Did John Duncan really shag a corpse?

martin

----
OK, so John Duncan's 'infamous' piece "Blind Date" is billed as the sound of him having sex with a dead Mexican woman, as part of some nihilistic comment on the futility of childbirth (and a ritual that took place on very cheap plastic sheets, if the audio's to be trusted).

Now, I know a bit about how this avant-garde schtick works, so I always assumed that this was just an almighty whopper to piss off the more conservative elements of the art scene, and to gain a bit of notoriety for what otherwise sounds like someone rustling around for 15 mins or so.

But I read a recent(ish) interview with him, and the intro detailed how he actually rang up a mortician in Mexico who was well known for his willingness to accommodate necrophiliacs, provided they had the readies. Duncan's act of corpse-shagging is printed as fact, as is the additional info that he filmed his own vasectomy.

Anyway, you're all the experimental experts, is this true? Was he just bullshitting to seem super-weird and edgy, or did he really bang a stiff?
 

john eden

male pale and stale
I must confess I've not heard this and have no particular desire to.

My guess is that there's only one person who knows whether or not he did it and he'll keep schtum whilst the edginess of it all is still doing him good.

There's definitely a dividing line in experimental music between people (like me) who hope that it is all a scam vs people who hope that he did it (or revel in the uncertainty of it all).

Having said that I do like his recording of gale force wind in Tel Aviv on this:
https://www.discogs.com/Various-Vol-J/release/2221704

(alongside the recording of the illegal settlement fence in Palestine by another artist on the same comp).

Filming your own vasectomy is hardly a big deal, not that I did.
 

martin

----
I dunno, I think having a vasectomy is pretty hardcore. Maybe I'm being a complete woofter, I just have this totally irrational fear of surgeons coming towards my genitals with cutting implements. Certainly more hardcore than cadaver sex, which is just bad taste.

John Duncan's "Riot" album is much better, but I struggle with a lot of the po-faced nature of his stuff.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Yeah I keep meaning to check out the Riot one.

It is basically posh white blokes trying to outdo each other for bants, all this though.

Same with the pretending to be a nazi stuff.

"Duncan was born in Wichita, Kansas to parents of English and Scottish ancestry. He was raised with a strict Calvinist upbringing where self-reliance, hard work and the suppression of emotional suffering were considered virtues, questioning authority was severely punished."

I mean, say what you like about my C of E childhood but I've never felt the urge to fuck a corpse in the name of art.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
I saw John Duncan at Cafe OTO recently and it was drones and spoken word and not a corpse was shagged.

It was actually the same night as the big kick off with the cops over the immigration raid. The gig was an anti climax after that.

I’d forgotten it was the same guy.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
No doubt, to be honest you can't do anything these days without offending woke snowflakes.
You can't even invade the Sudetendland without some soy-latte-drinking Guardianista kicking up a fuss about it. It's political correctness gone mad!
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I long for the days when we just had gliberals and political correctness going mad, woke cuck snowflakes are a totally different nightmarish level of people horrendously caring about stuff and being nice to people.
 

wektor

Well-known member
You can't even invade the Sudetendland without some soy-latte-drinking Guardianista kicking up a fuss about it. It's political correctness gone mad!
I do have some friends who are from Sudetenland and they are extremely nationalist (regionalist?) about it
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I long for the days when we just had gliberals and political correctness going mad, woke cuck snowflakes are a totally different nightmarish level of people horrendously caring about stuff and being nice to people.
I recall "gliberal" was a favourite of He Who Shall Not Be Named.
 

catalog

Well-known member
You'd surely be canceled for shagging a corpse nowadays.
I think he did get cancelled even at the time so he moved into text and sound but did a few other contraversial ones as well eg

BUS RIDE

1976

“Repressed sexual impulses give rise to authoritarian behavior.”

W. Reich, M.D.; The Mass-Psychology of Fascism

A small amount of fish extract is poured into the ventilation system of a Los Angeles city bus shortly before the bus begins its standard route. Set in buses with windows that cannot be opened, the subliminal odor acts as a subtle aphrodisiac on the unsuspecting passengers.

Performed twice, 30 days apart:

A normally passive commuter kicks a stranger, a pregnant woman, off of the seat they’re sharing in order to put up his feet. This causes a fight among the other passengers, half of whom side with the commuter.

A group of normally quiet ultra-polite children, going home from a school specializing in disciplined behavior, tear college career ads from the inside of the bus, shred them and attack each other with the scraps

 
Top