WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Radio News You Can't Use

I apologize, it's been far too long since I've used this blog to geek out on radio news. A few recent happenings have drawn me out of this whole "working in radio" thing and into talking smack about it on the internet for a few minutes!

First up: Webcasting Royalties
In case you haven't heard, webcasters and SoundExchange (the web streaming arm of the RIAA) have renegotiated terms for webcasting royalties. Instead of accepting SoundExchange's initial offer of web performance royalty rates that would surely put webcasters out of business, webcasters threw a fit (we were part of the fit), held rounds and rounds of negotiations, and over a year later accepted a new rate scheme that would only nearly put them out of business. These new terms, which for large webcasters is a minimum of 25% of annual revenue, have been lauded by some. However, if you look at typical performance royalty rates for satellite radio (6.5% in 2009), or ASCAP/BMI royalties for terrestrial radio (roughly 1 - 3%), that 25% figure starts to look bloated. Luckily for WFMU, NFCB and CPB made separate negotiations with SoundExhange including more affordable rates, and we are covered under these terms.

New FCC Chair
The Obama administration's nominee for FCC Chair, Julius Genachowski, was recently confirmed by the Senate. After outgoing FCC Chair Kevin Martin thoroughly angered congress and the public with scandalous antics like that Details magazine spread, relaxing media consolidation rules, and "losing" an important study on media ownership (and all the while leading the fight against broadcast indecency) Genachowski has some mopping up to do. The good news is, Genachowski has heard of the internet: he believes in net neutrality and might actually re-do the FCC's website to make it a little less 1996ish (more on the Genachowski team here). The bad news is, Genachowski leans towards the gestapistic view of broadcast indecency (he supports enforcing fines for fleeting profanity), and the FCC's main proponent of 1st Amendment protections, Jonathan Adelstein, will be leaving the commission soon.

Nouvelle Vague Live at WFMU - hot vidz!

Oh my gawd, y'all, when these people were in Love Room, it was all I could do to keep myself from reaching through the glass and gently stroking their faces as they sang.

The two sexiest voices in English-speaking Frenchpop, covering Sex Pistols, Violent Femmes, Depeche Mode, and Talking Heads....DANG!

Listen to the whole show here.

Thanks a zillion to Aldona Watts and Raymond Park for doing the video.

2 MORE VIDEOS AFTER THE JUMP!

Nouvelle Vague's new album "NV3" will be out in September.  It features guest performances from Martin Gore (Depeche Mode), Terry Hall (The Specials), Ian MacCullough (Echo and the Bunnymen), and Barry Adamson (Magazine).

Bobb Trimble and the Flying Spiders live at WFMU (mp3's)

<-- Bobb Trimble (r) with Gary War on guitar and Nick Branigan on drums. Along with Kris Thompson on bass and Karina DaCosta on vox, you've got The Flying Spiders, photographed here in the WFMU live room (by Tiffany Camhi)

In his early 20s, Bobb Trimble self-released two surreal psychedelic folk albums: "Iron Curtain Innocence" (1980) and "Harvest of Dreams" (1982). He played a handful of shows around the local Worcester, MA area with teenage backing bands The Kidds and The Crippled Dog Band, then disappeared. Meanwhile, his recordings lived on as sought-after collector's items, and inspired countless contemporary artists like Ariel Pink and Gary War. In 2007, Secretly Canadian reissued both Bobb Trimble albums, inspiring Bobb Trimble's Flying Spiders to come together for a series of special shows, including the Homegrown psychedelic music festival taking place this July in Boston. Backed by the Flying Spiders, Bobb Trimble made his NYC-area debut last Thursday at the Rose Live Bar, and it was quite an event (you can read more about it at Vanity Fair). The next day, they stopped by WFMU to pre-tape a live set that aired on yesterday's episode of Talk's Cheap.

The set included a bunch of classic songs from Bobb's two official albums, but it also included four songs that had never been released stateside. We're psyched to be able to share live versions of "Live Wire, Live Wire", "The Camel Song", "Angel Eyes," and "Undercovers Man" (mp3's all of 'em) here on the Free Music Archive.

