Description
Combining guitar soundscapes with handmade instruments such as the anti-cello, Popp weaves an intricate musical tapestry.

Music style
Experimental, ambient guitar textures

Group members
Joe Popp - Main musical instrument: Electric guitar (with LOTS of pedals!!!) Other musical instruments: Amplified acoustic guitar. Anything with strings on it. I also create my own stringed instruments. This started out with my need to use a violin bow. I wanted to be able to play two-note chords with a bow. Because of the flat plain of the six guitar strings I found that I could either play the low E string individually, the high E string individually, or all six strings together. So I took a stick, put two tuning pegs at one end and a makeshift bridge-tailpiece at the other end, slapped a pickup on it and was immediately able to bow two-note chords! I named this first "instrument" the Anti-Cello. Next came the
Bass Anti-Cello, followed by the Poppsickle Stick, a SCREAMIN‚ slab of wood six-string lap slide. My favorite creation, deemed the Poppsickle Stick MB, is made of solid rosewood, has steel strings and a line of modified music box innerds screwed to it. This instrument was used in a performance with Rick DiBello and Bone Floor, a dance troup, which took place at the Erie Art Museum Annex during 2001. I believe Rick has a recording of this performance. There may even be some video of it.

Albums
The Color Of Distortion, Spokes of Joy-Trycycle, Blood Pudding-Blood Pudding, Blood Pudding-Here Comes the Pudding,

Press reviews
"His last name is Popp; art and music are his forte. But Joe Popp doesn't play pop music, per se, and he doesn't make pop art in any Andy Warhol, Campbell Soup-kind of sense. What he really creates is Popp art — unique music and visual pieces which spring from a naturally playful and provocative mind". - Dave Richards

Artist history
I was making cigar box guitars when I was 8 or 9 years old. I started playing guitar when my mom bought me a cheap acoustic guitar from "Scott‚s
5 and 10" department store when I was 12. When I was 13 my older brother George taught me three chords. My older older brother Jim was impressed
enough with my newfound ability that he gave me the gift of an ELECTRIC GUITAR!!! I was never the same. My friends and I made experimental recordings on little 3" reel tape recorders under the band name of ALUMINUM SILVERFISH, all of which are lost (circa 1969). I had a band in junior high school called FOG. We played at the YMCA dances, doing covers of Alice Cooper, Cream. The Stones, Beatles, etc. Our junior high school declined to let us play "Cold Turkey" at the 9th grade variety show. I wonder why? I finally did get to play for my fellow classmates in the 12th grade variety show with my band THE FRED MERTZE BLUES BAND. We rocked the house. After high school I did a few local band things that never took off. I eventually met Lon Withrow, with whom I did quite a bit of very out playing and recording, some of which I‚ve been able to retain. In 1980 my girlfriend Karen and I moved to San Francisco. I did a lot of jamming in the clubs there with the likes of Joe Louis Walker, Gino Scaggs, Cool Papa, Curtis Lawson, Johnny Nitro and the Doorslammers, etc. I also got my first 4 track recorder and began to do a lot of recording. I have probably got 100 hours of 4 track material. I started putting together cassette albums and making limited run copies for friends. My submitted my solo project cassette Some Kind Of Contraption for review in a San Francisco magazine called BEEF FREE. It got a rave review! I started a band with Tom Arndt and Kim Foscotti (female drummer who was a studio tech for the Tubes). We called the band THE JICKETS. The Jickets was the name of a club in a TV show from my childhood called Davey and Goliath. It was also a slang term for detoxification from alcohol. We later changed the name of the band to WATERMELON PANIC, a name we took from a front-page story about some insane poisoning.

Location
Erie, PA

"Market Street, SF, CA"		Experimental
	Lo Fi Play (dial-up) Hi Fi Play (DSL/cable)	Download (3.7 MB)
	CD: Color Of Distortion Credits © 2001 by Joe Popp

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