The San Francisco Tape Music Center: 1960s Counterculture and the Avant-Garde - Tapa dura

"An outlandish episode on nearly every page of this book... A probing account."--Los Angeles Times "The excitement of exploration and the delight in fortuitous accident come through in the many firstperson accounts and interviews which make up the bulk of David W. Bernstein's marvellous account of the Center."--Times Literary Supplement (Tls) "[An] extremely accessible and often inspiring book ... Comprehensive [and] fascinating."--Modern Painters "Provides the first comprehensive history of the Tape Music Center ... The collision of historically incompatible characters is hard to believe: It is a Kevin Bacon game ... of avant-garde and pop culture in the '60s."--Artforum "A rich and multilayered history... [Sheds] light on a little-discussed corner of 1960s counterculture in the United States."--Journal of the Society For American Music (Jsam)

This book tells the story of the influential group of creative artists - Pauline Oliveros, Morton Subotnick, Ramon Sender, William Maginnis, and Tony Martin - who connected music to technology during a legendary era in California's cultural history. An integral part of the robust San Francisco 'scene,' the San Francisco Tape Music Center developed new art forms through collaborations with Terry Riley, Steve Reich, David Tudor, Ken Dewey, Lee Breuer, the San Francisco Actor's Workshop, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the Ann Halprin Dancers' Workshop, Canyon Cinema, and others. Told through vivid personal accounts, interviews, and retrospective essays by leading scholars and artists, this work, capturing the heady experimental milieu of the sixties, is the first comprehensive history of the San Francisco Tape Music Center.