This blog is to feature my junk box but sometimes it will feature tributes when I feel like it's needed and when I can tie it in to the junk theme.  First and foremost, I learned about the recent passing of a MAJOR influence on the "fun" side of my musical/radio career. Negativland has been on my radar since my friend Evan Ford played a piece called "Big 10-8 Place" on his avante garde show on WBWC. I made sure to get a copy of it. It was the most unusual piece I'd heard and it sent me down the rabbit hole. Within a few months we were emulating Negativland. We were performing free-form jams on the radio. Sound collage. We got better at it. My friends got in on it. Negativland came out with their "Escape From Noise" album and we were all in.

Don Joyce had a radio show at KPFA and met the Negativland guys when they were two guys that released an album while still in high school. (It was unusual to have a record in the early 80's because it was so damn expensive. Even more that it was an album of noise rather than rock and roll or new wave.) They charmed Don and he began performing sound collage and began working with Negativland, and from there became the unofficial voice of the band. He created so many characters and scenarios and "Over The Edge" became the longest running free form radio show.

http://www.negativland.com/news/

Here's why I thought to post on the junk blog. They are hardly junk, but they don't get used because they have all been since released on CD. They are tape cassette releases on an edited "Over The Edge" show. The first two spotlighted "The Weatherman", David Wills and the next two spotlighted "Dick Vaughn" and "Pastor Dick" played by Richard Lyons. Endless catch phrases made it into our lexicon. "Jamcon" and "Moribund Music" were used on countless shows we did.

There was no internet when these came out and Negativland "official" releases were all that was available on SST Records. "Escape From Noise" was a good cross of all members of the band. The follow up "Helter Stupid" was a true classic and was all about one of the media "hoaxes" Negativland pulled off. I remember listening to it VERY QUIETLY at work at Tokyo Shapiro when the reprise of "Christianity Is Stupid" came on and I raced to stop it. Too hip for the room. It wasn't until the new single from Negativland entitled "U2" created all sorts of fallout with SST and that became another chapter in the culture jamming world of Negativland. So, that they even released these tapes was an amazing feat and a great peek at the activity we couldn't hear every week. 

Enter "Spudlok". Bill Camarata and I put together a band where we played music in the back room of his CD store. When my tenure at WBWC was about over, we both thought we couldn't get enough of Negativland and their "jamming". We'd wet our whistle with the stuff we did with Evan Ford and by then, his predecessor Len Peralta's "Raw Nerve" show. We went into the studio at WBWC and did lots of what Negativland was doing. Connected odd sounds, disjointed comedy with sounds behind it and other nonsense. We created a 1/2 hour radio show and  called it "Under The Shelf"  Yep. Before the net. We'd make the noise ourselves.

We did a few shows until we built up about 5 or 6 half hours. The idea was, we'd put the show on WBWC in it's own time slot. However, the station had changed and so did the format and the programmer. Our offers for a odd 1/2 hour show fell on disinterested ears. It was such an odd show that a formatted station playing hot rockin alternative "not a hit yet" music didn't think we could fit a nutty show. So, Bill had a connection with WCSB, the Cleveland State radio station.  Chas Smith (RIP) said he'd play our show on his "ESO Radio Network". The prime selling point is that our show had a specific INTRO and OUTTRO.  That's what got us on the air. What the hell did we care. We were on the air each week.

Of course, when WBWC management found out that we were producing a show  in their studios to air at WCSB, that meant bad things. We were asked to leave but by then, all of our friends were graduating or giving up on the station. I said goodbye to my first morning show. As you can see, we did almost 100 shows for WCSB. The majority of them were jamming and music and also some were features/replays of what we had done at WBWC. Most of the show was based on what Negativland was doing and Don Joyce was a huge part of the nonsense.  When we rebooted at WXUT in Toledo, a large part of what we did and what eventually got us all canned was jamming, parody and otherwise free form radio. My current tape show "Radiolawn" is largely made of the same free form radio, all brought to us by Don Joyce's "Over The Edge" and Negativland.

Farewell Don.  Keep talking. Keep Jamming.  ARF! -Ric