In 2001, Sound Unseen asked Some Assembly Required to curate a special Plunderphonic section of their annual film and music festival. I was proud to present performances by Steev Hise, John Oswald, The Tape-beatles, Wobbly and Wet Gate over the course of three nights in Minneapolis. This episode was an attempt to document those events. It contains portions of some of the interviews we did around the Twin Cities that Fall. Thanks to Sound Unseen! Episode 19 originally aired in Minneapolis, just a few months after the festival in 2001. Check it out HERE.
In the Winter of 2002, I produced a show dedicated to appropriation in electronic music, as practiced by Minnesota artists, and asked local music producer, Chris Strouth, if he'd be willing to be interviewed on the subject, for the show. He brought selections from his personal library, along with plenty of stories. It turned out to be a good show, with a good mix of styles, old and new...Episode 26 originally aired in Minneapolis in February of 2002. Check it out HERE.
Some Assembly Required celebrated its 4th Anniversary in January, of 2003. We got a little attention for it (read the Star Tribune article HERE), and so I was inspired to produce a special episode to further emphasize the fact. Episode 44 aired on January 25, 2003, and featured an outtake from a recent interview with Wobbly's Jon Leidecker, specifically on the subject of copyright (in response to a listener's question), along with a segment from one of our first shows, and an interview with Amirali Raissnia, who was the first to join me live during the 2nd hour of the program (we used to perform a live, improvised media collage of our own in the hour after SAR). Check out Episode 44 to hear our remembrances of the "good old days."
I used to come up with regular themes for the show, such as sound collage tracks about food, religion, politicians, etc. Episode 49 was loosely based on the theme of Family, and so I briefly interviewed my own mother and father for the occasion. The episode originally aired in April of 2003. Check it out HERE.
Artist Dolores Dewberry used to curate a monthly event of evenings devoted to underground musicians and noisemakers, at the Dinkytowner, in Minneapolis. She was kind enough to invite SAR to spin CDs between acts on at least one occasion, and I invited her to do a couple of short features for the show, sometime in 2004. Episode 86 was a look back at The Beatles work with sampling (it was also the second of our Beatles themed episodes). Episode 88 featured a look at an album called East Village Other: Electric Newspaper, which was released in 1967. These episodes originally aired in January and February of 2005.
This one actually is kind of an artist feature, but I've put it here because it was recorded live, and is focused more on the group's art show, as opposed to their sound collage work. When Mark Hosler was in town, promoting the Negativlandland exhibit (at Creative Electric Studios), I had him and Dave Salmela on the show and interviewed them live (May 6, 2006). This was when the show was still occasionally done live, at the studios of KUOM. I recorded the entire show and uploaded it as the podcast the following week. Check it out HERE.
In 2009, Some Assembly Required celebrated its 10th anniversary. About a year earlier, the ECC's Mark Gunderson had asked if I'd like to be interviewed for a special show to air on the occasion, and of course, I said yes. Check out Episode 224 HERE. Thanks Mark!
Episode 238 (2009) features an unusual kind of interview, inspired by a request from one of my favorite sound collage artists, Negativland's Don Joyce. When I invited Joyce to do that week's online Q&A, he suggested I use my computer's voice program to turn it into a feature to air on the show as well. The results were quite interesting, and I'm glad I gave it a shot! In addition to the sound of a computer-voiced me interviewing a computer-voiced Joyce, there were tracks off of the 180-G's record of cover versions of popular Negativland tracks, along with the original sound collages which inspired them. We also played a few of the opening tracks off of Negativland's live 2006 release, It's All In Your Head FM. Check it out HERE.
Check out the full list of Artists Features HERE.
The following are links to interviews conducted with host Jon Nelson:
- National Public Radio Interview: On Point with Tom Ashbrook (2009)
- Decider Twin Cities Interview: The Onion's local arts and entertainment website (2009)
- What To Wear During An Orange Alert: Interview about new CD (2008)
- l'etoile magazine: Short feature in the Twin Cities Art and Fashion Magazine (2007)
- mnartists.org: Minnesota Stories and mnartists.org produced this video profile (2006)
- Twin Cities Public Television: Video segment from an episode of "Video K" (2003)
- The Star Tribune: "Audio artist celebrates 4 years on the 'Assembly' line" (2003)
