Z'EV

{{About|the American musician Z'EV|other uses|Zev (disambiguation){{!}}Zev}}

{{Infobox musical artist

| 2 =

| name = Z'EV

| image = StefanJoelWeisser aka Z'EV.jpg

| background = non_vocal_instrumentalist

| birth_name = Stefan Joel Weisser

| caption = Z'EV in 2008

| alias =

| birth_date = {{birth date|1951|2|8}}

| birth_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|2017|12|16|1951|2|8}}

| death_place = Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

| instrument = {{hlist|Found objects|percussion}}

| genre = Industrial

| occupation = {{hlist|Poet|sound artist}}

| years_active = 1966–2017

| label = {{hlist|Touch|Cold Spring|Soleilmoon}}

| associated_acts =

| website = {{URL|www.rhythmajik.com}}

}}

Z'EV (born Stefan Joel Weisser, February 8, 1951 – December 16, 2017){{cite web|title=American percussionist and poet z'ev has died|url=https://www.thewire.co.uk/news/49299/z-ev-has-died|website=Wire|access-date=19 December 2017}} was an American poet,{{cite journal |last=Sanders|first=Rens|date=1981-06-01|title=Z'EV Geluidstyfoon|journal=Vinyl|issue=4|language=nl|pages=20–21}}{{cite journal |last=Bohn|first=Chris|date=1982-05-08|title=Sixophrenic, The Six Faces of Z'EV|journal=New Musical Express|pages=15–16}} percussionist,{{Cite book|author=Re/Search|author-link=Re/Search|title=No. 6/7 Industrial Culture Handbook, Limited Hardback Edition|orig-year=1983|year=2006|publisher=RE/Search|location=San Francisco|isbn=978-1-889307-16-9|page=109}}{{cite journal|last=Atkinson|first=Terry|date=1985-01-16|title=Z'EV: Percussion as Performance Art, A Lonely Road|journal=Los Angeles Times}} and sound artist.{{cite web|author=Chris Toenes|date=2007-05-16|title=Sound artist Z'EV's long, lonely path to innovation|work=Indyweek.com|url=http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=153968|access-date=2011-07-04|archive-date=2007-09-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070926235426/http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=153968|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|author=Glenn Dixon|date=2007-05-24|title=A Sound Experience: Z'EV'|work=Express Night Out|url=http://expressnightout.com/content/2007/05/a_sound_experience.php|access-date=2011-07-04|archive-date=2011-07-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110710212323/http://expressnightout.com/content/2007/05/a_sound_experience.php|url-status=dead}} After studying various world music traditions at CalArts, he began creating his own percussion sounds out of industrial materials for a variety of record labels. He is regarded as a pioneer of industrial music.{{Cite book|author=Re/Search|author-link=Re/Search|title=No. 6/7 Industrial Culture Handbook, Limited Hardback Edition|year=2006|publisher=RE/Search|location=San Francisco|isbn=978-1-889307-16-9|pages=106–117}}

Z'EV was a strong presence in the New York City downtown music scene in the 1980s and 1990s, performing with Elliott Sharp, Glenn Branca, and doing solo performances at The Kitchen, The Knitting Factory, Danceteria, and other venues where experimental music flourished.

In 1983, critic Roy Sablosky wrote: "Z'EV doesn't just break the rules, he changes them."{{cite journal |last=Sablosky|first=Roy|date=March 1983|title=Review of Production And Decay Of Spacial Relations|journal=OP Magazine}} Journalist Louis Morra wrote in 1983: "Z'EV is a consummate example of contemporary performance art, as well as modern composition and theater." and, "Z'EV realizes many of modernist art's ultimate goals: primitivism, improvisation, multi-media/conjunction of art forms, the artist as direct creator."{{cite journal |last=Morra|first=Louis|year=1983|title=Review of Elemental Music |journal=East Village Eye}}

His work with text and sound was influenced by Kabbalah, as well as African, Afro-Caribbean and Indonesian music and culture. He studied Ewe music, Balinese gamelan, and Indian tala.{{cite web|author=Dmitri Kolesnik|date=June 1999|title=Z'EV – Acoustic Phenomenae|work=Drugie Here|url=http://drugie.here.ru/achtung/new/zevint_e.htm|access-date=2008-07-25}}

Career

From 1959 to 1965, he studied drumming with Arnie Frank, then Chuck Flores and then Art Anton at Drum City in Van Nuys, California.

