Dead Air Fresheners
Dead Air Fresheners, performing 12 January 2008 at Bob's Java Jive, Tacoma, Washington.
Dead Air Fresheners, performing 12 January 2008 at Bob's Java Jive, Tacoma, Washington.
Background information
OriginPortland, Oregon,
Olympia, Washington,
Seattle, Washington USA
GenresExperimental rock, post-punk
Years active1996–present

The Dead Air Fresheners are a Portland, Oregon-based experimental and post-punk musical group with a somewhat fluctuating membership. They have been described by Portland's KPSU as "A long-time mainstay of the Experimental Rock Scene."[1] They count Sun Ra, John Cage, Sonic Youth, Sun City Girls, and Jandek as influences.[2]

Band history

At the 14th Olympia Experimental Music Festival, 2008

The band formed around 1996.[2] They claim to have first formed "in a dilapidated beachfront mansion on the Eld Inlet in Thurston County, Washington"[3] (Eld Inlet is the site of The Evergreen State College[4]); in any event, they first performed publicly in 1997 at Olympia, Washington's annual Olympia Experimental Music Festival.[5]

Their instrumentation has been known to include Moog synthesizer, and tape samples, drums, ambient vocals, distorted feedback, electric guitar, computers and digital toys, and digeridoo.[2] The Dead Air Fresheners state in interviews and on their My Space page that they do not play improvised music despite frequent perceptions to the contrary.[3] Rather they use a process of Chance Music composition influenced by the work of John Cage (also called Indeterminate music) and their Myspace page provides several examples of scores from past performances.

They have done several live radio performances; portions of their hour-long session with poet Chuck Swaim on KEXP's "Sonarchy Radio" were included as songs in the self-released album Pleasure Is Where All Labor Ends[6] and two performances on KPSU are on that station's archives.[7]

Band members

The band has consisted of members based in Bellingham, Olympia, Seattle, Salem, and Portland. The three core members are located in St. Johns, Portland.[5] Because of their penchant for anonymity, masks, and costumes,[1][8][9] there is no definitive list of the group's membership.[3] Nonetheless, several publications covering either the experimental music scene or entertainment in the Pacific Northwest have reported them to have included at various times members of such bands as Olympia's now defunct Karp, Austin, Texas' ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Bellingham, Washington's Noggin, and Portland, Oregon's Nice Nice.[10][11] In Signum magazine, writer Tiffany Lee Brown implies strongly that Olympia Experimental Music Festival founder Jim McAdams is one of the anonymous musicians in the group.[12] Matt Driscoll of the Weekly Volcano (South Puget Sound) states this outright.[11] Emily Pothast in The Wire states that Ricardo Wang, host of the "What's this Called?" program on Freeform Portland Radio is a member.[13] This was confirmed in a 2023 St. Johns Review article. Wang's two sons are also considered regular members.[5]

McAdams's wife, Deanne Rowley McAdams, died 3 August 2011. Her obituary in The Olympian indicates that she was a member of the group, and that she had also played with Texas and Pacific Northwest bands Plain Jane, [...And You Will Know Us By the] Trail of Dead, Pro-Ex Marauders, and Cherry 2000, and that she had a band of her own called Leopards.[14]

Discography

Another image from the January 2008 show.
  • I Try To Show My Love, Plastic Duck Records, 1999
  • Verses of Echo, Bastard Customer, and Pleasure Is Where All Labor Ends, with poet Chuck Swaim, (self-released) 2001–2003
  • An Ulcer is a String of Pearls, 2006, Kill Pop Tarts (CDR-ep)
  • a Slip Inside the Quiet Room, 2007, Icky Recordings[10]
  • Separated by Commas, 2010, Dubuque Strange Music Society (collaborations with various other artists; CDR)[15]
  • Extension Cord Symphony 9, (Postmoderncore, 2016)[16]
  • Fast Radio Bursts, Personal Archives (Dubuque, Iowa, 8 August 2016)[17]
  • Evidence of Superstructures II (Postmoderncore, 2017)[18]
  • Brother Calls (Postmoderncore, 2019)[19]
  • Come On Get Happy (Kill Pop Tarts, 2021)[20]
  • Here’s to Letting Go, Bob Bucko Jr. with the Dead Air Fresheners (Kill Pop Tarts, 2021)[21]
  • A Collection of Drone & Noise Sea Shanties (Personal Archives, 2021) [22][23]
  • The Last Asteroid (Kill Pop Tarts, 2022)[24][25]
  • tape hiss is the blow job of lo-fi (Kill Pop Tarts, 2022)[26][27]
  • Noise + Air = Noir, Noisepoet Nobody & Dead Air Fresheners (Kill Pop Tarts 2022) [28]
  • Unfriended (Personal Archives 2022)[29][30]
  • Tales from the Elusive Hangar (Kill Pop Tarts 2023)[31][13]

