Various - I.D. Art #2 LP

Label: États-Unis

Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS) formed in the mid-1970s as a loose-knit experimental music collective and multimedia publishing vehicle. Founded by teenage Le Forte Four members Chip Chapman, Joe Potts and Rick Potts and soon joined by Tom Recchion of Doo-Dooettes, LAFMS incorporated free improvisation, modular synthesizers, tape music, sampling, musique concrète, homemade instruments, noise, mail art and avant-rock in permissive and anarchic sessions at the Raymond Building and Poo-Bah Record Shop in old Pasadena. Inspired by The Residents, LAFMS self-released records and periodicals, organized performances and connected with fellow outsiders via post in the years before punk. Their uninhibited, egalitarian ideal of music-making and DIY distribution would influence generations of underground artists.

LAFMS primarily reached outside Los Angeles via word-of-mouth and the United States Postal Service, foreshadowing the self-publishing and cassette trading networks of post-punk and industrial subcultures. In 1976, Joe Potts solicited recordings from LAFMS affiliates and admirers to edit and compile I.D. Art #2, utilizing correspondence art's technique of "assemblings." (The first installment in this series was a magazine, and the third was a coloring book.) Potts received dozens of pieces by members of Le Forte Four, Doo-Dooettes, Smegma and Ace & Duce as well as painters, filmmakers and non-artists with few recording credits to their name, creating a delirious, winking sound-art collage of field recordings, voicemails and improvisations. Participants purchased time on the record and received one copy each of the finished LP, realizing the philosophy contained in LAFMS' motto: "The music is free, but you have to pay for the plastic, paper, ink, glue and stamps."

This first-time vinyl reissue is limited to 500 numbered copies. Comes with insert.

Track Listing:

1. Mac McCloud - Untitled
2. Harold Schroeder - Silent Rituals
3. Greg Neutra / J.D. Elliot - Grieg Fatigue
4. Smegma - Rrose Selavy Will Wait For My Washing Machine, Even / The Andalusian Dog Often Digs Into The Furniture With Onyx Fingers
5. Smegma - Potatoe War
6. Fredrik Nilsen - You Can't Hide From Aldehyde
7. Miles Forst - Art, Art, Art
8. Smegma - One Moment
9. Smegma - Pigface Blues
10. Doug Henry - View This Command As A Verbal Enactment Of A Command
11. Josie Roth - Heal, And Another Little Time
12. Joe Potts - I Don't Want To Go To The Farm
13. Otto Fick - Untitled
14. Smegma - Excerpt From: I'll Have Julie Nixon-Eisenhower For My Appetizer (Sour Lungs To My Surprise)
15. Karen Kato - Xmas 1952
16. J.J. Allen Vargas - Victim Of Racism
17. Dennis Guy Mehaffey - Busta Nosa
18. M/R/Zuniga - Vulnerability: Rape, Male Vs. Female
19. Mike Green - Martin Heidegger Revisited
20. Mehaffey - Introduction By Buckminster Fuller / I Stumble/You Laugh
21. Jules Lemelle - Untitled
22. Maureen Abbott - Untitled
23. Smegma - Take One
24. Dan Weiss / P. Hamilton Ross - A Bicentennial Tribute To America's Freight Trains
25. Mr. Foon - Timeless #1
26. Bertil Petersson - Monologue To Henry VIII
27. Amrein & Stoll - Untitled
28. Ace & Duce - Dogs Are Barking
29. Irene Dogmatic / Rose Tatoo - Untitled
30. Gordon Shields - Cotton Duck, Up And Back
31. Gary Beydler - Record Stick
32. Tom Kemp - Pasadena Subway Station Poetry Stills
33. Donald Spaulding - I Don't Want This To Happen
34. Janice Felger / Joan Hugo - One Minute Of Art News Update In 30 Seconds
35. Sue Farthing - Untitled
36. Waynna Kato - White/Noise
37. Jim Abuan / Peter Muzzey - Why Does Love Have To Be So Sad?
38. Juan Gomez - This Is My Country
39. P.J. Campbell - Untitled
40. Kathe Schreyer - Don't Make Me Laugh
41. Mary Dana Chodzko - Patty Smith By Mary Dana Chodzko
42. Gary Laskin - Have Sex With Rex
43. Jean Koller - Dream
44. Le Forte Four - Discarded Portion Of The Soundtrack For Rick's Film "Burger Madness" / From "The Origin Of Largie Schrapnel" / I Haven't Heard You For A Long Time / Fat Ape