biography

Although this is the "biography" page, you'll also find some more in-depth discussion of EYE's history, politics, propaganda and motivations by reading the samples of interviews provided via the interviews page. Nevertheless, the following provides a general background.

1991-94 - 1994-96 - 1996-98 - 1999 - 2000 - 2001 - propaganda: the deep & beautiful meaning of EYE - brief outline of EYE activism

1991-1994

EYE have been composing, recording and disseminating propaganda through underground do-it-yourself networks since late 1991. For several years EYE was solely a 4-track home-recording project, conducted in the spare time between university studies and activist commitments. Occasional live adventures occurred, particularly for EYE-composed theatre, multimedia and performance art soundtracks in the city of Canberra. A few limited edition cassettes of these experimental noises, with the names "ningen no joken", "aphazia" and "gratings" were released between 1992-1994.

1994-1996

In late 1994 EYE received a government grant for recording purposes. With money in hand, EYE went to the 8-track recording studios at Radio 2XX and recorded most of the songs that appeared on the "Herd Under Social Hypnosis" (1995) cassette. This led to the first tentative moves to obtain reviews and media attention.

In early 1996, EYE had their first CD release, the Ministry-esque track "Grave New World" on a compilation CD. Since then, EYE tracks have appeared on over 20 compilation CDs and on 10 to 20 compilation cassettes. 1995 was a year in which more synths and musical toys were purchased, such as the much-covetted Roland TB-303 analogue bass-synth. It was fetched for only $20 Australian from a suburban housewife. (303s normally sell 2nd-hand for $1000-1500 :-)

1996-1998

In early 1996 EYE finally gained access to affordable high-tech multitrack recording equipment. This was a significant landmark for EYE, because they only ever wanted to do things themselves and with their own money. At this stage EYE weren't at all interested in approaching labels or being pressured to get into debt and meet deadlines nor tailor the sound and politics for a record label. (Actually, as of 2001, EYE still feel the same way!) EYE also loathed lugging gear into expensive studios. Thus, renting professional recording equipment was the solution.

Also in 1996, an EYE sibling-project evolved named "aya". Aya later changed name to ELF. ELF was formed shortly after EYE's J. Citizen played in a one-off group called "Stoat" at the large open air music festival known as the Sydney 'Big Day Out'. Stoat also contained the members of acid-doof groups Biftek and Dark Network. ELF was formed to showcase the more dancey electronic doof music that EYE makes; music without guitars or vocals and the upfront politics and propaganda that characterises the EYE sound. Although, a few ELF tracks now have minimal propaganda samples and very minimal vocal snippets.

In early 1998, a CD burner was purchased. What a godsend this technology was to a d.i.y. project! EYE adopted the name "Blatant Propaganda" for their record label and for the zine of EYE-authored propaganda and music reviews of contemporary underground projects. In mid 1998, 500 copies of B.P. zine #1 was released along with a compilation CDr called "Blatant Propaganda Volume 1". It included tracks by EYE, aya (ELF) and 15 other underground groups from Australia and the U.S. This was one of the very first CDr compilation productions. It sold very well just via word of mouth and leaflet flyers. Several months later the combined EYE and ELF CDr "Aphazia 1992-98" was released. It contains a fraction of the demos recorded by these projects over those years.

1999

The end of 1998 and early 1999 were very busy with major flashes of inspiration and intense composition and recording sessions. Much of this appeared on EYE's first factory-pressed CD "Politics can be fun - Volume 1". EYE's intention was to produce one of the most blatantly political albums ever made, including informative analysis and propaganda, combined with heavy electronica and a large dash of humour. The themes on this CD include exposes of: the party system and western (lack of) democracy, of several contemporary Australian issues such as uranium mining, foreign-ownership of resources and tax avoidance by these companies, as well as the electoral scams of the 1998 Australian election.

The vanguard track of the CD, "Mandate!", features comical and biting re-samples of the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard. The Australian government's national youth radio station, Triple J, declared that "Mandate!" and EYE in general was too political and controversial for them to play.

Nevertheless, the song became a favourite on community radio stations around the country. The album was "album of the week" on several of these radio stations. It received many flattering reviews and quite a lot of media attention, particularly for a relatively unknown underground d.i.y. project. Over the course of several months J. Citizen was interviewed 17 times on radio, once for t.v. and about 10-15 times in print (just in Australia).

Thus 1999-2000 was an exhausting time for EYE, doing all the promo and distribution themselves. Through their own efforts EYE managed to have the CD stocked in around 40 record stores across Australia. This is a lot more than many acts on larger labels achieve. In EYE's home city, Canberra, the CD became the biggest selling CD by a local band and the second biggest selling "industrial" act after Nine Inch Nails. The initial 1000 CD pressing ran out after several months. Of course, this isn't exaclty top 40 sales figuers, but for a project that is completely d.i.y. (do-it-yourself), which did not tour, and whilst working fulltime during the day, this is quite an achievement. Mind you, this impressive sales rate had something to do with the saturation of Canberra with EYE posters and propaganda paraphernalia over many many months by an enclave of EYE devotes. Sydney, Newcastle and Melbourne have also undergone minor plasterings with EYE propaganda.

