STANG (or whoever else has radio experience.)
Correspondent:: "ouroboros rex"
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:36:54 -0600
--------
"Paul Casino" wrote in message
news:1108609087.907553.10750@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Okay, so I just got a small gig doing a weekly 1/2 hour to hour radio
> show on my local college station, WPSU at Penn State, and while not
> clueless, I'm not exactly a perfect master at this either. Hell, I'm
> not even a communications major, I'm just an ordinary struggling artist
> with a gigantic penis. I've been listening to HOS for years now,
> painstakingly downloading them and burning them onto CD's, I have from
> about #850 on, and I actually let the station managers listen to one
> that was mainly live WCSB stuff, saying "What I want to do is something
> like THIS."
>
> He made mention to the fact that Stang has a good if not great
> "presence" on the mic. I told him that was because he was the
> forerunner of a religious cult that worships a piece of clip art. He
> laughed and said "That's great, you should improv like that on the
> show." I told him I was serious, and he stared at me blankly. (Ah, the
> trademark awkward silence and blank stare of the pink. Music to our
> ears.)
>
> So, I'm looking for sugestions on exactly what to do. I'm mining
> alt.slack for interesting threads to expand upon, I'm trying to stay
> away from alt.binaries.slack audio mining, mainly because I'm plugging
> the SubSite on the show, and I'd rather not have people go there,
> download HOS and hear the same audio collage and whatnot that I air,
> kinda want to keep them seperate. So, any suggestions when it comes to
> ANYTHING about hosting a radio show would be great. I hereby humbly
> submit myself to your superior knowledge of bullshitting through an
> hour of air time.
>
I tried that here at WEFT, when I took the show I've got in order to keep
HoS on the air. Problem is, it's very tough to find wierdos who can keep
things moving. You say to the folks at this station "So, you say you saw
some sort of monster?", and even if they're already in on it, they go,
"huh?" Good live help is hard to find, because not only do they have to be
quick on their, er, feet, they also have to have some sort of esoterically
appealing knowledge. For Chas, it's science, for Stang, it's conspiracies,
you get the idea. A guy who watches freight trains for a hobby isn't going
to have the brainfry ratio you need. Old movies, science filmstrips, fundie
angst, all form good inspirational influences, as any HoS listener knows.
After that, the next thing is prepared audio, which can take hours and
days, but eventually really pays off if they're evergreen. I have a hard
time sitting still enough to do much of this. We had a guy here years ago
before I showed up who would play a few minutes of HoS, then some of his
prerecorded radio theatre, back and forth, and that works, but it's
basically an act of defilement, using large chunks of someone else's better
material, and listeners see through it. Good to keep it short and leaven it
with your own preprepared creative material.
For maximum gut blowout, use the phone interface. You don't say what time
you're on, but if you get a small stable of regular crazies who will call up
when the inspiration strikes, it's almost as good as having a live dave
brain. Especially if they're smart enough to stick with the 'theme',
instead of all of a sudden going, "Ah'd lak ta talk about the
laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard!" This works best late at night, when folks' wierdness
glands have already processed the day's input for maximum internal humor.
If you get stuck, read something. A.S. posts work well for this,
especially if you present them as your 'mailbag'. I got the idea from the
occasional 'dear subgenius ____ expert:" posts, but really a lot of them
make great letters fodder. Then you give your station address and get real
ones.
These measures have met with mixed success here - for instance, I spent a
year getting the station to spring for a phone system so we could do 'show
calling show', and as soon as it was in and working, Chas ditched his
call-in show. And Stang doesn't take calls . I've also had live
daves disappear for months at a time. Then there's the happy hippy
contingent, who occasionally think doing my show might be their bag, only to
rebel at the finer points of prescripture - while live. Eeew. Keep in
mind, people who come up and ask to be on your show generally can't hack it,
they just think they can. Then you're stuck reading Nenslo on the air.
You might solicit stuff from individual subgenii, or steal it piecemeal
from the HoS - Huey's 'attack of the fifty-foot "Bob"' he was gracious
enough to send never fails to get a call during pledge drive. Pope Meyer is
usually worth 2 or 3. I'm still looking for the old Brain Rot Radio Theatre
where various wierdos were videotaping the cops Rodney-King style. That'll
be good for about 10.
Hope this helps. -cmb http://www.weftfm.org