A She-Devils Memory

While digging through old cassettes and Protools project CDs I was delighted to discover a "She-Devils On Heels" promo from 2004. This was from the "third season," when Annie first joined as co-host, and I think the promo sums up the show perfectly. So does this picture.


The commercial was very much a collaboration, though I think Annie's energy was the most crucial ingredient. What I remember most about it was forcing poor Annie to say "Do we HAVE superpowers?" about fifty times. What I remember most about that picture was...well, unsurprisingly I don't remember it at all.

Fighting the Sound Board

It's been a year since I last had the Sound Board Nightmare, but it returned last night.

In the Sound Board Nightmare I am in charge of engineering a live radio show. Things go well at first, but halfway through the currently-playing song I am unable to find a follow-up promo. I look everywhere. Nobody will help me. The final seconds of the song tick away and I quickly hit "Play" to play the next song as a substitute...but instead the song plays again, a second time.

Everybody stares at me. Something breaks down. I can't find the sheets that tell me when to play commercials. I panic, surrounded by staring eyes and dead air.

I stopped having these dreams when I stopped DJ'ing, both live shows and at CKMS. Since the demise of CKMS I have had little urge to get involved with radio again, especially not at a station that is hanging by such a tiny thread.

But there's ANOTHER community station in town, and it just so happens that a friend of mine his resigning his position, and he was looking for a replacement...

...so now I'm the Technical Director of "Monday Night with the Arts" on CKWR. I have a ton of sound mixing experience, but this is stretching my skill set a bit: a heavily scripted program, several guests on three different microphones, phone-in interviews...it's a real step up. Once I get the hang of the equipment -- and figure out how the darn Cue works -- I'm sure it will become second nature, but for now I'll suffer the Sound Board Nightmares.

Tonight was my first night, and coupled with a crippling insulin reaction I was a bit of a wreck. Fortunately the outgoing Technical Director was there to guide me, and the show didn't turn out too badly.

Besides keeping my skills polished and having something interesting to do on Monday nights, this is also an opportunity to keep up with the local Arts community...and it IS nice to be part of a radio station again...especially one so TIDY!

I'd Buy Anything By...Meat Beat Manifesto

When I worked at CKMS -- have you noticed how many of these musical anecdotes start this way? -- Eli McIlveen insisted that I watch a series of music videos by E.B.N. I was instantly hooked on the band, but since they only ever released one full album I was desperate for more. The E.B.N. album had been heavily produced and modified by a guy named "Jack Dangers," so I started looking in his direction.

Holy cow! Jack Dangers was (and is) the driving force behind "Meat Beat Manifesto," a twenty-plus year music project that has embraced ambient, trance, breakbeat, experimental, industrial, rap, and jazz. There's an odd mysteriousness about Danger's need to constantly remix and rerecord his songs, lending a continuity between different versions and a desire to "hear them all." The debut MBM release, in fact, was a double-album consisting of four songs, each drastically modified over and over and over...

His style is meticulous and lockstep, but mixed with layers of organic "messiness," preventing it from sounding sterile. He may not be the best singer in the world but he tends to compliment the slightly shoddy nature nicely. Here, for instance, is a live 2007 performance of one of their oldest songs ("God O.D."), done in their current style: loose, informal, surprisingly sweet.



MBM is perfect "do your work" music...it makes your body move but doesn't much distract your brain. It is not, however, easy to dance to, for some reason that I've never quite understood...maybe the tempo is slightly the wrong speed or the syncopation a bit wonky.

Dangers regularly contributes to the work of others, usually as producer, remixer, or collaborator. One of his more curious collaborations is the substantially unreal "Tino Corp" collective, producing albums of "beats" that are both sampleable and fun to listen to; Dangers is most effective when it comes to constructing his rhythms so this is a natural forum for him.



Albums to buy? Try "Storm the Studio" for the old-style industrial MBM, "Subliminal Sandwich" for the experimental fan-favourite, or the recent "At the Center" for the truly funky jazz. Albums to avoid: "Satyricon," an unpleasant detour into pop that went horribly, horribly wrong. For fans only: the "Tino Corp" albums, which are deliberately sparse.

