Episodes
Sunday May 24, 2020
You Should Know What You Look Like: Transmission 506, 2020 January 11
Sunday May 24, 2020
Sunday May 24, 2020
Welcome to day 67 of lockdown. I am happy to present you with a recording of a broadcast that happened with Lady Catharsis at my side. This sort of thing can't happen right now. It is good to be reminded of the world we are fighting to preserve. If this seems like a petty and trivial example of such a world, I don't apologize.
I have a lot of notes about this program, so strap in. The American Music Club segue had no business sounding good, but it did. Now, onto the bad and weird things: I'm pretty sure I say we're going uptempo only to say later that we went downtempo. Who is to say what tempo is? I am pretty sure I identified the JBs album as being released by Get On Down and I am almost certainly wrong. I say nothing when Lady Catharsis says to me, "you're the clever one." Probably a lot to unpack there! I sound exasperated with myself about four minutes into the program, which is not a good sign. "It's hot in the city tonight," Lady Catharsis says. What can it mean?
Showing up as myself (my therapist would be proud): shout out to Wally of The Beautiful Music, who shared the THE SOUND YOUR DREAMS MAKE comp with me. He is truly one of the Good People of music Twitter. I hold back from delivering a rant about the Coil reissue, "Stolen and Contaminated Songs." But (maybe this is not my best self showing up at the moment) I have to say I don't know who's pocketing the profits from this one and the label that released it is almost certainly releasing music by outright fascists. So There. I do pop off at Chris and Cosey and it pains me to say that they deserve it. Their fall 2019 reissues cost me $28 apiece, the records skip, and they insist that I pay an additional £8.99 if I want a version I can listen to on my phone. I don't think this is right and I'm not backing down. Moving on: the Dennis Green story sort of comes out of nowhere, but it illustrates the trade-offs and choices that brought me here, I guess.
Since this program was broadcast, 134 days ago now, I've gone "on the air" 21 times. I have delivered ten pre-recorded episodes on account of the pandemic. I'm supposed to be editing a sound file from 88 days ago--fourteen shows ago, supposably. There is some mental block preventing me from completing that work.
Anyway, one day I'm sure we'll do this again, and better (one can hope).
BOMBAST playlist, 2020 January 11, 2000-2200:
- "Oh What a Saturday Night" | Errol Strength | Take Us Home - Boston Roots Reggae: 1979 to 1988 | Cultures of Soul
- "Joka Awuor" | ODD OKODDO | Auma | Pingipung
- "Am I Just A Dub" | Lizard Brain | THE SOUND YOUR DREAMS MAKE | EVERLASTING
- "Light Shining Darkly" | Coil | Stolen & Contaminated Songs | Cold Spring
- "Arcade" | Chris & Cosey | Exotika [reissue] | Conspiracy International
- "Bad Television" | Smoothy | THE SOUND YOUR DREAMS MAKE | EVERLASTING
- "The Controversial Control" | Jay Glass Dubs | Nyx EP | Berceuse Heroique
- "My Only Love" | The Durutti Column | Fidelity [reissue] | Les Disques Du Crépuscule
- "Animation (Martin Meissonnier reconstruction)" | Orchestre Bana Luya | Kinshasa 1978 | Crammed Discs
- "Blue TV Screen" | Cody Currie & Joel Holmes | New Chapter | Toy Tonics
- "Harp at Noon" | Pandacetamol | Driftwood | Kahvi Collective
- "The Thorn In My Side Is Gone" | American Music Club | San Francisco | Reprise
- "Waiting In The Rain" | Kendra Smith | Presents the Guild of Temporal Adventurers | Fiasco
- "Look Know (John Peel Session 15/9/81)" | The Fall | Hex Enduction Hour [reissue] | Cherry Red
- "When You Feel It, Grunt If You Can (Complete Take)" | The J.B.'s | More Mess On My Thing | Now-Again
Born on a ray of sound
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Tuesday Mar 10, 2020
Five to Twelve, Almost Gone: Transmission 503, 2019 December 31
Tuesday Mar 10, 2020
Tuesday Mar 10, 2020
Apologies are in order. There's a slowness to my cadence when I call this "the final live program" that can trick you into thinking those words are followed by a period. Sure enough, though, "...of 2019" follows, just to dash your hopes. I'm still here. On this night, Lady Catharsis is here as well, to shake things up, argue with me about rideshare services, sing backup to Wanda Jackson, and open the door to my abandonment of the "no repetition" policy so I can play "Kerosene" to honor the spirit and chops of Dave Riley.
I am vulnerable to nostalgia at all times, but December is the worst. In 2019 I had succeeded in not walking around in the snow listening to Cocteau Twins, probably because I no longer walk around in any weather listening to anything. More encouraging: I managed to have a 4AD-free Christmas. But events conspired to pull me back in. Vaughan Oliver died, and I surprised myself by feeling things about that. So Lady Catharsis and I, and our listeners, got to work through them. Together.
