MATERIALS Escapade

No.258, aired April 23, 2014. More and more readings from MATERIALS #3:[February 2014], published in Cambridge, UK, edited by David Grundy & Lisa Jeschke. Texts by Luke Roberts, Caitlin Doherty, Will Stuart, Ian Heames, Frances Kruk, Frederick Farryl Goodwin

Part 1

1. Farmer Hair – Guerrilla Funk Monster -- Detached Preface – Luke Roberts
2. Spring Rhapsody, no.4 – Jean Coulthard -- Detached Preface (con’t) – Luke Roberts
3. Try – Disgruntled
4. Foolish Man – Guerrilla Funk Monster
5. Naval Aviation In Art? – Frank Zappa
6. Transformation 2 – Escapade -- For The Party Reversing – Luke Roberts // Frauen-Werk-Stadt – Caitlin Doherty // [untitled] – Will Stuart // Misuse Of The Network - Ian Heames
7. Rise Above – Riot 99

Part 2

1. Poor Boy – Guerrilla Funk Monster -- Thirsty – Frances Kruk
2. Vaginal Itch – Shrimp
3. Because Because Because – Escapade -- Thirsty (con’t) – Frances Kruk // Hamlet (5) [B Side] / Hawk In The Rain - Frederick Farryl Goodwin
4. Show Me On The Doll – Shrimp
5. Madam, Your Grave Is Ready – Forbidden Dimension
6. March Of The Crabs - Anvil

Godspeed! You Black MATERIALS

No.257, aired April 16, 2014, with more readings from MATERIALS #3:[February 2014], published in Cambridge, UK, edited by David Grundy & Lisa Jeschke. Texts by Jessica Laser, Verity Spott, William Rowe, and Michael Tencer.

Part 1

1. Opposing Walls – AIDS Wolf
2. Media Control – Emergency!
3. Love Nest / Woman Coming – James ‘Blood’ Ulmer -- Defense / Mosaic – Jessica Laser // Beauty And Health - Verity Spott
4. Drunken Skinhead – The Prowlers
5. Channel One – James ‘Blood’ Ulmer -- caring curse / Drinks For Mere Rodent / Accident Remover – Verity Spott
6. Within You – The Generatorz

Part 2

1. Panty Mind Song – AIDS Wolf
2. Static – Godspeed! You Black Emporer -- Incisions – William Rowe // Another Little Poem – Verity Spott // Holiday In New York / internal memorandum / NOW RIGHT NOW / Poem About The Sun – Michael Tencer
3. Naval Aviation In Art? – Frank Zappa
4. Vampire King – AIDS Wolf

Vishnu & The Magic MATERIALS

No.256, aired April 9, 2014, featuring readings from MATERIALS #3:[February 2014], published in Cambridge, UK, edited by David Grundy & Lisa Jeschke. Texts by Tobias Hunter, Ian Heames, Tom Allen, Martin Hackett & Michael Tencer.

Part 1

1. Bathrooom Laughter – Pissed Jeans
2. Naval Aviation In Art? – Frank Zappa
3. Two Hearts In Wax – Forbidden Dimension
4. Girl On The Grass – John Korsrud -- ekko – Tobias Hunter
5. Tall, Dark & Gruesome – Forbidden Dimension
6. Glurp (for 14 Musicians) – John Korsrud -- ekko (continued) – Tobias Hunter // Orca Plaintiffs – Ian Heames
7. Romanticize Me – Pissed Jeans
8. X’s & O’s – John Korsrud

Part 2

1. Vishnu & The Magic Elixir – Acid Mothers Temple & The Drowning Paraiso UFO -- Diversion To The Knowledge Of The Damned – Tom Allen // 5 Texts – Martin Hackett // [untitled] / [untitled] / [untitled] / [untitled] – Michael Tencer
2. Pardon My Ghoulish Laughter – Forbidden Dimension

Tramps’ Dregs - The “A” List

No.255, aired April 2, 2014.