CKMS

I started volunteering at CKMS in 1994, and I've continued to be a part of the station since then. I like to think that my skills improved during that period; the "She-Devils On Heels" chat show was an exceptional program, I think, and my "Repeater" old-time radio retrospective program was -- at the very least -- entertaining.

But now the Federation of Students has voted for a referendum: do students want to stop paying the $5.50 fee to keep the station running? If they vote no, CKMS will have to shut down; they will no longer be able to afford to operate.

Even back when I was a student, it was obvious that most of the student body DID NOT like CKMS. They thought it was amateurish and esoteric, which it tended to be. There were some excellent shows on the air, but for the most part it was pretty masturbatory, and sometimes downright awful.

So it's no surprise that a vocal "shut down CKMS" group arises every few years: these people hate the "alternative" designation of the station, they complain it doesn't represent students as a whole; they say it's difficult to pick up on the radio and that it isn't visible enough.

Strangely, about five years ago, these sorts of complaints prompted a radical reorganization of the station. A new Station Manager was hired and a hierarchy was developed. The fundamentals of CKMS changed as it began to slouch out of obscurity and into a new professionalism.

You see, previously it sort of hid away...the previous staff members were aware of their tenuous position, and they did not want to compromise. The new members of the staff want very much to raise the station's profile -- that's why they were hired -- but all of us knew the danger: if more students were aware of CKMS, more of them WOULD NOT LIKE IT.

Because CKMS' mandate from the CRTC is to be a telecommunications alternative. They can't be a station that plays popular music. It also doesn't help that the station is largely volunteer, and that the people most interested in it tend to be community members instead of students. And it REALLY doesn't help that there are some really bad programs on the air.

When I was on the board of directors, we faced a very serious situation where -- once again, but moreso -- an attempt was made to take over the station (in our case by changing the voting procedure). A mix of potentially well-meaning people and at least one person desperately obsessed with political procedure staged an odd sort of coup. The rest of us -- who were there because we wanted the station to succeed -- sat there dumbfounded as we were told "the students don't like you, you don't represent them, you're not visible enough." But that was the POINT of the new management: to get more students involved, to raise the station's profile, to ultimately GROW.

So now that the referendum is approaching -- headed partially by a former board member, who we always suspected was in it for a purpose of his own -- the students will decide whether or not the station continues.

I'm of two minds about this: if the students don't like it, obviously no amount of good-will will get them involved. They have been invited in, but unless they adhere to the CRTC's "alternative programming" designation they will not be able to change things. And the majority of students are not interested in alternative programming.

So they have a right, as a group, to make this decision.

But you see, when I was a student, I paid for a LOT of stuff I didn't care about. I paid money every year for an expanded Student Life Centre, even though I knew it wouldn't be finished until after I left. My fees went towards all sorts of things that I wasn't involved in. The entire Physical Activities Complex could have fallen into a pit and I wouldn't have noticed...but the University spent a ton of my money promoting squash and hockey and swimming...

I viewed my University career as being part of a community. I didn't get involved very often, but I was still happy that stuff was going on even if I WASN'T INVOLVED IN IT. That's what communities are like, and that's what you pay for. It's vibrancy. It's choice.

So I've never understood this idea that "if I don't take part in it, I won't support it in any way." I think that's selfish. A university, in my opinion, should not take that attitude. It leads to stagnation, defunding, and total dullness.

If CKMS' funding is cut off, I'll understand the reasoning behind it. But it doesn't bode well. It means that people are only looking after their own interests. The world won't end because of that but it will still make me sad.

Repeater is No More

For anybody who was enjoying "Repeater," the CKMS old time radio program, I'm sorry to say that no new episodes are being recorded. I understand it had a bit of a following, but the show had started to hang a dark cloud over my Sundays...and I NEED my Sundays.

Also, walking the shows out to CKMS on oppressively hot Mondays was getting old.

For now they're playing re-runs of the show until something else comes along. A resurrection of "She-Devils on Heels," perhaps? I'll keep you posted...

A Day in the Life: Monday

Contrary to popular belief, I only go on self-destructive drinking binges in my spare time. So what do I do during the rest of the week?

