Episodes
Saturday May 23, 2020
He Bites on the Neon and Sleeps in a Capsule: Transmission 505, 2020 January 8
Saturday May 23, 2020
Saturday May 23, 2020
As I write it's day 66 of lockdown--I think. It's getting tougher to count, but at the moment I'm counting March 19 as Day 1 for me, since that's the first day Lady Catharsis and I were ordered to "work from home." You could argue that things started to get weird, rapidly, about 10 days prior to that, but memories of Before are a bit cloudy. I have only written notes to help me recall what this innocent program sounded and felt like.
"I played a lot of beautiful music on this show without necessarily trying to," I wrote. It feels good to read that, and sad at the same time. Maybe in January I was finding more and more confidence. It's gone now. Looking at the playlist I think I was right in the moment.
Caveats: I'm pretty sure I burped in the first voice-over of the evening. The Iftin Band segues didn't sound good on either end. I have not done right by Space Dingus, as well as they slotted into this program. Their album was good and I just didn't get to it. Does lateness mean anything anymore? Maybe there is still hope for me there. There was some post-production magic that I executed between One-Eyed Wayne and Jay Glass Dubs. And it still sounds bad! The sequence ending with James Clarke Five is "weird," apparently, and it's a "good thing the show was flawless after that."
Since this program was broadcast, 136 days ago now, I've gone "on the air" 22 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, I guess? I promised myself I would chronicle my tardiness and I am past embarrassment at this point. If these numbers mean anything to you, you're welcome.
Thanks for making it this far, thanks for your patience, and as always thank you for listening.
BOMBAST playlist, 2020 January 8, 2100-2300:
- "Sanctuary" | Fushara | The Mystics | Transmute
- "Pétaloïde" | Dosage | Theory of Pink | Les Disques Du Festival Permanent
- "Anthropocene" | Wrangler | Anthropocene | Bella Union
- "U" | Yoshinori Hayashi | Y | Smalltown Supersound
- "Sirmaqabe - No Secrets" | Iftin Band | Mogadisco - Dancing Mogadishu (Somalia 1972-1991) | Analog Africa
- "Makoma" | Onipa | Onipa / Makoma | Strut
- "Rat Laughter" | Space Dingus | Space Dingus | Subjangle
- "The Jean Genie" | David Bowie | The Singles Collection | EMI
- "Dreaming" | Maria Somerville | All My People | No Label
- "A New Chapter" | Cody Currie & Joel Holmes | New Chapter | Toy Tonics
- "Moon Shining Bright" | Pieter Nooten | Se Dire Au Revoir | Rocket Girl
- "L'Heure" | Luminance | Ahead | Medical
- "Repeater" | Moor Mother | Analog Fluids of Solid Black Holes | Don Giovanni
- "You Gave Me a Name - Radio Edit" | The Young Gods | You Gave Me a Name | Two Gentlemen
- "Animation Kifuti (Martin Meissonnier reconstruction)" | Orchestre Bambala | Kinshasa 1978 | Crammed Discs
- "To The Limit" | LFO | Peel Session | WARP
- "Diversa" | Toada | Cambiante | pluma
- "BLK Musak" | Mourning [A] BLKstar | BLK Musak | Don Giovanni
- "Woma Gara" | Mamadou Kelly | Les Bateaux | Claremont
- "YoYo" | One Eyed Wayne | Saucy Postcards Super Creeps | Optic Nerve
- "Laid Down (feat. Yorgia Karidi)" | Jay Glass Dubs | Epitaph | Bokeh Versions
- "Theme from 'The Main Chance'" | James Clarke Five | Parloursounds [reissue] | The Beautiful Music
- "Cromo 4" | Yui Onodera | Pop Ambient 2020 | Kompakt
- "Night Dive" | Space Ghost | Aquarium Nightclub | Tartelet
- "I Know - Tewz Remix" | Gray | Shades of... Anthology | Ubiquity
- "Lifeforce Part I" / "Lifeforce Part II" | The Comet Is Coming | Afterlife | Impulse
- "Brenda" | Leandro Fresco | Pop Ambient 2020 | Kompakt
- "Deolta" | SJ Tequilla | Sanya | Craigie Knowes
Nowadays everything can be denied
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Friday Apr 24, 2020
Insight, Foresight, More Sight: Transmission 504, 2020 January 1
Friday Apr 24, 2020
Friday Apr 24, 2020
I don't even know where to begin. It's day 38 of lockdown--I mean, let's say that, why not. Who can tell anymore? The president just told us to inject bleach into ourselves. Figured I might post some content before the disinfectant regime becomes mandatory.
