See also: Cook Family, DizzySparkle, DJ Dizzy, VJ Dizzy

Tom Roe is a sound transmission artist sometimes known as DJ Dizzy. He co-founded microradio station 87X in Tampa, Florida; and, with Greg Anderson and Violet Hopkins, founded free103point9 as a microradio collective in Brooklyn, New York in 1997. Roe performs with transmitters and receivers using multiple bands (FM, CB, walkie-talkie), as well as prepared CDs, vinyl records, and various electronics. He creates radio soundscapes using locally available frequencies, often to the beat of manipulated pop song samples. He has collaborated with Pierre Huyghe, Kristin Lucas, members of the Gold Sparkle Band, Matt Bua, Carrie Dashow, Tali Hinkis, Matt Mikas, and many others on various projects. His album The Worst Hour of the Year will be released in 2008.

Roe has exhibited widely both in the United States and internationally. Recent performances, have taken place at the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh; White Box, New York free103point9 Wave Farm, Acra; Center for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, and at Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art in Gdansk, Poland; Gwangju Biennale, South Korea; Santa Fe Art Institute, New Mexico; Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT; The Kitchen, New York; and The Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Florida; among numerous others. In Sept., 2006 he served as a radio technician with The Wooster Group's show "Who's Your DADA?!" at the Museum of Modern Art.

Roe has also written about music for The Wire, Signal to Noise, and The New York Post, among others. Roe's writing about free jazz in New York appeared in The Wire's 20th Anniversary publication Undercurrents (Continuum).

Roe has led many of free103point9's "Radio Lab" education lectures and workshops, speaking about how to perform with transmitters and the history of radio performance and microcasting at venues such as Columbia University, Brown University, Brooklyn College, Flux Factory, The Kitchen, NYU's ITP Program, Kids Discover Radio in East Harlem, Grassroots Media Conference at The New School, RPI University in Troy, and other locations.

http://www.free103point9.org

at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Pictured (left to right): Michelle Nagai, Tianna Kennedy, Ben Owen, Todd Merrell, Tom Roe. Wave Farm Transmission Sculpture Garden, Acra, NY. Tom Roe and Rama play Sing Sun Room at Ontological-Hysteric Theater, New York at Ontological-Hysteric Theater, New York at the Turntables at Diner, Brooklyn. On the Williamsburg Bridge. Pictured (left to right) Tom Roe, Matt Mikas, Greg Anderson. Williamsburg Bridge. Pictured (left to right) Eric Morrison, Tom Roe, I-Sound Williamsburg Bridge. Pictured (left to right) I-Sound, Tom Roe Courtesy The Mattress Factory. Photograph by Greg Langel

