Dirty Snow as Situation in S.I. terms following up

Dirty Snow was a performance project based in Situacionist ideas. The S.I. are explicit about what a situation is, I do not think Dirty Snow played to the Art Institution, proof of it has been its failure to even been aknowledged as Art,wile for me it was a clear "action" and a work of Art, even if the idea was only to push and provoke the idiots: “The happening is an isolated attempt to construct a situation on the basis of poverty (material poverty, poverty of human contact, poverty inherited from the artistic spectacle, poverty of the specific philosophy driven to “ideologise” the reality of these moments). The situations that the SI has defined, on the other hand, can only be constructed on the basis of material and spiritual richness. Which is another way of saying that an outline for the construction of situations must be the game, the serious game, of the revolutionary avant-garde, and cannot exist for those who resign themselves on certain points to political passivity, metaphysical despair, or even the pure and experienced absence of artistic creativity.” S.I.

Dirty Snow was an action, a situation, a performance and an ephemeral disturbance of established notions about sculpture, dance, music as ritual before or after art. The creation of a band as an art performance project in 1998 was driven by the nostalgia for a way of performing wile communicating(activating relations/reactions with the public on Ritualistic terms,exploring the borders between experience or ideas of mere spectacle/distraction)from an inspiration around our memories of post-punk and a post-post modern romantic point of view. 

This was a time,when digital music, electronic sounds and dj sets where ultra ubiquitous and bands where almost gone. 
When Dirty Snow appeared, with its traditional four person line-up and on its first live actions at Five Years Gallery/ Film or in some artist music Club (as was Diógenes Club by Cedar Lewison at The Clinique in Soho)Dirty Snow was produced to be an specific site Situation,it was a pre-relational art and pre-socially engaged art too, because to create a space for ritual and mutual cathartic expression as punk-rock etc its too real a social activity even if it touches the politics of what capitalism has relegated as just pure Spectacle/Leisure.

Dirty Snow as a Post Punk band who wanted to be Art

From an article on Post Punk :

Post-Punk: A History and Examination
Punk rock began as a response to the big budget, over produced music of 1970s. It was a reaction to disco and arena rock. So what is post-punk? The etymology of the word points to it being after punk, but that is not the meaning because punk music is stilling being made today. An interesting analogy can be made with literature to shine a light on the subject of post-punk. Modern literature did not cease to be written after the advent of post-modern literature. The two exist simultaneously as movements in literature. Thus punk and post-punk exist as musical movements. Post-punk is all most a catchall category for underground, indie, or lo-fi guitar rock. It is also the music most representative of the slacker traditions of gen-x.
So how did post-punk begin? It's a hard question to answer, but I think it began as a reaction to the nihilism of punk rock. Punk music was defined by its aggressive vocals, and often sloppy, simple instrumentation. More over, the punks were marked by their attitude, where as most post-punk musicians can be marked by their lack of attitude. Punk music wanted to create a revolution. Post-punk music wanted to create art. The D.I.Y. (Do it Yourself) ethic of punk was perhaps the greatest influence the genre had on post-punk. Post-punk bands initially avoided major record labels in the pursuit of artistic freedom, and out of an 'us against them' stance towards the corporate rock world.

Wild gig in Wigam during a tour as supporting band for Selfish Cunt
2004

Review about gig in Manchester on the same tour

Following with a much more mature sound and appearance were Dirty Snow. A band with an average age of about thirty, they bash ‘em out with the best of them. With the ‘wall of noise’-ness of ‘Sonic Youth,’ and the conservative gothness of ‘Siouxsie and the Banshees,’’Dirty snow` show a fierceness that would make children cry. Most striking is undoubtedly the leading lady. 

She looks like Shelley Duvall of ‘The Shining’ fame. 

Wendy Torrence armed with an arsenal of twisted, tortured writhing, gyrating 'dance’ moves to send Jack Nicholson straight to hell. No
discernible words came from her mouth, and if they did were hidden under the screams and wails of that wild banshee woman.

