Uncle Dave Lewis and his Shows

Originally broadcast on WAIF-FM Cincinnati and taken from a surprisingly well preserved radio tape, this episode was a typical Uncle Dave-hosted nuts and bolts offering of its time. Some post-punk stuff from the UK (PiL, The Mekons, Rental & Leer & the Street Level artist Reptile Ranch), some No Wave stylings by Mars, some newly recorded pieces by The Master of Horror and the just-born Manwich, and finally a couple of tracks from thrift store albums. The tape also captures the first bit of Dan Williams' portion of the show, including the theme to "Mr. Ed" played backwards, as there was then concern that the little ditty contained a secret satanic message, i.e. "this song was sung for Satan." See if you can hear it. Length: 62 minutes.

Gilmar Records was a tiny mail order concern located in Southern California between 1955 and 1961, first listed in Van Nuys, then Encino for a time and finally in Hollywood, though that may have just been a post office box location. They made "soundalike" or properly, generic records that imitated the hits of the day at a cut rate price, direct marketed through television and radio. What you will hear are the hits of August 1958 -- the very beginning of the so-called "Hot 100 Era" -- as filtered through the voices and fingers of performers the true names of which we will probably never know; the name "Steve Marks" is used for at least three different singers. I wonder if the young Frank Zappa may have been involved with the label when it was located in Encino; if so, certainly later than this. Quality of performances range from very good to inept, but the sound quality of these mail order records is consistently excellent. At times the recordings separate into stereo, and I have no explanation for this other than it was some sort of technical glitch.

This is 12 songs played in 25 minutes. I suggest that you listen to it while you are doing something else; housecleaning, doing dishes or preparing a meal. Relatively low volume might not hurt it either. Enjoy; it's like listening to an AM radio in August 1958 in a parallel universe.

Steve Marks: Hard Headed Woman/What Am I Living For?/Guess Things Happen That Way/Vic Corwin's Orch.: Patricia/Steve Marks: Poor Little Fool/Splish Splash// Jack Richards: My True Love/The Corwins: When/Steve Marks: Just A Dream/Jack Richards: Volare (Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blue)/The Corwins: Little Star/Steve Marks: Willie and the Hand Jive//

This is the first part of the Local Cincinnati Records feature, and unlike part two, this one deals with more hit oriented, mainstream records from Cincinnati's "major" labels, King Records and Fraternity. The paucity of King selections hardly gives one an impression of the vast variety experienced on that label, but this was the first show of this kind that I ever did. My boyish enthusiasm in 1988 is not exactly infectious, and here is another list of corrections: (a) I caught myself in supplying the wrong date for "Please, Please, Please," but the screaming on James Brown records began with the "Live at The Apollo" LP in 1962, and not before, and (b) Bill Parsons was a pseudonym for country legend Bobby Bare. Otherwise you will hear Bonnie Lou, Jerri Adams, the folk group The Minutemen, The Dolphins, The York Brothers a bathetic swath of Bob Braun, society bandleader Burt Farber and my dear, departed buddy Eddie Bennett and the Fun Bunch. As with part two, the label seen here is used for illustration and is not used in the show. Length: 42 minutes.

An early extrapolation of my interest in records of the local Cincinnati and Okiana regional variety, this segment mostly given to the "generics" of the 1950s. This was one of the first public appreciations in this field of research, and a lot more is known now about these records than in '88, so a few corrections are in order: (a) Dick Warren's "Rock Around the Clock" is FAR from being the first rock 'n roll record made in Cincinnati; in fact, it's not even close, as it is argued that some King Records from the period of 1947-50 qualify just as much as this one. (b) The Cincinnati Gateway label folded in 1958, and other companies used the name later. (c) The singer of "Settin' the Woods on Fire" is Delbert Barker, a prolific Cincinnati recording artist of the 1950s; I got out the first name, but not the last. (d) The Harp and Baron labels were manufactured, not distributed, by Rite Records and featured country music artists from Hamilton, Ohio. (e) Of course, you can recognize James Brown, but at the time I felt that his instrumental sound was not as well known as his vocal grooves. There is some measure of print thru on the source tape, and this is not digital quality to say the least; it's WAIF from over 20 years ago, using "junk" records. But I deeply appreciate this world as a kind of alternate universe whereby the hit-makers of the 1950s are replaced by local people from Cincinnati, and what could be more off the wall than that? Length: an action packed 37 minutes.