Previewing all of my on-air comments here would be stupid in more than one way. You'll just have to listen and find out. But it would be fair to say I'm less than 100% positive about the 4AD back catalogue. Look, I am a recovering addict and I don't know what you want from me. If there's any such thing as periodization of 4AD fandom, I am definitely a Lonely Is an Eyesore kid. And I expect things to stay awesome all the time. They can't, they don't, and somehow it saddens me. Truly I have bigger problems in this life but you wouldn't think so. Anyway, to reach back even further, "Marble Station" is absolutely majestic and would have justified getting hooked on this stuff, had it been what hooked me.
w/r/t Vaughan Oliver my hipsterism is so cringe that, I have to say, I'm a "23 Envelope person" and not "a v23 person." Did you know there were such people? Of course not because there aren't, it's only me as far as I know. Feeling something after Vaughan Oliver's death surprised me because I have opinions, you see. Nigel Grierson's work is special. His photographs made those sleeves. Read Facing the Other Way and tell me the story about the Nantes exhibit and the end of that friendship isn't the saddest thing in the book. But I am a person of Sentiment, and death is the biggest corrective, next to correction.
Since this program was broadcast, 70 days ago now, I've gone on the air 13 times. I'm editing a sound file from 13 days ago--four shows ago. How is this possible? It's not getting better any time soon, unless the coronavirus puts us all in quarantine and gives me time to churn through the backlog.
Program notes: I notice that these shows are a lot more dynamic, literally, when Lady Catharsis is the guest. She and her records are all over the place. You can see it in the waveforms. Or you could, if you were some weirdo who downloaded the audio files and imported them into a sound editing program. ANYWAY the point I am making is really about me and my normalization of everything. Not only does my voice sound like I have a built-in compressor, my taste in music is just kind of "smooth" and "regular." You can see this too. It's a kind of aesthetic fascism, and unironically I think Vaughan Oliver is partly to blame for that!
Anyway towards the end of the show it sounds like an old KDVS program with friends, which is not a bad place to wind up.
By the way, Colourbox [or "Colour Box"] record was from 1983, not 1993. I was never confused about this. I just can't talk properly.
A final correction: the 63 transmissions we broadcast in 2019 did not make it the "quietest year" in the history of the program or whatever I called it. There were two years when I did fewer shows, including a year in which I did only 52, like a regular person. I don't know what to make of having forgotten that, but I don't like it. Circling back to the first program I did in 2019 though, I sounded so dead inside, bored with what I was doing and completely devoid of affect. I don't think I sound that way anymore. Maybe it was a good year.
BOMBAST playlist, 2019 December 31, 2100-2300:
- "What Is It?" | The Mighty Strinth | The Rebirth of Cool Seven | Island
- "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" | Ella Fitzgerald | Ella Wishes You A Swinging Christmas | Verve
- "New Year" | Big Joanie | Sistahs | Daydream Library Series
- "It's Getting Late" | Galaxie 500 | Today [reissue] | 20|20|20
- "(There Ought To Be) A Moonlight Savings Time" | Bob Richardson & His Orchestra | The Pig's Big 78s - A Beginner's Guide | Trikont
- "The New Fidelity" | The Durutti Column | Fidelity [reissue] | Les Disques Du Crépuscule
- "Re:Action" | Spirea X | Speed Reaction | 4AD
- "Rip It Up" | Wanda Jackson | Two Sides of Wanda | Capitol
- "Kerosene" | Big Black | Atomizer | Touch & Go
- "Marble Station" | Sort Sol | Natures Mortes - Still Lives | 4AD
- "Altitude" | System 7 | System 7 | 10
- "Shout" | Afriqua | Colored | R & S
- "Slo Bird Whistle" | Aphex Twin | Peel Session 2 | WARP
- "Find My Way" | Ultramarine | This Time Last Year | Real Soon
- "Breakdown" | Colourbox | Colourbox [MAD 315 CD] | 4AD
- "More Mess On My Thing" | The J.B.'s | More Mess On My Thing | Now-Again
- "Marquis Cha Cha" | The Fall | Room To Live [reissue] | Cherry Red
- "Burn The Bastards" | The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu | Shag Times | KLF Communications
never anything to do in this town
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Tuesday Mar 03, 2020
Let This Evil Season End: Transmission 502, 2019 December 24
Tuesday Mar 03, 2020
Tuesday Mar 03, 2020
Doing a program on Christmas Eve (or at least December 24, if not technically the "eve") was really important to me when I was young, even though I would almost never play Christmas music. I always seemed to have a work shift on the 24th anyway (it's still that way and the world is becoming more Dickensian all the time)--so why not have a "fun" shift as well, I guess I must have thought. Also, especially early on at KDVS, I was only cleared to be on the air at certain times of the day, but this restriction would often not apply to term breaks and fill-in appearances. So, let's say, in my first year on the air, I probably would been authorized to spin records between midnight and 9 a.m., but I could at least have an afternoon program on the 24th of December, so that felt like liberation and "prime time." No one was listening, most likely, but what good would it have done to spurn the chance? Finally, and this is kind of sad, I think maybe doing radio on this day was a way of compensating for being separated from my friends at holiday time. Maybe this is still a thing, year-round, in the present.
