It’s been roughly a year since I started DJing at Hollow Earth Radio and I think it would be interesting to go back and see how I got to now from then. It’s a little more interesting now than it would be at the end of the year when people normally do these kinds of things, because then it will just be trite and boring because everyone is doing it. Now, I have no such excuse. It’ll only be trite and boring as a result of my own triteness and boringness.
And I am a very boring person.
I started off with How Do You Live?, a show devoted exclusively to music and spoken word which appropriated other musics and words. Except I didn’t call it “appropriation” as that’s a loaded word which doesn’t quite reflect what’s going on in the pieces I played. I avoided playing anything that I felt disrespected those who I felt weren’t due disrespect. Same with heavily commercialized artists who make bank and their names off of an art based on sharing and cross-communication. So I called it “expropriation” instead. I thought that was better. Now, I’m not entirely sure, but, there it was.
A lot of my plans for that show failed. I thought that in-house collages might be a thing. They weren’t. I also hoped for local artists to send in works. That didn’t happen. Plans were made for people to call in to the show live and contribute to the mix of sounds. I couldn’t wrap my head around how the phone lines were set up – just as well, because I lived in fear of anyone calling in. And I had so few listeners that there was no point in trying to gear up for that anyway.
Despite all that, I think the show had a good run. It lasted for twelve shows – right at three months – and about half of them I think were solid and stand up to scrutiny. Well, four of them, in any case. I think my personal favorites are the Retrofuturism Retrospective and the final show.
The format for How Do You Live? felt a little too constraining after a while – or maybe constraints are only fun if they’re temporary – so the sun set on that and I went adrift without a proper show name for a while. Somewhere in there, I also moved from late nights to late mornings. The format was best described as “whatever I feel like.” In fact, I’m not quite remembering many of the shows I did. The one I do remember is probably the best one – certainly the only one I’ve archived publically – is the two hour anarcho-punk show. I’m sure I missed a few essential bands and artists, but I think it was a good sounding set.
I finally found a show name that fit. Unfortunately, I realized a few months later that it was the name of a show from another radio station that roughly had the same theme and one that I had listened to before. So, so embarrassing. Thematically, it was more conceptual – shows focused on an idea and building up from there. I remember a fun one where I played the audio from a number of unboxing videos – all with the name brands diligently bleeped out by hand. I finally did do a collage set of, again, audio from videos – this time, from some guy hiking in, usually, a forest. That was kinda interesting. Or, I’d select a theme and find a bunch of songs that fit the theme. Notoriously, I once rolled a set of d20 dice and read the results live on the air for an hour. Fun times.
I did end up switching the name again (Smoke and Straight Lines) – and, moving back to late nights once Hollow Earth Radio went terrestrial, again (Ruba’bolo) – and I’m currently trying to refine and solidify the format. I’d be surprised if I ever succeeded at that, but I expect that I’ll have a certain degree of fun trying.
I still expect no listeners.