This is a program from a different time. Regular subscribers probably roll their eyes when I talk about "universes ending" and stuff like that. What do we think about this now? Not so dumb anymore, is it? WELCOME TO MY WORLD BITCHES.
Anyway, this is a good program done in the old style--that is, with me sitting in the studio and pressing "play" when it was time to hear a new song, and so forth. I'm sure part of me has been holding onto these last archaic transmissions, because who knows if there will be another of their kind? It does mess with me that I screwed up Vance & Suzzanne because otherwise this is pretty flawless--check out the transition from Grandmaster Flash to Zonal, just as an example.
Because this is also about baring my soul, I've got to get something about "Davis Homeboy DJ Shadow" off my chest. It's true that we grew up in the same town. At one point in my troubled youth I was a buyer/clerk at our record store and I was one of those archetypal record store assholes. At this point in my life I had a lot of anger though I don't know about what. I'm still dealing with it! Anyway one day these two guys came up to the counter & wanted to talk to me about something--but in their exuberance (or whatever) they knocked something off the counter, and I was like, "pick that up" before I would even engage them. They got mad and left, as they should have. NOW. I have absolutely no reason to believe this is the case but I have somehow retconned (or gaslit? i don't know) myself into thinking one of those guys was Josh Davis. Again, NO REASON TO THINK THIS but this is what I do to myself.
Anyway, now that I don't have a gym to go to I try to get out of the house every day and walk around "in nature" and this is the kind of stuff I do, replaying my life's most embarrassing episodes inside my head. Apologies to Shadow & friend or whoever the fuck those guys were. I'd like to tell you I'm a changed person but at least I'm working on it.
Since this program was broadcast, 114 days ago now, I've gone "on the air" 13 times. I have delivered six pre-recorded episodes on account of the pandemic. I'm supposed to be editing a sound file from 58 days ago--ten shows ago, I guess? I'm not sure any of this matters, but I am forcing myself to go through the motions, working the "mattering" into being, I guess, maybe. To think I once joked about quarantine giving me time to get caught up!
Anyway, looking back, I'm more convinced than ever that 2019 was indeed a good year. But let's enjoy the innocence of early 2020 while we can, however we can.
