Firesign Theatre Is Playing At My House

Episodes of the legendary Firesign Theatre Radio Hour are being rebroadcast on WFMU every Tuesday, 7-8pm as part of our new Summer Schedule.

Here's a guest post (including MP3s and a contest!) by Firesign Theatre’s archivist Taylor Jessen:

For ten years or so, the Firesign Theatre has been engaging me in a friendly round of “Stump the Archivist”.

Between 1970-1972, Firesign did about seventy hours of original radio broadcasts. The shows were mostly an excuse for them to riff, but they also played a lot of music breaks, sound effects, incidental music, and total dada noise foofaraw. During those original broadcasts of The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, Dear Friends, and Let’s Eat, they put the needle on the record about 1000 times, and one of the most fun aspects of restoring all those airchecks (soon to be reissued, yes the whole schmear, in remastered digital audio with an accompanying 108-page comic-book-size color fan guide featuring complete show rundowns, an historical essay, new interviews with the 4or5 guys and their engineer & producer, never-published photos, collages, found objects, scripts, and good God make it stop, it’s just too awesome. Please check regularly here and at www.firesigntheatre.com for an official announcement; we’re only making 500 copies and they’ll never be sold in stores) – one of the most fun aspects, I say, of all this obsessive archival work was identifying those 1000 needle-drops.

Firesign played hundreds of different records on their shows, and they never back-announced anything and kept no notes.

 

 

 

 It was a mad grab bag, enough to gladden a future FMU listener’s heart. There was:

• The usual freeform hit parade (Stones, Dylan) plus rawk that’s kind of dropped off the radar even though it should be in heavy rotation on Oldies stations everywhere (Sons of Champlin, “1982-A”; Leon Russell, “Delta Lady”; John Simon, “Song of the Elves”)
• R&B from Firesign’s Puberty Years (Coasters, “Poison Ivy”; Teen Queens, “Eddie My Love”; The Nutmegs, “Story Untold”)
• Catchy tunes from overseas (Jacques Brel, “La Colombe”; Siberian Folk Chorus “Near the Rapid River”; and Devil’s Anvil, “Selim Alai”, actually from the East Village)
• Patriotism run amok (Veterans Day National Committee 1963, “I Am An American”)
• Good old religious WTF (Solomon King, “We’ve Got a Great Big Wonderful God”; Brothers and Sisters of L.A. “Just Like a Woman”; Ralph Platt & Lorin Whitney “I Walked Today Where Jesus Walked”)
• Psych & folk (The Youngbloods, “Darkness Darkness”; Norman Whistler & The Rural Rythm Masters, “Orange Blossom Special”; The Cyrkle, “Red Chair Fade Away”)
• Awesome sex-obsessed pop from the ’20s and ’30s (Lyda Roberti, “College Rhythm”; Mae West, “They Call Me Sister Honkey Tonk”; Helen Kane, “He’s So Unusual”)
• Yer basic Novelty rekkids (George Burns, “Mr. Bojangles”; Jonathan & Darlene Edwards, “Dizzy Fingers”; Thorndike Picklefish Choir, “Ballad of Walter Wart”)
• Strangely compelling instrumentals (Ray Anthony and His Orchestra, “Dragnet”; the “Red Detachment of Women” soundtrack; Alex North, Bernard Herrmann, Les Baxter, John Philip Sousa); and
• A whole lotta noise (selections from the entire 13-volume Elektra Authentic Sound Effects series).

 

Amidst this playlist-defying free-for-all, there was bound to be a mystery record or two. Enter the Fun Part. Because it’s no fun Googling a lyric and finding out it’s “Jigsaw Puzzle” and deciding which of ten versions of Beggar’s Banquet to buy at Amazon. What’s fun is identifying “Day of the Locusts” from a wheezy 1.4-second Dylan sample. Discovering by accident that the scorched-earth, our-drummer-went-home-early slab of Homeroom Rock with the sax solo that gains three beats every two measures is actually the B-side to “Angel Baby”. Scrolling a page of midi files for 250 Japanese folk songs and listening to every one until I hear the tune I’m looking for, and then transliterating the Kanji characters to find out it’s pronounced “Tawara wa Gorogoro”. Listening to every copy of Ferde Grofe’s “On the Trail” at the Glendale Public Library until I find the version they played on Dear Friends – and then realizing it’s an LP of old radio soap opera cues that they used over and over again throughout the series. If the job only had benefits, I’d do it all day.

Beside all the fun I burned through, though, there remain some snippets of vinyl whose lyrics have never been transcribed, whose melodies are no longer hummed, whose royalty stream has forever dried. Here are thirty of my favorites, some of which you may hear in the sixteen “Firesign Theatre Radio Hour” broadcasts on WFMU this Summer.

The first reader to correctly identify the source LP for any cut will win a free Firesign Theatre photo, signed by the entire group. Limit 30 signed photos per listener (yep – if you can identify more than one cue, speak up!). Just write to me at ironybread at earthlink dot net with the subject line Rock or Roll Memory Bank. (Please write to me, NOT to the Comments section.) And, in the spirit of Don G. O’Vanni and his Unclaimed Melodies, if you like these songs, don’t forget to walk into a record store and ask for them – they won’t say “You’re crazy”, they’ll just say “Asshole, there ARE no more record stores – this is Gristedes!”

 

Update: contest is now over.

 

1) Pearl Harbor Blues [mp3] Originally broadcast on The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, 1/25/1970. (Lightnin' Hopkins "December 7, 1941")

2) President Lyndon Baines Johnson [mp3] Originally broadcast on The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, 2/1/1970.

