Bart Plantenga

a photo of myself

bart plantenga is a prolific author and active pirate radio station disc jockey who has been called "the world's expert on yodeling.He was born in Amsterdam, emigrated to the US, grew up in NJ, upstate NY, moved to Wisconsin, Michigan, hitchhiked across the USA ... and inevitably ended up in NYC where he co-founded the literary group, The Unbearables (originally the Unbearable Beatniks of Light) together with Ron Kolm, Mike Golden, and Peter Lamborn Wilson, for better or worse, sometimes called the most significant writing group since the Beats, at other times, the most ridiculous group of poseurs ever. They have produced a broad array of events: their famous Brooklyn Bridge Reading, The Dead Presidents Reading, The Madonna-Bukowski Birthday Reading, their Literary Seance, their protests of bland poetry in the New Yorker, their protests of "commodification of the Beats" at several prestigious Beat Seminars, and many more. Read more: Barely Bearably Unbearable: Chronicles of an Irreverent or Irrelevant Writers Group, Angry Old Man.

He also lived, wrote and produced radio in Paris for three+ years, eventually returning to Amsterdam, where he now lives with his partner and daughter. He has been a DJ – producing Wreck This Mess, in NYC (WFMU), Paris, and Amsterdam – since 1986. In 2015, he won the David Tudor Memorial Competition for his interpretation of John Cage’s 4’33” at the Faithful Festival in Berlin.

He has written a broad range of material from award-winning history articles to two pop musicology books, album liner notes, articles on refugees, artists, music, etc., literary novels including Beer Mystic, Ocean GroOve, Radio Activity Kills, the short story collection  Wiggling Wishbone & the novella Spermatagonia: The Isle of Man and the wander memoirs: Paris Scratch and NY Sin Phoney in Face Flat Minor.

His books Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World & Yodel in HiFi plus the CD Rough Guide to Yodel have created the misunderstanding that he is one of the world’s foremost yodel experts. The New York Times Magazine featured Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo in its “Annual Year of Ideas.”

Some of his books have garnered unbelievable amounts of attention [BBC, NPR, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Esquire, Vanity Fair, Washington Post, NY Times] while others have been astonishingly ignored. 

His non/fiction has appeared in, among others: The Guardian, The Times, American Heritage, Esquire, Vox Populi, https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-art-of-documenting-the-undocumented/ Truthdig], Ambit (London), Exquisite Corpse, Evergreen Review, Mississippi Review, Fiction International,  Vokno (Prague),  Public Illumination Magazine (Italy), Frank (Paris), Brooklyn Rail, Actuel (Paris) … 

He has appeared in many anthologies including Up Is Up, But So Is Down: New York’s Downtown Literary Scene (NYU Press), Semiotext(e) SF, Best American Erotica (Simon & Schuster) Waiting for a Train: Jimmie Rodgers’s America (Rounder), The Nation-KGB Nonfiction Reader (Nation Books), Reggae, Rasta, Revolution: Jamaican Music from Ska to Dub (Schirmer), Bukowski Anthology (Silver Birch) and From Somewhere to Nowhere: The End of the American Dream (Autonomedia).

He lives in Amsterdam with his partner Nina Ascoly and their daughter Paloma.

