Ken's Last Ever Radio Extravaganza:
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Ken's Last Ever Radio Extravaganza:
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your atmospheric enviroments take me away from the suburbian craters I currently find myself surviving. The world is a night of sunshine and I am glad you share it. - Daniel, Baton Rouge
I love your sound collage! It's spectacular. - Michele, Manhattan please do give me a cd or two of your stuff, which i like a lot. In fact, i'm finally checking out the world manipulation show right now and it sounds amazing! also enjoy the qbert/bach piece. for years i used to do a similar show at wobc (oberlin college), just pure audio collages. So I have a sense of what goes into making that kind of thing, and i have to say that you really have a great feel for it. - Dan, WFMU I have been listening to your archives, and I enjoy the sound experiments you do. Your radio productions are truly gifted works of art. Thanks for sharing them with us. When I catch your show I am always amazed and wind up learning something new. - Lonny, Austin I just wanted to tell you your show is the most mesmerizing, exciting radio on anywhere. I even forget it's your show and get mesmerized...it's kind of serendipitous how I catch it. I've listened before but catch it by chance, and it's amazing. Thank you for doing it, and keep doing it. - Gary, Austin they had warm sweeping rushes underneath maybe synthesized strings lots of human chatter children playing laughing & subway doorbells on top i began appreciating everything around me the woman in the purple dress on the fire escape i found myself having time & space to breathe listening to what you were doing unhurried there was warmth there appreciation for human-ness compassion (which i have not had a lot of lately) things changing over time sounds became more full of pain listening to you what i remembered about what has always drawn me to music what moved me about yr set was that i felt like i had ditched my body & was simply a presence there with the awkward exception of having to walk in & then leaving at the end while i was there i experienced what you were doing as seamless egoless a reflection like a reflection of a tree in a pond being there & not commenting on itself having gone out to see acoustic music in new york again and again i come up against sarcasm, irony, people trying to trick me into something what you were doing was the opposite of that it was unselfconscious in its making i watched from a window for a time yr absorption in the doing, yr hands attentive to buttons, knobs it reminded me of the potential for music/sound to be true pure communication like when you hear kids singing something because it feels good bumblebeebumblemeebumbleree or like me when i'm playing on my own & forget that there are people in the world who will think what i'm doing is good/bad - Diane, Brooklyn I love your show.. It reminds me of this program I'd listen to on the Pacifica station when I lived in Northern California. I never checked their schedule--I didn't really want to spoil the spontaneity of the sound or the moment by finding out when the name of the program or when it was on--but I'd sleep with the radio on, and in the middle of the night I'd wake up to these sounds..I'd throw my face back into my pillows and enjoy the dreams.. I love your show. I just wish it was 2am in the morning..and I was rubbing my cheek against a cool pillowcase.. - Taylor, Austin it was all such a good mix...as soon as that man started laughing, i think i didn't stop the whole time. i almost recorded myself laughing with the show in the background, but couldn't find the batteries. ... it's neat to have them linked together week to week like that. made me think what it must've been like to only have a radio. i wish there were more shows that were like that, like mini series week to week, not like theater shows, themes that keep continuing, morphing, moving into different things. i would listen to the radio a lot more, with gusto. - Dorothy, Austin I just wanted to say I've recently discovered the show and LOVE it. Easily the most inventive music show I've ever heard. The Beatles Chaos Fugue is just amazing. I'm eagerly downloading more now! Thanks for making such a great show. I listen to a LOT of stuff on the net and it's easily the best. (Not to mention at 30 minutes or more in length, it's something to really get into.) - Steve, Alberta, Canada Your soundscapes are just wonderful... You are so generous in posting your amazing, wonderful fantasy mixes for us to enjoy. Especially the Now Rippling Water. I've listened to it at least four times today so far....:) and the Stella and the....sigh. Some day, I'll be working at your level with your excellent taste. - Kali I'm writing from La Jolla, CA and just wanted you to know I'm a fan of your show. I recently read about it on some website and now I'm hooked, listening to the archives. Wonderful work! The 4-part Beatles Chaos Fugue is one of my fave KLERE programs. - Brian, La Jolla, CA I downloaded this (The Flying Sarabande Machine) as I am a Kubrick fan. Wearying, but somehow brilliant. I'm a big fan of arranging "found sounds" into cohesive statements. This wowed me, and I