People Like Us (musician)

People Like Us is the stage name of London DJ multimedia artist Vicki Bennett. She has released a number of albums featuring collages of music and sound since 1992. In recent years, she has performed at a number of modern art galleries, festivals and universities.

Musical career

Since 1991 Vicki Bennett has been making CDs, radio, and A/V multimedia under the name People Like Us. By animating and recontextualising found footage collages Vicki gives an equally witty and dark view of popular culture with a surrealistic edge. People Like Us broadcasts an ongoing experimental arts radio and podcast show on WFMU, called "DO or DIY", which, since it began in 2003, has had over three-quarters of a million RealPlayer hits.

Vicki has shown work at, amongst others, Tate Modern, The National Film Theatre, Purcell Room, The ICA, Sydney Opera House, Pompidou Centre, Sonar in Barcelona, The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the BBC and Channel 4. She has also performed radio sessions for the BBC's John Peel, Mixing It, and also CBC, KPFA and many more in the US. There have been features in The Observer, The Wire, NME, BBC website and Bizarre Magazine. People Like Us have been commissioned by The Arts Council England, The BBC, Sonic Arts Network, Forma, LUX and Lovebytes amongst others (see further down for full list).

The almost entire People Like Us back catalogue is also available for free download, which is hosted by UbuWeb in conjunction with PennSound, and also WFMU. PLU has been released on labels such as Tigerbeat6, Soleilmoon, Sonic Arts Network, Touch, Staalplaat and For Us Records (Rough Trade), both solo, and also collaborating with Matmos, Ergo Phizmiz, Wobbly, members of Negativland and Christian Marclay.

Spring 2008 saw a Retrospective of People Like Us at alt.gallery and a PLU curated CD entitled Smiling Through My Teeth, with Sonic Arts Network. The June 2008 edition of The Wire featured a 4-page interview, and the July edition featured a review of Smiling Through My Teeth.

Vicki completed the Great North Run Moving Image Commission 2009, and a live A/V set premiered in October 2009 at Vancouver New Music Festival. The UK premiere was performed at BFI Southbank in December 2009.

Vicki worked on a commission for Edinburgh Printmakers to be exhibited as part of the exhibition "Prints of Darkness", coinciding with Edinburgh Art Festival in July 2010. People Like Us recently curated "Nothing Is New, Everything Is Permitted" at AV Festival, and will soon perform concerts of "Genre Collage" at MACBA, Liverpool Sound City, Bristol Arnolfini, Copenhagen and Jerusalem (amongst others). In June 2010 she released the album "Music for the Fire" with Wobbly on the Illegal Art label.

From 2003 to 2011, and again since December 2013, the WFMU radio show DO or DIY, programmed by Vicki Bennett, has appeared weekly on a seasonal basis. WFMU has created a 24-hour-per-day radio stream of sound collage and music chosen by Bennett. Her WFMU programs are also available as podcasts.

In January 2015 her audiovisual performance Citation City premiered at transmediale, Berlin at Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Inspired by The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin, this audiovisual work is created from 1000s of clippings of text and visual media, collaged using a system of “convolutes”, collated around subjects of key motifs, historical figures, social types, cultural objects from the time.

Workshops/Residencies/Commissions/Collaborations

• Lovebytes commission in association with Millennium Galleries, Sheffield to make three screen A/V film "Work, Rest & Play" (June 2007)
• Artist Residency at BBC Creative Archive with "access all areas" to work with their archive – Arts Council England (Interdisciplinary Arts) with BBC, White City – (March 2006)
• Curation of CD "Smiling Through My Teeth" – Sonic Arts Network (May 2008)
• Edinburgh Printmakers commission to create audio and artwork for a picture disc LP “This Is Light Music”, as part of their group exhibition “Prints of Darkness” to be shown at Edinburgh Printmakers in summer 2010 (2009–2010)
• Forma/AV Festival commission “Now Hear This” to make Bluetooth audio compositions for mobile phone (January 2008)
• Future Physical commission to make digital short film "The Remote Controller" (June 2002)
• Grants For The Arts commission to create 10" record to be given away for free in selected international record stores "Honeysuckle Boulevard" (August 2006)
• Grants for the Arts commission to create new live A/V performance – (April 2005)
• Grants For The Arts commission to make a new live A/V set entitled “Genre Collage” (2008–2009)
• Grants For The Arts commission to make podcast series "Codpaste" on WFMU, where People Like Us and Ergo Phizmiz explore the working process of creating music from scratch (September 2007)
• Grants For The Arts commission to release of "Rhapsody In Glue" with Ergo Phizmiz on bleep.com – an album created with audio collage sourced from the podcast “Codpaste” (May 2008)
• Great North Run Moving Image Commission 2009 – The Great North Run Cultural Programme – to create a film using the archives of the Great North Run, entitled “Parade” (July 2008 – October 2009)
• Lecturing "Music & Other Media"- Goldsmiths, London (2006–2008)
• Live session and radio broadcast for “Mixing It”, Dingwalls (March 2001)
• Live session and radio broadcast for “Mixing It”, Spitz (May 2004)
• Lovebytes commission to make short film "We Edit Life" (December 2002)
• LUX commission to make digital short film sourcing the LUX archive collection "Resemblage" (October 2004)
• PRS Foundation award to create a new live set (with artist Ergo Phizmiz) using dansette players and self-pressed vinyl compositions "Boots!" (June 2006)
• Radio session for BBC Radio 3’s “Mixing It” (February 2007)
• Radio session for John Peel (January 2003)
• Residency at FACT to make radio play “Molaradio” in collaboration with artist Felix Kubin and Croxteth school children (January 2004)
• Retrospective exhibition of People Like Us A/V work, entitled "We Edit Life" at alt.gallery (May 2008)
• Sonic Arts Network commission to make short film and subsequent DVD release – "Story Without End" – (June 2004)
• Wandsworth Film Awards commission to make short digital film "Skew Gardens", exploring the boundaries of urban land use – (September 2007)
• WFMU Radiovision Festival Saturday Symposium OCT 2011 Celebrating radio's future as it takes on new forms in the digital age for the medium's fans, tinkerers and future thinkers. A day of talks, panel discussions and performances.
• Work & Leisure International commission to make new A/V live set – (September 1999)
• Year of the Artist Residency, Hull Time Based Arts, making A/V collage – (January–April 2001)
• Year of the Artist Residency, Lighthouse, Brighton with Brighton & Hove Music Library, teaching sound collage (June 2001)