Selected works

• plantenga, bart (2005). Spermatogonia: the Isle of Man, Autonomedia. isbn 1570271607
• [https://books.google.nl/books?id=KVggAQAAIAAJ&q=1570270090&dq=1570270090&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj8zqKoz8reAhVD3aQKHX4fCvQQ6AEILjAB plantenga, bart (1995) Wiggling Wishbone: Stories of Pata-sexual Speculation, Autonomedia. isbn:=1570270090
• plantenga, bart (1999) Beer Mystic: Read Beer, Drink Novel. A novel soaked in beer & mysticism on the Lower Eastside. Much excerpted but still unpublished.
• plantenga, bart (2013) Yodel in Hi-Fi, From Kitsch Folk to Contemporary Electronica, Autonomedia/University of Wisconsin Press. Wierder, wilder, deeper, wider and global. The most complete history. ISBN9780299290542
• plantenga, bart (2004) Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World, Routledge. The weird & wild history of yodeling. isbn0415939895
• plantenga, bart (2017) NY Sin Phoney in Face Flat Minor, Sensitive Skin Books 2017, ISBN978-0-9961570-5-6.
• plantenga, bart (2016) Paris Scratch, Sensitive Skin Books 2016, ISBN978-0-9961570-4-9.
• plantenga, bart, Happy Birthday Mother, Who Was Disappeared by Forces Beyond Her Control, Amsterdam Quarterly #23, September 2018.
• plantenga, bart, A Transsexual, a Chainsaw & a Soiled Toilet, Vox Populi, October 2018. Scurrilous memoir about Upstate NY poverty and identity.
• plantenga, bart, I Know Doisneau, Ekphrastic Review, October 2018.
• Korean Postage Stamp, Korean Government, Artwork for International Yodel Day, 2016.
• plantenga, bart, Live Radio / Dead Father, audio + text memoir, Paraphilia, 03.15.
• plantenga, bart, RADIO ACTIVITY KILLS ch. 3, Sensitive Skin, 2018. Excerpt from the novel about DJing in Amsterdam & NYC.
• plantenga, bart, Refugee Center Part 1: The Good, The Bad, & The Funny, Vox Populi, 2016.
• Yodeling in Heaven’s Garage1 [1900–1970 Perfect Sound Forever, 4.16. Yodeling in popular music and also part 2.

External links

• bart plantenga website. Retrieved 2018-11-10.
• Radio Wreck This Mess with over 100 archived radio shows. Retrieved 2018-11-10.
• Yodel in HiFi Top 50+ Many original and found videos on the art of yodeling. Retrieved 2018-11-10.
• Dj vs Radiomaker, interview with the DJ-author, Sandbox, 2000 republication. Retrieved 2018-11-10.
• B/art Pretentious Art & Nostalgia Films. Retrieved 2018-11-10.
• Radio DJ/novelist Bart Plantenga, a cofounder of the Unbearables, talks about Beatniks, Booze & music, Blue.GR. Retrieved 2018-11-10.
• Guest Playlist: Bart Plantenga, Patell and Waterman’s History of New York, 2011-06-17, accessdate = 2014-05-25
• Horowitz, Mikhail, Bart Plantenga and the Gnosis of Yodeling, Hudson Valley Almanac Weekly, 2013-08-01, accessdate = 2014-05-25.
• Revolting News Crimes of the Beats part 2, Video of a legendary Unbearables Reading, roasting the Beats, May 20, 1993 at the Cafe No Bar, featuring bart plantanga , Jill Rappaport and Peter Lamborn Wilson in this episode. Introduction & video by Lanny Kenfield. Video postscript by Tuli Kuperferberg, Revolting News on the Manhattan Neighborhood Network. Retrieved 2018-11-10.
• Poetry Thin Air, Unbearables, Ron Kolm interviews bart plantenga, Poetry Thin Air, Mitch Corber, producer, 2016. Retrieved 2018-11-10.
• bart plantenga & Sharon Mesmer, Beer Is Two Subway Stops Away From Mysticism, The Brooklyn Rail. 2011-10-03. Retrieved 2018-11-10.
• The Yodel Climbs Out Through The Roof, Department of Public Sound #4, De Player, Rotterdam, 11.14.

Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, MoMA, he was represented by an artwork-flyer.

• The Downtown Decade: NYC 1975 – 1985: Mudd Club Benefit, New York Times, photo of the author was part of the exhibition.
• Kevin Riordan, Book Review: PARIS SCRATCH, Coal Hill Review, 1.17. 
• Paul Knobloch, NY Sin Phoney Review, Goodreads 3.17.

Self as Shadow