Spoken Word with Electronics is an audio series delivering to you a two side recording of unusual stories paired with vintage modular electronic sounds
Greetings, all — I hope you're doing well. This week, the episode discusses smut and theft, as perceived by my own mind at age five and six. Enjoy a time warp back in the late 1970s as you find a Belle Barth album, are given a tour of Aurora, Colorado, and break into a friend's house to get that Gargamel toy.
RIP Jerry Stiller. A great comedian. He played the Borscht Belt in many of the same clubs as Belle Barth, incidentally. Here's this week's show:
Spoken Word with Electronics is an audio series delivering to you a two side recording of unusual stories paired with vintage modular electronic sounds
Welcome back, everyone. This week this series concludes the six part tribute to Paul Krassner. You'll find all the previous tracks in episodes 2,3,4, and 5. I will be collecting all of these tracks into an album later on Bandcamp. A link to that, if interested.
Paul was a terrific human. In lieu of flowers, I recommend donating to his GoFundMe for his wife Nancy and other family.
This episode is on the importance of dishonesty, distortion, and rumor spreading as personal freedoms to challenge authority, and the fun involved in such practices. So, LET'S GET FAKE!
Spoken Word with Electronics is an audio series delivering to you a two side recording of unusual stories paired with vintage modular electronic sounds
Both songs had the identical title, "Marijuana, the Devil's Flower", or "MTDF" for short. I fell in love with both of these tracks and have pined for an opportunity to do something fun with them. For this week's program, hear MTDF turned into a shortwave radio broadcast signal, using an RF Nomad and an AModulator. Then hear MTDF looped oddly through a set of samplers. Here's a set of soundcloud links:
Spoken Word with Electronics is an audio series delivering to you a two side recording of unusual stories paired with vintage modular electronic sounds
Greetings, all. To make this more like a proper series, I've expanded these posts into a more traditional radio segment format. You'll find a completely audio version in the playlist.
In 1942, Mel Blanc screamed about food hoarding in a Warner Brothers animated short, "Foney Fables". I was pleased to see the cartoon is in the public domain – Meaning you can do whatever you'd like with much of it.
Spoken Word with Electronics is an audio series delivering to you a two side recording of unusual stories paired with vintage modular electronic sounds
THIS WEEK:
Episode #5: Audio Politics
Hello, everyone – I hope all things are continuing to be comfortable and well. This installment begins with the fourth part of an interview conducted with Paul Krassner. You can hear the entire interview here as one playlist – There will be two more installments added to this playlist in the next few weeks.
The 60s offered a dystopian reality for many women. This installment focuses on an awful moment in US history (still at risk to return) where a satire magazine would be among the only places found to provide sanity and safety.
When I interviewed Paul in 2017 for a comedy magazine I couldn't help but veer into the serious business of Paul running an underground abortion referral service. This wasn't being an abortion provider, merely indicating where such services could be found. I'll let Paul describe this best, but as an introduction, consider that there was ZERO public information on getting an abortion: no phone book, certainly no Internet (or social media, Google search, or any network), no public record. It had to be word of mouth, leading to many distortions, blackmail, and worse.
Below is probably the most concise he's ever been describing his role of running an underground referral service. Paul did this for a decade, earning him a sizable chapter in his FBI file. Paul is a hero to me for a lot of reasons, but this most of all. I'm very happy to share this audio:
Side B for this episode is a tribute to Kathy Acker. Politically, we're at a perfect moment in time for a Kathy Acker revival. Audio from this comes from a reading she did from her novel "Don Quixote" in 1985. Music added includes a Soma ETHER, a D-2000 Drum Machine, and a variety of Eurorack.
If you've never heard Acker perform a piece, you're in for a treat. But be aware that there's some tough language — and she has a beautiful voice. I'd say this is NSFW, but does that even exist now? (Regards and respect to everyone needing to go into a place of work, presently, of course) If you have any kids in audible proximity you might want to be discrete.
As a bonus track, I've started to add a process to these spoken word pieces where I'll remove the vocal and then add one element to the piece to make an instrumental. Here, I put in a looping piano to the Kathy Acker track, and it changes considerably. I've been going on nightwalks for my sanity and peace every night. If your part of the world allows such movement, I highly recommend it. Here's a closing piece, Nightwalks During the Pandemic.
Spoken Word with Electronics is an audio series delivering to you a two side recording of unusual stories paired with vintage modular electronic sounds
THIS WEEK:
Episode #4: "To Forget to Remember"
Welcome back to Spoken Word with Electronics. I hope this week has gone well for you, all things considered. Here's some audio theater:
This week we lead off with an uncommon recording of E.E.Cummings. One of my favorite poems of his is anyone lived in a pretty how town. It was first published in 1940 and has some interesting resonance today. He has a beautiful speaking voice, which surprised me, a blend of Oscar Wilde with Truman Capote, just with no capital letters. (E.E.'s name was often capitalized, unlike his poems)
Music for this track is a blend of a few things, but primarily a loop from a Yamaha Reface CP (GREAT FUN) along with other yamaha-based loops recorded over the last few years, and a Metasonix Voltage Controlled Oscillator, specifically the R55. The R55 (and its current version, the RK7) is based on a very unpredictable thyratron tube and is a wonderfully unpredictable source of noise and completely unique. It's not unlike a tesla coil with sound. You can hear it floating through this isolated track at a gentle dissipating scrape about halfway through. Plugging an LFO into its VCA can produce a wonderful snoring sound; this is audible in the ending third of the track. Posted as a bonus item:
Side B: "There's no laws against blasphemy. That's why they get you on obscenity." – An audio interview with Paul Krassner about the first time he met Lenny Bruce
Side B for this week continues the interview with Paul Krassner, started in Episode Two and Episode Three. Now we're getting into the good stuff. Paul was, of course, a good friend of Lenny Bruce's. Few people have heard about their first encounter, however, involving one of Lenny's first busts, a dip into psychology with Albert Ellis, and Paul's jokes about prank shops. Of particular note, is the interview with Albert Ellis, which gave Lenny a glimpse at the first time he'd seen an F-bomb dropped onto a printed page. If you think we're restricted now to being stuck at home, imagine getting arrested for cussing?
