Radio Alice

"I am opposed to the idea of alternative news which attempts to expose the bourgeois news as lies. You see, I do not have truthful information opposed to the non-truthful of the bourgeois press. I have my information. That is all. And I prefer to diffuse or mix my information. I don’t know if that is the truth; I do not believe that it is the truth; I do not believe that the truth exists at all. I believe that there are a lot of possible forms of information, every information being connected with a form of life. I choose a form of life and I diffuse the kind of information connected with this form of life – that is all."

Franco Beradi in interview, one of many gems amongst the Autonomia texts linked to by DSG.

Max Eastley tomorrow at 6.30pm. Listen live here

Brecht on radio

"As for the radio's object, I don't think it can consist simply in prettifying public life. Nor is radio in my view an adequate means of bringing back cosiness to the home and making family life bearable again. But quite apart from the dubiousness of its functions, radio is one-sided when it should be two-. It is purely an apparatus for distribution, for mere sharing out. So here is a positive suggestion: change this apparatus over from distribution to communication. The radio would be the finest possible communication apparatus in public life, a vast network of pipes. That is to say, it would be if it knew how to receive as well as to transmit, how to let the listener speak as well as hear, how to bring him into a relationship instead of isolating him. On this principle the radio should step out of the supply business and organize its listeners as suppliers."

undrFM presents:

Borderlands, a weekly radio show exploring the outer reaches of recorded sound - experimental music, electro-acoustic composition, phonography and radiophonic art - begins this Tuesday morning at 1am (6am GMT) on CHRY. The centre piece of the inaugural show will be an oft forgotten masterpiece of popular modernism: Glen Gould’s radio documentary The Latecomers.

As the weeks go by I'll be using this blog as a respository and archive for the shows.

Borderlands

I've just had word that my proposal for a regular experimental music, sound and radio show - Borderlands - has been approved by the CHRY programming committee. Needless to say, I'm delighted by this and will post more details as and when they emerge.

Tonight on CHRY

I make my radio debut. I'll be deejaying from 11.00 until 1.00 Eastern time (GMT -5) on York University's CHRY 105.5 FM. I'm providing cover for the Found Sound show whose musical remit is pretty open. My plan, which may change in the intervening hours, is to play a load of ambient - Caretaker, GAS, and a Beckett radio play amongst other stuff suitable for the wee hours.

If you're not in the northern Toronto region and wish to listen you can here or alternatively I'll post a link to a download in the next couple of days.

EDIT

So, I didn't manage to make a satisfactory recording, the show however went pretty well despite my lack of technical skill. Anyway, I'll be back on air next week at the same time.

Radio and Transmission Art

Chuffed to see that we arrive in Toronto at roughly the same time that this starts:

A month-long celebration of radio and transmission art including performances, installations, radio broadcasts of commissioned works on CBC radio's Living Out Loud and the Radio Without Boundaries Conference. Featured artists: Götz Naleppa and Frank Kaspar (co-presented by the Goethe Institute-Toronto), Charles Stankievech, Gregory Whitehead, Andrea Dancer, Emmanuel Madan, Anna Friz, Rebecca Singh, Erik Laar, Shannon Cochrane and many more.

I've no doubt - radio is important to Canada and Canadians. The first thing that struck me was the shear number of stations. As well as the numerous, vaguely differentiated, commercial stations, there are community stations – First Nations, & Chinese, University Stations and CBC radio 1 & 2. I’ve not encountered any pirates yet. Canadians (well, Albertans at least) seem to spend allot of time in their cars and invariably listen to their radio when they are. Radio does seem to be the ambient medium of choice out here - a couple of times I’ve come back to someone’s empty house to find a tinny radio playing to itself (like in the Gaddis novel JR). Hopefully this festival and conference will help me understand the nature and history of this love affair better.