This WCBN broadcast is a devoted to profile of pioneering, criminally neglected classical crossover group The New Friends of Rhythm, which existed mainly on radio from just before WWII to just after it ended. Towards the end of the show I express concern that there are no reissues of their material, but by now there is one, in part made from the very same discs in my collection; that's here -- http://www.amazon.com/1939-47-Performances-New-Friends-Rhythm/dp/B000N6UCQI/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1315516991&sr=1-1
but if you like the group you owe it to yourself to hear the fine job Doug Pomeroy did in transferring the originals, rather than my amateur efforts as heard here. The WCBN "Radio Anaphylaxis" was a short-lived evening program that I did on Tuesdays for a bit; this was an especially nice and purposeful episode, and good listening to boot. Length: 55 mins.

The noise factor at WAIF is a little less worrisome here, though perhaps that does not apply to the music played, pretty heavily centered with 1980s Cincinnati avant-garde including previously thought lost pieces by Cointelpro, Uncle Dave Lewis and "Dave and Tim" (Uncle Dave and Tim Schwallie in a collaboration separate from Cointelpro). In addition to that there is a tasty novelty by fellow Ohioan Una Mae Carlisle, misogynistic musings of Kai Winding, some Ed Wood bondage music, Perez Prado and Collins and Harlan again to close the show. Demuth's "The Figure 5" would seem an obvious choice for an image, but that is already in use on this podcast, so this nifty New York nightscape by Italian futurist Fortunato Depero will have to do. Length: 45 minutes.

It has been almost exactly a year since I've been able to add anything to my pod, and in that time I haven't done a whole lot of radio, but some. This is the third Art Damage episode I have done and this segment was designed in part to publicize the live music benefit for Japanese Earthquake relief that was presented the following weekend. It brought in about $200; again, not much, but some. One important difference between WAIF and WCBN is that I am able to air my own material, for what it's worth, and there's some of that here, along with music of fellow Cincinnatians William Gilmore Weber III, Cointelpro and the Fairmount Girls. Among out-of-towners featured are Brooklyn's awesome The Hard Nips, Yoko Ono, toy piano virtuoso Phyllis Chen and regular piano virtuoso Jenny Lin, Laughing Eyes, April Stevens, Reta Ray, Oskar Sala, Les Baxter and ancient recording stalwarts Collins & Harlan. A technical note: WAIF was especially noisy sounding this night, and I had to run noise reduction on this seg; while I was able to fix most audio inequities regarding music, my voice often sounds like I'm speaking through a refrigerator. Image is from a 1965 installation by Japanese artist and inveterate dot-maker Yayoi Kusama. Length: 65 minutes.

This is a wild gallimaufry of stuff: pioneering jazz by the Frisco Jass Band and New Orleans Rhythm Kings, dime store dance hits from the 20s, Latin and French Creole selections, some TV Action Jazz, cool stuff from easy listening artists and even some words of warning from the top hatted bug pictured here. However, it looks like this will be my last ever radio show on the station mentioned, and it might be some time before I am able to do a new radio program that I can post here. I have plenty of older programs that I can post and you can continue to look forward to those, nevertheless. Length: 53 minutes.

The summer solstice vibe continues, and this segment features the tone poem "Summer Evening" by Frederick Delius in addition to a little bit of Beethoven in a historic recording, sprightly renaissance era pieces by Claudio Merulo, John Dowland and Giulio Caccini, a steamy sinfonia by W. F. Bach and a scintillating Sarabande by Luigi Dallapicolla all capped off by a jazzy jam by Erwin Schulhoff. The illustration here is an early work by Edvard Munch which shares its title with the Delius work. A well spent length of 50 mins.

