Billy’s Masonic Tavern + The Mystery of Time

I recently ran a post about The Right Brain Society’s
use of music and repurposed
video footage, and shortly thereafter Lord Open contacted me on an unrelated note regarding
some writing I’d posted on myspace (and I have lots more to say about myspace in a later post). Anyway it turns out Lord Open
has done similar mixing of music to old film footage, so I invited him to upload his work to altertube.

The Moody Institute’s
“MYSTERY OF TIME”(1957)
rescored by thee everlovin’ Lord oPEN
featuring the experimental sounds of BILLY’S
MASONIC TAVERN

The flv format slightly distorts some of the video quality on the film posted here, so if you’d like to download the
film it’s available on Archive.org here:
Mystery of Time (2007).

Lord Open explains:

“It was thrown together to promote the BMT recording project. The recordings are released under
a really lax ‘say it if you play it’ creative commons license and are free for people to use as sample fodder,
soundtracks, in podcasts – whatever
we thought if people could hear it in a movie then they might want to use it for their own stuff.”

After putting this post together, I emailed a few questions to Lord Open regarding this work to get some understanding
of the process behind this particular piece. Here’s those questions and his responses:

Do you know BMT or did you find the music and the film and decide they should go together? How are you affiliated?

Lord Open:
I do know BMT, along with Robertson Holt (Cauterwall), Osamu Minami (Oz) and Billy Mason I’m one of the founding members. I’m also the chief archivist and un-official publicist(I maintain the myspace page and upload files etc.)

The ‘Mystery of Time’ was something that I came across while hunting through the Internet Archive for public domain stock footage. One of the recurring themes of BMT in the earlier
days was utilizing sounds as a means of connecting with ‘the 5th Dimension.’ Time-travel is also one of the primary features of Lord Open’s personal mythology. This film was a perfect fit. I was very happy to find it.

In your opinion, should there be restrictions or compensation on how digital work is used, and if so why, if not, why not?

LO:
My thoughts is this area are largely inspired by the famous ‘no kopyright’ movements of the past: Negativeland, Plunderphonics, the Discordians. There’s not really any point in restricting how digital media is being used, because A) once people have the tech they are going to use it in whatever way they see fit. I do not see it as a situation that is actually policeable.
B) its the 2000′s re-contextualizing the media of your surroundings is a well established means of comment and self-expression. Why attempt to stifle that kind of creativity?

I do believe that artists should be compensated for the work that they do, which means, at the very least their work should be credited. Plagiarism is definitely un-groovy.

Are you going for a particular style, or are you having fun with what can be done?

LO:

Over the years there have been well over 50 different participants in the BMT experience. When we play in a club, we eliminate the audience/band dichotomy by inviting the audience to come up on stage and join in. We always have a few extra drums, a guitar, and some mics available. On more than one occasion the show has gone on with none of the “core” members actually on stage. Obviously its difficult to go for a specific “sound” in that kind of situation. But, we always have BIG FUN playing and we play to encourage others to have BIG FUN as well.

BMT’s internet presence is an extension of this philosophy. By making the recordings freely available one can become a virtual participant in the Tavern experience from the comfort of home.

Watch for more from Lord Open here.