Burden of Friendship

This is taken from the Death Factory Biography. These recordings are taken from a tape called "Now Blood, Now Water", sound collages culled from sessions at WZRD that Mike Krause kindly shared from his collection.



Ok, here's the story . I used to listen to alot of radio in the early 80's. This was mostly of the commercial Rock variety. Well, one summer night in 1984 I was flipping through the stations on my boom box and went all the way to the left of the fm dial . I heard weird cacophony, noise , tribal sounds , Punk Rock, Hardcore , odd Jazz, and all the other types of music and programming you didn't hear anywhere else.






I thought "what the hell is going on here", and "these can't be legitimate radio stations"! It had to be a pirate station I thought or whatever, (I was only 13 then). It was college radio- WZRD and WNUR! I could not believe these were real radio stations! But I listened to those type of stations all through out the 80's and occasionally still do. It literally opened a whole other world to me. I discovered alternative news, political views,artists, became more aware of 'real' culture in general( not crass commercialism and not the same old mainstream clap-trap shit) .






Burden of Friendship, Summer of '84 Part I


Anyway, of all the new forms of music I discovered ,experimental music, noise, and the sound collages of the local Chicago group -Burden of Friendship, was the most fascinating thing I had ever heard up to that point. Various members of that band had radio slots on WZRD. Mainly on Saturdays, roughly from about 1pm until late in the evening /early morning they ruled from about '84-'87. On certain days instead of playing their ecclectic style of music(s) They would turn the studio into one giant noise collage freakout. Those shows were the infamous "Voidwatches ".



Burden of Friendship, Summer of '84 Part II





I think they were started by one of the members -Scott Marshall. Instruments and mics were set up throughtout the whole place. Guitars, tapes, synths, various metals,( like pipes, sheets, ect..) , spoken word readings( effected or not with devices) and who knows what else was utilized for these 'Noise fests. ' I used to have these taped (unedited)from off the air, but i lost them! Damn!! It was all mixed through the main board and out through the airwaves. The guy operating the main board had the option of cutting into or out off whatever section of the studio he wanted to bring up it the mix. I think that's the way it worked .


Find a more thorough description of the band by Scott Marshall and other members, as well as Mp3s at Staklo Foundation.