~gd~ Music of the Last Century no. 12: "Radio! Radio!"
My solo fund drive program was two weeks of preparation coming down still way too much stuff even after I gained 45 minutes of time due to a live no-show... too much for here too, so it's in two parts
The full program (1h45m) is here:
https://archive.org/details/tuesday-motlc12
x-♪ 0:00 One Hundred Dollars Waiting on Another 0:49 show intro (I walked in on a no-show), fund raising spiel, intro ●● ♪ 2:54 Arlene Bishop and the Spirit of Adventure I’m One ●● 6:25 gd: burst of fund drive insert ●● ♪ 6:38 Jean Derome (from Résistances) ●● ♪ 7:34 Amy Denio I Love This Cunterie ●● Fund drive advertisement ●● ♪ 10:22 Jean Derome Vamp ●● ♪ 13:03 Amy Denio Donald the Lump ●● 15:46 gd: extros, fund drive spiel, Arlene and me and my show to come, intro ●● Fund Drive advertisement ●● ♪ 20:02 Joe McPhee A Supreme Love (For John Coltrane) ●● 30:34 gd extro, fund drive spiel, intro – theme of fund drive is “1984” so… ●● ~ 32:26 NBC Radio Theatre Excerpt of a production of Orwell's 1984 ●● 34:34 gd: extro, weather, events ●● 36:25 gd: intros ●● ~37:40 News Radio – Bill McNeill sells malt liquor ●● ~39:36 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Share and Enjoy ●● 42:59 Program promo ●● 43:33 Fund raising drive promo ●● 44:04 gd extros intro ●● ~♪ 45:20 Philip Glass Trial: Prison (excerpt) ●● ♪ 48:15 Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet Darkness Falls ●● ♪ 51:25 Jean Derome Buzz ●● 52:01 gd extros, my attempt at a fictional charager, fund spiel, intro ●● ♪ 54:21 John Cage Variations IV ●● 54:59 station tag ●● 56:14 more of Variations IV ●● 55:42 fund raising drive tag ●● 56:10 more of Variations IV ●● 57:20 gd: extros, intro ●● ~ 58:16 Clint Eastwood Trailer from Play Misty for Me ●● 58:59 gd extro, fund spiel, intro ●● ~♪ 1:00:33 Dead Dog Café Radio Hour The 12 Days of Christmas ●● ~ 1:04:04 Bruce MacDonald's Pontypool: Steve McHattie as Grant Mazzy: Mazzy in the Morning ●● ~ 1:05:57 NBC Family Ties: Michael J. Fox as Alex P. Keaton Syncopated Money ●● 1:08:07 gd extro, funding spiel, intros ●● ~ 1:13:04 Glenn Gould excerpt from The Latecomers ●● ~ 1:17:01 Glenn Gould excerpt from Quiet in the Land ●● ~ 1:21:32 Glenn Gould excerpt from "Silver Jubilee Interrogation" ●● 1:24:25 fund raising drive promo ●● 1:24:54 gd: funding spiel, extros, re the KRAB announcement from 1963 from Lorenzo Milam’s Sex and Broadcasting ●● 1:27:10 gd: intros ●● ~ 1:29:46 Firesign Theatre Duke of Madness excerpt ●● ~ 1:31:49 Negativland excerpt from Jamcom no. 4 ●● ~ 1:33:39 Chandra Bulucon What I Do ●● 1:34:51 gd: extros, intro ●● ~ 1:36:38 film: The Next Voice You Hear (1950) excerpt ●● 1:40:26 program promo ●● 1:40:46 fund raising drive ad ●● 1:41:25 gd extros, intro, fund spiel ●● ~ 1:43:15 Democracy Now: Amy Goodman presents DJ Mike Pence ●● 1:44:50 gd extro, intro ●● ~ 1:46:15 Pontypool Ken on the phone – excerpt ●● 1:50:20 Arlene Bishop false start, gd extro, show extro, fund spiel, intro ●● ♪1:52:14 Arlene Bishop I’m One ●● 1:55:47 station tag ●●
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Even though I took two weeks to prepare this program (and wound up with a lot of unused material), I was only given a one hour slot; however, as I came in early for the show, it turned out that I arrived to find the music director at the console and not the no-show planned host (and he didn’t look too happy about it). So with the extra stuff, I volunteered and without hesitation was given almost two hours for my fund drive show, picking up where I left off from the previous night’s program shared with James Vitti. That week the ostensible theme was “1984”, the year that the station had started broadcasting on FM; very few of the announcers however made use of the theme since most of student DJs that consisted a vast majority of the staff and volunteers, were born after that year. Maybe I shouldn’t have included a radio adaptation of a torture scene from 1984, though!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
x-♪ 0:00 One Hundred Dollars Waiting on Another
(leftover song from the music director’s hasty takeover for the no-show)
0:49 Georges Dupuis: One Hundred Dollars and the Songs of Man. The album is called Songs of Man and the title track is called, or this track is called wanting – Waiting on Another. I’m Georges, ah, my alter the Chief Describer will be with you at eleven o’clock for a special radio followup from last night’s program, but we are here at CFUV, broadcasting from the traditional Coast Salish territories of the Lekwungen and SENĆOŦEN speaking peoples and it is our fund raising drive, as if you didn’t know it.
