For over 30 years, WREK’s Destroy All Music has been a beacon of light for emerging noise artists and fans of experimental and improvisational music. In 1992, Tony Gordon joined founder Ellen McGrail as a co-host of the show, and has long since been recognized as one of the godfathers and major drivers of the local improv and harsh noise scenes. I wanted to interview him for, one, bringing me in at a young age of 15 or 16 and telling me to go for it, if I had a CD or cassette tape to send it to him and he would give it an honest listen. I kept thinking the whole time he would take my shit and throw it out the window, but he kept true to his word and gave my music a chance. More importantly, however, I wanted to gain and share his perspective on the history and changes that have occurred during his long tenure in the independent music community. Gordon remains humble in the day and age when artists are cashing in from playing harsh noise and audiences are glorifying button pushers of questionable talent due to our culture’s current fascination with tech. His perspective, built from a lifetime of seeking and learning, remains a respectable cornerstone that many still turn to for proper direction and information.
Laremy Wade: What can you say was one of the major things that interested you to move towards this genre of music?
Tony Gordon: I’ve always been into sound; I was never into one specific type of music. I grew up around a very creative family and there were always different types of music playing. I found love for machines like the sounds of refrigerators and things of that nature. When I was a kid I was always amazed at those. I remember one in particular when I lived in this big house. We had these big radiators that would start to heat up; the sounds of the radiators were really cool to me. That started it off for me. Growing up listening to different types of music… I’ve always been open to different things because I’m always in search for them. My parents made me focus on being open-minded and trying different things.
LW: What band was your first introduction into noise music? Was the entry point coming from jazz? Was it organic or electronic?
TG: Well, I would have to say if I had to pick an artist that changed my perspective on music, I’d have to say Hendrix. My dad was a really big jazz listener, so I grew up listening to Coltrane, Myles, and Ornette Coleman, all those guys. But my oldest brother was into funk and rock and roll, and he used to play Hendrix all the time, and I shared a room with him. So in the mornings I’d go to school with my dad and listen to jazz, and in the afternoon I’m with my brother listening to Hendrix. That’s what turned me to rock and roll, and I think that’s where it starts because they made pedals for that guy Hendrix.
LW: Was that the Big Muff?
TG: Yes.
LW: Yep, that was what introduced me to it. In fact, I used the first Big Muff on stage at a How to Kick Yourself show.
TG: Yeah, that’s a unique sound and very few people can use it. Hendrix… and I’ve always had a love for free jazz. My very first radio experience was probably 1971-72ish. [A] very good friend of mine had a girlfriend that was a DJ for a radio station in Washington, DC called WGTB, and it was in a library at Georgetown. We used to go out there and hang out and, like, run through the library, looking at all the records. That was my first run in with FMP. So that was part of my growing up in music. I got so much at such an early age that it opened me up to venture into different avenues and just hear what was happening out there.
LW: I think very few people know this, but what is your affiliation with Bad Brains? I know you met those guys at an early age and I think you guys had some type of kinship formed pretty early on. So tell me a little about that.
TG: Well, I met Bad Brains through them being at the same high school as my girlfriend at the time. I went to a crosstown high school but my girlfriend went to theirs. I knew of them through the jazz-fusion-funk scene in Washington. I never knew of their band; I can’t even recall what name they were. They weren’t huge or anything, but they played the circuit.
Fast forward several years and the punk scene just blew up in the nation’s capital. We were actually going to a party at a gallery called Hard Art. We were told it would be live music, and I hadn’t heard of the Bad Brains. I walked into the place and there is a bunch of equipment set up with a bunch of people there. These brothers walked on stage and within a minute the cops knocked on the door and stopped the party. But that was my first run in with them as the Bad Brains, and they recognized me, I recognized them. That’s when I started following them, going to their shows and parties. To me they were the ultimate punk band, they had the attitude and the talent. They weren’t just bangers; they knew their instruments and they played them well.
LW: Did you ever run into Louis Rivera (former Cro-Mags/Antidote)?
TG: Noooo, I haven’t seen Louis in a minute.
LW: Oh, well, he used to always set up the mics and everything else for them.
TG: Yes, that scene was very small then, so it wasn’t like you could get lost in the crowd. You pretty much knew everyone who would show up at the time. In a sense it was groundbreaking because they were all black but the punk scene was pretty much all white. A couple bands here and there, but an all black band was pretty rare.