So you know I'm not kidding when I say I'm excited to finally have the chance. It's been fun to do all those Festivus programs on the 23rd of December, but it's not the same. It's also true that I have developed these weird associations between the holiday and music that really has nothing to do with it. It could be music that I bought for myself in December (pouring one out for Green Noise Records, situated in Eugene, Oregon, sometime in the mid-90s, where I heard the Oval cd that serves as tonight's tinkly interstitial music--if only I had gotten the name of the album right! But, you know what, there are a lot of album titles to remember, and I'm old, so every new one I have to learn pushes another one out of my brain), music that someone else bought for me, something I heard while looking at xmas lights and just sounded right in the moment, etc. Lady Catharsis, my companion on this holy night, sort of understands, or pretends to. She's a good sport!
Since this program was broadcast, 70 days ago now, I've gone on the air 12 times. I'm editing a sound file from 13 days ago--three shows ago. I'm falling behind once again, and making the same mistake I always make, which is to jump at the chance of more airtime.
Program notes: was Bandwagonesque actually a December release? No! Surely November 19 is close enough, though, and there's no way it could have made it over here on a boat that quickly. This program is full of crazy jazz dynamics, and I blame this on the actual vintage holiday music that we try to play. Those Jimmy McGriff drums are LOUD. Take that, Steve Albini! At one point I refer to myself as an "it," which I just may be for all anyone knows. I manage to biff two James Brown songs and get mad--the self-hatred doesn't take a vacation, not even for Christmas. There's an honest-to-goodness rock block in the second hour that ends, inexplicably, with some cheesy tunes from a seasonal King record that even more inexplicably doesn't include James Brown. Finally, because there has to be an agenda, we end the evening with a junk-sick tale from William S. Burroughs that, on reflection, I'm not sure kids should have heard. Anyway, to all a good night, filled with vegetable serenity!
BOMBAST playlist, 2019 December 24, 2100-2300:
- "Holiday On The Moon" | Love & Rockets | Express | Big Time - RCA
- "Christmas Time Is Here (Uh Oh)" | Telekinesis | You Wish (A Merge Records Holiday Album) | Merge
- "Santa's Little Sleigh Bells" | Ruby Wright | Merry Christmas From King Records | King / Sundazed
- "Is This Music?" | Teenage Fanclub | Bandwagonesque | DGC
- "City of Christmas Ghosts" | Goldblade Featuring Poly Styrene | City Of Christmas Ghosts | Damaged Goods
- "Christmas Island" | Depeche Mode | A Question of Lust | Mute
- "Violets for Your Furs (Today I Bought You Violets)" | The Continental (Renzo Cesana) | Christmas Cocktails | Capitol
- "Winter Circle" | Ultramarine | Ghosts Of Christmas Past (Remake) | Les Disques Du Crépuscule
- "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" | Jimmy McGriff | Christmas Cocktails Part Two | Capitol
- "Chicken King & The Prince of Dreams" | Legendary Pink Dots | Legendary Pink Dots' Christmas Special 2019 | self-released
- "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" | Ella Fitzgerald | Ella Wishes You A Swinging Christmas | Verve
- "Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto" / "Merry Christmas Baby" | James Brown | Funky Christmas | Polydor
- "Won't Be Alone Tonight" | Mike Krol | You Wish (A Merge Records Holiday Album) | Merge
- "Fast and Loose" | Motörhead | BBC Live & In-Session | Sanctuary
- "Merry Christmas Fritz" | The Buff Medways | Merry Christmas Fritz c/w Stille Nacht | Damaged Goods
- "No Gifts for Nazis" | Alice Bag | No Gifts for Nazis | Get Better
- "Christmas Questions" | Joe Ward | Merry Christmas From King Records | King / Sundazed
- "Lasst uns froh und munter sein Dub" | Dub Spencer & Trance Hill | Christmas in Dub | Echo Beach
- "Twinkle Twinkle Christmas Star" | Lillian Brooks | Merry Christmas From King Records | King / Sundazed
- "The Junky's Christmas" | William S. Burroughs | Spare Ass Annie And Other Tales | Island Red Label
ecstatically happy until the end of time
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Thursday Feb 13, 2020
They Don't Call Me Loverboy for Nothing: Transmission 498, 2019 November 27
Thursday Feb 13, 2020
Thursday Feb 13, 2020
"The spirits are with us tonight," I say to my co-pilot, Lady Catharsis. It's true--this was a good program on a festive occasion. Since its inception on Thanksgiving Eve 2012, the Bombastic hullabaloo has claimed the Wednesday of Thanksgiving Week, a "moveable feast," as its birthday. For various reasons we haven't always been able to observe it. We were able to mark it in 2013; I won't link to that one because, reasons. Inexplicably in 2014 the program had moved to Tuesday night, but I was gifted the opportunity to make something special happen.
