Surprise Visitor (Part 1) (#48)

Apologies for that long gap there in posting. This show was originally broadcast on March 27th, 1997. Show source found here.

Though it's called "Part One", this recording has two semi-distinct halves. It starts like a solo session, as taking a long time to get to spastic, hyperactive, or call-and-response-y stages. Shows took place pretty late at night, and you had to really be raring to go to pull off a full two-three hour shift of solid collage and manipulation that felt engaging and interested. My own tendencies, when left to myself, were towards droning, hypnotic fields and slabs of sound. As soon as a second person was involved and playing things alongside me, an interaction began to happen, and this often sounds either more disjointed, or, when it worked really well, like a conversation or give-and-take. This show's first half doesn't get very far past looped guitar buzzes, de-contextualized sound effects--motorboats, welding, trashcans--and way too much Clown Party.

Once the second side of the Part 1 tape begins around the 45 minute mark, things brighten up a little bit, with more vocal fragments, stop-and-start pacing, and twitchy turntable work. It jumps in and out of active and passive modes, ending quite ephemerally. "Surprise Visitor", in this case, could have meant someone who distracted me/us from starting the show off brightly, but I expect it refers to my starting the show alone, and then some collaborator appears to help out for a bit.

1. By "industrial" we mean heavy industry
2. Dry/unemotional funk breakdown
3. Hypnosis using effect pedals
4. I can't get my drum circle started
5. Clown Party with a knife fight, maybe
6. Where is the "bludgeoning" sample when we need it?
7. German murmurs, vocal deconstruction
8. Jud jud jud jud
9. Everyone leaves the room
10. Sinister roar and approaching guitar
11. It's Monk time
12. Confused computer jazz
13. Feathered shivering

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

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