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| Carla Bozulich | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Carla Ragin Bozulich |
| Born | (1965-12-24) December 24, 1965 (age 59) New York City, New York, United States |
| Genres | |
| Instrument(s) | vocals, guitar, electric bass, (Hagstrom), sampler |
| Years active | 1982–present |
| Labels | Constellation, Folktale |
| Website | CarlaBozulich.com |
Carla Ragin Bozulich (born December 24, 1965) is an American musician based in Los Angeles, known for her work as the lead singer, lyricist and founder of both The Geraldine Fibbers (fan nicknamed "the Fibbers") and Evangelista and as a founding member of Ethyl Meatplow and Scarnella. The Geraldine Fibbers made two full-length albums for Virgin Records, as well as multiple 7" records, cassette tapes, 10" records and two live CDs just for fans. They are chronicled in the discography, below. The Fibbers also played over 747 concerts, internationally. Their first album on Virgin Records was well described as "...a Country Feedback Masterpiece" by Vice Magazine and they became more experimental in their 5 year tenure, largely spurred on by the addition of Nels Cline to their lineup.
Carla Bozulich's Evangelista project began as a self-titled barrage of 2006 terrors, noise and hope pieces. The album was under her own name and titled Evangelista, which, in an interview with Tiny Mix Tapes, Bozulich promised, 'You will be cradled and near deafened by love and mercy sounds and the sound of your own pulsing blood which used to drive me crazy as a child when I would try to go to sleep...'. The album was released by Constellation Records, and was that label's first release by a non-Canadian artist. In 2007, as it became clear the concept was emerging. The Sunday Times proclaimed "Carla Bozulich's Evangelista", "A vivid inner darkness which shames rock's weeping millionaires." On the forthcoming albums Hello, Voyager (2008), Prince of Truth (2009) and In Animal Tongue (2011), Bozulich adopted Evangelista as a band name. Some consistent members include bassist Tara Barnes, keyboardist/sampler Dominic Cramp, guitarist Nels Cline, violinist Jessica Moss, organist Nadia Moss, drummer Ches Smith, multi-instrumentalist and co-producer Shahzad Ismaily. From the start various members of Godspeed! You Black Emperor contributed to arranging and recording and, in the cases of Jessica and Nadia Moss, Shahzad Ismaily, Thierry Amar, Nels Cline, Tara Barnes and Dominic Cramp, additional collaborative songwriting. The list of collaborators for the project, live and on record, exceed 50 at last count. The line-up of Carla Bozulich's Evangelista changes each time they play or record. The Hello, Voyager album has 14 musicians on various pieces. The songs and sets are never without spontaneous re-invention and improvisation.
Taking another turn, in 2014, Constellation released Boy, under Carla Bozulich's name, as solo artist. This album consists of more conventionally structured songs than those appearing on the Evangelista albums. Her most recent album with Constellation, Quieter is a compilation of previously unreleased recordings that function well as a single album. Quieter was released in May 2018. Bozulich has also been involved in other projects, including collaborations with Francesco Guerri, Noveller/Sarah Lipstate and Devin Sarno. In addition to singing and composing music, she is known to play guitar and work with samples and sound experimentation.
Musical career
Bozulich was born in New York City. Her musical career began at age 17 in a garage in Lawndale, CA, with her first band, The Neon Veins. At the same time, under the name Carla Noelle, she contributed to a recording by Gary Kail called "Zurich 1916", which would be released in 1984 as part of the album Creative Nihilism. Her numerous bands include the Neon Veins, Invisible Chains, Ethyl Meatplow, the Geraldine Fibbers, Scarnella (a duo with Nels Cline, the name being an anagram of their combined first names), The Nels Cline Singers, Scott Amendola Band, The Book of Knots, The Night Porter (whose work appears on 2018's Quieter), as a solo artist, as a member of a duo with Ches Smith, and as leader of the Evangelista project. Bozulich applied her signature style of absurdist, immediacy-collage-style mixing on all albums following the Geraldine Fibbers, producing or co-producing all her albums.
