Frank Rothkamm

Frank Rothkamm, the enigmatic figure of the technological avant-garde, was born in 1965 in the small German town of Gütersloh. Educated in piano, violin and the Science of Harmony, Rothkamm trained also as an actor at the Moers state theater where he received his first commissions to write instrumental & electronic scores. In 1985 he produced ritual performances for galleries and festivals & released his first musical recording through the Cologne Maria Bonk gallery. After studying Bionics at the Technical University of Berlin, Rothkamm migrated to Vancouver in 1989 where he created computer programs for Science World of British Columbia. This formed the basis for what would emerge 10 years later as the Atari language IFORM.

In 1990 he settled in San Francisco, producing S&M performances, raves & commercial jingles. He relocated his computer music studio in 1993 to New York City and released solo and collaborative compositions through his own Flux Records and the Archive of Experimental Hits, as well as Capital, PolyGram, and Knitting Factory labels. Soundtracks for 3D animations (among them Star Wars) followed. In 1997 he was initiated into the Masonic Order and was bestowed the highest degree of Master Mason. He currently lives and works as a website builder in Hollywood, California.

This past April, I went to a surprise party in Denver, Colorado. While shopping at a thrift store I discovered an album called TV Jazz Themes by the Video All-Stars, with an interpretive dancer dressed in red gracing the front cover. The TV background scores were recorded in Hollywood. Upon my return to California, I set out to find 77 Sunset Strip, but Sunset Boulevard turns into Cesar Chavez Boulevard when crossing the Pasadena Freeway, and there is no 77. It must have been across the oldest house in Los Angeles on Olvera Street. I drove back on Sunset from downtown to Hollywood. It was very hot again -- the sun blaring down on LA like every other day. Because I never wear sunglasses (or watches for that matter), the weather here probably got the best of me as I had the idea for a golden sound - very appropriate, since I live in the Golden State. By tuning in c-minor, I created it via additive synthesis on the VZ10M, but for some reason, it turned out to be more like a psychedelic organ from the 60's. I set out to compose the piece made up of samples from exotica vinyl records that were recorded in Los Angeles. But as I synchronized and tuned the master sample-index on the K2000, this honorable high-end piece of computing machinery turned itself off and saved all files with a length of 0. This set off a series of machine breakdowns and other technical glitches that turned the creation of 77sunsetstrip into a Zen koan. I found myself writing out (via mouse) the score one event at a time, with all original MIDI-input generated by IFORM's word iboard, which allows the steering of random processes via sliders. The rhythms are pointilistic and arranged geodesically, a shamanistic minimal house. A historic Hewlett-Packard sine-wave generator runs throughout. The only samples that remain are 3 sentences: Highbrow and the hipster! Starlet and the phony tipster! 77 Sunset Strip!”