3) We’ve Torn Secrets from the Atom [mp3] Originally broadcast on The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, 2/8/1970.

4) Marie [mp3] Originally broadcast on The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, 3/8/1970.("Marie" by
Cat Mother and the All-Night Newsboys)

5) Hurdy Gurdy Man [mp3] Originally broadcast on The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, 3/15/1970. (Original by Donovan – who’s covering it? Answer: the cover version is by Eric Mercury, from his album "Electric Black Man")

6) Orchestral Shuffle [mp3] Originally broadcast on The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, 3/22/1970. (Moondog "Good for Goodie")

7) JFK Assassination Waltz [mp3] Originally broadcast on The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, 4/26/1970.

8) Uptempo Blues [mp3] Originally broadcast on The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, 4/26/1970. ("Frosty" by Albert Collins)

9) Dr. Memory Theme [mp3] Originally broadcast on The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, 5/24/1970.

10) Recessional / Smooth and Sacred Lawns [mp3] Originally broadcast on The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, 6/7/1970.

11) Sure Is Good To Be Free [mp3] Originally broadcast on The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, 6/7/1970. (Snatch and the Poontangs, a.k.a. Johnny Otis "It's Good To Be Free")

12) Blues Piano [mp3] Originally broadcast on The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, 6/21/1970. (Leadbelly "Eagle Rock Rag")

13) Mystery Spy Adventure Theme [mp3] Originally broadcast on The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, 6/21/1970. (Main theme from "The Untouchables" TV show)

14) Unknown Guitar Riff [mp3] Originally broadcast on The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, 6/28/1970. (Temptations "(I Know) I'm Losing You")

15) Motherhood [mp3] Originally broadcast on The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, 7/5/1970. (Yes, Firesign’s Dwarf is playing underneath – what’s the other record? It's a sample from the 1953 Disney animated short "Melody".)

16) Thanks to Our Guests [mp3] Originally broadcast on Dear Friends, 9/23/1970.

17) Hot Time in the Old Town [mp3] Originally broadcast on Dear Friends, 10/25/1970.

18) Chugoku-Chiho no Komoriuta [mp3] Originally broadcast on Dear Friends, 11/22/1970.

19) Electronic Music [mp3] Originally broadcast on Dear Friends, 11/29/1970.

20) Rhumba de Amor [mp3] Originally broadcast on Dear Friends, 12/27/1970.

21) R&B Ballad [mp3] Originally broadcast on Dear Friends, 2/17/1971.

22) 76 Trombones [mp3] Originally broadcast on Dear Friends, 2/17/1971.

23) Armed Forces Radio Swing [mp3] Originally broadcast on Let’s Eat, 11/11/1971.

24) Bob Hind Theme [mp3] Originally broadcast on Let’s Eat, 11/18/1971.

25) Antagatadokosa [mp3] Originally broadcast on Let’s Eat, 11/18/1971.

26) Toryanse [mp3] Originally broadcast on Let’s Eat, 11/18/1971.

27) Martial Theme [mp3] Originally broadcast on Let’s Eat, 12/9/1971.

28) Drum & Trumpet Fanfare [mp3] Originally broadcast on Let’s Eat, 12/9/1971.

29) Old Grey Ramsey [mp3] Originally broadcast on Let’s Eat, 1/20/1972. ("Ballad of Obray
Ramsey" by Matthew's Southern Comfort)

      30) Had An Old Dream Last Evening [mp3] Originally broadcast on Martian Space Party, 3/30/1972. (JoJo Gunne "Flying Home")

Comments

[Mindwrecker]

Good news indeed-- I was contacted about this release last year when I did some posts about Dear Friends episodes ( http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2009/10/another-trip-with-doctor-memory.html ) and the proprietor wanted to know who to contact at WFMU in order to get the word out. So it was YOU! Anyhoo---I'm tickled to death that it's really going to happen- these shows are so good; great news that they will become more available. As for not back-announcing- lordy--how I wish I could've avoided that chore many a time!!

[bruce edwards]

# 1 on your list, "Pearl Harbor Blues" is by Lightnin Hopkins. It appears under the title "December 7, 1941" on the album "The Lost Blues Masters".

[Taylor Jessen]

OK, Bruce E., I think we have a winner (although I'm thinking the source LP is actually probably the various artists LP "Soul...In The Beginning" on AVCO, 1970). Email me at the address I listed above and we can work out shipping details. (Contestants, please contact me first at the email above rather than the comments section - I check my email regularly, the comments section less so.)

[Me]

I dont know if they still do but they would play these on satellite radio.

[The Orginal WyldMAN]

Can't tell you how many times at UGA we would go to one dorm room about 10 of us on and listen to these guys absolutely "stoned" out of our GORD.

[paul lindblad]

so is this record of soap opera music cues available as a cd or mp2 download anywhere, and was it commercially available as a record?

[Taylor Jessen]

The soapy cues all came from "Soap Symphony" on Capitol (I see three copies on eBay as I type)...

[Dave Scott]

Hurdy Gurdy Man sounds like Richie Havens to me. Damned if I can find anything on the interwebs about it, though.

[Sophiarosado]

Thanks to Firesign Theatre’s archivist Taylor Jessen. He did his best.

Firesign Theatre Radio Hour make this summer very happy to spend.

Thanks for the update in this blog.

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[Sarah]

This is so great! :D Also thanks to Sophia for sharing that really cool movie site!