In late 1999 a video was produced for "Mandate!" The filming of footage at Parliament House involved being told to "leave or be arrested" by the guards (several times!) for apparently causing a "public nuisance" and for representing Parliament House in an "unfavourable manner". The "Mandate!" video was later shown on two national Australian TV music shows: ABC-TVs "Rage" and SBS-TVs "Alchemy". "Alchemy" even travelled to Canberra and did an interview with J. Citizen in the Room 101 studio while he was wearing a John Howard mask. It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, however, the interview was never played on TV. The reason given was that the audio wasn't properly recorded by the SBS-TV crew properly. Oh well, who knows what conspiracies may explain the real reason... note: SBS-TV, like radio JJJ, is government funded. Hint-hint ;-)

The other significant event of 1999, that comes to mind at the time of rewriting this biography (which incidentally (if you're interested) is quite late on a Tuesday night in early 2001), was the final installation of the Room 101 studio as a fully-fledged professional state-of-the-art digital dooby-whatsit multitrack home recording studio. From 4-track to pro-studio-rama in 8 years; 8 years of earnings from horrible day jobs. Well, it took a while. But well worth it... or so EYE believe.

2000

2000 continued the exhausting frenzy of EYE doing all promotion and CD distribution whilst working fulltime jobs in the day. In May EYE quietly released another CDr compilation of professionally recorded material called "Propaganda (is Sexy)". ELF also released a CDr called "Preview". Both CDs were originally released via mp.com/eye and mp3.com/elf These were released only on CDr due to the lack of funds and time to promote fully-fledged factory-pressed CDs.

In mid-2000, J. Citizen left his top-secret job in the Ministry of Peace and moved into I.T. He also enrolled in study of multimedia and web-design (to add to his list of fancy academic qualifications). This inevitably resulted in a great scaling down of promotions.

2001

During 2001 EYE distributed 3 new CDR releases to over 40 Community Radio stations around Australia as well as to selected press. Each of these releases received very frequent amounts of airplay on radio as well as broadcasts at numerous rallies and protests across the country. The CDRs were:

1/. "M1 Lullabies". 5 tracks. April 2001.
2/. "Refugees E.P". 4 tracks (though some copies varied). August 2001.
3/. "Taliban: Made by the U.S.A". 2 tracks. November 2001.

In December, the nationally syndicated radio show "Beatroot", broadcast a feature on EYE, elf, & Blatant Propaganda Productions. The feature went for over 15 minutes. It included an interview with J. Citizen and the EYE tracks "Taliban: by the U.S.A.", "Mandate!" and the ELF remix of EYE's "Puppets". This was broadcast on over 70 community radio stations around Australia.

 

THE END

for now

...well,

actually...

If that wasn't enough of a ramble for you,
and you're still reading,
the below bits are from the manifesto
of an older "biography".

propaganda:
the deep & beautiful meaning of EYE

EYE is an musical expression of the mental disturbances which result from finding out that Santa Claus isn't real, the muppets are merely stockings with hands in them to make them move (yes, it's true), and that the nice beautiful people on the television very occasionally (but of course, accidentally) make errors in reporting "THE TRUTH" (whatever that may be).

The propaganda of EYE is an attempt to convey some of these disturbing realisations to others so that we can all jump up and down and have a jolly good song and dance about it. (Laugh Now.) Seriously now, the intention behind the propaganda is to frighten minors, ... no, no hang on, that's not it, (well, that's only part of it), it's to... aah... it's to encourage people to look behind the scenes and discover the vested-interests who dictate what we are spoon-fed as:

do-gooder-trouble-makers:
a brief outline of EYE activism.

The members of EYE have been deeply involved with many political campaigns over the years. These include campaigns about the Pharmaceutical Drug industry, medical fraud, vivisection, vaccination pro-choice, vegetarianism and other health issues through to East Timor issues (before the world took notice and things thankfully changed), tax reform, constitutional issues and anti-party system issues. These activities have included blatant propaganda in the music, authoring and distributing many articles and leaflets, letter box drops, posters, stickers, street theatre and antics, radio productions, participating in conferences at Parliament House as well as meeting with (as representatives of community health groups) members of the Federal Government. And yes, EYE are under the age of 30. All of this has been voluntary and at EYE's own expense. EYE has also produced & circulated numerous information CDRs to Community Radio across Australia. The most recent of these was in early 2000 with a CDR titled "Kill the GST" which was a last minute effort to raise public awareness on how to stop the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

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