70's Celebrity Anti-Drug PSA's pt 1

With 'celebrities' of sorts on the mind, and perhaps muddled somewhat by extreme Heartland-style heat, I'll present the first seven of many Anti-Drug PSAs that I enjoy. There are 29 more of these mainly music-industry celebs that I'll get to later on, as well as the Mel Blanc ones, which I've been saving for some special occasion. Whatever that'll be. These files are from a cassette I made of the lp of radio-only PSAs, one of many interesting albums lying around KZSC in 1982. Upon basking in many of these at a time, one is always impressed at how carefully the 'bad/troublesome' drugs are segregated by the various personalities involved, as well as the ones recorded while apparently high, which kinda dulls the message a bit. I think actually many of these folks sounded loaded whether they were or not. The Peter Yarrow psa in particular is an old favorite. His seething anger and the final death threat are such a treat. Jon Anderson also steps up in this set with a nice little rambling and almost incoherent 'warning'.

Paul Williams     Jackie Wilson     Johhny Winter     Bill Withers     Peter Yarrow     Jon Anderson     Jesse Colin Young

My Castle of Quiet Radio, Premiering Tonight

After a sabbatical of over ten years, where I was immersed in vital and dangerous field research, I'll be returning to WFMU's weekly airwaves tonight at 8 p.m.

I'm in search of ossuaries, graveyards, gothic cemetaries, horror-film festivals and vampire clubs interested in hosting live, remote broadcasts. 

Live playlist available here.

WFMU Archives: a Real Audio-free Future

Beginning July 12th, WFMU's new archives will no longer be available in 20k Real Audio, and this change will affect archive listeners on a dial-up connection. Going forward, all new archives will be available in the higher quality 64k AAC+ format, which sounds fantastic with our new Pop-Up Player. If you listen to our 128k MP3 archives, fear not, no changes are being made in that dept.

How will the change affect your archive listening? (Read more)

If you have DSL, cable, or a T1 internet connection:
For Pop-Up AAC+ archives to work, Javascript must be enabled (info here) and you need Flash Player plugin 9 or higher. Pop-Up archives can only be played inside your web browser (they load in a pop-up window, try one out here). You can still listen to our 128k MP3 archives using external programs like iTunes or Winamp (although these archives expire after 4 weeks, as they have done in the past).

If you have a dial-up connection:
Due to the higher quality and higher bit-rate of our new archive format, your internet connection speed will not be able to accomodate archive listening going forward. Rest assured that we will continue to offer our live streams in Real Audio and Windows Media, at bit-rates appropriate for dial-up connections. All of WFMU's Real Audio archives prior to July 12, 2009 will remain available on our website for your listening pleasure, but new archives going forward will no longer be offered in Real Audio.

Another One Bites the Dust

Good-bye, Nickelodeon Magazine! Home in print of many fine Cartoonist-Listeners, and former employer of little freelance writer Bronwyn C.  Goodbye, too, to Radio and Records mag, dead and dead as of yesterday.

A Memory With Trip Lane Doctor Down

A lot of comedy groups have flung open the mind's ramparts over the years and many have coerced this writer's style and approach but few like the Firesign Theater and littler still like the mad fresh improvisation done on their live radio programs in 1970 and '71.

A CAMP (f/ Nina Persson of the Cardigans) LIVE tonight - with HD Video!

Wow, you know, every once in a while, things really just turn out pretty awesome, like this performance from A Camp that will air tonight on Sound and Safe.  Four perfectly-rendered pop songs - including a cover of Eddie Noack's weird and wonderful "Psycho" - done by my favorite singer in the world, Nina Persson, with husband Nathan Larson (of Shudder to Think) on bass, and Niclas Frisk (of Atomic Swing) on guitar.

We got some really nice HD video of the songs - check out a preview here, for the song "Love Has Left the Room." 

Thanks very much to Tim Smith and Jacqueline Castel for shooting the video.

Tune in tonight to hear all four songs and to see all four videos.  Also keep an eye on the Free Music Archive for MP3s of the set.

A Camp kicks off a North American tour at Bowery Ballroom tomorrow night.  Their new album Colonia is out now.

Horndogs Rejoice! - Sexlab Cometh

Have you ever wanted to ask a WFMU radio personality about cunnilingus technique, clitoral stimulation, anal doucheing or "the helicopter"? Yeah, maybe not. But this Friday you'll have your chance anyway, when Sexlab hits the Web waves.

Conceived in a hailstorm of double entendres by our illustrious Queen of Friday Nights, Pseu "Honey Pot" Braun, and gestated in a dong-shaped space station by Pseu and her colleagues / co-researchers Mark "ASS9000" Allen and myself, Wm. "Money Shot" Berger, Sexlab is designed to hold your, um, "hand" and glide you into this new century of suckin' and fuckin'.

