Mark Kramer
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- This article describes the alternative rock musician/producer known professionally as 'Kramer'. For the jazz musician and producer of the same name, see Mark Kramer (jazz)
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Mark Kramer, 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, 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, GWAR, King Missile, 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".
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[edit] 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 and caused the band to dissolve while on a US tour early in 1985, which 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, which is noted in the underground history books as one of the most sensational tours of the era. 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."
[edit] 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. 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, Yellow Plastic Bucket and Ween left a lasting impression on listeners around the globe.
[edit] Association with Penn and Teller
A pivotal moment in Kramer's early career came when Jad Fair (Half Japanese) introduced him to Penn & Teller. Kramer soon found himself working 8 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.
[edit] Bongwater
Also in the early 1980's Kramer met Ann Magnuson, New York City performance artist. Together they formed Bongwater in 1986 and released five critically acclaimed 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 fully recovered.
[edit] 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 as 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". It featured Jad Fair & Kramer, a collaboration with Mara Flynn known as Milksop Holly, and a band on Shimmy-Disc, Adult Rodeo.
The tour was a financial and creative disappointment that left Kramer emotionally distraught and creatively lost. On his 41st birthday in 1999, on the eve of a show in Cherbourg, France that was to be cancelled the following day, Kramer vowed never to return to live performance. Two days later, following the final show of the tour in Cork, Ireland, a severely depressed Kramer flew home on the verge of a breakdown, and cloistered himself in his one-room apartment for nearly a year. He had effectively vanished.
[edit] 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 was stricken with a debiliating stroke, which drew him to Florida in 2003. She died 16 months later of complications thereof.
[edit] 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 phenomenon, 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.
[edit] Current Activities
Kramer currently operates a private CD Mastering 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 Familie. He has recently announced the return of his record company, under the new name Second-Shimmy. The debut release (due Oct. 2006) is I Killed the Monster - 21 Artists Performing the Songs by Daniel Johnston, featuring performances by Dot Allison, Jad Fair & Kramer, Daniel Smith and Sufjan Stevens, Kimya Dawson, Major Matt Mason, Jeff Lewis, Joy Zipper, and Kramer himself, among others.
SECOND-SHIMMY has struck CD distribution deals with NAIL in the US & Canada, and CARGO UK for Europe and the United Kingdom. Worldwide digital distribution will be handled by ORCHARD DIGITAL.
Since May 2006, Kramer has been working exclusively on the latest solo release from UK artist DOT ALLISON, which he cites has his finest work as producer. Completion on this project is due in September 2006, with a release date set for early 2007.
Kramer is associated with the early days of the so-called "Slowcore" and "Shoegazer" movements, thanks mainly to his pioneering production work for Low and Galaxie 500.
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 three-year effort to bring new life to a collection of hit singles written in the Brill Building in the late 50's and early 60's, also for Zorn's Tzadik label. He is also one half of ROPE, INC...a studio project she shares with Matt Menovcik of SAETA, for whom Kramer also sometimes serves as producer. The debut ROPE, INC. CD was released in Sept. 2006, and the debut full-length CD will be released on SECOND-SHIMMY in early 2007.
[edit] Background
Born in 1958 in NYC to a single mother, Kramer was adopted at 2 years old and raised on Long Island. He moved back into NYC shortly after graduating high school in 1976, and remained a resident of that city until 2003. He is an atheist and a freethinker. He wants his tombstone to read, Keep off the Grass.
Married in 1982 and divorced in 1994, Kramer has one daughter, Tess (born 1992).
After living together since 1998, Kramer married artist/painter Valerie Zars in January 2005 in Las Vegas. It is the 2nd marriage for both of them. The wedding took place in Penn Jillette's backyard before an intimate group of friends, with James Randi officiating. Master magician Jamy Ian Swiss was best man.
