PGB Sound Archive

PGB Sound Archive

I'm Not Glen Jones

	See the playlist: May 27, 2001 duration: 13:54 During his astounding, world-record breaking broadcast, Glen Jones had to be on the air and in the studio for eight hours straight before getting a 15-minute break. I had the honor to fill in for him on Sunday evening. Listen closely at the beginning. After Glen announces my first cut, he's off the air. You can hear the beep of the timer that will warn him when he has to return!

Morning Music

	See the playlist: July 14, 1997 duration: 17:44 This one starts out quietly. Songs and sounds about getting up in the morning. Dig the way I used the "pretend" CD malfunction in "Got to Wake Up" at about 2:50 to insert some dippy exercise instructions and the Beatles. At 4:30 it all comes back together. At about 12:00, there's a post-coffee attack of rage with "Idiot Kid Heads Out". The set finishes with the calming sound of Reverberi (and an echo of the Beatles).

Reductionism or the Gestalt?

	See the playlist: July 14, 1997 duration: 20:04 Time to think deep thoughts! A friend pointed out that the opening Dylan tune could be my theme song: "Everything Is Broken". This naturally led to Patsy Cline singing "I Fall to Pieces". (Usually, I would try to avoid such an obvious choice, but any reason is a good one to enjoy her incomparable singing.) The Bobs continue the thought with "Mr. Duality". At this point, I break things into still smaller pieces. I add the voices of Daniel C. Dennett and Jon Endean to talk more about the subject. The rebuttal arrives in a very clever and powerful song by the Electric Bonsai Band. The lyrics of this song play off the old Readers' Digest anatomy articles: I Am Joe's Liver, I Am Joe's Lungs, I Am Joe's Pancreas, et cetera. (Someone once told me that his aunt used to censor the articles titled "I Am Jane's...") I finish off the set with a tune that, for me, is a reconciliation of the two ideas.

Frank O'Toole on WFMU

	never aired duration: 1:23 I recorded, chopped apart, reassembled, and distilled one finale from Frank O'Toole's show into this short piece.

Puppet Domination

	never aired duration: 1:35 ...never aired on my show that is. Frank O'Toole slipped this one in during his show of February 7, 1998. That year, WFMU had a contest to design a puppet for the station (to compete with Barney dolls and the like). In this slick promo, Bill Ball inveighs us to create the puppet to end all puppets. "Man About Town" by Laurie Johnson is heard in the background.

The Heart Is an Organ

	See the playlist: October 16, 1997 duration: 37:12 The heart is an organ. This is a collection of songs about hearts, sounds of hearts, and songs with organs. The most interesting find is Caterina Valente. Her voice is a real treat. She appears at about 1:00. Even at 28.8K transmission speeds, her voice is still like honey! FMU DJ Michael Shelley shows up at about 6:50 with a great song. Why wasn't this a pop hit?

Mental Health Set

	See the playlist: August 29, 1998 duration: 1:00:59 This is the Magnum Opus. It was all inspired by finding an album called "Dancing for Mental Health". It was in the self-help section of the library with the albums on how to repair your plumbing and how to learn French. Was it for real? It's not hard to find songs about craziness. The fun part was collecting them and figuring out how to fit them into this set. For example, I had two versions of "Twisted". You'll hear them at about 7:25. Both of them. At the same time.

Physical Health Set

	See the playlist: September 9, 1999 duration: 51:31 This one starts out quietly. It's the follow-up to the Mental Health Set. My favorite part shows up at about 9:12. I found a cassette about headaches at the library. An actress plays "Trisha", who whines a lot about her life before she gets around to describing her migraines. I cut her story into little pieces and fit it over a European dance hit. The two create a very nice musical conversation. Dig the list of symptoms at about 24:00. The dialog from the Monty Python flick "The Meaning of Life" works perfectly here: even without the pictures, you know what's going on.

Dave Emory Mix

	See the playlist: March 8, 1999 duration: 9:24 Dave Emory says a lot of things. Here, I layered him six times over. The faders were carefully controlled so that you always get to hear the juiciest comments.

Consequences of the Telephone

	See the playlist: April 9, 2000 duration: 23:43 This one starts out quietly. Just one night before the show, I was inspired to create this mix because my phone line was on the fritz. The result of this malfunction was a weird-sounding message on my voice mail. You'll hear it starting at 3:31. I transferred this message to my computer, and added a bunch of answering machine stuff that I had been saving over the years. You can hear Station Manager Ken at about 20:55. Years ago, I used this on-air set introduction as part of my own answering machine announcement.