TKDF : Tris-kai-deka-phobia

A plan to finish?

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Wed, 08 Oct 2014 05:36:00 +0000

What, me worry?

Since I last was adding shows in earnest, I've moved, changed jobs, and begun raising a child. I think I shall have time once a week to add the remaining shows here, roughly paralleling their original broadcast dates so that Halloween and Christmas shows still to come will appear around the proper time in the upcoming months. Famous last words, of course. Fingers crossed...

Love,
Ian F-R

Ten Minute Bursts (#129)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Wed, 08 Oct 2014 05:17:00 +0000

Source file found here. Originally broadcast on this day 16 years ago(!), October 8th, 1998.

I can only faintly remember the idea for this show--to parcel out the show into 10-minute chunks, trying to cut ourselves off in mid-stride once the timer goes off, to keep from getting stuck into long periods of repetition. Without minutely analyzing the recording to see if that worked, this show doesn't stand out from others that I've heard in any dramatic way. The same tropes and tactics seem to be in effect here: digital FX, forced hypnotic loops, vinyl record manipulation, and non-sequitur text-and-background arrangements.

If anything, the overall show seems less violently disruptive of its own grooves--it gets into a new track and digs on it for a bit, then moves to a different one and tries that for a bit. There are some really great textural sections here, from sharp, cutting distortion to soft, crackly prickles like an aural wool sweater. Recognized sources: Star Wars OST, Led Zep, OOIOO, Melt Banana, Medicine, NIN.

Continuous Sandpeople
Rubbery-go-round
"Die yr roots"
Short-circuiting telegraph
Tap tap tap--whatisit?
Communication freakout
Electrified chicken coop
Metaphysical tagalongs
Train trestle becomes fast drums
Funky break, falling horns
Resonant whisper
Wolf-the-frank
Thrum pulse sunrise

Buffer (#128)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 06:00:00 +0000

Source file found here. Originally broadcast on October 1st, 1998.

"Buffer" because the number 128 reminded me of old computer systems? An aural dumping ground, the shows built up around whatever got picked up, following patterns and relationships not discernible to the distant listener. Some pieces are wholly random and unrelated, lying clumsily against each other like discarded cutouts and leftovers. This could be some run-up-to-Halloween material resting awkwardly between editing experiments, random loops, and effects overloading. Tape manipulations, reversals, and forced-skipping records figure largely in this episode.

Water drips on piano keys
Pressure release valve
Mob scene, Haunted Village, 1952
Hot cats and wobbly bolero
Lecture and gunfire in drainpipe
Yule fawn
DO NOT CONCERN YOURSELF
Atari Teenage Blabbermouth
Jody is losing reality
Self-destroying suspicion
Windy city loop
Out-of-range 80s electro
Windchimes & PVC bass

No Theme (#127)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 06:06:00 +0000

Source found here. Originally broadcast on September 24, 1998.

I just found an old flyer for a house party that happened two days after this show was originally broadcast. It claims a start time of "about 10 P.M." Knowing laughs all around from the aging peanut gallery.

This show is another improvisation without a net. I like improvisation, and this one is Zen-like in its minimalism. It might have been well used in another show, laid gently on top of another minimal doodle, and then again with another layer, until the combined time-shifted meditations created a rich, loamy, compost of Zen-like waves of aimless sound-drawings.

Thwipping fade out
Ovalesque dreamtime
Little person on really high stilts
Shimmy shimmy down
Strumming in traffic
The Perhaps Shuffle
Weepy thin violin-tone
All your accordion are belong to us
Disruptive, insistent guitar
Enjoy shildriln!
Spritzbeat and Real Satan
Schpritschbeat and shlurr
Terminal amoebae

Trickle-down Publishing

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 04:41:00 +0000

I have not pushed shows out with frequency lately, but there are only a handful left to share with you, honestly. Jason has magnificently done 99.9% of the tape conversion work to be done, and I have been reviewing shows even more slowly since my work life came back this summer.

Bear with me, and you will be rewarded with more Ouija, more Halloween, more cinema, more Christmas, and a phone call from the Mojave Desert. Cheers and thanks for tuning in.

Untitled (#126)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 04:29:00 +0000

Source found here. Originally broadcast on September 17, 1998.