Also included in compilations:

  • Infamous Polywogs Vol. 1?, Inlet Recordings, 2002
  • Infamous Polywogs Vol. 2?, Kill Pop Tarts, 2004
  • Reek of Influence, Icky Recordings, 2006
  • "Five Minutes in Dog Years" track on compilation Winter Copulation 2016 (SDM-032), SadoDaMascus Records (Portland, Oregon, 2016)[32]

Source for discography (except as noted):[2]

Notes

  1. 1 2 The Dead Air Fresheners... LIVE! Archived 7 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine, KPSU, 25 April 2006. Accessed online 17 September 2007.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Portland Mercury staff 2007
  3. 1 2 3 Blanchard 2007
  4. ↑ Campus Master Plan 1998, The Evergreen State College. Accessed online 17 September 2007.
  5. 1 2 3 McMurry, Chris (11 October 2023). "Dead Air Fresheners: Crafting Soundscapes in the Elusive Hanger". The St. Johns Review.
  6. ↑ Doug Haire discography Archived 7 July 2007 at the Wayback Machine, accessed online 17 September 2007. Swaim's name is incorrectly given there as "Swaims".
  7. ↑ Recordings by Dead Air Fresheners on the KPSU archives Archived 11 November 2007 at the Wayback Machine, accessed online 18 September 2007.
  8. ↑ Blanchard 2007 quotes one member as saying, "Our goal is to completely lose all identity within the Dead Air Freshener experience... While we have nothing against pop culture per se, or groups built around the cult of personality, we are trying to achieve the total opposite."
  9. ↑ Brown 2007, page 3 Archived 12 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine.
  10. 1 2 Rate Your Music Dead Air Fresheners Band Page, .
  11. 1 2 Driscoll 2008
  12. ↑ Brown 2007, page 2 Archived 12 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine, page 3 Archived 12 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine.
  13. 1 2 Review by Emily Pothast from The Wire magazine March 2023, accessed 2023-03-08.
  14. ↑ Deanne Rowley McAdams, The Olympian, 2011-08-09. Retrieved online 2011-08-15.
  15. ↑ DSMS024 Dead Air Fresheners - Separated by Commas
  16. ↑ Extension Cord Symphony 9, Postmoderncore, 2016, accessed 2016-10-02.
  17. ↑ Fast Radio Bursts, 2016, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2016-10-02.
  18. ↑ Evidence of Superstructures II, Postmoderncore, accessed 2019-12-26.
  19. ↑ Brother Calls, Postmoderncore, accessed 2019-12-26
  20. ↑ Come On Get Happy, 2021, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2022-05-17.
  21. ↑ Here’s to Letting Go, 2021, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2022-05-18.
  22. ↑ A Collection of Drone & Noise Sea Shanties, 2021, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2022-05-17.
  23. ↑ Review in A Closer Listen experimental music webzine, accessed 2022-05-17.
  24. ↑ The Last Asteroid, 2022, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2022-05-17.
  25. ↑ Reviewed in The Big Takeover Issue 90, Spring 2022
  26. ↑ tape hiss is the blow job of lo-fi, 2022, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2022-05-17.
  27. ↑ Review by Raymond Cummings from The Wire magazine August 2022, accessed 2023-03-08.
  28. ↑ Noise + Air = Noir, 2022, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2023-03-08. World premiere on KAOS 89.3 FM (Olympia, Washington) on the Freeform Northwest Program hosted by Tom Dyer 2022-07-24.
  29. ↑ Unfriended on Personal Archives, accessed 2023-03-08.
  30. ↑ Listed in most played albums of December 2022, WFMU, accessed 2023-03-08.
  31. ↑ Tales from the Elusive Hangar, 2023, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2023-03-08.
  32. ↑ SadoDaMascus Records: Winter Copulation 2016 (SDM-032), 2016, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2016-10-02.

References

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