Years and years ago, I had come to view Thanksgiving as my favorite holiday; about a decade ago it took on some baggage. In 2009 my previous life ended, and the unraveling began in November. Thanksgiving happened a couple of weeks later, and (I like to think) unrelatedly Junior had a meltdown right before dinner. I haven't really been able to tolerate yelling since; is that TMI? Anyway, for a couple of years everything in my life got worse; I was in a really dark place in the time period I describe in this broadcast, when my personal hero Jim Murphy foisted me upon the innocent listeners of the Southern Tier on that fateful night. He saved my life, and he redeemed Thanksgiving--except for the whole genocide thing, I guess, which I am inexcusably bracketing.
There's also the fact that between 2014 and 2018 the Catharsis Family was living in a tiny upstairs apartment, having been chased out of our previous rental by a psychotic landlord who (I'm not kidding) traumatized me and probably the rest of my family as well. A minor inconvenience in all this was that our kitchen was too small to prepare big meals, and we would travel out of state to my brother's house for Thanksgiving each of these years. In 2019 we finally grew up and bought a house, so we stuck around over the break.
Hey, you know, sorry if this is personal and non-musical and dull but the program is me, I am the program, this is the archive, write me for a refund if you like.
Since this program was broadcast, 78 days ago now, I've gone on the air 13 times. I just finished listening to a transmission from 44 days ago. I'm currently editing a sound file from 29 days ago--5 shows ago. I just did a show last night and am awake in the pre-dawn hours because for some reason I couldn't sleep. Yet somehow my memory is sharpening. I don't even know if that is idiomatically correct but it feels right so I am going with it.
Anyway there were good vibes flying around the studio on this night. The research team was busy, "informing" our listeners about needle time, Jeremy Clarkson, and Two Thousand Maniacs!, among other things. "Records as gifts" was our theme for the evening, and for once a themed program was non-disastrous. I can't speak for Lady Catharsis but as I peruse this playlist I am glad to say that I'm no longer the person I was when I received any of these records, thankful though I was and am. Every day brings new possibilities!
BOMBAST playlist, 2019 November 27, 2100-2300:
- "Big Sex" | T.A.G. | Big Sex | Sweatbox
- "Spanish Castle Magic" | The Jimi Hendrix Experience | BBC Sessions | MCA / Experience Hendrix
- "Fabric" | Toiling Midgets | Son | Matador
- "May This Be Love" | Thin White Rope | Squatter's Rights | Frontier
- "Are You Ready To Come? (With Me) Pt.1" | USAries | Personal Space (Electronic Soul 1974 - 1984) | Chocolate Industries
- "Do You Love Me?" | Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds | Let Love In | BMG / Mute
- "Do Your Thing" | Isaac Hayes | Shaft (Music From the Soundtrack) | Stax
- "Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad" | Wanda Jackson | Rockin' With Wanda | Wax Love
- "Hot Doggie" | Colourbox | Colourbox (box set) | 4AD
- "Fire" | The Buff Medways | Fire | Friends Of The Buff Medway Fanciers Association
- "Manic Depression" | Throwing Muses | Firepile E.P. (Part One) | 4AD
- "Winter (John Peel Session 15/9/81)" | The Fall | Hex Enduction Hour [reissue] | Cherry Red
- "Loverboy" | Wally Lewis | The Other Side of Bakersfield, Vol. 1: 1950s & 60s Boppers and Rockers from "Nashville West" | Bear Family
- "Get It Together" | James Brown | Star Time | Polydor
- "Shut Up" | Here Are the Facts You Requested | Shocks + Struts | Elevator Pop Gallery
- "Time to Go Home" | Otis G. Johnson | Personal Space (Electronic Soul 1974 - 1984) | Chocolate Industries
Done got wise of the way you do it
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Friday Feb 07, 2020
Friday Feb 07, 2020
I am just going to come out and say that you can skip the first ten minutes or so of this program. Lady Catharsis and I are joined in the studio by the dj who preceded us, and who just kind of decided to stay. I have a feeling this person may have been chemically enhanced at the time (whomst among us, and so on) and it was kind of unnerving. I did my best "Doctor Hibbert" impersonation, another example of how I always seem to make bad choices in the moment. But, hey, the content is there, for the masochists, if you want it. I try my best to be honest, and to serve by disclosing things fully.
Since this program was broadcast, 90 days ago now, I've gone on the air 16 times. I just finished listening to a transmission from 58 days ago. I'm currently editing a sound file from 37 days ago--6 shows ago. And for reasons that are too boring to describe (even by my standards), I'm rushing to post this so I don't have to listen to this one again.
