Lose Some Sleep and Say You Tried: Transmission 221, 2015 July 15

This was a fun program, albeit (or because it was?) overdetermined. I had a plan going in, and then I had another plan, which was sort of not to have a plan, so I brought in way too much stuff and this is what happened. Window Window, "Physical Evidence" on the night, was always part of the plan and not-plan and therefore aired as planned or not-planned.

For a little while I had an in-studio guest, Alex Reed of Seeming and of this tome. He is an aspiring WRFI personality and contributed the Rhythm & Noise track to the evening's set. Making his acquaintance, and digging through the book, have got me thinking about the past, to which I am prone anyway.

I was really into Wax Trax! in the mid-80s and remember playing a lot of that stuff on the radio back then. I recently took another look at their Black Box collection, which I once owned (the metal / fishnet edition, with coasters & loose audiotape and everything), but wound up selling. Almost none of it interests me. I wonder why and how that happened, as I tend to hang onto things, emotionally if not literally. It takes quite a lot to provoke a "that's no longer me" response. You'd think I would remember such a catalyst, but apparently my drift into "shoegaze" / "dreampop" / "afrofuturism" is part of that "lost time" that my (as yet unretained) therapist and I need to unlock.

I suspect that my fascination with that music had a lot to do with my search for something that sounded like the washing machine mentioned in this interview (what a different time that was), and that at one point there was (or seemed from a distance to be) such a small set of that music that nearly all of it sufficed. I didn't like it when the music turned functional and/or got names. I didn't like it when things went showbiz (e.g. the antics of Trent Reznor). I didn't like it when it became de rigeur to sample evangelicals (Cabaret Voltaire owned that gesture from the get-go). I really didn't like it when blackness was incorporated appropriated as kitsch (h/t to Alex for articulating that one).

Maybe I don't need a therapist after all, but I still don't know when/how the cumulative effect of all this hit me.

What is ok: Coil, of course, and Chris & Cosey; the subjects of this book; Legendary Pink Dots (though they'd never be considered "industrial" by 2015 standards); Test Dept.; Bourbonese Qualk; just about everyone in the Industrial Culture Handbook (although Boyd Rice* and Genesis P-Orridge are thoroughly insufferable for various reasons). Oh, and Suicide, to whom just about everyone owes a debt.**

Almost forgot: With Sympathy by Ministry. That is ok too, fake accent and all.

BOMBAST playlist, 2015 July 15, 2100-2300:

1. "Red Skeletons" | Coil Presents Black Light District | A Thousand Lights in a Darkened Room | Eskaton
2. "Auto-Suggestion" | Joy Division | Substance | Factory
3. "Desert - Danton Eeprom Protofunk Rework" | Mahk & Morpheus | Desert | Souvenir
4. "Window Window" | Cassegrain & Tin Man | Window Window | Infrastructure New York | "Physical Evidence"
5. "Next Door" | Deru | Trying to Remember | Merck
6. "Without Your Eye" | Rhythm & Noise | Chasms Accord | Asphodel
7. "Moon Scapes 2703 BC" | The Orb | Moonbuilding 2073 AD | Kompakt
8. "Breathe Deep" | Cabaret Voltaire | 2 x 45 | Rough Trade
9. "Ether Ether" | Cassegrain & Tin Man | Window Window | Infrastructure New York | "Physical Evidence"
10. "Il Collo et la Collana 06" | Rayon | Il Collo et la Collana | Alien Transistor
11. "Flying Fortress" | Weird Owl | Interstellar Skeletal | A Recordings
12. "Chinese Rocks" | Johnny Thunders | I ♥ NY Punk | Mojo Magazine
13. "Anneannemin Koah'si" | Ah! Kosmos | Flesh | Denovali
14. "Seduct Seduct" | Cassegrain & Tin Man | Window Window | Infrastructure New York | "Physical Evidence"
15. "Afghani Dub" | The Mothmen | Pay Attention! | On-U Sound
16. "Central Control" / "Round Up the Usual Suspects" | Barry Adamson | Moss Side Story | Mute
17. "Crucial Tony Tries to Rescue the Space Invaders" | The Dub Syndicate | An On-U Journey Through Time & Space | On-U Sound
18. "Subliminal" | WhoMadeWho | Ember EP | Get Physical
19. "No. 29 Pareto 20/80" | Terron | Whities 003 | Whities
20. "Modulor Mix" | Air | Premiers Symptomes | Rhino
21. "Dings" | Tiefschwarz | Left | Watergate
22. "Faint Faint" | Cassegrain & Tin Man | Window Window | Infrastructure New York | "Physical Evidence"

just wondering where i fit in

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* ugh, though, still have some Boyd Rice in the collection.

**also the Cabs. And 23 Skidoo. and Zoviet:France. I'm probably finished now.