To Live and Shave in L.A.

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To Live and Shave in L.A. (TLASILA) is a group founded in 1991 by avant-garde iconoclasts Tom Smith and Rat Bastard in Miami Beach, Florida. The ensemble has been described by the New York Times as being "wildly inaccessible," "specializ(ing) in gargled, tangled constructions that gesture (violently, if mystifyingly) toward something more familiar: rock 'n' roll."[1] TLASILA has featured noise luminaries Ben Wolcott, Weasel Walter, and at least two dozen other underground/anti-musical stalwarts. Their heretical aesthetic (they assert that noise is passé [2], and the notion of genre itself "obsolete" [3] [4]) and formidable energy inspired scores of similar bands, and eventually produced eight known offshoots, two of which included TLASILA members. (An iteration of To Live and Shave in L.A. 2 did not feature Smith, but To Live and Shave in L.A. 3 appeared on at least one occasion with Smith.) Although their music is often categorized as noise, TLASILA have been noted to pursue a different approach: "Orthodox noise compresses information, drowning out detail in a torrential deluge; Shave construct songs around an overwhelming plethora of sonic detail, challenging the listener to engage with a surfeit of information. There is always too much rather than too little to hear at once; an excess which invites repeated listens." [5]

Contents

TLASILA arose from Smith's previous band, Peach of Immortality (POI), which terminated in 1990 after a seven-year run. (Previous to POI, Smith had founded the little-seen, "studiously cruel"[6] Athens, Georgia group Boat Of in late 1979; in 1985 he joined the early, post-Brown University incarnation of Jon Spencer's legendarily confrontational Pussy Galore.[7]) After moving to South Florida in 1991, Smith befriended South Beach post-punk scenester Frank "Rat Bastard" Falestra, and the two quickly set about crafting a new sound based on a mélange of the former's love of musique concrète, dub, '70s glam, free-improvised music, and the works of a variety of transgressive authors and filmmakers. TLASILA are acclaimed for their uncompromising lyricism [8]; Smith's poetic texts "distance" the group "from any potential peers,"[9] "scanning like (they) came from some previously unearthed hermetic treatise."[10] Falestra, a recording studio owner, promoter, musician, and mainstay in the Miami/South Florida experimental music scene since the 1970s, was perhaps best known for winning Spin Magazine's "Worst Band in America" award as a member of the proto-noise trio Scraping Teeth.[11] His performances with TLASILA were noted for matching Smith's sampled source material and method-driven vocalizations with "Brobdingnagian soundscape(s)... of "pulchritudinous sonance." [12]. They were initially associated with Miami's burgeoning noise scene of the early 1990s[13], but neither To Live and Shave in L.A. (nor their contemporaries Harry Pussy) could be so easily labeled.

Ben Wolcott, a filmmaker, electronics enthusiast, and fellow Miami Beach resident, joined To Live and Shave in L.A. in 1993. His contribution to their sound was the oscillator, most often "treated" with various analogue pedals and effects units. According to Woloctt, the trio's inceptive South Florida performances were poorly received: "We were respected for our perseverance but hated by the public... We logged a lot of hours touring, and it's hard to believe we would drive so many hours to blast our pedagogy that would only last for 15 minutes in an empty bar."[14] 1994 saw the release of TLASILA's debut compact disc, 30-minuten männercreme, a seminal work later described by online music portal Dusted as "tipp(ing) the what-the-fuck scale with 40 tracks of stuttering cutups purloined from (G)oodwill-bin LPs... (with) skeins of feedback and clipping and all that pre-No Fun goodness, with Smith all snot and slobber over the whole mess as if being forcibly mummified with his own tape-loop collection." [15] Between 1994 and 1996 the trio produced nine full-length albums and two EP recordings, many of which would not be issued until years later. [16] The trio frequently employed Harry Pussy guitarist Bill Orcutt as an unnamed fourth member; Orcutt appears on six of the group's albums. (In turn, Falestra and Smith recorded and produced several of Harry Pussy's sessions, which were later excerpted for inclusion on various singles and albums.) With Wolcott's departure in 1996 (he joined another Miami group, the "neo-scum" quartet Frosty), TLASILA as a live entity weathered occasional personnel changes. Smith and Falestra recruited a diverse roster of non-traditional performers, including grindcore percussionist Nandor Nevai, keyboardist (and Ugly American zine publisher) Greg Chapman, and former Melted Men multi-instrumentalist Billy Taylor, who assayed TLASILA compositions using an amplified halogen leak detector. Following a pair of European tours with the post-Wolcott quintet, To Live and Shave in L.A. returned to America with their "PRE (R)ocktober 1999" tour, featuring a new lineup that included Nevai, guitarist Weasel Walter, and ecdysiast Misty Martinez, who also contributed backing vocals.