It's a shame because for the remaining 110 minutes this was a really good night, though it's not a good sign that Lady Catharsis doesn't bring any of her own records. She gets me talking, though. My therapist tells me I need to "show up" more in life, and here I am! Somewhere in here there's a nice little dig at pre-recorded programs and the people behind them. Look, the thing I have going for me is that despite taking up a lot of airtime I am always live and always real, except maybe when I am humoring narcotized people who won't leave the room.
BOMBAST playlist, 2019 November 9, 2000-2200:
- "No Age" | Lee "Scratch" Perry | Life of the Plants | Stones Throw
- "Group Four (Security Forces Dub)" | Massive Attack | Massive Attack V Mad Professor Part II (Mezzanine Remix Tapes '98) | UMC / Virgin
- "Easing" | George & Glen Miller | Easing | Soundway
- "Movin'" | Brass Construction | The Best Of Brass Construction - Movin' & Changin' | EMI
- "Iyereghe" | Odomore Osarenren And Ẹwaẹn Ọsẹtin Stars | Ọyọetigbe - The Birth Of A Child | Dig This Way
- "Galaxia Fini" | Repetentes 2008 | Galaxia Fini | Superconscious
- "Our Future" | Miles Atmospheric | SkyHealer | FireScope
- "Vengeance" | Chris & Cosey | Exotika [reissue] | Conspiracy International
- "Electric Boogie" | Trinidadian Deep | Natty Dread | Visions Inc.
- "Sociodelic" | Afriqua | Colored | R & S
- "Pink Lady Lemonade (Astral Disco Queen - Coda)" | Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. | Hallelujah Mystic Garden Part Two | Important
I'm just going to say, it's a personality type
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Monday Feb 03, 2020
Monday Feb 03, 2020
True confession: my first attempt at recounting this episode was such a dull, sausage-making drone that I bored even myself. So I'm trying again, this time with atmosphere, and maybe some mental sausage.
A couple of hours before the program, it rained. A lot. There was flooding in the area! And I think of the poor children and their parents, especially in our old hipster neighborhood, a Halloween wonderland, getting soaked in their heroic effort to keep the candy industry afloat.
I was working in the opposite direction, trying to get to the gym, probably for the first time in several days--my new job was exhausting me mentally and physically, and I had dived deeply into comfort food (and am still diving)--and taking my life into my own hands.
Rain is my least favorite weather to begin with, but particularly in Ithaca--usually if it's raining it's just the right temperature for our car to fog up uncontrollably. I could easily have mowed down some young family on my way to torture myself, and to be honest I probably felt nothing in particular about either part of this equation.
Feels like I just talked about how much I hate fundraising programs, and here I was in the control room again the next day. Like a goddamn salmon I keep returning, with tremendous effort, and I don't even get it.
Since this program was broadcast, 95 days ago now, I've gone on the air 17 times. I am listening to a transmission from 61 days ago. I'm currently editing a sound file from 41 days ago--7 shows ago. What does it amount to, this enormous task? And what will I even do when I am caught up? Anyway, October's finished, unless you count that unfortunate area of space-time where it is always still happening, forever.
Fittingly, I played a bunch of 4AD-adjacent stuff on this evening of "songs about ghosts and songs about dead people." It haunts me, or at least it haunts the person I have been, whom I carry around with me at all times. It is more "me" to stray from the "best available" in favor of the weird, personal, disturbing. And of course we made less money on this night than the last one. Sometimes I know what I'm talking about.
BOMBAST playlist, 2019 October 31, 2100-2300:
- "Ghost Lights" | The Children | Ghost Lights | Division 68
- "I Fell In Love With a Ghost" | Rowland S. Howard / Lydia Lunch | Some Velvet Morning | 4AD
- "Your Ghost" | Kristin Hersh | The 13 Year Itch | 4AD
- "Halloween" | The Dream Syndicate | The Days of Wine and Roses | Fire America
- "56B" | The Legendary Pink Dots | Legendary Pink Dots' Hallowe'en Special 2019 | self-released
- "Keleya" | Baba Commandant and the Mandingo Band | Siri Ba Kele | Sublime Frequencies
- "Ghosts" | Japan | Exorcising Ghosts | Virgin
- "Fache Ainik Ant" | Moulay Ahmed El Hassani | Atlas Electric | Hive Mind
- "Zawal" | Tinariwen | Amadjar | Wedge
- "The Jezebel Spirit" | Brian Eno - David Byrne | My Life in the Bush of Ghosts | Sire
- "City of the Dead" | The Clash | Black Market Clash | Epic
- "Death From Above" | Crispy Ambulance | The Plateau Phase + Live On A Hot August Night + Peel | Factory Benelux
- "Ghosts" | Nancy Babich | Time Adds Up | self-released
- "Nachtschatten" | Xmal Deutschland | Tocsin | 4AD
- "White Sunlight" | Hunter Complex | Open Sea | Death Waltz
- "KURT KOBAIN" | Velvet Negroni | NEON BROWN | 4AD
- "Jazz Sega" | Jeanot Rabeson Et Son Orchestre | Alefa Madagascar ! Salegy, Soukous & Soul From The Red Island 1974-1984 | Strut
- "All The People I Like Are Those That Are Dead" | Felt | Forever Breathes the Lonely Word | Creation
- "The Double-Switch" | King Salami and the Cumberland Three | Kiss My Ring | Damaged Goods
- "Halloween" | Brian | Because It's Mine! | self-released
- "Sleep-Wake Cycles" | Jeff Mills | Moon (The Area of Influence) | Axis
- "Celine's Surprise" | The Legendary Pink Dots | Legendary Pink Dots' Hallowe'en Special 2019 | self-released
existing in the shadows of dreams
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Sunday Feb 02, 2020
Sunday Feb 02, 2020
For this program my health had returned (that is, if I was actually sick the prior week, which I of course no longer remember). Also, I was in good spirits--a rarity during a fundraising drive. Let's be frank, I hate these things. They're just a confluence of bad stuff. Because I am a dandy and a child, I don't like to think about money; I have bad memories from previous co-hosting experiences; I don't actually enjoy talking on the radio that much. Fortunately I had Lady Catharsis riding shotgun, and DJ Feng Shui, a sympathetic colleague, "on the other side of the glass," so this was a good evening, which is pretty much all my notes say.