BOMBAST playlist, 2020 January 1, 2100-2300:
- "A Bleak Moment" | Taelue | Reflections | Perpetual Rhythms
- "Super Rappin' No 1" | Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five | Back In The Day (Old School Hip Hop From The Block Party Era) | BGP
- "Debris" | Zonal | Wrecked | Relapse
- "Terminal Manouevre" | XVARR | Echoes of Time | Good Morning Tapes
- "Drips" | Flying Lotus | Presents INFINITY Infinitum Maida Vale Session | WARP
- "Midnight In A Perfect World" | DJ Shadow | Endtroducing... | Mo Wax - FFRR
- "Cretu" | Ummagma | Compass | Leonard Skully
- "Exotika" | Chris & Cosey | Exotika | Conspiracy International
- "Patina" | Avtvmna | Summer Estate | Kahvi Collective
- "A Different View" | brim liski | Duels | Latenight Weeknight
- "Spanish Town Road Dub" | Scientist | The Scientist in the Kingdom of Dub | Superior Viaduct
- "I Can't Get Along Without You" | Vance and Suzzanne | I Can't Get Along Without You | Kalita
- "Corsage" | Dosage | Theory of Pink | Les Disques Du Festival Permanent
- "The Seven Planetary Heavens" | The Comet Is Coming | The Afterlife | Impulse
- "Mythologies" | ØxØ | Mythologies | Truant
- "Sálvame" | Mequetrefe | Come On Feel The NoiZe, Vol. 4 - La Furia | The Blog That Celebrates Itself
- "It's You" | Big Joanie | Sistahs | Daydream Library Series
- "Shop Lifting" | The Slits | The Peel Sessions | Dutch East India Trading / Strange Fruit
- "Scarred for Life" | Medicine | Scarred for Life | Drawing Room Records
- "Tchiokoroba" | Mamadou Kelly | Les Bateaux | Claremont
- "Chateau Rouge" | Bantou Mentale | Bantou Mentale | Glitterbeat
- "Magik" | Lee "Scratch" Perry | Magik | Stones Throw
- "Liminality" | Kid Koala | Music To Draw To: Io | Zenerino
- "Yogi Yamahssar" | Tapan Meets Generation Taragalte | Atlas | Soundway
- "Dinosaur Girl" | Brix & The Extricated | Dinosaur Girl | Grit Over Glamour
- "Kel Tinariwen" | Tinariwen | Amadjar | Wedge
- "Bolinas" | Meat Beat Manifesto | Opaque Couche | Flexidisc
using the ladder they call success
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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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Monday Feb 24, 2020
Don't Ask Me Why, For I Don't Know Why: Transmission 501, 2019 December 18
Monday Feb 24, 2020
Monday Feb 24, 2020
You'll be relieved to hear that this time out I have no nightmares to share. I will not try to squeeze a life trauma into a radio-shaped narrative. Even I was worn out by that last post. Showing up is work! But fortunately for both of us, the number 501 doesn't seem to mean anything, so this is just a regular mixtape meant not to make anyone think hard about anything.
Since this program was broadcast, 68 days ago now, I've gone on the air 11 times. I'm editing a sound file from 23 days ago--four shows ago. The good news is that two of my temporal planes of existence have collapsed into one, so maybe I get to talk less about my exercise compulsion. The bad news is that my hard work never did pay off--"None of you look like you spend much time at the gym," Joseph the Engineer said at a station meeting the other night. The context of this remark doesn't matter. Do I deserve anything different? Probably not.
I think I said a couple of posts ago that radio only matters in this part of the calendar. This program doesn't provide much evidence of that but it does hold together as a bag of good tunes. Look, sometimes we can't even expect that much from me. Some transitions were better than they had any business being, and I felt good about it in the moment. If you don't think that counts for something, do you even know me?