Here I'm ringing in the summer with the remarkable Piano Sextet of short lived Polish composer Antoni Stolpe (1851-1872) whose visual counterpart I think I have found in this painting by slightly later Pole Jósef Mehoffer (1869-1946). There are some glitches surrounding that presentation -- excuse me -- but you will also find here some lusciously summery selections of Henri Dutillieux, Tomaso Albinoni, Leon Jessel and Baldessare Galuppi, not to mention a deliciously wicked march by another short-lived figure in music, Gideon Klein (1919-1945). Fun stuff. Length: 64 minutes

The photo is of the Kamata Railway Station in Tokyo, and this segment begins with the song one may yet hear today at the Kamata Railway, based on a tune by American operetta-meister Rudolf Friml. This is followed by the not quite as exotic "Bo-La-Bo" by Ted Lewis and a selection of 78s by the Jockers Brothers Orchestra, the Super Syncopators of Chicago, Irving Aaronson and his Commanders and St. Louis Jimmy. After that we have a mixed-genre-but-within-the-same-period set featuring Dizzy Gillespie, Sons of the Pioneers, Ames Brothers, Bill Haley, Little Willie John and Camerata. Baden Powell winds up this 50 minutes long set.

This segment is partly meant as a farewell to a friend and a longtime listener who moved out of the range of the radio signal. Starting with a sad Schubert song, it progresses through some luscious Baroque sacred music by Pachelbel and a spirited sonata movement by Telemann and one of my friend's favorite bits of Bach, the song "Bist du bei mir" (though modern scholarship has taught us this is not by Bach, but by some fellow named Johann Stözel.) It finishes out with non-Western classical music; a trio movement by Armenian composer Arno Babadjanian, an orchestal mugum by Fikret Amirov and a Chinese violin work by Ma Sicong. While Babadjanian remains a popular composer in Armenia; his statue (seen here) is not a popular piece of public artwork there; word has it that it's been moved all over Yerevan in order to quell public outcry against it as "a disgrace." Length: 60 minutes exactly.

This opening seg is definitely one devoted to the classic in musical art and begins with the mysterious "Mikado March" attributed to John Philip Sousa but not actually written by him, followed with historic performance of Mozart's Overture to Cosi fan Tutte dating from 1951 and a little of Balbastre's keyboard arrangement of Jean-Phillipe Rameau's ballet music for "Pymalion." After a jaunty little Robert Farnon esquisse entitled "Mr. Punch," dinner is served in the form of some choice instrumental excepts from Joseph Martin Kraus' six-hours long opera "Aeneas in Carthage." This illustration of Aeneas and some of his doings in Carthage comes from a late medieval manuscript of Italian origin. Length: Just a shade under 60 minutes.

In this episode, I finally find the funny bone for April Fool's, though it is more likely to raise a faint internal smile rather than to inspire jocosity of the laughing out loud kind. It starts with some ragtime in through an ultra-obscure 20s jazz track by Elmer Kaiser and his Ballroom Orchestra of Chicago. A bridge is formed through the jaunty and slightly politically incorrect but springtime enabled song sung by Ruth Etting, and then the funny starts: Hal Kemp, Spike Jones, Leroy Anderson, Boyd Bennett (more of a guilty pleasure than actually funny), Stan Freberg, The Cheers, Lenny Bruce and Stonewall Jackson, whose "Waterloo" suits both the illustration featured and the tenor of the times. Finishes out with recently revived postpunk gurus PiL, but patient listeners past "Nixon's Dream" will find an "Easter egg" in the form of an unannounced Duke Ellington tune. Length: an action-packed 49 minutes.

This represents more of an expansion of the spring theme than the first seg; a Leonin sequence is included by way of representing Easter, and what follows is vocal music by "three Johns" -- John Sheppard, John Eccles and John Ireland -- interrupted by a Chopin Prelude. As to the remainder, I got some welcome feedback from a listener to the live program, who wrote "OK... got to hand it to you - the sequence of the Hindemith, the Markevitch, the early [Lou] Harrison and the Part was STUNNING. So different - and yet, each perfectly fit and followed. [...] I am impressed!" It will be up to you listeners to decide if I am worthy of such high praise. Length: 53 minutes.