While Dave Mandl fills in for Pseu at our FM frequencies and on the regular Web stream, Sexlab will be streaming (with volume AND distance!) at an alternate Web feed accessible at wfmu.org. As Mark says, "online only, because in the Internet the FCC can't hear you curse."

And me? I started rubbing it to Morticia Addams when I was eight years old, and I haven't looked back since. I've been told more than once that I have an "enthusiasm," a certain bonus zeal for the sex act, so hopefully my life of gradual transition from hyper-libidinous man-slut to happily monogged married man will be of service to someone. And my colleagues, well they're unrepentantly horny bastards, too. Either way, Pseu, Mark and I can pretty much guarantee it will be funny (and hopefully genuinely informative as well.)

Sexlab will be live on the Web, this Friday, May 22, from 8-11 p.m. ET. We'll be taking your calls at (201) 209–9368 (for those prone to jump the gun, store that load in your third eye and call us then, not before.) If you'd like to submit a question or suggest a discussion topic in advance (or during the broadcast), we've set up a special email address: asksexlab@wfmu.org

Sexlab Facebook Page (for throbbing members only)

WMFU

No, the headline above is not a typo. It's deliberately intended to be rendered as W-M-F-U. You WFMU listeners may notice something different in the way the on-air DJ gives the required legal ID every hour on the hour from this moment on. What at first listen may appear to be an outbreak of mass DJ dyslexia will reveal itself to be something a smidge more prosaic (and potentially either more maddening or more enjoyable, depending on whether you're on the business side or the pleasure side of the WFMU listening experience). 

In 1994, a radio station located in New York's Hudson Valley was donated to WFMU, which we employed to repeat our broadcast signal to a wider terrestrial audience. Its assigned call letters were WXHD, broadcasting at 90.1 FM. Being that this particular (and particularly unattractive) call sign was to be heard only once an hour, as part of our mantra-like legal station identification — let's all recite it: "WFMU East Orange, WXHD Mount Hope, wfmu.org" — there was little reason to do anything about changing it. After all, for all purposes, no matter where or how you heard our freeform radio magic, our identity (our "brand," if you will) is that of WFMU.

Except to those people who would invariably get it wrong. 

Bang on a Jam 2009, hosted by Billy Jam

In case you missed the crazy-fun Bang on a Jam noisefest on Billy Jam's show last week, you can download the whole segment here:

Bang on a Jam - 2009 (MP3) | Playlist

Who made all that racket? Billy Jam, Station Manager Ken, Jason Sigal, Doron, Scott Williams, Jeff Mullan, Mike, Nick The Bard, and Bill Bowen, that's who.

Bang on a Jam began in 2008 after Billy was underwhelmed by the annual Bang on a Can festival in NYC. Clearly the Can has been upstaged by the Jam!

Billboard Magazine archives on Google Books

Just spent some time flipping through old issues of Billboard Magazine via Google Books. Turns out the goog has scanned and posted full issues of the magazine, dating all the way back to 1942.

Though it's mainly an industry mag, you'll find tons of gems like goofy old ads, lots of bad hair, an article about piracy/copyright in just about every other issue, anti smut campaigns throughout the ages, and a nice overall documentation of the rise and demise of the record industry.

Chris Morris - Blue Jam Monologues (video)

I recently discovered a whole series of Chris Morris monologues from his 'ambient radio comedy' series Blue Jam on YouTube. It was originally aired on BBC Radio 1 between 1997 and 1999, and if you don't know it, just imagine a British version of Joe Frank. Here is monologue #1, "Guns".

More on YouTube: The Blue Jam Monologues

Megapolis Audio Festival, Boston : April 24 - 26

Heads-up Bostonites, a cool DIY audio arts festival is headed your way: Megapolis, April 24-26.

"Artists, documentarians, musicians, and fans come together to share secrets on producing and presenting challenging audio works online, on-air, and on the stage."

Tons of cool sessions are planned: learn about field recording, circuit bending, illegal art, activist films, sound art and collage, audio production, radio wizardry, electro-acoustic instrument building, and more! Folks from the Third Coast Audio Festival, free103point9, WZBC, WYPR, WNYC, Mecca Normal, MIT, and tons of other groups and working artists will be representing.