LINKS

ARCHIVE

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Audio

  • Across the Borderline_WBRC-LP_062908, June 29, 2008. Tom Roe from free103point9 appears on Phil Johnson's show on the Great Barrington, MA station. (audio/mpeg, 40.4 MB)
  • Radio 4x4: Giancarlo Bracchi + Michael Garofalo + Slink Moss + Tom Roe, May 9, 2008. Opening performance at Noise! 2008 050908 at Ontological Theater, Manhattan. Radio 4x4 is a free103point9 project with four performers each playing into FM transmitters, rather than amplifiers, with radio boom boxes receiving the signals throughout the space. (audio/mpeg, 36.1 MB)
  • Dizziness_041708, April 17, 2008. Tom Roe's weekly collage from Wave Farm. This week with free jazz, local radio, trains, planes, dub, and more. (audio/mpeg, 22.0 MB)
  • Dizziness_030608, March 6, 2008. Tom Roe's weekly collage from Wave Farm, this episode for the AV Festival 2008 in the UK. (audio/mpeg, 83.3 MB)
  • Dizziness_020708, Feb. 7, 2008. Tom Roe's weekly collage from Wave Farm, this episode with a long collage and a side of George Steeltoe Ensemble. (audio/mpeg, 20.6 MB)
  • Dizziness_013108, Jan. 31, 2008. Weekly show from Tom Roe, with tracks from Daniel Carter + Arthur Doyle, Cabaret Voltaire, SparkleProjects, and a composition from Pauline Oliveros. (audio/mpeg, 31.1 MB)
  • Tom Roe_Splatter, Dec. 1, 2007. Solo track for "Free for La Superette 2007" free downloadable dispatch. (audio/mpeg, 4.1 MB)
  • Dizziness_112907, Nov. 29, 2007. Tom Roe's weekly collage from Wave Farm. (audio/mpeg, 67.6 MB)
  • Dizziness_111507, Nov. 15, 2007. Tom Roe's weekly collage from Wave Farm, with an improvisation and a DJ set with songs from Animal Collective, David Watson, Pan Sonic, and Tatsuya Nakatani. (audio/mpeg, 21.0 MB)
  • The War of the War of the Worlds_103107, Oct. 31, 2007. Tom Roe's annual remixing of Orson Welles' "The War of the Worlds" radio broadcast with reports from current conflicts. (audio/mpeg, 18.2 MB)
  • Dizziness_102507, Oct. 25, 2007. Tom Roe's weekly collage from Wave Farm. (audio/mpeg, 22.8 MB)
  • Dizziness_101807, Oct. 18, 2007. Stars Like Fleas' samples, morse tones, and static. (audio/mpeg, 76.8 MB)
  • Dizziness_100407, Oct. 4, 2007. New releases from Thick Wisps, Jackie-O Motherfucker, the Kevin Frenette Four, Temperatures, and Mammal. (audio/mpeg, 94.7 MB)
  • Tom Roe_Superfund Stories, Sept. 22, 2007. Radio play for neuroTransmitter's "The FM Ferry Experiment." Set 500 years in the future, a journalist discovers a treasure trove of recordings from the 20th Century at an underwater "Superfund" site in what has become the Hudson Valley Bay. With special appearance from 31 Down's Ryan Holsopple as Mike Sharpie. (audio/mpeg, 11.7 MB)
  • Tom Roe and Jason Broome, Sept. 8, 2007. Two solo sets. (audio/mpeg, 32.7 MB)
  • Dizziness, April 5, 2007. A DJ set, mostly drones this week. R.E.M., "Radio Free Europe;" Matt Valentine, "Feel the Music;" Latitude/Longitude, excerpt from live set at Wave Farm 12.10.05; The SB, "White Tapes LP Side A;" Jaime Fennelly, "everything is so...;" Andrew Barker/C (audio/mpeg, 79.5 MB)
  • Dizziness, March 22, 2007. Roe: "It was gonna be a DJ set today, but my morse code intro just kept replicating itself, eventually with a Bunnybrain beat." (audio/mpeg, 85.0 MB)
  • Dizziness, March 15, 2007. Lots of trouble on the transmissions today, looks like an electrical storm is on the horizon. Weekly "Dizziness" show live from Wave Farm gets all wired this week. (audio/mpeg, 61.3 MB)
  • Dizziness: Whale Songs, March 1, 2007. (audio/mpeg, 82.6 MB)
  • Dizziness: Echoing noises and screaming interruptions, Feb. 15, 2007. Live from Wave Farm, Echo joins DJ Dizzy for a little screaming fun. (audio/mpeg, 71.9 MB)
  • Radio Lab at Brown University, Nov. 28, 2006. transmission art, microradio and free103point9 back story (audio/mpeg, 38.5 MB)
  • Live at Observatori Festival, May 6, 2006. Tom Roe (audio/mpeg, 5.5 MB)
  • Hanging Radio Pattern Breakdown: Live at the Sanctuary for Independent Media, April 10, 2006. performed with FM transmitters, radios, scanners, and samplers at a radio presentation by free103point9 at The Sanctuary for Independent Media live on free103point9 Online Radio. (audio/mpeg, 7.0 MB)
  • Matt Mikas & Tom Roe: Scope New York Live Performance, March 13, 2006. Matt Mikas &Tom Roe (audio/mpeg, 10.7 MB)
  • free103point9 Education Workshop, Dec. 3, 2005. This is the beginning of the free103point9 Radio Lab at Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, with Tom Roe and neuroTransmitter. The neuroTransmitter part begins, but is cut off on this recording. (audio/mpeg, 3.1 MB)
  • Radio 4x4: Gdansk, May 24, 2005. at Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdansk, Poland (audio/mpeg, 5.1 MB)
  • Radio 4x4: Walker Art Center, Oct. 30, 2004. part of Radio, Access, Democracy conference (audio/mpeg, 56.9 MB)
  • Psy.Geo.Conflux Radio Lab at Participant, Inc., May 13, 2004. (audio/mpeg, 6.0 MB)
  • Philadelphia Freedom: Constructive Engagement Show at Galapagos/Ocularis, Feb. 22, 2004. Tony Flynn, Matt Mikas, Tom Roe, Brad Truax (audio/mpeg, 7.3 MB)
  • PS 122 Fourth Radio Cabaret, Nov. 25, 2003. Tianna Kennedy and Great Small Works put on this show at P.S. 122 with B Owen + Radio Ruido + Tom Roe + DJ Matt Mikas: "Radio 4 x 4" Each performing into a transmitter, mixed together with radios in the space, and LoVid, Gregory Whitehead "Geronimo's Curse," Anna Friz, Lucy Raven, and Coco Rosie. (audio/mpeg, 738 bytes)
  • Matt Bua + Matt Mikas + Tom Roe_Of the Bridge live, Sept. 8, 2001. at "Brooklyn!" show at Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art_090801 (audio/mpeg, 17.4 MB)
  • DizzySparkle_Zimmerman Remix (Shattered), June 1, 2001. Recorded 061001_Track included on From Pieces... (AD004) (audio/mpeg, 17.2 MB)
  • Matt Bua and Tom Roe, Oct. 27, 2000. Live at Come the Freak On festival for Screw Music Forever in Brooklyn. (audio/mpeg, 41.1 MB)
  • Microradio Soundwalk: Warsaw Facial Index (Jacek Staniszewski), Tom Roe (audio/mpeg, 1.3 MB)
  • Pattern Recognition Tom Roe (audio/mpeg, 4.7 MB)

Video

  • Snowscreen, March 18, 2008. Tom Roe. For free103point9's contribution for a program of works for the Video Gentlemen’s BYOTV exhibition at the New American Art Union in Portland, Oregon. (video/mov, 38.1 MB)
  • Radio Lab_Transmission Tools for Artists, March 10, 2008. Tom Roe and Lee Azzarello lead this talk about using transmitters and web streams in art works, and ideas for setting up microradio stations. (video/mov, 1.6 GB)
  • Tune(In))) The Kitchen, April 22, 2004. (excerpt) (video/mov, 36.3 MB)
  • Of the Bridge_Matt Bua + Matt Mikas + Tom Roe For "Brooklyn!" show at Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art in Florida, and for "Of the Bridge" CD. (video/mov, 34.2 MB)

Press, Programs, & Ephemera

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