Although it's April Fools Day, in this seg I wasn't feeling particularly foolish. It has a two-pronged approach; one as a musical harbinger of spring, and the other prong representing early modernism, in particular the neo-classic; a pioneering recording of a Busoni Sonatina, Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano and Winds, Liszt's proto-modern piano concerto "Malédiction" and Arthur Honegger's moto-rhythmic parable of the locomotive, Pacific 231 (here represented in a parallel visual counterpart, Charles Demuth's famous painting, "The Figure 5.") On the spring prong there is music of Grieg; along the way we encounter some out-of-season football fight songs from the University of Illinois. Length: 67 minutes.

Recently we bid a fond farewell to Mr. Hunchback's episode of Dead Planet Radio posted here. Thankfully he's back in this episode which was done during fundraiser. I make it a policy not to post fundraising shows on the Pod as no one wants to hear all that pledgerapping and it's too much work to edit it out. However Mr. Hunchback's show is all of a piece, consisting of American rock 'n roll songs as recorded by bands from around the world, namely Hong Kong, Spain, India, Cambodia, Mexico, Singapore and Japan. No; the guys in the picture aren't heard here, but it's not a bad illustration for what's inside. A friendly 23 minutes in length for the weary traveler on the go.

Here is the second half of a vintage Art Damage program from WAIF in Cincinnati, identified as "Episode #129" and consisting mostly of locally made electronic music. Among the artists featured are RO Seizure (aka Dan Williams and Greg Fernandez "Talkin' About Sinatra's Dog"), The Master of Horror (moi; "Polyphonographie I"), EYR (also moi, "Larva's Theme" from 1983), Good Cue Sign (Greg Fernandez, "Yes Very"), 11000 Switches Electronic (Dan Williams and myself, "McBloodBath" from 1984) and two pieces by Saint Dymphna (Jack Ison & yours truly), "St. Louis Blues" and the very long "Psalm 104:20." Also along the way we encounter two mutts, the Lonesome Valley Singers' "Whirlybird Crew" and the mega-obscure singer only known as Marty with "Dear Mom and Dad." No objectionable material here, but only those who dare should come this way. Special thanks to Jack Ison for restoring some damaged portions of this rare original recording. Length: 50 minutes.

This segment is a pretty wide ranging one from the standpoint of genres; beginning in Weimar Republic Germany, we encounter a pretty Cuban love queen, a charging railroad train, an English potted melodrama, a somber R&B ballad, a wacked out German schlager and a racially insensitive transformation of a popular 1920s hit. There's also some "crabgrass;" weeded out non-hits from the 70s that are perhaps better left unremembered, although some may disagree. We finish out with a little bit of toast and a mini-masterpiece from the Degenerate Art Ensemble. Length: About 55 minutes.

This starts with a Kyrie from an old chantbook that once belonged to the Knights Templars and continues on through some instrumental pieces from the 17th century; works by Szarzyhaki, Ferro, Marchand, Lebègue and Baltazar -- I guess I can't blame you if none of those names ring a bell. To bring us back to reality then is a Mozart Contradance from a ballet intermezzo he never finished and a suite of dance music from Stephen Foster. Much that is unknown is golden, or at least subscribing to the very spirit of "adventure." It'll be up to you as to whether or not you wish to join this particular dance. Length: 48 minutes.

This is an old book illustration of Edgar Allan Poe's poem "Ulalume;" I've definitely seen it before and I wish I could remember the name of the artist. One other artist, British composer Joseph Holbrooke, did his own musical spin on "Ulalume" which is heard here. Equally fantastic and otherworldly is the Composition No. 2 of Bruno Maderna and Heinrich von Biber's proto-Ivesian Batallia, written in 1673. As this is a first part, the morning march kicks it off but this time is preceded by a Morton Gould Fanfare used, along with another brilliant Gould movement, as a bookend to contain the first half. W. F. Bach stops in for appearance. Length: 66 minutes.