LW: With that being said, what was your experience with that aspect of it since you are black and into this genre of music where it’s a white working class type of thing? And furthermore, looking into noise music, was it a situation where other people saw is more as a novelty that you were a part of it, or, you know, was it mostly accepted?
TG: Well, like I said, the scene was so small. I personally never got any attitude about that either way. I didn’t notice as the scene grew on that there were cliques. There were some people from this part of town who didn’t get along with this part of town, but besides that there was no line down the middle. The attitude was: this is what we are and this is what we do. Everybody is welcome if you want to do it with us, and if you don’t, fuck you.
So out of that attitude the scene in Washington blossomed. The Bad Brains had a lot to do with it because no one was doing it at the time like that. I’ve been to many punk shows, seen many bands, but never have I seen a band that was comparable to them; they did it on a different level. It was cool to see a black band do it on that level, but it’s never about being a black band — it’s about the music. Once they grew and blossomed into the Rastafarian lifestyle, it got political — racially and musically — but other than that it was just a scene.
LW: So as far as noise music, how did you move into that scene?
TG: It was kind of a trickle-down thing. I was listening to free jazz, then I started buying it, and by me buying it exposed me to other genres that were related to that. I used to work at a record store in Washington in the late ’70s and we were getting these records from Japan, Germany, and different artists we never heard of. We would listen to them, and it was mind-blowing. We weren’t hearing that here yet. I listened to all the classic rock guys growing up, and it extended my mind and put me in a different position to where I could hear different music. Merzbow is probably one of the very first cassettes I ever purchased, and I have it now, and that was in ’79-80. And I used to always read the music mags, and that was our exposure to new music. That’s how I found the label RRR. When Ron [Lessard] first started his label, I was buying records from him, he had them all. I was buying things from the artist artwork. It was all different, and it got me going.
LW: So do you think now with technology, mp3s, and the digital distribution of music, with internet stations like Spotify, and all that stuff, do you think that takes away from the whole imposition of finding that kind of diamond in the rough where you had to guess if you might like something just by the artwork?
TG: Well, I like to think the technology boom has been nothing but a plus in the industry, and that’s just the music industry as a whole. But it’s been nothing but a plus for the noise scene because it gives them that many more ears. If it wasn’t for the internet, bands from like Japan, it would be hard to hear their stuff. So to me I think that’s a plus. But where it gets to be a negative is when it’s manipulated for the wrong reasons. You’ve got all these sites you can go to and get the music for free and the artist doesn’t get paid.
LW: That’s what I’m trying to say! These days technology has stripped away the value of anything, and what people are willing to pay for. It’s hard to get people to pay for music now, they want everything for free. They don’t realize how much sacrifice and craftsmanship goes into music, and if you’re paying for a handcrafted armoire, you can’t ask for that for free, but you want to turn around and ask this guy for his music for free and it took him all year to make his.
TG: Art in itself has always been the freedom of self-expression. To put a value on something that’s being created by someone or a group of people — that is just part of the whole being of an artist. Okay, so if you want to sell your work, it’s up to you to sell it to them. I don’t sell my music and I haven’t sold music in 20 years, so I can’t give a concrete answer out of that, but I understand the aspects of it.
Music from one of Gordon’s many bands, Zandosis.
LW: But if you are going to sell it, are you going to sell it for $3?
TG: Yeah, probably.
LW: I wouldn’t. [laughs]
TG: And that’s fine. You have people that are noise artists who don’t give anything away free. Their downloads aren’t free and there isn’t anything wrong with that. If you find someone that is willing to pay for what you ask, that is beautiful, homie. The argument is that more and more established artists feel they’re being ripped off because you can download their music for free. But if you have a hard copy and sell it to somebody, that’s it. That’s a thin line there. You have an artist now putting something out, and then they have the right to say you can’t put it on a web page for free, you can’t do it. But you can’t stop them. There’s a guy who calls the radio station a lot and always ask me where I get my stuff from and I say it’s my own, I bought it. I buy it. I don’t have a huge collection but the one I have is good so I didn’t have a problem spending money for it.
LW: But why, though? That’s what I’m saying. Why do people have a problem now?
