People Like Us (musician)

People Like Us is the stage name of Sussex DJ and multimedia artist Vicki Bennett. She has released a number of albums featuring collages of music and sound since 1992. In recent years, she has performed at a number of modern art galleries, festivals and universities.

Musical career

Bennett's first album "Another Kind of Humor, Another Kind of Murder" was released in 1992 and was a joint effort with Abraxas. Her contributions to experimental musical festivals started to win critical support as her work with Negativland, the Jet Black Hair People and MusikTerrorist.

The Soleilmoon and Staalplaat labels co-released "Jumble Massive" in 1996 and "Hate People Like You" in 1997. Bennett released a remix album "Hate People Like Us" in 1999 followed her seventh album "The Thermos Explorer".

In 1999, Bennett earned a commission from Work and Leisure International in Manchester to create and perform a live set at Nottingham Now Festival, Hull TOOT (ROOT) Festival, as well as Manchester Green Room. Ever since she's been involved with animating her collages in conjunction with her own music compositions in a live environment.

Not content to stand still, Bennett again extended the scope of her work, creating two stand-alone movies, "We Edit Life" (commissioned by Lovebytes, Sheffield), and "The Remote Controller" (commissioned by Future Physical, London). Both investigate themes of working with new technology, paradoxically appropriating archive film footage from the 1930s through the 1980s.

In November 2003 she took part in a symposium at the Tate Modern called "Sample Culture Now", alongside Christian Marclay, Mark Leckey and two cultural theorists. This included a concert, a public address and a longer, more in-depth question-and-answer panel session with the audience. More recently, she has performed her work in universities such as the Royal College of Art, San Francisco Art Institute and UC Davis in California, and played concerts at the ICA, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Purcell Room, The Tate Modern, The Pompidou Centre and the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis). Along with artists Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt, she hosted an audio collage workshop at Brighton Media Centre as part of the 'Year Of The Artist' scheme.

In late February/early March 2004 she took part in a residency at FACT in Liverpool, teaching audio collage to 10-12 year olds, making field recordings and working with radio archive material. This was in collaboration with a local school, and also the German artist Felix Knoth. Performances by the artists were also a part of the program. In April PLU performed at Toronto Images Festival and recorded a live session for BBC Radio 3's "Mixing It". When the show was axed in February 2007, Bennett recorded a remix of the presenters' outtakes, "Remixing It," which was broadcast as part of the show's last edition.

Bennett has just finished a commission ("in site") with the LUX in London, a short film called Resemblage working with their archive of artists' films. Core footage comes from Stan Vanderbeek, Larry Jordan, Semiconductor and Alan Berliner. Lux will be making a special webpage for this film, but meanwhile it is available for viewing at The Internet Archive.

In addition to this, she also does an ongoing weekly experimental arts radio show on the freeform New Jersey radio station WFMU, called "DO or DIY" which is back for the Summer season.

Bennett released a best of album "Recyclopædia Britannica" in 2002.

"Story Without End" A DVD of audio-visual work by People Like Us was released by Sonic Arts Network in 2005.

Workshops/Residencies/Commissions/Collaborations

* Winter 2004-5 - Grants for Arts Commission from Arts Council England to make new live set
* Summer-Autumn 2004 - commission with Sonic Arts Network in London to make a short film installation called Magic in the Air
* Winter-Spring 2004 -commission with The Lux in London, to make online film work utilising their archive, resulting in the short film Resemblage
* Ongoing Soundtrack/sound design for film by Rick Prelinger
* Summer 2002-Spring 2003 Future Physical commission to make video work The Remote Controller
* December-January 2002 Lovebytes commission to make a digital short film, We Edit Life, available here
* June 2001 YOTA residency at Brighton and Hove Music Library/Lighthouse, Brighton
* January-April 2001 YOTA residency at Hull Time Based Arts
* February 2001 Lecture/Forum, Dundee Contemporary Arts and Duncan of Jordanstone College
* February 2000 Music workshop, Nova Cinema, Brussels, in association with Brussels 2000 City of Culture celebrations
* October 2000 Presentation to school children, Fylkingen, Stockholm

