about debbie

Talking about things most people don't talk about is a good place to start. MSR has always been about emotional and psychological bondage and torture. I'm my own worst enemy - I used that line long before Linkin Park, thank you very much.

I love ideas that are unusual and deeply emotional. I remember being this way when I was a teenager, at that age when I was becoming my own person. I discovered Dada and read everything I could about it, I devoured it. Seems like a boring way for a teenage girl to spend her days and nights but I loved it. Tristan Tzara, Hans Arp, Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and so many more filled my senses with exciting stories and possibilities. Those people forged a path for modern art and their non-sensical performances, writing and behavior seemed a bit dangerous and thrilling.

It was then that I started writing lyrics and stories and played around with the idea of recording music.

I created Master/Slave Relationship (MSR) in Autumn of 1984 as a one-person industrial noise music and photographic project to explore my own interests in elements of emotional domination and submission, sex, and my obsessions. For more than twenty years I have self-produced a unique brand of industrial music and art. In that time I've released more than ten cassettes, one vinyl LP, five CDs and one CD-ROM. MSR has never performed live and has no intention of ever doing so. MSR was conceived primarily to express and explore my interests in extreme behaviour and thought.

From 1982 to 1988 I created experimental avantgarde music as Viscera with Hal McGee and together we created Cause And Effect which was a cassette-only music mailorder outlet in the Midwest. During that time we sold over 10,000 cassettes via mailorder before the days of the internet (yeah you had to write for a catalog through the postal mail and wait a week or two to receive it then send a check in the mail to place your order, no internet, imagine that). Learn more about this formative period of my life here (new window opens).

I'm an artist, musician, photographer, graphic designer, and webmistress - completely self-taught in Photoshop and html/css code. I design and manage everything you see on this website. I'm a geek.

My interests are more varied and wide-ranging than anyone could imagine and include a keen interest in mid century modern art and style, performance art, Dada, Tristan Tzara, Hans Arp, Man Ray, abstract expressionism, the infinite power of the subconscious mind, all forms of music, all things Apple including iPod iPhone iMac. I'm always learning, exploring, reading about new things and ideas. I'm currently studying french. I also co-founded blackmetal.com in 1996.