In the 2000s and 2010s, her music reflected an eleven-year self-chosen sojourn traveling the Western hemisphere playing, composing, recording and pet sitting, rather than throw in the towel and give up under-payed artistry ro get a regular job. She produced and arranged the 2013 self-titled album by the band Blue Willa and calls it her most challenging and satisfactory side-job. This collaboration was documented in a short film by Pamela Maddaleno entitled "Ignore the Noise in the Amp." She carried the recorded files from this album during 6 months of travel, mixing on her suitcase studio in multiple countries including France, Italy, Germany, Turkey and India. In March 2014, she released a solo album Boy, with Evangelista member John Eichenseer and percussionist Andrea Belfi as her main collaborators. This album was also produced by Bozulich.
On May 5, 2017, Jealous Butcher records reissued Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and My Home by the Geraldine Fibbers on vinyl in the U.S. This includes a new song "Thank You For Giving Me Life" performed by Bozulich on vocals, William Tutton on bass, Kevin Fitzgerald on drums, Nels Cline on guitar and Jessica Moss on violin.
Bozulich has used the name Bloody Claws to encompass any concerts or tours which would probably be one-offs, most notably as duos including 45 International concerts with Francesco Guerri, with whom she toured Europe in the spring and summer of 2009. Guerri has appeared on many Evangelista tours and recordings and the duo has plans to release their written and improvised works in line with another album, Echo Fucking Park. Both were recorded in 2017 with Bozulich charted to complete and mix them in the next year. She has also contributed to recordings by Mike Watt (most significantly as a vocalist on four tracks of his album Ball-Hog or Tugboat?), Hadda Brooks and Lydia Lunch. She has performed live with Watt, as well as with Thurston Moore, Christian Marclay; Carla Kihlstedt, Wayne Kramer, Wilco, Agathe Max, Italian guitarist Simone Massaron (with whom she sings and provides lyrics on the 2008 album Dandelions on Fire) and many others. Members of Evangelista have included Ches Smith, Shahzad Ismaily, Ava Mendoza, Jeremy Drake, Gambletron, Mirko Sabatini, Madigan Shive, Andrea Serrapiglio, Thierry Amar, Nadia and Jessica Moss, Becky Foon and Jessica Catron and many others live and in studio.
On August 16–17, 2009 she performed live with Marianne Faithfull and Marc Ribot in Düsseldorf as part of the 2009 Ruhrtriennale. Willie Nelson performed on her 2003 album The Red Headed Stranger, a song-by-song cover of his album of the same name.
Bozulich scored a 2001 production of Jean Genet's play The Maids, as well as the 2003 film By Hook or by Crook, directed by Harry Dodge and Silas Howard and produced by Steak House. The Geraldine Fibbers songs "Lilybelle" and "Seven or in 10," both co written by Bozulich, have been covered by Kiki and Herb. The Geraldine Fibbers track, Dragon Lady was featured in a 1997 girl-centric film, All Over Me and her track House Is Falling is the soundtrack to the intro scene in the film, Kill Me Later in which Selma Blair, drunk and at her wit's end considers suicide while teetering on the roof of her workplace.
Bozulich has been asked to perform as a solo artist at two All Tomorrows Parties festivals, and at two Bad Bonn Kilbi festivals. In 2005, she performed Brecht/Weill composition "The Ballad of the Lily of Hell" at the Meltdown Festival in London, curated by Patti Smith.
Eyes for Ears and VOYAGERS
Between 2000 and 2010, Bozulich created site-specific performance art pieces under the umbrella names Eyes for Ears and VOYAGERS. "Fake Party" (developed for Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound) took place at the Schindler House in August 2000; an event described by Bozulich as "new music dressed up like a party meets a social event disguised as art." During the piece, the audience was treated upon arrival as guests at a party at the Schindler House. Guests were pulled from the "party" into a private room, where they were serenaded by Bozulich lip-synching to old pop songs, and eventually led into yet another party coutyear. The intricate details of the event are described on Bozulich's website. A second piece, Performance for Fever Dreams, was performed at the Getty Museum of Art in February 2004. The third performance in the series was a "guerilla sing-along" featuring Bozulich and others at a train station waiting room in Glendale, California on Mother's Day 2005. Bozulich had recorded sounds at the train station for a previous project and decided to hold a free participatory musical event at the location. The productions continue, intermittently, welcoming Carla's highest esteemed colleagues. These events are performed Internationally depending largely on private funding. Venues have included CalArts Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology (CEAIT) Festival at Los Angeles' REDCAT Theater on March 5, 2010 is a highlight, titled Drowned To The Light, it featured Bozulich — along with David Rothbaum, Ezra Buchla and Danny Frankel — performing songs and improvised music before the projected films of Brooklyn musician and filmmaker Sarah Lipstate. The fifth, under the series-name VOYAGERS, entitled "Under the Skin" was performed on May 7, 2011 in Krems, Austria as part of Donaufestival. This was a multimedia installation incorporating the entire Minoritenkirche Knoster monastery and grounds. Bozulich also curated three nights of performances at the festival.