Album/Single Releases

* "Another Kind of Humor Another Kind of Murder" (split with Abraxas) World Serpent/GBCD1/GB1 (CD/LP) 1992
*"Lowest Common Dominator" Staalplaat/STCD079 (CD) 1994
*"It’s Terrorific!" Staalplaat (DAT) 1994
* "Guide To Broadcasting" Staalplaat/STMDCD2 (3"CD) 1994
* "Beware The Whim Reaper" Staalplaat/STCD 101 (CD) 1996
*"Jumble Massive" Soleilmoon Recordings/SOLV005 (LP) 1996 *"File Under Easy Listening/File Under Sleazy Listening" (split with Sniper) Kleptones 1 (LP) 1996
*"Lassie House" Staalplaat/STPLUPOO1 (10" Picture Disc) 1997
*"Blundersonix/Special Mix" (split with TFU) Kleptones 2 (LP) 1997
*"People Like Us and Sniper Play The Three DJs of The Apocalypse" (with Sniper) Kleptones 4 (LP) 1997
*"Hate People Like You" Staalplaat/STCD 119 (CD) 1997
*"People Like Us Meet The Jet Black Hair People In Concert" Audioview 005 (CD) 1999
*"Hate People Like Us" (remix of PLU by Coil, Negativland, Death in June, Barbed, Christoph Heemann, Bruce Gilbert, Stock, Hausen & Walkman, Rehberg & Bauer, Mika Vainio, Boyd Rice, Dummy Run, Farmer's Manual and Sons of Silence. 2CD features additionally Cyclobe, Req1, V/VM, Sniper, Mr Rotorvator, Felix Kubin, Xper. Xr, Venoz [TKS] , Katy Brown and Dr P Li Khan. There was an additional remix by Andy Votel/Badly Drawn Boy, excluded for legal reasons. *"Caciocavallo/CAD1" (CD) and Staalplaat/STCD126 (2CD) 1999 2CD
*"Thermos Explorer" Hot Air/Airhead002 (CD) 2000
*"A Fistful of Knuckles" Caciocavallo/CAD10 (CD) 2000
* "Swing Largo/Going Out Of My Town" Klang Galerie/GG30 (7") 2001
*"Home-Roam-Play/Work-All-Day" (split 12" with remix by Matmos) Wicked Witch Records (12") 2001 recalled due to faulty pressing
*"Recyclopaedia Britannica" Mess Media/Mess 1 (CD) April 2002
*"Preserved Cowgirl" Asphodel - remix of Tipsy (CD) August 2002
*"Stifled Love" Mess Media/Mess 2 (12") October 2002
* 7" single on Rough Trade label For Us Records October 2002 *"Volatile Media" Lovebytes label (DVD) March 2003
*"Wide Open Spaces" Tigerbeat6 label (CD) collaboration with Matmos and Wobbly May 2003
*"Nothing Special" Mess03 (CD) collaboration with Kenny G
*"Abridged Too Far"- online album at Ubuweb. More info here
*"Windpipe Moods" - (CD) Mukow October 2004
*"All Together Now" - (CD) October 2006
*"Perpetuum Mobile" - (CD) April 2007 collaboration with Ergo Phizmiz

External references

* [http://www.peoplelikeus.org People Like Us website]
* [http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/PL People Like Us weekly radio show on WFMU, NY/internet at wfmu.org]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/alt/johnpeel/features/peoplelikeus.shtml Feature on John Peel's BBC Radio 1 site on People LikeUs, including 2 video streams and interview April 2003]
* [http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,56704,00.html Article in Wired.com featuring PLU December 2002]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/new_media/newsid_2062000/2062364.stm Article featuring media work of PLU on BBC site July 2002]
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,817495,00.html Small mention in The Guardian (UK)]
* [http://www.lovebytes.org.uk/2002/docs/pages/vicki.htm Photo and text documentation of Lovebytes Commission for film "We Edit Life", 2002]
* [http://www.magnetic-south.org.uk/quiet Documentation of audio collage workshop residency at Brighton Library, in association with Brighton's Lighthouse, Summer 2001]
* [http://www.Veejay-Nights.com/london/index.html Video interview with People Like Us, 2001 - in conjunction with the European Media Art Festival (EMAF)]
* [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:36msa9igu238~T2 All Music Guide entry]
* [http://www.ubu.com/sound/plu.html People Like Us: The Complete Recordings on UbuWeb]
* [http://www.archive.org/details/STORY_WITHOUT_END "Story Without End" - Film detourned by People Like Us (Prelinger Archive)]
* [http://creativecommons.org/audio/peoplelikeus Creative Commons interview]
* [http://www.shzine.com/interview-peoplelikeus.php "SHZine" interview with Vicki Bennett (November 2003)]
* [http://www.archive.org/details/PeopleLikeUs People Like Us collection] at the Internet Archive's live music archive
* [http://www.archive.org/details/PeopleLikeUsMatmosandWobbly People Like Us, Matmos and Wobbly collection] at the live music archive