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.

Tape Loop Bureaucrat (#68)

Source here. Originally recorded on August 7th, 1997.

Another short one and another skipped week. This summer is shaping up to not shape up at all. Still, I care about each one (both) of you and I'm putting in the time. The title implies an oppressive, "normalizing" regime holding court over an army of drones. This moves slowly, so titling was annoyingly hard.

1. Monster Moment
2. Don't go in the Master Control Room!
3. The bugs in the background are chewing on me
4. Slowly ground down
5. Spin Cycle
6. Gravel Driveway
7. Code Talker
8. Falling Apart
9. Scratching the Surface
10. Turning the Crank
11. The Yo-Yo Makes It Work
12. Elliptical Sander
13. Background Murmur Metal Recap

Added by IanF-R: Purely provenance side-note: this show is the next-generation descendent of the previously posted show "Tape Loop Marxist". Is it more distributed, less political, than its parent? Is it half-speed for half as long? I can hardly say. One listener's boredom is another's catharsis.

Drones (#66)

Source here. Originally recorded on July 24th, 1997.

I could say I've been on "Summer Hiatus" and to a certain extent (except for the summer part) that's true. The Big Lazies have gotten to me the past two weekends (in a ROW), and we've all suffered as a result.

Drone music does nothing to shake off the lazy feeling, even enhancing it if you play your cards right. Given that, it's amazing that this is such a short bit. With the abrupt start, it's probably one we started recording somewhere in the middle, or accidentally forgot to flip the tape, or something like that as the music overtook us. This is all muddy (in the good way) resonant ringing drone, and pretty fantastic at that.

1. Gurgle gurgle gurgle puke
2. The spins with a catchy beat
3. Interstellar Autobahn
4. Wrung out all wrong
5. Stop with the shouting!
6. It's thunderous, but it's not applause
7. The drill bottoms out
8. Jimmy Carter Noir
9. Flying away on a robot intermodulator
10. Reference tone manipulation
11. Quiet water-powered xylophone
12. Chewy reverb harmonium sound
13. Phone tone lone drone
    

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