But it is a great way for the community to participate in all of this, and link up to us here at the station and us, people like me from the community who also can input. I can’t afford university, never have really been able to, but I do have a brain and this is a wonderful place to bring my brain, is the university ah locale. Not only through the station, but you can also get a community library card through the library if you want to read books that are not available at the local library and ah, take part at the University of Victoria. A lot of your tax paying money has paid for it.
2:04 And if you have any spare tax paying money, you can call us here and donate ah, to also get things, if you would like. We have a bag for twenty five dollar donation, fifty dollar donation gets you a bag and a water bottle. 150 dollar donation will get you water bottle, a t-shirt, and a sweater and the design is an original artwork ah and you’ll be able to identify other people on the beach just by the cool blackness of it. 250 721-8700. Come on! Come on! Come on! You can do it!
♪ 2:54 Arlene Bishop & the Spirit of Adventure I’m One
6:25 Georges Dupuis: Donate now! Call or text 250 721-8700 or support CFUV dot c-a.
♪ 6:38 Jean Derome (from Résistances)
♪ 7:34 Amy Denio I Love This Cunterie
Fund drive advertisement
♪ 10:22 Jean Derome Vamp
♪ 13:03 Amy Denio Donald the Lump
15:46 Georges Dupuis: Amy Denio and a duet with Donald the Lump. Donald, ah, Trump of course, but ah, she had breast cancer last year and went through the chemotherapy and was declared in remission and throughout the entire thing, she called her tumor Donald and she kept telling us, “I want this out, I want this out!” Ah, and before that Jean Derome from his new album called Résistances ah, the free-form musician who’s also dabbled into ah, conventional classical jazz, Thelonious Monk specifically with his ah side project.
This is called Vamp, though and it’s his large ensemble that was put together for the Festival de Musiques Actuelles in Victoriaville, a large work with I think a fifteen piece orchestra with tinkered instrument, slightly modified just so that they can all fit into a specific ah, hertz, because the project is called Résistances because it’s about electricity.
16:55 And ah, before that, Arlene Bishop from Together Tonight, I Am One. Come on, come on, donate now, call, text 250 721-8700 or support CFUV dot c-a or do it any time this week so that we can add it to the totals that we’re reaching for, 35 thousand and more, and more and more.
And thank you to our fund raising partners among whom are the Farquhar Auditorium, the Parsonage, John’s Place, the Turntable and the Ska Fest. I am a new person here, so I can’t really tell you about what I’ve been doing over the last year musically because there hasn’t – I’ve only been starting since January and it’s been a lot of fun.
I’ve listened to 250 albums in complete so far, since November by my count. Arlene Bishop’s ah, Spirit of Adventure was definitely the one that keeps moving me for many different reasons. Mostly because it’s on the theme of gratitude and I am grateful to be here too and having met some really wonderful people that are making me feel like I’m starting to wrap my roots around the rock of the island, having only been here ah, since 2014, moved out from the East Coast.
18:13 I will be playing, when I do an official show, presuming I will, longer pieces and ah, music of – I call my program Music of the Last Century, ah, because we used to have this term, “new music” that didn’t last very long, some people use it. Ah, then that had replaced “contemporary music”, that got replaced by in French “musique actuelle”, ah, and so many other ways of trying to describe something that fit within a time period that really doesn’t mean anything.