TG: The internet is amazing because you get so many things for free except product. You can get news, information, anything. You just type it in and it’s there, so we are starting to think like that.
LW: So tangibility versus intangibility here. Do you want to be able to hold it, see it, and smell it? Or are you just good getting the sound?
TG: I want to be able to hold it. I went to graphic design school, so I’m an artist. Words and images are my thing so I pay whatever it’s going to cost to get a record. To me that is worth it. On the other hand, there are internet only releases, so you don’t get to hold that copy. I’m a very picky person; it takes a lot for me to throw my money down somewhere, but if someone says, “Hey man, I want you to listen to some of my stuff for free, go check it out,” I’ll check it out. And if he allows me to download it, I’m going to download it and completely understand. But I think to support the art and the music itself you have to have that monetary transaction. You can’t go to the grocery store and say you sold 500 units on the internet the other day, can I have this loaf of bread? It doesn’t work like that exactly. It’s a sketchy little thing, and a thin line with a lot of controversy, and until the Department of Justice gets their hand out of it, you’re going to have that kind of conflict, and it will get worse before it gets better, I think.
LW: So what year did you start working at WREK and how did this happen?
Tony: Okay, umm… Me and Ellen aren’t clear on this, but I believe it was ’92. Ellen was there in ’84. That’s when she started with a good friend of hers named Glen Thrasher. They got the opportunity to do a radio show because the general manager I believe knew Glen and his record collection and said, “Hey man, you want a radio spot?” He had a hell of collection, so of course he said, “I’ll do it.”
I got to Atlanta in the winter of ’84, and the very first day at work the guy told me to find something on the radio. So listening to radio all my life I knew the lower end, left of the dial was where all the aggressive stuff was going to be, so I just turned the dial until I heard this really weird guitar lick, and I was like, “Wow! Who is this?” and then Ellen’s voice said, “We play something for everybody.” That was the radio station’s promo, and I was like “Oh shit!”
The following year I started a band called DaDa Id, and we had started hanging around, going to Five Points, and I got to know several new and different artists and musicians in the area. Push came to shove and Destroy All Music started putting on festivals. I went to the second or third [one], and at the festival I was introduced to several people. They were mutual friends of Ellen and Glen’s, and we got to be friends. When Glen decided to leave and go to New York, Thomas Peake asked Ellen to continue to show. Ellen said she wasn’t going to do it at first because she didn’t think she could do it alone. At the time we worked at the same place, and we were talking about it, and I said if you want to do it, I got some records. So that’s how it started, and it’s been that way since ’92. I started out just helping with the set list, and it ended up being me doing the set list all the time.
LW: So what were some of the first places that were hosting noise events in Atlanta, and how did that start?
TG: That, my friend, you would have to ask Ellen about because in the first several years of the show I didn’t get to know the core people that were involved besides Glen, and Ellen, and Rob. Those people ended up moving forward and ended up being part of Silver Ceiling.
LW: Yeah, Silver Ceiling was pre-Eyedrum.
TG: Yes, and before that it was basically just that core group of people. The five involved in it actually put on the festivals and invited the guests from out of town. When I got there I had to pretty much take over everything because once Glen left all the connections he had kind of dissolved. We took it over from then and we’ve been running it ever since.
LW: What was the first harsh noise event you helped organize here?
TG: The very first one was the 20th anniversary, which was held at the old Eyedrum. I think that was the first one, and then we did a 25th, so we’ve only done two since I’ve been there. The first one was with Verbatim August and the Haters. That was the early Eyedrum days.
LW: Okay, so didn’t Marshall Avett have something to do with that?
TG: Yes, he and Ben owned it, and I believe someone else, but basically Ben and Marshall. I think the very first show there was this girl Japanese drummer and she’s bad! They were aware of Destroy All Music; they contacted us and wanted us to be a part of their group and bring artists from out of town. We had a really good relationship with them. Then Marshall left and moved to New York after getting married, and once the Silver Ceiling expanded, people moved towards Eyedrum and we became associates of [them].
Laremy Wade and Tony Gordon
LW: What do you think about the new Eyedrum location?
TG: I really like it, and usually I don’t like change. I was really against it because the old location was perfect for it. But this one has its own character. It has a roof where you can go up there and perform, and they show films up there — it has its own personality. But the downside is it’s not as comfortable as the old Eyedrum, but you will have that when you go somewhere new. But eventually they will have it to where it’s one of the most outstanding places to go.
