People Like Us, official website

 

Welcome to the only official site for People Like Us and Vicki Bennett

Since 1991 Vicki Bennett has been making CDs, radio, and A/V multimedia under the name People Like Us. Ever since she has been animating and recontextualising found footage collages with an equally witty and dark view of popular culture with a surrealistic edge, both pre-recorded and in a live setting. Vicki has shown work at, amongst others, Tate Modern, The National Film Theatre, Purcell Room, The ICA, Sydney Opera House, Pompidou Centre, Sonar in Barcelona and The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. She has also performed radio sessions for BBC's John Peel, Mixing It, and also CBC, KPFA and does a regular radio show on WFMU which has had over 3/4 million realplayer hits.

2008 saw the launch of the first People Like Us Retrospective, at alt.gallery in Newcastle Upon Tyne, a feature in The Wire, the release of online-only album Rhapsody in Glue with artist Ergo Phizmiz, a CD curated for Sonic Arts Network entitled Smiling Through My Teeth, and the return of DO or DIY on the air at WFMU every Monday evening.

Currently, Vicki is working on the Great North Run Moving Image Commission 2009, and a new live AV set to be launched in autumn/winter 2009.

01.07.09: Rhapsody In Glue now available for free download!

We are very pleased to announce that the recently deleted "Rhapsody in Glue" digital album by People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz from 2008 is now available for the first time for free download!

Many thanks to our friends at UbuWeb for hosting this album, which can be sourced here - http://ubu.com/sound/plu_rhapsody.html

You can also download the album by clicking on the links below.

1. Snow Day
2. Gary's Anatomy
3. Pussycat Giantess
4. English Hunting Song
5. Blame It On The Waltz
6. Carmic Waltz
7. Troika Country Garden
8. Social Folk Dance
9. Smiling Through My
10. In The Waking
11. Dancing in the Carmen
12. Antisocial Boogie
13. Withers in the Whist

Artwork

For background on the album please read on.

Following the success of the critically acclaimed "Perpetuum Mobile" CD of 2007, renowned UK collagists / composers People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz reunite for "Rhapsody in Glue", a cycle of bricolage-ballet-music, skewed-waltzes, and skewiff-pop.

There is a story behind every album, and with "Rhapsody in Glue" we find a unique approach to constructing a record. Both long-term contributors to New York radio station WFMU, People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz decided to publicly tear apart their respective practices and create an album "in the open", presenting on a seafood-filled-platter the process of collaborative collage composition - informally discussing and jabbering nonsense to one another, resulting in the "Codpaste" free podcast series (which we have also recently made available as an mp3 download). "Rhapsody in Glue" is the culmination of the ideas explored in the podcast series.

"Rhapsody in Glue" continues in the bizarre ballroom vein of their previous efforts together, however, increasing the sonic palette into textural depths previously uncharted in their work. If "Carmic Waltz" is an expressionist painting by aged ballroom dance teacher who's eaten the wrong kind of mushrooms in her soufflé, then "Gary's Anatomy" is a slice of pure absurdist pop shot through with slabs of exotica and Ethel Merman. Recurring through the record is an apparent obsession with Prokofiev's "Troika (Sleigh Ride)", which merges and mashes with Burt Bacharach and Queen on "Snow Day", and lapses into pure fantasy on the almost entirely acoustic "Withers in the Whist", jarring with Ergo's strange, Victoriana obsessed lyrics. Then on "Dancing in the Carmen" we discover what happens if Nana Mouskouri is thrown into a pot with Peggy Lee and let simmer for 10 minutes, whilst "In The Waking" shimmers along on multitracked guitars, meandering melodies, and music boxes.

Later in 2008, the duo later went on to release a 7" with Touch entitled "Withers In The Waking".

Ergo Phizmiz
UbuWeb
WFMU

 

25.06.09: Subscribe to the DO or DIY podcast

It's easy! So long as you have iTunes installed if you click on this link it will do the rest for you.

http://wfmu.org/podcast/PL.xml

Also you don't need an mp3 player/ipod to play a podcast - all it is is an mp3 that gets delivered to your computer as soon as it's available - how about that?

If you'd prefer to just listen to archives you can listen here in just SO many ways. We've even got a fancy pop up player -

http://wfmu.org/playlists/PL


Install iTunes for both Mac and PC here

 

23.06.09: Codpaste mp3s!

Codpaste - People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz's podcast from 2008 is now available in mp3 form!

Just go along now to WFMU's Free Music Archive and grab them now.

Alternatively grab the mp3s here:
1 - Cartoon Music
2 - The Chase
3 - Hooked On Classics
4 - ThEdit
5 - Fwms Bo Wo
6 - Snow Day
7 - Banjos, Pots, Pans and Squeezeboxes
8 - Collage
9 - I Can't Tell A Waltz From A Tango
10 - Nana Mouskouri
11 - Sing Song
12 - Comedy
13 - Easy Listening
14 - Finale

More background information on Codpaste here -
http://www.peoplelikeus.org/2007/codpaste_podcast_on_wfmu.html


Codpaste was later developed into the album Rhapsody in Glue.

 

15.06.09: Welcome To The New Look People Like Us Website

Welcome to the new look People Like Us website! Instead of stealing the source code from our yoga teacher this time, we decided to work with Philip at Rebels in Control, who has done a fantastic job untangling everything, polishing it all up and throwing out the trash too!

Now if you want to link to something you will not be pointing towards a page the length of an entrance carpet, also you can subscribe to site feeds, plus we have many new pictures and downloads to be found in addition to the pile of data already here.

The site is by no means complete, we will be adding more in the coming weeks - but we thought we'd get this with you to coincide with DO or DIY with People Like Us returning to the air and etherwaves on 24th June.

 

14.06.09: DO or DIY back on WFMU Summer 2009!

We are very pleased to announce that DO or DIY with People Like Us will return to the radio waves and internet tubes every Wednesday evening starting June 24th, right through the summer to October 7th inclusive, bringing you All Things Avant Retard.

The show will be on after the fantastic "Seven Second Delay" (with Ken and Andy) - between 7pm and 8pm NY time. That is midnight Wednesday evening in the UK.

Generally we do a live playlist and enable live commenting so do watch as well as listen if it's not too much of a distraction from the beeauutiful music. If you live in NY/NJ you can listen on the radio at 91.1fm in New York and 90.1fm in the Hudson Valley. If you're on the internet then listen anywhere by clicking on Live Audio Stream links at the top of WFMU.org.

For those of you unfamiliar with People Like Us' radio show, or indeed if you just fancy another listen, move your mouse over to the DO or DIY archives at WFMU.

We've also made a number of "Best of" compilations available since 2003, including these two from 2008.

DOwnloadable DO or DIY 1
DOwnloadable DO or DIY 2

 

People Like us, chronologically





Buy PLU!

To purchase People Like Us product, please click here.

 

Biography

To read the People Like Us biography/discography, Vicki Bennett's artist statement and download press shots, please click here.

 

DO or DIY

The People Like Us radio show on WFMU - click here for details!

 

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Mailing list and Bookings

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Please note, this is an announcements-only list. For all booking enquiries please click here.

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