For my edification and perhaps yours:

7:00am - I awaken from the usual dream of running from a namess evil. The cat's food has almost run out, and so has her litter. I promise myself that I'll be a good parent and stock up on my way home from work. I feel horrible. I need to shave and wash my hair but I decide I can survive another day. Read the New Yorker from 7:15 to 7:45 while eating Golden Grahams cereal, wondering why it doesn't taste as good as it did when I was a child. Set the clocks back that didn't automatically do it for themselves. Wonder what's going to happen to all these automatic clocks next year, when Daylight Savings Time changes. Pet the cat, dress, and go.

7:45 - 8:30 - Walk to work. Since my clocks are always set incorrectly, my walk only takes half an hour but it appears to take 45 minutes.

8:30 - 9:00 - I read the news today, oh boy. Google news keeps me updated all day, actually. Some idiot in England is saying that humans should use their ingenuity to "adapt" to increased global temperatures, which is so stupid that it will probably catch on as a talking point. Dick Cheney says that violence is "spiking" in Iraq because the insurgents want the Democrats to win, which is so stupid that it has already caught on as a talking point. I pray for a shift of power in the USA.

9:30 - Eat peanut butter and greet the new employee in my department. Am given a pep talk about Hallowe'en. I consider dressing up for Hallowe'en tomorrow for work, which is a large enough investment to be daunting without alcohol.

8:30 - 12:00 Noon - Hefty work, which -- due to the non-disclosure agreement I signed today -- I am even less able to tell you about. Not that you want to know anyway.

12:00 - 12:30 - Eat lunch at Subway. One of the women who works there annoys me to no end: she's cocky, subnormal, useless, and ugly. Don't get me started. I read about threshing, maple sugar, quilting bees, butchering day, and racoon hunting -- among other things -- in "Pen Pictures of Early Pioneer Life in Upper Canada," written by "A Canuck" in 1905. I pause to reflect that these are my ancestors.

12:30 - I return to work and receive an email from the CKMS Station Manager, wondering if I can come in at 6pm to review applicants for the Administrative Assistant position. So much for getting the cat food and kitty litter.

12:30 - 4:30pm - Keep working. I'm glad to note that the folks who like to play Go have found themselves a table to play on. The Go pieces look like candy.

4:30 - 5:00 - Walk to University Plaza en route to CKMS. I get a soaker walking through Waterloo Park, and I'm dismayed by the mass defoliation to make way for a new sewage system. As if the trees didn't have enough problem dealing with this creepy leaf fungus.

5:00 - 5:30 - Eat at Curry In a Hurry, which is tasty but ridiculously overpriced for microwaved leftovers. Lamb Vindaloo, hot. Mango Lassi. I read about hunting, fishing, country dances, tarring & feathering, spelling bees, and early country courtship. I notice that the waitress is acting like I'm somehow there to serve her.

5:30 - 6:00 - Walk to CKMS. Gosh it's getting dark. I see a majestic blue heron standing in the wake of the setting sun. Actually he's slowly pushing his way across the horrid man-made lake in the new Industrial Park. He looks like the Loch Ness Monster, or a farming implement. A man rides past me on a stinky scooter that keeps stalling.

6:00 - 7:00 - At CKMS, drop off tomorrow's episode of "Repeater" and sit down to go through the applicants for Administrative Assistant. I consider this a delicate issue so I'll leave it at that. The Station Manager is ill, I sit in an unventilated room with her and then use her pen.

7:00 - 7:30 - Walk home in the dark. It isn't the best place to be walking, muggings are not unheard of. Halfway home I start seeing darting shadows and smelling smoke: it's Devil's Night, I totally forgot. Fortunately the moon is only half full. The smoke gets stronger, something is definitely burning which shouldn't be burning. To me this always means that my apartment is on fire and my cat is dead, though fortunately there's no visible smoke in any direction. I start hearing sirens but I never find out what the fire is, it smells like tires burning. I live close to a rubber factory of some kind. Passing the Bauer Lofts, I note that they've put up another pumping station on the last stretch of unclaimed sidewalk.

7:30 - 8:00 - It's definitely too late to buy cat food. I contemplate dressing up for Hallowe'en tomorrow. Just in case, I decide to shave my legs. This is not a comfortable thing because I just shaved them on Saturday. The cat drinks water out of the bathtub, and as always I'm amazed that she doesn't fall in. She's just happy that I haven't poisoned the water with bath oil or bubbles or something. I decide to do a quick check of my Hallowe'en costume, to make sure I haven't lost it in the train wreck that is my apartment post-weekend. Thank goodness I do, because when I find the skirt I see that there's dirt all over it. Then I remember, all in a flash: I fell really badly when I got out of the cab, partly because I was seeing double but mostly because my heel broke as I was climbing out. This explains why my left arm and left leg are sore.

