Kramer (musician)

This article is about the alternative rock musician/producer known professionally as 'Kramer'. For the jazz musician and producer of the same name, see Mark Kramer (jazz pianist).

Kramer

Mark Kramer (born 1958), known professionally as Kramer, is a musician, composer, performer, record producer and founder of the NY record label Shimmy-Disc. He was a member of such diverse musical entities as Butthole Surfers, Shockabilly, B.A.L.L., Bongwater, Ween, Half Japanese, The Fugs (1984 reunion tour), and Dogbowl & Kramer, and he also performed regularly with John Zorn and other improvising musicians of New York City's so-called "downtown scene" of the 1980s. His most notable work as a producer has been with bands such as Galaxie 500 (whose entire oeuvre he produced), Low (whom he discovered and produced), Half Japanese, White Zombie, GWAR, King Missile, The Tinklers, Alice Donut, Danielson Famile, Will Oldham's Palace Songs, Daniel Johnston, and the hit single for Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Urge Overkill's "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon".

Early performances

With Eugene Chadbourne and David Licht, his band Shockabilly toured non-stop from 1982 until 1985. Far ahead of their time, the pressures of living on the road overcame the band, and personal differences between Kramer and Chadbourne soon escalated which caused the band to dissolve while on a US tour early in 1985, that included a brief tour of Texas with the then unknown Butthole Surfers. Forging a close friendship with co-founding Buttholes Gibby Haynes and Paul Leary, Kramer was nearby when their previous bassist took his tuba and walked off their tour midstream. Kramer bought a Höfner Beatle bass and replaced him with one rehearsal. He soon found himself on the Buttholes debut European tour in 1985. While often acknowledging that it was without a doubt the high point of his career to date, Kramer has often said that he felt "lucky to have gotten out alive."

Production and studio

His Noise New York recording studio (purchased immediately following the 1985 Buttholes tour with a loan of $5,000 from an uncle) was to serve as a mainstay for artists and bands both local and international, as Kramer became one of the busiest indie music producers in NYC. The first recordings at Noise New York was the Buttholes' rendition of American Woman. He formed the record label Shimmy-Disc two years later in 1987, and enjoyed immediate and lasting critical acclaim, releasing albums including Songs from the Pink Death. The label remained a favorite at college radio stations for the next decade, where Shimmy-Disc artists such as Bongwater, King Missile, GWAR, Naked City, Ruins, Boredoms, Damon & Naomi, Daniel Johnston, White Zombie, Yellow Plastic Bucket and Ween left a lasting impression on listeners around the globe.

Association with Penn and Teller

A pivotal moment in Kramer's early career came when Jad Fair of Half Japanese introduced him to Penn & Teller. Kramer soon found himself working eight shows per week as Sound Consultant on Penn & Teller's 1987 Broadway show, and composing the music for their Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends special. In subsequent years, Kramer formed a band with Penn Jillette (The Captain Howdy), and together with guest artists Deborah Harry (Blondie) and Billy West (Ren & Stimpy), they made two highly eclectic CDs together, both released on Shimmy-Disc, and both featuring cover art by Tony Fitzpatrick. Following Penn's permanent relocation to Las Vegas in 1997, the group disbanded.

Bongwater

Also in the early 1980s Kramer met Ann Magnuson, New York City performance artist. Together they formed Bongwater in 1986 and released five LPs, including Double Bummer, and culminating with their 1991 swansong, The Big Sell-Out. The relationship deteriorated quickly in 1991, and a subsequent lawsuit brought against Kramer by Ann Magnuson resulted in the financial crippling of his Shimmy-Disc label, which never recovered.

Changes in ownership of studio and record label

In 1992 Kramer sold his Noise New York recording studio and moved just across the Hudson River, where he'd found a house going into foreclosure with a state-of-the-art 24-track recording studio built in. Dubbing it Noise New Jersey, he continued to produce recordings. However, family illness and personal challenges weighed on him during these years, and the pressures of balancing his profile as an artist with his work as a producer and label head proved too heavy. Though it was during this time that he produced some of his greatest recordings, the consistency of his output had begun to suffer. It was at this point in time that Kramer began to look for a way to move the day-to-day management of Shimmy-Disc into what he had hoped in vain would be more able hands.