So, I’m just calling “music of the last century” and in that program, I’m going to be playing longer pieces like this one, from a new release from Joe McPhee who I had the pleasure of meeting once in my lifetime, it was wonderful. Ah, and ah, he has always been dedicated to the music of John Coltrane and just after this announcement, I’m going to play one of his longest pi-, longer pieces from ah his new album, and it’s called A Supreme Love is the name of the album. And ah, the – oh, no, sorry – Imaginary Numbers is the name of the album and A Supreme Love (for John Coltrane) will be the name of the piece.
fund drive advertisement
♪ 20:02 Joe McPhee A Supreme Love (For John Coltrane)
30:34 gd: Joe McPhee Trio from the album Imaginary Numbers and A Supreme Love (For John Coltrane) and the trio is composed of McPhee and Ståle Liavik Solberg and Pascal Niggenkemper. Released, ah only about a month ago and in part of our new collection here at CFUV, one of the many things that we can offer to you. Other people can offer to you but we actually play it for you. You could find some of this stuff on the CBC if you look hard, but believe me, you need a map.
Here, you can give us a call, ah, to request but today, you can give us a call or text to donate for our fund raising drive, ha ha, 250 721-8700 to support CFUV dot c-a. Ah, I’m going to be playing a couple of pieces that have a little bit of intensity into them, so if ah, just a slight trigger warning, because especially the first piece deals a bit with (chuckles) heh, well, there’s no little bit with torture. It’s torture. Ah, and it’s in part of our theme – the theme for the fund raising drive this year is 1984 and part of that 1984 is remembering and the importance of George Orwell’s book by that title which got written in 1948.
31:52 But in 1949, Orwell say okay to the NBC University Theatre which was a program on the live NBC American network and David Niven starred in a production of 1984. Here’s a short excerpt.
~ 32:26 NBC Radio Theatre Excerpt of a production of Orwell's 1984
https://www.openculture.com/2024/08/hear-the-very-first-adaptation-of-george-orwells-1984.html
(sound of squelching) …started like falling in your face, a brand is standing at your side, the other side, a man in a white coat, holding a hypodermic syringe.
“I told you that we met here again.”
Winston: “Yes, (yells) OH!”
“That’s only a sample of what I can do by turning this dial. Remember that. If you lie to me, you will cry out in pain instantly. Do you understand that?”
Winston: “Yes.”
“I am taking trouble with you Winston, because you are worth trouble. You suffer from a defective memory. Fortunately, it is curable. There’s a party slogan dealing with the control of the past. Repeat it to me, please.”
Winston: Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.
“Good. Is it your opinion, Winston, that the past has any real existence?”
Winston: No.
“Then where does the past exist, if at all?”
Winston: In records, it’s written down, in the mind, in human memories.
“But we the Party control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?”
Winston: But how can you stop people remembering things? How can you control memory? You not control mind?”
“On the contrary, you have not controlled it. That is what has brought you here. Do you remember writing in your diary ‘Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four?’ “
Winston: Yes.
“How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?”
Winston: Four.
“And if the Party says that it’s not four, but five, then how many?”
Winston: Four… (screams)
“How many fingers, Winston?”
Winston: Four… (screams)
“How many fingers, Winston?”
Winston: Four, four! What else can I say? Four! (screams)
“How many fingers, Winston?”
Winston: Four! Stop it! (screaming) Stop it! Four, four!
“How many fingers, Winston?”
Winston: Five. Five.
“You’re lying. You still think there are four. How many, please?”
Winston: Four! (screams) Five! Four! Anything you like, stop it, stop the pain! (cries)
34:34 gd: David Niven. From the NBC 1949 production, the NBC University Theatre production of George Orwell’s 1984. This is 2018, and happy Spring! We did ah go past the line into the Equinox at 9:15 a.m. all over the world this morning, so hopefully this means it’s going to be a new start for everybody, one way or another.
The weather does not look that great though for the week. Showers in the mornings and evenings straight through Sunday. Sunday a little bit of a break. Ah, it’s going to be warm, though, so take those pictures of the cherry blossoms and the plum blossoms while you can.
35:19 A couple of events happening. Still do go on beyond our fund raising drive though this is the center of the world as we like to see it. And oh, one of our sponsors, CineCenta is actually showing at 12:30 today Coco as a special presentation. I think that’s a children’s program. And tonight they are going to be ah playing the movie A Better Man at 7 and 8:45.
