Third rate philosopher

Head Cleaner (30 minutes)

A 30 minute magnetic tape recased in an old clear Head Cleaner cassette body ....
Handed sequentially to invited artists, to record a contribution.

Contributors were given the cassette, the following instructions and paper to note details.

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INSTRUCTIONS

DO NOT listen to the results captured on the tape already!

At one sitting -
record between 12 and 24, five to ten second 'snippets' of radio (digital/web radio included)
(totalling no more than 4 minutes)

which are either carefully chosen or completely random,
and can be music, talk, dead air or other,

the recordings being spaced out randomly throughout the tape
(use fast forward and rewind)

DO NOT rewind the tape to the beginning after completion
but fast forward or rewind the tape to an arbitary postion
(this however may result in the position being the beginning of the tape by chance...)

note time and date of recording with your name on sheet provided

HAND TAPE BACK
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PROGRAMME ONE
February 10TH - May 6th 2005

Dave Ball 11.00-12.00 10 Feb
Antonio Gianasi 11.00-11.30 25 Feb
DÊdalus 08.00-09.00 01 Mar
Sharon Gal 21.30-22.00 03 Mar
Jason Synnott 15.00-15.30 04 Mar
Cathy Lomax 12.25-12.45 06 Mar
Alan Liddiard 18.30-18.50 27 Mar
John Frink 13.00-13.40 01 Apr
David Heron 17.00-17.50 05 Apr
Tom Mason 12.00-12.15 09 Apr
Jen Wu 13.00-13.15 09 Apr
Wil Thoup 15.00-15.05 09 Apr
Owen Harterley 15.50-15.53 09 Apr
Sarah Doyle 16.30-16.35 09 Apr
Joseph Jackson 20.00-20.30 12 Apr
Michael Rooney 19.30-19.50 15 Apr
John Collins 21.15-21.20 20 Apr
Simon Mella 23.00-23.40 23 Apr
Louise Heath 07.00-07.15 27 Apr
Maggie Richardson 17.20-18.00 06 May

Inspired in the first instance by 'Cabbie' the character played by Ernest Borgnine in John Carpenter's Dystopic 1988 film 'Escape from New York' (with the both crucial and humourous part that a cassette tape plays in the film) and partly by Travers Bickle the psychotic alienated character played by Robert de Niro in Martin Scorsese's nightmare of the unconscious film 'Taxi Driver' (1976). Head Cleaner is an attempt at realising a Brian Washing-auto returning-mobile soundscape imitating the likely disorientation journey between the twilight zone & the outer limits ....

Cabbie: "Bad neighbourhood, you don't want to be walking from the Bowery to 42nd street at night! Been driving a cab here 30 years and I'm telling you, you don't walk round here at night! Yes sir! They'll kill you and strip you in ten seconds flat. Usually I'm not down around here myself, but I wanted to catch the show."

Travis: "I turned on the radio, some fleet driver from Bell just got all cut up .... He got cut up by some crazy fucker. Cut half his ear off. It was at 122nd street."