Birthday show

 

Welcome- ahoy there 

I've made 4 shows so far- and its been a ride. Trying to make decent radio, whilst 'life' unfolds (messily) around you is always going to be a challenge. 

The ideas behind this show are magnificent (i don't claim them) : to dip in to, to praise, to investigate, to show off and replay great radio projects, and theory, and recordings- to make a radio show about the best of radio as i find it.       

Making something beautiful takes time- some flu and colds and sick bugs, and a 11 yr old, and the every day and out of the ordinary work, and and and.... One of the best things about this project is that I'm allowed to make radio even whilst still learning.  Thank goodness, otherwise I'd never make any at all.

The first 2 shows were really shaky. Fearsome. I died on air time after time. I couldn't make it 'fit' and from where i was- it was a painful experience (for a listener- maybe a endurance test?)

For some reason I began with a idea that the finest thing is to improvise live- hoping to find - Lo! and Behold! Improvised immediate art, all fresh, and dynamic, electric in its un-meditatedness. Well, massive fail there. I attended performing arts school, and sinse then the stage / microphone has kinda daunted me- sometimes to the point of stupefied silence. Often whilst making these past shows I'd be struck by silence and :Why'd i shrink from scripting my themes beyond loose sheaves of notes (always spilling accross the floor)  or mixed up windows of typed up clues ? 

Moving from irreverent chat shows and tightly edited radio theatre  into a impro-doc-theory-poetry-hybrid is been like birthing a changeling :-)
So- it makes perfect sense the first Radio Radio show to make any sense was show number..

  3 - THE BIRTHDAY SHOW

This show is new thing- a radio radio show- a investigative poke about into the worlds of radio.

Its a radio show born from the desire to know more about radios' history- and to hear where its arrived at- which of course will indicate its future trajectories-

I'm doing a lite research on the invention, propagation, development and application of broadcasting technologies- but with a definite and defiant nod to the inventors, the experimenters, the artistic and the radical radio pioneers and practitioners that have taken radio further, and in more divergent directions, than is generally broadcast...

THE SCRIPT =  

Eat cake with Mr Seany T.   (battenburg)
ARTS BIRTHDAY finally! Better late than never- I'm like the friend that forgets your birthday, then lunches out the tea and cake date, then brings you round a crumpled card a month later...    I played some fabulous recordings from NAISA's Arts Birthday international mix and Instant Places' audio work too, read some classy theory from transmission artist Anna Fritz, played a little something of Mr Robert Fillou himself, and also a lovely short Happy birthday Sound Art Radio recording from Soundart Radio's 5 birthday party.

Pauline Oliveros - wild and groundbreaking electronic godmother and deep listening teacher, 80 yrs old just recently, and a Soundart Radio patron...   Paulines' work reminds me of tuning oneself in to the juice between the cracks... Roland Barthes (1985)suggests the posture of listening is “an attitude of decoding what is obscure, blurred, or mute, in order to make available to consciousness the 'underside' of meaning.”. I've (Birthday) gifted myself a book on Essays into Deep Listening- more on those in a future show...

Phonic FM- just up the road in Exeter- 5 yrs old on friday and having a PARTY

British composer Benjamin Britten is 100 yrs old this week...  (discovered through the lovely film Moonrise Kingdom by Wes Anderson)-

(And if i could i would have squeezed in a shout out a excellent London based online radio station born this very year = Happy birthday to NTS-)

A show about birthdays then- much better than dying on air :-)
Happy Listening- 
and if you fancy contributing to this project- do please be in touch!

Next show....   'political radio' - a big bite into transmission's fraught history....