Who are the CODE CUT CREW?
We are a new breed of experimental collaborators. Working across every platform of new media communication, audio and visual. Attempting to raise the vibrational levels of emotions, intent and consciousness on planet Earth.
Raised through the 1980s and 90s, and without the Internet, we watched the analog to digital gradient arrive in a historical flash, cassettes to CDs, VHS tapes to DVD discs. Raised on paper books and vinyl records, our generation now attempts adulthood with digital instruments, web communities and hand held computer devices. We are drowning in oceans of cultures and information.
Forced into a new “world wide world, ” we were young enough to understand the old world, but young enough to watch this new electric dimension manifest, take form and evolve, and not fucking get overwhelmed. The CODE CUT CREW is our response.
Growing up on Laurie Anderson, and Bill Viola. On MUSIC VIDEO TELEVISION when they actually played music videos, listening to Kraftwerk and 2 live crew, Frank Sinatra songs and Michael Jackson videos. Music in our childhoods began to take a visual form. And simultaneously a new form of culture took shape. One which included both music and visual expression under one cohesive umbrella. So it attracted the rebels, the young street artists, the thinkers, the punks who didn’t identify with ” punk, ” the psychonauts, the misfits of the 1980s? They called it HIP HOP.
We fell in love with hip hop because it was rebellious, lawless, experimental, street, electronic, brand new, and all inclusive. Plus, fucking rap music at the time was urban punk. Brand new analog and digital instruments and off kilter record loops made sounds never heard before, ever.
Strength, dance, art, pride, self expression, individuality, music, paint battles, art crews, this was the movement of our forefathers, what happened? Motherfuckers in the Bronx used to steal power for their party’s from pirated electric lines… WHERE DID THE RUCKUS GO?
RIGHT HERE DUDEBRO…. Raves blew my mind but eventually led to a thumping head ache. Burning man changed my life, but is only once a year. The hip hop culture I loved fell away… Turning into “rap music.” My rebel songs became ego driven screaming matches on stage, everyone sounding like each other, no individuality, no visual consideration, and basically a conceptual fucking migraine. Sex drugs and rock and roll seemed so shallow all of a sudden.
Where did the creativity go?
When did the rebels retire?
What were we to do?
Why didn’t raves evolve, how did hip hop get hijacked, how did radio screw up my culture? What happened to a party so real, they would steal power in an abandoned building to get down? When did the culture I dedicated my life’s work to become so god damn corny, so spiritless and so ape mode simple…….? My mom used to tell me that ”ONLY complaining and not taking action is a waste of oxygen.” So… I fucking put a band together.
A NEW BAND. A MEDIA GANG. A REBEL CONTENT BANG OUT.
WE ARE THE ALCHEMIST X GOLDWATCH X QBERT X MIX MASTER MIKE.
WE ARE THE CODE CUT CREW.
BUT…. What is a gang that’s dedicated to non violence? Or, a relevant group of expressionists, or what is a band in this thick smog of multimedia haze. Music videos have become advertising. Rap is a mirror of American ignorance. What are relevant instruments anymore? Is anyone even trying anymore? Gone is the lead singer, and gone are ballads, hooks, epic choruses, end rhymes, and predictive string instruments. Done, is the rapper rapping to camera, 16-hook-16-hook, honestly it’s a motherfucking mess out there. To us….
We play anything. With digital funtimes, anything digitizable is fair game for our chops. Movies, songs, old commercials, government brain wash films, multi-dimensional racist jokes, fast good jingles, mariachi, industrial nightmare videos, scrambled porn, obscure art films, Dali lamas peaches, Mother Earth ” bring back, ” 93 hip hop, Buddhist mantras, gregorian chants, mushroom knowledge poetry… ALL layered and banged over with filthy dirty drums, instrumentations, beach boy harmonies, VISUALS and dusty disgusting scratches. This is digital dirty socks ” viewsic. ” (Feel me?)
Fuck rap. Fuck raves. Fuck cornball content, fuck expectations , fuck what everyone else is on. We’re carving this new lane our selves. What if we really, really pushed. Not only “music,” but fully push experiential experience, mind music, eye candy, “I wish I was there” type, authentic 3rd eye vision shit.
THAT NEW KNEW. Dedicated to snapping all things rigid. Utilizing multiple projections of video clips, photography, gifs, original animations, loops, music videos, colors, black lights, and complete immersive interactive performance experience. LOCKED to music and sound.
THIS IS THE ”CODE CUT CREW,” a new genre of wow, dedicated to shock and awe, mind and body, sights, sounds and breaking grounds.
Political in tone, and conscious in voice, CODE CUT CREW makes high brow, low end, conscious viewable musical experiences.
Beyond the 2D screens, sonic and sub sonic experience, are the cohesive 3D tissues. Mariachi bands, jazz flutes, cheeseburger guns, alien go-go dancers, LSD confetti, laser bubles, beer fountains, inflatable stage props, choreographed surprises, interactive helium sing alongs, are all choreographed, all intertwined into samples, into cohesive video/real life collaborations live on stage. Cameos, complex harmonies and old music videos, all conceptually worked into a cohesive, mind-slamming, self-questioning, self-aware, absurdist, neon party experience. Fuck stealing electricity we’re making our own.
More so, beyond the 3D experience is the digital and wireless experience. Responsive 4D apps pre-loaded into the audience members phones that project colors, play on time video clips, and reflect unified rhythms as they hold their phones in the air, all participatory elements very much a part of the cohesion. Beyond our helium sing alongs, flying cheeseburgers and crowd splitting contests, the audiences personal devices are unitized and taken advantage of as a lighted, inclusive, crowd element. New college football stadium type shit. (Chill, we got this.)
All this bad ass left field experimentation is based on a simple and complete mantra “WHAT DO I WANT TO EXPERIENCE. ” This is what we build. More smarts, more experimentation, more giving our audience the benefit of the doubt, more interaction, more grooves, more projections that fit into our stage build, more bubbles, lasers, props, and musical art direction. Were creating something new, never tried, and speeding towards Earth in many forms. We will create this from the ground upwards. While making a crowd laugh, dance, boo, think, be silent, sing along and party, we subvert political irreverence, question authority, push cosmic causes, and advertise complete abandon of any rules ever. We aim to change and create a new experiential art form where sight and sound are inseperable. Music videos were a visual after thought, considered marketing until now.
Not music. Not content. Not performance.
“CODE CUT CREW.”
Albums, performances, content, merch, DVDs, downloadable interactive concert apps, tech, vitamins, free NGMO seeds, pure water, crystal healing, REAL HIP HOP SHIT, chances, jokes, drugs and joy.
LET’S MOTHERFUCKING CHANGE THE VIBRATIONS ON EARTH THROUGH LIGHT, RHYTHMS AND HARMONIES.
Love, light, and laughter.