Michael Gira
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Michael Gira
- Genres: Rock
Biography
Best known for his role as founder and co-leader of avant-garde rock band Swans, Michael Gira has made a point not to work very much under his own name (at least musically -- he has published and regularly done spoken word shows), preferring instead to create and lead various projects as well as produce other musicians. Even after Swans came to an end, his various musical efforts were group affairs like the Body Lovers and the Angels of Light, which he led but harnessed a wide variety of performers. That said, Gira has had a few releases billed as solo efforts. Unsurprisingly, such releases demonstrate, as much as his more well-known band efforts, Gira's skill and power at creating emotionally intense music and lyrics.Issued in 1995, Drainland was his official solo debut, though even it was described as "Swans Related Product," and was consciously put out as a complement to his longtime collaborator and partner Jarboe's own solo album, Sacrificial Cake. Billed as "Michael Gira with Guests," a limited-edition live recording from early 1999 was done specifically as a benefit to assist Jarboe with her medical bills from a disease picked up on a trip to Israel the previous year. Also in 1999, Gira released his first Angels of Light project, New Mother. Near the end of the 20th century, Gira also took complete control of his musical destiny by founding his Young God Records label. He featured not only his own material, but other acts he was personally interested in, including Devendra Banhart (first three albums), Windsor for the Derby, Akron/Family, Lisa Germano, Flux Information Sciences, Ulan Bator, Mi & l'Au, James Blackshaw, Charlemagne Palestine, Larkin Grimm, and Wooden Wand. He has personally overseen all decisions regarding production, distribution, and promotion.
The new century saw Gira issue the spoken word offering Somniloquist. In 2001 Gira and Windsor for the Derby frontman Dan Matz released the collaborative full-length What We Did. This was followed by a solo recording entitled merely Solo Recordings from Home. Living '02 and the (mostly) live-to-DAT recording I Am Singing to You from My Room were both issued in 2002. Gira concentrated on his Angels of Light project in subsequent years, which produced Everything Is Good Here/Please Come Home in 2003. The album The Angels of Light Sing Other People arrived in 2005, and We Are Him followed in August 2007. He also released Songs for a Dog, a 2,000 copy limited-edition LP -- via the Lumberton Recording Company -- a one-release offshoot of Young God. The album contained solo demos, CD-R-only recordings, and Angels of Light outtakes from earlier sessions as well as two new tracks. Gira's website claimed it would not be made available in any other format.
For Gira, 2009 was a pivotal year: he issued a solo/demo recording entitled I Am Not Insane for starters -- these recordings were prophetic, it seems. Later that year, he put Angels of Light on hiatus, feeling he had grown impassive in working with that project in the same way he had when he dissolved Swans in the 1990s. That said, in January of 2010, the words "Swans Are Not Dead" appeared on the band's MySpace page. Gira had indeed resurrected the group, whose new incarnation included former members (sans Jarboe) as well as new ones. The newly revived Swans released My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky, some of whose songs' origins can be found in rawer form on I Am Not Insane -- the demo acoustic solo offering had been sold to finance the recordings of the Swans album. In 2011, and in perhaps similar fashion, Gira decided to release Songs for a Dog in a different format after all, making it available as a CD and digital download. This was perhaps to finance the Swans' 2012 release, The Seer. ~ Ned Raggett & Thom Jurek, Rovi
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Michael Gira
| Michael Gira | |
|---|---|
 Michael Gira performing at The Doug Fir Lounge, Portland, OR. March 03, 2009. |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Michael Rolfe Gira[1] |
| Born | February 19, 1954 Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Occupations | Singer-songwriter, musician, producer, author |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar |
| Years active | 1979–present |
| Labels | Young God Records Uni/MCA Records Atavistic Records |
| Associated acts | Swans, Angels of Light, Devendra Banhart, Little Cripples, Circus Mort, The Body Lovers, Skin, World of Skin |
| Website | www.YoungGodRecords.com |
Michael Rolfe Gira (pronounced jeer-AH)[2] (born February 19, 1954)[1] is an American musician, author, and artist. He is the main force behind the recently reformed New York City musical group Swans and fronts Angels of Light. He is also the founder of Young God Records.
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Contents
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Biography
Early life
Gira lived with his parents in a relatively affluent suburb of Los Angeles, California though they divorced when he was a young teenager. After staying with his alcoholic mother for much of his youth, he was sent to live with his father in Indiana and then Paris.
He ran away from home and hitch-hiked across Europe, and was finally arrested for selling drugs in Israel. Although he was only a teenager at the time, he was placed in an adult prison for four and a half months.[3] His father found Gira with the aid of Interpol and sent him back to the United States.
