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  • The Living Archive of Underground Music

    early experiences

    Zan Hoffman

    By Don Campau | 27 October 2011

    A Zan collaboration project from 1994. He often used cryptic abbreviations of peoples names to list them on his tapes. I became "DonCa". John Wiggins, Phillip B Klingler and others were on this tape.

    A Zan collaboration project from 1994. He often used cryptic abbreviations of peoples names to list them on his tapes. I became “DonCa”. John Wiggins, Phillip B Klingler and others were on this tape.

    Another collaboration tape of epic proportions.

    Another collaboration tape of epic proportions.

    Zan's work can more or less be broken into different areas. His "Zanstones" project generally works in experimental sound and noise territory, while "bodycocktail" is his songform output. He also blends other artists together or deforms their material into something new to create bizarre sound fields. Prolific beyond imagination, Hoffman pumps it all out from Louisville, KY.

    Zan’s work can more or less be broken into different areas. His “Zanstones” project generally works in experimental sound and noise territory, while “bodycocktail” is his songform output. He also blends other artists together or deforms their material into something new to create bizarre sound fields. Prolific beyond imagination, Hoffman pumps it all out from Louisville, KY.

    It was 1984, my sophomore year at Drake University and I was packing up to go home for the summer when I received Suburban Galexy 32a by Sombrero Galexy from Al Margolis. I was both excited as this was the first tape in trade to arrive by post, and anxious as I didn’t have equipment yet to duplicate a tape to send him in trade. I enrolled at University of Louisville that summer and eventually used the high-speed duplicating machines in the School of Music to duplicate my 1st copies of The Subtle Art of Puddle Pushing by Zanstones. In November that year I got my first piece of gear, a dubbing deck with mic-line input for overdubbing. This arrived right before I made my maiden home-taper visit to meet Hal & Debbie at their Cause & Effect studio in Indy.

    Zan Hoffman

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