Shortly following the sale of Shimmy Disc and his recording facility to the Knitting Factory in 1998 (in which he was contracted to play a continuing role in the label as producer and Director of A&R), Kramer sued for breach of contract and soon found himself without a creative base for the first time in his professional career. This experience left him emotionally devastated and looking to exit the music business without haste. He did so immediately following his last European tour in November 1999, dubbed "The Last Tour of the Century".

Film and Theater

Envisioning a complete about-face, Kramer turned to his lifelong passion in film and theater, and in late 2000 he began studying directing under Arthur Penn (Penn & Teller Get Killed, Bonnie & Clyde, Little Big Man, The Miracle Worker, Alice's Restaurant). He spent the better part of 4 years at New York's Actors Studio, where he did sound design and music for various productions at the Actors Studio Free Theater on 42nd street. This phase of Kramer's career culminated in 2002 when he composed the music for Fortune's Fool, the Tony Award-winning Broadway play directed by Arthur Penn and starring Alan Bates and Frank Langella, both of whom swept the Broadway acting awards for that year. Kramer had just been appointed assistant director on Arthur Penn's next Broadway play (Sly Fox) when his mother Rosalyn was stricken with a debilitating stroke, which drew him to Florida in 2003. She died 16 months later of complications thereof.

Work with the James Randi Educational Foundation

Having relocated to the Ft. Lauderdale area, Kramer worked for the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) from 2004 until February, 2006. His main job was to manage the JREF One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, which offered a million dollar prize to anyone who could demonstrate paranormal ability; the money remains unawarded. Additional duties included the investigation of paranormal phenomena, exposing "psychic" frauds and "faith healers", debunking modern new-age fallacies such as homeopathy and feng-shui, and teaching critical thinking. He also maintained the JREF video library and oversaw the digital transfer of over 700 archival VHS tapes to DVD, comprising the most complete document of the life and career of James Randi, co-founder (with Martin Gardner) of the modern Skeptical Movement. During this tenure at the JREF, Kramer was privileged to meet and work beside Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Michael Shermer, Nadine Strossen, Ellen Johnson, Murray Gell-Mann, The Mythbusters, Christopher Hitchens, Julia Sweeney, and many others. He insists that the work he performed under James Randi during these two years was the most important work of his life.

Recent activities

Kramer is associated with the formation of the so-called "Slowcore" and "Shoegazer" movements, thanks mainly to his production work for two seminal bands of the era; Low, and Galaxie 500. He continues to produce, mix and master a great variety of artists worldwide. He travels constantly.

Kramer currently operates a private CD/LP Mastering and Mixing studio in Florida, and has resumed his activities as a record producer after a 6-year hiatus, during which time he produced only a handful of select artists, including Joy Zipper, Linda Draper, Jeff Lewis, and Danielson. He has recently announced the return of his record company, under the new name Second-Shimmy. The debut release (released October 10, 2006) is I Killed the Monster - 21 Artists Performing the Songs by Daniel Johnston, featuring performances by Dot Allison, Jad Fair & Kramer, Daniel Smith (of Danielson) & Sufjan Stevens, Kimya Dawson, R. Stevie Moore, Major Matt Mason USA, Jeff Lewis, Joy Zipper, and Kramer himself, among others.

Second-Shimmy has worldwide digital distribution through Orchard Digital.

In 2006, Kramer worked exclusively on the latest solo release from UK artist Dot Allison, which he cites as his finest work as producer/arranger, and features early 60s style orchestral arrangements on each song. This LP, entitled Exaltation of Larks, was released to rave reviews in September 2007 on Cooking Vinyl in the UK and P-Vine in Japan.

Kramer has released 3 solo records of "pop" music, and 2 CDs of "new music" on John Zorn's Tzadik label. He is presently putting the finishing touches on The Brill Building, his five-year effort to bring new life to a collection of hit singles written in the Brill Building in the late 50s and early 60s, also for Zorn's Tzadik label.

By the beginning of 2007, Kramer began to focus more intensely on mastering, and less on the full-time producing that has kept him on the road since the demise of Shimmy-Disc in 1998.