Since this program was broadcast, 95 days ago now, I've gone on the air 18 times. I am listening to a transmission from 60 days ago. I'm currently editing a sound file from 40 days ago--7 shows ago. [In some ways time is moving backwards.]
There's one little bit of sadness as I think back on this episode. It's that I miss the old "festivals of Evidence" that I used to do. But "Physical Evidence" is no longer a thing (Junior is fine, by the way); seemingly it had to die so that more important things could flourish. These "year end roundups" are wall-to-wall quality tunes, but they aren't really me. And yet from a fundraising perspective they are increasingly effective. Is that a "rising tide" thing for the station, or do I succeed more when I am not quite myself?
BOMBAST playlist, 2019 October 30, 2100-2300:
- "Tema" / "Dope" | Afriqua | Colored | R & S
- "Give Love (Interlude)" | Sampa the Great | The Return | Ninja Tune
- "If Not Now When?" | Ultramarine | Signals into Space | Les Disques du Crepuscule
- "C/2015 V2" | Meat Beat Manifesto | Opaque Couche | Flexidisc
- "Heliy" | Cosey Fanni Tutti | Tutti | Conspiracy International
- "Heston" | Finlay Shakepeare | Domestic Economy | Editions Mego
- "The Edge of the World" | transmission 13 | The Edge Of The World | self-released
- "Life of the Plants" | Lee "Scratch" Perry | Life of the Plants | Stones Throw
- "Chemin de fer" | Dexter Story | Bahir | Soundway
- "Feeling You Got" | El Rego et ses Commandos | El Rego | Daptone
- "Wanted" | Renegade Pharmacy | Recovery Position | self-released
- "XYZ" | Boards of Canada | XYZ | WARP
- "Happy Sad" | Jübl | DNA Cowboys | Eighth Son Records
- "Let's Take The Time" | Sequoyah Murray | Before You Begin | Thrill Jockey Records
- "Tenere" | Kel Assouf | Black Tenere | Glitterbeat
- "Honam" | Orchestre Abass | De Bassari Togo | Analog Africa
- "Driving Blind" | Chris and Cosey | Songs of Love & Lust [reissue] | Conspiracy International
- "All About Money" | Spontaneous Overthrow | All About Money | Numero Group
- "Microwave Mistral" | Your 33 Black Angels | Eternities I | self-released
- "T 3.1" | Carter Tutti Void | Triumvirate | Conspiracy International
- "Disorder Dub" | Jah Division | Dub Will Tear Us Apart...Again | Ernest Jenning Record Co.
- "Sometimes I Wanna Dance" | Lonnie Holley | MITH | Jagjaguwar
- "Come Home O'Shawn" | (((O))) | ((( 1 ))) | The Sundrop Garden
- "Master's Clock" | Moor Mother | The Myth Hold Weight | Don Giovanni
- "Exchange - Mountain Steppers Dub" | Massive Attack | Massive Attack V Mad Professor Part II (Mezzanine Remix Tapes '98) | UMC / Virgin
life of the party
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Monday Jan 27, 2020
The Night Is Made of Rocks: Transmission 486, 2019 October 5
Monday Jan 27, 2020
Monday Jan 27, 2020
It's 4 a.m. and I have woken up from a bad dream about one of my old jobs. I still have them, but at least if I am dreaming I am sleeping, I guess. It must be my destiny to be four months in the past, in both my conscious and unconscious lives.
Since this program aired, 114 days ago now, I've gone on the air 21 times. I'm currently editing a broadcast from 47 days ago--7 shows ago.
