One of several tracks I created in the early 1990s on the request of Tom Morello for his "Radio Free LA" broadcast on K-Rock FM, January 20, 1997.

Throughout the 1980s, I was experimenting with digital editing of voice recordings from the mainstream news media. I had been very interested in the Berlin Dadaists photo montage work, particularly John Heartfield, and thought it would be interesting to apply that approach to the political figures of my era. I preferred the term "montage" to the more common "collage" because it expressed a bit of the dialectic approach of Heartfield, in which two images (or sounds) collide to produce a new meaning.

Ronald Reagan, possibly the most Orwellian figure in American politics, made the perfect subject for this treatment. A slight alteration of the order of his words would often reveal the actual truth behind his obfuscation.

In 1992, Arrest Records released "Oil War", a 17 minute sound montage piece about the media response to The Gulf War of George Bush Sr. Media propaganda is more subtle than that of politicians and I wanted to take a look at how consent was "manufactured" to use Chomsky's terms.

Moving on into the Clinton era, I was interested in illustrating how these tactics changed very little regardless of whether we had a Republican or Democrat in the White House. The track "This Is America" draws a parallel between the rhetoric of Clinton and his adversary, Bob Dole.

New tracks tagged #Bob Dole