Retropost - PART V
10/26/05 - Part V
Alright! Last retro-post. From here it will all be fresh and current. Well, until its been sitting in the archives for a couple of weeks, and then it will read just like this. Way old news. Reading this post I recall the other reason I stopped posting to my as yet uncreated blog. I was seriously scrambling to find the money and time to keep the show going at all. Things have never been exactly all that profitable at Post Consumer Productions, but over this past summer they were downright scary. But I write all about it here...
(June 25, 2005)
Ok, so much for my dedication to this blog. Its been three weeks since I posted, and the fact of the matter is I haven’t ACTUALLY posted any of these messages yet. I’m getting up the nerve. My plan is to post a month or two’s worth all at once and then post weekly from there. Yeah, I have a plan. Right.
So the reason I’ve been distracted from the world of blogging…
I work a lot. My friends think I’m aloof (or just anti-social). They’re partially right. I do tend to keep to myself, but the fact is I work EVERY day. I haven’t had a day off (I swear to god) in months and months (not counting sick days – which happen all too often, because I work too much). At the moment, since producing an experimental radio show doesn’t necessarily pay the bills, I wait tables for a living. In order to crawl out of a bit of debt (just one of the more pressing piles, mind you – I don’t even want to think about what I owe for all that college I was told it was necessary to slog my way through), I recently scheduled myself for several weeks of double shifts at both of the restaurants where I currently work. It served its purpose, but man… 14 hour days, nearly seven days a week… and on top of that producing the show AND preparing for the next batch of episodes… Lets put it this way – I’m currently only working seven days a week, one shift per day. That feels like a vacation by comparison.
So, the other distraction was that our main underwriter wasn’t responding to phone calls, and I've since had to abandon hope that they ever would. A bit unsettling, as we relied on them to get the show out to all the stations which feature Some Assembly Required on their program schedules. I have a hard time believing they just dropped us, because they've been such a great supporter in the past - I like to believe that they would have given us some notice. Anyway, I'm not going to say the name of the company in question, because I don't want to make them look bad, but those of you who know who I'm talking about - if you have any idea what happened to them, I'd love to hear from you.
So, I’d been so focused on finding a solution to the burning problem (double entendre!) and just producing each week's episodes, and when I finally found a solution - my own CD burner! - in fact I didn’t even have enough to send out. There were enough episodes, but some of them were intended for later broadcast and couldn’t go out just yet, and there are some details to scheduling and etc, so the long and the short of it is that I had to quick produce two more episodes to round out the batch and then burn them all to CD and mail them off and etc... I guess this is kind of boring, but just imagine me at home in an un-airconditioned apartment, in an extremely uncharacteristically hot June in Minneapolis, after working several double shifts, scrambling to get extra episodes produced… if I sound a little out of it these next few months (in syndication), you now know why. I was going out of my mind!
So on top of all that! I’m also organizing two fundraisers for the show (thing have gotten extremely tight around here lately, and I love this show too much to just give it up). So I’ve been working with a couple of local venues and talking with artists and performing artists and whatnot, trying to put together shows which relate to the program and will pack the house. Lets hope. If
you’re in Minneapolis, or nearby – reserve July 30th for a special show at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis. We’ve got local hip hop artists DJ Nikoless and his partner Plain Ole Bil, both of whom are members of the very prolific group of artists known as the Rhymesayer’s Collective, along with turntablist Andrew Broder, known for his work with the group FOG, right alongside DJ Lori Barbero, who is known for her work with the punk band Babes in Toyland – all coming together to perform on TURNTABLES alone, for the 2005 Festival of Appropriation, which is doubling as a fundraiser for Some Assembly Required. This is going to be an awesome show and you should definitely come down.
The visual art portion of the showcase (after all, the Festival of Appropriation has historically been just a VISUAL art show, and has only recently expanded to include performances) are all members of the Rosalux Artists Collective, of which I’ve recently become a member. I’ve asked past and present members of the Gallery to come and exhibit their works of collage, assemblage and mixed media. Confirmed at this writing are: John Alspach, Tara Costello, Jennifer Davis, John Diebel, Lucy Grantz, Scott Neff, Jonathan Nelson (thats me!), Kate Pabst, Amy Rice, Michael Sweere, Kate Van Cleve and Dave Whannel. This should be an excellent show in and of itself! With the performing artists, this is going to be the strongest Festival yet. I’m super excited…
There’s other stuff in the works. I’m too tired to go into it right now. Suffice it to say, this is going to be a busy summer. I really appreciate all the phone calls I’ve been getting lately, here in Minneapolis, in the studios of Radio K. Its great to know people appreciate the show! Please show your support by coming down to the Festival of Appropriation on July 30th.