The quintet split following their raucous May 11, 2000 appearance at the Beer and Sausage Festival in Brooklyn, New York.[17] Before the end of the year, Walter, Nevai, Martinez and Falestra had formed To Live and Shave in L.A. 2, ostensibly to more fully pursue TLASILA's underlying free glam aesthetic.[18] An American tour followed; in 2001, TLASILA 2 released their debut album, "Kill Misty: The 300 Dollar Silk Shirt", a limited-edition disc primarily derived from To Live and Shave in L.A.'s October 1999 recording session at Northwestern University radio station WNUR.

Inexplicably, at least seven other TLASILA "clones" quickly appeared, sporting such monikers as I Love L.A., To Live and Shave in L.A. 1975, I Live in L.A., Born in East L.A., To Live and Shave in L.A. 3, and the like. (There was also an "alternate" TLASILA 2, which only served to further blur the distinction between representation and reality.) In addition to (the Walter-led) TLASILA 2's Kill Misty release, Gerard Klauder's TLASILA 2 issued a pair of albums[19], To Live and Shave 1975 produced a self-titled EP (with a color photocopied cover collage assembled from pornographic Bear imagery), and Born in East L.A. released a single (and limited-edition shirt) before changing their name to Biela or Belial. There was no To Live and Shave in L.A. proper to meet the demand, however. Smith called a halt to the project in 2000, angered with Falestra's decision to tour with TLASILA 2 (and their recycling of the 1999 radio broadcast).

Instead, Smith formed the neo-actionist ensemble OHNE with Swiss performance artist (and ex-Fear of God bassist) Dave Phillips; Phillips was also a member of avant-garde collectives Schimpfluch Gruppe and Runzelstirn and Gurgelstock. Expanded to a quartet by addition of German noisecore musician Daniel Lowenbrucke and Swiss laptop specialist Reto Mader in 2002, OHNE embarked on a thirteen nation tour of Eastern Europe, releasing their debut disc OHNE 1 on Austrian imprint Mego. Three additional live albums followed, each drawn from the group's tour. OHNE reconvened in 2004 to co-headline Helsinki's Avanto Festival.[20]

The spin-off craze had run its course when TLASILA's autobiographical two-disc set, The Wigmaker in Eighteenth Century Williamsburg, was released (after a five-year post-production regimen) in 2002. Wigmaker received wide acclaim [21] [22], setting in motion a reconciliation between the group's founders.

Falestra and Smith revived To Live and Shave in L.A. in late 2003. Multi-instrumentalist (and MTV2 personality) Andrew W.K. joined the band, as did guitarist/producer Don Fleming (a friend of Smith's since the mid-1970s), Mark Morgan of New York neo-No Wave trio Sightings, and guitarist/"majordomo" Chris Grier. Ben Wolcott also rejoined the collective. An archival disc (God and Country Rally!) and tour followed in September 2004. Their first full-length album as a reconstituted group, the W.K./Fleming/Smith-produced Noon and Eternity (recorded at Sonic Youth's Echo Canyon facility in New York, and featuring Thurston Moore), was released in October 2006 by Menlo Park Recordings after sixteen months of studio tinkering. Rather like TLASILA's 2004 jungle/breakbeat inflected performance at the No Fun Festival, "Noon" veered sharply from contemporary noise tropes, reminding more than one reviewer of the work of the enigmatic Scott Walker.[23] In the wake of "Noon", it was suggested that with TLASILA "the line between harsh metal-on-metal noise and abstract musique concrète (had been) deliberately blurred."[24]