BOMBAST playlist, 2019 December 18, 2100-2300:
- "Sight From Above" | Steffi X Virginia | Work A Change | Ostgut Ton
- "Maybe There's A Rainbow" | Ekiti Sound | Abeg No Vex | Crammed Discs
- "Up and Down" | Tombstones in Their Eyes | Maybe Someday (LP) | Somewherecold
- "Underdog" | The Dirtbombs | Ultraglide In Black | In The Red
- "Bad Choices" | Superchunk | What a Time to Be Alive | Merge
- "FATAL" | DEBBY FRIDAY | DEATH DRIVE | Deathbomb Arc
- "Temptations" | Jitwam | Honeycomb | Tartelet
- "Emotional Yoga" | S.U.V. | Our Complex Pleasures | Otomatik Musiek
- "Dream Date" | Lunch Lady | Angel | Upset the Rhythm
- "No Love To Give" | Fabienne DelSol | Four | Damaged Goods
- "Aa Egypto" | Inoyama Land | Commissions: 1977-2000 | Empire of Signs
- "Baby You're a Rich Man" | Brian | Bognor! | self-released
- "Flim" | African Head Charge | Pay It All Back Vol. 7 | On-U Sound
- "Kolo Wece" | Tabu Buzy Body | Electro Acholi Kaboom from Northern Uganda | Nyege Nyege Tapes
- "Neverfriend (demo)" | dayflower | petal drops | self-released
- "Gang Deyo" | Opiyo Twongweno | Electro Acholi Kaboom from Northern Uganda | Nyege Nyege Tapes
- "Stop The Coup (pfeffel mix)" | Cabinet of Millionaires vs Zion Train | Stop The Coup | Chocolate Fireguard
- "Bandera Pa Kaka" | Bosmic Otim | Electro Acholi Kaboom from Northern Uganda | Nyege Nyege Tapes
- "These Memories" | Almeta Lattimore | This Is Mainstream! | WEWANTSOUNDS
- "10 Commandments" | The Specials | Encore | Island
- "Olores" | Jaxe | Seekings EP | Dom Trojga
- "Cooper's Dream" | Elmono | Cooper's Dream EP | Tectonic
- "Dance Damage" | Algebra Mothers | A-Moms = Algebra Mothers | Third Man
- "I Feel Light" | A Certain Ratio | Mind Made Up | Mute
- "Sabbath" | Evi Vine | Black // Light // White // Dark | Solemn Wave
- "Dirty Games" | Saine & Smith | Dirty Games | 2MR
- "Have Mercy" | Loretta Lynn | Van Lear Rose | Interscope | "The Listening Parlour"
- "Lies" | Lara Americo | Hugs for Chelsea: benefit for Chelsea Manning | not on label
- "Robocop" | Haider | 10961 | Aus
- "Velvet" | Angel's Breath | Outro Tempo II | Music From Memory
- "Aquarius (Version 3)" | Boards of Canada | Peel Session | WARP
disturbing the comfortable, comforting the disturbed
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Thursday Feb 20, 2020
What Can We Do To Stop This Insanity? Transmission 500, 2019 December 11
Thursday Feb 20, 2020
Thursday Feb 20, 2020
Last night I had another teaching dream. I was in a large, run-down auditorium, lecturing as I once did to a few hundred people who would rather be somewhere else. (I keep having to remind myself this never had much to do with me.) It was a familiar lecture that I actually used to deliver in real life, one that I was good at and refined constantly. But my heart was not in it and I (or the material) was losing people. At some point I decreed a bathroom break; to my surprise it seemed that the auditorium was located in some city centre, next to a bunch of retail spaces. Most of my "audience" trailed off to various stores instead of returning to class, and frankly I think I chose this option too. The dream dissolved as usual into incoherence and I woke up, not wanting to sleep anymore.
This keeps happening, probably because I keep not learning from it. But I already know that I failed at being emotionally and spiritually present in my previous life. Did I always understand this? Funny story...
My academic misadventure is pretty neatly positioned between my two stints as a disc jockey. In January 1993 I did my last KDVS program five days before leaving for graduate school; the Bombast program launched about 16 months after I vacated my last faculty office. It's weird to demarcate things this way, but where is the lie?
Anyway, at the beginning of my MA program I needed some funds to float me for about a month or so before my graduate assistantship checks started rolling in--to cover niceties like rent, food, and so on. I had nothing worth selling except for records and CDs. It's wild to think about what was possible at that time, and what we valued. You can't make any money doing this today, no matter what Discogs tries telling you, but it absolutely worked for me at this time. AND, five months later, when my apartment was broken into, the thieves took my CDs and left my computer. If you were somehow transported back to that world, you would not recognize it.
