MySpace 

Note: This is the "official" Robert Poss myspace page.

Robert Poss fell in love with electric guitars and basses at an age when he still believed one plugged them directly into a wall socket. He memorized the Fender Catalog and passed through a succession of rock and blues cover bands before discovering punk in the late '70s and staring to write, record and release his own material. He joined Rhys Chatham's ensemble in the early '80s and remained a core member for several years. He also began performing and recording the music of eclectic electronicist Nicolas Collins, whom he had known since the mid-1970s.

Eventually Poss realized that the sound of feedback, distortion and ringing overtones was "the cake, not the frosting" and began trying new ways of writing songs by layering simple chord patterns over drones and looped riffs. It was his initiative that gave rise to Band Of Susans in 1986, and his early experiments became the foundation of their sound.

Band Of Susans went on to release two EPs and five LPs (all produced by Poss) before disbanding in 1995. Interviewed in The Wire magazine, Steve Albini stated that "I think Robert Poss...is an enormously underrated guitar theorist. A lot of his approaches to the density of guitar are completely overlooked in any discussion about guitar..The way he structures the song around the drone instead of finding a drone to fit into the song I think is wholly unique."

Poss has also performed and recorded solo, and with Bruce Gilbert, Phill Niblock, David Dramm, Alva Rogers, and Ben Neill, among others, and has produced records by The Meat Joy, Combine, Tone, Skulpey and Seth Josel in addition to Band Of Susans. In 2005 he began collaborations with choreographers Alexandra Beller and Sally Gross.

Fellow travelers and stuff I like and/or listen to, in no particular order, and by no means comprehensive:

Phill Niblock, Rhys Chatham, Nicolas Collins, Alvin Lucier, Kato Hideki, Tom Verlaine, Johnny Thunders, The Standells, Bob Mould, Wire, Gang of Four, Mission Of Burma, Come, Ellas McDaniel, Susan Stenger, The Kinks, Big Bottom, My Bloody Valentine, McKinley Morganfield, A.C. Temple, Steve Albini, Jaap Blonk, Pina Bausch, Miya Masaoka, Shangri-La's, Mick Avory, Mike Bloomfield, When People Were Shorter And Lived Near The Water, James Fei, Tone, Jesus And Mary Chain, Sukandar Kartadinata, Dope Aviators, Sam Lay, Fugazi, Petr Kotik, Dave Davies, Hasu Patel, Holly Near, Charles Dickens, Norma-Jean Wofford, Charles Curtis, Wangari Maathai, the Maysles Brothers, Michael Clark, Bruce McClure, Hussein Chalayan, Kate Valk, Cat Tyc, Alexandra Beller, Zeena Parkins, Keith Levene, Fred McDowell, Anselm Kiefer, Busted Statues, Lee De Forest, Jamie Di Mare, Rafael Toral, Casey Nelson Blake, William S. Levise Jr., Head Of David, Gerald Casel, Band Of Ones, Ben Manley, The Blues Magoos, Margret Wibmer, Mick Ronson, Chris Brokaw, Lefty Frizzell, Kristen Nutile, Throwing Muses, Ulrich Krieger, Colin Lee, Blind Boy Fuller, Julius Eastman, Tot Rocket, Dan Evans Farkas, The Mekons, Manuel Mota, Sally Gross, Son House, The Fall, Jack Casady, Albert King, Wil Roberts, Skulpey, Dusty Springfield, The Negatones, Kustomized, Pan Sonic, Band Of Susans, The Meat Joy, David Dramm, Anne LaBerge, Seth Josel, Ben Neill....