Robert
Beveridge, noise name XTerminal, was the first noise performer I ever saw. My brother and I came to Cleveland in 1999 to check out the underground venue Speak in Tongues. We were into extreme abstract music, but had never been in a venue for that kind of sound before. We stuck to the corners, shy kids with our cardboard box of canned beer, feeling warm excitement at the strangely textured walls, the strutting weirdos and the darkness. Then - the harsh sound began - coming from a man with a computer and a table. XTerminal.
Speak in Tongues closed months after we moved to Cleveland, and we lost touch with those strangers until nearly ten years later when Steve Makita's Audio Visual Baptism (AVB) series brought the former Speak in Tongues crew together with those of us performing at Bela Dubby, Now That's Class, and other venues.
My brother and I were at an AVB at rugged gallery Doubting Thomas, when he nudged me and pointed to a man with a table and a computer, and he said, "Hey, do you see who that is?" And our friendship with Robert Beveridge was ignited.
We discovered that not only was he a killer noise artist, but also a poet and reviewer of poetry and film. I am excited to share his thoughts.
ARH: What are
you working on now? Please describe current projects you’re most excited about.
Are they collaborations or solo work?
RB: “Excited”
seems entirely the wrong word to describe my feelings for the musical project
I'm working on now, an album-length piece (with the working title “Larvatus
Prodeo”, which translates to “I Advance Masked”; it may be a quote from René
Descartes, or it may be William Gaddis quote that Gaddis attributed to
Descartes, no one seems to be sure anymore) that focuses on my perception of
clinical depression. It's solo, but I did borrow a bass from Jason Rodriguez...
I'm also
getting back into the grind of writing, prepping, and submitting poetry to
magazines. I had forgotten how much work that is.
ARH: When and
how did you get into performing? Feel free to discuss any influences and early
experiences.
RB: I started out
in marching band. I think a lot of drummers started out in marching band... I
honestly can't remember what year it was, but it was sixth grade, so it must
have been around 1980-81. The first rock band I was in—I like to say I was in
it for fifteen minutes, but in actuality I was a member on and off for a few
months over two or three recording sessions—was called D.I.N. (it was supposed
to be a secret, I think, but the name stood for “Drug-Induced Noise”, and was a
pretty accurate reflection of our mental and psychological state when we
recorded), and since I gate-crashed a recording session at my friend Steve's
house and he was already the drummer, I switched over to vocals. I've since
tracked down two of the other members on Facebook, and all three of us are
still making music... I do XTerminal, obviously, Steve has been in a string of
bands (the best-known of which was Brownie Mary), and Jeff was the guitarist
for The Floors. Those two guys were both on major labels, I gotta step up my
game...
The switch
over to noise happened in June of '99. (Specifically, June 26th.)
I'd been wanting to get into noise since I first heard it back in the early
nineties, but I was a computer kid with no disposable income to pick up pedals,
so I had to wait until I could find a computer program that did the right kind
of noise/tone generation for the stuff that was in my head. That took eight
years. Then I found Audiomulch, which I'm still using fifteen years
later—though I've added some analog components along the way. The rest of the
world started off making analog noise and are now using laptops... I started
out using a desktop and am going the other way.
ARH: Since
you’ve started performing, have you noticed repeating cycles in terms of style
and energy of experimental music? How would you describe the current zeitgeist?
RB: With the
Cleveland scene, I think things move slower than they do in most places. Hell,
we still have a thriving Industrial scene. So yeah, there's definitely
something cyclical, but I think we're still on the second spin. The first
probably started before I moved to Cleveland in 1994; I know Bacillus was on
the scene back then (he moved to Seattle right around the same time I moved to
Cleveland), and by the time I went to my first noise show in '96 (Quell and an
early Stephen Petrus project were the openers, and I no longer remember who
headlined), Speak in Tongues had become the focal point for a lot of what was
going on. That first cycle lasted until Speak closed at the end of 2000, and
things kind of went dormant for a while until the rise of Bela Dubby and
Doubting Thomas in 2007-2008. Bela Dubby almost had that same gravitational
pull that Speak did, but when it went the way of the great auk last year, there
were a lot of other places that stepped up and took over, so we haven't gone
back into dormancy. Hallelujah.