So Lady Catharsis (yes, even then she was with me) drove me down to Amoeba in Berkeley and watched me unload about 1/3 of my collection. This wasn't one of those occasional prunings you do, just to make a little room, or because you've moved past certain things. You wouldn't believe the stuff I had to jettison. It felt like cutting off a limb. They'll tell you that commodity fetishism is a poor substitute for having a personality, and "they" are right. But I do have a personality, and this happened to hurt a lot. Sacrifices Had To Be Made, and I Needed To Grow Up. Sometimes I try to bargain with memory and imagine that maybe it was other people who told me these things, but I'm almost positive it was me saying them to myself. Anyway, in the moment you couldn't consider it anything but sensible, so onward and upward I went.
In times of acute stress and despair, during the ensuing years of being variously (and sometimes simultaneously) marginalized, stalked, overlooked, surveilled, bullied, swindled, targeted, and finally discarded, all while incurring tremendous debt and distancing myself geographically and emotionally from loved ones, I would think back to the Faustian bargain that made it all possible.
What if I had just said No, and kept my records?
How much worse would that have been? Is that a silly thing to wonder?
This is probably more than you want from a community radio podcast, sorry.
But when I speak grandly about the show's mission it's as real as it is selfish and mundane and ridiculous. I'm trying to close a circle and conjure a ghost--a lost child, maybe. If it's funny that I think of this as a self-healing ritual then at least I have brought you momentary amusement. That's something. It's amazing (even if behind the scenes I have fucking earned it and then some) that WRFI has let me do this for one thousand hours. Maybe one day I will even have spent as much time in the Kenny Ritter Memorial Studio as I spent standing in front of a resentful audience talking about things that don't matter to anyone.
Trying to rationalize what I did in this 500th ritual, I guess I would say I was a bit more overt about it than I am most of the time. Lady Catharsis told me to be my usual awesome self, and I have to say I was! It was not exactly a smooth blend of present and past, but somehow, magically, it worked.
Cabaret Voltaire actually has a song called "Invocation," but did you know that for me "Bad Self" truly invokes something? I have always loved it more than is healthy but the word "mercenary" has taken on special meaning in my postgrad life. Because I need to have some secrets I will just say that it has worked a kind of magic in my world. So this tune is a kind of theme song now for me, the guy who has no money and is letting you download his mixtapes with no strings attached.
Looking back at my other milestone programs, I don't think they were that remarkable or successful. Transmission 100 was all but a secret, executed late at night (I'm too old for that now!) and without planning or fanfare. I don't feel like hiding my light anymore as I must have felt back then. I tried to fold an acknowledgement of "200" into the usual business of that program, but you can always tell when a thing is forced. Episode 300, looking back, was a kind of Oedipal moment--the patricidal kind, not the incestuous kind--that had to be happening in a downward spiral. At the moment I'm not interested in hearing it again. The 400th show was a disaster--another magic word!--but it is one of many lessons I am learning these days about boundaries. However, this one, right here, makes me proud. It even made me proud in the moment!
But I must continue to own my negligence. Since this program was broadcast, 71 days ago now, I've gone on the air 12 times. At the gym (always the fucking gym) I am listening back to a transmission from 39 days ago. I've just finished editing a sound file from 22 days ago--5 shows ago. Running through the archive, I note that I have spent an awful lot of time being two months behind here. Maybe I should just embrace that.
I know that you people don't read, but for just a moment longer I'm going to pretend that you do, and mention that a few posts ago I promised some statistics. But I've decided to spare you because if you've made it this far you've been through enough. Look, sometimes I flake out and sometimes even I get bored with me. Isn't it time for a bathroom break, or some shopping, or something? Anything?
Sweet dreams.