An energetic workout of the unthemed genus. Featuring crackly records, French whispers, zany whirling, violent spoken word poetry courtesy Attaboy, rushing digital effects, melodic polyrhythms, tinny cheesy tunes, unprepped tape warble, a blind walking tour, xylophonic studies, overblown guitar wringing, and a macro-sense of balance between the chaotic and the orderly.

Crumbly whispering
The French hang around
An unhinging progression
[...download complete...]
Ranting obscured by synesthesia
The mess dissipates outdoors
Phased reggae French gurgles
The sighted person
Dreams losing color
Hypnotic vocal chime
Metallismo
Resonance in cavernous tubes
Led Zep on the shortwave

Panic Movement (#122)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 03:20:00 +0000

Source file found here. Originally broadcast on August, 20, 1998.

I'm not sure how we came up with this variant on the "scored" shows, but I think the idea was build slowly from a calm passage with more and more "panicked" outbursts at opportune times. Kind of the sonic equivalent of climbing an inclined plane of intensity for the length of the show. This resulting show feels like a creepier, dirtier Halloween show imitation. We peak early, but it does end with a large quantity of loud banging. Some of the sources--e.g. Naked City's Absinthe, F.M. Einheit & Caspar Brotzmann's Merry Christmas--also fit well in a playlist of psychological horror and violence soundtracks. Maybe not gradual panic so much as gradual alienation!

Whispers and heartbeats
Soothing sounds of nature
Down in the speech lab
Horrible, nameless dread emerges
Tension strings and children amok
Ask them to be quiet sir
A promise of cannibalism
Hall running, analysis and static
Various sirens, but a balmy ambience
Irradiating the beachgoers
Oh God it's eating my EYES
We've gotten good at "bludgeoning", haven't we?
That city-sized vacuum cleaner is back

Ob-strats (#118)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 18:43:00 +0000

Source file here. Originally broadcast on July 23rd, 1998.

Being music geeks—not music nerds, who hold their special knowledge over others to feel powerful—we here at TKDF want everyone who doesn't already know about Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies to hear the good word.

Traditionally the Strategies take the form of a deck of cards, and they are intended as tools for when one gets stuck while doing creative work. They are used to challenge preconceptions and allow one to see things suddenly from a perspective where the problem doesn't exist or doesn't matter. Being fans of Eno in general, we decided to approach the problem of the show with the Strategies in hand. This tells you two things: 1, we sometimes felt doing the show was a "problem", and 2, we like using tools.

If we didn't tell you what Oblique Strategies were, could you tell that this show was produced in a different way? Probably not. It has an appealing, shuddering shimmer of a heartbeat for much of its length, but the component sounds and overall show-shape are within the usual range of loopitude, non-sequiturism, uneasicity, dynamicision, and intentional cruftage. Which is not to still wholeheartedly recommend the Strategies for any and all problems that may arise. As one of my favorite cards exclaims, "Try faking it!"

Responding to pulses
Crackly backward-chanting doctors
Tense, endless Italian New-Wave
Metallic abrasions
Whistling from behind the curtain
Almost-dub The Letter
Frothing and boiling over onto the mixing console
Cavernous, sappy, soulful, pouncing
Boomerang yodel
Endless-er 'cause it's slower
Toads and diseases while channel-surfing
An existential question
The strategies call for an Ambient 4 coda

TKDF Vampires (#114)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Source file here. Originally broadcast on June 25th, 1998.

Ah, vampires. They get a lot of attention, as ghouls go. Why did we never do a show about yeti or Frankenstein's monster? They don't generate the raw material in media that vampires do. Also, zombies.

Among the movies heard here are the dryly humorous Nadja, Tony Scott's chilly The Hunger, Polanski's goofball Fearless Vampire Killers, Abel Ferrara's academic and brutal The Addiction, and the ones everyone knows. The dialogue heavy movies like Nadja and The Addiction make the show somewhat philosophical and Nietzschean, while others variably add creepy dread, campy horror, and short spurts of bloody gore—or at least the sounds of it. All in all, a rather verbose, thinking-vampire's production.

Europe is a village
Aspects of determinism
How old am I?
I have lost a day
Like this, in one go
Why all these garlic flowers?
Vampire Rules
I'm not bleeding all over myself
They fall like flies, don't they
Demons suffer Hell
All these years running uphill
Face it Jim, she's a zombie
Why all these people dead?

1, 2, Free, Form (#112)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:56:00 +0000

A happy Earth Day to our audience. This week's show source file found here. Originally broadcast on June 11th, 1998.

