Kyle Evans

The Destructive Use of the Phonograph as Musical

Instrument

2010

I. Introduction

The phonograph has had an enormous impact on all aspects of music.

From its original conception and throughout recent history, the phonograph

drastically and permanently altered the way we listen to, create and

understand music. Though the technology has undoubtedly played a central

role in 20th century musical culture, the phonograph has assumed an entirely

new persona in modern times, becoming reanimated as a new and

expressive musical instrument. In this age of digital storage and replication,

concepts behind the fragility of the vinyl disk have become increasingly

recognized and exploited. Despite its antiquity as a medium, a new

perspective has been given to the phonograph, especially through its

revitalization among the generations who never experienced the technology

at its height of use. The modern use of the phonograph has generated two

distinct styles of application; one of which recognizes the fleeting nature of

the vinyl medium and strives to preserve it, while the other responds to this

nature by exploiting it through destructive acts. These approaches are not

only intertwined with one another, but are also deeply rooted in both the

technology’s socioeconomic history, and its fragile nature as a medium in

contrast to the relative permanency of modern digital technology.

Though there has been much experimentation over the last century in

extending the phonograph beyond its originally intended purpose by utilizing

the medium as a musical instrument, only a handful of artists and musicians

approach the technology with a disregard for its fragility. The destructive use

of a phonograph, both physically and sonically, addresses ideas that directly

confront our past and present understanding of the technology. Even now,

after the phonograph has been long replaced by digital technology, there

does still exist the fetishization of the vinyl record, just as it did during the

medium’s peak era, bringing the Hi-Fi culture of the 1970s into the 21st

century. In response to this culture, artists and musicians such as Milan

Knìzàk and Christian Marclay have based much of their work on the

intentional misuse of the technology.

II. Defining Destruction

It is important that the concepts of “destruction” and “misuse” towards

the phonograph are given a proper understanding upon which they will be

presented. The term destruction implies the physical breaking and damaging

of the phonograph and its vinyl medium, but additionally in this context can

represent non-violent manipulation as well. An example would be the

physical alteration of a phonograph, such as removing the tone arm or

replacing the needle with external objects, thereby displacing it from its

originally intended purpose. In addition to physical destruction and

alteration, the categories can be broadened into the realm of sonic

destruction. These are sounds that imply destruction as judged from our

preconceived understanding of a record player, but without any physical

damage to the device itself. For example, it is easy for a listener to identify a

sound originating from a phonograph as having a destructive nature as we

are highly trained in recognizing the characteristics of a broken or damaged

phonograph (pops, crackles and skips), though it is possible for these sounds

to be created without causing permanent damage.

The mistreatment of the phonograph has followed a particular

evolution that can be directly linked to its value as a commodity.1 While the

turntable has been a tool for experimentation throughout modern music

history, the methods of experimentation have changed dramatically over the

decades. In the phonographs early existence, experimentation remained

within non-destructive means of manipulation due to its very high economic

value. Such manipulations included changing the playback speed and

reversing the record. An example of this would be John Cage’s Imaginary

Landscapes No. 1 (1939), which calls for the use of variable speed turntables.

On top of its high value, the medium had yet to build its reputation relative to

what it represents in modern times. Therefore any destructive acts to the

phonograph, or to the expensive shellac discs used at the time, would not

carry with it the same artistic or political impact that it does today. It would

not be until the early 1960’s that phonographic abuse would surface. The

artistic trajectory of the phonograph would dither as Fluxus artists began

destroying the medium in a manner that would not emerge again for another

thirty years.

III. Fluxus Destruction – Milan Knìzàk

The destruction of valued commodities was a common practice among

many Fluxus era performance artists and musicians. Especially popular was

the violent destruction of musical instruments. This destructive act brings

forth new sonic expressions produced by the instruments (the sounds of

shattering splinters of a smashed violin2) and many questions regarding the

object’s socioeconomic value. The phonograph was no exception to the

violent performances of the Fluxus movement, giving the technology new

meaning thorough the act of destruction. An example of this is Milan Knìzàk’s

disregard for vinyl fetishization, which he makes evident through not only

acts of misuse, but intentional destruction.