So this has been kind of a boring post. All business. Okay lets personalize it a bit. I can’t think of anything. yikes. Okay I read the wrong liner today on the show which resulted in the shattering of my worst fear (that noone’s listening) - the phone lit up for about five minutes with people calling to say did I realize the date of the event I’d just announced had already passed? And some of them also said how much they liked the show. I should do that every Saturday. Here’s today’s playlist:
01 Basement Clash – “Magnificent Romeo”
02 Christian Marclay – Frederic Chopin”
03 Kid Koala – “Basin street blues”
04 Akufen – “Jeep sex”
05 RX Music – “Sunday bloody Sunday”
06 Lenlow – “Last night”
07 Osymyso – “Monkey to camel”
08 Jason Forrest – “Satan cries again”
09 Antediluvian Rocking Horse – “The third ore bit”
10 Dsico – “I want boys”
11 The Tape-beatles – “Concern about”
12 Lovecraft Technologies – “Frosty the snowman”
13 DJ Danger Mouse – “99 problems”
What can I say about this playlist – RXMusic is amazing. Is that really all Bush samples? If it is, I want to cry. It sounds as if they’ve plundered, word for word, from GW Bush speeches - all the necessary nouns, verbs, pronouns, etc to string together a cover song of U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday as sung/spoken/rapped by George W. Bush. If someone can confirm that this is 100% the case then I will be complete in my awe of this feat. This is amazing. I’m also a big new fan of Akufen. I’ve had their CD for awhile and it just didn’t grab me at first. It finally hit home recently. Brilliant. Jason Forrest is also amazing. I’ve got an interview with him coming up very soon on SAR. Stay tuned for that. Love that Frosty the Snowman track. Can’t say enough about the Grey Album (DJ Danger Mouse). Big fan of Antediluvian Rocking Horse. I met Kid Koala at a show we sponsored at First Avenue awhile back. He’s really laid back and cool. Very down to earth. That was nice. Lets see – Osymyso. Very cool – like to interview him eventually. Dsico is one of the first mashups artists to convince me that the genre was worth paying attention to (I know – how is it that I needed to be convinced??). Lenlow’s “Last night” is great. I really like their “Chocolate Cake Revisited” as well. Played that last week. Can’t go wrong with Christian Marclay and the Tape-beatles - keeping it real! There, I gave everyone a mention. I won’t do this every post. I promise. Okay I guess I’m done personalizing this. Did you actually read this far? YOU ARE HARDCORE.
Thanks for listening!
Jon Nelson
www.some-assembly-required.net
Alright! Last retro-post. From here it will all be fresh and current. Well, until its been sitting in the archives for a couple of weeks, and then it will read just like this. Way old news. Reading this post I recall the other reason I stopped posting to my as yet uncreated blog. I was seriously scrambling to find the money and time to keep the show going at all. Things have never been exactly all that profitable at Post Consumer Productions, but over this past summer they were downright scary. But I write all about it here...
(June 25, 2005)
Ok, so much for my dedication to this blog. Its been three weeks since I posted, and the fact of the matter is I haven’t ACTUALLY posted any of these messages yet. I’m getting up the nerve. My plan is to post a month or two’s worth all at once and then post weekly from there. Yeah, I have a plan. Right.
So the reason I’ve been distracted from the world of blogging…
I work a lot. My friends think I’m aloof (or just anti-social). They’re partially right. I do tend to keep to myself, but the fact is I work EVERY day. I haven’t had a day off (I swear to god) in months and months (not counting sick days – which happen all too often, because I work too much). At the moment, since producing an experimental radio show doesn’t necessarily pay the bills, I wait tables for a living. In order to crawl out of a bit of debt (just one of the more pressing piles, mind you – I don’t even want to think about what I owe for all that college I was told it was necessary to slog my way through), I recently scheduled myself for several weeks of double shifts at both of the restaurants where I currently work. It served its purpose, but man… 14 hour days, nearly seven days a week… and on top of that producing the show AND preparing for the next batch of episodes… Lets put it this way – I’m currently only working seven days a week, one shift per day. That feels like a vacation by comparison.
So, the other distraction was that our main underwriter wasn’t responding to phone calls, and I've since had to abandon hope that they ever would. A bit unsettling, as we relied on them to get the show out to all the stations which feature Some Assembly Required on their program schedules. I have a hard time believing they just dropped us, because they've been such a great supporter in the past - I like to believe that they would have given us some notice. Anyway, I'm not going to say the name of the company in question, because I don't want to make them look bad, but those of you who know who I'm talking about - if you have any idea what happened to them, I'd love to hear from you.
