1994-06-08 Swoon in June

Image via WikipediaThis is a delightful mix of all sorts of things -- music, spoken word, sound effects, noise collage, media ecology and a lot of other stuff. The month is June, the juices are flowing, and in my case they are creative juices, trying to find interesting sounds and put them together into a whole that says something more than the parts. Sitting here 18 years later, I am not sure what that whole is, but listening to it brought me a lot of smiles. Almost a swoon.

Try it yourself. There is no playlist. I think I can understand why, it would have been hell to read off all of the parts of this program.

Download or listen right away:
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk940608swoon.mp3

1988-03-16 Listen Now, Pay Later, Part 1

Image via WikipediaThis is a long and involved critique of television. Sound and voice are put together with a random plan that becomes an incredible audio vengeance that may change your ideas and feelings later. You may or may not be aware of it. This kind of thing is a new construct for me, and I hope you enjoy it. After all of the noxious noise, there is a normal sport of ending that even make you feel OK about the world. The last song is way simple but it always makes me feel better. It still took me a few years to follow through on this message and purge my life of television. See, it took the program a while to sink in. Try it!

No play list but it surges right through into Listen Now, Pay Later, Part 2.

Download or listen right away:
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk880316listennowpaylater1.mp3

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1988-03-02 New Europe

New electronic music from Europe featured here. But, before that just a word from my favorite TV evangelist, Robert Tilton, and a new song by Commodity Fetish, then a wandering stroll through the mostly European playlist. I marked American bands with an asterisk. At this point the USA is sort of in a post new wave funk, and Europe is boldly moving forward into a new approach to music.

Controlled Bleeding*, John Lurie, Winston Tong overlays from Jo Boy, Susan Deihim, Stockholm Monsters, Blaine Reininger, Durutti Column, Family Fodder, Bel Canto, Acoustic Iatrogenesis*, Current 93, Minimal Compact, Legendary Pink Dots, Chris and Cosey, Damon Edge, Son of Sam*.

Right click to download or listen right away:
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk880302new_europe.mp3

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1988-02-17 Eight Track Terror

Image by Sune Rievers via FlickrSorry for the long introduction, skip it if you can, but it is always nice to hear Sister Susan's Astronautica again.

Eight track studios are affordable and manageable at this point and people are doing some great things with them.

Music included:
The program begins with a lot of fairly simple and interesting eight track music made by individuals with a dour outlook, including Eric Huffman and Chris & Cosey. At about minute 31 we get to hear a live show in Portland, maine called "You will have been there," by Commodity Fetish. After the CF set (very rare live recording) we listened to even more stuff done on eight track systems, by Free World, Chris & Cosey and more.

Download or click to listen right away:
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk880217eighttrackterror.mp3

1988-02-24 Risky Visions

Image via WikipediaMusic, movie clips, voice clips and who knows what else goes together to produce this sound collage. In the previous weekend I had hosted a 40 hour unusual movie marathon and it had a profound impact on my brain. I tried to work some of this out through this radio program. 


Music and sounds included: Aguirre Wrath of God, Chris and Cosey, Commoedity Fetish, Pink Flamingos, Polyester, El Topo, Weathership Tango Delta, Residents, the Brood, Doctor Strangelove, Oh Lucky Man, Ilsa She Wolf of the SS, Videodrome and a lot more.


Download or listen right away:
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk880224riskyvisions.mp3

1988-02-10 I am the Doctor

Image via WikipediaDoctor Who? Doctor Benway? Are you a real Doctor? Can you help me beat the Reaper? Perhaps Doctor Tuna? Listen and find out. No matter how confusing, you must remember that you fully understood each and every bit of this program, or at least some portion of your brain did.


No play list this week.


Download or listen right away:
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk880210iamthedoctor.mp3

1988-01-27 Generous Terms

Cover of Test Dept.Today I am featuring a few things. First Graeme Revell's release Insect Musicians, an album where all sounds are taken from samples of natural insect noises. Then, they are put together as songs. Other music is inserted, like Frank Chickens (from Japan), Voice of Authority, and Acoustic Iatrogenesis. Then, we will hear almost the entire new release by the band Test Department.

