Brian Joseph Davis

EUROPE! I’M AVAILABLE

The Definitive Host and limited edition Original Soundtrack CDs are now available in Europe from the very good folks at ReR Records distribution.

ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK NY

Thanks to all at WFMU and ISSUE Project Room. Expect MP3s of the show soon. For now enjoy this very insightful write up on the New York Press website by Andy Seccombe.

Excerpt:

“The beauty of it though, was that as soon as I tuned out, I in fact, tuned in. When I stopped any focus on the performance I entered into some sort of light hypnosis. There was a kind of magnificence to it, there’s no doubt. The 50-minute piece was anything but boring–more like a peaceful, unstructured audiovisual meditation. It was just so nice to absorb something without having to do any work, and to find the subtle musical wonders in fact quietly, harmlessly, mystically, working me over… Its essence wasn’t defined by experimentation, the avant-garde or artistic snobbery: the piece was all about abandoning expectations, pretensions and artificiality. Because the magic of Davis’s performance was that it really did make you think. Or not.”

Free mp3s of the first Original Soundtrack concert now up. Ltd CD also available. Check on the Original Soundtrack page.

Reviews for I, Tania

SLATE “When I first pulled Brian Joseph Davis’ I, Tania from the new arrivals shelf, I narcissistically wondered if it was an elaborate hoax. Its apparent themes coincided so perfectly with my personal obsessions—the Symbionese Liberation Army, 1980s sports stars, Marxist-Leninist linguistics, kidnapped heiresses, suicidal rock stars—it seemed like a custom Build-a-Bear of a novel created just for me. Actually, it’s not exactly a novel—more a freaky bouillabaisse of teases, jokes, and intellectual puzzles very loosely disguised as the memoirs and mad confessions of Tania. (Patty Hearst is never mentioned, but if you don’t recognize her SLA nom de guerre, chances are this book isn’t for you.) Rarely have the rules of narrative been more imaginatively ignored—the book is full of guest lists for parties that never happened, urban guerrilla fashion tips, and a glimpse at what a truly revolutionary sex-toy catalog would look like.I, Tania is for people who like comic books but don’t care for the drawings, for readers who enjoy ’70s television and Donald Barthelme, and for fans of The Bad News Bears. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to argue the merits of punk rock versus Detroit techno with Katie Couric live on daytime TV, it may well be the book of your fever dreams.”

Philapelphia Weekly ” If punk rock was a book, this would be it. Brian Joseph Davis’ I, Tania—a (super)fictionalized (auto)biography of Patty Hearst—is fast, hard and totally about screwing over the Man. Davis manages to mock the rich, the pig middle class, revolutionaries, the media, Bad News Bears, Don DeLillo and Katie Couric without breaking his stride, all while serving a heaping plop of Marxism for Dummies. But be warned: I, Tania only really appeals to four groups—Weather Underground fugitives who now watch a lot of VH1, pinko-intellectual college students who did a lot of coke in the bathrooms of their elite high schools, terrorists and super-smart post-hip PW readers who use Pop Rocks as their infallible guide to all that’s truly supergroovy in the increasingly balkanized melange of insanity and inanity that is modern pop culture.”

LA Weekly on the Betalevel performance

” Toronto-based sonic artist Brian Joseph Davis has an amazing head for aural experiments–creating expansive compositions out of found sounds and computer manipulations–that are smart on paper and fascinating in execution.”

Thanks to Randall Roberts at LA Weekly and to LA City Beat. Thank you to all at Betalevel–one of the best spaces I’ve worked with!