Content area
Full Text
FROM EL SALVADOR TO PANTYCHRIST: Bob Ostertag's Creative life: music, politics, people and machines University of Illinois Press, 2009
Bob Ostertag's name is probably unfamiliar to most people. But if you know it, it could be from a number of contexts: as an improvising musician; a composer; or a journalist and activist. 1 first came across Ostertag's work in the early 1980s, when he was involved in the avant-garde improvised music scene active mainly in New York and Europe. Ostertag collaborated with guitarist/composer Fred Frith and percussionist Charles K. Noyes on the wonderfully strange and inexplicable Getting A Head (1980) and with Frith and singer Phil Minton on Voice of America (1982). During the late 70s and early 80s Ostertag also performed with Anthony Braxton. Eugene Chadbourne and John Zom as part of larger improvising ensembles. Ostertag stood out in this world because he performed using experimental electronic instruments and recording devices, while most of his colleagues played traditional instruments in unusual ways. He also stood out in introducing direct reference to contemporary politics through the use of found sounds on tape.
I lost track of Ostertag after Voice of America. only to be surprised by his appearance on stage with a sampler at the 1989 Victoriaville Music Festival, as part of Fred Frith 's Keep the Dog group. 1 was surprised again when he presented his multi-media Balkan Suite at Montreal's Festival international: Nouveau Cinema/ Nouveau Medias in the fall...