Members of The Committee

TradeMark G. (Mark Gunderson)

TradeMark G. (aka Mark Gunderson) is a musician and artist, perhaps best known as founder of the band The Evolution Control Committee in 1986. He is also a culture jammer, equipment designer, software designer, and organizer. The Evolution Control Committee is best known for its copyright-challenging stance, using found sounds to create new musical works at the risk of copyright violation. This made The ECC the target of a cease & desist order from CBS for sampling newscaster Dan Rather, but also earned The ECC credit for creating the "Mash-Up" genre of music (also called Bastard Pop). TradeMark can take credit for those and all other ECC projects, including the development and construction of the Thimbletron, a live sampling performance instrument; the 2003 nationwide release of the "Plagiarhythm Nation v2.0" CD (which charted #1 in LA, NYC, San Francisco, and put the word "Plagiarhythm" in the Macmillan dictionary), and acquiring and managing the 10,000-record-strong ECC media archives. Over its full history The ECC has produced 16 full-length albums, a videotape, 2 seven-inch records, and even an 8-track tape and a wax cylinder recording. The ECC has appeared on air from CNN to C-SPAN and in print from Spin to US News & World Report. The Evolution Control Committee and other bands The ECC and TradeMark's other bands have given nearly 1,000 live performances at festivals, concert halls, bars, and galleries in US cities from New York to San Francisco, and in Australia, Germany, Holland, England, France, and elsewhere.

TradeMark is the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship Grant in Media Arts, and was an artist-in-residence (2004) and visiting alumni (2005, 2006) at the Headlands Center for the Arts. He has also given lectures and panel discussions at the University of San Francisco, University of Oregon, Headlands Center for the Arts, and festivals in Barcelona Spain, Utrekt Holland, and Sydney Australia.

In addition to The Evolution Control Committee, TradeMark also formed these performing groups:

• Gaga (primitive percussion-heavy tribal music)
• The Weird Love Makers (Electronica / Exotica / Erotica)
• Cheese & Pants Theater (absurdist found-sound dramatizations)
• MelloDeath (piano lounge covers of punk and hard rock)
• The Mood Swingers

Additionally, TradeMark has also been involved with many other organizations and efforts including:

• BMIR, official radio station of the Burning Man festival (station manager)
• Mad Lab, an alternative theater and performance space (musical curator)
• Burning Corn, an annual fringe culture festival (founder)
• Radio-Free 91.5 FM, an unlicensed radio station (co-founder, DJ)
• Cafe Ashtray, a weekly performance art venue which existed for two years at the Acme Art Company (curator/manager)
• ele_mental, a central-Ohio electronic music collective
• Active Radio, a student-based alternative radio group (president)
• Lyceum 23, an artists collective (organizer)

Assistant Frillypants

Members

Wednesday, 30 December 2009 17:26

One of the newest members of the Evolution Control Committee is Assistant Frillypants, (aka Christy Brand). When left to her own devices, Frilly finds her way around the ECC laboratory as a writer, a performer and an artist, and she contributes heavily in some mysterious and not so mysterious ways to the band’s mission of music evolution. If you google her background, you’ll discover that for many years her evolutionary research kept her busy in the band’s music laboratory working on top secret projects. However, after a frightening beaker incident, Frilly decided to forego chemistry for something less fiery and emerged from the ECC’s secret underground lair to try her talents on stage.  Frilly’s debut performance with the ECC was in 2004 at the festival called Experimentaclub in Madrid, Spain. There she commanded the laptop with the seriousness of a spinster school marm from the fifties in a manner that elicited outrage and accolades. Her performance was so provocative that Anki, Experimentaclub’s curator and resident know it all, proclaimed, “Frilly! You are the rockstar!” And she has been putting the rock in the ECC’s live performances ever since.

Frilly’s accomplishments include:

• Sewing under the influence
• Renaming people against their own will
• Producing benefits when nothing else would work
• Creating shows that only bunnies could love
• Teaching others how to photograph their best side
• Playing footsie with the best of them
• Riding on coattails with style
• Staying up all night and only looking twice your age 

Little known facts:  Sometimes referred to as Princess Frillypants, the ECC’s Frilly doesn’t like her royal status to be known. When questioned about it, her official statement is that in Pamplonia, from whence she hails, everyone rules some domain and hers just happens to be the underwear drawer.