In 1963, he abandoned Judaism and began his lifelong relationship with world religions and esoteric systems.

From 1966 to 1969, he performed in a jazz rock band with Carl Stone and James Stewart. After auditioning for Frank Zappa's Bizarre Records, the band ceased activities and both he and Stone began attending the California Institute of the Arts.{{Cite book|author=Re/Search|author-link=Re/Search|title=No. 6/7 Industrial Culture Handbook, Limited Hardback Edition|orig-year=1983|year=2006|publisher=RE/Search|location=San Francisco|isbn=978-1-889307-16-9|page=116}}{{cite web|author=Mike Hovancsek|title=Z'EV: Swords into Plowshares|url=http://wlt4.home.mindspring.com/adventures/articles/zev.htm|access-date=2008-11-12|archive-date=2008-10-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081020185436/http://wlt4.home.mindspring.com/adventures/articles/zev.htm|url-status=dead}}

After studying at CalArts from 1969 to 1970, he began producing works using the name S. Weisser, primarily concentrating on visual and sound poetries.

In 1975, he was included in the "Second Generation" show at the Museum of Conceptual Art in San Francisco.{{Cite book|last1=Loeffler|first1=Carl Eugene|last2=Tong|first2=Darlene|title=Performance Anthology: Source Book Of California Performance Art|year=1980|publisher=Contemporary Arts Press|location=San Francisco|isbn=9780931818011|page=126|quote=Kent, Tom. "Second Generation," Artweek, v.6, March 29, 1975 p.5. Review of MOCA's fifth anniversary celebration entitled, MOCA: Second Generation, which included works by Richard Alpert, Jim Pomeroy, Darryl Sapien, Irv Tepper, and Stefan Weisser.}} He also became a member of Cellar-M, a musical project of Naut Humon. He would continue to work with Humon on various projects, such as Rhythm & Noise, until 1988.Hovancsek, Mike.[http://wlt4.home.mindspring.com/adventures/articles/zev.htm Z'ev: Swords into Plowshares] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081020185436/http://wlt4.home.mindspring.com/adventures/articles/zev.htm |date=2008-10-20 }}. Adventures in Sound. Retrieved on November 30, 2012.

In 1976 he moved from Los Angeles to the Bay Area. A primary reason for this move was his association with the San Francisco alternative exhibition space La Mamelle, run by Carl Loeffler.

In 1977, he presented his first solo percussion performance at La Mamelle under the project title 'Sound of Wind and Limb'.

In 1978 he began developing an idiosyncratic performance technique utilizing self-developed instruments formed from industrial materials such as stainless steel, titanium, and PVC plastics. Initially these instruments were assemblages of these materials, used with a movement-based performance style that was a form of marionette, although with the performer visible. He has since come to refer to this performance mode as 'wild-style', a term originally related to graffiti. At this time, he first began to perform outside of the fine art context, initially at the Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco. In the fall of 1978, he began performing under the name Z'EV, which comes from the Hebrew name his parents gave him at birth (Sh'aul Z'ev bn Yakov bn Moshe bn Sha'ul).