To me, that
says the scene is stronger than it was back in the nineties, and with a larger
outreach. Back in the nineties noise kids were noise kids, and no one else
really noticed. Noise shows didn't come with sold-out crowds unless you were
Merzbow or KK Null, and the idea of a noise band getting on the bill with other
kinds of music was outrageous, really... eight years later I go see Caustic
Christ and Satanic Threat, and Steve Makita's closing the show. (I don't think
most of the hardcore kids there had ever seen a noise gig... hilarious...) The
same year, Prurient opened for Xiu Xiu at the Grog Shop... WHAT. I think that
expended a lot of minds. Less than a year later it wasn't uncommon to see
grindcore bands playing noise gigs and vice versa. Hell, we had a power-pop
band open for one noise gig at Bela Dubby at one point. I think it's great.
ARH: What
qualities excite you in performances of others? What takes you by surprise and
keeps your interest in experimental music?
RB: It happens on
a case-by-case basis, and I often can't put my finger on it. You get guys like
Jeff Hatfield (Field of Hats) or Tristan Trump (Poverty Hymns) who just sit
there with a guitar and mess with a couple of effects pedals and make this
absolutely mind-blowing music that I can sit there and listen to for hours on
end, and the way I'm describing it it sounds like the most boring thing
imaginable. But it's so, so good, both recorded and live, and for the
life of me I can't tell you why. It's a lot more obvious with bands who have a
theatrical aspect to what they do—the show PascAli played at the Black Cat
Factory last summer is a prime example, these two guys doing absolutely
ridiculous things with upright basses, watching them is interesting because you
never know what prop they're going to pull out next and what it's going to do
to the music. Incredible stuff.
ARH: How does
language factor in your creative process? Does your inspiration often begin
with words or sounds – how do these interact?
RB: Almost
everything I do musically is vocalless (or at least lyricless, I throw in
various nonsense syllables now and then, heavily effected), but there's usually
some sort of core of language at the bottom of it, whether it came from the
title of the piece, a poem I wrote years ago, someone else's song, a news item,
etc. “Larvatus Prodeo”, since I was already talking about it above, is a good
example; I ran across the phrase in Camelia Elias' book Pulverizing
Portraits: Lynn Emanual and the Poetry of Becoming and within two or three
minutes I had the basics of the thing in my head—I've revised it over the past
couple of months, but not much. It still sounds in my head a lot like it did
right after I conceived it. I'm in the process of trying to replicate it in the
real world now.
ARH: Do you feel
performing is a spiritual act and/or ritual? If so, how does that work – how do
you use ritual awareness in your work? If not, how would you describe the
performing process in terms of mental, physical and emotional transformation?
RB: Not at all—I
am not a believer in things beyond us. The second half of that question is
something that has always intrigued me, the idea that more extreme modes of
physical performance can lead to altered states of consciousness (specifically,
the work of Fakir Musafar has fascinated me for decades), but I am both too
much of a control freak and too pain-averse to ever actually go there. If I
allow lizard brain to take over, who knows what would come out of my mouth? I
do know it would probably end up pissing people off even more than I already
do...
ARH: What do you
think the future holds for you as an individual artist and experimental music
generally? What is the relationship between local and global experimental music
now?
RB: The great
thing about XTerminal being a solo act is that it's guaranteed to never break
up... I've gone on hiatus at times in the past, but XTerminal will always be
there in some form or other. Even if I get to the point where I'm no longer
releasing anything, I'll still keep doing it. It's always been my way of making
sense of the stuff in my head.
Regarding the
relationship between local and global music now...it's incredible. There's
always been something of an international link with the Cleveland noise scene;
back in the nineties, we had our share of international acts come through, and
XTerminal was actually getting radio play in Croatia in the early 2000s from
what I've been told. But things are on a whole other level now. It almost seems
like Tatsuya Nakatani has made Cleveland his second home. And with the wealth
of places we have to play now, we've gotten to the point where it's a
semi-regular occurrence to wake up on a Saturday and say, “my god, which show am
I going to be able to make it to tonight?” because there are so many great
choices to be had. I've been known to complain about this, but it certainly
beats “every show I went to between 2002 and 2008 either I booked or it was out
of town”...
ARH: What else has been on your mind lately?
RB: Berberian
Sound Studio. Must-see for noise kids, especially those who utilize field
recordings in their work.
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