Subject: Dad's "Slack New Year" Blowout Extravaganza!
Date: 02 Jan 1996 00:00:00 GMT
From: mtownsend@interramp.com (Michael Townsend)
Organization: Dad's New Slacks
Newsgroups: alt.slack
I don't know if Bevilaqua's Slack Crusades will ever venture north of
Boston, but I want to be ready. In fact, I've been priming Portland,
Maine for the arrival of X-Day ever since I started playing SubGenius
tapes on WMPG in 1986 (we've been regularly broadcasting the Hour of Slack
since '89). Now, with the Church moving into high gear this year, what
better time to rub the city's complacent faces in it, eh?
But first, a little background:
Portland's population is around 63,000, making it Maine's largest city
(impressed?). To prove we're the state's business and culture capital,
since 1979 (that magical year) we've been putting on a semi-unique
citywide New Years event named, unimaginately enough, "New Years
Portland." It's where tens of thousands of people shuffle up and down the
main street downtown -- many of them wearing admission badges that get
them into dozens of cultural and entertainment events at different venues
-- then all gather at the big square at midnight for fireworks and gleeful
revelry.
It's basically an anti-alcohol campaign, since you're not allowed to pop
champagne and pour it down your face in public, and the cops don't exactly
look the other way, either. So the more people they can attract to the
thing, the fewer will be getting shitfaced at the stroke of twelve. No,
they'll be getting shitfaced at the stroke of 1, but nevertheless,
Portland's always thought it had a great thing going here.
This year, WMPG in its blessed in-your-face spirit decided it would put on
some free events on its own, which could either supplement the paid
professional performances or be an alterternative to them or be
experienced however you damn well pleased -- and among them was the idea
of "A Slack New Year" where Dave (who airs the Hour Of Slack and his own
sound-mix-collage show called "Promoted To Glory" on alternate Mondays)
and I would collaborate, live and out in the open (12-degree) air right in
the middle of the action, from 10 to 11:30 pm. And, as was promised in
incessant radio promos and even major newspaper publicity, it would all be
done in the sacred name of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs.
Most amazing of all, it was a total success. We decorated Congress Square
with dot-perfect Dobbsheads (Dave got several volunteers to put up big
bitmapped Dobbheads advertising the event a couple of days earlier) and
"The SubGenius Must Have SLACK!" posters. And we scared the normals
relentlessly -- just think how many of them passed by and were exposed to
the unearthly Xist sounds and sick video images we were projecting (clips
from Arise, the Danish thing, The Balloon Man, Reboot, all kinds of shit,
including that fantastic Japansese cypherphunk classic, Iron Man!) I was
mixing a cassette deck, CD deck, sampler and old analog Polymoog, and Dave
ran around and played with percussion, microphones, bass, a Sound Gizmo
and some discs. Since we didn't have any Professional Subgenius
Preachers* on hand, we had to use volunteers from the audience who read
from the pile of free literature I xeroxed up the day before. We also had
a guy with a saxophone jam with us for a while.
In the final half-hour, our engineer Phil complained of frostbite fingers,
and mine were pretty numb too...despite my Dickensian knit gloves with the
fingertips cut off [Hip Pete, Dode, somebody, is there a name for those
things?] Yet Dave's fingers were somehow popping great bass lines while
his friend with the long red ringlets gave an insane feminized reading of
the original "Brag" and Phil twisted her voice through his gates and
harmonizers and pitch shifters...
It was a beautiful thang. Yeah, we definitely "rang" in the New Year,
what with all the feedback and ultrahigh frequencies and heavy harmonics
reverbing off of the Museum of Art building across the street.
The whole thing was supposed to be broadcast live, but it turned out we
didn't have a live line to the site after all. So it was recorded on DAT
and I played it the next night (last night) on my show. I also aired Hour
Of Slack #375, which has a lot of segments from a wild New Years Eve
Devival in Dallas (1993) with *Professional Subgenius Preachers (you know,
the ones who get PAID to preach to the converted) including Stang, Sterno,
Susie The Floozie and Sister Mary Squared in one of her most erotic
performances on tape (much of it unfortunately left on the cutting room
floor).
Well it felt good, let me tell you, to spread so much Slack to so many
unsuspecting normals in so compressed and compelling a time frame. Yes!
A great start to 2BX!
-Dad
--
D A D ' S N E W S L A C K S
mtownsend@interramp.com http://www.rlabs.com/dad/
tapexchange (send one, get one): PO Box 4272, Portland ME 04101 USA