Good Kenny Bad Kenny
I processed through a book at the library recently: the title was AlpTraum Deutschland. The book was in entirely in german
Alptraum, Deutschland : Traumversionen und Traumvisionen vom "Dritten Reich" so I couldn't get much sense for the theme. The meaning of title, I considered after a moment, was Nightmare Germany or perhaps the German Nightmare. Yes, the German nightmare. Whatever bad that we dream today the German nightmare was so very much worse. A good name for a band though, I thought. Or at least a good song title for the Sic Alps who already have that whole 'alp' thing tied up. This is a band after all that has already done a song called the Battle of Bretton Woods. Sic Alps are part of WFMU's San Francisco centric teaser to their about-to-be launched Free Music Archive. Along with Thee Oh Sees and Xiu Xiu and several many others
WFMU's Beware of the Blog: Free Music Archive preview: SF Bay Area (mp3s) (video). A simple idea, a grant (from the New York State Music Fund), and Creative Copyright licensing will come together to form an extensive library of free music. It will be, one of the great wonders of the modern world. Currently holding down that spot on the nets is their pre-lauch weblog
Free Music Archive pre-launch blog: full site coming December 2008.
This is a good moment to pause and give Radio Props to the stations I listen to. For what radio does. Here I place Liz Berg having Parts and Labor, the Brooklyn noise n' pop band on her show recently, I enjoyed that a lot. Over at Boston College's WZBC John Straub did a special on Robyn Hitchcock, this to illuminate Hitchcock's current tour where apparently he is performing his "I often dream of trains" lp through whole. It occurred to me, that all these years I only knew the Replacements version of Sleeping Nights of Jesus. That 'trains' record was hard to get hold of. I vaguely recall Robyn Hitchcock lived in DC for a while in the late 1980's Also I applaud what radio doesn't ordinarily do. Such as singles week on WFMU, where a modern, albeit free-form, radio station attempted to play nothing but singles and 7" records for a week. I guess radio used to do that. Pretty much all rock n' roll radio did at one time, but it's been a long time (been a long lonely lonely lonely, time). Somewhere I have a 12" of MotorHead doing the Holland Dozier Holland penned "Leaving Home", which I should pass along to Diane. Shading further along to what radio never did, there was Pip also over at WZBC playing 25 different cover versions of Bang Bang (my baby shot me down) an old Sonny Bono song written for Cher
Psychotic Reactions (Specialty)With PIP Wed Oct 15th 2008 5.00pm - 6.00pm. My friend Trân thought this was a French song as the Vietnamese versions are understood as covering French singers. Taking the cake though - again was WFMU's Kenny G. Who, the day after the recent election, played Parliament's Chocolate City (gaining on ya) some forty or fifty times in a row. I lost track, possibly lost consciousness, or gave up and went to lunch, after the first two hours.
What I like about WFMU, is it being a place where art and avocation come together. Kenny offers a bit of midday surrealism one day a week. No mean feat at that. The sort of radio host who will get hold of a two year old Yankees broadcast transcript and read it through over the air ("low and outside, ball one"). Occasionally shading towards difficult for difficult's sake in approach to radio. Whether a poet, academic, or intinerant ne'er-do-well the rest of the week hardly matters. More critical is the question I call good Kenny bad Kenny, and how to tell the difference. Quite out of the realm of intention Good Kenny makes us better people, Bad Kenny doesn't.
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Addendum 19 Nov 08 "Torture the listener, Kenny?" Not under an Obama administration. That's Cheney talk right there, that is.
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