The SubGenius Hour of Slack Podcast
The Church of the SubGenius Weekly Radio Ministry
Hour of Slack #1319 - 14X-Day 2: First Meows

Aside from the song with which Evolution Control Committee closed their fantastic X-Day Drill set, this episode edited itself. The live Wisteria café-stage Hours of Slack (begun on last week's broadcast) unexpectedly took off into a lively discussion by Dr. Hal, Papa Joe Mama and Priestess Pisces about CATS and the Conspiracy -- which provided the perfect framework for a "jam meme" from the first night's excellent jam/ranting recordings: the ongoing "Meow Mix," which grew from Pisces getting the crowd to sing along with SOMETHING into a horrible clinging inside-joke for this whole X-Day Drill (though certainly not the only one, BUTT-HURTEDNESS being another). There is actually some beautiful music included from that 6-29-11 jam, thanks to singers and musicians who happen to be actual touring professionals (such as Rev. Stick and Phat ManDee) as well as gifted amateurs like Princess Wei, Rev. "Suds" Pshaw, Rev. Hazel (on SITAR!), Rev. Catfeather and others. Collages by The Large open and close the show, but it climaxes with a variation by Pisces of "The Star Spangled Banner" that has to be heard to be believed. It sounds like Kate Smith backed by Hendrix.

Direct download: Hour_of_Slack_1319.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 5:43pm CDT

Hour of Slack #1318 - Live at 14X-Day 6-30-2011: Papa Joe Mama, Dr. Hal, Priestess Pisces on The Conspiracy

During the six days of X-Day Drill #14, we recorded daytime ranting and "live radio" (for later playback) in the Wisteria café, and at night we recorded bands, ranting, and jamming in general on the main stage. Everything was recorded at least 3 ways: off the sound mixing board (like this whole show), on a Mini-DV video camera, and with a good location recorder capturing ambient sound. That's a lot of hours of sound to edit. Perhaps luckily for me, at this writing I, Stang don't yet have possession of many board recordings after the first day. Normally I would intersperse the radio talk segments with music and fevered ranting, and by next week I'm sure I'll be able to. In fact, this week, were there perfect Time Control, and if I hadn't had to do the Starwood Festival (also at Wisteria) immediately after X-Day. I'd have had that option, as there are some wonderful jams and rants from the first two nights that I COULD have used.

I decided not to, partly because I have to get this damn thing in the mail and on the air, but partly because this first live Hour of Slack by Dr. Hal, Papa Joe Mama, and Priestess Pisces seems to flow just beautifully without any interruptions. Perhaps this is because I personally was off-mic most of the time. I even broke the main file up into segments to allow cutting to music -- but I don't think I would want to even if I'd had the time. The key SubGenius themes are discussed by these mighty yakmasters so well that inserting music and solo jeremiads seems inadvisable. It's uncut all-talk, and in this case all the better for that.

By next week I should have BOXES of board recordings of bands to choose from and compare to the location recordings I made. We have also almost finished a large gallery of carefully selected photos; they require only more accurate file-names to be added, unfortunately by me. Those, a detailed text report, and MP3s of some of the better music from early in the X-Day week should all be on the SubSITE 14X-Day pages fairly soon after I get this Hour of Slack episode out of the Slackermansion and into the world. (The web page doesn't have deadlines, but the weekly radio show does.)

Direct download: Hour_of_Slack_1318.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 1:05pm CDT

Hour of Slack #1317 - Live 6-27: Radio Synaesthesia, Dr. Hal, Pisces: X-Day Approacheth III

Firstly, both the 14th X-Day Drill and Starwood 31 went off beautifully. Attendance was up and so were countless tent poles. We recorded so many wonderful and terrible photos, videos and audio clips that future Hours of Slack will reflect the culling process for a dozen episodes to come. This week, however, we are in both physical recovery and unpacking-mode, so we are lucky to have this easy-to-assemble final hour from the June 26-27 heroic all-talk 3-hour intermingling of Hour of Slack and Dr. Sinister's Radio Synaesthesia on WCSB in Cleveland. Live in the studio were Dr. Sinister, Rev. Ivan Stang, Dr. Hal Robins and Princess Wei 'R.' Doe; on the phone lines were Priestess Pisces, Lonesome Cowboy Dave, Gov. Rocknar and someone called Wombat. Three very old collages by LeMur are included, but mostly this is uncut talk covering almost everything plus a little about 14X-Day. Next week: the first of many editing-heavy 14X-Day (and Starwood Festival) audio "best-ofs." We hope to have a photo essay or two in gallery form on subgenius.com in the EVENTS section fairly soon. The 23 hours of video may take more time to edit and transfer. Then there was the 3D documentary crew that shot much of 14X-Day; they had better recording gear than ANYBODY, so we can only imagine what that project will eventually produce. (P.S.: Last week's show was uploaded and put online from a coffeehouse in Athens, Ohio during Starwood festival #31.)

Direct download: Hour_of_Slack_1317.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 4:58am CDT

Hour of Slack #1316 - Live 6-26/27: Radio Synaesthesia: X-Day Approacheth II

The good WCSB of Cleveland allowed Dr. Sinister’s show, Synaesthesia, to become a kind of “second and third Hour of Slack” with Dr. Hal, Lonesome Cowboy Dave, Dr. Sinister, Ivan Stang, Princess Wei ‘R.’ Doe and several callers discussing excitedly the upcoming world-destruction and SubGenius-mating migration known as 14X-Day – which, aside from the fact that we are still stuck on a non-destroyed Earth, went beautifully at our new improved location, Wisteria. Detailed photos, recordings and movies of that event will follow in the weeks to come. In fact we are (at this posting) still at Wisteria, in the middle of the Starwood Festival, so forgive us for posting everything a week or more late. We have a truly incredible amount of footage and photos to edit, and we are barely physically recovered from the Ordeal of Slack.

Direct download: Hour_of_Slack_1316.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 2:25pm CDT