The Evolution Control Committee (The ECC) is an experimental music band based in Columbus, Ohio. The ECC was founded by Mark Gunderson (a.k.a. TradeMark G.) in Columbus, in 1986. They create music that falls within the borders of the

sound collage In music, montage (literally "putting together") or sound collage ("gluing together") is a technique where newly branded sound objects or compositions, including songs, are created from collage, also known as montage. This is often done throu ...

genre, as it typically uses uncleared and illegal samples from various sources as a form of protest against

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

law. The ECC also produces numerous audio

experiment An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into Causality, cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome oc ...

s, such as the disfiguring of

compact discs The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in October ...

in live performance, known as "CDestruction", and has produced a few

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syst ...

works as well, ranging from re-edited 50's

corporate A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...

shorts to Teddy Ruxpin reciting the works of

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

. Other activities include

culture jamming Culture jamming (sometimes also guerrilla communication) is a form of protest used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert media culture and its mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. It att ...

. They are one of the pioneers of the mash-up or bootleg, where two or more songs are mixed together into a new track. According to

Neil Strauss Neil Darrow Strauss, also known by the pen names Style and Chris Powles, is an American author, journalist and ghostwriter. He is best known for his book '' The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists'', in which he describes his ...

in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', "...many musical observers trace the official beginnings of the British bootleg scene to The Evolution Control Committee, which in 1993 mixed a Public Enemy a cappella with music by Herb Alpert." These are the now-classic "Public Enemy/Whipped Cream Mixes" containing

Public Enemy "Public enemy" is a term which was first widely used in the United States in the 1930s to describe individuals whose activities were seen as criminal and extremely damaging to society, though the phrase had been used for centuries to describe ...

's inflammatory raps, "By the Time I Get To Arizona" and "Rebel Without a Pause", overdubbed onto instrumentals by

Herb Alpert Herb Alpert (born March 31, 1935) is an American trumpeter who led the band Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass in the 1960s. During the same decade, he co-founded A&M Records with Jerry Moss. Alpert has recorded 28 albums that have landed on the ...

and the

Tijuana Brass Tijuana ( ,"Tijuana"
(US) and < ...

. The ECC wrote "Rocked by Rape," consisting of samples of

Dan Rather Daniel Irvin Rather Jr. (; born October 31, 1931) is an American journalist, commentator, and former national evening news anchor. Rather began his career in Texas, becoming a national name after his reporting saved thousands of lives during Hur ...

deadpan Deadpan, dry humour, or dry-wit humour is the deliberate display of emotional neutrality or no emotion, commonly as a form of comedic delivery to contrast with the ridiculousness or absurdity of the subject matter. The delivery is meant to be blun ...

delivery describing various atrocities over looped

riffs A riff is a repeated chord progression or refrain in music (also known as an ostinato figure in classical music); it is a pattern, or melody, often played by the rhythm section instruments or solo instrument, that forms the basis or accomp ...

from AC/DC's "

Back in Black ''Back in Black'' is the seventh studio album by Australian rock band AC/DC. It was released on 25 July 1980 by Albert Productions and Atlantic Records. It is the band's first album to feature lead singer Brian Johnson, following the death ...

." This work brought legal threats against The ECC by

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

, but by 2003, CBS appeared to have dropped the issue. "Rocked by Rape" was nationally broadcast on NPR's ''

All Things Considered ''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...

'' in 2000.Adams, Noah (2000). Song on the Internet uses excerpts of Dan Rather on "CBS Evening News" to create a controversial musical parody "Rocked by Rape". All Things Considered. National Public Radio. September 8. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-32663277.html It was even played at a

roast Roasting is a cooking method that uses dry heat where hot air covers the food, cooking it evenly on all sides with temperatures of at least from an open flame, oven, or other heat source. Roasting can enhance the flavor through caramelizatio ...

for Rather, which was later broadcast on C-SPAN. Since 2000, Gunderson has performed his works on stage through an electronic instrument of his own invention: "The Thimbletron." It is made of a pair of gloves with ten thimbles attached at the ends of the fingers, which are then wired to a laptop computer. As the thimbles are touched together, the laptop in turn plays a different sound sample. Gunderson claims that the device uses "thimbletronium energy" and warns that "thimbletronic radiation can leak unexpectedly due to a mishap during a live performance. The audience is advised to attend Thimbletron performances at their own risk." Gunderson has also modified a bread toaster in a similar fashion, with each depression of a lever playing a sample. The Thimbletron has been largely retired in public performances in favor of the Wheel of Mashup, in which audience members come up on stage and spin a wheel to randomly select the music and vocals to be combined. These are then mashed together in real time using the VidiMasher 3000, a large rear-projected touch screen used to control

Ableton Live Ableton Live is a digital audio workstation for macOS and Windows developed by the German company Ableton. In contrast to many other software sequencers, Ableton Live is designed to be an instrument for live performances as well as a tool ...

