orbital cube. That is to say: the Universal Media Netweb provides Receptacle Programming for The Star. Just enough of a thread for you to find your own way through these early episodes, all of which pioneered improvised culture jamming for a select group of early Monday morning maniacs - the likes of which many of us never thought we'd get to actually remember for ourselves. But don't trust your memory."[[/note]] and post-Joyce episodes are on the KPFA website.[[note]]Negativland also has copies of the more recent (post-Joyce) episodes, in 2020 temporarily unavailable while they change things at their website.[[/note]] Some of the best episodes were issued on tape and CD, and the band continues to make them along with the occasional in-studio album.

** ''Helter Stupid'' has an 18 minute title song that focuses on the media and their obsession with sensationalistic stories -- in this case, about the supposed connection between rock and roll and murder. This is the longest song they have made.[[note]]Lyons, with typical macabre humor, had created a fake press release saying that the band could not go on a planned tour because they'd been warned by the FBI not to leave the state while the investigation of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brom David Brom]] axe murders was going on, as their music might have inspired his sickening deed. Brom really had argued with his family about religion and music; Lyons claimed that the song they'd argued about was "Christianity Is Stupid". The real reason the band couldn't tour is they couldn't afford it, but local Bay Area news outlets picked up on the story and ran it, as Lyons knew they would, without fact-checking or verifying the sources. It got as far as ''Rolling Stone'' before Lyons revealed the prank.[[/note]]

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Joyce's other characters, most of whom were involved with UMN, included psychiatrist Dr. Oslo Norway, Chairman of One World Advertising; Izzy Isn't, music historian who ran the years-long "How Radio Isn't Done/How Radio Was Done" series on ''Over the Edge'' (the last character he played before his death); Creator/WalterCronkite-like reporter Leland Googleburger; lugubrious moon-base computer voice Wang Tool; auto expert Bud Choke; on-the-scene reporters Rex Everything, Omer Edge and Waxley Molding. Lyons played Rev. Marsha Turnblat, a fanatical [[MoralGuardians Moral Guardian]]; Rev. Richard "Pastor Dick" Seeland, a low-key ministerial counselor; master debater Dick Bush; auto expert Dick Goodbody; media personality Dickie Diamond, "star of stage, screen and satellite"; and Dick Vaughn, a Dick Clark-like host who was (actually) partly responsible for the creation of the '70s Nostalgia radio format. UMN's biggest competitor is ABS, the American Broadcasting System, which runs "The [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Piddle Diddle Report]]", investigating and criticizing Friday and his empire. Jon "Wobbly" Leidecker continues this tradition, playing Mike Worm, aspiring President of General Injectables and Signals, and possibly others.

* DreamTeam: Played straight ''and'' parodied on ''Escape From Noise''; the album features many prominent, highly respected local names in music and counterculture alike (including Mark Mothersbaugh and members of Music/TheGratefulDead), a few of whose contributions are absolutely minor, or have nothing to do with their talents (e.g. Music/JelloBiafra flushing a toilet, a member of Big City Orchestra running a leafblower, a random vocal sound from the Reverend Ivan Stang).

* {{Feelies}}: ''A Big 10-8 Place'' came with a bag of grass. Not the illegal kind... ''actual'' grass. They later took this to another level with pre-ordered copies of ''Over The Edge Vol 9: The Chopping Channel'' which came with two bags: one containing an original radio cart made by late member Don Joyce, the other containing a portion of his ashes. [[https://vimeo.com/187211091 Here's a promotional video]] showing Jon Leidecker as "Dave" spooning Don's ashes into plastic bags.[[note]]"This is not a hoax. We've decided to take the Chopping Channel concept to its logical conclusion by 'productizing' an actual band member. It is also a celebration of the degree to which no idea in art was ever off-limits to Don, and offers a literal piece of him, and of his audio art, for the listener to repurpose and reuse. We are pretty sure he would have wanted it this way."[[/note]]

* DreamTeam: Played straight ''and'' parodied on ''Escape From Noise''; the album features contributions from members of Music/TheGratefulDead, Creator/MarkMothersbaugh, Fred Frith, Henry Kaiser Tom Herman, Das... and Music/TheResidents, Music/JelloBiafra, the Reverend Ivan Stang, and Rob Wortman, making brief, inconsequential appearances (such as a random mouth noise, a short audiorecording, or in Jello's case, a toilet.)

Joyce's KPFA program ''[[https://www.negativlandtruefalse.com/ote Over the Edge]]'' was (and is) devoted to themed mixes of sampled sound, commentary, and the all-important call-ins from listeners ("receptacle programming"), with snappy satire, crazed humor and a Firesign Theater-like cast of lunatic characters. You may still [[https://kpfa.org/program/over-the-edge/ hear it at kpfa.org]] on Thursday/Friday nights at midnight Pacific time, hosted by Leidecker or by Rob "Krob" Cole of the ''Puzzling Evidence'' show which usually follows ''Over the Edge''. Past episodes, including nearly all of Joyce's shows, are at the [[https://archive.org/details/ote Over the Edge Radio Archive]] (as of June 24, 2020, [[https://archive.org/details/ote?and%5B%5D=addeddate%3A2020 150 episodes from the ''very earliest shows'' have been added]]!)[[note]]Mark sez, "While the early Negativland live mixes on ''Over The Edge'' were truly freeform examples of media collage, they also show Don Joyce's penchant for labyrinthine, slowly evolving and densely scripted radio narratives from the outset. Every second of media collage featured on this program is in fact broadcast backwards in time, a memorial made out of audio artifacts left behind by Earth culture - artfully combined and recombined by humans and the machines that succeeded them, for the entertainment of those surviving remnants of humanity, circling our dead planet in a manmade orbital cube. That is to say: the Universal Media Netweb provides Receptacle Programming for The Star. Just enough of a thread for you to find your own way through these early episodes, all of which pioneered improvised culture jamming for a select group of early Monday morning maniacs - the likes of which many of us never thought we'd get to actually remember for ourselves. But don't trust your memory."[[/note]] and post-Joyce episodes are on the KPFA website.[[note]]Negativland also has copies of the more recent (post-Joyce) episodes, in 2020 temporarily unavailable while they change things at their website.[[/note]] Some of the best episodes were issued on tape and CD, and the band continues to make them along with the occasional in-studio album.