Lady Catharsis joined me on this particular broadcast, and it was good--meaning I didn't get myself into too much trouble--but we had to stick to my repertoire in order for things to work out. I guess you could say I cheated, although I'm not competing against anyone or anything but some undefined "ideal" program. It all caught up with me at the end when I announced a tune by "Feta Coolie" and then "Feta Cootie." I probably needed more sleep then, too.
BOMBAST playlist, 2019 October 5, 2000-2200:
- "Five Nights of Bleeding" / "Dread Beat An' Blood" / "Intro" / "All We Doin Is Defendin'" / "It Dread Inna Inglan" | Linton Kwesi Johnson | In Concert With the Dub Band | Shanachie
- "Turn On, Tune In, Find Joy" | Freakpower | The Rebirth Of Cool Volume 3 | 4th & Broadway
- "Blue Jays" | Sequoyah Murray | Before You Begin | Thrill Jockey
- "Nouveau Western" | MC Solaar | The Rebirth Of Cool Volume 3 | 4th & Broadway
- "The Flower Called Nowhere" | Stereolab | Dots and Loops (Expanded Edition) | Duophonic / WARP
- "Rain" | Flame 2 | Dive / Rain | PRESSURE
- "Okitwoye" | ODD OKODDO | Okitwoye | Pingipung
- "One True Path" | Section 25 | Always Now | Factory Benelux
- "Radio Tenere: Goudel Mollo Swagger" | unknown artists | Radio Niger | Sublime Frequencies
- "Soaliza" | Terak' Anosy Group | Alefa Madagascar | Strut
- "Itous Ohar" | Tinariwen | Amadjar | Wedge
- "Icy Forest" | Faizal Mostrixx | Ghosts | Byrd Out
- "Razana Tsy Ho Meloko" | Michael | Alefa Madagascar | Strut
- "Sleeping Trees" | Nina Soul | Feel Like Jumping: The Best of Studio One Women | Heartbeat
- "Feel Like Jumping" | Marcia Griffiths | Feel Like Jumping: The Best of Studio One Women | Heartbeat
- "Ȏdy Ȏdy (Tsy Mentsy Mandroso)" | Saka dit The King | Alefa Madagascar | Strut
- "Umculo Kawupheli (No End To Music)" | The Mahotella Queens | Soweto Never Sleeps (Classic Female Zulu Jive) | Shanachie
- "Lady" | Fela Ransome-Kuti And The Africa '70 | Shakara | Knitting Factory
no need to hurry, there's all the time
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Thursday Nov 28, 2019
She Reassured Me with an Unfamiliar Line: Transmission 478, 2019 August 9
Thursday Nov 28, 2019
Thursday Nov 28, 2019
I'll begin by saying that we experienced the sublime in this episode. It was fleeting, but you have to take positivity when you get it. Somehow I made Johnny Cash fade into Roni Size gracefully, so there's at least one reason to listen to this episode. Other than that, maybe the set with The Clash and Linton Kwesi Johnson was ok.
Otherwise this episode was pretty close to the nadir. When I wasn't incoherent (I should have just said that I thought the Wanda Jackson CD was from 2004 or something) I was more or less un-PC (I should have kept my mouth shut about the origins of Coil's record and don't know why I didn't). And where I wasn't either of those things I was trampling King Sunny Ade's music (I always seem to) and ruining Lefty Frizzell segues (though I don't know if that's avoidable). I feel like I was visibly and audibly upset here, and this might be rock bottom. I'm think maybe I even scared Lady Catharsis, who is well accustomed to my negativity.
I am a little reassured to find that at this time last year I was doing terrible shows as well. What is it about summer? Wait, I know. Hopefully that is changing soon. At least I can tell you that Lady C and I have done programs since this one, and they've been better.
BOMBAST playlist, 2019 August 9, 2100-2300:
- "Longshot Kick the Bucket / Liquidator / Skinhead Moonstomp (The Skinhead Symphony in Three Movements)" | The Specials | The BBC Sessions | EMI
- "Shakin' All Over" | Wanda Jackson | The Party Ain't Over | Third Man
- "Dawning (Version)" | 23 Skidoo | Beyond Time | Les Disques Du Crepuscule
- "Blue Flower" | Mazzy Star | She Hangs Brightly | Capitol Records
- "Secret 77" | Bad Brains | I Against I | SST
- "Black Heart" | Keith Hudson & Soul Syndicate | Heavyweight Sound: A Blood and Fire Sampler | Blood & Fire
- "Mo Beru Agba" | King Sunny Ade | Juju Music | Island Records Ltd.