On top of all this wonderment, Jason Sigal and I will make a mind-blowing presentation about the Free Music Archive on Sat Apr 25, 11:30am-1pm (@ Public Radio Exchange, 3rd Floor, 50 Church St., Cambridge UPDATE: venue change.... Nelson Mandela room at the Democracy Center, 45 Mt. Auburn St).

Hope to see you there!

Megapolis Schedule | Ticket Info | Blargh

Ten Things I Hate About NPR

I've been listening to NPR for 35 years now. Like the New York Times and injecting heroin directly into my spine, it's a bad habit I just can't quit.

There are certainly many good things about NPR (Radio Lab, On The Media) and our local NPR station here (WNYC) has all sorts of good offerings, and an outstanding web presence. But for Easter Sunday, I prefer to focus on the negative. Here then, ten things that drive me crazy about the network offerings from NPR/PRI.

1) Puzzlemaster Will Shortz. Forget "liberal bias." Shortz's Sunday segments on Weekend Edition are the single worst thing on the radio today. If Republicans ever stumble onto these sonic abominations, they'll finally be able to overcome the powerful Big Bird Lobby and cut funding to CPB like they've been dreaming about. 

From the NPR slagfest on the unfogged forum: "(Take) that execrable puzzle crap with Will Shortz and the woman announcer who giggles like an idiot at everything he says. "Take a fifteen-letter word that contains the syllable "cat" in it. Now alter all the letters whose position in the alphabet corresponds to a prime number; you should come up with a word that describes a bizarre form of foot fungus. Write in with your answers . . . " "He he he he, ooooh, that's going to be a hard one!"

2) Those irksome solo bassoon bumpers between segments on All Things Considered. Classical academic whimsy like this oughta be illegal.

3) Ordinary person commentaries. Unfogged's Timothy Burke put it best:

"I hate the goddamn local commentaries from various hopelessly banal radio "essayists" around the country that they sandwich in between the reportage in a desperate attempt to produce something of a local flavor. "All Things Considered" will be humming along just fine, perfectly interesting, and suddenly they'll serve up a steaming pile of sub-Andy Rooneyish crap from some person--a "philosopher" who has noticed that modernist buildings look all the same, as in one recent one, or some middle-aged person in Shilo who tries to do a faux-folksy thing on her local supermarket, or whatever."

4) Any NPR story about hip hop. Maybe it's the perfectly enunciated rap terms, or maybe it's leads like this: "Hip-hop, maybe more than any other kind of music, is a melding of genres. Soul, funk, R&B, all laid over a hard beat and a rhyming verse."

5) Matching Gift Periods: A more dishonest (albeit legal) fundraising scam was never devised. How often does it happen that the needed total for a fundraising match period is not met, and the original match is then withdrawn? Try: never.

6) Recipe Segments. In all fairness, Mama Stamberg's Cranberry Relish Recipe was really heartwarming the first 25 Thanksgivings I heard it.

7) The Takeaway. This is what happens when you take a great interviewer with an unappealing personality (John Hockenberry), team him up with a producer who can't rein him in, and give them both millions of dollars and instruct them to get all "Web 2.0."

8) Politically Correct Pronunciation. I'm still trying to get a handle on the rules here. Latin and Spanish words have to be pronounced with a Spanish accent. This is not necessary, however, for French or other European languages.

9) End of Module Musical Segments. Perhaps the only thing worse than NPR's stories about hip hop and rap are the musical stories that aren't about hip hop and rap, namely the majority of the end-of-30-minute module stories on ATC about up and coming folk rock and alt rock acts.

10) Notice how I didn't mention Ira Glass, Diane Rheim, Daniel Schorr or Liane Hansen?

Stain, Afterburn, and Echo / the Aftermyth of Throbbing Gristle

The immersion. A stinging. There is only color. No shape. No front or back, simply orbits rippling back from a central disturbance. Some lighter bodies become vapor rather than resolve into the growing hum that shoots through mass and time.

Lou D'Antonio (1936-2009)

Lou D'Antonio, longtime host of The Hour of the Duck, passed away on March 28 in Vermont at age 72.

Lou joined the station in 1962, six years before the advent of free-form, hosting an eclectic jazz program. When free-form was introduced by a gaggle of hippies (including Vin Scelsa) in '68, Lou (a self-described "clean-cut, preppie type") made the open-playlist transition seamlessly. He remained an iconic figure at WFMU until he retired in 1990.