8:00 - 8:30 - Write this!

Surprisingly Good Music: Jessica Beach

The hopes and dreams of CKMS break their little necks against reality's cold, hard windows. That may be a laboured metaphor, but my point is this: people are always sending new music to CKMS, and CKMS doesn't have room for it.

During the last few years we've been culling the music collection. Nobody's happy about it but it has to be done. Fortunately, the new culling system isn't completely hopeless: if a CD isn't played much and it has no positive comments written on its cover, it gets tossed into a lavender cupboard for us greedy audiophiles to loot.

There's a lot of crap in the lavender cupboard. When sorting through the rejected CDs I apply a hierarchy of rules:

• If I know the group, like the group, and don't have the CD, I'll adopt it. This goes without saying.
  
• If the cover art contains lighting bolts, I reject it. Lightning bolts are a bad design choice and show that the band is way too concerned about their hardcore cred.
  
• If the band picture features a bunch of young guys, one of whom is giving the camera the finger, I reject it. I don't trust most young guys with instruments, and they aren't going to woo me by giving me the ol' fingeroo.
  
• If the cover is a picture of an airbrushed, handsome young man looking confidently sexy at the camera, or a woman in her mid-30s with bad hair and a guitar low-slung around her hips, I reject it. The former CDs are usually bland adult contemporary pop, and the latter are usually bland adult contemporary country-rock.
  
• If the lead singer is female (and she passes the above test), then I adopt it. Only about one in twenty of these CDs have female singers.
• If the cover shows a young person in a rural setting with a portentiously angelic break in the Photoshopped clouds, I reject it. Unless it looks so cheesy that it might have camp potential.
• If the CD is by a male solo artist who is in his autumn years, has a bad ponytail, and is pictured standing in his home studio, I reject it. These are vanity projects by guys who spent all their lives touring in Polka bands.

Of all the CDs I take home (about 5% of the ones in the cupboard), three-quarters are total crap. But the other quarter are little gems that were discarded just because nobody bothered to listen to them or because they're not indie enough.

Which brings me to a CD called "Sticky Hands" by Jessica Beach. Not indie enough, I bet. Good stuff in the outspoken, Alanis Morissette/Tori Amos genre which is sadly over-hyped but still sounds great. She's got a video that would give a beta fish nightmares...check it out here (click on the Videos button and choose your settings).

She's Canadian, she's got a beautiful voice, she writes killer songs with sweet hooks, and the "Sticky Hands" album is stunning from beginning to end. It's helped by charming, crisp production that doesn't overdo the flourishes.

The song "Cycles" is my personal favourite and sounds more than a little "Poe." Which is alright by me

"Needles and pills just ain't the cure they used to be.
See, I thought they broke the mould,
but baby they just broke me."

Maybe Jessica Beach is old news to everybody else but me. I hope so. She deserves great fame!

Low-Key Devils On Heels!

Fans of the old "She-Devils On Heels" radio show, rejoice! It's coming back.

Mark has returned as co-host of the new half-hour show, which contains the same "quantity, not quality" standards of the original. Not wanting to rehash old ideas it's called "Devil Bunny Booze Hutch" now. No foolin'. It sounded slightly better than "Devil Bunny! Kill! Kill!" or "Burn, She-Devil, Burn!"

And as an added bonus we've got Ms. Divine as a recurring guest, with other guest ideas in the works as well. Wanna be a guest? It'll be easy!

When can you hear it? Well, this announcement is a bit premature. Our pilot episode got a sort of qualified thumbs-up from the CKMS Program Coordinator, but then -- not kidding -- somebody took a pee in the Studio A trash can and she got justifiably side-tracked. I'll get more info from her when she's less enraged.

So it all hinges on what the qualifiers are and what sort of slot opens up in the CKMS schedule. But even so I'm putting down my foot and deciding that I'm COMMITTED to the booze hutch...if it proves to be unworkable for campus radio, we'll put the shows online!

Errr...how? Not sure yet. But we'll do it, you rascals...we'll do it!