In the last segment eighty years of popular music history are mined for references for love, the range of topics being extraordinarily wide: new love, tragic love, loveless love, poisonous love -- even down to the weight issue and food. Along this long path you will encounter artists such as Bayes and Norworth, Jack Buchanan, Irene Franklin, Alfredo's Band, Arthur Fields, Nick Lucas, Frank Bessinger, Andy Sanella, Arthur Tanner, Mac & Bob (Both these courtesy of Peter Fraissenet; thank you!!), Grandpa Jones, Harlem Hamfats, Libby Holman, Frankie & Doris, Leslie Sarony and Good Cue Sign. Never heard of these folks (except Grandpa Jones)? Don't worry, you will. The picture is from a Dutch Broadside Ballad from 1842 and well suits this segment; I hope you enjoy it -- I think it's one of my best. Length: 68 minutes.

The show continues with a more "Courtly Love" type theme, represented by renaissance master Alexander Agricola and one of his medieval counterparts, Matteo da Perugia. That is followed by a searing violin sonata by neglected middle-Baroque Roman master Carl Ambrogio Lonati, which is countered by a very recent work by American composer Tom Cipullo. It is rounded off with a rousing and moving Irish folksong rendered by Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel; this segment should please thy lady most appealingly. Length: 42 minutes.

This is the first part of my annual Valentine's Day show, which focuses on the "romantic" within romance. The Russians seem to do this best when it comes to music, so it should be no surprise that we would encounter music by Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Rachmaninoff, with the last named played by redoubtable Chinese pianist Helen Lin -- thank you Helen!! Otherwise we hear an overture by Dutch composer Johan Wagenaar, a lovely ballad from "The Rogue Song" sung by a baritone from the Caribbean and the march "Lights Out" by Earl McCoy; something to get all romantic and snuggly with. The painting here is "The Siege of Pskove," executed in 1843 by Karl Pavlovich Briullov (1799-1852). Length: 61 minutes.

This might look like some kind of weird comic strip rather than a musical score, but musical score it is, being part of Cathy Berberian's "Stripsody" (1966, published by C.F. Peters.) This piece concludes a very diverse set which is alternatively pleasing and provocative; music of Francisco Peñalosa, Desire-Emile Ingelbrecht, Wu Fei and Shane W. Cadman. Length: 43 minutes

Just thirty years ago, we thought we had the twentieth century fairly well nailed down; we thought we knew what was important, what wasn't and what the trajectory of art and culture was in this century. However, newly discovered works and artifacts -- such as this anonymous Russian Futurist painting dating from 1909-14 -- keep popping out of the shadows to challenge our notions about modernism. A good example of that is Samuil Feinberg's First Piano Concerto, premiered in 1932 but lost for more than seventy years. Here it is presented along with another pioneering piece of Ferruccio Busoni and two more conventional pieces to clear and sweeten the palate by Gustav Louis Ganne and Johann Strauss II. Length: 73 minutes.

The first part of this long segment is taken up with 78 rpm records I found in an old building belonging to a jukebox and pinball machine vendor and repair facility. Although it starts off with a couple of rousing gospel numbers, the majority of what they had was old blues records -- one reason I call it my "happy place" -- of artists like Sonny Boy Williamson (pictured). It finishes out with some grown up big band music by Woody Herman and Bob Mintzer, and an especially comely piano solo by Dave Brubeck. Length: 77 mins.

Usually an episode cleaves into three parts that are consistently unequal triads, i.e. two hour-long segs and one shorter seg (the "Part 2s".) This time it breaks neatly in half, so these two parts will be longer than normal; hope I haven't inconvenienced anyone. Some might say love is "mechanical," and even though that may be exclusively so, here are mechanisms to enjoy -- music of Tansman, Salonen, Satie, Palle Mikkelborg, Frescobaldi and Markevitch. Somewhat less mechanized are works of Percy Faith and a march by John Philip Sousa; hope this all works out for you as it's a long ride at 88 minutes.

I've been in a Jimmie Lunceford mood lately; don't know how to explain it, and don't feel like I need to. So Jimmie's in the house, and so is some righteous Gospel music by the Rev. J.M. Gates and Li'l McClintock; Bud Powell and Wes Montgomery stop by a visit, and there is a memorial tribute to one of my musical fathers, jazz composer George Russell. Lydiots unite! Length: 57 minutes.

