Negativland Stuff

Negativland documents

• Negativland press kit, circa September 1983
  • Press release in PDF form, 12.4 MB
  • Text of page 1 (introduction page)
  • Text of page 2 (Contra Costa Times article, RECORDINGS article, Op article)
  • Text of page 3 (Puncture article, BAM article)
  • Text of page 4 (Op article, "Negativland by Negativland")
  • Text of page 5 (Over the Edge essay by Don Joyce)
  And from the above press release, here are the house logo and Negativland logo in Adobe Illustrator format.
  
  
• Hand-made Negativland button -- these were sold through Negativland's mail order service and T.E.C. Tones/Ralph Records, which distributed Negativland's records in the early 1990s. The button itself was made from cut-up Marlboro cigarette cartons, with a Negativland "house" sticker (which, if you look closely, is just cut out from the "No Other Possibility" bumper sticker) and a little label that says "Negativland". The cardboard and stickers were then covered with a layer of shellac, or some similar substance, to keep it (somewhat) weather-proof, and a pin was glued to the back of the button.
  
  
• A 1991 letter/catalog from Negativland, via T.E.C. Tones. The date on this letter is September 1991, which places it right at the time that the U2 single was released. Indeed, the catalog description of the single includes the frivolous-sounding (yet totally accurate) sentence, "this one might actually get us into the most trouble yet." Available as a PDF (2.18 MB) or plain text file.
  
  
• Nametag from the Richmond, Virginia stop in the 1995 Mark Hosler solo tour with Wifflefist. There was a bowl full of nametags at the door, and you picked up one when you walked in. (Mark's nametag said "POOP LOGGY LOGG".)

Negativland recordings

These recordings are from old cassette-only releases and otherwise out-of-print compilation albums.

• "1-20" (1984) from LOCAL INTERNATIONAL
• "Paul McCartney's Penis" (1987) from NORTHERN CALIFORNIA IS A NOISY PLACE INDEED
• "Radio Advertising" (1987) from OBJEKT 3
• "General Cavendish" (1987) from ZAMIZDAT TRADE JOURNAL
• "Play It Again" (1987) from UNSOUND (last issue)
• "Perfect Scrambled Eggs" (1987) from POTATOES
• "Edit of All Things Considered show" from the June 1989 OTE show "Where Are We Now?", taken from the Over the Edge compilations available from Negativland. Don and Chris were interviewed by an NPR reporter, and they offered to edit the interview for NPR. This is the three-minute-plus edit that Don turned in; note the stereophonic edits throughout the piece, indicating that actual tape splicing was being done.
• New! Old! "TDK New Music Report promo" (1991). This is not strictly a Negativland recording, but I include it here out of completeness. It's a short track from a CD of an episode of the TDK New Music Report, an hour-long show that TDK was sending off to college radio stations around 1991. I seem to recall that it didn't last for very long; maybe a year or so. This particular promo was a short news item on the "U2" single, and included some unexpurgated audio from the Radio Edit track. TDK, of course, alerted people to the raw language with a brief disclaimer (34 Kb PDF).
• "Tribal Mandate" (1993) from BOB'S MEDIA ECOLOGY 2
• "You Must Choose" (1993) from LIVE AT THE KNITTING FACTORY VOL 3 is *not* here, because it is still available for purchase at Amazon, among other places.
• "On The Bank" (1995), a test mix for an as-yet-unreleased advertising CD (from the July 1995 Over the Edge program "Advertising Secrets")
  
  
• True/False tour (2000) promotional spots:
  • "Stealing" (1:03)
  • "Wrong!" (1:00)
  • "Wrong!" (0:30)
  • "Electric Mud" (1:05)
  • "Insult" (1:03)
  • "Day In, Day Out" (0:34)