TKDF Vampires (#114)

Source file here. Originally broadcast on June 25th, 1998.

Ah, vampires. They get a lot of attention, as ghouls go. Why did we never do a show about yeti or Frankenstein's monster? They don't generate the raw material in media that vampires do. Also, zombies.

Among the movies heard here are the dryly humorous Nadja, Tony Scott's chilly The Hunger, Polanski's goofball Fearless Vampire Killers, Abel Ferrara's academic and brutal The Addiction, and the ones everyone knows. The dialogue heavy movies like Nadja and The Addiction make the show somewhat philosophical and Nietzschean, while others variably add creepy dread, campy horror, and short spurts of bloody gore—or at least the sounds of it. All in all, a rather verbose, thinking-vampire's production.

1. Europe is a village
2. Aspects of determinism
3. How old am I?
4. I have lost a day
5. Like this, in one go
6. Why all these garlic flowers?
7. Vampire Rules
8. I'm not bleeding all over myself
9. They fall like flies, don't they
10. Demons suffer Hell
11. All these years running uphill
12. Face it Jim, she's a zombie
13. Why all these people dead?

Poetry Slammer (#113)

Source here. Originally recorded June 18, 1998.

Whatever you call it: poetry, word salad, skat, sound poem, what have you; it's all here. An A Capella show of a different type. TKDF was my introduction to Ken Nordine, who is sort of awesome.

Lots of finger snapping recital going on here. The occasional double-bass and bongo makes an appearance. Most languages in a sort of English you might recognize. Coffee shop background effects take away from the reality rather than adding to it. Yodeling. Götterdämmerung.

1. Those with the nose for the news
2. Follow him with faith
3. Perfectly manicured to exclude the poor
4. The bookmarks, the numbers, the pages
5. (a Raymond Scott interlude)
6. They shot my man!
7. A haiku at 11pm
8. Performance mistaken for accolades
9. Layered Violence on the Radio
10. A sickly vein shot with possibilities
11. Thirteen, Right On
12. Get the pie pie pie pie pie pie pie pie
13. He'd get his ass kicked if he did it
    

Storybook Wonderland (#110)

Source here. Originally recoded on May 28rd, 1998.

Another one of my favorite shows, where we collected a bunch of story book records / tapes / CDs (a majority of records, little 45 rpm 7" discs that children would pop into their close-n-play). The thick layers of comforting, encouraging voices telling simple, wholesome stories sends one into a particular kind of madness where your entire childhood can be lived over in the span of 90 minutes and everyone learns a valuable lesson at the end: never do this again.

1. So, we'll just get started here
2. Christmas time, again
   
3. Everything takes practice
   
4. Too much Tammy Faye already
5. This is the story of...
6. It means, "Turn the page."
7. Peter Pan Cotton Tail Pumpkin Eater
8. Read you a story
9. Somewhere
10. You can make believe it happens
11. Get the donkey!
12. Do you notice any difference?
13. Soon, she was lost again
    

JAPAN (#103)

Source here. Originally recorded on April 9th, 1998.

Part hyperbole, part hubris, part hysteria, part hagiography, part hectoring. I'm sort of torn between the bizarre thought that one could capture all of Japan in a 90 minute tape, and the uneasy suspicion that we captured none of it. This tape is full of interwoven words and music and samples and fiction of what other people think of when they think of Japan. Some of us got in there, too.

1. Chipmunk Geisha
2. Country music melodic lope loop
3. Single String Final Battle
4. I'm afraid we played the Vapors
5. Garbage Percussion
6. Mecha-Elvis has returned
7. A Challenger Appears!
8. Up From the Depths
9. Pearls created by Swine
10. The reluctant warrior awakes
11. So, you think you can defeat me?
12. A perception of no true value
13. Return from whence you came
    

Added by IanF-R:We probably should have titled this show "Naïve Westerners' Japan: A Cultural Mis-mapping Odyssey".

(#83) WILD WEST

Source here. Originally recorded November 20th, 1997.

Back on Track?

Roundin' them up in this show, our intrepid artists collected a variety of clips/tunes/effects that represented a particular view of the as-reported Wild West. It's not a unique mythos, but America - as always - buys into this mythos wholesale. Collectivisim be dammed, we're going to Manifest Destiny ourselves all the way to the other ocean using entitlement and guns.

To a certain extent, this mythos lives on today (until you get to the actual West Coast). Landlocked America welcomes you back with open arms and 24-hour Adult Superstores lining the freeway; as long as you're not too funny lookin'.

1. Faintly "Hey Pa!"
2. Citizens' Band and Guns
3. Appalachia Background
4. Crosstalk Hoedown
5. Capture and Display it
6. Dropping Open Plains Science
7. The Carter Family votes Republican
8. Big Sky Country
9. There Were More Gypsy Circuses than One Might Expect
10. Trucker Dirge and Requiem for Rail
    
11. IT'S A TWISTER
12. On Command, Zombie Reagan
13. Dead-End Gulch, pre-Ambush
    

Added by Ian F-r:
Flowsheet is here.