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Tracy + the Plastics

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Tracy + the Plastics was the name of the electropop solo music and video project of Wynne Greenwood, a lesbian feminist video artist based in Olympia, Washington. [1] The music consisted of a Boss DR-5 drum machine, an Akai 612 disc sampler.

Although the name implied the group was made up of a lead singer and back up musicians, all three characters were performed by Wynne using video projection.[2]

During live performances, Wynne took on the alter-ego of Tracy performing alongside virtual backup musicians, Nikki Romanos and Cola, known as "the Plastics." Both Nikki Romanos and Cola existed solely in pre-recorded projected video form. Tracy provided lead vocals while accompanied by Nikki on the keyboard and Cola on drums.

In 2004, cultural critic Sara Marcus, writing for The Advocate, said that Tracy + the Plastics's performance art "successfully crosses borders between high art and pop music." Marcus described the act's 2004 album Culture for Pigeon as "elecntronic dance punk" with "complex rhythmic sensibilities" and "increasingly off-kilter beats." [3]

Tracy + the Plastics was the ultimate result of two other projects Wynne created, the first of these being called The Tooth, then The OK Miss Suit. "Tracy + the Plastics came from this choose-your-own-adventure murder mystery movie I was writing. The Plastics were a group of girls who ran a pawn shop and replaced parts of themselves with hyper-colorful pieces of plastic. Their town was never-ending, gray drab, surrounded by super-tall mountains that people lived on top of. Bits of plastic debris would fall down the mountains, and the Plastics (Nikki, Cola, Tracy, and Honeyface) would find and use the debris, like a red toothpaste cap for a tooth or something like that." [4] [5]

In 2005, Tracy + the Plastics recorded a version of the Lesbians On Ecstasy song "Summer Luv", which was released on that band's LP of remixes, Giggles In The Dark.

Tracy + the Plastics combines lo-fi filmmaking, performance art, Devo-styled songs, and feminist and queer politics in an entertaining package. Wynne calls herself a representative of the "lesbo for disco" generation.

In June 2006, Wynne Greenwood called an end to the Tracy + The Plastics project.

Discography

Compilation track

References

  1. ^ "Tracy + the Plastics web site".
  2. ^ "Exploding Plastics Inevitable". Artforum. 23 November 2015.
  3. ^ Here Publishing (31 August 2004). The Advocate. Here Publishing. pp. 60–. ISSN 0001-8996.
  4. ^ http://www.tracyandtheplastics.com/archive/VenusMagazine.jpg
  5. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20060508111048/http://www.venuszine.com/stories/music_interviews/96
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