BOMBAST playlist, 2019 December 11, 2100-2300:
- "Party at Ground Zero" | Fishbone | Fishbone | Columbia
- "The Revolution Will Be Televised" | Tupelo Chain Sex | Spot the Difference | Selma
- "Menebo Nden" | Moussa Doumbia | Sound d'Afrique II - Soukous | Mango
- "Ooze" | 23 Skidoo | The Gospel Comes to New Guinea | Ronin
- "No Age Dub" | Lee "Scratch" Perry | Life of the Plants | Stones Throw
- "Tea Leaf Dancers" | Flying Lotus | Presents INFINITY Infinitum Maida Vale Session | WARP
- "Metal Banshee (Mad Professor Mix One)" | Massive Attack | Massive Attack V Mad Professor Part II (Mezzanine Remix Tapes '98) | UMC / Virgin
- "Confession" | Chris & Cosey | Exotika [reissue] | Conspiracy International
- "For Suzanne" | The Durutti Column | Fidelity [reissue] | Les Disques Du Crépuscule
- "Stop the Coup (Mikk Stupp - Rocked out Miami Remix)" | Cabinet of Millionaires vs Zion Train | Stop The Coup | Chocolate Fireguard
- "Privatise the Air" / "Privatise the Air Pt. 2" | Gary Clail & On-U Sound System | End of the Century Party | On-U Sound
- "Motivation" | The London Underground | Current Affairs Session | On-U Sound
- "Bad Self (Part One)" | Cabaret Voltaire | James Brown | Virgin / Some Bizarre
- "Space Dookie / At Last" | Afriqua | Colored | R & S
- "The Tides" | Jeff Mills | Moon (The Area of Influence) | Axis
- "March of the Rising Sun" | The Comet Is Coming | Death to the Planet | Leaf
- "Hum Along And Dance" | The Jackson 5ive | Get It Together | Motown
motivated by hype and avarice
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Sunday Feb 16, 2020
Cruising Altitude Departure 33, 2019 December 7
Sunday Feb 16, 2020
Sunday Feb 16, 2020
[GUEST POST]
Good morning, friends, it's Captain Halcyon, dropping in to provide what I hope is a nice little break from this site's usual content. It's been seven months since I've done this--have you missed me? I have missed these departures, but we have tried the "regularly scheduled appearance" strategy and like most other things it didn't work. Thankfully no one was hurt!
Anyhow, sometime while I was away, I suppose, this "program" celebrated a sixth birthday. That we have only done 33 of these excursions feels more right than wrong. There is no demand whatsoever for these transmissions, and they can't be special if they happen all the time. (Is this what the kids call a "subtweet?") All that said, I feel like our journeys add up to a coherent...something. This one was maybe a bit heavier and choppier than whatever I must have first imagined in the "halcyon" summer of 2013, but living things are bound to change.
Fly with me next time, whenever that is, and we'll see how things are different, and how they are the same.
CRUISING ALTITUDE playlist, 2019 December 7, 1000-1100:
- "Blue" | Not Waving | Futuro (Music for the Waldorf Project) | Ecstatic
- "Racimos De Luz" | Federico Durand | Pequeñas Melodías | IIKKI
- "Mouthless Dub" | Jay Glass Dubs | Plegnic | Ecstatic
- "ស្ថានីយ៍ដំបូង s u n r i s e ░ f i r s t s t o p ░" | s i r o s ស៊ីរ៉ែន | Sualo Gevor | Virtual Soundsystem
- "(This Is) Water" | Soap&Skin | From Gas to Solid / you are my friend | Play It Again Sam
- "Zweitens" | Max Würden Feat. Luis Reichard | Pop Ambient 2019 | Kompakt
- "Breathe the Snake 1" | UnicaZürn | Transpandorem | Touch
- "Dekka" | Anton Kubikov | Pop Ambient 2017 | Kompakt
- "Bright Light" | Fumio Miyashita | Wave Sounds of the Universe | Personal Affair
- "A" | Trudge | 100 | 1Ø PILLS MATE
- "Shinkiroh" | Toshifumi Hinata | Broken Belief | Music from Memory
Saturday Feb 15, 2020
Saturday Feb 15, 2020
Sports radio chuds would call a fixture like this a "trap game." The "birthday episode" was last week. The milestone episode is next week. This is just a low-stakes Wednesday night radio shift, right? Just routine stuff, our usual but always awesome "special time together."
