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Jul 122012
 


It’s the fifth and final day of the Great Podcast Releasathon 2012!(tm). (“But Tony, you said it was going to last a week!” — I meant a work week, sue me!) Here’s episode 89, Heavenly Noise, starring DaveX, Tony Youngblood, Tom Denney, Kevin Vogel, and Matt Giant. We recorded Heavenly Noise way back in 1999 at my college radio station WIDB on the campus of Southern Illinois University. It was the ninth episode of the original incarnation of Theatre Intangible, ~Ore~ Prefab Audio Extrapolations. We were trying to spoof a Christian call-in show, actually trying to get real people to call in and contribute money to our “interfaith” cause. I vaguely remember DaveX and myself flyering the buildings at SIU with a faux Christian student group flyer that must have been pretty blasphemous; they were taken down by some unknown force by the next day.

Apologies to listeners who are religious or who have, you know, taste.

Update: Dave adds his thoughts:

“I don’t think that’s the Lord anymore.” Pretty much sums up this rather silly outing for ~Ore~. I detect some of my Tom Jones record in there, and that weird sequencing freeware we kept using. And a healthy dose of random preaching records. As I recall, I was always very much on-edge during these shows. Live experimental improv is always going to be tough, but making ~Ore~ was rather like jumping in the deep end head first. I don’t have Tony’s natural ability with instruments, so I probably had to work three times as hard just to keep up. On an episode like “Heavenly Noise,” pretty much everything I did was a sort of point blank improvisation, literally learning my “instrument” (devices, the studio, actual instruments, etc) as I went along. Absolutely flying blind, but listening and learning along the way. It took a long time before I trusted myself enough to just work a single idea– I distinctly remember scoffing (mentally) at the guest who brought in a singing drum and just played it for an hour (on another episode) and though I still don’t think he was really participating with all of us very well, I’ll admit that focusing on process or developing a simple idea ended up being something I really appreciate now. Like I said, there was (and still is) a lot to learn! “This makes me ill. This sickening blasphemy. It makes me churn!” A hilarious addition from Tony’s brother there, who sat in (or called in, as he did here) during numerous episodes. (Tony’s note: I think that might have been Matt Giant.) Tom Denney also makes some great contributions here– I love the bit about being made to dress up in women’s clothes, classic. I hear some “he was doing it, but he wasn’t really doing it”, which I’m pretty sure came from an interview with one of Jimi Hendrix’s girlfriends, from the Rainbow Bridge film, sounds like a little microcassette work, but perhaps pre-recorded for this episode. Yeah, definitely that album– I still quote the bit at the end every now and then, “I’ll always touch you.” Funny how certain things stick with you.

And oh yeah, here’s a flyer to dig on. It’s not specific to this show– we didn’t always make one with the theme represented, because we didn’t always know very far in advance what we were doing. This was from right around that time, though. I ended up recycling these images many times in various flyers, but always worked my way back to the “old lady” gag, because I think it’s hilarious.

–DaveX

Jul 102012
 


In keeping with the Great Podcast Releasathon 2012!(tm), here’s episode 87, Angelia, featuring DaveX, myself, Tom Denney, the Care Bears, and probably some other people I can’t remember. (Possibly Wil Bernal.) We recorded Angelia way back in 1998 at my college radio station WIDB on the campus of Southern Illinois University. It was just the third episode of the original incarnation of Theatre Intangible, ~Ore~ Prefab Audio Extrapolations, and it’s the very first appearance of my original co-host DaveX. The non-live recordings on Angelia were audio experiments I had recorded on my Roland VS-880 digital 8 track.

Stay tuned tomorrow for day four of a full week of podcasts!

Jul 082012
 


Here’s podcast 85: Catharsirator, featuring DaveX, Tom Denney, Jacob Riley via phone call-in, myself, and probably some other people I can’t remember. We recorded Catharsirator way back in 1999 at my college radio station WIDB on the campus of Southern Illinois University. It was somewhere around the 15th episode of the original incarnation of Theatre Intangible, ~Ore~ Prefab Audio Extrapolations. I remember this as one of my favorite episodes, but listening back now, I’m not exactly sure why. Memory plays tricks.

Keep listening near the end for Dave’s ticked off rant to the audience where he announced he was, “sick of playing with ameobas and light and shit.” He went on to say this episode was our creative peak, but given the context, I think he may have meant creative plateau.

All the same, there are a few nice moments. I did the live mixing back in 1999 and the mastering and (admittedly heavy) editing last week. Enjoy this little nugget from 1999.

Update: DaveX gives his thoughts on the episode and his infamous rant:

Yeah, I did get a chance to listen. We had some interesting sounds going at times, despite (or perhaps because of) what I detect as my earnest, constant efforts to throw everyone off-kilter. Overall, Catharsirator is better than I remembered. I’ll chalk it up to your editing, I’m guessing there’s about 20 minutes you left on the cutting room floor? (Tony’s note: More like 30 minutes, including some bad rapping by Jacob and me.)

I did want to explain my statements at the end, though– oddly enough, I remember (mostly) what I was thinking. Basically, I was frustrated with the limitations of the show, at least in terms of our audience. I didn’t expect too many people to ever be tuning in, but it was important to me that our ongoing experiments into listening and sound-making were more than just entertainment, or exercises in providing passive experiences for listeners to consume. You might recall that I was always trying to figure out ways to involve people on the “other end” of the show, whether it was encouraging them to come in and join us, or move around, listen in different ways, etc. But of course, this really never materialized. By the Catharsirator episode, I was more than a little into the feeling that we were kicking a dead horse. When I mentioned “amoebas and lights” I was referring to science experiments I probably read about in a textbook somewhere– describing phototropic response in amoebas. So yeah, I basically called the audience out as single-celled lifeforms, which wasn’t very kind of me. In retrospect (as it is with so many things) I wish I’d known how to phrase things more diplomatically. There might have been room to grow without all that condemnation in the air! My belated apologies to anyone who DID tune in that evening are definitely in order, haha. Still, it would be misleading if I said that confrontation and reaction wasn’t a fairly large element of those early ~Ore~ broadcasts, not to mention the experimental nature of the show. Experiments don’t necessarily go where you point them! It’s interesting to hear all that frustration, though– that’s definitely one kind of push that got me interested in new ways of making music and creating sounds, as well as new ideas about sharing them.

–DaveX

Aug 092011
 

Bathe in the noisy fm transmitter loops of this Prefab Audio Extrapolation show from the year 2000. Starring DaveX, Tony Youngblood, and possibly others. I can’t remember that far back. Listening back to this and other WIDB-era shows, I’m reminded of what many noise kids are doing now. Only we did it 11 years ago.