LW: Yeah, I’m pretty cool with Andy Imm and a couple guys there. I was kicking it with the Eyedrum during open improv days with Woody Cornwell and some of those guys, too. I actually got some recordings that I want to cut and commit to vinyl, but what do you think was one of the better noise events that’s come through most recently? I was also going to ask you about Borbetomagus and your relationship with them.
TG: Umm, I can’t put my finger on it, but I missed the last show that was at the Cleaners. I heard that was pretty fantastic, but we couldn’t get our stuff together enough to make it. They actually called and asked us to play a solo performance but it was too late. That was pretty bad actually because from the list I saw it would have been perfect for us to play, but I didn’t get the message until Tuesday. The show was on Thursday and we couldn’t work it out. That’s supposed to be a pretty cool spot on that side of town.
LW: I haven’t checked it out yet but I’m going to do that. Sometimes I’m on that side of town.
TG: There’s been some spots opening up catering to the noise scene, and it’s basically by committee. Someone has something they want to throw and they will pick someone’s house.
LW: So back to Borebetomagus and The Rape of Atlanta, which was recorded at the Destroy All Music Festival in 2004. How do you feel about the band as a whole from its beginning to its dispersing point in the late ’90s?
TG: Well, they were a good jazz band. They were in the forerunners of what’s being called noise-jazz today, and you have to see a performance or hear one to appreciate it. I’ve got all their records and I’m still blown away; they’ve got heart-pounding stuff. Yes, the reason they released that Destroy All Music festival show was because Jeff [Rackley], the sound engineer, did a fantastic job recording.
LW: Oh, he is a good guy. I almost forgot about that guy.
Tony: He is really good. The guitarist living in New Orleans contacted me thanking me for recording the event, and I told him who it was and apparently they were blown away by the board report that there was no mix. A good recording and it was phenomenal.
LW: So how many live recordings do you have of those noise groups?
Tony: Me personally, I probably don’t own any live recordings. I own a board recording of the Jesus Lizard show at the Variety Playhouse. That’s a cool one to have, though. I don’t have anything else. I’ve got hard copies of live performances. I recorded my first solo record at Eyedrum, too, a live performance. So I do own that.
LW: A lot of stuff that’s been archived needs to come out. People need to hear it, especially the ones in the experimental era of their music career right now who want a real holistic idea of what it was and what it is now.
TG: Yeah, it’s come a long way. And what I’m amazed at is the new generation of kids listening to it. Their parents were a part of the scene, and now they’re listeners. We get calls at the radio station all the time asking about certain things and people telling me who they are and when they first heard stuff. So it’s amazing to me that music has stood the test of time. I’m afraid we are at a period right now where it is kind of stagnant because there isn’t a lot of physical stuff going on, but I believe with labels like Blossoming Noise and stuff like that around town, it’s always going to be there.
LW: So what’s with the RRR catalogue?
TG: Old school.
LW: Exactly, this was very deep for me. I was blown away because you were lucky if they even had a couple words and descriptions from it.
TG: A lot of Ron’s stuff isn’t being re-issued; I’m more impressed with his sub label called Recycled Music. It was a cassette only sub label, but now he puts out LPs and seven inches, but he has total control over that. His catalogue has grown with leaps and bounds because of exposure. Exposure is 99 percent of who you are and Ron was all over the world. I remember the old days when we got catalogues, it would be one sheet of paper folded together. Then it grew to 8-10 pages, but now it’s all online. He still has some of the better prices and selection of catalogues. I’ve been buying from him for ages. I just placed an order the other day. I mess with all those cats from the old school.
LW: What’s GX Jupitter Larsen doing, man?
TG: He’s living in California and has several websites that are amazing. He is still taking photographs of abandoned lots on the corner. Several years ago, Blossoming Noise thanked him for his Zelpabet series. The noise scene is pretty amazing right now. It’s so easy to release something new.
Someone buys a bunch of pedals and pushes a button and considers them a noise artist. And in a sense they are. But you go off and try and find some of these guys now and they aren’t there.
LW: With all the basics right now, who do you feel are some of the artists that have set themselves apart from the rest of the mass?
