In the late 90s, I was commissioned by The New Mexican daily to do a series of artist profiles called Topographicals with Julie Graber as the photographer. There were at least a dozen completed. Here is one featuring multimedia artist Bret Berman.
Bret Berman is the epitome of a Santa Fe underground artist – and not just because his office is below the surface of the earth beneath the Jean Cocteau Theatre. A drifter of sorts from the Catskills in upstate New York, Berman took up residence in Santa Fe five years ago. Berman writes short stories and novels, draws comic books, and makes weird music with his main band Phydeaux III, (pronounced “Fy-dough 3”) and a personal electronic collage music self-ensemble he calls Shocking Baby Secrets. Long a fixture of the slacker central coffee shop known as “the Aztec,” Berman recently was granted the job of entertainment director of the cafe when it recently found itself under new mangement. It was under his direction that the Aztec Sunday night open mic was born, attracting an eclectic blend of poets, acoustic musicians, and at least two preachers who have been known to lead the caffeinated masses in prayer.
But while Berman has been busy providing a forum for the lauching of new local entertainment personalities, he’s also hard at work as a member of the “newvillage.com” digital art team, a consortium of oddball artists who are trying to find effective ways to build community in and around cyberspace. Plans on the boards include a website with the scanned works of local artist, broadcasting of live shows from the Aztec via RealAudio, and the creation of original digital art by local talents. Drawing on his comic book talents, Berman’s digital specialty is fast becoming avi animations, which range from fully original works to appropriated images that he morphs into unrecognizable commentaries on the media zeitgeist.
Soft-spoken to the point of seeming almost blase at times, Berman is one of a number artists around the city bringing traditional talents together with new digital tools.
Pleshaw: How recently did you get involved with the Web?
Berman: In March, courtesy of the public library. I had a lot of spare time on my hands back then – my major activities included drinking coffee in the Aztec for hours on end and writing drafts of stories in long-hand in an endless series of spiral notebooks. That, and rehearsing with my band, Phydeaux III.
Pleshaw: Tell us a bit about your music projects.
Berman: Phydeaux III. We believe we are Santa Fe’s most sarcastic band – beating out the Swingin’ Bachelors by a nose.
Pleshaw: You guys do a great song about Allsup’s burritos. If you hum a few bars…
Berman: “They’re fast, they’re fried, they’re the cheap meal suggestion. And not only that, but they aid in digestion.”
Pleshaw: Cute. That sounds like the voice of experience.
Berman: Oh yeah. I don’t make fun of anything I don’t eat myself.
Pleshaw: You guys have played out a lot, eh?
Berman: We started out playing at…an unmentionable cafe. We had a steady gig at the Oasis for over a year, and we’ve played at Tribes, the Jean Cocteau, Doctor No, and the Old Santa Fe Music Hall. We get around.
Pleshaw: And would you like to share about Shocking Baby Secrets?
Berman: That’s my electronic solo collage act that sounds like a video game in a blender. It’s not live music – it doesn’t “exist” until it’s on tape. Sort of like atmospheric background music for the generation raised on Atari 2600 and Apple Jacks commercials. [A sample track of Shocking Baby Secrets will soon appear on the “Bagazine” compilation tape.] Solid Black Barcode is my new act – an all-stars thing consisting me and whoever I’m playing with at the time.
Pleshaw: You’ve also done some comic ‘zines since you’ve been here.
Berman: The first ‘zine I did here was called “The Genre Free Zone” and was a compilation of several comic artists doing their schtick. I was working at Bruce’s Comics when I did those – there were nine issues total.
Pleshaw: “Juxtaposition is Everything” is a pretty surreal little book, sort of like a “Too Much Coffee Man” without a storyline.
Berman: I think of it as like poetry comics. The title says it all – it’s like a Rorshact blot for people who read comics – the juxtaposition of words and images and lines produce different kinds of reactions from different people.
Pleshaw: And the “Santa Fe Funnybook”?
Berman: That was a collaboration with artist Jamie Chase. It focused on the little quirks of Santa Fe bohemian existence.
Pleshaw: And what are the ‘quirks of Santa Fe bohemia’?
Berman: Mindless conversations about the chupacabra. Anglos who’ve been here for two weeks discussing what Santa Fe *should* be doing about growth. We had a piece in there called “The Gaudalupe Triangle” which started with a simple premise: “Can a manic-depressive waitress find happiness in a city that makes no sense? Tune in, to the Gaudalupe Triangle…”
Pleshaw: Who was the model for that pieces?
Berman: It’s a Santa Fe archetype, actually. We all eat out in this town – they’re out there, but naming names might suggest that there’s only one – when, in fact, there are many.
Pleshaw: You’ve been working on various short stories and novels forever. What are they all about?
Berman: “Aztec Tales” consists of fifteen stories that are all beginning to overlap one another, so maybe it’s a meta-novel in the works. “1+1=0” is another series that I like to think of as Franz Kafka meets Saul Bellows.
Pleshaw: Uh, what does that mean?
Berman: The story is about this guy who wakes up in a hotel room with amnesia to discover a little man growing out of his ribcage.
Pleshaw: Sort of like “How to Get Ahead in Advertising”?
Berman: Yeah, but it’s not funny.
Pleshaw: Lately, you’ve been playing on the World Wide Web, developing the Aztec Street Cafe website.
Berman: That’s what I’m being groomed for. It’s going to be a really interesting site, filled with art, artists, music, animations and other STUFF. Like a big Santa Fe themed digital, globally accesible coloring book. We’re making it into a showcase for Santa Fe talent – we’re aiming for something entertaining.
Pleshaw: What are your goals these days with your work?
Berman: I’ve been looking for a way to pull all of my talents together under one roof, and the web seems like a good way to do that.
Pleshaw: In working on the web, do you ever feel like maybe you’re just indexing all of your work? In my experience, sometimes it seems like globally can sometimes means a lack of context…
Berman: Context isn’t all that important to my work – I believe there are references within my work that anyone could relate to – except maybe “the mainstream.”
Pleshaw: Whatever that is.
Berman: “Juxtaposition is Everything” affects different people in different ways – that’s half the fun. In the case of Phydeaux III, while the lyrics may be particular to Santa Fe, the music is weird enough that there’s got to be a web audience out there somewhere who would appreciate it.
Pleshaw: But will you continue to create and be involved in events and projects outside the machine?
Berman: Oh yeah. This is just a tool. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life in front of a monitor – there is the outside world. Balance between the two can happen. Fortunately, I have ADD, so if I become compulsive, it’s only for a short period of time. That probably helps a lot.
Bret Berman hosts the Aztec Open Mic every Sunday night from 6-9pm.