Czech artist Milan Knìzàk began

experimenting with broken records in the

1960’s. Knìzàk’s interest in records

generated from a lack thereof. Vinyl at

the time was not an overproduced

medium, causing the price of a record to

remain relatively high.

“I bought (1963) a record player but there was no money left to buy the records. I had just a few of them. I played them over and over. It was boring. Then I [started] to play them slower and slower and slower and faster and faster. It created funny, interesting, non-boring music. I began to scratch the records to make the needle [jump] and so [created] unexpected music or [to make the needle stick] in a scar and [play] the same sequence over and over.”3

- Milan Knìzàk

Knìzàk released the aptly titled album Broken Music in 1979. The

album is a sonic collection of the broken and altered records he had produced

throughout the 60’s and 70’s. Though originally created as a method to

experiment with new musical ideas, Knìzàk soon realized the sculptural

significance of his destroyed records. These records had the ability to

question the cultural significance of music and the influence of the

phonographic medium.

“In the 70’s Giancarlo Politi – the owner of the magazine Flash Art – took some of my records, sold them to Gino di Maggio who put them on the wall. This was kind of a push for me and therefore I began to think of records also as sculptures. But I never wanted to give up the musical functions.”4 - Milan Knìzàk

Img. 1. Album cover of the re-release Broken Music by Milan Knìzàk

Milan Knìzàk and the Fluxus movement represent an anomaly in the

progression of broken and destroyed phonographs and records as musical

instruments. These kinds of destructive techniques would not reappear until

the 1980’s. The reason for this break in the trajectory is due to an increased

interest in the destruction of valued commodities in Fluxus performance art

and music. Nam June Paik explored this concept through cathode ray tube

imagery distortion with magnetism (Magnet TV, 1965), and artists Ralph Ortiz

and Paul Pierrot physically destroyed our previous concepts of music by

demolishing a piano at the Destruction in Art Symposium (1966). The

phonograph was no exception. The high value of the phonograph and vinyl

records encouraged the destructive acts of the Fluxus artists as it raised

questions regarding its value economically as

well as its representation as a social artifact.

IV. Punk Rock Destruction – Christian

Marclay

Through the Hi-Fi culture of the 70’s, the

phonograph remained an expensive

commodity. Though, during this period an

overproduction of records would create a

decrease in the value of the vinyl disk, which in turn would generate an

increase in destructive experimentation of the medium. This result can be

seen in the aggressive response Christian Marclay would construct towards

the lingering record fetish and newly created DJ cultures throughout the 80’s

and 90’s.

“I never identified with serious music…because its language I can’t express myself in. I can’t read or write music. The first thing that had a creative impact on me was not this kind of music, though Cage and Fluxus were influential. It was the Sex Pistols and DNA – the really raw energy of punk. It was more than just music; it was very physical.”5 – Christian Marclay

Marclay first became interested in record manipulation upon

discovering an abused Batman record in a heavily trafficked Boston street.

His interest was immediately engaged upon listening to the pops, clicks and

unexpected loops that emerged from this

discarded record.6 This seminal moment would

create a progression in Marclay’s work towards the intentional and

aggressive disregard for the preservation of the vinyl record. Coinciding with

the demise of the

phonograph as a popular medium,

Marclay found a world of cheap and

disposable material at his discretion. This

abundance of material generated by the

consumer culture of the United States, in

combination with Marclay’s interest in the

performative energy of punk rock, pushed

him in a direction of utilizing not only

vinyl, but also the phonograph itself in a

new and expressive manner as a musical

instrument. An example of his early

ingenuity is made explicit in his instrument “The Phonoguitar”.

Marclays modified turntable could be slung over the performers

shoulder and interacted with in a manner similar to that of a guitar. By

Img. 2. Christian Marclay – Performance at Spit, Boston. 1985

recklessly spinning the record backwards and forwards, smashing the tone

arm into its grooves and shoving the instrument against the amp to create

feedback, his actions resembles something closer to Jimi Hendrix than a disk-

jockey. In fact, Marclay’s piece Ghost (I don’t live today) (1985), is an homage

to Hendrix in which he uses his “Phonoguitar” with a Hedrix record and

processes the sounds through a wha-wha pedal. Though clever in concept,

the response from his audience at the time was not always positive;