- "Train to Glory / The Whip" | The Ethiopians | The Original Reggae Hitsound Of The Ethiopians | Trojan
- "Tondibama" | Amadou Balake | Bar Konon Moussou Bar | Kindred Spirits
- "The Kneeling Drunkard's Plea" | Johnny Cash | Love God Murder | Columbia / Legacy / American
- "Ballet Dance" | Roni Size | The Rebirth of Cool Seven | Island
- "Bankrobber / Robber Dub" | The Clash | Black Market Clash | Epic
- "Reality Poem / Wat About Di Workin Claas?" | Linton Kwesi Johnson | In Concert with the Dub Band | LKJ Records
- "Run 'Em Off" | Lefty Frizzell | The Best of Lefty Frizzell | Rhino
- "Lunar Baedeker, Odious Oasis" | Parviz | Zerzura | Omena
- "Summer Wine" | Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood | Fairy Tales & Fantasies: The Best Of Nancy & Lee | Rhino
- "Theme From The Gay Man's Guide To Safer Sex" | Coil | The Gay Man's Guide To Safer Sex + 2 | Musique Pour La Danse
- "El Harb" | Aisha Kandisha's Jarring Effects | Shabeesation | Rykodisc
Havin' the tremors in the thighbone
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Sunday Nov 17, 2019
Expression Experts: Transmission 474, 2019 July 6
Sunday Nov 17, 2019
Sunday Nov 17, 2019
"Sometimes it gets ragged," I say to Lady Catharsis in the introduction. Whatever I might have thought I meant in the moment, listening back it sounds like I was critiquing the shows that she co-hosts. Surely, deep down, I was doing that. I critique all of my shows, as a glance at this website will tell you, but I could have been more appreciative. On this night I didn't have the energy.
As advertised, it was "an awful Saturday evening at the end of an awful, awful week." We both sounded tired; the prospect of a 500th Bombast episode, which I raise, doesn't seem to excite me. It was really hot out, and we were in the middle of moving house. More importantly, as I think back, things were falling apart at the "theory camp" I was coordinating. One group of students had accused another group of racial incitement; our director, normally afloat in a frictionless, conflict-free world of contemplation, touched down to earth briefly enough to completely overreact and exacerbate the problem. Things got so bad that we couldn't even enjoy our annual lakeside barbecue (incidentally, the reason why I didn't make a radio appearance three nights prior to this) without inflammatory incidents.
tl;dr: Lady Catharsis and I thought that maybe we could just chill for a couple of hours in the studio, but because everything is affected by everything, we were wrong.
The program did have its moments. Playing Throwing Muses after R. L. Burnside was a good choice, and the Eurythmics > Afriqua > A Certain Ratio "mini-set" was fairly sublime. One of the biggest running tensions in this program is that I have a non-repetition "policy" and yet I could happily play "Knife Slits Water" every week. To think: other people tell me that they hold back a lot! Please note that Lady Catharsis gives A Certain Ratio high praise in this episode and I am glad there is a permanent record of it.
I felt I had to play Dr. Phibes, "artsy fade-in" and all, because of the ludicrous wait I had to endure for that record. "JD," whom I refer to in the voice-over, was the Discogs seller who (finally) shipped the record to me after he, um, got shingles? I don't want to be someone who trivializes suffering, but at the same time maybe I need to be someone who owns my problems? Never having had shingles I (a) can't think about it without visualizing the Terry Bradshaw commercials and (b) don't know how it might affect your ability to think about basic life stuff. Anyway, that is why I hope JD feels better and why that record made it into a very quiet last 40 minutes or so of this transmission, before a terrible Nick Cave segue finishes off the evening in proper fashion.
BOMBAST playlist, 2019 July 6, 2000-2200:
- "Por Encima" | M.A.K.U SoundSystem | 5 Fuegos | PEACE & RHYTHM
- "Meca" | Levis Vercky`s | Angola Soundtrack 2 - Hypnosis, Distortion & Other Innovations 1969 - 1978 | Analog Africa
- "Soggy Tongues" | Vic Chesnutt | West of Rome | New West
- "Can't Hold Out Much Longer" | Little Walter | His Best - The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection | Chess
- "2 Brothers" / "Snake Drive" | R.L. Burnside | A Ass Pocket of Whiskey | Fat Possum
- "Mercury" | Throwing Muses | Throwing Muses | 4AD
- "Happy Nightmare Baby" | Opal | Happy Nightmare Baby | SST
- "Got to Give It Up" | The Dirtbombs | Ulltraglide In Black | In The Red
- "The Law Must Change" | Keith Mlevhu | The Bad Will Die | Strawberry Rain
- "Aqua" | Eurythmics | Touch | RCA
- "Vibrations" | Afriqua | Prophette | Cure Music
- "Knife Slits Water" | A Certain Ratio | Sextet | Factory Benelux
- "Black Sheets of Rain" | Bob Mould | Black Sheets of Rain | Virgin
- "When Push Comes To Shove" / "Dovetail" | Dr. Phibes & The House Of Wax Equations | Whirlpool | 50 Seel Street
- "Spermwhale Trip Over" / "The Sun Falls Into the Sea" / "The Madonna Is With Child" / "Spanish Quay (3)" | A.R. Kane | Sixty Nine | One Little Indian
- "New Morning" | Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds | Live Seeds | Mute
It's all about what I wish would happen
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