Jul 20, 2020
Rich & Johnny track down Paul Feinberg
and decode his strange & mythical avant private press weird
Detroit, Michigan classic single "Vacations" from 1980. Hear the
incredible artifact at: https://paulfeinberg.bandcamp.com/releases
Vacations - Notes on the
Instruments = from Paul
“Nails” A large iron storage tank
was found above ground on a weedy empty lot near the Detroit River,
east of downtown . It had a porthole large enough to stick my head
in, in order to listen. Also a microphone. My arms are outstretched
on either side . I was playing the storage tank.
“ Tokyo Pluto” I wanted an
instrument that played voice echoes for notes. Of course there was
no such thing and samplers were in their infancy. I drove over to
Belle Isle Park in the Detroit River. It was winter, just after one
in the morning, snow on the ground. I set up a microphone in the
corner of one of the three wall handball courts and started
shouting. After I transferred the cassette recording to the open
reel machine, I started snipping off the echoes from the shouts.
The notes you hear in the beginning of the piece are the echoes of
my voice.
“Tic Toc” The instruments are
metal bars of 440 aluminum (aircraft aluminum). The smallest one
was two feet long, and the largest was eight feet long. They were a
quarter inch thick, and four inches wide. The bars hung from the
ceiling and could rotate when played.
“Roof Winter” This was recorded
on the roof of the Farwell building in downtown Detroit. Tim Dipert
plays saxophone, Mary Sobiechowski sings and Paul Feinberg plays
whistle. The low whistle sound was courtesy of the city of Detroit
trolley.
“Walk with Disc” The instruments
made use of metal strapping used for tying down pallets. The body
of the disc was made by covering a mold with fiberglass. There were
two discs which looked like giant jellyfish after the metal straps
were attached. The discs were four to six feet in diameter. The
footsteps were recorded at Pt. Pelee Wildlife Refuge in
Ontario.