Album/Single Releases

• Another Kind of Humor Another Kind of Murder (split with Abraxas) World Serpent/GBCD1/GB1 (CD/LP) 1992
• Lowest Common Dominator Staalplaat/STCD079 (CD) 1994
• It’s Terrorific! Staalplaat (DAT) 1994
• Guide To Broadcasting Staalplaat/STMDCD2 (3"CD) 1994
• Beware The Whim Reaper" Staalplaat/STCD 101 (CD) 1996
• Jumble Massive Soleilmoon Recordings/SOLV005 (LP) 1996 *File Under Easy Listening/File Under Sleazy Listening (split with Sniper) Kleptones 1 (LP) 1996
• Lassie House Staalplaat/STPLUPOO1 (10" Picture Disc) 1997
• Blundersonix/Special Mix (split with TFU) Kleptones 2 (LP) 1997
• People Like Us and Sniper Play The Three DJs of The Apocalypse (with Sniper) Kleptones 4 (LP) 1997
• Hate People Like You Staalplaat/STCD 119 (CD) 1997
• People Like Us Meet The Jet Black Hair People In Concert Audioview 005 (CD) 1999
• Hate People Like Us (remix of PLU by Coil, Negativland, Death in June, Barbed, Christoph Heemann, Bruce Gilbert, Stock, Hausen & Walkman, Rehberg & Bauer, Mika Vainio, Boyd Rice, Dummy Run, Farmer's Manual and Sons of Silence. 2CD features additionally Cyclobe, Req1, V/VM, Sniper, Mr Rotorvator, Felix Kubin, Xper. Xr, Venoz [TKS], Katy Brown and Dr P Li Khan. There was an additional remix by Andy Votel/Badly Drawn Boy, excluded for legal reasons. *Caciocavallo/CAD1 (CD) and Staalplaat/STCD126 (2CD) 1999 2CD
• Thermos Explorer Hot Air/Airhead002 (CD) 2000
• A Fistful of Knuckles Caciocavallo/CAD10 (CD) 2000
• Swing Largo/Going Out of My Town Klang Galerie/GG30 (7") 2001
• Home-Roam-Play/Work-All-Day (split 12" with remix by Matmos) Wicked Witch Records (12") 2001 recalled due to faulty pressing
• Recyclopaedia Britannica Mess Media/Mess 1 (CD) April 2002
• Preserved Cowgirl Asphodel – remix of Tipsy (CD) August 2002
• Stifled Love Mess Media/Mess 2 (12") October 2002
• 7" single on Rough Trade label For Us Records October 2002 *Volatile Media Lovebytes label (DVD) March 2003
• Wide Open Spaces Tigerbeat6 label (CD) collaboration with Matmos and Wobbly May 2003
• Nothing Special Mess03 (CD) collaboration with Kenny G
• Abridged Too Far- online album at Ubuweb. More info here
• Windpipe Moods – (CD) Mukow October 2004
• All Together Now – (CD) October 2006
• Perpetuum Mobile – (CD) April 2007 collaboration with Ergo Phizmiz
• Withers in the Waking – (7") October 2008 collaboration with Ergo Phizmiz
• Rhapsody in Glue – (digital only release) 2008 collaboration with Ergo Phizmiz
• Music for the Fire – Illegal Art label (CD) 2010 collaboration with Wobbly
• Welcome Abroad – Illegal Art label (CD) 24 May 2011

External links

• People Like Us website
• People Like Us weekly radio show on WFMU, NY/internet at wfmu.org
• Interview with Vicki Bennett on Ràdio Web MACBA (2010)