In November and December 1980, Z'EV opened a series of UK and European concerts in the first headlining tour of the British group Bauhaus. On that tour, and his first solo tour of Europe immediately afterwards, Z'EV introduced intense metal based percussion musics to the UK and Europe. Critic Jason Pettigrew (current editor-in-chief of Alternative Press magazine) attests to Z'EV's pioneering use of metal found object as percussion, writing: "Consider your music collection. Neubauten? Test Department? Z'EV's been there first.' Alternative Press, Issue #59, June 1993, p.35

In 1981, 'Shake Rattle & Roll', a VHS video documenting his first wild-style performance on the East coast (produced by video artist Jon Child), was released by Fetish Records in the UK and was the first 'music' / art video to be commercially released. In 1982 he worked with Glenn Branca for Branca's Symphony No. 2 in which Z'EV had a solo segment swinging with metal can overhead, and rattling chains and sheets of steel. After 1984, he concentrated on performing in a more traditional mallet-percussion style, albeit with highly idiosyncratic and "extended" mallet percussion techniques and his self-made or adapted instruments. In point of fact, Z'EV doesn't actually consider the results as "music" per se, but more as orchestrations of highly rhythmic acoustic phenomena.

From 1986 to 1990, he was a Guest Teacher in Composition and Improvisation at the Theater School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam. With dancer Ria Higler, he mentored a group through their entire four-year course of study.{{cite web|title=Aktuelles - Thomas Lehmen (de)|url=http://www.thomaslehmen.de|publisher=Thomaslehmen.de|access-date=2013-08-15}}

In 1990, he began working with Amsterdam house musician, DJ Dano. Their work, also in conjunction with Austrian media artist Konrad Becker, was instrumental in the emergence of the genres known as gabber and hardcore.{{Citation needed|date=February 2008}} His recordings have been released by C.I.P., Cold Spring, Die Stadt, Soleilmoon, Tzadik Records, Subterranean and Touch.

Z'EV was injured in the 2016 Cimarron train derailment which took place near Dodge City, Kansas on March 14, 2016. After this incident, he continued to have health problems, but continued working. He lived for three months in the guest room of his friend Boyd Rice in Southern California.{{cite web|url=http://louderthanwar.com/rip-zev-industrial-music-legend-and-supreme-percussionist/ |title=RIP : Z'ev - industrial music legend and supreme percussionist |website=Louderthanwar.com |date=17 December 2017 |access-date=2020-03-14}} Afterwards, Z'EV traveled to Europe and was an artist in residence at the Porto-based sound lab Sonoscopia, where he built a number of percussion instruments.

Death

He died on December 16, 2017, in Chicago from pulmonary failure.{{cite news|last1=Pareles|first1=Jon|title=Z'ev, Percussionist and Industrial Music Pioneer, Dies at 66|work=The New York Times |date=26 December 2017 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/26/obituaries/zev-percussionist-and-industrial-music-pioneer-dies-at-66.html|access-date=27 December 2017}}

Published works

Wheels On Fire #'s 1 And 2
Rhythmajik, Practical Uses of Number, Rhythm and Sound
Face the Wound{{cite web|title=ARTIST: Z'EV: Face The Wound: Label: Soleilmoon|url=http://www.soleilmoon.com/store/searchresults.lasso?ArtistName=Z%27EV|publisher=Soleilmoon.com|access-date=2013-08-15}}
The Sapphire Nature{{cite web|title=Welcome to Tzadik|url=http://www.tzadik.com/index.php?catalog=7161|publisher=Tzadik.com|access-date=2013-08-15}}

References

External links

[http://www.rhythmajik.com/ Z'EV rhythmajik.com website]
[http://www.discogs.com/artist/Z'EV Z'EV Discogs discography]
[https://vimeo.com/rhythmajik Z'EV Official Vimeo]
[https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5793898/?ref_=rvi_nm Z'EV Filmography] on the Internet Movie Database

Category:1951 births

Category:2017 deaths

Category:American industrial musicians

Category:American modern pagans

Category:American percussionists

Category:Converts from Judaism

Category:Converts to pagan religions

Category:Deaths from respiratory failure

Category:Jewish American musicians

Category:Jewish American poets

Category:Modern pagan artists

Category:Modern pagan poets