Negativland

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Negativland is an American experimental music band which originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. The core of the band currently consists of Mark Hosler, David Wills (aka "The Weatherman"), Peter Conheim and Jon Leidecker (aka "Wobbly").

Being contemporaries of The Residents, and also being based in San Francisco, Negativland and its members have occasionally associated with The Residents and Ralph Records, sampling The Residents on the song "You Don't Even Live Here" from the 1987 album Escape From Noise.

Negativland member Peter Conheim created high-definition digital restorations of a number of Ralph/Residents music videos in 2019 for the Cinema Preservation Alliance.

History

Negativland was formed in December 1979 by Mark Holster, Richard Lyons and David "The Weatherman" Wills. They took their name from a song by German band NEU!. The group were all in high school at the time, but managed to record and finance the release of their first self titled LP, Negativland, on their own label Seeland Records in 1980 (named after another NEU! track).

In June 1981, the group began collaborating with member Don Joyce on the live sound collage radio show Over the Edge; they have since released a series of compilation albums featuring selections from the show.

Between 1981 and 1983 the group released two more albums, Points, and A Big 10-8 Place. By this time the group had begun to attract attention from the local San Francisco counterculture music scene, and began work on their fourth album, Escape From Noise.

Association with The Residents and Ralph Records

The Residents are credited as guest musicians on the track "You Don't Even Live Here" on the 1987 album Escape From Noise, but in 2010 Hardy Fox explained that The Residents were not involved in the track, but were sampled on it, and enjoyed it. It was perhaps for this reason that Negativland contributed a track, "Perfect Scrambled Eggs", to the Ralph Records anthology album Potatoes, released March 1987. In 1999, The Residents and Negativland both contributed tracks to the Knitting On The Roof cover/tribute album.

In 2019, Negativland member Peter Conheim created high-definition digital transfers of a number of Ralph Records music videos (with the aid of original materials supplied by director Graeme Whifler) for the Cinema Preservation Alliance, including "The Third Reich 'n Roll", "Hello Skinny", "One Minute Movies" and Renaldo & The Loaf's "Songs for Swinging Larvae". Conheim has also been entrusted with further material from The Residents' video archives; by May 2021 he had transferred the entirety of the Vileness Fats videotape footage, and was awaiting funding to complete his restorations of the Ralph music videos. He is also credited for restoring the Ty's Freak Show audio featured on the Freak Show pREServed edition CD.