intend to download more. - T. Ehlers Fun, funny, crazy. Thanks for this. - Robert, Brooklyn interesting that you used and cut up "kimi no wakusei". sounds a lot cooler without my whiny vocals on there. well done. - David from Usagipop i try putting words to how i feel listening to what you do & come to realize i don't need to - Diane, Brooklyn I just wanted to let you know that the fugue has stayed with me way longer than I expected - I keep hearing snippets of it in my head, which today is playing "I'm looking through you" just the way you arranged it. Amazing. - Deb, Palm Beach I played some of your stuff last week for my drawing class I teach and had them do drawings in tune with them. Got great results from yours. "Where did you get that?" 18 year old texas lads and lasses. One student called it minimal. - Bob, Austin it is like inside my chest close to my neck in the center there is a blackboard and someone with unbearably long nails has reached down my throat and they slowly and torturously drag their hands along the surface and i can't cry out I really loved George&Adolf, and that "I'm a loving guy" part was so hilarious that I couldn't believe he really said that - it was as unbelievable as there are people who actually like him. - Yoon-jung, Austin It's really exquisite. I'm taking a break from it now because it was breaking my heart. - Katie, Chicago I listened to your recent Reagan effort until I got nearly physically sick. (Listening to Decades of Dictatorship just now.) -Doug, WFMU You're like a reality conductor. - Bill, Austin I'm Just letting you know I've really enjoyed your shows in the past and particularly last nights show (Rewrite Your Agreement with Reality). - Enrique we found it quite interesting and often aligned with many issues we have in today's political and societal struggles. - Marc, Austin A fierce peaceful people. We are guided by corporations, a power larger than ourselves. and our recent and unhealed wounds impose their radical beliefs of a single nation of justice and opportunity. These are enemies of our real human freedom. You know I have started to see your shows like this or er hear them like this: there's a lot of tension like that godawful song and every once in a while you fall into a kind of relief. Sometimes the reliefs are small, and sometimes they well up and overwhelm the tensions. When they well up, I get hooked and i want to hear the welling up over and over again. - Andrea, Brooklyn It definitely seems to me like it's trying to say something. My "hints" are from the title of the piece (which you've covered already), as well as some of what I take to be "jibes" at Bush. There's the singing of "God Bless America" which I see as mocking the administration by trying to be "high and mighty". Also, the sped-up music somehow seems to mock Bush. I guess the reason is that the speech is left as-is while the music seems inappropriate to be played at the same time. Also, the repetition of sentences almost seems like it's done in an attempt to prove how ridiculous they are. Now, I realize that you're saying that no opinion was being conveyed so that kind of changes everything. - Kevin, Manhattan I checked out the Beatle-mutation show and the one with your little niece (cousin?) saying "mommy" quite a bit. Those I found to be quite nice. I love the idea of people using the airwaves for this purpose. Keep up the good work! - Marc, Arcadia, CA it's scary stuff. i like it - Dan, Sydney it's a great cut. - David, WFMU Yours is truly the most unique show on this station. I'm somewhat confused on how you get all the samples in there. Anyway, it's good stuff! - Sarah, Austin I love everything I hear on the site...hope more is made available soon. - Greg, Buffalo I love it. Fantastic is what I say. I love your shows, Ken. This one is very funny. It's relaxing and exciting at the same time. Bravo. What a pleasure. Thank you for this one and all the sound voyages and the playlists that add an interesting dimension. - Elizabeth, Brooklyn I wanted to drop you a line and let you know how much I'm enjoying your show. I just discovered it a few hours ago and have been listening to the Beatles Fugue and the Beautiful Terror show. Thanks for keeping the back catalogue online. :) waxy buildup from having a Ken's Eight Hour Headphone Extravaganza. - Bryce, WFMU THAT WAS AWSOME! LAST week I'm listening now . . . . To last week show 1...2.....3.....4.....5...6....7...8... - Russell, Austin I didn't like the first program you gave me maybe because it scared me all that death going on but there where things I really liked in the second. I liked the blend of music in the beginning and since my political opinion matches yours I liked the way you made your point. I had not imagined how one could play around with interviews and fragments of conversations. - Andrea, Manhattan it was wonderful to suddenly get confused as she started repeating herself and the time kept getting more and more wrong, what's going on? is this actually ken's show? what is this? - Mendy, Austin Your show does an excellent job of keeping me in that special head space. - Jay, Cleveland I liked it, but thank god it's over My co-worker thinks this is "weird shit" Listening to Decades of Dictatorship, I like it. - Joe, Rochester