A grubby and unthemed little show. It starts off vocal and voice-based, gets progressively harsher and muddier, ends abruptly, and then starts again. It is well-worn, and thick with dense, chewy layers.

My cohort of helpers always preferred to have a thematic guide for the shows, but I tended to not plan very far in advance, so more often than not, this kind of thing is what we got. In my opinion, this is a good example of when it worked.

I also can't tell if the two sides of the tape got swapped, or this is a combination recording of a couple of different shows. The break near the middle where our show ends and the hip-hop deejay is baffled by the wall of noise he is following comes at exactly the right time. But that's free form college radio for you—a kind of audio whiplash that is an acquired taste, but can be oh-so-tasty.

WHANH WHANH!/Wash ray
Abracadabra to you, boss
Bells and frothing
Epic kung fu battle in crystal bamboo forest
Wailing and foam
A trick ending
Appliance-percussion jazz
One big fat hoax
Machine breathing/feeling so good
Wake up now, the satellite's singing
A glitch-beat with tacky synth
Japanese Vader
Mandarin disco Strauss/abrupt end

Gradual Brightening, pt 3 (#56)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 07:00:00 +0000

Source can be found here. Originally broadcast on May 18, 1997. This is Part 3 of a four-part, six-and-a-half hour show that we performed one morning during a gap in the programming between spring and summer schedules at the radio station.

Part 1, Part 2

This segment of this show features a lot of vocalization—mumbled, hollered, gasped, giggled, foamed, and belted. If you've ever pulled a marathon shift, you know that things get loopy after a certain stretch, and hours four and five here are sure showing it. But that was the point, I guess, to go beyond our normal endurance for mixing and test the limits.

It does get tired and fallback upon some late-ninties IDM for a bit, but then there's a great bit where we say "Hello to the universe". The walls of noise and newborn baby reference also play along with the early morning theme, I suppose.

Ode to Dinah Shore
Extended sleep episode
Braying and chimes
whatisitwhatisitwhatisitunclecleottototo
Round and round-dnuor dna dnuor
What's so funny about power electronics?
Foul-mouthed open letter
They're so cute when they start reading poetry
The martial art of jazz-golf
Screamix
Melodic moans of damned doors
Bombast and cheese
Yes, records ARE fantastic

Gradual Brightening, pt 2 (#56)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 07:00:00 +0000

Source can be found here. Originally broadcast on May 18, 1997. This is Part 2 of a four-part, six-and-a-half hour show that we performed one morning during a gap in the programming between spring and summer schedules at the radio station.

Part 1

This one is getting going with full-force (already? Save it up, you still have pts 3-4!) raucousness and mayhem. Featuring a cruise-band record from my parents' Bermuda honeymoon, Lewis Carroll poems, the trusty HAL-9000, and some serious out-there skronk and noise, scattered amongst the drone.

On a ship: Lounge act, engine drone
A Wonderland revue
Anime exclaims with light industrial ditty
Primitive scree, rawk overclocked
Wait. Who started the self-destruct sequence?
This is it. We're going to die.
Your life flashes before your eyes—oddly with singing chipmunks
Limbo = electronique opera overture
Getting the saxophone started on a cold morning
Airplane mimicry in shop class
The Avant-garde vs. the Vienna Philharmonic
Absurd getting ugly, draws in John Williams
Twinkling beats. Get it? Beats?

Gradual Brightening, pt 1 (#56)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 07:00:00 +0000

Source file found here. Originally broadcast on May 18, 1997. This is Part 1 of a four-part, six-and-a-half hour show that we performed one morning during a gap in the programming between spring and summer schedules at the radio station.

The idea was to begin quietly in the dark of early morning and very gradually increase the energy and mixing as the sun rose and morning progressed. Six plus hours is not a recommended amount of time to do anything non-stop with any consistency or high amount of success, but there are some notable bits here and there once we got into the mode.

Part 1 here starts with the station ID "looping" on the phone delay, and we move into a start-stop section until we work it out with some terrible organ music. From the 30 minute mark onward things are solid in a extended drone and animal-sounds way. Definitely worth taking a listen to, especially on a weekend morning on the couch.

