My Latest Radio Extravaganza

OK.
Here’s the show I did last Friday night. I was hosting for pal Jim, who was hosting for Daniel, but couldn’t make it at the last minute.
I simply ransacked the library and my laptop and played things more or less at random. I even managed to fill a few requests from enthusiastic callers. It was fun to mix it up after doing one huge show dedicated to one artist, even one with such a vast oeuvre as Bill Laswell.
You can download them in two parts:

Part 1 (80.9 megs)
Part 2 (89.5 megs)

There’s a playlist here for people that need such things, but if you read it first, it’ll spoil the spontaneity.

On a technical note: I inadvertently set my recorder to start one hour early, so the last hour of my show is missing forever. There’s also some minor skipping (mainly apparent when I back-announce) caused by my ailing Firewire drive.

Another Radio/Volunteer Marathon Weekend

Holy crap, am I tired!
I wrapped up my busier-than-usual work week with a double - make that triple - duty volunteer gig down at KBOO: I dropped in for my routine community calendar production gig at 5pm; got done with that in time for some pledge drive phone bank work and just had time to run through the music library to pick out some music for my show that went from 12AM to 3AM. When I got off after 3, I reasoned that it was probably too snowy at my house and I was tired as hell, so I checked into a flea-bag motel and crashed long enough to get up and do my volunteer gig at FVTV. So I never really got any decent shut-eye ’till I got home around 5:30 in the afternoon.
Why couldn’t I have been doing this crap when I was in my twenties or thirties, when I had a little more energy? Oh yeah. I was raising small children.
It’s amazing, though.
When you’re doing creative things, an incredible amount of energy is available.
I had a lot of fun doing the show. Got a lot of enthusiastic response from callers. I didn’t plan any of it; I simply grabbed CDs that looked interesting. I originally planned on doing a show that more or less was like usual host Daniel’s music, but was too pressed for time to plan anything. I managed to get it audio archived, but lost the last hour due to a technical glitch at home.
I will make it and a half-assed playlist up shortly.

Post-Radio hangover

I’m sitting here at 1:15PM, having just woken up and am drinking some strong coffee.
Did my solo radio gig last night.
Everything went well.
Even though I’m tired as hell and feel like a zombie, I’m still kinda high and buzzy.
Will post highlights later.

Eric Clapton Re-imagined as a Free jazz Guitarist

Fucking brilliant video wherein a Finnish smartypants has dubbed his own guitar playing over Eric Clapton’s pseudo-soulful histrionic posing:

Late last year a Finnish media artist named Santeri Ojala got a lot of attention for a series of hilarious YouTube videos in which he lifted concert footage of various guitar heroes and overdubbed his own intentionally awful playing. The bad musicianship was funny enough, but the verisimilitude made it even funnier: Ojala was great at matching each player’s hand movements and timing, and he sprinkled lukewarm applause and other sound effects throughout. The videos were like alternate-universe versions of rock-god cliches.

I think Clapton’s a pretentious, boring twit, so it’s doubly funny for me.

More here.

Found at Boing Boing

Burroughs Called the Law

The third and final leg of last Friday’s Beat Triumvirate show (after Kerouac and Ginsberg), featuring readings of William S. Burroughs and audio recordings and music utilizing his words and voice. The finale was some in-studio cut-ups and some live audio manipulations.

This was my live radio debut (I have been recording voice work for KBOO for the better part of a year, now) reading on the air, and had fun doing some live audio widgetry with Mr. No Soap Radio and Daniel towards the end of the show, where we cut loose with all kinds of audio skullfuckery. It was a blast.

Here’s the file (Right click and “Save as..” or “Open in new tab” to play. It’s about an hour long and 87.5 megs).

Outside World: The Movie

Students of Portland Community Media made a film on KBOO, featuring host and pal Daniel, host of The Outside World.

It’s a swell video that highlights KBOO’s mission and The Outside World’s raison d’être.

Click on image to watch.

Iraq/Afghanistan Winter Soldier Hearings

All regular programming on KBOO is pre-empted from 6AM to 4PM today (Friday the 14th) in order to carry the Iraq/Afghanistan Winter Soldier hearings, currently underway.

Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan will feature testimony from U.S. veterans who served in those occupations, giving an accurate account of what is really happening day in and day out, on the ground.

The four-day event will bring together veterans from across the country to testify about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan - and present video and photographic evidence. In addition, there will be panels of scholars, veterans, journalists, and other specialists to give context to the testimony. These panels will cover everything from the history of the GI resistance movement to the fight for veterans’ health benefits and support.

Tune in at 90.7 FM or listen on line here.

Seven Hours, Seven Souls: The Music of Bill Laswell

Ok, kids…

It’s official. I am making my radio debut on the 21st, from 11pm to 6am, PST. Nothing like getting your feet wet in a big way.

Seven hours of Bill Laswell and friends.

So tune in if you live in the Portland, Southwest Washington area on 90.7 FM and 91.9FM for Hood River, 100.7FM in the Willamette Valley, or you can listen on the web at www.kboo.fm/listen.

The Jimi Hendrix of the Mouth Harp

Holy crap, is this amazing!
I found this guy’s music completely by accident cruising Craigslist for music gear I can’t afford to buy.
He was selling a number of stompboxes and a mixer I’ve always wanted. His ad contained links that steered me to a CDBaby site and lo and behold if there isn’t a whole album of little ditties all composed of heavily processed mouth harp, better known in less genteel society as the Jew’s harp.

His name is Bruce W. Hodges and he plies his trade under the nom de plum T.H.E. E.J.H. (Not sure what the first acronym is about). He’s a Portlander, as well.
It’s amazing stuff! There’s a bit of sameness to most of the tracks, to be sure, but they pleasantly sound as if they came from the same planet as the Dr. Who theme. What makes this even more amazing to me is that he doesn’t seem to come from a hipster school of calculated weirdness. He seems to have arrived at this particular style of music independent of knowing anything at all of industrial music, noise and all other schools of audio-skullfuckery:

I became a Christian in 1974 a couple years after I was introduced to the harp. And all those years I managed to think the good Lord might have actually given me this thing for a reason. For five years now (02 - 07) I have gathered a variety of mixers guitar effects processors microphones etc.. But I could not sit down and play without discovery new sounds. This should be impossible. But I kept imagining what would it sound like if!!!!! And, that’s right! Bigger mixers and lots of patch cord spaghetti. Oh yeah! only one problem now.  A bazillion sounds have come and gone, but nothing has been recorded. IT’S LAPTOP AND RECORDING PROGRAM TIME.

And I thank bajeezus he did, too, for his is some of the weirdest music I’ve heard in a while, especially when you consider that he arrived at it on his own.

Check out his tuneage on his site.

He also has a MySpace page!

Speaking of Chickens…

Here’s a big chunk of last Friday’s Outside World program, featuring an interview with chicken entrepreneur Aaron (sic?). All kinds of secrets and wonders of the domestic fowl are revealed herein. There’s nearly 90 minutes of music and mayhem related to chickens and eggs, including music by Slim Gaillard, the Maddox’s, Colonel Sanders, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Hasil Adkins, The Meters and much, much more.
If you want to forgo the chicken talking, the chicken music kicks in at around 17:30 minutes.
I didn’t edit it too much, as I thought it would give you a good glimpse of what this long-running program offers on a typical night.
As host Daniel Flessas says: “I come in and make the coffee…” - and a show just happens.

Download (1 hour, 42 mins, 116 megs)

BONUS:
The coolest video ever, found by Daniel. We watched awestruck, while the audio was potted up on the board.

Rufus Thomas does The Funky Chicken