About Test Department:

Test Dept's formation in 1981 in the decaying docklands of South London, was an urgent reaction to the materialistic drift and reactionary conservatism of the prevailing musical and political culture. TD rejected the conventional and developed a style that reflected the decay of their surroundings scavenging the unregenerated wastelands for raw materials, and transforming found industrial items into designed, sculptural instruments. Suitably armed they forged a hard rhythmic sonic battery, fusing found sound samples and cutting edge electronics in the construction of a dynamic physical totality. Their infamous sonic assaults were challenging and demanding for audience and performers alike, a test of physical endurance that journeyed through the sonic pain threshold and into a cathartic energy release. The 'Stakhanovite Sound' was a furnace that forged an attitude of total collective commitment, embracing the spirit of punk with an avant revolutionary sensibility that sought to challenge the status quo. It was the antithesis of commercial record industry values. http://testdept.org.uk/td/history.1.html 

Music included:

Grame Revel, Frank Chickens, Voice of Authority, Test Department, Free World and a lot more.

Download or listen right away:
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk880127generousterms.mp3

1987-04-01 April Fool

It is the first of April, and I am willing to play the fools. The collapse of the Jim and Tammy Bakker television ministry sets the stage for this session of foolishness. Many other television ministers are paraded amidst the accompanying industrial music here. Maybe the most convincing is the leader of the Temple of Psychic Youth, Genesis P. Orridge. Well, at least he is sincere and consistent, and also doesn't seem to be fascinated by getting rich. I would like to apologize to the name and memory of Jesus Christ and how blasphemed he was by these folks.


Sounds included:
Jim Bakker, Tammie Faye Baker, Robert Tilton, Psychic TVand Hula and it all just ran together into a mess, my playlist simply broke down. 


Download or listen right away:
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk870401april_fool.mp3

1987-01-14 The Police Have Been Wonderful

I have always felt a little uncomfortable with the police. One of the reasons is that they remind me of soldiers, what with the guns and the uniforms. The Brazil clip that begins this program sets the stage for how I feel, and I think the movie is one of the most powerful depictions of an oppressive state I have ever seen. And the music available mirrors this sort of feeling. From Maggie Thatcher's praise of the police conduct during the miner's strike to the discussion of a police state by Marshall McLuhan to the clips from the 1984 movie to the napalm scene in Apocalypse Now to Taxi Driver to the diving buzz bombs and back. This is an excellent and very powerful program that goes far beyond the theme of the police, to explore the uses of power, domination and human weakness. I say this as I sit here and listen to it 24 years later.


Music included: 
Sickness of Snakes, Nadjma, Poisongirls, Minimal Compact, Bauhaus, Chrome, Cult ov the Womb, 1984 movie, Mark Stewart & and Maffia, Fifth Column, Cabaret Voltaire, Test Department, Masked Men, Chumbawamba, Brazil movie and a lot more. 


Download or listen right away:
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk870114the_police_have_been_wonderful.mp3

1986-12-24 Doctor Tuna Christmas

Christmas Eve on a Wednesday, and so I just could not resist it. It isn't very year that my show coincides with Christmas. Here are some of my favorites and strange discoveries to celebrate the season. Everything from the "Six Million Dollar Man Christmas" to Santa Claus in his underwear. Not safe for home or work. Religious sensibilities may be offended. 


Music included:
Six Million Dollar Man Christmas, Zoviet France, Big Backs, Aztec Two Step, Hillcrest Club, the Residents, Noizeclot, Anonymous Burlington, Days of Trance, Cabaret Voltaire, Sleep Chamber, Mania D, PsyField, Cast of Bonanza, Chipmunks Do the Residents, 93 Current 93, Tuxedomoon and a lot more. 


Download or listen right away:
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk861224drtchristmas.mp3

1986-12-17 Then They Had a Test

This is industrial music for students at the University of Vermont who were taking their final examinations.


"I can only understand so much, and then it all goes blank..."


"And then they had a test..."


Music included:
Voice of Authority, Hula, SPK, Chrome, Residents, Blaine L. Reininger, Cabaret Voltaire, New Order, Minimal Compact, Laurie Anderson, Maybe Mental, Zoviet France, Coil, Propaganda and a lot more.


Download or listen right away:
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk861217_then_they_had_a_test.mp3

1986-12-10 Led to Believe

Kicking off with that Commodity Fetish cut that uses the samples from Led Zeppelin. This was a new world to all of us. You could take sounds from one music, rework it and make an entirely new song. Commodity Fetish was mashing down Burlington in those heady late 1980's.


Music included:
Commodity Fetish, Big Black, Blackhouse, Art Barbecue, Severed Heads, Sleep Chamber, Bob Tilton, 93 Current 93, Voices in the News, Psychic TV, Klaus Flouride, SPK, Gerechtigkeits Liga, Legendary Pink Dots and a lot more.


