2020 Rundown - Part 2

Goldwood Jam - My latest development in radio, via badradio.biz. Today is episode... well, it's in the teens. It's different from Last Exit, then and now and still also running...

Last Exit was my chance to monkey around with ideas that Richard Meltzer toyed with. Hi-jinks. Hi-jacking a Pacifica station late at night, a community station based off the Lorenzo Milam model (r.i.p. Milam, one of many gone in 2020) and goofing off. This was after a two-year stint as a Top 40 DJ for American Forces Network in Fussa, Japan. I was playing with the medium, playing out a hero's fall.

Anyway, Last Exit aired a few questionable, tasteless things, most related to MDE, pundits Coulter/ Mahr interviews over eerie Charles Ives music, maybe the playing of a NON track- but for the most part I stuck to playing local tunes, local interviews, played OUT punk, played OUT crude junk, certainly nothing earth-shattering. Meltzer had 1) played radio frequencies other than KPFK's over the air 2) played Nervous Gender and Art Ensemble of Chicago rekkids 3) Played records backwards 4) used some explicit language. AND I NEVER WAS QUESTIONED for doing same. The next host wasn't so lucky; funnily enough, he got kicked after a handful of weeks for playing a song that said "Fuck Trump."

My current station, and the relatively close badradio.biz HQ is a different challenge. The process and purpose has changed. I see this as the Scritti Politti Shift, or a Meltzerian shift, from broadcasting o'er and fir a grubby nil-death culture w/ bad-airings to actualized relative good-airings fir a relatively good, notso-idealogical people. Like, when Green Gartside gave up being a Marxist in a squat-commune and took a break back in his home of Wales, to finally come back shiny and refined for pop stardom. A prodigal son returning home, leaving a slump, producing something more direct and good the second go-round. Or in Meltzer's case, finding San Diego more sympathetic in his eyes than Los Angeles, which he railed against openly and to his detriment (leading to a home invasion among other things), and so he could focus on his craft of writing over fun, kicks and a certain kind of constant provoked danger.

These days, I air amiable instrumental and vocal music. I fumbled a bit in the beginning, yeah. I played some long plodding, annoying tracks. Rough lo-fi stuff no-one should really need to be subjected to. And mistakes, gaffs, are made all over this medium. But I finally gave up the ghost. I can truly love my audience now. I also love the staff here in Ohio moreso than I could back on the coast, people who I felt like berating, insulting, clowning for various petty reasons. They didn't need that in retrospect, not really, but there was a sort of satisfaction in it. I had read Meltzer, and b.c. miller (KBOO), and Joe Carducci (i'll be annotating his essay "Life Against Dementia" from the tome of the same name, if interested). It should have been obvious what would come next for myself. In a way it really WAS obvious, but the anticipation and the action still thrilled and terrified! I fled... But the worldwide cataclysms have been more unprecedented and in a way results are sort of bathetic. That is okay. 

Goldwood Jam plays online at bad radio.biz, and is now a workshop for my variety-show impulses and more involved productions. Last Exit transitioned from a trolling variety-program to a fairly well crafted jazz and pop experience. After reading Life Against Dementia it became clear that the medium of public radio deserves better programming, as counterpoint. Both programs, and other creative endeavors, signify leaving Meltzer-hood for Pirtle-hood. 

Mister Pirtle for me is thee transitional figure. Another great one gone in 2020. His show- there were many like it but none were done the way he did it. I identify sonically and personally with Meltzer more, but Pirtle was more involved and interfaced personally and while I think he was unsparing in ways I can't describe yet, he was a true friend. A stern angel. I can only say the same for a select few:

May 6, 2020:

We lost a giant of community radio and record collecting today.

Mister Pirtle has been an inspiration to me for years. When I finally met him he was hosting a Friday morning program on KSER, The Sunlit Room. SLR is hosted by various DJs Monday through Friday, but Rob’s variation was special- an eclectic program that would be just as well suited for WFMU or some equivalent at about any hour of the day.

Rob had worked in distribution and for alt-press magazines- I’m sure I know only the tip of the iceberg about those early days, I have no clue what early life he had or other jobs he held, and very little about his teaching vocation- but most formidably he worked around college and community radio stations, notably as a music director I believe, and show host. He shared a smart blend of music ranging from Cole Porter’s songbook standards, jazz and symphonic film scores to hip turn of the century label selections from Kranky, Touch and Go, Awesome Tapes From Africa, Sublime Frequencies… and employed a number of seque techniques (my favorite being the false CD start… talking up a track and playing seconds of something else… backtracking and fumbling) and spoke in a manner that was bitingly ironic or sarcastic, witty without fail. He may have come across as lovingly prickly.

Pirtle took his namesake from Pirtle’s Chicken, a franchise of America’s South and he referred to his listener’s as the Pirtle Nation, Pirtle People… for his last year at KSER, he utilized a field recording of chickens meandering, clucking around when he opened up the mic to back-announce his show content and share public service announcements. I was happy to supply those sounds, as I was tending to chickens at the time. They acted as a foil to his hushed prosody, often staggered.

Pirtle’s Broadcast Egg-cellence was always a grab bag of worldly obscurities, instrumentals and bonafide hits that lovers of sound were happy to eat up. By the time he had reached Everett and set up his show, he was already a worn out soldier: Rob had bested cancer and gone through trials and tribulations while moving North of Seattle from Oregon, Texas, New Orleans and I don’t know where else. His was a peripatetic life and music was his muse chase. He broadcasted music as a poultryman would toss feed about his coop.

I was truly graced and humbled to cross paths and speak with him over the course of a year or so. I truly loved Rob and would crane my ear to him ritually. On my last birthday this past April, Rob was hunkered down in seaside Oregon and talking with me for hours while I live-streamed records. Our talk was strictly music and I was happy to hold attention for as long as I could. I loved Rob and have felt guided by his selections and storytelling. I believe I still will.

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