ID...ID...ID...ID...
Is it funny already?
Rather Aphex-y so far
Anton plays an extended etude
Pretty annoying: calliope/R2D2 impression/tinnitus
Practicing my squiggles
Circular breathing through drainpipes
Forest empties of fauna in advance of an approaching menace
Fauna return to bliss out
Thick pulses surfacing
Dulcimer and prepared piano solos
Interesting loops, half-musical
A crumbly accordion

OUIJATKDF (#98)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 07:00:00 +0000

Source file is here. Originally broadcast on March 5, 1998.

This was my favorite show score we came up with. Supposedly, the idea came to us that we could give up decision-making during show's performance. Who would decide for us? The spirit world, of course.

There are two production studios involved and each one has its own "map". When an active Ouija board at the station points to the letter "E", for example, TKDF staffer #1 cuts out everything they are doing and plays the first track on turntable one repeatedly, and TKDF staffer #2 turns all active channels up all the way and turns on the FX module. Each letter and number on the board is accounted for this way, and the collage show progresses smoothly and without hiccup or over-thinking.

Actually, in practice this show's plan created unexpected problems as well as some pretty great moments of sound. There was not room in the cramped station to have the Ouija operators in easy "reach" of the Staff, and so there had to be a relay team who took turns running the messages upstairs to the studios. Occasionally this creates awkward pauses and sometimes letters pile up and staff execute commands in quick succession or all at once. Despite making the show difficult in new and interesting ways, the great thing the Ouija board did was create some dynamic events or accidents that we never would have done if left to ourselves.

Modems, oscillators, and Einstein, oh my
Sudden counting
Do you think the spirit likes prog?
Indigestion Robot
Disco Irv and balky outboard motor
All largely propaganda
Let me just weld this door shut
Theatrical entrances
Breakbeat Chinese dog party
Push it into the red, don't stop
A robot is running the show now
And the robot likes Negativland
Drums, samples, and quit followin me

Note from Ian F-R: Actually, the tape ends with some personal recordings that were not broadcast. The robot voice, the Negativland tracks, and the drum patterns are my recordings, added after the show. Whoops.

A Fate That Must Come To Us All (Death) (#76)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Source is in two files, here and here. Originally broadcast on October 2, 1997.

Perhaps the oldest topic we could have dealt with. Like previously posted shows, the subject is treated less philosophically and more in the juvenile, macabre sense of DEAD BODIES and the grisly details. We are addressing physical death here directly, and there isn't much about grief, mourning, or the afterlife.

Music strewn throughout this killing field varies from jazz and Korean children singing, to Throbbing Gristle and Diamanda Galas. Texts referenced are computer-read horror stories, Monty Python sketches, Princess Diana news coverage, and the two Williams (Shakespeare and Burroughs).

Imagine the hell
Faint death choirs
Crumbling in decay
Those are condemned
Smooth jazz sacrifice
Falling down a well
Burier, burner, dumper
Mort aux vaches
Hypnotic Plague Mass
Prospero and Westminster
Death needs time
Unfair court proceedings
Including unfortunate wretches

May Flowers May Day (#53)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Source is found here. Originally broadcast on May 1, 1997.

This is another fun show I remember listening to repeatedly. I think the title here is purely nominal and doesn't relate to any springtime or labor-related content. The energy level starts pretty high and active. There is a prevalance of spastic burbling and garbled chatter, bobbing back and forth between music fragments and blasts of verbal nonsense, and feedback—ranging from a hollow, ringing sheet to a rolling bass shudder—recurs throughout the show.

Featured largely throughout is Atavistic Records' 1996 "State of the Union" compliation, a two-disc set of 146 one-minute tracks of avant musics, spoken word, and collage bits. I am also happy to hear Protoblast's "Ex-Neurosurgeon" again at about the 1 hour 23 minute mark, a great, compact song from the great NC comp "Cognitive Mapping Vol 2" from Friction Media. I will need to pull that CD out again.

Saxophone overtakes tape deck
Backwards sucking vampire guitar
Meta-radio instructions
Let's turn on
You're the earth
The singing stone
I know you can
Record player won't turn, it's stuck
Sounds of being the sky
Mr. Price is amused
Thriller loop, screams, and static
Body bomb with background turntablism
Trash can party

Wax Snd Trk (#42)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 22:00:00 +0000

Source to be found here. Originally broadcast on February 13, 1997.