As always, these engagements don't work out as planned (the question, "why do we never plan differently," has never been answered). The studio computers decided to do a Maximum Overdrive on me, which explains why Slowness magically keeps pausing and why at one point Stereolab is playing from two different sources. (It does not explain why I survived to write about the experience). I cannot say I did much better, talking over Karyyn and messing up The Miller Sisters in every possible way.
Since this program was broadcast, 73 days ago now, I've gone on the air 12 times. At the gym I am listening to a transmission from 38 days ago. I'm currently editing a sound file from 31 days ago--5 shows ago. I've had a lot of time and distraction to buffer this awkward experience, and I have to say it's working!
I did get praise for playing Chris and Cosey, as one should! And the segue from David J to Flying Lotus was a special moment. Truly "I Know Not What I Do" but, like the proverbial monkeys working at typewriters I will arbitrarily produce brilliance if you give me enough time.
BOMBAST playlist, 2019 December 4, 2100-2300:
- "Sand & Stone" | Slowness | Berths | Schoolkids
- "Italian Shoes Continuum" | Stereolab | Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in The Milky Night (Expanded Edition) | Duophonic / WARP
- "I Am the Sweeper (Macerator Remix)" | Diane Marie Kloba | D.M.K vs S.K.1.2.3 | self-released
- "For the Future" | Elmono | Cooper's Dream EP | Tectonic
- "SEGMENT & THE LINE" | KARYYN | The Quanta Series | Mute
- "The 21st Century Is Killing Me" | The Membranes | What Nature Gives...Nature Takes Away | Cherry Red
- "Home Is Where the Music is" | rRoxymore | Face to Phase | Don't Be Afraid
- "4 Cantos" | Bixiga 70 | Quebra Cabeca | Glitterbeat
- "We Are Coming Home - 2 Paris Septembre Re-edit" | Pat Thomas | Disco Highlife Reedit Series Vol. 2 | Comet
- "Penalties of Love" | Sequoyah Murray | Before You Begin | Thrill Jockey
- "Pictures Of You" | The Royal Landscaping Society | Disintegration Revisited | The Blog That Celebrates Itself
- "DAY 1" | Islam Chipsy & EEK | Kahraman | 100Copies
- "whisper" | serpentwithfeet | soil | Secretly Canadian
- "Talk To Me" | Chris and Cosey | Songs of Love & Lust [reissue] | Conspiracy International
- "Boganga & sandia" | AMMAR 808 | Maghreb United | Glitterbeat
- "There's No Right Way To Do Me Wrong" | The Miller Sisters | Hillbilly Fillies & Rockin' Chicks | Charly | "The Listening Parlour"
- "Closedown" | Os Gambitos ft. Mari Bonanomi | Disintegration Revisited | The Blog That Celebrates Itself
- "هيلا Hela" | Carl Gari & Abdullah Miniawy | Whities 023 (The Act Of Falling From The 8th Floor) | Whities"
- "Uneffable" | Creep Show | Uneffable | Bella Union
- "Vernissage Anticonspiratoria" | Repetentes 2008 | Galaxia Fini | Superconscious
- "The Auteur (Redux The Starlet's Cut)" | David J | Missive to an Angel from the Halls of Infamy and Allure | Glass Modern
- "Golden Axe" | Flying Lotus | Presents INFINITY Infinitum Maida Vale Session | WARP
- "Self Stockholm Syndrome" | Bambounou | Musique Ambiante Française - Vol. 2 | Tigersushi
- "I Know Not What I Do" | AFRODEUTSCHE | RR001 | River Rapid
We don't have to become anything else
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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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Tuesday Feb 11, 2020
People Are Telling You, "Be in the Moment": Transmission 497, 2019 November 20
Tuesday Feb 11, 2020
Tuesday Feb 11, 2020
We made it! But where? The end of the pre-holiday period, of course. Since I write this with the advantage of hindsight, I can share with you my current feeling that maybe the period between Thanksgiving and New Year's is the only part of my radio calendar that matters. But I don't know how to have that period without also grinding out content for the other 47 weeks of the year, so until I figure it out we'll have to make it through programs like this one. Together.
