Doo-dah, dada, dog. Radio Clash 175 is a special show which commemorates two great songwriters and performers – that original ginger geezah Vivian Stanshall and the Seventh Python (I bet he hates that term) Neil Innes, the former who sadly died in 1995, and their legacy of arty chaotic jazz/pop/psychedelic silliness and melancholy that probably only the English really get…as much rooted in the 20’s than the 60’s and 70’s, but strange and insane in any timeframe.

The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Doo-Dah (92Mb, 2:05)

• The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band – The Craig Torso Show (excerpt)
• The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band – The Intro and the Outro
• The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band – I’m Going to Bring a Watermelon to My Girl Tonight
• The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band – Button up Your Overcoat
• The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band – Death Cab for Cutie
• The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band – The Sound Of Music
• The Bonzo Dog Band – Hello Mabel
• The Bonzo Dog Band – My Pink Half of the Drainpipe
• Vivian Stanshall – Pub Talk
• The Bonzo Dog Band – Canyons of Your Mind 2
• The Bonzo Dog Band – The Craig Torso Show (excerpt)
• The Bonzo Dog Band – By a Waterfall
• The Bonzo Dog Band – Sport (The Odd Boy)
• The Bonzo Dog Band – What Do You Do?
• The Bonzo Dog Band – Sofa Head
• The Bonzo Dog Band – Don’t Get Me Wrong
• The Bonzo Dog Band – Straight from My Heart
• Roger Ruskin Spear – Mattress Man
• Neil Innes – Re-Cycled Vinyl Blues
• Eric Idle & Neil Innes – Front Loader
• The Rutles – Eine Kleine Middle Klasse Musik
• Neil Innes – How Sweet To Be An Idiot
• Vivian Stanshall – Terry Keeps His Clips On
• Vivian Stanshall – Rawlinson’s End (excerpt)
• Vivian Stanshall – Viv stanshall – John Peel Epitaph
• Vivian Stanshall – Id Rather Cut My Hands (live)
• Vivian Stanshall – The Cracks Are Showing
• The Bonzo Dog Band – No Matter Who You Vote For, The Government Always Gets In
• The Bonzo Dog Band – Slush

Something I missed probably because I was either in deepest Shropshire or deepest Surrey…but the only ever London pirate tv station Network21 transmitted in 1986 just under ITV for a year in 1986…and the program was arts based and they lobbied (unsuccessfully, although nighttime TV and cable/satellite probably answered some of those needs) for community access to TV, and even got city funding…remember this is a time where Kiss was a successful pirate, it could have been possible.

Genesis P even pops up at some point, and Brion Gysin in this clip, along with EVP phenomena, Rolling Stones in drag, pop performances and Warhol’s Trash, amongst many. This is truly experimental, weird, funny, odd, dated, amazingly good and amazingly low-tech TV.

TV COULD have been like this, instead we get the shit that is X-Factor and Big Brother. Sigh.

Sadly it got raided on it’s first birthday.

(I would usually say thank you to Boing Boing for this, but weirdly their post about Mr Gysin doesn’t even mention the amazing and very interesting source of the video, which I tracked down after a short hunt. Like hello? Maybe Pirate TV grows on trees in Cory’s world? Or he can’t receive it up in his balloon )

OK a lot of you may not even have heard of Radio Clash’s shy sibling, the arts/experimental podcast digital debris.

Well finally got to the 3rd proper episode ‘depression‘ I go back to 1929 via 78. 2(00)9 recurring, as we crash, crash, crash. Crunch.

Loads of classic Great Depression-themed 78rpm records, readings from novels of the time, and maybe an inkling, crackly messages from ‘29, of ways of coping during the 2009 recession? Interspersed with bits from the 1935 novel by Horace McCoy and 1969 film, They Shoot Horses Don’t They? to even up the happy happy sunshine score.

I can’t say in words how much I love 1920s and 1930s music, a lot seems as current today as then, and I set up digital debris in part to play out of copyright 78’s – so here is a show dedicated to them, at a time when economic uncertainty in the songs echoes through the years and resonates today. Or is that just the knitting needle stylus buzzing? I don’t know…

Roll up! Roll up!

Newlink Firewire 400 PCMIA Cardbus adapter 2 x 6 pin

Echo Indigo DJ Laptop Sound Card boxed Mac or PC

Numark DJ IO USB 2 audio interface BOXED AS NEW+++

LaCie Firewire 800 PCI card, 3 ports BOXED UNUSED

Canon MD205 Mini DV Camcorder BOXED AS NEW manual etc (as seen in action here)

aka Welcome to My Head. This is what I hear when I hear a new song, difference is 1) tends to be a few songs unless you have more than two mashup people there then we come up with 100s and sing them annoyingly over the song and 2) we can’t sing for shit.

Brilliant though, and to show you how chord sequences are over-used in pop, I remember my dad going on about an overused chord sequence in songs (DESH?) wish I knew if it’s this one (E-B-C#m-A). I can tell you most indie songs use Eminor, though, especially Oasis hence all those Wonderwall mashes.