Radio Radio (#64)

Source here. Originally recoded on July 10th, 1997.

This is all about making radio while making radio. There is all sorts of radio theater gaggery going on here, with lots of audio sound effects and wonky juxtaposition. It strikes me now that we may be in the last days of live radio, or that live radio is really the only kind of radio left worth listening to.

With MP3 players / Last FM / Pandora on your phone / Satellite radio providing all sorts of different ways to listen to what you want to hear while getting introduced to new stuff you might want to hear; live radio, and possibly talk radio, are the only reasons one might spin the tuner dial and check out what's coming over the airwaves.

I've flirted with the idea of doing this sort of show again, except over the Internet, but the problem is the temporally shared experience lends its own energy (and I'm using this in the non-scientific way) to a performance such as this. I'm not saying we could tell if people were listening or not. It was more subtle than that, and losing that ineffableness is one of the things that keeps me awake at night. You can't measure it, but you know when it's gone.

1. Steve Allen's large salami
2. Come in, North Pole
3. Let's go back to the year 1942
   
4. Mexican Radio
5. Echo Sonata
6. Never Enough Loop
7. Never Enough Loop (reprise)
8. 1000 Vices
9. Minor Mellow Moment
10. I'm only getting noise
11. ORIGINAL CREAM
12. The Eagle Has Landed, Man
13. End Transmission
    

ROBOT RADIO (#59)

Source here. Originally recorded on June 5th, 1997.

First off I must profusely apologize for the missed weekend. I spent the whole weekend (and I mean the whole weekend and almost every bit of it. I just finished languishing laundry. That is how busy it is) at a computer security / hacker conference. The weather was wonderful and I saw not a bit of it (except when it was dark out).

THIS IS OUR ROBOT SHOW. Meaning we stick with music and sounds that either directly or indirectly reference robots. Lots of computer noise, mechanical noise, synthesizers of voice and music. A few robot/robot inspired bands. NO ACTUAL ROBOTS WERE IN THE STUDIO. We did get out the aluminum foil and make little hats, though.

The first 26 minutes are filled with a ping-pong noise that gets annoying even to me, which might have been the initial point. There is stuff that goes on around it, but after a while THAT IS ALL YOU HEAR. Then there is real ping-pong for 20 minutes or so later on.

1. Every Robot Show Must Start With Kraftwerk
2. Ping Pong or Radar?
3. A Murmur of Droids
4. Desperately trying to drown out the pinging with early synthesizer music
5. Starting to count in German now
6. Real actual ping pong now.
7. Do not tell me this real ping pong lasts the rest of the show
8. INCOMING ROBOT DATA TRANSMISSION
9. The grandfather clock is reporting in
10. Wait, Circus?
11. Mellow Lounge Robot Time Interrupted
12. The Big Arpeggiated Reveal
13. Ending with Disque 9