This is the lobby of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C., chosen as an illustration -- and an excellent one -- of post-modern classicism. While the Mendelssohn work included doesn't fall into that category -- it is neo-Baroque in it's outlook -- much of the rest of the music does, including works by Jonathan Newman, Elliott Schwartz, Roberto Sierra and the Ancia Saxophone Quartet's take on Jelly Roll Morton. A medieval song and a dreamy esquisse of George Gershwin are thrown in to sweeten the pot. Length: 48 minutes.

This image is of dancer/choreographer Mui Cheuk-yin in her piece "Desperately Seeking Miss Blossom," chosen as an illustration of post-modern romanticism. And that is exactly what France's Nicolas Bacri achieves masterfully in his String Quartet No. 4 "Omaggio á Beethoven," which is the featured work in this segment. Before that we get into some genuine romantic grooves with works by American Civil War Bandmaster Felix Vinatieri and Bedrich Smetana, get just plain groovy with music of Grazyna Bacewicz and Erwin Schulhoff and enter the 21st century with Takashi Yoshimatsu. Length: 57 minutes.

This final seg covers my Dad's preferences in terms of the later jazz he liked and popular music -- this was a big hit at the wake held for my Dad at my brother's house after the funeral. His tastes didn't go much beyond this, although I think my brothers caught him up to some rock music -- perhaps he was just trying to please them. His last day on earth, Dad watched Michael Jackson's funeral on television. He talked a little about how Michael made that family what it is, then observed, "I don't know why they don't all go out and do something -- they all can sing just fine." Length: 54 mins.

In the second part of "Song for My Father," I transit from classical music into the jazz that he liked. He thought my tastes in jazz were certifiably antique, and what I programmed here is about as antiquated as my Dad was willing to go. So, in the classical part -- Stravinsky, Mahler and Mussorgsky, and in the jazz Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, J.J. Johnson, MJQ, Monk and Clark Terry. This photo of my Dad with his beloved tuba was taken in 1960; he was forced to give it up, but became an engineer in the aircraft and military industrial complex instead. Length: 56 mins.

My Dad passed away on July 8 this year. He had an impact on my music, not to mention my life, and I designated this episode of The Uncle Dave Show as a special memorial to him. So it's Dad's turn, and this program corresponds to his tastes, rather than mine. This seg contains music by Sousa, Wagner, Alkan, Prokofiev and Beethoven, and while I had a hand in getting him into Alkan he didn't need my help at all with the rest of this music. This photo of my Dad was taken in 1959 -- I wasn't around quite yet. Length: 60 mins.

I call the script that I use to draft the Uncle Dave Show "the evil plan;" evil it may be, but it does not always lead to greatness. In this segment, I'm not so sure I didn't make a wrong turn somewhere, but it is offered in the interest of making the Podcast of "Star-Spangled to Death" complete. It includes some sacred music, performed by the Elkins-Payne Jubilee Singers, Dorothy Norwood and Sister Rosetta Tharpe; among the secular stuff you'll hear the Mobile Strugglers, Kid Rena, Duke Ellington, Chick Webb, Bennie Moten and the Spirits of Rhythm, plus some Vietnam-era silliness and a special tribute to Ed MacMahon. Not sure all this stuff fits together, but it runs some 46 minutes.

Part 2 of "Star-Spangled to Death" features a favorite, little heard area of the repertoire; American music prior to 1820, represented in this case by works of John Antes, David Moritz Michael and Justin Morgan. Then we move to a more modern end of the rep with music of Charles Ives, John Cage, Ferde Grofé, Samuel Barber, William Russell and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, with the Civil War era "India Rubber Overcoat Medley" thrown in as spice. If you are to listen to only one part of this three-part Podcast, then this is probably the strongest choice. And it's a good length too at just 58 minutes.

This is the first part of my annual "Star-Spangled to Death," where I showcase the music of America in advance of the July 4th holiday. I have a cold on this one, so my pronunciation is a little challenged. However, it's the music that matters, and the featured works here are two American classics; "A Northern Ballad" of Yale pedagogue Horatio T. Parker and the third movement "Fugue" from the Symphony No. 4 of Parker's most famous student, Charles Ives. Along the way we encounter some little known repertoire that perhaps should be considered more mainstream by Aaron Copland, Don Gillis and Florence Price, a delightful civil war-era obscurity and a Sousa march known to every American. The landscape here is by 19th century American painter Albert Bierstadt. Length: exactly 60 minutes.

