Laurence Bond Miller

BAND HISTORY  (1976-77)

EMPOOL was an experimental band Laurence Miller put together.  It was to accompany the creation of a local arts rag couterpart, one which he was largely responsible for. The band continued in various battered forms, with a mix of schooled and not-so-schooled musicians, until fall 1977 when it finally melted into Ann Arbor's Art-Punk band, DESTROY ALL MONSTERS.  In 1994 Miller reconvened the band one last time for a one-time recording project.

The band began in August 1976 as a fixed trio. Two musicians and a "light man".
Miller had been introduced to a musician named Andre Cynkin. The two were both into fusion and free-form improvisation.  Andre loved Sun Ra and played with
abandon, often without regard for any musical convention. He and Miller hit if off right away, forming the central hub of the group.

Then there was this guy named Mat Smith.  He hammered out light FX on his homemade color organ light system, keyboard operated. The three of them would get together and improvise thoughtfully over prerecorded soundscapes Miller put together, using cheap sound on sound analogue recording equipment. Miller would map out working guidleines to the various improvisations for the three to feed off of.  This gave the trio a collective sense that what they were doing was truly connected and important. Mat's "aurora borealis" enhanced Miller and Andre's musical performance as they all improvised together, under the influence. This cacophony proved to be an impressive sight & sound experience for a garage band at that time. Plans of an actual flexi-disc were on the back burner, sadly never brought to fruition.

Roger Miller  "... I always considered Empool to be WAY ahead of it's time: in plunderphonics, in noise music, etc.  EMPOOL was doing what is now called "noise music" years before that name was coined. I consider that in some ways Empool predated Byrne and Eno's MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS, due to Empool's reuse of material.  And it was active the same time as, say, The Residents were starting up ..."

Ben Miller  "... Empool had a significant influence on my musical sensibility ..."

As the fall of 1976 progressed, a drummer named Peter (last name?) was introduced to the band, forming the only actual rock combo version of Empool. Mat Smith, Andre Cynkin, and our prerecorded soundscapes were temporarily set to the side as Miller's two brothers began working out a different set of material.  Avant garde originals guided by low level jazz/fusion intelligence.  The excitement didn't last.  EMPOOL always struggled in this ongoing balancing act between the two genre camps; Avant Garde Rock and Pure Psychedlic Noise.

Before the beginning of the new year, 1977, EMPOOL had long since launched it's way back into free-form group improvisations against prerecorded soundscapes, again. Andre Cynkin was brought back full steam ahead, while Mat Smith was left in the dust. This return focus was partly due to the work it would have taken in order to pull off a well organized band, which Miller may not have been able to do, what with the ongoing presense and progressive use of recreational drugs.

Actual bandmates came and went through EMPOOL'S carefree revolving door, with Andre and Miller always holding the fort.  The "collective" was playing at higher volumes and improvising with little or no attention paid to any mapped guidlines. The noise they made now was densely layered wall-to-wall cacophony.  A 3D "atmospheric collage happening". Some members had no trouble whatsoever drifting off into that no-man's land, exploring the unknown with complete disregard, while still others at times did suffer the anchor of theory and it's conventional tedium -- EMPOOL'S Hell one could say.

Spring 1977 brought about the long awaited publishing of local literary arts rag EMPOOL III, as well as the band's demise. According to Andre Cynkin, Empool had an in-house performance on Sybil St., to celebrate the publication -- the band's 2nd gig. Andre recalls playing organ, Miller on guitar, very possibly with Mat Smith back on the "lights", and possibly with Ben Miller as well.  Ben doesn't recall a thing, and as for Laurence Miller, it's a peripheral blur at best.

DESTROY ALL MONSTERS Arrive...

Around that time, Cary Loren and Niagara -- the nucleus of another local outfit from Ann Arbor, DESTROY ALL MONSTERS -- began dropping in unexpectedly during EMPOOL'S jamb sessions. Though some of  EMPOOL'S members had jambed with Cary & Niagara on occasion in 1976, this was the official meeting of the minds as it were.  For whatever number of reasons and explanations affordable, in a very short time, EMPOOL was now improvising over tunes written by Cary & Niagara, exclusively. Though far more linear and conventional by all standards, "emplic members" enjoyed the distraction as Cary & Niagara afforded them full-freedom to interpret their songs however they chose. With the rumor that Ron Asheton would join ranks, soon followed by MC5's Michael Davis and talks of financing a vinyl 45 rpm single, EMPOOL and DESTROY ALL MONSTERS soon became one band -- a brand new incarnation of DESTROY ALL MONSTERS. (Note: Both D.A.M. and EMPOOL were "reasonably ignorant" of the other, and yet each had their own counterpart art magazine.)