The group debuted Noon and Eternity's pointedly anti-war compositions at the Moore/Grier-curated Noise Against Fascism festival in Washington, DC. The one-day protest event, scheduled to coincide with President George W. Bush's second inauguration, featured like-minded artists such as Magik Markers, Paul Flaherty & Chris Corsano, Moore and Kim Gordon, and Andrew W.K.'s old Wolf Eyes bandmates Nate Young and Twig Harper, among others. The performance was documented by Sonic Youth cohort Chris Habib and drew wide notice in the U.S. and UK.[25][26][27]

In August/September 2006, To Live and Shave in L.A. embarked on a mini-tour of Canada and the United States in support of their "chronological remix" compilation Horóscopo: Sanatorio de Molière. Of the album, Signal To Noise observed that "it's as though the very armatures and moorings of reality as we know it have been altogether jettisoned, we're all caught in a cosmic clothes dryer - each and every ruptured, jagged tone or snap-bracelet vocal sample is, reliably, a dissolving gateway vortex into some other fucked up pocket dimension that's bound to yield wonders equally inscrutable in very short order."[28] "Horóscopo" was released by the Blossoming Noise label; the subsequent tour was the first to feature Atlanta-based noise musician Graham Moore. TLASILA next toured the United States in conjunction with the release of the album "Les Tricoteuses", which was issued by French imprint Savage Land in April 2007. The group invited guest musicians to perform with them at various stops on the tour; Weasel Walter joined the group for the first time in seven years for a pair of Northern California dates[29] [30] [31]. In early 2007, To Live and Shave in L.A. added Andrew Barranca, a noise performer who records under the pseudonym Gaybomb, to their ranks. The sounds produced by Barranca are achieved by physical manipulation of the Califone Card Reader.

Several new releases are forthcoming or in various stages of post-production, including "The Cortege", TLASILA's studio follow-up to "Noon and Eternity." "Cortege" was recorded in August 2007 at Sonic Youth's Think Tank facility in Hoboken, New Jersey, and features sixteen members of the TLASILA collective, including former TLASILA 2 performers Martinez and Nevai. The day after leaving the studio, To Live and Shave re-recorded "The Cortege" in its entirety during a session for Jersey City, New Jersey's freeform radio station WFMU[32].

While not as prolific as many of their younger noise peers in releasing physical media, To Live and Shave in L.A. maintain a feverish pace within the digital realm, recording and uploading a voluminous amount of remixed, "mashed-up" mp3 files (as discrete EP releases) on their TLASILA Blog and MySpace sites. Examples include July 31, 2007's "Rab Noakes vs. Hair Police" mashup[33], August 11, 2007's "Chico Magnetic Band vs. Document 02: Sine" edit[34] (characterized as a "suicide by absorption")[35], September 8, 2007's "Tony Joe White vs. Les Rallizes Dénudés" mix[36], and October 8, 2007's "Blowfly vs. David Toop (et al.)" recontextualization[37]. Downloads are offered for free.

In a Blastitude interview, Smith said that he created the band to develop the idea of "PRE" in contrast to what he called the wrong idea of "POST" (compare with the genre term "post-rock," coined by music critic Simon Reynolds), which he derides as the fallacy of an "errant supposition that spiffed-up or newly hatched movements supplant others fit for retirement." [38] In other words, Smith sees all genres and movements as being part of the same essential energy and movement, and equally valid—as opposed to a Platonic or historical hierarchy structure—mirroring Friedrich Nietzsche's rejection of the progressive in favor of an Eternal Recurrence of the Same. Smith first wrote of "PRE" in a 1980 issue of short-lived Athens, Georgia fanzine Hot Java.[39]

According to the philosophy of PRE, Smith sees all art, high and low, as equivalent in worth, with the idea of genre as obsolete. He cites Witold Lutosławski, "Jess Franco's zoom," James Joyce, graphic designer Saul Bass, "the unknown promise suggested by (Tom) Verlaine's "Break It Up" solo from (Patti Smith's Horses," "anyone labeled Entarte Kunst," "global student revolt and the inevitable erotic aftermath," and Edgar Allan Poe[40] as influences and aesthetically co-mingling examples. "We have no time for genre and its related calcifications," Smith noted. "We've no interest in taxonomy. Rather, we seek synthesis. We prefer pestilence to stasis." [41] He named his group after a Ron Jeremy porno parody of the film To Live and Die in L.A. as an example of this idea. When The Wire questioned the wisdom of his decision to recontextualize the title of Jeremy's low-budget video, Smith's response was congruent with the tenets of PRE: "the more exalted one's intent, the more insipid the (moniker should be)."[42]