But hey, who needs words anyway. 

The ‘Dirty Snows’ are not at all precious about their sound, giving it up for an energy that truly shakes and stirs the front woman. ‘Dirty Snow’ are not doing anything particularly new, if anything they are playing on old styles, but their energy is fresh, sincere and exciting to watch. It’s just a shame they burnt out after only 15-20 mins. 
James Bridge Williams
The Dry Bar, Manchester 2/12/2004

specific object ds performance on single channel tv

Dirty Snow desde 1999, es un proyecto que se propone como "live sculpture" en formato de banda de pop , happening y performance , el proyecto se dejo a la deriva y fue evolucionando en diferentes fases y sonidos asi como actitudes escenicas. Desde el rock pop experimental, post-punk hasta spoken word y hard noise siempre ha centrado su interes en  generar una relación experimental con el directo.La estructura de la música y la base es la improvisacion produciendo siempre ejercicios y resultados inesperados al borde del colapso. La música producida como obra paralela , se materializa en algunos casos como sonido de videos/films y mínimas ediciones en vinilo o cassete. La siguente fase son films sobre material filmado en el pasado y editados en varios sets.

history archive origin material

Esther Planas began experimenting with the possibilities of live
and recorded music in her work in 1997 when she collaborated with
the musician Luis Carbonell for a series of dance performances in
her home town, Barcelona. She produced her first recordings in
early 1999 as a soundtrack for her earliest video work,
Plastickiller. The soundtrack consisted of four songs, with Esther
performing vocals and spoken word over music by Luis Carbonell
and Justine Armatage.

She formed her band Dirty Snow in Autumn 1999 after moving to
London. The idea was to create an almost a real band, inspired by
notions of experimental sculpture as in the works of Gilbert and George ,
Situationist issues like derailing reality and Baudrillard's Era of Simulacra,
the band was supposed to just activate reactions of ephemeral disturbance,
questions about its relevance as a live work of art and all sort of other
borderline miss-understandings  and miss-readings of the project.
 Dirty Snow's first live performance was at the Diogenes
Club, organised by artist Cedar Lewisohn at the Clinic in Soho in
1999 / 2000. Dirty snow also performed regularly from 1999 - 2002
at performance/art/noise events at the artist-run space Five Years
in Hoxton's legendary Underwood Street. The Libertines also
appeared here, as did Martin Tomlinsom and Patrick Constable
along with many others featured at Five Years' "PROMISSE OF HAPPINES"
chaotic nights.

Eventually the gallery was served an eviction notice for noise, and
Underwood Street's colony of artists' spaces and studios was forced
to make way for luxury apartments.
Dirty Snow have since performed at numerous galleries and venues,
including playing support at early gigs by the Libertines at their
Filthy Mac´nastys..SKINT &and Minted and  CITY OF LIBERTINE at
the Rhythm Factory and on tour with Selfish Cunt. The band also play regularly
at Esther's Site Specific, night 'Club Esther', a so-called 'exhibition in a
club' which advertises itself with the battle-slogan 'ART-LUST/
BLACK CUBE'. This sporadically recurring event was organised by
Esther in collaboration with Marc Hulson and takes place, when it
did take place, at On the Rocks, a venue that was notable for being one of
the last remaining bastions of unreconstructed East End seediness
amongst the multiplying style bars and suffocating 'hipness' of
Shoreditch.

Club Esther has also re-appeared in Berlin and lately at South London Gallery show
The Weasel , Pop Music and Contemporary Art , curated by Kitt Hammonds and
The BCN Psychotropic Workshops at Antigua Casa Haiku , curated by Alex Brahim
in Barcelona.