Other work
Bozulich has also worked in the illustrative arts and created many DIY music videos, arguably the best is for Bozulich has written articles, short fiction, poetry and criticism for Alternative Press, LA Weekly, Wire Magazine, Ecstatic Peace, Bust Magazine and Ben Is Dead as well as been a featured poet at the 2014 Fourth edition of the Wire Off-The-Page Festival curated by Wire Magazine, Qu Junctions and the Bristol literary Coalition. She has expanded her long-morphing story "The Sparkely Jewel" into a full-length novel near completion with some chapters already unveiled in readings. In The Guardian in a piece called, Cult Heroes: Carla Bozulich – Storyteller Has A Wicked Way With Murder Ballads, Carla states, “I would consider myself more a writer, and not just of lyrics,”. In the same article, journalist, Maddy Costa balances Bozulich's self-analysis by describing her impression of experiencing Carla Bozulich as singer, as performer: "In restrained mood it’s sleek and plush as midnight fur – but at the slightest provocation it becomes a yowling, scratching, gnashing thing, ripping into entrails and spitting blood. Watching her perform live, there’s no doubt that the voice controls the woman, rather than vice versa: her body contorts around it, as though it’s pummeling her from the inside." She has also run workshops with small groups teaching the creative process.
Discography
- Solo albums:
- The Red Headed Stranger
- I'm Gonna Stop Killing
- Evangelista
- Unrock Instore Gig Series Volume 4 (released in Germany and limited to 300 copies)
- Boy
- Quieter
- Featured solo work:
- New Coat of Paint: Songs of Tom Waits (song "On The Nickel")
- Fields And Streams (song "Blue Boys")
- For a Decade of Sin: 11 Years of Bloodshot Records (song "Lonesome Roads")
- As leader of Evangelista:
- Evangelista (released under the name Carla Bozulich)
- Hello, Voyager
- Live at Issue Project, NYC June 15, 2008 (self-released CD sold at live shows)
- Prince Of Truth
- In Animal Tongue
- Abisso (album by OvO - Evangelista as a band collaborated on song "Fly Little Demon"
- As lead vocalist and lyricist of the Geraldine Fibbers:
- Get Thee Gone (vinyl only)
- The Geraldine Fibbers (compact disc EP incorporating elements of Get Thee Gone)
- Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and My Home
- Live From the Bottom of the Hill
- What Part of "Get Thee Gone" Don't You Understand?
- Butch
- Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and My Home reissue with four bonus tracks
- Collaboration with Blue Willa:
- Blue Willa (producer, guest instrumentalist and background vocalist)
- As member of Scarnella:
- Scarnella
- Super Bad at 65: a Tribute to James Brown (song "Hot Pants")
- Duet album with Ches Smith:
- Run (available as MP3 download only)
- Collaborative album with Simone Massaron:
- Dandelions on Fire
- As a featured performer with Gary Kail/Zurich 1916:
- Creative Nihilism (as Carla Noelle)
- As member of Invisible Chains:
- Invisible Chains
- As member of Ethyl Meatplow:
- As a featured vocalist with Mike Watt:
- As a featured vocalist and composer with Barry Adamson:
- Oedipus Schmoedipus (as Carla Bozlavich) (song "It's Business As Usual")
- As a featured vocalist with Wayne Kramer:
- Citizen Wayne (song "Back When Dogs Could Talk")
- As a featured duet vocalist with Hadda Brooks:
- I've Got News For You (song "Sometimes I'm Happy")
- As a featured vocalist with Victor Krummenacher:
- Bittersweet (song "Maybe A True Love")
- As a featured vocalist with Two Dollar Guitar:
- Weak Beats And Lame-Ass Rhymes (song "Bozo Shoes"
- Electric Guitar, Sampling Keyboard with Nels Cline:
- Destroy All Nels Cline
- As a featured vocalist and musician with Bonnie Barnett, Carla Bozulich, Rick Potts:
- Various - SoundCd no. 1 (song "Do You Dig?")
