A Token Of My Machine

No.156, aired February 1, 2012. Played the opening Chapters of an audiobook of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, accompanied by instrumental music by Webern, Korsrud, Buckethead, and Les Georges Leningrad, and interrupted by songs with time-related lyrical themes.

Frank Zapp’s A Token Of My Extreme was thrown in merely because it references a “machine” – and turned out to provide the most stunning correspondence with The Time Machine, performing something like a psychoanalysis of H.G.Wells’ text, in which the time machine becomes an object of fetish for the circle of late-nineteenth century gentlemen viewing it.

Some people think
That if they go too far
They’ll never get back
To where the rest of
Them are
I might be crazy
But there’s one thing
I know
You might be surprised
At what you find
When ya go!
- Frank Zappa, A Token Of My Extreme

“We all saw the lever turn. I am absolutely certain there was no trickery. There was a breath of wind, and the lamp flame jumped. One of the candles on the mantel was blown out, and the little machine suddenly swung round, became indistinct, was seen as a ghost for a second perhaps, as an eddy of faintly glittering brass and ivory; and it was gone—vanished! Save for the lamp the table was bare.”
- H.G. Wells, The Time Machine

If you been
Mod-o-fied,
It’s an illusion,
An yer in between
Don’t you be
Tarot-fied,
It’s just a lot of nothin’,
So what can it mean?
- Frank Zappa, A Token Of My Extreme

Part 1

1. Three Little Pieces For Cello & Piano, op.11, no.2 – Anton Webern
2. Xs & Os – John Korsrud
3. One Tooth Of The Time Train – Buckethead
4. Naval Aviation In Art? – Frank Zappa
5. Part Of The Season – Long Time Comin’
6. Three Little Pieces For Cello & Piano, op.11, no.1 – Anton Webern
7. Shape Of Things To Come – Diodes
8. Glurp For 14 Musicians – John Korsrud
9. Blower – Voivod

Part 2

1. Girl On The Grass - John Korsrud
2. Eight Hours A Day – Northwest Passage
3. Three Little Pieces For Cello & Piano, op.11, no.3 – Anton Webern
4. Arc Of The Pendulum – Buckethead
5. Time Damage – Diodes
6. The Future For Less – Les Georges Leningrad
7. A Token Of My Extreme – Frank Zappa
8. Zippy Pinhead – John Korsrud