Monday, October 01, 2007
Outer Spaceways
I slipped into Jersey City early Saturday evening for a radio show. Almost sidetracked coming out of Exchange Place PATH station by a huge Irish street festival on the waterfront. Oh, it's my People, I nearly exclaimed out loud. Drink beer, buy green things, listen to punked up versions of revolutionary songs, drink more beer. I was even appropriately attired in my Rahway Fire Dept. teeshirt. But they aren't my people, really, I've never celebrated Irish-American culture except on St. Patrick's Day, I was in hurry, & the Puerto Rican festival in the same location is more fun, the beautiful women wear tighter clothes, the food more tempting. This festival had an unusual number of portosans to discourage public urination, the malodorous boxes lined up in front of Au Bon Pain coffeeshop patio, which was closed. It was all gone but for the toilets by the time I headed home just after midnight.
I must say, I think my first set (following the Nino Rota theme song) is masterly free form. When I arrived at the station I only had two songs in mind for a possible set, & when I started the Blues Magoos cover of "Gloria" hadn't yet decided on the next cut. My opening sets usually run about 1/2 an hour, but 20 minutes in I took quick inventory & realized I could steer it around the bend & go for an full hour. Once I make that decision, I really try to go with it. But I had to find a way to get to a long spacy cut by The Orb, at which point I could sit back & figure out how to end it. It worked out so well that I pretty much coasted through the rest of the program. I had other stuff already planned, & I'm long past the time when I enjoyed the challenge of doing an entire three hour program on the fly, like that first set.
Portions of my radio shows going all the way back to when I first started have always played with a particular idea, one I suspect came largely from comedy acts like Monty Python & Firesign Theater: What can I do that's obviously me pretending to be stoned but might trick a pot smoking listener into thinking I actually am? To do this, I have to rely on memory. I've always treated radio DJing as a job with real responsibilities, since there are situations requiring clearheadedness, like equipment failures & alerts from the National Weather Service (WFMU has a wonderful machine; a ghostly voice speaks & then it prints out the weather bulletin ticker tape style, which you rip off & read. I've had to break into programming to issue destructive thunderstorm & flash flood warnings & rouse the manager in the middle of the night to inform him of a power outtage. & hardly a show has ever passed without natural lapses of attention on my part, some of which I don't catch in time. One happened Saturday when I accidentally ejected a CD playing over the air. I believe free form ought to sound like you're sitting in the studio rolling numbers, that's how it got invented. Or so the inventors wanted us to believe. I proudly trace my free form lineage directly to two of the best who did it in 1968.
My fav music from the show: the ethereal classical piece, "Flos Campi."
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
I must say, I think my first set (following the Nino Rota theme song) is masterly free form. When I arrived at the station I only had two songs in mind for a possible set, & when I started the Blues Magoos cover of "Gloria" hadn't yet decided on the next cut. My opening sets usually run about 1/2 an hour, but 20 minutes in I took quick inventory & realized I could steer it around the bend & go for an full hour. Once I make that decision, I really try to go with it. But I had to find a way to get to a long spacy cut by The Orb, at which point I could sit back & figure out how to end it. It worked out so well that I pretty much coasted through the rest of the program. I had other stuff already planned, & I'm long past the time when I enjoyed the challenge of doing an entire three hour program on the fly, like that first set.
Portions of my radio shows going all the way back to when I first started have always played with a particular idea, one I suspect came largely from comedy acts like Monty Python & Firesign Theater: What can I do that's obviously me pretending to be stoned but might trick a pot smoking listener into thinking I actually am? To do this, I have to rely on memory. I've always treated radio DJing as a job with real responsibilities, since there are situations requiring clearheadedness, like equipment failures & alerts from the National Weather Service (WFMU has a wonderful machine; a ghostly voice speaks & then it prints out the weather bulletin ticker tape style, which you rip off & read. I've had to break into programming to issue destructive thunderstorm & flash flood warnings & rouse the manager in the middle of the night to inform him of a power outtage. & hardly a show has ever passed without natural lapses of attention on my part, some of which I don't catch in time. One happened Saturday when I accidentally ejected a CD playing over the air. I believe free form ought to sound like you're sitting in the studio rolling numbers, that's how it got invented. Or so the inventors wanted us to believe. I proudly trace my free form lineage directly to two of the best who did it in 1968.
My fav music from the show: the ethereal classical piece, "Flos Campi."