The price of used CDs at Tramps in Regina has been falling for years - they likely haven’t added to their stock in more than a decade. The result is a well-picked-over, but still sizeable musical collection of mainly two types: (1) artists no one has ever heard of, and (2) famous artists who no one likes anymore. Well, it seems Tramps is finally saying good-bye to CDs, dumping them at $1 a piece. So I took part of a lunch hour to have one more look through the stacks for covers that suggest imagination, hard-core intensity, or anything out of the mundane. I gave myself 10 minutes and a roughly $10 budget and started at the beginning of the alphabet, and ended up with 15 CDs – all “A”s. While the clerk was cutting open the plastic shells with a metal shears (the security “key” having long been disposed of, CD’s being essentially worthless), I checked out the “Z”s, and found 2 more, which the clerk threw in for free – thanks man. So, a radio show devoted to Tramps’ Dregs then – a good prospect, I thought, maybe even two shows ...

But a depressing exercise. I ended up with a pile of mostly 1990s rock CDs. The 1990s indie rock world was great at cover art, but Gawd, so many grey, depressing Sonic Youth imitators and bored suburban post-punks. It turns me off rock music, it really does. I love electric guitars, I was musically weened on them, for so many years I lived with them, on them – rock as the staff of life. But after subjecting my ears to this pile (and others, in the past, because I’ve done this to myself before), I feel like I never want to hear a friggin electric guitar riff again – the rock of life has become the stone slab that seals my soul in its tomb.

I’m feeling better now – having just listend to Iancu Dumitrescu’s Plutonian Frenzy, and followed that up with some sublimely violent Napalm Death.

But what to do with this 17-CD pile? This is the DJ’s challenge. Take a pile of rubble, and find the gold inside. But here’s the catch: There is no gold. It is all rubble – mediocre music-industry crud. Also, it is all gold – or at least each recording represents a moment when somebody thought they were doing something brilliant enough to capture on tape & share with the world, difficult as it is to believe in some cases.

The problem is that the recording industry, in creating the CD format (a variation & continuation of the LP-record format), encourages artists to create sellable (familiar, predictable) units of 35 – 65 minute duration. For many rock bands, even ones who can put on a decent live show, the result is too often bland, unfunky mush. There may be moments of redemption & vivid colour – but the sound of recorded rock music in the digital age is so grey & uniform, after ten minutes it quickly becomes depressing. How, then, how to extract the brillance? How to detourne music industry’s horribleness, and hear the actuality of human creativity behind it?

The good news is that the 17 CDs were not all rock - I was especially thankful for the world-jazz of Ron Allen, who I mistakenly called Ron James on air. So the challenge was to make the rock tracks (the best I can find in that particular pile) sound as brilliant as they did to the people who originally created them, and the audiences at their concerts – by offsetting them with what non-rock and spoken-word elements I can find.

So here are the results - all of them by Arists starting with an “A” with the exception of Negativeland’s Over The Edge Vol.7: Time Zones Exchange Project, which I found on a previous excursion at Tramps, and haven’t used on my program until now. Most of the spoken-word bits you hear are from “The Piddle Diddle Report” from that collection of prepared broadcasts. For me, Negativeland’s satiric radio play transformed this hour from a bargain-basement radio hour to a pleasantly bizzaro listening experience. The Time Zones Exchange Project also had its own occasional musical accompanyment – so in places that music blended (or didn’t blend) with the music I was playing from a different CD, and there is one patch on Part 2 where Negativeland was left to play by itself.

Part 1

1. Chinese Roulette – AIDS Wolf

2. Medication – Alice Donut

3. Fully Loaded – Action Swingers

4. The Yellow Bridge – Alice Donut

5. Naval Aviation In Art? – Frank Zappa

6. Cry For Persia – Ron Allen

7. Jure Crache – Amnesie

8. UFO – Action Swingers

9. Bonaparte’s Retreat/Arkansas Soldier – Jimmy Arnold

10. Skicap! – Action Swingers

Part 2

1. Prototype – Andre’s Last Chance

2. Manifestation of the Disease- Acrid

3. Going To Be – Ron Allen

4. 55 Seconds – Acrid

5. The Piddle Diddle Report – Negativeland

6. Southern Comfort – Jimmy Arnold

7. Self-Destructo-Man – Aversion

8. Instrumental – Action Swingers

9. Psychobabble – Aversion

10. The Past – Ron Allen

11. We Multiply – AIDS Wolf

12. Pas De Leurs – Amnesie

13. Air Traffic Control – Tristan Psionic