Everyone in the WFMU community owes Lou a silent debt of gratitude for keeping free-form radio alive when the underground format was being overtaken by niche-casting in the early 1970s.

Drawing on his early radio heroes Jean Shepherd, Bob & Ray, and Symphony Sid, Lou evolved a warm, erudite, self-effacing, and highly entertaining style. His joie de vivre on mic was no stage persona. Lou was the same charismatic individual on the air and off.

Radio personality. Storyteller. Bon vivant. Zen sage. Family man. Actor. Athlete. Hepcat. Historian. Philosopher. Humorist. Chef. Musician. Teacher. Epicure. Diplomat. Mediator. Mentor. Lou was Fred Astaire -- he was multi-talented, did everything with singular style and natural grace, and made it all look easy.

Photos of Lou and reminiscences from staff and volunteers are being posted on WFMU's In Memoriam page, which includes a link (at bottom) to the D'Antonio family's memorial at Facebook. The first two hours of my April 8 afternoon program were devoted to Lou. An audio archive of the Duck's vintage broadcasts is under construction.

Birth and Destruction: Rise and Decline of a California Teenage Girl - aka - Rad Chick Eats Sh*t

I'm a huge fan of Pause Edited Cassette Art. To use a famous example, there is an ingenious Captain Beefheart piece (forgive me if I'm remembering Trout Mask incorrectly) "The Dust Blows Forward and the Dust Blows Back" which is poetry that he created by recording each line separately, pausing the tape while he thought of the next one. I used that method 30 years ago as well, and recommend trying it for yourself.

Today I want to play for you one of my all-time-favorite one-of-a-kind cassettes: Birth and Destruction: Rise and Decline of a California Teenage Girl - aka - Rad Chick Eats Sh*t.

This 30-minute side of tape was sent in to me when I was doing IT'S BEEN REAL, my first radio series, and one in which I invited submissions of audio from listeners.

Santa Cruz radio station KZSC in 1983 was a great laboratory to experiment on-air. Format restrictions were few, cuss words and smut were mitigated by a preceding "disclaimer" announcement.

Andy Breckman: Beyond Poco

It's a running gag on Seven Second Delay that Andy Breckman's music tastes run no deeper than Poco and Jackson Browne. But like his faux misanthropy and staged insults (fact: he IM's an apology to each caller after every show), Andy's alleged musical Philistinism is a riff. His iPod shuffle reflects a more eclectic appetite than 90% of the station's sneering, insecure poseurs. Andy's tastes are so adventurous that he endures charges of parochialism on 7SD because he doesn't need to prove anything. The evidence is readily available online in the playlists of the long-running, if episodic program, Go To Hell! With Andy Breckman.

Over the years, Andy has hosted dozens of last-minute WFMU fill-ins, usually during off-hours, with little fanfare. As his archives indicate, the real Andy Breckman is a musical connoisseur, a sonic bon vivant, an audio omnivore. From psychedelia to show tunes, from snotty L.A. punk to hip-hop, from Ethiopique to breezy Tin Pan Alley, from Senegalese Mbalax to free jazz -- if it can be ripped, one-clicked at Amazon, or downloaded from a blog in Thailand, it will end up in Andy's earbuds, and eventually on WFMU's airwaves.

The tragedy of Andy's career as a DJ is that, due to an unfortunate confluence of archiving software glitches, server crashes, accidental file deletions, and vindictive hackers (including several rival DJs), audio exists for just one show (April 1, 2009). However, meticulously annotated set-lists handwritten by Andy on Post-It pads have helped WFMU document every segue from every program he's hosted since 1994. These playlists chronicle his genre-surfing musical Odysseys: there are thoughtful concept shows, clever song threads, and sets that reflect a surprising commitment to eco-awareness. Andy's tribute to the 1967 Summer of Love offers a vault of nuggets so obscure that not only do these relics not appear on any other WFMU staffer's playlist, they can't be Googled without circling back to Andy's archives.

Though the audio of these programs has been lost, there is a rabid following for Andy's singular brand of broadcasting. His shows are so deeply revered that obsessive fans have recreated many of his famous playlists as BitTorrent distributed files. It goes without saying that these music-only compilations aren’t the same without Andy's snarky commentary and mic breaks punctuated by droll rape analogies.