Mindbender trivia: If you're curious about Robert Anton Wilson's early past, he conducted the interview with Krassner, likely adding a little voltage to the questions. Here's the full document Lenny Bruce was amazed to read. And here is the issue of The Realist that Paul distributed in front of the theater on Lenny's behalf.
Spoken Word with Electronics is an audio series delivering to you a two side recording of unusual stories paired with vintage modular electronic sounds
Greetings, all! This week continues my discussion with Paul Krassner, from an interview conducted in 2017. Paul is recognized as an early second-wave feminist, and one of the coolest things he did, in my opinion, was use his reach as a publisher to advocate for reproductive freedoms – including contraception.
A fun side B, this is a reworking of Henry Miller's self-recorded vocal of "The Colossus of Maroussi". The vocal comes from a very rare LP, which is on colored red disc! – I visited a friend who has collected Henry Miller work for decades, who has a copy. Here's a look at one of the rarest literary records ever made, published in very small edition in 1949:
"Written in Greece and New York, 1940. Recorded at Nepenthe, [Henry Miller's] nearest neighbor with electricity in Big Sur, California, June, 1949. Made in New York City."
Adding to this vocal is a three-piece of some of the coolest electronics ever made. I own none of these, as well, but a few years ago I visited a friend with a 1973 Buchla Music Easel, then also visited a friend with a Linn Drum, and finally got a chance to play with a Jupiter 8. All of those recording sessions were combined here into the Henry Miller track. Listen here:
Back next week with more from Paul and some more surprises. Hope you're all doing well, Ethan
Spoken Word with Electronics is an audio series delivering to you a two side recording of unusual stories paired with vintage modular electronic sounds
THIS WEEK:
Welcome, fellow occupant of Quarantonia! A few months back I posted the first installment of Spoken Word with Electronics, an audio history series. The first episode was a tribute to David Berman of the Silver Jews/Purple Mountains. Since then I've been finishing up a lot of the separate selections from interviews and other recorded vocals.
Here's Spoken Word with Electronics Issue #2, with a lot more to come.
Think of each installment as a two-sided record, a Side A and a Side B.
SIDE A: Paul Krassner recalls the day JFK was shot. Audio comes from a comprehensive interview I did with Paul in 2017, mixed in with a lot of electronic accompaniment. The printed piece ended up in The American Bystander, Issue #4. There was a huge amount of information recorded that couldn't fit in the printed piece, though, and these audio pieces will provide a much denser portrait of P.K. – Often going into territory he rarely discussed.
Future installments will have five or six other focused memories of Paul's on a variety of wonderful topics. Stay tuned for some fun stuff.
SIDE B: Our flip-side track of the album is an apocalyptic carnival ride called "Earth, Take Four" — I'd completed this a few months back but it feels timely. Watch out for the volcanoes!
The wind in "Earth, Take Four" is a combination of different colors of noise. Red noise sounds like turbulence or thunder, where blue or purple noise can sound wispy and thin. You can make your own weather if you blend curves of different colors in and out. The panning is controlled by sending a triangle wave into a voltage controlled panner.
And we're done! We (along with John, who loved that this was serialized) would like to thank everyone on Boing Boing, and all readers, for following this story over the pace of a page or two every month. The obvious question: What's next? Answer: There will be a Kickstarter — likely around June — to fund a complete volume, along with extensive notes and extras. Why, it's the perfect addition to any academic library, hip comic book shelf, counterculture gift, or journalism course syllabus worth its Real News salt, naturally! You can follow on Twitter for info (Scott or Ethan) — You can also follow this project's Kickstarter profile. Additionally, we're aware of the many of you who have purchased a Book One of the series. Your patience and support will not be ignored! We'll have a Book Two available in the Kickstarter, along with a Complete Volume (Books One and Two together). In the meantime, here's an ad for Book One – Get one before it's gone – Genuine thanks, Ethan and Scott.
SCUM Manifesto author Valerie Solanas' effort to get her play "Up Your Ass" produced by Andy Warhol leads to deadly confrontations. With cameos from Maurice Girodias, Paul Krassner, and Barney Rosset.
A holiday letter to John Wilcock from Hunter S. Thompson (written exactly fifty years ago this week!) – Describing Thompson's intentions to run for sheriff of Aspen and Joe Edwards' nearly successful run for Mayor.