Download or listen right away:
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk861210led_to_believe.mp3

1986-12-03 Blue Heaven

Image via Wikipedia
It may not be heaven, but it certainly seemed blue. This is precisely why I had to end with "Blue heaven." Now, don't get me wrong, this is a widely diverse program and a lot of fun, full of surprises, so if you don't like it just wait and it will change.


Music included: Zoviet France, Sleep Chamber, Psychic TV, Robert Tilton, Adrian Sherwood, Chrome, Cabaret Voltaire, Legendary Pink Dots, Residents, Test Dept., Che, Mark Stewart and the Maffia, Nocturnal Emissions, Tuxedomoon and a lot more. 


Download or listen right away:
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk861203blue_heaven.mp3

1986-11-19 Nurse with Wound

Image by Redheadwalking via Flickr
This may be the most diverse sound around. I keep buying releases by them and every one of them seems to be different. I just had to give this project its own day.


I like this short introduction:

The deepest throb of electronics pulse and waver beneath six scraped strings. The acid sear of 3rd-eye-aimed lead guitar strikes out: destination - elsewhere. The car-start buzz, the treated feedback trill, the paradigm blast of Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella. In the 18 years since this Nurse With Wound debut LP, they remain unequalled in terms of sheer outsider invention.Housed in a Dada-spewed sleeve of sado-slave imagery and eye-popping surrealist collage, Chance Meeting... (Lautreamont's famous reply to "What is Surrealism?") single-handedly created and defined an aesthetic and was blamed for plenty more. Inside was the near-mythical Nurse 'list' - an A to Z of avant-whup and visionary excess, name-checking the likes of Group 1850, Brainticket, This Heat, Yoko Ono, Cromagnon, Faust, John Cage..."Categories strain, crack and sometimes break, under their burden", reads the text, "Step out of the space provided." http://brainwashed.com/nww/words/wire1997.html

Here is the bio from wikiland:

Nurse with Wound (or shortened as NWW) is the main recording name for British musician Steven Stapleton. Nurse with Wound was originally a band, formed in 1978 by Stapleton, John Fothergill and Heman Pathak.^[1][2] The band ranges in many genres such as avant-garde, industrial, noise, dark ambient, and drone. Their early recordings, all made quickly, were heavily influenced by free improvisation and Krautrock and were generally considered industrial music, despite the objections of the group.[edit]By 1981, only Stapleton was left from the original trio and he now regards 1982's Homotopy to Marie, as being the first proper Nurse with Wound release^{[citation needed]}. There are now over 40 full length NWW titles. Stapleton's fondness for dada, surrealism and absurdist humor are demonstrated in much of NWW's output, which, though it draws directly on a wide assortment of genres (including cabaret music, nursery rhymes, John Cage, The Beach Boys, krautrock,^[3] ambient music,^[4] and easy listening^[5]) retains a distinctive and recognizable aura. Musique concrète may be the most prominent touchstone, due to Stapleton's frequent, and often humorous, use of creative tape loops and editing. This aesthetic is fully represented in the artwork on the album covers, virtually all of which is created by Stapleton, mostly under the pseudonym "Babs Santini".^[6]

I am just saying this seems like a great way to make a living. Here are some of my favorite NWW.


Download or listen right away:
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk861114nursewithwound.mp3

1986-11-12 Ralph Records

If you think the Residents are strange, wait until you see the other groups on this label. 


Here is the story: 

RALPH RECORDS (1972- )Ralph was officially launched by The Residents in 1972 with the release of the "Santa Dog" double 7-inch. At that time, the newly formed The Cryptic Corpration took over the label with visions of running it as a legit record company and not just a vehicle for Residents recordings.  During the following years Ralph Records became the home of Snakefinger, Tuxedomoon, Fred Frith, Renaldo & the Loaf, MX-80 Sound, Yello, Art Bears, Rhythm & Noise, Hajime Tachibana, Nash the Slash, Clubfoot Orchestra and, of course, The Residents.In 1986, The Cryptic Corporation, having undergone management shakeup, felt the label business was no longer working as a business model and that it was important to find better distribution for their star act, The Residents.  So all artists were released from their contracts and the label was shut down.  The Residents were moved onto the higher profile RYKO label for the USA, Torso for Europe, and Wave for Japan.So the Ralph Records office was permanently closed.  
Or so The Cryptic Corporation thought. 
In 2010, the interest in physical product had become very weak in a culture now obsessed with the availability of music via download. Instant gratification was a difficult monster to fight. But The Cryptic Corporation felt there was still a reason to have items that one could hold in sweaty hands. In the fall of 2010 they unlocked the long bolted door of RALPH RECORDS with the resolve of once again making vinyl LP's with 12" covers one can hold. CD / DVD and downloads would also be available.
Late in the summer of 2010, Ralph Records was again launched as a record company. http://www.residents.com/historical/page85/page90/page91/page91.html

Music included:
The Residents, Renaldo and the Loaf, Snakefinger, Tuxedomoon, and more. 