  • 30-minuten männercreme (Love Is Sharing Pharmaceuticals, 1994)
  • Prostitution Heute! EP (Nightcap, 1994)
  • Vedder Vedder Bedwetter (Fifth Column, 1995)
  • Ride a Cock Overhorse EP (Menlo Park Recordings, 1995)
  • New Songs with Drug and Pornographic Themes EP (Audible Hiss, 1995)
  • An Interview with the Mittchell Brothers (Audible Hiss, 1995)
  • Untitled (Split EP with Ceramic Hobbs) (Betley Welcomes Careful Drivers, 1996)
  • "Helen Butte" vs. Masonna Pussy Badsmell (Full Contact, 1996)
  • Tonal Harmony (Betley Welcomes Careful Drivers, 1997)
  • Where a Horse Has Been Standing and Where You Belong (Western Blot, 1998)
  • Peter Criss vs. Peter Christopherson (Collaboration with KF36) (Betley Welcomes Careful Drivers, 2000)
  • Tony Conrad, Fat-Ass (Western Blot, 2001, unreleased)
  • Amour Fou at the Edge of Misogyny (Gods of Tundra, 2001)
  • The Wigmaker in Eighteenth Century Williamsburg (Menlo Park Recordings, 2002)
  • God and Country Rally! (The Smack Shire, 2004)
  • Horóscopo: Sanatorio de Molière (Blossoming Noise, 2006)
  • Noon and Eternity (Menlo Park Recordings, 2006)
  • Les Tricoteuses (Savage Land Records, 2007)
  • Each Day Vomits Its Tomorrow (Teenage Whore, 2008)
  • The Cortege (Blossoming Noise, 2008)
  • Reconquer Sleep Or Disappear (Collaboration with Kevin Drumm) (Savage Land, 2008)
  • The Grief That Shrieked to Multiply (Important Records, 2008)

