Visiting Place Pigalle in Seattle’s Pike Place Market 📷 Ruby James
My friends called me Gortron or Gordotron when I was growing up because I love synthesizers, stereo space-cat noises & electro-processed guitars way too much. Unusual sounding atmospheres are what I create ALL the time, so the name fits me well. GORDOTRONIC website features my songs, stories and photos– feel free to contact me if you need special space sound collages or want to produce songs together. @GordonRaphael
God, I’ve carried this new notebook around since Christmas and have not writtien anything in it yet! I’m up here on my second favorite bridge in Kreuzberg, Berlin- the one that connects Fraenkelufer to the Il Cassolare Italian punk-rock pizza place– over the gorgeous little canal I walked along to get here. My first favorite bridge is at the far end of Görlitzer Park which looks down on the water over the little improvised circus-style trailer/houses where some brave alternative community lives and presents outdoor theatrical shows in summertime.
The white fluffy cottony things were floating down all around me this sunny day as I walked past Kottbusser Tor, past the needle exchange and Fix-Point where time wearied drug-ravaged people gather round, nursing from Berliner Pilsners till their medicine kicks in. Those white fluffy cottony things come from certain trees, blowing down in these warm, sun-shiney Spring days.
 I am coming along nicely today, smiling inside as I listen on headphones to freshly mastered versions of my own songs. I learned and discovered much in those years locked away in basements / garages / friend’s houses / small dark rooms where I was sure that this music I was making would certainly be heard, hopefully even enjoyed, loved some day by actual human beings with ears, minds and hearts– somewhere out there in the wide, whacked-out world.
I think I’ve composed about 2000 songs or pieces or noise collages or ghastly symphonies, yet I seemed to never be able to take the NEXT big step to RELEASE them. Too scary weird, too difficult risky and far too expensive. PERHAPS these songs weren’t as good as the ones I might create later today, or next week!! The only actual real records I appeared on as a songwriter /musician were the very beautiful ones that Sky Cries Mary created. I was one of seven musicians in that Seattle band, all of whom wrote the songs together quite organically. Also- my friend at ChuckieBoy released a CD of mine called Colour Twigs. Absinthee released two songs (a cover of a Cocteau Twins song, Shallow Then Halo, and one original called 100 Crymes) on Cleopatra Records in Hollywood. Yes, that’s all that’s been out there up until NOW.
  Even in the pre-grunge Seattle days I began discovering and recording super-fine, innovative bands, aiming to start my own label, Ars Divina Network, to showcase these talents. Green River- (which later branched into both Mudhoney and Pearl Jam), Soundgarden, Bundle of Hiss, Serious Dark Angels and Feast were some of the first rock bands that I recorded and intended to sign, promote and release. There was also a very great project from my friend Tor Midtskog called The Violet Caste that I loved quite brightly.
Young G was extraordinarily scattered however, no good at all in the art of organization, business or money matters; so I never really got it together. Instead, some good friends and I set up a recording studio/ music gang/ crash pad, housing project in an old church in Ballard.The Ars Divina church as we called it, was full of bands, artists, suave characters and general punk-rocker freaks. This immersive, live in art project took an immediate and funky dive towards chaos discord, creating a huge mess in which I definitely participated along with a whole cast of lovely fuzzy warm characters. Just as things there seemed to really start going, (we had a film premiere party for Barb Ireland, and were recording the Urban Rhythm Unit) the church burnt down in a mysterious sad, scary very hot fire. Along with melted instruments, burnt Hammond Organs, and Synthesizers turned to ash- the curtain closed on this chapter much too abruptly.
The neighbors cheered when that place was gone. They hadn’t appreciated the young trampies and wasted kids jumping onto their garage roofs, dancing on top of their automobiles with dirty boots or pissing outside under bright streetlights during our extremely LOUD parties.
   Many years later in quite a different life I moved to London and started Shoplifter Records through Sony, thanks to Mark Chung- a supercool guy who really DID play bass in Einsturzende Neubauten (a Berlin based industrial band that was a huge favorite in the Seattle scene).Sony offered funding for any band that I could sign (wow and finally!!), so I immediately went after Miss Machine, Kill Kenada, Regina Spektor and The Satellites (Cicely Satellites). We put out two Miss Machine singles and had just released Regina’s mind-and-heart-bendingly fabulous Soviet Kitsch album when things started to disintegrate / fall apart.
   I decided to continue on with my idea, now armed with a clearer psychedelic vision from lessons learned and reviewing experiences. I have a new, new chance with GORDOTRONIC moving forward. May you find inspiration, resonance & bemusement here.
xx Gordon Raphael— Head Shoplifter
Artwork by Jess Allanic from the great UK band, Calva Louise