Rent Me A Gap In The Earth

No.161, aired March 7, 2012. Played the entire 1989 landmark of west coast punk, Last Scream Of The Missing Neighbours by Jello Biafra & D.O.A. Featured texts were further readings from Sean Bonney’s Happiness: Poems After Rimbaud, and more passages from H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine on audiobook. While Bonney and Last Scream have a direct political affinity, The Time Machine interacted with both texts at the levels of concept and image.

Part 1

1. That’s Progress – Jello Biafra & D.O.A.
2. Tchorb - Rake
3. Attack Of The Peacekeepers – Jello Biafra & D.O.A.
4. Functions & Relations – King Cobb Steelie
5. We Gotta Get Out Of This Place – Jello Biafra & D.O.A.
6. Skree – Rake

Part 2

1. Power Is Boring – Jello Biafra & D.O.A.
2. Naval Aviation In Art? – Frank Zappa
3. Beak – Rake
4. Full Metal Jackoff – Jello Biafra & D.O.A.
5. Elan For Orchestra – Linda Bouchard
6. I Wish I Was In El Salvador – Jello Biafra & D.O.A.

Outside His Circled Limpid World

No.160, aired February 29, 2012 – a double (2-hour episode).

This episode contrasted two texts – a live reading of Sean Bonney’s Happiness: Poems After Rimbaud, and an audiobook of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. Wells envisions a class-bassed society polarized to the point of total segregation, as observed from the top down by Wells’ detached, alien narrator. Bonney registers the effects of class society on subjectivity, the tortured imagination of participants in the struggle at street level, in a whirl of sensation – there is no privileged place to look down from.

Part 1

1. The Fifty Minute Hour – Hylozoists
2. Ghosts Of Griffintown – Ripcordz
3. Naval Aviation In Art? – Frank Zappa
4. Corrupted – Pericardium
5. Kuilenn – Iannis Xenakis
6. 25th Century Quaker – Captain Beefheart

Part 2

1. Lunchmeatophobia – Funkadelic
2. Tear Ya Down – Motorhead
3. Elementary Particles – Hylozoists
4. Gimme That Harp, Boy – Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band
5. Phlegra – Iannis Xenakis

Part 3

1. Everything Pisses Me Off – Sarcastic Mannequins
2. Smiley Smiley – Hylozoists
3. The Opportunist – Pericardium
4. Ittidra – Iannis Xenakis
5. Kandy Korn – Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band
6. No Class – Motorhead

Part 4

1. Lashed Out And Gashed - Pericardium
2. Maggot Brain – Funkadelic
3. Charlie Don’t Surf – Sarcastic Mannequins
4. Kai – Iannis Xenakis
5. Punk Nation – Ripcordz
6. Strait Is The Gate – Hylozoists
7. Moanin At Midnight – Howlin Wolf

As The Columns Of Hail Grew Thinner

No.157, aired February 8, 2012, featuring more passages from H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, with the Back In Time album by James Blood Ulmer’s Odyssey plus other music.

The predominance of the colour white, the columns & arches & garlands in the ruins where the time travellor lands in 802,701 A.D. seem to represent classical culture, as seen through the rear-view mirror of western civilization – the simpleness and innocense, the childishness of the citizens, the fact that the architecture is in ruins, bring to mind Karl Marx’s assessment that the towering achievements of classical culture may represent unreachable standards for modern art, but are in reality the infancy of western culture.

Part 1

1. Science Fiction – Private School
2. Sonatine Baroque: Adagio – Murray Adaskin
3. D.N.I. – Man or Astroman?
4. Naval Aviation In Art? – Frank Zappa
5. Shame I Feel – Corsage
6. Open Doors – Odyssey
7. Hawaii – Young Canadiens
8. Sonatine Baroque: Andante – Murray Adaskin
9. Test Driver – Man or Astroman?

Part 2

1. Baby How Long – Howlin’ Wolf
2. Last One – Odyssey
3. Seen A Fight – Tim Ray
4. Sonatine Baroque: Allegro – Murray Adaskin
5. Principles Unknown - Man or Astroman?
6. How Many More Years – Howlin’ Wolf
7. Happy Time – Odyssey
8. Synchronized Swimming – Popular Front

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