we were listening to your shows all day up at work. it was so funny listening to that one guy laughing. it drove them crazy. my bosses looked on with confused and painful looks. they could say nothing. anyway, your shows are helping to soften them up for the barrage of weird music i will soon be bringing into the lab, so thanks. - Bryan, Austin I have thoroughly enjoyed your show, and I will miss it a great deal. - Scott, Elkridge, Maryland It's like you've made a new story out of the old one...turned the little bit of that music into something epic. Been listening to your radio shows on my harddrive; lots of cool stuff there! - Kurt, Austin my favorite is part 3 of 4. Definitely sequential...yet creatively surreal. well done. We had it in "loop mode" last night....so it ended up playing for about 7 hours. Amazing how I never noticed it was on repeat until I went to bed (around 9 am EST.) So yes, we definitely got into. I had a few people over, and it made for nice relaxing background music. my favorite aspects of your show were your first half hour, and your last half hour. The beatles mix was pretty interesting....it never once seemed to lose beat...which was what I was waiting for it to do. I was impressed. Your first half hour was intense and dreamy....I was drinking while listening to it...thinking to myself that it made me feel high without actually giving me the drugs. - Jay, Cleveland I was delighted to witness the sound emanating from your part of the building it blended beautifully with the hornsounds horning in from one room or another and I even felt I collaborated a little the whole building throbbed - Eric, Brooklyn i'm listening to your loopiest show right now, its great.. - Matthew, Queens i've never thought of living in Texas as a serious prospect; but the argument that it is a good place to go to kill yourself seems the most compelling reason I've heard... - Ben, Tokyo i like your show a loot, by the way (although to be honest im not too crazy about noise) - Yaron, Binghamton |
I've heard a few on the air and I've been listening to more online. It's one of my favorite local radio shows. ... I remember first hearing your show while driving home from work one day on I-35 - I listen to KOOP a lot and just stumbled onto it. I had a reaction I would imagine many listeners do the first time they hear it: I thought it actually was your last show, so you had decided to do a sprawling, somewhat politically tinged sound collage. I thought, 'that's cool, this guy is really going out with a bang.' Later I realized that every show is your last show - not a bad way to approach things. I especially liked Decades of Dictatorship, sounds like you put a fair amount of work into that one. - Shawn, Austin we turned on the radio in the car while driving on North Loop 1 and realized what was going on, it was 7:05 or so, we called in to you with a massive feedback loop and tore down the highway making noises with our throats and hearing it pound back at us at full volume and even after we hung up and realized exactly what was going on and thought "THIS IS THE GREATEST MOMENT OF OUR LIVES" because the fame (our voices on the radio) and the brilliance of your WONDERFUL WONDERFUL IDEA. WHEN WILL YOU DO THIS AGAIN?! THIS IS THE GREATEST MOMENT IN RADIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! please. You are part of the new wave of dj culture, one that is no longer concerned with b.p.m. but with horizontal mental dances. You and Die Trip Comptuer Die and People Like Us and go home and mashup and everybody else doing this and me, we oughtta get together. - Bennett, Los Angeles You are a rare artist. Self indulgently beautiful. - Kurt i thought this was a very inventive and smooth show - very different to anything I've heard before. I am based in Devon, England and do not get stuff like this on the radio network here, so thank you for something interesting and new! PS - Have you ever heard any material by a band called Godspeed You Black Emperor? I noticed a lot of their pieces consist of long soundscapes quite similar to your work. I have currently been online for 7hrs listening to the stuff you have on the website, man it is incredible! I just love the snippets of speech and vocabulary teaching material - do you get these from TV and radio? I cannot stress enough how wonderful your mixes/shows are, and really hope you do more. I am intrigued at the mix of classical and topical material used. - Peter, England I thought I'd write to tell you I enjoyed listening to your show today in my car. I didn't know what it was or why or who made it so and THAT, in my experience, always makes for a fun time. Particularly those tones that were accompanied with the speaking parts, I could listen to that noise for ever. I felt a little like I was being hypnotized but it made my drive home from work much more relaxing. Thank you, and now I'm never going to switch my radio from "FM2" in hopes of catching your show every Tuesday. -Rhonda, Austin enjoyed your 'elsewhere' cd -- a real mindblower... i can really picture it as a psycho-spatial-acoustic mindbender installation. very environmental stuff, as in, becomes part of the surroundings, or becomes the surroundings... which prompted me to check out the show