Insanity #1 (a tribute to Mark)

Lou shares a tape from a childhood friend.

RAW impressions 41 and 42 , Lou and Mark parts 1 and 2, are my tribute to my late friend Mark Harris. The episodes are filled with excerpts from a tape he sent me in 1983 titled Insanity #1.

Mark and I became friends in 4th grade in Jackson, Michigan. I moved to Massachusetts in 1978 but we stayed close via long phone conversations and occasional visits. We both loved music, so, in 1981 I started sending him cassettes of all the hardcore and post-punk I was discovering. The term ‘mixtape’ wasn’t a thing then. I would place a portable tape recorder between my stereo speakers and record myself dropping the needle on the Circle Jerks ‘Group Sex’ L.P., Dead Kennedys “Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables”, Black Flag and the insane 7 inch records I was mail-ordering (The Mentally Ill, Middle Class and J.F.A. to name a few). I would back-announce the songs like a D.J.. He and I spent hours listening to the American Top 40 and shortwave radio in 1970s Michigan. The thrill of new music and strange sounds imprinted on me. Titled “Greatest Shit” or “Meltdown” with painted and mutilated cases, I began fashioning abrasive jingles for each tape and capturing life around my parents house in a fractured audio-journal way. I played with the fast-forward, record and pause buttons on the cassette recorders to create a slowed-down and sped-up slurry of sound. Since the beginning of our friendship, Mark and I went to theaterical lengths to entertain each other. I took to the tape medium like a tadpole to a muddy puddle. By 1982 I was recording very short off-the-cuff songs hoping he would respond to them. When he didn’t give me enough feedback I compiled tapes of the songs I made and sent one to a local Dr. Demento-esque college radio show called Dadavision. It aired at midnight Sunday on the University of Massachusetts station WMUA. They played a few of my songs and my D.I.Y. lo-fi life began, Mark was no longer my only audience. My tapes for my friend set me on the path I’m still following.

Mark began making his sole tape for me in 1983 while still living in Jackson. He completed the tape after moving to Syracuse N.Y. later that year. The tape is split between prank calls from Jackson and stream of consciousness monologues recorded in Syracuse. It was the only tape he sent and it has reverberated through my life like a favorite film or album. It encapsulates everything I knew, loved and feared about him. It’s remarkable how his adult self was so present as an adolescent.

Listen and you will understand.

THE PRANK CALLS

  Over the years I shared Insanity #1 and even played it over the P.A. during Sebadoh shows in the mid-90s. Everyone seemed to enjoy it -almost- as much as I did. In my circle Mark was a star. In real life Mark never followed his performing instincts though anyone who knew him was well-acquainted with his flair for drama and absurdity.

  Here are 2 10-minute collections of Insanity #1’s ‘greatest hits’. Much of the full tape is punctuated with clips from Mark’s favorite T.V. show M.A.S.H..There’s also an entire Gary Numan song and an agonizing fight he purposely picked with his long-suffering mother. Out of respect to her memory I cannot share but, holy shit, it’s another unforgettable hot-slice of Mark.

THE MONOLOGUES