And Hermann’s tonight has got also university’s – ah, the University of Victoria’s Neuro-economics lab with ah their presentation at the Café, what is it called? Café Intellectuals, something like that, 19:30, that would be 7:30 tonight just before their regular – or sorry 6:30 tonight before the regular concert is the Tony Benge Trio.
And we are presenting – everybody’s putting on their best suits, or their best audio suits this week for the fund raising drive, and I’m giving you kind of a preview of what I’d like to try and present over the next year, although this is going to be now – from now until about noon, ah dedicated to the subject of radio which obviously you can tell is very very close to my heart.
36:25 One of my funniest things that I’ve ever heard was ah, well, one of the many of the funny things that I’ve ever heard was from the program News Radio which was a program that ah used to present a comedy, regular four-wall stand-up comedy with audience on ah, the subject of news radio based in New York City. Bill McNeill was portrayed by Bill (sic – it’s Phil) Hartman, ah before he was killed and he was an absolute wizard at inventing voices.
And this is going to be a short two minute excerpt and it’s excepted so that you get the punchlines in three little bits. He is trying to imitate an African-American voice because he’s gotten an African-American product and Khandi Alexander – I forget what her name was on the program, is just watching him doing it in complete disbelief. And after hearing him do it a couple of times, she decides, I think you really should approach the African-Americans with a different kind of language. Bill McNeill from News Radio portrayed by the late Bill (sic) Hartman.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Phil Hartman as Bill McNeill: ‘Sup y’all, Brother Bill McNeill in your ears, up your (goes into falsetto) whassup y’all! (normal) Bill McNeill here…
Khandi Alexander as Catherine: Bill…
Bill: Hey Catherine, let me ask you, would you read “whassup” as an upbeat cheery salutation or more of a low whispered greeting among intimates like (lowers voice) “whassup”?
Catherine: What are you talking about?
Bill: Well, I’m doing these live ads for a new sponsor. Whassup y’all! Bill McNeill saying there’s a party all up in here and you need to get with the flow, oh yeah, Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor’s got the heavyweight power, whether you got the ee-yatch to rip it up to some fat booty beats! Or just to chill with the honeys! So get on the Rocket and see the stars, Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor! Damn! Well?
Catherine: Oh. My. Lord.
Bill: Ha, ha! Billy Dee Williams, watchout!
(next scene)
Bill: Whassup y’all. Bill McNeill rockin the mic again, cold representin Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor, it’s got the mad flavor that takes any situation to the next level. So when the party starts bouncin’ and the ladies start bumpin’, tighten up your flow with Rocket Fuel. Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor! Damn! What?
Catherine: I thought you had a policy about not endorsing any product you don’t personally use.
Bill: I do, and I do personally use Rocket Juice.
Catherine: Rocket Fuel.
Bill: Rocket Fuel.
(next scene)
Bill: Gazizz the Dill, Nube! Thisis Bill McNeill saying get with the Crazzappy Taste of Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor. Rocket Fuel’s got the upstate prison flavor that keeps you ugly all night long! So if you wanna get sick, remember, nothing makes your feet stank like Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor. Damn! It’s prazappy!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
39:36 (from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)
Radio voice: …so you feel it’s for real, do you? It’s very encouraging. Your delusions are getting grander and grander. That will be six million Alterian dollars if you can just…
Voice: He isn’t done payment [...] ones…
Radio voice: …the sum what we were just talking about
(sound of crunching)
Arthur Dent: Te-riffic. No computer, no communication, they’ll be in firing range in a few seconds…
Zaphod Beetlebrox: Okay, well let’s not hang about. Get the computer back in, we’ll improv out of here, zappo!
Computer: Hi there!
Zaphod Beetlebrox: Computer, get us on an improbability trajectory out of here pronto.
Computer: Sorry, guys, I can’t do that right now. All my circuits are currently engaged on solving a different problem. Now, I know this is very unusual but it is a very difficult and challenging problem and I know that the result will be one we can share and enjoy. Share and enjoy!
Hitchhiker’s Book Narrator: “Share and Enjoy” is of course the company motto of the hugely successful Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Complaints Division, which now covers the major land masses of three medium sized planets and is the only part of the corporation to share a consistent profit in recent years. The motto stands, or stood, in three mile-high illuminated letters near the Complaints Department Space Port on Idrex. “Share and Enjoy”
41:02 Unfortunately, its weight was such that shortly after it was erected, the ground beneath the letters caved in and they dropped for nearly half their length through the underground offices of many talented young complaints executives, now deceased. The producing upper halves of the letters now appear in the local language to read “Go Stick Your Head in a Pig” and are no longer illuminated, except at times of special celebration. At these times of special celebrations, a choir of robots sing the company song “Share and Enjoy”.
