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4.0
Boyd Rice, Standing in Two Circles: The Collected Writings of Boyd Rice (Creation, 2008)
For over thirty years, Boyd Rice has been one of music's most enduring enigmas. Ignored by most, despised by almost all the rest, and entirely uncaring, Rice has been pranking the music industry and its end-users for years, releasing albums of harsh, unlistenable loops that I'm not entirely sure anyone is actually supposed to enjoy. (Adam Parfrey, the head of Feral House books, declaims on Rice's music that the majority will loathe it, but for the sect few it is pure balm for the soul; this is as perfect a description of Rice's music as I've ever heard, and I can't add anything to it.) All the while, he's also been researching the philosophies and events that lie behind the music, and as a result has learned a great deal about a great many things. It would be a natural for someone with that much stored-up knowledge to become an essayist, along with everything else that he is. A number of Rice's essays have seen print, including a large number in Re/Search Publications' excellent books Pranks! and Incredibly Strange Films (Rice was the architect of both books, in fact), but a number of others have only seen print in magazines with minuscule runs, or never got published at all; a number of those essays are collected here, along with an extensive section of Rice's photographic work and an end section of lyrics to some of Rice's albums, both as a solo performer and under the NON moniker.
One of the things about reading work written by a lifelong prankster is that you can never quite be sure when Rice is yanking your chain. Given the number of essays collected her,e it does become a bit easier; there are subtle changes in tone that can tip the astute reader off. (Of course, some of them are more obvious than others, and some are just outright hilarious. That said, it's worth watching out; it's when we're laughing the hardest that the raconteur often slips in his most potent messages.) Rice's interests over the years have been eclectic and wide-ranging; we get an account of Rice's regular meetings with Charles Manson over a short period of time, deconstructions of Nazism and Monism, paeans to various types of alcohol, travelogues of Eastern Europe, an appreciation of Mondo Cane, and much, much more.
Like his music (and recent film work), Boyd Rice's essays are not for everyone. In fact, they're not for many. But in the written word, Rice is more accessible than in any other format, and it's possible that reading some of the thoughts behind the music may endear the music itself to some who wouldn't normally appreciate it. And one of my goals in life has always been the bringing of noise to a wider audience, no matter how much they hate it. (In fact, the more they hate it, the more determined I am.) Another tool to use in the service of that goal, especially one as intelligent as this one, couldn't be more welcome. ****
For over thirty years, Boyd Rice has been one of music's most enduring enigmas. Ignored by most, despised by almost all the rest, and entirely uncaring, Rice has been pranking the music industry and its end-users for years, releasing albums of harsh, unlistenable loops that I'm not entirely sure anyone is actually supposed to enjoy. (Adam Parfrey, the head of Feral House books, declaims on Rice's music that the majority will loathe it, but for the sect few it is pure balm for the soul; this is as perfect a description of Rice's music as I've ever heard, and I can't add anything to it.) All the while, he's also been researching the philosophies and events that lie behind the music, and as a result has learned a great deal about a great many things. It would be a natural for someone with that much stored-up knowledge to become an essayist, along with everything else that he is. A number of Rice's essays have seen print, including a large number in Re/Search Publications' excellent books Pranks! and Incredibly Strange Films (Rice was the architect of both books, in fact), but a number of others have only seen print in magazines with minuscule runs, or never got published at all; a number of those essays are collected here, along with an extensive section of Rice's photographic work and an end section of lyrics to some of Rice's albums, both as a solo performer and under the NON moniker.
One of the things about reading work written by a lifelong prankster is that you can never quite be sure when Rice is yanking your chain. Given the number of essays collected her,e it does become a bit easier; there are subtle changes in tone that can tip the astute reader off. (Of course, some of them are more obvious than others, and some are just outright hilarious. That said, it's worth watching out; it's when we're laughing the hardest that the raconteur often slips in his most potent messages.) Rice's interests over the years have been eclectic and wide-ranging; we get an account of Rice's regular meetings with Charles Manson over a short period of time, deconstructions of Nazism and Monism, paeans to various types of alcohol, travelogues of Eastern Europe, an appreciation of Mondo Cane, and much, much more.
Like his music (and recent film work), Boyd Rice's essays are not for everyone. In fact, they're not for many. But in the written word, Rice is more accessible than in any other format, and it's possible that reading some of the thoughts behind the music may endear the music itself to some who wouldn't normally appreciate it. And one of my goals in life has always been the bringing of noise to a wider audience, no matter how much they hate it. (In fact, the more they hate it, the more determined I am.) Another tool to use in the service of that goal, especially one as intelligent as this one, couldn't be more welcome. ****
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