TG: That’s hard to say because I have some new favorites that I’ve been listening to, but they aren’t necessarily new, but… umm, wow… let’s see, I think this band called Naked Girls is really good. A bunch of Canadian artists that aren’t noise artists but they are making waves. You caught me off balance with that one… I’ve been playing the latest new artists, but nothing really jumps out at me. I hate to say this, but it’s kind of like rehashing the whole thing a friend of mine said to me once: he will be glad when the noise scene dies down so the true artists can continue to do their work. And I think there is a lot of truth to that because when it was peaking in this city, at least there were noise artists everywhere. Everybody wanted to be one. Someone buys a bunch of pedals and pushes a button and considers them a noise artist. And in a sense they are. But you go off and try and find some of these guys now and they aren’t there. So the new music scene in this town is pretty strong if you’re into the pedal pushers, then it’s strong. But the instrumentation, a.k.a. “bands,” have taken a hit. I’ve been trying to start a band for a long time.
LW: What do you think of the concept of people getting laid off the noise scene?
TG: I’ve heard some stories, and I was always amazed at the connection between the pornography industry and noise music. It always amazed me to look at a cover and see bondage photographs on it. It could be erotic when we did that 50 CD set over the air. I’d stuff my speakers under my headboard so I could go to sleep to it; me and my girl didn’t rock out that night, but it’s pretty amazing, I love the music. It’s out there; the foreigners are into it pretty hard.
LW: Even now kids in local areas are looking at newbie people as icons, as if it hasn’t existed before. How do you feel about that? Certain individuals are being touted as if they are the pioneers of such a thing, and there is such a mass appeal going on where it creates a narrower concept of what’s out there.
TG: It just happens like that. I don’t have any feelings about it because I’m so closed-minded when it comes to shows and the scene. Basically I’m there and I’m not there. You don’t see me, but I’m there. That’s how I take that whole thing. It doesn’t matter if someone is really good at what they do, as long as I like them and that’s what is cool to me. I could listen to a 29-year-old dude bang on a can if it’s interesting, but when someone spends 7 grand on equipment and doesn’t know what to do with it then it’s going to show, and I’m not going to be interested. It is what it is.
I get tons of crap all the time at the radio station. People email me all the time asking why I haven’t played their stuff. Because it kind of sucks. It’s hard to tell someone their stuff sucks. You know when they’re that high on it; even established artists have bad records. This country is full of followers. Someone promotes something and we follow it. We are all followers and there are very few leaders. And the ones that are leaders will get their just dessert, it just happens that way. 32 years, man. Yeah, there is another radio station that’s Canadian that is also 32 years and 8 months, and we are 32 years and 10 months.
LW: I always wanted to know: at WREK how does the audio play selection work? I remember one time being in the station and seeing it on the computer.
TG: I’m not the one to ask that, but I can give you a generalization of it. There are programs for it, and the programs dictate what songs get played during a certain period; whether it’s during overnight or classical, it knows the genres. So it chooses accordingly, and how that happens is the job responsibility of the music directors to pick out the stuff that fits the formats. But then we pick out our choice tracks from that week so automation knows which ones to play. When we program the music, and we pick that selection, and, let’s say it’s a dozen, the computer has it programmed to where it should or shouldn’t play it based off of how many times its been played.
LW: People listen to the station and don’t even know that there is an extremely complicated machine back there doing this stuff.
TW: Yes, the engineers down at G Tech have to have their shit together. Most of them know what they’re doing, and it is a school, so they are learning, but I’ve seen several engineers down there and they usually know their shit. I’ve seen the station grow from cart machines to being digitized and sub channels and everything. It’s amazing to be there when that happens. We couldn’t do our thing without them.
LW: So there was a cart machine running it before?
TG: Yes.
LW: That’s what I remember seeing.
TG: They’re like 8-track tapes and I don’t know if they all have several different genres on each cart, and I don’t know how they were being recorded. It’s been there a minute, man; Ray Charles recorded there back in the day. All that technology down there has really gone from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. It’s been a hell of a trip.
LW: Okay, so you still have the same time for Destroy All Music, correct?
TG: No. We are now 9-10 p.m. and friction comes on after us, then after that it’s Psych-Out! with Curtis. I like friction a lot, too. Yes, Steve is a walking library of music. That dude, he knows his stuff.
More Info
Web: destroyallmusic.org