Dirty Snow's gigging and recording career has involved
collaboration with numerous musicians and artists but the most
stable (and current) line-up has been with lyrics and vocals by
Esther, jazz musician and art colector, Ivor Aizenberg on drums, Patrick
Constable (co-founder of  Selfish Cunt) and Joao Pires on guitar
and the artist (and co-founder of Five Years gallery) Marc Hulson on bass.
Dirty Snow is a band developed in an art context but which pitches
itself against the detachment and self-concious irony which tends
to typify the 'art-band'. The group's musical style and unpredictable mode of performance,
which foreground emotional expression and improvisation (sometimes to the point of
incoherence and collapse...) are for Esther a means of counter-attack and critique against a
too intellectual art-world. At the same time the band's stance rejects the crossover / careerist
trajectory of becoming a 'real' band in the 'real history' of rock music. Dirty Snow exists,
in Esther's terms, as a kind of 'ghost band' - not a real band or an ironic representation of a band.
Their mode of romanticism is consciously chosen as a means of challenging, terrorising and
infecting all the 'scenes', on as many levels as
possible.
Dirty Snow also continues to provide the soundtracks for most of her video works.







Dirty Snow latest detourned line up:
Marc Hulson : Bass
Wolf : Synth
Esther Planas : Guitar and vocals
Baking tracks by Marc Hulson,
Nick Hudson and Wolf.
A new angle on our sound


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Wild gig in Wigam during a tour as supporting band for Selfish Cunt
2004

Review about gig in Manchester on the same tour

 Following with a much more mature sound and appearance were Dirty Snow. A band with an average age of about thirty, they
bash ‘em out with the best of them. With the ‘wall of noise’-ness of ‘Sonic Youth,’ and the conservative gothness of ‘Siouxsie and the Banshees,’’Dirty snow` show a fierceness that would make children cry. Most striking is undoubtedly the leading lady. She looks like Shelley Duvall of ‘The Shining’ fame. Wendy Torrence armed with an arsenal of twisted, tortured writhing, gyrating ‘dance’ moves to send Jack Nicholson straight to hell. No discernible words came from her mouth, and if they did were hidden under the screams and wails of that wild banshee woman. But hey, who needs words anyway. The ‘Dirty Snows’ are not at all precious about their sound, giving it up for an energy that truly shakes and stirs the front woman. ‘Dirty Snow’ are not doing anything particularly new, if anything they are playing on old styles, but their energy is fresh, sincere and exciting to watch. It’s just a  shame they burnt out after only 15-20 mins.

James Bridge Williams
The Dry Bar, Manchester 2/12/2004




BAND SPOTLIGHT}} Dirty Snow
Dirty Snow are an enigma at first glance: a starkly monochromatic male/female duo, making atmospheric post-punk in the vein of Faith and the Cure era - an influence they pay tribute to with a cover of 'All Cats Are Grey' - and under the influence of electronic music and shoegaze. It takes a little investigation to discover their origins in a gallery in Hackney in 1999 as a conceptual 'ghost band' founded by artists Esther Planas and Marc Hulson for the Five Years project. Since then they've played around London and Europe for nights including Decasia and Zoo Music. How The New Thing have missed them so far is largely due to their lack of publicity - this isn't a band so much as an experimental artistic project, with possibly the least commercial approach we've ever seen. That we haven't previously picked up on them is our mistake, since they make some of the best music we've encountered fresh for quite some time - and apparently their live appearances are even better. Discover them now to make up for nine years' worth of lost time.

review at The New Thing 2008

Dirty Snow// Specific Object// Ephemeral Disturbance// Performance in collaboration with LucyReynolds for the last week end of Five Years Gallery  at its site in Underwood st London 2002

Dirty Snow Review Art Review Art Rocks Arts form Bands 2002 London

Dirty Snow and Five Years events mentioned on a survey on Artist Bands  2002 at Art Review .

Dirty Snow atDARK POP 2000 Five Years Underwood St/ London

An Installation as an expanded publication about a band about a journey an a daily life at the housing states in London East End, second live performance of the band at the gallery space.

Everyone is Already dead in Dirty Snow ( Dirty Snow at A.S.S )