- As a featured performer:
- Various - SoundCd no. 1 (song "Carla Bozulich's Fake Party: Audience Cassette Tape Improv")
- As a featured vocalist of The Scott Amendola Band:
- Cry (song "Masters of War")
- As a featured duet vocalist with Lydia Lunch:
- Smoke In The Shadows (song "I Love How You...")
- A Fistful of Desert Blues (with Cypress Grove—song "End of My Rope")
- As a featured vocalist with Gowns:
- Dangers Of Intimacy (song "Apple")
- As a featured vocalist with Nels Cline:
- Various - Secular Steel (song "Eagle Rockers") [2004)
- As a featured vocalist for The Book of Knots:
- Traineater (song "View From a Watertower")
- As a featured vocalist for Bulbul:
- 6 (song "Shenzhou")
- As a featured vocalist for Mickey Finn + Cuong Vu:
- Gagarin (song " I Can´t Feel It Anymore")
- As a featured additional vocalist for Hawnay Troof:
- Daggers At The Moon (songs "U Can Just Ask" and "Like Her")
- As a featured vocalist with (r):
- Drama Queen (song "'See What The Boys In The Backroom Will Have")
- As a featured additional vocalist for Whitman:
- Dog Rose Gall (song "Wishes And War Paint")
- As a featured vocalist with Xiu Xiu:
- Always (song "Smear the Queen")
- As a featured vocalist with Jherek Bischoff:
- Composed (song "Counting")
- As a featured vocalist with Aidan Baker:
- Already Drowning (song "Lorelei/Common Tongue")
- As a featured vocalist with TSU!:
- HMS Angora (songs "Lilac and Stork" and "Day of Skucha")
References
- "United States Public Records, 1970-2009," database, FamilySearch (Carla Ragin Bozulich Los Angeles, California, United States; a third party aggregator of publicly available information.
- Shipley, Al (2017-06-01). "The Geraldine Fibbers' Debut Was a Country Feedback Masterpiece". Vice. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
- "Music Review: Carla Bozulich - Evangelista". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
- "10 Essential Albums from Constellation Records, The Legendary Independent Record Label". Pitchfork. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
- Lee, Stewart (2006-08-06). "Carla Bozulich: Evangelista". The Sunday Times. ISSN 0956-1382. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
- "IGNORE THE NOISE IN THE AMP (or how Blue Willa made an album with Carla Bozulich) ITALIAN SUBTITLES". Vimeo. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
- "The Stone Calendar". thestonenyc.com. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
- "Ruhrtriennale 2009-2011 - Carla Bozulich". archiv.ruhrtriennale.de. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
- Carla Bozulich Marc Almond Dresden Dolls Patti Smith Sparks --Brecht /Weill at Meltdown, retrieved 2019-07-31
- "carlabozulich.com - Fake Party". Web.archive.org. 21 November 2008. Retrieved 3 June 2018.
- "Carla Bozulich hits the European road… in two parts". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
- "The Art Of Noise". Retrieved 2019-07-31.
- Bozulich, Carla (2005-02-24). "Myth Spell". LA Weekly. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
- Bozulich, Carla. "Lou Reed 1942–2013: Carla Bozulich: Filthy And Demure - The Wire". The Wire Magazine - Adventures In Modern Music. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
- "Fourth edition of The Wire 's Off The Page festival announced - The Wire". The Wire Magazine - Adventures In Modern Music. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
- "The Sparkely Jewel". Stardustlanes.com. Retrieved 3 June 2018.
- Costa, Maddy (2016-01-19). "Cult heroes: Carla Bozulich – storyteller has a wicked way with murder ballads". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
- "Behance". www.behance.net. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
External links
- Carla Bozulich's official website
- Carla Bozulich at MySpace
- Evangelista at MySpace
- Carla Bozulich/Evangelista at Constellation Records
- Carla Bozulich discography at MusicBrainz
- Geraldine Fibbers website featuring frequently updated news on Bozulich
- "Carla Bozulich". Discogs. Retrieved 3 June 2018.
- "Secular Steel - Various Artists - Songs, Reviews, Credits - AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 3 June 2018.