Some Assembly Required: A 25th Anniversary
A 2-hour special to mark the occasion of a quarter century in syndication. The program debuts next week, in The Wiggle Room (on the Sheena's Jungle Room stream at wfmu.org).
Read on for the back story and a link to an additional feature, for fans of College Radio, circa 2001…
From the Archives
Recently digging through boxes of ephemera, I rediscovered recordings of the press junket I “performed" at my college radio station, in 2001.
It was a marathon... An epic in-house publicity tour, for Some Assembly Required, on the occasion of their having picked up the show. It was fun re-listening and as the producer of Radio Retrofit, it seemed like it would be a lot of fun to work with, too.
The upcoming 2-part Anniversary show was the result.
Media Blitz
In the Spring of 2001, for two weeks leading up to the first episode, I managed to invite myself onto practically every specialty show at the station, to plug the “new" show (which I’d been working on there since 1999).
It was an all out “media blitz,” which I secretly felt mirrored magnificently the inherent absurdity of the show, itself. I was in love with the idea.
The excessive promotion was ridiculous, but sure got the word out, and the whole exercise was wonderfully hilarious, to me. I relished it, even as I grew tired of talking about it.
Just as I thoroughly enjoyed conceiving and producing the program to begin with. And for much the same reason...
Ridiculous?
To be clear, I took the records very seriously. I’d put out one of my own, just a year earlier. It wasn’t the music I was laughing about; it was the concept for the show.
I produced SAR as though this was a genre which had yet to be given its due, while fully aware it wasn’t even really a genre, on its own. It was an assemblage of genres, with one thing in common: excessive sample use.
I made a list of albums and artists to rotate in and out of every episode (the hits and stars of the genre) and played multiple examples each week, filling the spaces between with sample-based material by ever more obscure creators, each working with found sound in their own way.
Everything from bedroom producers and vintage musique concret, to scratch djs and conceptual artists working with vinyl and tape manipulation, to sample-based electronic music and mashups.
Samplers from all genres, really. The only rule was that the composition be assembled from at least fifty percent pre-recorded, publicly available sound. "The Media."
The Recordings
I'd just recorded the dj breaks, on these tapes, but having just wrapped up my 24th hour of Radio Retrofit, it was no worry at all to re-insert all the music. It was a pleasure actually, and I ended up with over six hours of material.
Now, I’m excited about this "25th anniversary," probably more than anyone else, but even I doubted it deserved a six hour celebration. So, I chose some standouts and edited it together as a two-hour special.
Our Twenty-Fifth Anniversary, conceptually.
The FULL Experience
For those of you who would like to hear what KUOM sounded like, from the perspective of the specialty shows on the air there, in 2001, you can hear the original mix HERE, in three segments.
Folks from Minneapolis might enjoy it, at least. It’s Radio K, as you might remember, if you were in the Twin Cities in 2001, just a few months prior to 9/11. In spite of my
constant "interruptions," it’s still a fun glimpse into what the station’s specialty shows could sound like, at that time.
Check it out HERE.
Stay Tuned: The anniversary episode debuts Tuesday, September 15, at WFMU.
Comments