Spring has sprung in a galumpity bumpity kind of way in Michigan; cold moving to not quite so cold to freezing and back again. At the start of spring I usually play Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du printemps" (The Rite of Spring) and the antique software illustrated provides the source for this years round. Along for the ride is a jaunty and rakish little march by Percy Grainger, an early overture by Mikhail Glinka, a healthy and perhaps psychically unhealthy, but passion-inspired, group of piano pieces by Alexander Scriabin (beautifully performed by Chitose Okashiro) and vintage representation of usual springtime weather rendered by Arthur Fiedler. Love this time of year, as there is such good music to pick from that relates to it. Length: 63 minutes.

From Edgar Allan Poe to Biggie Smalls, artists have found outlet in works that relate to crime; while I am no fan of crime, I can hardly say I'm immune to the fruits of wise-guy crime culture. This segment doffs the ol' fedora to bad guys and rebels ranging from the Peter Gunn music of Henry Mancini to Bonnie and Clyde as memorialized by the odd couple of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot. Other partners in crime include Louie Bellson and Lalo Schifrin, Slim and Slam, Chick Webb and Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Kenton and Anita O'Day (that is, pig latin for "dough"). These crooked characters are cheered on by the likes of Doris Day, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and Fletcher Henderson, culminating in a couple of capricious capers by cellist Joan Jeanrenaud, lately displaying her rebellious streak by breaking the law of "thou shalt not establish thyself as an interpreter and then make thine own handiwork." Kicks off with a tribute to the late Anne Brown, the Original "Bess" in Porgy & Bess, who passed away in March. Length: 64 minutes

In America right now it might feel like we've hit rock bottom, with various nuts within our population going over the edge and popping off at a few others before taking themselves out every few days. A society going through the throes of hard times is nothing new; take for example what it was like to be an English Catholic in the reign of James I, like William Byrd heard here, or to live in the shadow of the plague, like Pierre de la Rue here, or to witness the cream of one's own generation vanish on the battlefield, as did William Walton, also heard here. In America it might even feel -- in the most intimidating fashion -- like Weimar Germany, exemplified by this ominous image from Fritz Lang's "M" with Peter Lorre. However, we are Americans, and our land and our people is mostly like the beautiful Mark O'Connor piece that ends this seg; we should not give up just simply because times are hard -- history amply shows us that this is just the way things are sometimes. Length: 37 minutes.

September 10 added 100 candles to the birthday cake of composer and inventor Raymond Scott (pictured). Although we often hear from him as it is, it seemed like a good time to roll out all of the decorations -- or at least, some of them. There are some after dinner mints in the form of vibraphonist Adrian Rollini, Jefferson Airplane and the exciting new West Coast group Los Angeles Electric 8 -- last chance to get out one's shades and pretend that it's still summer. Length: 49 well-spent minutes.

This seg is devoted to the lowly Flexidisc (1960-2000), a type of phonograph record made from a plastic sheet rather than vinyl, shellac or what have you. These were often bundled into magazines or sent through the mail or, in rare cases such as the beautiful Chinese flexidisc pictured here, marketed as regular records. The original broadcast of this segment was less than successful owing to the sometimes thumpity-bumpity nature of flexis that are marred by creases or bends, occasioning both an unusually high degree of re-editing and re-recording to facilitate at least an acceptible showing in this podcast version, hence its slight delay. One thing I realize I never did was announce the Barbie Superstar Stage Show disc - the tune is titled "Barbie Disco." Length: 59 minutes.

WARNING! This is not radio; this is an original, avant-ambient classical composition, and is not for all tastes. I haven't done a radio show in awhile, and I decided this electronic piece is long enough to be a "Podcast" of a kind.
While hunting around in my audio files to remind myself of what I had done lately, I came upon two short samples for the piece “Dead Bird No. 2,” dated 3/14. As it was the last day of the month, I decided to finish the piece rather than to continue writing this. I finished it literally between ordering and picking up a pizza, plus emptied a bag of garbage during – it took me longer to collect the two samples used as the source.

