Untitled (#126)

Source found here. Originally broadcast on September 17, 1998.

An energetic workout of the unthemed genus. Featuring crackly records, French whispers, zany whirling, violent spoken word poetry courtesy Attaboy, rushing digital effects, melodic polyrhythms, tinny cheesy tunes, unprepped tape warble, a blind walking tour, xylophonic studies, overblown guitar wringing, and a macro-sense of balance between the chaotic and the orderly.

1. Crumbly whispering
2. The French hang around
3. An unhinging progression
4. [...download complete...]
5. Ranting obscured by synesthesia
6. The mess dissipates outdoors
7. Phased reggae French gurgles
8. The sighted person
9. Dreams losing color
10. Hypnotic vocal chime
11. Metallismo
12. Resonance in cavernous tubes
13. Led Zep on the shortwave

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?

1, 2, Free, Form (#112)

A happy Earth Day to our audience. This week's show source file found here. Originally broadcast on June 11th, 1998.

A grubby and unthemed little show. It starts off vocal and voice-based, gets progressively harsher and muddier, ends abruptly, and then starts again. It is well-worn, and thick with dense, chewy layers.

My cohort of helpers always preferred to have a thematic guide for the shows, but I tended to not plan very far in advance, so more often than not, this kind of thing is what we got. In my opinion, this is a good example of when it worked.

I also can't tell if the two sides of the tape got swapped, or this is a combination recording of a couple of different shows. The break near the middle where our show ends and the hip-hop deejay is baffled by the wall of noise he is following comes at exactly the right time. But that's free form college radio for you—a kind of audio whiplash that is an acquired taste, but can be oh-so-tasty.

1. WHANH WHANH!/Wash ray
2. Abracadabra to you, boss
3. Bells and frothing
4. Epic kung fu battle in crystal bamboo forest
5. Wailing and foam
6. A trick ending
7. Appliance-percussion jazz
8. One big fat hoax
9. Machine breathing/feeling so good
10. Wake up now, the satellite's singing
11. A glitch-beat with tacky synth
12. Japanese Vader
13. Mandarin disco Strauss/abrupt end

Gradual Brightening, pt 3 (#56)

Source can be found here. Originally broadcast on May 18, 1997. This is Part 3 of a four-part, six-and-a-half hour show that we performed one morning during a gap in the programming between spring and summer schedules at the radio station.

Part 1, Part 2

This segment of this show features a lot of vocalization—mumbled, hollered, gasped, giggled, foamed, and belted. If you've ever pulled a marathon shift, you know that things get loopy after a certain stretch, and hours four and five here are sure showing it. But that was the point, I guess, to go beyond our normal endurance for mixing and test the limits.

It does get tired and fallback upon some late-ninties IDM for a bit, but then there's a great bit where we say "Hello to the universe". The walls of noise and newborn baby reference also play along with the early morning theme, I suppose.

1. Ode to Dinah Shore
2. Extended sleep episode
3. Braying and chimes
4. whatisitwhatisitwhatisitunclecleottototo
5. Round and round-dnuor dna dnuor
6. What's so funny about power electronics?
7. Foul-mouthed open letter
8. They're so cute when they start reading poetry
9. The martial art of jazz-golf
10. Screamix
11. Melodic moans of damned doors
12. Bombast and cheese
13. Yes, records ARE fantastic

A Fate That Must Come To Us All (Death) (#76)

Source is in two files, here and here. Originally broadcast on October 2, 1997.

Perhaps the oldest topic we could have dealt with. Like previously posted shows, the subject is treated less philosophically and more in the juvenile, macabre sense of DEAD BODIES and the grisly details. We are addressing physical death here directly, and there isn't much about grief, mourning, or the afterlife.

Music strewn throughout this killing field varies from jazz and Korean children singing, to Throbbing Gristle and Diamanda Galas. Texts referenced are computer-read horror stories, Monty Python sketches, Princess Diana news coverage, and the two Williams (Shakespeare and Burroughs).

1. Imagine the hell
2. Faint death choirs
3. Crumbling in decay
4. Those are condemned
5. Smooth jazz sacrifice
6. Falling down a well
7. Burier, burner, dumper
8. Mort aux vaches
9. Hypnotic Plague Mass
10. Prospero and Westminster
11. Death needs time
12. Unfair court proceedings
13. Including unfortunate wretches

Excerpts (#11)

Source here. Originally recorded on July 19, 1996.

Another one from the random file. This one starts in the deeply ridiculous and does a random walk from there. Much spoken word work here: poetry, chanting, documentary. Environmental, atmospheric, soundtracklike music fiercely backs it up. The second half is less wordy than the first, but more dense and layered.

1. PeePee McDooDoo? Seriously?
2. Drum and Bass and Film Noir
3. Drum Solo with Record Manipulation
4. Weatherman One
5. (muffled laughter)
6. Men have dreamed of landing on our moon
7. 80's Soap Music, Hey, What About Me?
   
8. We have placed everything under a layer of foam
9. Maybe it's just that it's AM radio and we're out in the country now like the KLF or something
10. Caw Caw Caw Kong
11. Monks and Frogs
12. Saxophone Busker in Alien Subway
13. Music Box Winds Down
    

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".

Back to ASCIIs (#86)

Source here. Originally recorded on December 11th, 1997.

I'm not sure why ASCII is pluralized here, but that's what was on the tape. I'm not sure what it means in this context (and I know I've said that many times before). There's nothing remotely computer related on this track, although there's a lot of interweaving vocal and speech parts. Tight loops, and crafty hooks. There's a certain constant throb to the thing that sort of oozes and jostles you all the way.

1. Honk and Clank
2. Churn Churn Churn Churn Churn
3. THX
4. Hiccup Carnival
5. Tuvan Hiccup
6. A moment to groove
7. Diving mask
8. For His Coming
9. One Long Raspberry
10. Sharpen
11. The tiniest whale
12. Bad horror and worse music
13. Hand-cranked piano

Added by IanF-R:

Okay, I give. I thought I was being clever by making a half-pun on "Basics", as in "Back-to-Basics", "Back-to-BASIC (computer language)", etc. Obviously, it was too far-fetched to translate beyond the day I wrote it down.
But really it doesn't make sense with that explanation, either. I had an infatuation in my early computer-years (circa 1984-1987) with ASCII art like you'd find on the BBS art galleries (didn't we all), and my ignorance of the details behind ASCII/ANSI/etc led me to mythologize its importance to everyday life to some extent, that well, still lurks in my memory, I suppose, being I can talk about it today. Grr. Here's the playlist

(Unnumbered) "Humor is Everywhere"

Source here. Originally recorded on December 6th, 1997.

Occasionally the intrepid actors in the show were called in to substitute for other specialty shows on our fair station. This was usually never done more than once, as we'd bring our disease to to their show. This sort of cross-pollination (or contamination) was a favorite thing (of ours) to do.

This was a show Ian subbed for the comedy show on Sunday. All comedic samples were used and no humor was harmed in the making of this show.

1. First in Flight
2. Whoops a profanity
3. Groucho tells a story
4. Banks and Opera
5. Who Governs This Country?
6. PDQ
7. A Lehrer Moment
8. His remarks will be translated into English
9. B.L.O.N.D.E.
10. Stump the Band
11. Three-Part Invention
12. Moog Tigers
13. We Saved All The Laughter to the End