“…The first time I used the Phonoguitar was also at The Kitchen (New York) with Yoshiko Chuma. We collaborated on a dance and music duo. I wanted to move around the dancer, to interact. We made this piece called Guitar Crash. It was the first time I ever got booed. It was amazing – 90 per cent of the audience booed in unison; it felt like they’d rehearsed it. Yoshiko and I took it as a complement.”7 – Christian Marclay

Marclay’s experiments with the phonograph came at a critical time in the

history of the technology as hip-hop generated a resurgence of the turntable

into popular culture. Marclay

began his work with records just before and in parallel to the creation of this

new music industry. This unique positioning meant that the audience of his

early work would have no direct correlation to the phonograph as instrument

in the way that all musicians experimenting with the medium today must

face. In fact, as the world of hip-hop began to mature, Marclay was given the

opportunity to respond to the new stereotypes being established for the “DJ”,

and inversely, hip-hop and turntablism had the opportunity to pull ideas from

Marclay. The “plunderphonics” technique used by both avant-garde

musicians and hip-hop tuntableists can

represent a more broad association that

connects the two, but a direct connection can be seen in the music video for

Img. 3. Marclay with his “Phonoguitar”, performing with Elliot Sharp at Ski Lodge, New York. 1983

Tone-Loc’s Wild Thing (1989) in which the DJ has a turntable slung over his

shoulder in a manner very similar to Marclay’s “Phonoguitar”.8

V. Post-modern Destruction – Otomo Yoshihide and Lucas

Abela

The 1980s and 90s brought about the emergence of new playback

mediums and the complete demise of the turntable in consumer culture.

Beyond hip-hop and the occasional vinyl connoisseur, the phonograph was

becoming obsolete. The emergence of hip-hop and the decline of the

“consumer turntable” created a paradigm shift toward the understanding of

the phonograph as a musical instrument. With the availability of old

phonographs and discarded vinyl records, a new stereotype emerged in

which artists could respond to and react against, moving the trajectory of the

phonograph-as-instrument to a new level of destruction. This shift can be

seen explicitly in the work of artists such as Otomo Yoshihide and Lucas

Abela.

Otomo Yoshihide has developed a large repertoire as a turntablist within

the Japanese experimental music scene. While also active as a guitarist, he is

well known for his record-less turntable work. Yoshihide commonly employs a

technique in which the turntable is used not for its ability to playback

prerecorded materials, but instead

the metal platter and other resonant

objects act as sources for noise,

percussive patterns and aggressive

feedback. The result is a very

Img. 4. Otomo Yoshihide in performance

abrasive and destructive sonic pallet that nonetheless maintains a

performative quality.

A unique aspect of Yoshihide’s works is his interest in expanding his

turntable experimentation beyond performance and into the gallery. In 2008,

he along with Aoyama Yasutomo contributed two installations to the

“ENSEMBLES” event at the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media entitled

Without Records and Hyper WR Player – Without Records Hi-Fi Version.9 Each

of the installations take on the two contrasting sides of Yoshihide’s unique

approach to the record-less turntable. In Without Records, Yoshihide uniquely

modifies approximately one hundred old self amplified turntables and places

them at different heights throughout an acoustically rich gallery space. Each

phonograph has been modified in a manner that generates different patterns,

noises and tones by utilizing corrugated paper, iron, springs etc. Though not

a performative piece, it is far from static. The audience is encouraged to

interact with the turntables by activating some and deactivating others or

altering the positioning of the tone arm. By using old phonographs, the piece

gives and example of how the cheap and obsolete turntable can be

repurposed to create a unique sonic experience.

In contrast, Hyper WR Player – Without Records Hi-Fi Version uses

modern automation technology to express a different approach to the

phonograph’s abilities. A customized turntable with four tone arms, equipped

with modern DJ cartridges, all perform an automated synchronized dance as

they skip and hiss across the spinning platter. The piece interestingly

juxtaposes the delicate and precise movements of the tone arms with the

destructive sounds being produced by their movement. Both of these pieces

represent a very small part of Yoshihide’s wide catalog of work. Yoshihide, as

well as Marclay and Knìzàk, heavily exploit the use of noise in their

phonograph work. Noise is, of course, the prominent sonic output when

destructively handling the technology. Australian noise musician Lucas Abela

pushes the idea of noise in relation to the phonograph even further by not

just making it a property of his work, but a central aspect.