  1. ^ Sanneh, Kelefa (September 10, 2004), Pop and Jazz Guide: To Live and Shave in L.A., <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/10/arts/music/10POP.html?_r=1&oref=slogin>. Retrieved on 2007-10-23
  2. ^ To Live and Shave in L.A. - Les Tricoteuses - CD Cover, April, 2004, <http://glamorous-piles.blogspot.com/2007/04/to-live-and-shave-in-la-les-tricoteuses.html>. Retrieved on 2007-10-24
  3. ^ Brassier, Ray (March 2007), Genre is Obsolete
  4. ^ Masthead, TLASILA Blog, 2004-10-24, <http://toliveandshaveinla.blogspot.com>. Retrieved on 2007-10-23
  5. ^ Brassier, Ray (March 2007), Genre is Obsolete
  6. ^ Keenan, David (2002), Interview with Tom Smith: Boat Of/Peach Of Immortality/Pussy Falore, <http://www.toliveandshaveinla.com/omwireiv1.htm>. Retrieved on 2007-10-31
  7. ^ Keenan, David (August 2002), "To Live and Shave in L.A.: Wigged Out", The Wire (no. 222): 14
  8. ^ Grant, Adam (August 31, 2006), "Razor Sharp", Hamilton View
  9. ^ Keenan, David (August 2002), "To Live and Shave in L.A.: Wigged Out", The Wire (no. 222): 14
  10. ^ Keenan, David (August 2002), "To Live and Shave in L.A.: Wigged Out", The Wire (no. 222): 14
  11. ^ Cream of the Crap: And the Loser Is... Scraping Teeth, <http://toliveandshaveinla.blogspot.com/2007/07/another-demure-evisceration.html>. Retrieved on 2007-11-09
  12. ^ Christman, William (Fall 1999), "Porn Kills Noise Dead", Your Flesh (no. 42): 14-15 accessdate=2007-11-09
  13. ^ Anthony, Todd. "Bring the Noise", Miami New Times, July 26, 1994, pp. 5. Retrieved on 2007-10-23. 
  14. ^ Sabbath, Chris (April 25, 2007), "Another Close One", SF Bay Guardian, <http://sfbayguardian.com/entry.php?catid=85&entry_id=3469>
  15. ^ MacGregor, Adam. "To Live and Shave in L.A. - Noon and Eternity", Dusted Magazine, January 9, 2007, pp. 1. Retrieved on 2007-10-23. 
  16. ^ Bio 2. Retrieved on 2007-10-23.
  17. ^ Sprague, David (May 17-23, 2000), "Meat Beat Manifestos", Village Voice, <http://www1.villagevoice.com/music/0020,critics,14888,22.html>. Retrieved on 2007-10-23
  18. ^ Walter, Weasel. "Free Glam Manifesto", pp. 1. Retrieved on 2007-10-23. 
  19. ^ "Gerard Klauder Archive". Retrieved on 2007-10-24. 
  20. ^ Avanto:: Helsinki Media Art Festival 2004. Retrieved on 2007-10-24.
  21. ^ Sienko, C.M.; Larry "Fuzz-O" Dolman. "To Live and Shave in L.A. - The Wigmaker in Eighteenth Century Williamsburg", Blastitude, pp. 2. Retrieved on 2007-10-23. 
  22. ^ Burnett, Kelly. "Come and Be My Enemy So I Can Love You Too", Perfect Sound Forever, 2002, pp. 1. Retrieved on 2007-10-23. 
  23. ^ Rondeau, Bernardo. "To Live and Shave in L.A. - Noon and Eternity", Los Angeles Alternative, 2004-10-24, pp. 1. Retrieved on 2007-10-23. 
  24. ^ Sisario, Ben (September 1, 2006), "To Live and Shave in L.A.", New York Times
  25. ^ McCabe, Bret (January 19, 2005), "Critic's Pick: Noise Against Fascism", Washington City Paper, <http://www.citypaper.com/calendar/review.asp?rid=8373>. Retrieved on 2007-11-09
  26. ^ Rashbaum, Alyssa (January 4, 2005), Partiers, Both Red And Blue, Heading To DC, <http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1495299/20050104/3_doors_down.jhtml>. Retrieved on 2007-11-09
  27. ^ Montgomery, David & Vargas, Jose Antonio (January 21, 2005), "The Anti's Antidote For the Bush Blues", Washington Post, <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25362-2005Jan20?language=printer>. Retrieved on 2007-11-09
  28. ^ Cummings, Raymond (Winter 2007), "To Live and Shave in L.A.: Horóscopo: Sanatorio de Molière", Signal To Noise (no. 44)
  29. ^ Smith, Tom. TLASILA > Oakland, CA > 21 Grand > 3 May 07 > Vidcaps. Retrieved on 2007-10-23.
  30. ^ Smith, Tom. "TLASILA > Oakland, CA > 21 Grand > The Victory Lap", 2004-10-24, pp. 1. Retrieved on 2007-10-23. 
  31. ^ Smith, Tom. "TLASILA > San Francisco, CA > The Hemlock > 4 May 07 > Vidcaps", 2004-10-24, pp. 1. Retrieved on 2007-10-23. 
  32. ^ Turner, Brian. "Playlist for Brian Turner - August 28, 2007", WFMU, pp. 1. Retrieved on 2007-10-23. 
  33. ^ TLASILA - Rab Noakes vs. Hair Police. Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
  34. ^ TLASILA - Chico Magnetic Band vs. Document 02: Sine. Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
  35. ^ Another Demure Evisceration.... Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
  36. ^ TLASILA - Tony Joe White vs. Les Rallizes Dénudés. Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
  37. ^ TLASILA - Blowfly vs. David Toop (et al.). Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
  38. ^ Smith, Tom (Winter 2002/2003), "Roll Call of Dub Exemplars", Blastitude (no. 14): 5, <http://www.blastitude.com/14/pg5.htm>
  39. ^ Smith, Tom (Spring 1980), "Nothing Bad About Anything But Bad", Hot Java (no. #1): 11
  40. ^ Smith, Tom (Winter 2002/2003), "Roll Call of Dub Exemplars", Blastitude (no. 14): 5, <http://www.blastitude.com/14/pg5.htm>
  41. ^ Five, Steve (Winter 2007), "To Live and Shave in L.A.: The Phenomenology of Sound", Skyscraper (no. 23): 23
  42. ^ Keenan, David (August 2002), "To Live and Shave in L.A.: Wigged Out", The Wire (no. 222): 14
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