you did with rob w where you reworked his first hour of ethnographical recordings -- very cool also. - Charlie, WFMU i heard a handfull of shorts yesterday and they were wonderful - i'm looking forward to listening to entire shows! - Don, EPA Was just listening to Knitting Factory Set 3 of 3... cool stuff. Nice, long, freeform. - Sam, Cleveland Q-bert Bach Terror: Very interesting. How did you distort the Bach sample like that? It feels like there are thousands of Q-berts falling into the orchestra pit. - Nick, Seattle Keep up the good work - fantastic, mesmerising stuff - Gary, UK I really like what you are doing and trying to do. It's very scary and interesting to think that alnost all you do is based on chance. Your ability to catch "the moment" is astonishing. - Pat., Hoboken Listened in this afternoon. I thought the whole show was brilliant. Hats off. Must listen more often. - Julie, Austin Your show is exceptional & valuable. It oughta be syndicated (is it?). - Steve, Austin Thanks for doing what you do. Easy to drift away with your fascinating shows. ... Used to play your shows while I was cooking and during dinners. Folks enjoyed the flow. I remember one in particular that had ambient sounds of Tokyo or some Japanese vibe. I make everything from scratch and cook every day. That show really carried me off and away from the kitchen and dropped me in a rainy Japanese destination. - Katya, Binghamton it was lovely music and sounds, energy and flow last night. thank you. - Barbara, Mahnattan I have listened to some of your shows from the web site that you have available. I really liked them a lot. The four part beatles one was one of the best. - Rizzia, Tampa awesome wriiten in big puffy t shirt letters. the extravaganza certainly entertains a lonely robot. - Bryan, Austin I thought it was a great show. Neato little coffee house - Brian, Manhattan downloaded one of your mixes from illegal art recently and liked the mix. - Wobbly, San Francisco listened to it at work. When I run macros, etc., it maxes out my computer's CPU, giving the audiostream a snare like rhythm (on off on off) which only adds to the enjoyment. - Ben, Geneva I've been listening to the disc at home for the past couple of days (I'd _only_ listened to it at work previously), and you'll be happy to know it works just as well here. I like the shows I've heard quite a lot. Good to work to, as they tend blend into the background (you could release them as "Music for Offices", a la B. Eno) . . . also, they tend to keep people out of my office (this is a good thing). - Mike W. listening to that made me think clearer than I have for a long time strangely, we could sit perfectly still and content while you were performing. no need to doodle or look about or twist dreadlocks. self sustaining thought processes borne out of gazing at you in your little module, shaping things with an intense involvement that made me want to write you an e-mail so you'd write back and it'd be all mine, your relating to me directly outside of your performance and the other people there. - Katie, Manhattan i love this dream. how could you find so many audio phrases, or is it just the repetition of them that makes them feel like this, that are so i have no idea, inhabitable, when almost nothing is. i wonder if you feel as scared and simultaneously comforted by what you make as i do. no, it can't be repetition, solely that does that for me. lots of things have been repeated thousands, maybe tens of thousands of times in my life and never gotten any closer to that. I almost can't tell the difference between the show and the silence after. - Aly, Brooklyn was listening to the show when you were on in the archives, finally realized that was radiohead that you looped up...really fucking phat, the shit was in my head. - small change, WFMU You never seem to f*&^ up a show despite everyone's expectations. - Jason, Austin Thoroughly enjoyed the Q*Bert Bach Terror piece... And Wendy Carlos to boot. - Range, Raleigh Beautiful Terror is one of your very best. - Scott, Austin Hello, I really appreciate your show. Thank you. I really like 'These Documents'. Really smart! - Ben, Atlanta it looked like a technical juggle, it was very cool though. ken i heard some of your show it was great. i had no radio so streaming phone interrupted attempts. maybe you need a bigger distribution network to move your cd's around. you know i'd like some - Matt, Queens I loved the Elsewhere clip with the Bach - right off the bat, I thought, you know, this could be the new Christmas soundtrack I've been looking for. Have you done a Christmas disc? - Jeff, Brooklyn Hey there- Im a fan!!!! killer taste buds in that nogen of yours. - Brad, Brooklyn What I did hear of it was interesting. But it meshed with the environmental noises perhaps a little too well and at times got lost which can be desirable at times. I've seen some table top mixing before and your set is pretty interesting and not as alienating as sets I've heard before. - Jasper, Jersey City I was diggin your work although the car alarm sounds still resonate in my dreams!! - Ahmed, Jersey City One more thought about your performance at 111 Wherever Street: Having come specifically to pay attention to sound/music, as I was laying on the fire