So, I’d been so focused on finding a solution to the burning problem (double entendre!) and just producing each week's episodes, and when I finally found a solution - my own CD burner! - in fact I didn’t even have enough to send out. There were enough episodes, but some of them were intended for later broadcast and couldn’t go out just yet, and there are some details to scheduling and etc, so the long and the short of it is that I had to quick produce two more episodes to round out the batch and then burn them all to CD and mail them off and etc... I guess this is kind of boring, but just imagine me at home in an un-airconditioned apartment, in an extremely uncharacteristically hot June in Minneapolis, after working several double shifts, scrambling to get extra episodes produced… if I sound a little out of it these next few months (in syndication), you now know why. I was going out of my mind!
So on top of all that! I’m also organizing two fundraisers for the show (thing have gotten extremely tight around here lately, and I love this show too much to just give it up). So I’ve been working with a couple of local venues and talking with artists and performing artists and whatnot, trying to put together shows which relate to the program and will pack the house. Lets hope. If
you’re in Minneapolis, or nearby – reserve July 30th for a special show at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis. We’ve got local hip hop artists DJ Nikoless and his partner Plain Ole Bil, both of whom are members of the very prolific group of artists known as the Rhymesayer’s Collective, along with turntablist Andrew Broder, known for his work with the group FOG, right alongside DJ Lori Barbero, who is known for her work with the punk band Babes in Toyland – all coming together to perform on TURNTABLES alone, for the 2005 Festival of Appropriation, which is doubling as a fundraiser for Some Assembly Required. This is going to be an awesome show and you should definitely come down.The visual art portion of the showcase (after all, the Festival of Appropriation has historically been just a VISUAL art show, and has only recently expanded to include performances) are all members of the Rosalux Artists Collective, of which I’ve recently become a member. I’ve asked past and present members of the Gallery to come and exhibit their works of collage, assemblage and mixed media. Confirmed at this writing are: John Alspach, Tara Costello, Jennifer Davis, John Diebel, Lucy Grantz, Scott Neff, Jonathan Nelson (thats me!), Kate Pabst, Amy Rice, Michael Sweere, Kate Van Cleve and Dave Whannel. This should be an excellent show in and of itself! With the performing artists, this is going to be the strongest Festival yet. I’m super excited…
There’s other stuff in the works. I’m too tired to go into it right now. Suffice it to say, this is going to be a busy summer. I really appreciate all the phone calls I’ve been getting lately, here in Minneapolis, in the studios of Radio K. Its great to know people appreciate the show! Please show your support by coming down to the Festival of Appropriation on July 30th.
So this has been kind of a boring post. All business. Okay lets personalize it a bit. I can’t think of anything. yikes. Okay I read the wrong liner today on the show which resulted in the shattering of my worst fear (that noone’s listening) - the phone lit up for about five minutes with people calling to say did I realize the date of the event I’d just announced had already passed? And some of them also said how much they liked the show. I should do that every Saturday. Here’s today’s playlist:
01 Basement Clash – “Magnificent Romeo”
02 Christian Marclay – Frederic Chopin”
03 Kid Koala – “Basin street blues”
04 Akufen – “Jeep sex”
05 RX Music – “Sunday bloody Sunday”
06 Lenlow – “Last night”
07 Osymyso – “Monkey to camel”
08 Jason Forrest – “Satan cries again”
09 Antediluvian Rocking Horse – “The third ore bit”
10 Dsico – “I want boys”
11 The Tape-beatles – “Concern about”
12 Lovecraft Technologies – “Frosty the snowman”
13 DJ Danger Mouse – “99 problems”
What can I say about this playlist – RXMusic is amazing. Is that really all Bush samples? If it is, I want to cry. It sounds as if they’ve plundered, word for word, from GW Bush speeches - all the necessary nouns, verbs, pronouns, etc to string together a cover song of U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday as sung/spoken/rapped by George W. Bush. If someone can confirm that this is 100% the case then I will be complete in my awe of this feat. This is amazing. I’m also a big new fan of Akufen. I’ve had their CD for awhile and it just didn’t grab me at first. It finally hit home recently. Brilliant. Jason Forrest is also amazing. I’ve got an interview with him coming up very soon on SAR. Stay tuned for that. Love that Frosty the Snowman track. Can’t say enough about the Grey Album (DJ Danger Mouse). Big fan of Antediluvian Rocking Horse. I met Kid Koala at a show we sponsored at First Avenue awhile back. He’s really laid back and cool. Very down to earth. That was nice. Lets see – Osymyso. Very cool – like to interview him eventually. Dsico is one of the first mashups artists to convince me that the genre was worth paying attention to (I know – how is it that I needed to be convinced??). Lenlow’s “Last night” is great. I really like their “Chocolate Cake Revisited” as well. Played that last week. Can’t go wrong with Christian Marclay and the Tape-beatles - keeping it real! There, I gave everyone a mention. I won’t do this every post. I promise. Okay I guess I’m done personalizing this. Did you actually read this far? YOU ARE HARDCORE.
Thanks for listening!
Jon Nelson
www.some-assembly-required.net
posted by Jon Nelson at 12:58 AM
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