Since this program was broadcast, 83 days ago now, I've gone on the air 13 times. I just finished listening to a transmission from 49 days ago. I'm currently editing a sound file from 31 days ago--5 shows ago. I've come a long way since I began this chronicle of guilt.
Before I finish posting this I want to take a moment to congratulate Special Interest, as their song was number 12,000 in this ongoing radio adventure. Surely the honor means a lot to them, so it's important for them to know. When we reach episode 500 I'll have some other statistics that will also interest no one. Other things did happen on this broadcast. Despite some crazy song choices, it sounded great, and the segue between Flying Lotus and The Comet Is Coming was absolutely out of this world. Who cares if it was obvious?
BOMBAST playlist, 2019 November 20, 2100-2300:
- "Nasty Boy" | Törsh | Nasty Days | Zissou
- "Cricket Pit" | 4T Thieves and Pandacetamol | She danced on the sand | Kahvi Collective
- "Breathe" | Slowness | Berths | Schoolkids
- "Fall In" | Chikaya | Test of Time | False Idols
- "Black Precious Colour" | Felixson Ngasia & The Survivals | Nigeria 70: No Wahala: Highlife, Afro-Funk & Juju 1973-1987 | Strut
- "T 3.6" | Carter Tutti Void | Triumvirate | Conspiracy International
- "Ten Notes On a Summer's Day - Instrumental Mix" | Crass | Ten Notes On a Summer's Day | Caroline
- "Between Spaces" | Deep Nalström | Naive Melodies | Natural Selection
- "Mundiya Loju" | M.A. Jaiyesimi & His Crescent Bros Band | Nigeria 70: No Wahala: Highlife, Afro-Funk & Juju 1973-1987 | Strut
- "Hemmingway's Tell" | Kristin Hersh | Spark Meet Gasoline | self-released | "The Listening Parlour"
- "Engineered Uncertainty" | Moor Mother | Analog Fluids of Solid Black Holes | Don Giovanni
- "There's a Rainbow" | James Clarke Five | Parloursounds [reissue] | The Beautiful Music
- "World Leader Pretend" | Corrections | Welcome To The Occupation, A Reverence to R.E.M. | The Blog That Celebrates Itself
- "Love Break" | DJ Marky | Should I | Innerground
- "Fluid (Bound 2)" | Special Interest | Spiraling | Anxious
- "G-Star" | Jeff Mills | SIGHT SOUND AND SPACE | Axis
- "Come And Play In The Milky Night" | Stereolab | Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in The Milky Night (Expanded Edition) | Duophonic / WARP
- "Crystal Clear" | Goldie | Saturnz Return (2019 Remaster) | London
- "Lamuka" | Zazou / Bikaye / CY1 | Noir Et Blanc | Crammed Discs
- "Meteo Dreams" | elAstrum | Freqmod | Kahvi Collective
- "Lage - African Acid Is The Future Outerlude" | Edmony Krater | African Acid Is The Future: Ambiance II | The Vinyl Factory
- "119 Black Key Experiment (Continuation Interlude)" | Fred P | Lush Culture | Perpetual Sound
- "Resplandor" | John Beltran | Resol | Red Shield
- "MmmHmm" | Flying Lotus | Presents INFINITY Infinitum Maida Vale Session | WARP
- "The Softness of the Present" / "The Afterlife" | The Comet Is Coming | The Afterlife | Impulse
- "Heal You" | TENNIN | Test of Time | False Idols
Come and stay, bring the stars
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