Lucas Abela pushes both the physical limits of his body as well as the

mental limits of his audience in his radical performances. Performing under

aliases such as Rice Corpse, Peeled Hearts Paste, Justice Yeldham, and A

Kombi, Abela dynamically presents the noise he produces by utilizing his own

very raw arsenal of modified phonographs and instruments. Though his

collective work does extend beyond the turntable, such as screaming into

shards of glass, his work with the phonograph as a central concept

represents some of his most interesting and sonically horrifying examples.

Abela has two turntable instruments, both of which use powerful

electric motors to spin records and other objects at an extremely high

velocity. His instrument the “Bridge” consists of several spinning motors on

which records and cymbals are attached and played with a handheld stylus.

Performing with the “Bridge” under the title of Peeled Hearts Paste, all of the

work is violent, destructive and interjected with an occasional sense of

humor. The abrasive quality of his work is amplified by his raw recording

techniques, which push the sounds to the forefront of your perception. An

example of his dynamic and tonal variety is the piece Tossypot. In this piece,

his modified turntable system makes use of not only vinyl, but different types

of spinning metallic objects as well.

The second of his turntable modifications is his “Sewing Machine

Turntable”. With a stack of vinyl records bolted to an industrial sewing

machine motor, which spins at speeds up to 2,850 revolutions per minute,

Abela smashes an amplified meat skewer into the stack of records as they

shatter in all directions. Caleb Kelly writes about a 2002 performance of the

instrument,

“The sound is dominated by intense noise: loud bursts of sound join occasionally recognizable high-speed cartoon-like tunes. The force with

which the needle is applied to the discs causes them to shatter at regular intervals, and as they do shards of vinyl are propelled across the room; some firmly embedded in the gallery walls. In total the performance lasts around eight minutes before the combination of a completely shattered set of vinyl and a broken needle cause the end of the piece.”10

-Caleb Kelly

Abela no longer performs with the instrument, as it has become a danger to

himself and the audience.

VI. Conclusion

The phonograph has found itself as a mainstream musical instrument

in modern times with the rise in hip-hop and turntablism. In fact, 1999 was

the first year that turntables outsold guitars11, representing a fundamental

shift in popular concepts of the medium. Even with its newfound popularity it

is not often that you see an artist experimenting with the technology in a

destructive fashion. While the world remains concentrated on the sensitivity

of the medium with a fear of damaging the material, some artists have taken

this as a means for musical expression. Ranging from aggressive actions to

Img. 5. Lucas Abela performing with records attached to a modified industrial sewing machine

subtle mistreatment, the destructive use of the phonograph suggests much

about musical culture and the consumer industry. The contemporary use of

the turntable as a sound creation device makes it a quintessential post-

modern musical instrument, and the destruction of the technology has

allowed artists to explore concepts ranging from it historical socioeconomic

value to the exploitation of its current representation as a virtuosic musical

instrument in hip-hop and DJ culture. Through Christian Marclay’s response to

the overproduction of vinyl records in the United States, or by Otomo

Yoshihide’s technically advanced and elaborate misuse of the turntable,

destroying and modifying the phonograph has proved to be just as useful to

the creation of music as it is to its original purpose of reproducing it.

Works Cited

1. Kelly, Caleb. Cracked Media. Cambridge, Massachusetts:

The MIT Press, 2009. Page 98.

2. Cracked Media. Page 125.

3. Cracked Media. Page 142

4. Cracked Media. Page 145-146

5. Marclay, Christian. Gordon, Kim. Interview: Kim Gordon in Conversation

with Christian Marclay. In Christian Marclay. New York: Phaidon Press

Inc., 2005. Page 13

6. Marclay, Christian. Interview Cut-up, 1991-2004. In Christian Marclay.

New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 2005. Page 108.

7. Interview Cut-up. Page 115

8. Tone-Loc. Wild Thing. Delicious Vinyl, 1988.

9. Yamaguchi Center for the Arts and Media. Otomo Yoshihide /

Ensembles. http://www.ycam.jp/en/art/2008/06/otomo-yoshihide-

ensembles.html

10.Cracked Media. Page 1.

11.Collins, Nicolas, ed. Leonardo Music Journal 13: Groove, Pit and

Wave.

Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003).