Basic formula: Two Mono source loops of organ music, remixed into four channels. First two channels in identical phase, the third makes an interrupted entrance at about the fifth note in the identical pattern, with the fourth shortly behind the third. First loop is overlapped with the second briefly through replacing the first two identical tracks at about 3 minutes. Pan channels 1-2 about three quarters of the way out on either side, with channels 3-4 remaining dead center.
I think the introductory material – the first loop - is pleasant, but inferior to the second section, which is pretty exciting. It a series of augmented chords, and as they pull apart and recombine the chords in the outside of the picture is effected by the two tracks in the center, making different chord cycles, intersecting in various sections of the loop. In the mp3 I have added the source samples at the beginning, separated by an exact second of silence, so that the listener can see what I mean. There’s a bigass, 19 seconds long delay on the whole thing. I love the ending; it’s just the spent signal in the delay dying away for a long time.
Thanks for reading this far. Enjoy it, although to some this might be one of those “Uncle Dave – you lost me…” kind of pieces. It is very slow and VERY repetitive; don’t feel bad if you have to ditch after five minutes. Concentration IS rewarded; this piece is dedicated to fellow Podcastor Belinda Subramin. Length: 9 minutes, 8 sec.

World Music: This wrapper upper starts with a sedate historic recording of the Coptic Church in Egypt, but launches into rockin' track by Mohammad El-Bakkar followed by a sad Finnish ditty. There is an ample sampling of giga-obscure Haitain-diva Emy de Pradines (pictured; Emy. where did you go?) and music from French Equatorial Africa. Then it switches to oddball 60s-70s pop - a memorial to Mort Garson, a 70s hot as rendered by Michigan's own Familiar Faces and a really, really weird one by the team of Peter Smith and Gary McFarland. 59 minutes of near bliss; or at least sometime bliss.

Pardon my ignorance - the "Ouled Nails" were not something one would hammer into a board; they are a Berber tribe whose territory extends from Biskra to Jelfa in Algeria. They are quite prosperous due to the manner in which the women of the tribe earn their living: by dancing and prostitution. The "Street of Ouled Nails" refers to a red light district in Algeria frequented by European sailors and it was basically the birthplace of belly dancing; this is what Holst's piece was attempting to convey at the beginning. Also towards the end I neglected to back announce several pieces; these are: Martin Denny Group - Frankie and Johnny (from a single), The Monkees - I Wanna Be Free, Ruth White - Spleen, Oskar Sala - Improvisation No. 4 and Edgar Varèse - Interpolation No. 1 from "Déserts" (first version). In between you'll hear dance music and some jazz; excuse me while I flog myself for being so careless. Length: 70 minutes, though it doesn't seem that long.

This is posted in response to the many requests I get to put up a "vintage, ordinary and very old Art Damage show" from WAIF Radio in Cincinnati. This was a show I co-hosted with Dan Williams from 1985-87, ran pretty much myself from 1987-89, then shared with Chris Lockhart and Iovae in 1989-91, rejoining from 1998-2001. It was still on the air when WAIF finally dumped it in 2005. I don't have many very old Art Damage tapes, and a lot of the ones I do have are undocumented. This one was one that I found and documented just before posting. To my delight it contains an 11,000 Switches piece that was certainly lost till now, as the last time I saw that tape was back in the 80s in a condition like what's in the picture. The rest of it's pretty worthwhile too, if you like weird - the song "Swallow Your Load" (aka "La Foutramanie") is decidedly explicit tho. Length: 58 minutes.

Sorry for the long delay in posting again, but I was waiting out PodOMatic's difficulties of late, and it appears now that we are back on track. This one should be worth the wait - I appear on Dan Shoup's program "On Some Faraway Beach" as a guest, not host, recalling the early glory days when I looked like the fellow in this picture. (In my mind's eye, I still look like him - the pudgy, balding figure in the mirror is someone that I'm barely acquainted with yet.) I recall some of my work as sound engineer at the On Broadway Theater in San Francisco, the influence of Northern Ohio groups of the 70s like Devo and Pere Ubu and recount the very early days of Hospital Records groups like BPA, Dementia Precox and the (non-electronic) 11,000 Switches. 58 minutes.