In 2007 (amongst numerous assorted mixing and mastering projects), Kramer produced Finnish legends 22-Pistepirkko in Helsinki, THE Nightjars in Wales, and Leader Cheetah in Australia. In January 2008 Kramer embarked upon his first tour since 1999's "Last Tour of the Century" with Jad Fair; 14 cities in 14 days in Japan with Mike Watt and Samm Bennett in a Dueling Bass trio called Brother's Sister's Daughter. He now insists that he will never tour again.

Also in 2007, Kramer remixed Mississippi for Steve Adey. In December 2008 he went to Naples, Italy to produce the Italian alternative rock band The Orange Beach; in April 2009 Kramer went to Sydney, Australia and spent 10 days in the Colo River district producing the phenomenal Bridezilla (in a barn) for Inertia Records. In May, he lived in Melbourne while producing several other Australian artists, including Dirtbird, Catnip, and Cuba is Japan.

In September 2009, Kramer mastered a track for Jive Records in NYC. it was his first direct experience with "urban music".

In January 2010, Kramer will perform his composition "Things to Come" in France at the Mo'Fo Festival in Paris. Debuted in Tokyo in 2007 and performed once in Melbourne and once in Tel Aviv, this will be the European premiere.

In February 2010, Kramer recorded, produced and mixed Mono Stereo's debut LP in Denmark.

In April 2010, Kramer mixed Gonculator's second album OMNOMNOM.

In May 2010, Kramer mixed and mastered William S. Burroughs Hurts' debut album Flat Cat Bonfire. Due to the "difficulties" during the mixing process, Kramer wrote this producer's notes.

Background

Born in 1958 in NYC to a single Jewish mother, Kramer was put up for adoption and raised on Long Island by Gary & Rosalyn Kramer from the age of 2. Gary sold cars, and Rosalyn was a Long Island housewife who worked sometimes as a bookkeeper. He moved back into NYC shortly after graduating Sachem High School in 1976, and remained a resident of that city until 2003, living mostly in the Tribeca district. He is a life-long atheist and a freethinker who feels that the American-born philosopher Daniel Dennett has "kind of nailed it".

In 2008, Kramer's birth-mother made contact with him, which led to the discovery that his birth-father was Joey Bonner, notorious Record Promo pioneer in NYC during the 60's & 70's who was once the tour manager for Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin and other great soul/R&B artists of the era. Joey Bonner (a black man who could "pass" as white due to his light complexion)and Kramer's mother (an "upper westside" NYC Jew) had another son one year before Kramer's birth; he was a senior VP in charge of Radio Promotions at NYC's Jive Records, a unit of the world's largest record company, Sony Music Entertainment. Reunited after 50 years (having not even known of each other's existence prior to 2008), Kramer and his big brother went to their first Yankee game together in 2009. They both despise The Mets. Joey Bonner died in 2007, just three miles from Kramer's Florida home. Having discovered all of this in 2008, the two men never met or knew of each other's existence. Kramer's mother lives in Ft Myers, Florida. After 50 years of not knowing his own heritage, Kramer now knows that he is Jewish/black, with some Polish and Native American blood. His great-great-great-grandfather Essex Bonner fought in an all-black battalion in the US Civil War, and his great-grandmother Pinky Gowakawa was a full-blooded Native American from a tribe based in Virginia.

Married in 1982 and divorced in 1994, Kramer has one daughter, Tess (born March 1992).

In 2005, Kramer married artist/painter Valerie Zars. It is the second marriage for both of them. The wedding took place in Penn Jillette's Las Vegas backyard before an intimate group of friends, with James Randi officiating. Master magician Jamy Ian Swiss was best man.

Discography

Solo

Date	Title	Label
1992	The Guilt Trip	Shimmy Disc
1994	Secret of Comedy	Shimmy Disc
1998	Let Me Explain Something to You About Art	Tzadik
1998	Songs From the Pink Death	Shimmy Disc
2003	The Greenberg Variations	Tzadik

Further reading

Waggoner, Eric (Summer 2007), "Kramer-Trials and Errors", Magnet, vol. 15, no. 76, pp. 72–78, 123

External links

• Second Shimmy website
• Kramer at AllMusic