The Squid's Ear Magazine

McGee, Hal

Columbus Expedition [Cassette w/ Download]

McGee, Hal: Columbus Expedition [Cassette w/ Download] (Copy This!)

A celebration of friendship, sound, and daily life, Hal McGeeÕs cassette + download release assembles dictaphone recordings from his June 2025 trip to Ohio, capturing conversations with Chris Phinney, Jeff Chenault, and Jerry Kranitz, the ambience of cafŽs, shops, and the Arts Fair, collaborative studio and live performances, and voices from the city, composed into a strangely compelling audio diary.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Hal McGee-performer, editor

Chris Phinney-performer

Jeff Chenault-performer

Jerry Kranitz-performer


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Label: Copy This!
Catalog ID: CT007
Squidco Product Code: 36650

Format: CASSETTE
Condition: New
Released: 2025
Country: USA
Packaging: Cassette
Recorded in Columbus, Ohio, on June 5th. 6th, 7th and 8th, 2025.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Columbus Expedition is a chance-derived assemblage of dictaphone recordings from Hal McGee's trip to Columbus, Ohio, June 5-8, 2025.

Sound sources: - Hal conversing with Chris, Jeff, and Jerry. - The sounds of coffeehouses, restaurants, book and record stores, and the Columbus Arts Fair. - Hal making electronic sounds with Chris and Jeff (Skull Vacuum) in Jeff's home studio. - Hal performing a combination of spoken words and playing the Stylophone CPM DS-2 Analog Synthesizer at the Frequency Fridays show on June 6th at the Old First Presbyterian Church. - The voices of John M. Bennett, Catherine Mehrl Bennett, Brian Callahan, and Jonathan Hancock from June 6th.

Columbus Expedition is a celebration of friendship, life, existence, and sound. Hal offers it to you with joy and love."-Copy This!


Artist Biographies

"American experimental artist and producer, active since 1981. With Debbie Jaffe, McGee operated the Cause And Effect cassette label and distributor in Indianapolis, Indiana. In the mid-1980's, McGee recorded works as a member of Viscera, solo as Dog As Master, and in collaboration with If, Bwana and JABON.

McGee moved to Florida in 1988, where he operated the Electronic Cottage label out of Gainesville, FL, simultaneously with an Electronic Cottage Magazine into the 1990's. This was restarted as an online zine and community in April 2018.

In the mid to late 1990's, McGee released dozens of cassettes of homemade experimental music, solo and in collaboration with Jeph Jerman, Brian Noring (EHI), Big City Orchestra, Emil Hagstrom (Cock E.S.P.), Charles Rice Goff III and others. He also produced a series of "Tape Heads" cassette compilations on his own HalTapes label.

In the late 1990's and early 2000's Hal McGee started releasing homemade CDr albums. During this time he collaborated heavily with Brian Noring of the FDR Tapes, in person and via mail collaboration, and with his long-time partner Chris Phinney. In 2006, with the encouragement of Andrew Chadwick and Christopher Miller, McGee began performing live for the first time since 1987, joining the ranks of Florida's live noise/experimental music scene. From 2014 to 2015 Hal operated a new label, Kassette Kult Tapes, and has contributed to Exit. He continues to release music on the [lHalTapes] label.

Since 2008 Hal has hosted a numbered series of live performances from his apartment called Apartment Music. Attendance is limited mostly to participants but documentation is posted on his YouTube channel, and some live audio recordings have been released."

-Discogs (https://www.discogs.com/artist/424754-Hal-McGee?srsltid=AfmBOooUzGVvBDwIyrUQ9z-FlH2IU-awjeuxpIkkvSCQ2yARsPv3MTqJ)
8/20/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

Chris Phinney is a sound artist, the Founder of the Harsh Reality Music cassette label and a long-time home taper from the 1980s onwards.

-Squidco 8/20/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



SIDE A



1. Side Olentangy 20:49

SIDE B



1. Side Scioto 20:52

Related Categories of Interest:

Physical Releases that include Download Codes

Cassettes
Electro-Acoustic
Electroacoustic Composition
Field Recordings
Organized Sound and Sample Based Music
Unusual Vocal Forms
New in Experimental & Electronic Music
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