Like Hypnotizing Chickens: Transmission 207, 2015 May 26

"Hey, can you play a chicken song?" asks the caller. "My friend--I'm stoned right now--my friend here is running for city council and wants to make it legal to raise chickens in town." Just a regular night in the radio control booth. We never did get around to pinpointing such a song, by the way, but did settle--later, as this person (let's call him Tom) kept calling, and calling, and calling back--on "Lust for Life," because "it has that beat." Fair enough.

Sometimes new hosts ask if we have a request policy. We don't, although (because?) I am of two different minds about it.

On the one hand, there is that time we received a donation of a couple hundred dollars from a grateful listener because we snuck a random song, completely out of context, into an environmental program on his wife's birthday; even when a trainee says "I don't plan on playing records" (which in a perfect world would be grounds for disqualification) I insist on showing them how, "because you never know when some desperate person is going to offer the station ten thousand dollars if we play a request that will save his marriage."

On the other, for me personally it has to be in context, and something that I could see myself playing if left to my own devices (or have played, like "I Zimbra"). Can you imagine someone calling up a public affairs program, saying, "hey, could you guys take a break from talking about drone warfare and start discussing tax legislation?" It never happens, so, no, I won't be taking detours into Americana just because someone can use a phone.

We depend on people like Tom, though, even if he doesn't give us any money (although he should, as he owns a head shop--yes, that's actually true). You do need to know that someone is out there, listening. And, bless him, he was grateful. "I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart," he gushed at the end of the show, even as I told him I couldn't fit in the fifth thing he tried to have me play. "I'm petting a cat right now."
 
BOMBAST playlist, 2015 May 26, 2100-2300:

1. "Intro" | Sonic Youth | Bad Moon Rising | Goofin'
2. "Public Image" | Jah Wobble | Merry Go Round | Cherry Red
3. "Leave" | Aerosol | Leave | n5MD
4. "Prisoner of the Earth" | William S. Burroughs | William S. Burroughs - In Dub (Selected by Dub Spencer & Trance Hill) | Echo Beach
5. "Fantastic Voyage" | David Bowie | Lodger | EMI
6. "The Only Repeat" | Prefuse 73 | The Only She Chapters | Warp
7. "Asunder, Sweet" / "Piss Crowns Are Trebled" | Godspeed You! Black Emperor | Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress | Constellation
8. "Dust Heads" | Les Big Byrd | Liquid Sky EP | Hoga Nord
9. "Sundrops" | Kristin Hersh | Sundrops / Cuckoo | Heliospheric | "Parlour of Evidence"
10. "The Man that Time Forgot" | Nightingales | Mind Over Matter | Louder than War
11. "I Takeskogen" | Trulz & Robin | I Takeskogen | Full Pupp
12. "Night Driver" | Blind Idiot God | Before Ever After | Indivisible
13. "Lust For Life" | Iggy Pop | Lust For Life | Virgin
14. "Recovery (Vessels Remix)" | Rival Consoles | Odyssey / Sonne | Erased Tapes
15. "I Zimbra" | Talking Heads | Fear of Music | Sire
16. "Duration" | James Welburn | Hold | Miasmah
17. "Cuckoo" | Kristin Hersh | Sundrops / Cuckoo | Heliospheric | "Parlour of Evidence"
18. "Exodus" | Bob Marley & The Wailers | Legend | Island
19. "Final Solution" | Pere Ubu | Elitism for the People 1975-1978 | Fire
20. "East Kennet Skies" | July Skies | Dreaming of Spires | Rocket Girl
21. "Moon Eye" | Walls | Urals | Ecstatic

next time: the good times are killing me.