Frank Zappa

According to his official biography, Charlie Nothing "is not born, does not go to school, do not die," and his main instrument is the dingulator. obsessive record collectors may remember the name of 1967 LP The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing, one of the folders that non-guitar on John Fahey's label Takoma. Contemporary listeners may know nothing of his powerful performance dingulation, as he calls his music, in Chicago at the Festival 2005 Two million languages. With a roster of hard to categorize musicians, it was ideal for this difficult to categorize performer. Josephine Foster, who was also on the bill, described as being like "the incarnation of Ubu Rex" and said, "Charlie seems to lose itself in the mind deeply raw performance."

In the years between 1967 and 2005, you may have nothing to cross any number of places. Perhaps it was in a loft in New York in the mid-1960s, when he gave a series of shows that were pushed out of the drug scene and the jam sessions around his house. Nothing's first group including himself sopranino saxophone, a drummer, a classically trained Indian tabla and a young Japanese woman who recited a litany of everyday objects as "deodorant, soap, green shoes, pink shoes, lipstick .. ".

Then came the first Uniphrenic Church and Bank Band, a group that included a young, pre-Blondie Debbie Harry in what must be one of his first vocal performance. In addition to playing the Village Gate, the group Uniphrenic put on a concert series Friday night in the loft of a friend in Manhattan, where everything, including toilet facilities, was decorated in black are always in fashion. The loft concerts were very popular - perhaps it was the music or maybe it was the free beer - but the fire department finally stop.

Nothing goes to Los Angeles where he performed at an arena show with Frank Zappa, joined and then quit the distribution of hair, and a flute concert in Los Angeles Museum of Modern Art. The curator has assured that nothing would be no restrictions on its performance, so the concert took place in the men's room after hours for an audience of two.

After his stint in Los Angeles, has not taken the northern Bay Area, where he lived in a squat in the back of a store in the Haight sandalwood and played the love-ins, clubs North Beach Jazz and similar places of the time. Nothing recorded The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing during this period. The album featured saxophone improvisations accompanied concert gong, congas and a banjo ukulele that was borrowed from Tiny Tim for the opportunity. There has also drawn the cover art. Unsurprisingly, he never cracked the Billboard Top 100, but has achieved some success in Europe worship among fans of improvised music.

Nothing was eventually settled in Santa Cruz, California, where he became a beekeeper and an expert in eliminating biting insects. He has not performed from 1984 to 2004, feeling he had "moved beyond the stage of entertainment monkey-jumping-up-and-down-on-stage." But nothing was not artistically inactive. He has published books (under the name of Charles Simon Martin), created the art in various media and has even sent a tape of music to Ronald Reagan. The White House responded with a beautiful letter that opened: "Dear Mr. Nothing, The President appreciates your support ..."

And he built dingulators, of course, a class of the instrument he invented. At first glance, this dingulator superficial similarities to a guitar body style National Steel. The number of strings varies, less than 21, but seven or eight strings is typical. Dingulators raised frets similar to a sitar, and each is unique. The classic examples tend to have scrolls and flourishes reminiscent of a Gibson Style 0 guitar.