BIO

by Kyle Clyd, 2024

Should you pursue an incognito DIY sound or music project like I did and go on tours to far away lands while playing festivals to hundreds or even a thousand people at one time? I would say, yes, you should do that. Even if you don’t end up being famous I think that you should do what I did in my twenties and early thirties. I gained a lot of confidence through playing to large audiences. It was good for me, as a young woman, to be featured in press photos that were blurred and washed out and to fly under the radar at underground shows. I had always loved the look and feel of underground art as a young person and so I felt a great deal of joy in that environment, and in exploring the club scenes in New York and New Orleans. In my noise underground “career”, I used different pseudonyms to fly under the radar at shows that were usually only promoted with paper flyers. I wasn’t pressured to dress up like a perfect designer doll or to perform sultry moves for likes on the the Internet. I knew who my audience was and I was in a creative space to defy expectations. 

For me, I needed to pursue DIY art after art school in order to see my audience and to have a more sizable audience that what I was seeing at some small art galleries. I don’t know how artists like Henry Darger can work in solitude for years without seeing an audience. Sometimes I think that people have forgotten who I was, because as a woman artist in a mostly male field and environments I got little verbal feedback from the guys. I think that my status as the only woman on a lot of bills made me stand out, though. I headlined many big festivals like Ende Tymes and INC by the time I had reached my early 30s and I was regularly in the top ten in “noise” end of year lists in the Village Voice and Magnet Magazine, and was reviewed in Wire. 

So much of what we do in life is do-it-yourself already. We have to teach ourselves new techniques as artists even when we are in college programs. In our jobs, we have to keep up with new technologies and professional development. As a DIY artist I was able to teach myself how to run sound, to work in basic synthesis, and to grasp sound art theory such that I was able to pursue an MFA in Music/Sound at one of the top ten MFA programs in the country, Bard College, on a scholarship after only having a BFA in interdisciplinary art from the Cooper Union. I could not have done that if Cooper Union had not been a full-scholarship university at the time that I went there. I don’t believe that everyone has to pursue a college education in art to make great things. I have to work on a tight budget and teach myself new skills all the time so I know that self-education is possible. 

Now I that am working with new health limitations I have had to make further changes to my approach to work. We are all always working with some limitations be they related to our health, income, or childcare. I can no longer work with noise or tour in the way that I had been. I call my site the Nine of Swords, because I am designing new things within the framework of my genetically incurred chronic illnesses. In the Tarot, the Nine of Swords represents illness and, for me, that forecast of my fate never goes away. My other constraint is financial due to the amount of time I have to put into self-care. However, in my new form I am still free to do whatever I want according to how I feel. My illnesses are genetic and so you probably will not experience my bad luck in your early to mid-thirties as a result of DIY touring. I’m still focused on creating low cost micro-editions so that my work is easily accessible to those living with travel or financial limitations. So now you’ll just have to download my work here and stream my music for free!