Here's the third (of 4, or 5) unpublished blog posts, written prior to actually having a blog to post to...
(June 4, 2005)
Here’s this week’s playlist:
01 Negativland – “Escape From Noise”
02 Messer Chups - “Learning To Control Myself”
03 DJ BMC – “Country inferno”
04 Mr Dibbs – “Judeas Transmission”
05 Big Apple Productions – “Genius At Work”
06 DJ Shadow – “Would You Buy A War From This Man”
07 John Schnall –“Everything's Falling Down”
08 Kid Koala – “Stompin' At Le Savoi”
09 Jeff Sconce – “Joy Sinatra”
10 Lecture On Nothing – “It Means Nothing To You”
11 Myeck Waters - “Another Bible story adventure”
12 Unknown – “Closer to da club (50 inch nails)”
13 Negativland – “Happy Hero: The Remedia Megamix”
Ironic that I mentioned Negativland in my last post, and then this week played two tracks by them, making specific comments about having not given them the attention they deserve, as I actually produced this episode last week, at the same time as last week’s episode, and in one of my breaks acknowledged the fact that I hadn’t really played an awful lot of tracks by Negativland in the first two years of syndication. What I didn’t mention was why…
Although of course I’m a fan of their work, I specifically remember making a conscious decision to focus the show on a broad range of appropriation-based artists, and to give as much exposure as possible to artists who hadn’t made as large a name for themselves. Negativland, I figured, didn’t need the exposure so much, and so of course I’d play them but not as much as other artists. This was an issue, I felt, especially in the beginning, because the library was so small back then, by comparison. I remember I had built this wooden box with hinges and a clasp, and would haul it to and from the studio every week (I was the production director at Radio K at the time, so I didn’t have to haul it far – my office was just down the hallway - but it was pretty heavy). Since about 25% of the library were Negativland CDs, I was concerned that I’d rely on those CDs too often, so I made an effort to limit how much I played them.
Anyway - I’ve made similar decisions about other CDs. For instance, I try not to play more than two mashup artists a week – I don’t want the program to turn into a bastard pop show. I intend for SAR to stay focused broadly on the art of appropriation, across all genres. Anyway – I mentioned that I’d be going back over my playlists and determining what and who I’d been playing, trying to even things out a bit, now that the library has more than doubled. I’m excited about this third year. I think the mix should really be evening out. Turntable creations will mean more musique concret AND hip hop artists, tape manipulations/digital deconstructions will be an even broader spectrum of experimental, cut-ups and even pop music (including mashups, which I hadn’t even heard of when the show first started). Overall, I’m looking forward to a strong third year. There are some exciting interviews coming up as well. Lots of work to do.
Yawn. Its actually 2:30 in the morning. I just finished watching the Empire Strikes Back. Saw the new Star Wars film a few days ago and have been revisiting some of the other movies since then. I waited tables at my restaurant job along Lake Calhoun after the show today, and am exhausted. So I’m going to make this one a bit shorter and hit the sack. My cat is chasing a
small furry ball around the room. I’ll take a picture of that for today’s image, then hide his toy (so he doesn’t keep me awake all night with it!) and go to sleep.Pretty exciting, huh?
Thanks for listening,
Jon Nelson
www.some-assembly-required.net
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