Early musical career
Back in Los Angeles, he played in a band called Little Cripples (later to become Bpeople with LAFMS alumni Fredrik Nilsen and Tom Recchion) and enrolled in art school and imagined that he would someday be a visual artist (Gira sketched obsessively); however, he soon became disillusioned with the elitism and academia surrounding the art world and dropped out. However, Gira's interest in art is known to have affected his music; The Angels of Light song "Inner Female" is a study of Francis Bacon.
In 1979 Gira moved to New York City in order to start a band; he was influenced by No Wave and noise artists like Suicide and Glenn Branca. He played with the band Circus Mort[4] before forming Swans. Before achieving success with his music, Gira worked many jobs in construction and demolition. He also began a short-lived art magazine, No.
Swans
Main article: Swans (band)
Initially, Swans' focus was raw rhythm and abrasive textures, usually eschewing melody for visceral power. They became known for their abrasive experimental and post-industrial sound. Their commercial success was limited, but Swans earned much critical notice and had a devoted following.
The band's lineup and sound evolved over time, and their music became somewhat more conventional. A marked shift in Swans' music came with inclusion of Gira's partner, Jarboe, who added her ethereal voice and synthesizers to the group in 1985. Gira and Swans spent the next twelve years releasing studio, live, and side-project albums. Gira's frustration with the various record labels grew over time, and he disbanded Swans in 1997. However, in 2010, Gira decided to revive Swans, with members new and old, and have recently released and are touring the LP: My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky.
Solo career and Angels of Light
After dissolving Swans in 1997 Gira released a solo album under his own name and began a new musical direction with Angels of Light, which are a quieter, more acoustic-based group than Swans.
Gira also spent time experimenting with soundscapes, found sound, and loops with The Body Lovers project. He has also released several albums under his own name including Drainland (1995), The Somniloquist (2000, a spoken word album), and What We Did (2001), a collaboration with Windsor for the Derby's frontman Dan Matz.
Gira founded his own record label, Young God Records, which has released albums from such artists as Devendra Banhart, Mi and L'au, and Akron/Family as well as Swans, The Angels of Light and The Body Lovers' back catalogues.
Akron/Family served as Gira's backing band during the recording of and touring for The Angels of Light's 2005 album, The Angels of Light Sing 'Other People'.
Gira has spoken of his decision to shift his focus from The Angels of Light to Swans as a move based on impassivity. He has stated, "I had been doing this band Angels of Light for thirteen years, and had reached a kind of impassivity with that, sorta like I had reached an impassivity with Swans when I initially stopped it."[5]
Writings
Gira's short story collection The Consumer (ISBN 1-880985-26-8) was published in 1995 by Henry Rollins's 2.13.61 publications. It is divided into two parts, the first being "The Consumer", a series of short stories from the early 1990s, the second, "Various Traps, Some Weaknesses", made up mostly of prose-poems and vignettes, all dating from 1983–1986. (Many of these earlier stories had previously been published by SST Records as Selfishness, with illustrations by Raymond Pettibon.) The stories contain many disturbing images and scenes including incest, identity loss, murder, self-hatred, rape, and both mental and physical decay.
Equipment
Michael Gira is known for using a Guild antique burst electro acoustic guitar, and a Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus Guitar Amplifier during his solo concerts. In recent Swans performances, he has been using a modified Gibson Lucille through Orange amplifiers.
Solo discography
| Year | Title | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 1985 | A Diamond Hidden in the Mouth of a Corpse (compilation) | Giorno Poetry Systems |
| 1988 | Shame, Humility, Revenge | Product Inc. |
| 1995 | Drainland | Sub Rosa |
| 1999 | Jarboe Emergency Medical Fund (live) | |
| 2000 | Somniloquist | Young God Records |
| 2001 | What We Did (With Dan Matz) | Young God Records |
| 2001 | Solo Recording At Home | Young God Records |
| 2002 | Living '02 | Young God Records |
| 2004 | I Am Singing To You From My Room | Young God Records |
| 2006 | Songs for a Dog | Lumberton Trading Co. |
| 2010 | I Am Not Insane | Young God Records |
References
- ^ a b California Births, 1905 - 1995, Michael Rolfe Gira (Birth Date: 02/19/1954, County of Birth: Los Angeles)
- ^ "Spinning on Air: The Angels of Light". WNYC. http://www.wnyc.org/shows/spinning/episodes/2005/10/23. Retrieved 2011-03-13.
- ^ "Waxing lyrical: Swans' Michael Gira on his love of words". Guardian. 2011-04-21. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/oct/19/swans-michael-gira-lyrics. Retrieved 2011-04-21.
- ^ "Circus Mort". TrouserPress.com. http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=circus_mort. Retrieved 2011-03-13.
- ^ "Michael Gira Interview on Crasier Frane". Crasier Frane. October, 20 2010. http://crasierfrane.com/interviews/michael-gira. Retrieved 2010-10-21.
External links
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This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (October 2010) |
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