escape looking up into the sky, I saw an airplane go by, and then, a few moments later, another one, and I said to myself, "Ah! Yes, there's that theme coming back again," as if it were a bit of melody in some piece of classical music. It is interesting to look suddenly at the world as if it were peculiarly intentional! - Tina, Brooklyn I'm listening to your last? show on WFMU, and using a visualization plugin for my mp3 player. It is truly seisure inducinas.aslsdf;lal;sdg;asasdkjlasldkalak;sjdglkbasfj - Martin, Brooklyn Pat (the drummer from my band) caught you at Rob's b-day party, and was quite impressed with your set-up - Mark, Manhattan Thanks for making the sound thing happen at the end of our soiree. I guess that's really what you do, isn't it? You calibrated it perfectly, it was a great environment. - Rob, WFMU your comments at the end seemed right -- that the performnce was not as experimental as i imagine it usually is, that is, less seemed to have been left to chance. so it seemed a bit more static than the show i have of yours on cd. but i still enjoyed it: very trance-inducing. i like what you did with karma police, essentially reconstructing the entire development of the song without any of the verses. - Jonah, Brooklyn Made me think of mantras, little fairy kinda songs I used to sing to myself (and still do) that go round and round and round and change, mutate. I like the idea of limitations leading to epiphanies. I think you know what I'm talking about. - Wendi, Brooklyn Very transfixing extravaganza. My mind gets sucked into it because I wonder how it's coming together and then the sound makes me forget what I was thinking and I start feeling as loopy as the loops. It was fun when you were playful with people noises. - Lisa, Niagara Falls I haven't yet had time to really let your cd sink in, maybe I shouldn't try. I enjoy the complexity. Reminisent of Firesign Theatre. I will say that I've heard a lot af Columbia-Princeton stuff that's vastly inferior to this. Also a lot of modern dance oriented stuff that sucks; there's nothing easier than to make a machine repeat itself . I like the way you make rhythmic patterns out of the inadequate applause so much creative music gets, then seque into the censorship and unemployment issues. Creating signifigant electronic music means being a theoretician, a philosopher, and it's a political act. Your music functions at those levels. I like Short Attention Span for it's density. I think on the whole the disc has an elegiac quality. The 'rock band' near the end bothers me; it seems like a giant step backwards. I like words out of context like fragments of street conversation that seems inane, seems like you're alive to your surroundings, which an artist should be, to wake the rest of us up. Good work . Keep it up. - Frank, Manhattan I never shut it off the show, which I suppose serves the intent. Constantly backgrounding. I love it. The radiohead section is currently my favorite part... - Tony, Boston Lots of it was great, lots reminded me of your early shows, and lots was, yes, torturous: specifically the repetition of the beginning applause (?) sequence, and the "give peace a chance" bit. But overall, a worthy endeavor. - Liz, Brooklyn then i heard some of your stuff. and some even made me stop talking and listen. - Shel, Manhattan I tried to call the station, at the time, to tell you that I was enjoying the mixing. - Frank, WFMU went to your show finally and thoroughly enjoyed myself. certainly an intersting experience all the way around. as with any show of this kind there were parts i loved and parts i hated. the rock music was satisfying and the last half hour of what i heard was beautiful. - Corey, Manhattan I got it Friday night and put it on and didn't want to turn it off so i put it on repeat. - Mendy, Denton im listening to yer radio show from wfmu / what are you using on the queen track? i like it. really yummy. is it just records or do you have a sampler goin on too? - Shel, Manhattan Music by Wendy Carlos made very fresh w/ addition of Q-bert stuff... - Christina, Brooklyn Thanks for the link to your site. I listened and I dig. - Kron, Mykronesia i just listened to your show, 'a little dream of me'. i really dug it, thanks a lot. - Jonah, Troy I caught most of the show last Saturday and enjoyed it lots. - Jason, WFMU I really like the Flying Sarabande Machine, especially that middle section where it really collages. - Fareed, San Antonio I don't know what to say except -- wow this is enjoyable and sounds so good I am satisfied. I have been listening, they do ripen with age. not live.... but pretty much every night as I go to sleep.... though they definitely do not help me to sleep. - Keith, Syracuse Watched you on a video taken at my party - kinda Rasputin-like while DJing. The music was really beautiful. - Wendi, Brooklyn I really liked the impressive sound spectrum that you were able to get out of that simple amplifier/speaker system. - Andreas, Branchville, NJ I caught your interview mix on the radio at home and thought it was really cool. - Jason, WFMU high audio weirdness...the most original radio show of which i ever claim to be a regular listener. - the emo cloning lab |
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