Sunday, July 17, 2011

Music and Noise, Pt. 2 (#20)

Originally broadcast on October 5, 1996, and show source found here.

I feel my role for these programs now is part historian and interpreter, and sometimes apologist. I recount the facts and details about the original show and how it was made, I provide context from the intents and environments at that time, and I also admit when the shows fail to live up to their potential. This one feels at times like it needs apologizing for, with dead-air minutes and interminable stretches of unpleasant scrapings.

This is, however, what this show is also fundamentally about: pointing out the subjectivity of sound appreciation and attempting to sow seeds in the extreme outer corners of the possible aural field. Music is sometimes differentiated from noise as being organized or desired sound. But putting Music and Noise on a linear axis varying in degrees of Organization or Desirability does not address the subjective nature of those factors. Repetitive factory sounds, clumsy guitar dismemberment, slap funk bass, scrambled tape feedback, reverberating vocal grumbles as found within this show are all equally organized/disorganized, or desirable/undesirable based wholly upon the listener's sensibilities.

As the second of a two-show theme, this recording captured myself, possibly alone at the controls, challenging my future self's definitions and acceptance of music versus noise, contrived versus accidental, and beautiful versus unlistenable in the context of radio programming. I won't bore you how I like it now, but I find it still makes me think, which I count as a kind of success.
  1. Dot matrix guitar
  2. Guitarpentry
  3. 1959 guitar lessons with 3-minute break
  4. Hi and lo white noise
  5. Cave flautism
  6. Caveman at open mic night
  7. Actual beats and basslines
  8. Jajouka versus breakaway tape machine
  9. Fire engines in freefall
  10. Weird noise club next door
  11. Behemoth speaking slowly
  12. More cave guitars with Anton LaVey
  13. Relentless house paranoia

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Beatleshow 2 (#73)

Show source here. Originally broadcast on September 11, 1997. This was the second of two successful-seeming shows dedicated to the Beatles and their celebrity.

Hopefully, this show can't be mistaken for a fully-earnest Beatlish tribute, due to the constant (mis)handling and sabotage of playing anything just as it is. This program presents a uniformly blended mishmash of confused and entertaining shreds from the Fab Four's commercial discography, press interviews, post-Beatle careers, and subsequent oddball or eccentric Beatles covers. As soon as a song appears recognizable, an unseen hand wrenches it into parody or dissonance.

I am reviewing this show without the benefit of the tape case or any notes, but I know that several tapes existed in the aftermath of the Beatle-shows, some of which were post-produced edits, and so this one may have been trimmed from raw broadcast for the most interesting bits. In this state, it feels pretty organically evolved.

Also, I note another brief appearance partway through of a call-in contribution, a friend playing tapes of more scrambled interviews over the phone lines. These calls happened more often without success than with it, so it feels like a small triumph to hear it working here.
  1. Strawberry cellos forever
  2. Long & winding bad trip
  3. Sobbing, tearing hair
  4. I'm pretty sure you didn't bury Paul
  5. My funny birthday drums
  6. Helter Skelter = Merzbow ÷ Melvins
  7. Help, help, help
  8. Persistent and annoying organ pulse
  9. Ringo the dog presents the Rutles
  10. How big are they?
  11. All about the money
  12. Emperor Lennon is insulted
  13. Sha la la la la. La?
This show's playlist.