VidiMasher 3000 (Video Mashup Screen) Demo

Discography

*''Jesu Boy of Man's Desiring'' (Self Release) *:Audio cassette featuring early cut-ups. *''Buddha Bleach'' (Self Release on Def Clam Tapes, Dec. 1990) *:Audio cassette featuring early cut-ups. *''The Last Mall'' (Self Release) *:Audio cassette featuring loops and crank phone calls. Packaged in a "Lazarusears" shopping bag. *''Big Wyoming'' (Self Release) *:Audio cassette featuring travelogue of a Gunderson family ski vacation accompanied by

Casio is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. I ...

. Packaged in postcards. *''Gunderphonic'' (Self Release, 199
ECC -=- The Virtual Gunderphone
*:Audio cassette inspired by John Oswald's

Plunderphonics Plunderphonics is a music genre in which tracks are constructed by sampling recognizable musical works. The term was coined by composer John Oswald in 1985 in his essay "Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative", and even ...

. Features cut-ups, including the well known Whipped Cream mixes and two "corrected" Gulf War speeches by George H. W. Bush. The audio cassette is packaged inside of an old 8-track cassette. *''Double the Phat and Still Tasteless'' (Released on Eerie Materials) *:CD featuring cut-ups and electronica, as well as absurdist humor skits and guest performances. A 5.25 inch floppy disc is slit along one side and the CD is slipped inside. *'' Plagiarhythm Nation'' (Released on

Seeland Records Seeland Records is an independent record label created by Negativland in 1979 to release their own recordings. It is a reference to the song "Seeland" by the band Neu!, who also gave Negativland the basis for their name, Sea-Land Corporation, ...

) *:CD featuring cut-ups and electronica. *''The Whipped Cream Mixes'' (Released on Eerie Materials/

Pickled Egg Pickled eggs are typically hard boiled eggs that are cured in vinegar or brine. As with many foods, this was originally a way to preserve the food so that it could be eaten months later. Pickled eggs have since become a favorite among many ...

) *:

Vinyl Vinyl may refer to: Chemistry * Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer * Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation * Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry * Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl ...

45. Side A - Rebel Without A Pause. Side B - By The Time I Get to Arizona. *''Unreleased Ambient Works'' (Self Released) *:CD featuring dark atmospheric/

illbient Illbient is a genre of electronic music and an art movement that originated among hip hop-influenced artists from Williamsburg, New York City around 1994. DJ Olive, and DJ Spooky, pioneers of the genre, have both claimed to have coined the ter ...

works. *''Rocked by Rape'' (Released on Eerie Materials) *:Vinyl 45. *''The Television Will Not Be Revolutionized'' (Self Released) *: VHS video cassette. *''Compact Discstructions'' (Self Released) *:A manual packaged with a random CD. The manual describes various ways to make a CD play incorrectly, and is intended ultimately to destroy the CD. *''Subliminal'' (self-released) *:Cassette featuring many layered subliminal self-help recordings. The website claims that side one "will increase your creativity, improve your employment, develop your ESP, help you stop smoking, and so on." While side two, being a reverse recording of the same, "will help you gain weight, get demoted, become stupid, etc.
link
*''Weapons of Ass Destruction'' (self-released) *:Full length album released online, available for download from th

*''All Rights Reserved'' (self-released) *:Full-length album released onlin
Discography: ECC Media of the Past, Present, and Future
also available in LP and CD format.

Related artists

Mark Gunderson also records as DJ Pantshead and performs with Cheese & Pants Theater, a comedy/performance art duo consisting of a giant pair of pants and a giant Parmesan cheese shaker who pantomime to bizarrely edited vintage audio, and as DJ John Philip Suicide with Dub Assault. Past projects have included the experimental performance troupe Gaga, several ECC performances at the Columbus Avant Garage film festival, and a release with the Weird Love Makers. A present project is his webcast 'The Sound of Plaid', as Trademark G., at the Amsterdam-based international radio-art webstation DFM RTV INT, which airs two times each week. Other related artists include The Bran Flakes,

Emergency Broadcast Network Emergency Broadcast Network is a multimedia performance group formed in 1991 that took its name from the Emergency Broadcast System. The founders were Rhode Island School of Design graduates Joshua Pearson, Gardner Post, and Brian Kane (author ...

, Escape Mechanism,

Negativland Negativland is an American experimental music band which originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. They took their name from a Neu! track, while their record label (Seeland Records) is named after another Neu! track. The co ...

, John Oswald, People Like Us and The Tape-beatles. Greg Gillis, in interview outtakes for the movie ''RIP: A Remix Manifesto'', admits that Evolution Control Committee was a major influence and inspiration to create the mashups for his artistic persona Girl Talk. Gillis even explains that the best description of Girl Talk's music is "

References

External links

Evolution Controlled Creations website
* *
La licence artistique

The Some Assembly Required Interview with The Evolution Control Committee. {{DEFAULTSORT:Evolution Control Committee American experimental musical groups Culture jamming Musical groups from Columbus, Ohio American mashup groups