Download or listen right away:
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk861112_ralph_records.mp3

1986-10-08 Subliminal

Image via Wikipedia
I just want to say two things.
First, modern research shows that attempts at subliminal persuasion fail.
Second, if I told you what the subliminal message was behind this radio program, it would ruin it.

Sorry about the two PSAs at the beginning.

Music included: Gary Clail and the On-U Sound System, Data Bank A, Chrome, Nocturnal Emissions, Residents, Women of the SS, Faust, Fifth Column Anthology, Jackhammer 5, Maybe Mental, Joy Division, Hula, Damon Edge, 93 Current 93, Princess Tiny Meat and a lot more.

Download or listen right away:
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk861008subliminal.mp3

1994-06-01 Frank Zappa

Cover of Frank Zappa
He was an amazing talent. He could have been successful as a jazz musician, as a gifted classical guitarist, as the leader of a radical revolutionary hippy band, a music producer, an author of stage musicals, a public advocate and a lot more. But, he decided instead to be all of these things. An innovative and revolutionary musician who did, in a very long career, achieve something that many others with talent had failed to do -- he never sold out. He always did it the way he wanted to. Frank Vincent Zappa. This is a playful salute to Frank and his life and work, and I am sure he would have wanted it that way.

Selections included: Mothers of Invention, Ian Underwood, Flo & Eddy, Muslim 8, Lumpy Gravy, Valley Girl, Plastic People, Peaches in Regalia, Brown Shoes Don't Make it, Bow Tie Daddy, Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance, Montana, Call Any Vegetable, Dead Girls of London, Doreen, Wind Up Workin' in A Gas Station, Camarillo Brillo, GSpot Tornado, Mr. Greenjeans, Uncle Meat, Strictly Gentile, 200 Motels and a lot more.

Download or listen right away:
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk940601frankzappa.mp3

1994-05-25 Head On

Image via Wikipedia
Spring 1994 was a time for self-indulgence and reflection, at least on my radio programs. At least I had stopped my annoying habit of NOT reading the play list that Spring. This is a wide variety of semi-techno songs, and many of them my current favorites. The raw beat-beat-beat of the techno I was following had taken on a new ambient flair, which I really appreciated and enjoyed. With some excellent sound clips layered in this is some mighty fine listening, if I do say so myself.

I know it is hard ti think of this kind of music as "relaxing," I really think that this program is actually relaxing.

Music included: Megatonk, Banco de Gaia, Pressure of Speech, Psychic TV, Syzygy, Balil, Daisyglow, Single Cell Orchestra, Hawke, Elements of Trance, Tranquility Base and a lot more.

Download or listen right away (get both parts):
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk940525headon1.mp3
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk940525headon2.mp3

1994-05-11 Radio Show

Image by C.P.Storm via Flickr
This is a program that is not for the audience, but for me. The program contains many of my (then) favorite songs, covering many different styles and genres. If you like a program that changes and is not always the same, this one is for you. I like to listen to this one on a long drive, or perhaps while on a photon-driven trip to Mars without cold sleep. Enjoy if you can.

Music included: Bonzo Dog Band, Sucking Chest Wound, Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, Gary Clail & the On-U Sound System, Crosley Bendix, Residents, Industrious Fleas, Frank Chickens, Filth, Tapebeatles, Annie Sprinkle, Legendary Pink Dots, Zoviet France, Commodity Fetish, Whitehouse and a lot more.

Download or listen right away (get both parts):
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk940511radioshow1a.mp3
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk940511radioshow2a.mp3

1994-05-04 Free Palestine

Image via Wikipedia

The 1994 Middle East Accords established a Palestinian Authority. This is all music from the Palestinian diaspora that has sparked some interesting creations. Not what you might think.

Download or listen right away (get both parts):
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk940504freepalestine1.mp3
http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/listen/cmk940504freepalestine2.mp3

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