Those of you who read the raps that I wrote for the History of –ING podcast series are aware that C. Goff III began experimenting with tape loop recordings in 1979 after having observed Robert Fripp performing his “Frippertronics” onstage in San Francisco and Berkeley, California. Having had no instruction on the subject beyond his observations of the Crimson King, Goff explored the potentials of creating tape loops with his Pioneer RT-707 and his Sony TC-630 reel to reel tape recorders.

For reference, I suggest taking a look at the diagram of the tape loop set up that –ING eventually settled on for most of its recordings and performances:

http://www.geocities.com/padukem/Frippertronics.pdf

This set up was also used by the Taped Rugs acts: Disism and Herd Of The Ether Space, as well as by Goff alone, to make tape loop compositions up until the early 1990’s. There were several variants of the Taped Rugs tape loop set up, however, before this set up became the standard.

Goff initially attempted creating audio tape loops by using only microphones in the room to record the repeated materials. This worked, but the sound quality was very tinny and the loops had a tendency to rapidly become thick with feedback. The first piece presented in this podcast is a brief excerpt from the only surviving example of this type of recording. It was made by Goff and Gordon Lyon in 1979, and dubbed “Conventional Systems.” Most of this recording was so overwhelmed by feedback that the feedback itself became the main element of the piece (this excerpt also includes some FM radio input).

Goff later discovered that he could use direct lines rather than microphones to record the playback repetitions from the Sony recorder into the Pioneer (but not from the Pioneer into the Sony). The Sony, however, often ran slower than the Pioneer and caused the tape to droop away from the tape heads, sometimes even engaging the automatic shut off mechanisms. During one experimental recording session in early 1980 with Robert Silverman, Goff set the Sony (playback) deck to roll at twice the speed of the Pioneer (recording) deck. The result created a unique recording which sounds like the noises that the two guitars were making were being squeezed through a tube. Goff and Silverman called the result: “Toothpaste.” The complete recording of this experiment is the second piece on this podcast.

Goff and his long list of associates used this “toothpaste” recording technique many times for years afterwards to create unique sonic sculptures, but none of these recordings was ever able to recreate the truly strange sounds of the original “Toothpaste.” The third piece on this podcast features Goff (guitar) and Silverman (electric organ) experimenting with the toothpaste technique again in early 1981. It employed the same two tape recorders but achieved a much different resulting sound.

The last piece on this podcast is an untitled 1980 tape loop recording created by Goff alone with a Fender Telecaster electric guitar, an Electro Harmonix “Muff Fuzz”, and a Cry Baby wah wah pedal. The tape loop set up for this piece was very similar to the one in the diagram sited above. While none of the recordings on this podcast have ever been made available to the public before now (except for an excerpt from “Toothpaste”), other recordings created during this very experimental period were incorporated into the very first official Taped Rugs release, which will be revealed in an upcoming podcast.

Before getting to that however, I should mention that at the same time as Goff, Lyon, Silverman, and Steve Schaer of –ING were beginning to experiment with tape loop recordings, they were also playing music together as a band, called “Temporarily KY.” The next excerpt of the Early History of Taped Rugs will for the first time ever publicly showcase a few TKY recordings. Stay tuned.