This show features decorative and distracting sounds surrounding the audio from David Blair's feature-length film Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees. Wax is a surreal allegory involving a beekeeper who skips across time and space to interact with Cain and Abel in the Garden of Eden, meet giant intelligent bees in the New Mexico desert, and become a high-tech weapons system in the 1991 Gulf War. It was the first motion picture to be available via HTTP in 1993.

I purchased a VHS copy of Wax from Blair after seeing a fragment of it in video studio at undergrad art school. Its unstuck-in-time story and the juxtaposition of disparate elements appealed to my new sense of Digital and The Internet, as well as fondness for the really strange. Using early non-linear editing, it exploits that technology's advantages, crafting archival, stock, and original video footage with early computer graphic animation into a disorienting but compelling visual epic.

Soundwise, Wax is simply narrated in the first person by Blair with ambient music and sound effects, so our audio contributions attempt to enhance it in the absence of the film's imagery. Mostly, they add another inscrutable layer, consisting of guitar scrapes, clangs, screeching hand-turned records, samples from Negativland's A Big 10-8 Place, and, finally, some good old drum-and-bass.

The first plutonium bomb
A message was waiting for me in my grandfather's diary
'O' for the operator
The Tower of Babel
The language of Cain
Out of the dark machinery
I was Zoltan Abbasid
Priests and military planners
A machine large enough to scan an entire mourner
In the air over Basra, southern Iraq
We're genetic researchers
We've come for what's ours

Potluck Dinner (#106) (Ian and Jason)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 15:12:00 +0000

Source here. Originally recorded on April 30th, 1998.

This was supposed to be a sort of potluck of a show, giving each of the current members a chance to explore a theme in a smaller space of time but a larger sphere of influence (either unencumbered by or freed from other members' wills).

What transpires is three very different pieces. However, we only have two right now. Lisa's may be lost to time, I fear. I need to dig through the remaining recordings to determine if it's still here.

Also note incidental Mac sounds.....

Announcement and Explanation
Densely populated concert halls
Engraved Television Weapon
Lightsaber Battle
Cardboard box saw
Reverse attackarama
Fake space sonar test
BittersweetBittersweetBittersweetBittersweet
Slavetothemoneythenslavetothemoneythenslavetothemoney
BittersweetPublicEnemyNoNoNoNoNo
PowerhouseSymphony
YouKnowThePusherThatTakesYou
TheOtherPusherICantChangeMyModeGoodLeader

Guitar (#104)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 15:36:00 +0000

Source here. Originally recorded on April 16th, 1998.

If you look at the absurdly brief history of rock music, you'll notice that it both starts and ends with the acquisition and abandonment of the electric guitar. Barely an eyeblink in our cultural history, and yet it commandeers an exalted location in our minds.

Preposterous.

This show is made up mostly entirely of guitar samples. The sounds are occasionally processed.

Completely Attack-Free
Like an amplified spring doorstop.
Suddenly, Bass!
String Scraping
Tradition creeps in
Smooth meets Rough
Not strictly "Rock", per se
Drone Tuning with King Crimson
More careful instruction
Less practice more flailing
Distortion is an instrument unto itself
Crunch and Grind
Hammer no more the strings

Untitled (#96)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:19:00 +0000

Source here. Originally recorded on February 20th, 1998.

I kind of like the unlabeled ones. There's a complete lack of setup, and so it makes for a kind of choose your own adventure listening. It's also clearly a choose your own adventure creation, as the lack of an overarching theme allows for anything to be explored.

Buzzing of various kinds
Gentle guitar, ungentle background
Violins and Turntablism
"You're Lumpiest"
Grinding voices
Orbital mechanics
"So Upset"
Sonic Chisel
At some point, we dropped a beat
Television, Movies, Comics
Ambient Chill Out Kinko's
Scraping out the crates
Surf guitar AI

Added by Ian F-R: This show includes a record, "Sleepy Eyes" by Simeon, near the beginning (the "gentle guitar" as well as crunchy guitar soon after). I knew Simeon from my job at the time screen-printing t-shirts.

It also sounds like we did that thing I like a lot, where I transfer an older show to a tape reel and then we send it through FX. I enjoy the swooping crunches near the center of the show's timeline.

XmasShowXDU (#87)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 14:33:00 +0000

Source here. Original Airdate December 18, 1997.

We did a number of Christmas shows in 1997, mostly because we got lots more time to fiddle around during the holiday break due to many people being simply gone. This seems like a practice run for the longer show a week later.