Empool enjoyed a couple nice final sessions in the fall of 1977.  One of Miller's most fond memories was during their 3rd and last actual gig.  A home warming party at the "soon to be norious party palace" -- The Cube -- in the fall of 1977. Shortly after the band began blowing, Miller literally filed the strings off his Stray Ray Star Trek guitar (homemade modified Kay guitar with one pickup near the bridge and another mounted on the neck near the nut). One by one each string broke until they'd all been shorn off.  Miller then walked out of the room as a symbolic act to calling off the show.

"Could anything possibly top that?", Miller thought.

Folks were only then beginning to show up.  All the better for that anti-pop, existential mentality Miller so supported at that time.  The band continued.  Miller lost interest and grabbed another beer.

Empool fizzled out altogether as 1977 passed on into the world of punk rock music, gigs, studio work, and 24/7 pardy-hardy. The rest is D.A.M. history.

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INSTRUMENTATION: Primarily guitars, keyboards, alto saxophone, and voice -- smothered in electronics using nearly every analogue foot pedal on the market at that time.  Drums and bass were employed time to time, though rarely acting as a traditional "time/tonal based" rhythm section. Multitrack collage soundscapes were recorded on analogue tape as an integral part of each improvisation.  A good deal of the taped sounds were "found", using novelty records such as the 1950's children's record  Bozo the Clown at the Bottom of the Sea  and the 1960's story-theatre record,  Famous Monsters Speak.  Miller also used  Radio Shack SFX  records, and  educational materials, as well as his own music. Some of this original material was created with guitar feedback while other more obscure sounds for example were created by rubbing a wet rag over a window pane with hard pressure, producing horrendous screeching sounds. These tracks were often treated during the recording process with the same foot pedal FX that EMPOOL performed with. 

Some of the wildest sounds they came up with were from the oscillations produced by hot wiring the main lines off a gutted-out Webcor reel to reel taperecorder.  An accidental discovery.  Also favored were the effects of snipping scissors, marbles dropped into a bowl, rags ripped and paper torn.  Why not?  Once, in the middle of a full blown session at Feltch St. Laurence noticed his brother Roger on the floor, huddled very close to the recording microphone, muttering something under his breath, and for the longest time.  It wasn't until Laurence later heard the playback that he fully appreciated Roger's manifestation.

 "...what?.... what? ... what? ... what? ... what? ... what? ... what? ..." 

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PHOTO GALLERY

 EMPOOL "live" New Years Eve performance at 
 OLIVIA HOUSE campus party,  Dec 31 1976. 

Cary Loren and Niagara of Destroy All Monsters managed to merge with the band later, as the night
grew on, along with other friends.  Seen here in this first picture, we have EMPOOL in the
opening bars of their first number, OPAQUE MYSTERY.
(Check the MP3 of this tune below)

EMPOOL seen here as a duo, along with a prerecorded soundscape, performing DADA DATA
Ben Miller on guitar                                   Laurence Miller on guitar

Andre Cynkin and Ben Miller, proudly displaying a freshly broken bass string...

Ben Miller and Andre Cynkin, with drummer Eric, back in the shadows setting up.

Rick Scott checking the reel to reel tape recorder while Andre Cynkin sets up his Farfisa...

Laurence Miller with cigarette and beer, clearly prepared...

And again seen here, staking an "Emplic Salute".

Andre Cynkin carrying gear down the stairs while Laurence is seen behind, hiding in the furnace room.

Laurence's gear: An Epiphone 335, Echoplex and other MXR, Electro Harmonix, Dan Armstrong FX pedals
not in view, as well as his chain of two bass amps (Kustom 200 & Gibson 100).

From another angle in B&W.  Dig that "thing" in the back.
Miller's modified Stray Ray Star Trek guitar.

Laurence Miller: Guitar and prerecorded soundscape (highspeed pianos)
Andre Cynkin: Organ

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EMPOOL III
(local arts rag counterpart)

Last but not least, something only just read about on the Internet
while googling the word, EMPOOL.  How fitting ...

EMPOOL (The Water Treatment Works) WATER INDUSTRY ACT 1991: SECTION 19(1)(b)  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR ENVIRONMENT, FOOD, AND RURAL AFFAIRS: is satisfied that Wessex Water Services Ltd "the Company" is supplying water from the Empool water treatment works which may be at risk of exceeding the standard for the prescribed concentration of nitrate. This means that the Company  is likely to contravene its duty in respect of supplying water which meets the  Regulations under Section 68(1)(a) of the Water Industry Act 1991and meets the  requirement set in regulation 4(2)(c) of the Water Supply (Water Quality)  Regulations 2000.