Consolidated (band)

History

Consolidated formed in early 1988 in San Francisco after each founding member grew dissatisfied with prior music projects. The original line-up comprised Adam Sherburne on guitar and vocals, Mark Pistel on samples, sequencers and keyboards, and Philip Steir on drums. Their debut album The Myth of Rock appeared in 1990, and they toured North America with Meat Beat Manifesto the following year. Later line-ups included Adam Sherburne, Todd Bryerton on drums, Michael Dunn on bass, and Kevin Carnes on drums, with mixing and engineering by Mark Pistel.

After 1994 the original members parted ways, and the project has since been mainly directed by Adam Sherburne, with peripheral involvement from Mark Pistel. The band’s style has evolved through West Coast hip-hop, R&B, rock, and jazz reminiscent of Miles Davis’s early 1970s experimentation, with recent recordings being almost entirely instrumental improvisations. Co-founders Mark Pistel and Philip Steir continued remix projects after leaving; Pistel made an album under the name Pistel and has played with Meat Beat Manifesto and Electronic Dub Collective, while Steir co-owns Toast recording studio. Drummer Todd Bryerton performs with The Dead Stars on Hollywood.

Live performances

In each live performance, Consolidated included a period where microphones were passed among audience members to discuss, rebut, argue or elaborate on song topics, a process they called inter-active democracy. These interactions were recorded and sampled for albums, appearing as interludes or worked into songs, such as Crusading Rap Guys on the 1991 LP Friendly Fa$cism. Their shows also featured video montages projected onto large screens or displayed on multiple televisions around the stage, including promotional music video clips and found footage corresponding to lyrical topics like male sexuality myths, sexist media depictions of women, and animal treatment in laboratories and slaughterhouses. Local, regional and national activist groups were invited to set up tables and information kiosks at their concerts while on tour.