That said, the source material spans a good century of popular Christmas cheer (although a mid-century version of "Let It Snow" shows up time and again). Shows like this require an astonishing catalog of sonic stuff. Nowadays, something like this would be easier to assemble; what with keeping everything as digital files and tagging and whatnot. Alternately, the various formats (vinyl, tape, CD, computer) lend their own sonic overtones to the mix, and the process of searching through deep, dusty boxes leads to much serendipity.

Ultimately, there's no one right way to do this.

Can it beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Bad idea, Beck
Too many competing fanfares
A shockingly ahistorical account of Christmas in early America
Sonic Youth, Back from the North Pole
Let it snow let it snow letitsnowletitsnowletitsnow l e t i t ssssssnnnnnnnooooowwwww
Santa might be feeling a little unwell
Keeping the Christ in Christmas
Rescue Santa!
The Rocket has failed
Turn that racket off!
Kittens of sugarplums.
Did we ever manage to rescue Santa?

Computer Error! / Sick Technology (#85)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 17:28:00 +0000

Source here. Originally recorded on December 12, 1997.

This one is all about those blasted computers and how they're always either completely taking over the world or breaking down and leaving us stranded in the median of the Information Superhighway. Lots of talk in this one. Talk about computers and talk from computers. Music about computers and music made by computers.

HAL 9000 samples figure heavily.

Overload warnings abound, for you as well as in the audio itself. It is possible to listen to too much of this all at once. Care should be taken. You may have to unplug completely at the end and take a little break from anything electronic.

Virus Warning!
It's over 9000!
Fire the Torpedos
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use
You've got mail!
I know it's a bit silly.
Zero Gravity Toilet Instructions
Computer Aquarium
Drills and Doors
Still testing the AE-35 unit
Passing Tube Train Pods
A contemplative moment inside the engine room
It's always been human error.

The Nuclear Family (#82)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:20:00 +0000

Source here. Originally aired on 11/13/1997.

Let me start by saying I totally love Ian's announcement at the beginning that WXDU is a peace-loving organization and does not condone the use of nuclear weaponry, despite the contents of the show. That totally makes my day each time I listen to it, because it's like the perfect combination of cheekiness and sincerity.

Just after this it almost seems like dead air. One might be inclined to skip the really quiet bits. It builds a little gradually.

This is all cold-war era stuff. So the music and whatnot will be familiar to a certain age (those people are probably not reading this, but whatever). This is more Nuclear, and less Family, but the actual explosions are easier to articulate than the metaphorical ones. There's an inexplicable amount of stuff from a multiracial acceptance album; and an antique one at that, because it uses the words "Negro" and "Mongolian" liberally and earnestly.

STRUM AND DRAG
A very quiet beginning
No atheists in foxholes
Nuclear tourism
Duck and Cover!
Shopping list
An antiquated digression on race while the bombs fall
"It's like Titanic, but with nuclear weapons."
It doesn't get much more majestic than this
That funny in-between look
What's the point of building it if you don't use it?
It can destroy any city (in Texas)
Stupidity has a habit of getting its way

TKDF Reports Live News (#77)

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:34:00 +0000

Source here. Originally broadcast on October 9, 1997.

80% of any blog is apologizing for infrequent posting, so I'll forgo that there and hope you have us in your automatic reader and this just pops up as a pleasant surprise. I'll try and knock out a few of these over the break, and send them out in measured fashion.

This is sample-heavy, and somewhat localized to the at-the-time North Carolina home of the show. These are not intrinsically bad things. Some of the less-local news is very newsworthy, and in particular snippits of Negativland's legal troubles feature occasionally. Percussive Morse Code compliments robotic telex.

To Protect and to Serve a Voice Synthesizer
A lack of crowd control
Absinthe of Malice (Nectar of the Goths)
News, Reported
This is Yhaoo News.
Everybody Quiet!
Dean Smith is Stepping Down
Unabombermultiplex.
The History of Howland Island
The Tape Fell Into the Wrong Hands
Students and Alumni
Junior Rodeo Storm Warning
We now return to our reporter in North Carolina.

Another Hiatus Heard From

ian@thiscarup.net (Ian F-R) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 05:36:00 +0000

Just to say I'll be posting a new show this weekend. Been busy job hunting, but look for another show post tomorrow. Sorry about the wait.