All rules are out the window when it comes to experimental music. Primal screams, scratchy dialogue, looping riffs and ambient echoes are just some of the sounds at a typical Action Research show.
According to its MySpace page, "Action Research is a means to organize experimental and noise shows in Gainesville." Andrew Chadwick, 33, started the project one year ago.
Chadwick created Action Research to bring music that he enjoyed to local venues. He was persuaded to take action by Chris Miller, 39, who runs Electronic SubSouth, an already established movement in Gainesville that also aims to give musicians from underrepresented genres exposure.
"Rather than complaining, you have to step forward and make it happen," Chadwick said.
Hal McGee, a 50-year-old veteran musician, is part of Action Research and plays at many of the shows. Miller described McGee as the Bo Diddley of experimental music in Gainesville.
Chadwick said that Christopher Cprek, 29, a Tallahassee musician known to many as Pax Titania, is also "an equal and important part of what we're doing." Cprek organizes the shows in Tallahassee, including their most recent show, Action Research #25.
"I played an Action Research show in Gainesville at some point and basically told (Chadwick) that I was franchising Action Research in Tallahassee," Cprek said. "I wanted to recognize that these shows were being put together through the same network of people, with a similar aesthetic approach."
Action Research primarily consists of Chadwick, but people like Cprek, McGee and other enthusiastic artists all contribute to the movement to make shows possible.
Action Research #24, which was hosted at George's Meet and Produce on June 13, was the most recent Gainesville show.
"Creating a show is an organic process. It's not a flow chart," Chadwick said. "I am using what I have, which means sometimes, some more unconventional venues."
McGee performed first, playing synthesizer as part of a duet with trumpet player, Jay Peele.
Andrew Barranca, under the name GayBomb, also performed. He used two Califone Magnetic Card Readers - devices originally intended to help children read. Sitting on the floor and using his spidery limbs, Barranca wildly swiped cards through the machines in order to play prerecorded samples of piercing distortion and thunderous wailing. The sound was akin to Satan communicating through a Led Zeppelin record spun the wrong way.
All night, Chadwick directed the fluctuating crowd of about 80 people to each act in the warehouse.
There were 10 performances at Action Research #24. Chadwick encourages bands to play short sets to maximize the amount of people who can participate.
"What we are doing is truly the only alternative to the status quo of guitar hegemony," Miller said of Action Research and Electronic SubSouth.
"Right now (Action Research) is the hot new thing, and the shows are getting a lot of well-deserved attendance and buzz," he said. "There's so much going on right now that it's hard to think about what lies ahead."
The next show is scheduled for Saturday, July 12 at George's Meet and Produce, which will be a collaboration between Miller and Chadwick called Action Research #26 vs. Electronic SubSouth #43.
"(Action Research) is totally a good thing to happen," said Dave Armitage, 24, a UF graduate student who performed at Action Research #24 under the name, No Limit Cycle. "Lots of interesting folks are making their way here to hang with the Florida crazies and derelicts."