Unfortunately, again, another of the computing errors for which the company is justly famous, means that the robots’ voice boxes are exactly a flattened fifth out of tune and the result sounds like this:
Share and Enjoy,
Share and Enjoy,
Journey through life
With a plastic boy
Or girl by your side,
Let your pal be your guide.
And when it breaks down,
Or starts to annoy,
Or grinds when it moves,
And gives you no joy,
Cause it's eaten your hat,
Or had sex with your cat,
Bled oil on your floor,
Or ripped off your door,
And it gets to the point
You can't stand anymore,
Bring it to us,
We won't give a fig.
We'll tell you
Go stick your head in a pig!
Narrator: Only slightly worse. One of the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation’s creations is the Nutrimatic drink dispenser. One of which has just provided Arthur Dent with a plastic cup filled with a liquid which is almost not quite unlike tea.
(sound of dispensing, Arthur sighs, sips)
Arthur: Ugh.
42:59 Program promo
43:33 Fund raising drive promo
44:04 gd: And the last piece of radio was ah, one of the great classics of radio, BBC’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation’s theme song, Share and Enjoy. You know what to share. Before that was News Radio and Bill McNeill on the subject of malt liquor.
So I’m going to be heading into a little bit of experimentation with the sounds of radio, and ah, this guy is no stranger to experimentation. Philip Glass and the original big work, some day hopefully (whisper) they’ll let me play the whole four hour version (normal): Einstein on the Beach. Ah, Einstein on the Beach, people might not know has got themes, ah, humanity, Einstein, nuclear, politics and AM radio.
And in this short piece, you’re going to hear, ah, Trial and Prison is the name of the piece. Ah, he uses as part of the abstract lyrics, ah, the listing of the DJs to be found on WNYC (gd – I think it was actually WABC) in New York City, a station that once asked me to apply for a job but heh, I never got it but it was nice for them to ask. Philip Glass, Einstein on the Beach and Trial and Prison.
~♪ 45:20 Philip Glass Trial: Prison (excerpt)
♪ 48:15 Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet Darkness Falls
♪ 51:25 Jean Derome Buzz
52:01 (gd over part of the last tune): Do not adjust your sets. You are listening to CFUV and Jean Derome’s Buzz, an album that is completely on the theme of electricity and in this piece starts soft with sonic waves that are converted into violins with frequency adjustments. The album is called Résistances and it’s the gateway into this program of experimental radio. So I’m going to change into my person of (lowers voice) The Chief Describer.
My name is the Chief Describer. I try to imitate Leonard Cohen and this is Music of the Last Century, the fund raising edition. (normal) text 250 721-8700 or support cfuv dot c-a. You want me to explain John Cage to you? (pause) I’ll explain John Cage to you. (pause) You walk into a big room. (beginning of John Cage in background) Many people are making different sounds. (background increases) It’s like an ear market. And then you go home. And you let your memory create the composition.
♪ 54:21 John Cage Variations IV
54:59 station tag
56:14 more of Variations IV
55:42 fund raising drive tag
56:10 more of Variations IV
57:20 gd: John Cage from Variations IV, 1963. Um, probably the first time that a radio tuner was – oh (lowers tone) I forgot I wanted to go by the low Chief Describer voice. (normal) I’m trying to work on a persona, don’t worry about it. Ah, and it was yes, the first time in a “happening” that a radio tuner ah worked here by David Tudor was used as a musical instrument (gd – probably not the first time) kind of like the Buchla, you know, sound comes at you and you convert it into something that becomes yours.
This was the recording I was using:
And a huh for me, today: Christopher McIntyre, a new subscriber to this service as well as a new facebook friend (it came about of course because he sent out a query about New Music America), finds himself on this page. In part because he like a few other friends reminded me that it was John Cage’s birthday.
I’ve not stopped celebrating birthdays here as there are still a few people to profile if I can find their date, but I didn’t memorize the 100 or so NMA composers that I cross-referenced over the 12 festivals. And so this last piece just showed up at the perfect time.
So did Christopher McIntyre’s post today about his own version of Variations IV:
Happy Cage Day, people!