In my Dabbler cupboard this week I unveil the mysteries of the Hooting Yard podcast creation process. And while we are on the subject of ResonanceFM, make sure you tune in for this weekend’s fundraiser weekend, where you will get a chance to bid for a startlingly rare set of six out of print pamphlets by Mr Key!
Last summer, in a ground-breaking piece of rustic radio, Hooting Yard On The Air broadcast a very rare audio excerpt from the BBC’s magnificent bumpkin-and-yokel drama Lark Rise To Candleford. In this scene, one of the peasants sprawls next to the drainage ditch and recites Captain Beefheart’s “Old Fart At Play” from Trout Mask Replica. It is now available on the most recently-released podcast, or you can listen to it directly, here, without the rest of Mr Key’s babbling flummery.
OldFartAtPlay (mp3)
Last week we looked at self-tidying swans, and we can now extend our ornithological researches courtesy of Johnny Seven. Mr Seven, incidentally, is a man to whom you should be profoundly thankful. Not only does he present the excellent “Pull The Plug” show on ResonanceFM, but he is currently the sound engineer charged with making sure Mr Key’s dulcet tones are transmitted into your ears every week.
Long, long ago, in the last century, Johnny snapped a gang of self-tidying seagulls. He writes: “Taken on Tuesday 10th December 1984 (I know this since it’s written on the back of the photographs), I was interested in the slate-grey blanket of fog shrouding the trees on the embankment in Putney. No sooner had I set up the tripod than the hungry birds came (picture no.1). See their expectant little faces. Imagine their disappointment when croutons were not scattered. I moved further back to get a wider (and, to be honest, less pleasingly composed) view, and the gulls moved further up the railing toward me, increasing in number (picture no.2, and detail).”
You will note that, unlike the self-tidying swans, these self-tidying gulls are not accompanied by an equal number of water gulls. This is due to their choice of emperchment, upon railings, if, indeed, it was a conscious choice. Who can say what weird shenanigans occur in the tiny brains of birds? One thing we can be sure of is that they know how to line up very neatly, with the precision for which self-tidying gulls are applauded, in some circles.
Unlikely as it may seem, the first – and quite probably only – edition of your favourite television show of all time, The Frank Key And Lepke B. Half-Hour will be broadcast live, yes live!, on ResoVision tomorrow (Saturday) at 2.30 PM UK time. Turn on, tune in, shovel snack foods down your gullet, furrow your brow, and concentrate. That is all I ask of you. God knows it is little enough, at least for the time being, pending inquiries, debriefings, further snacking opportunities, and hell freezing over.
From the hallowed shed of OutaSpaceman, a new wonder! Taking a couple of drawings from Hooting Yard calendars of the last century, he has fashioned a breathtaking animated film:
It is to be hoped this will be shown on ResoVision, ResonanceFM’s four-day televisual experiment, beamed to you live from the Frieze Art Fair. Word has it that Mr Key and Lepke B will be re-forming their double act to present a brand new piece of gorgeousness – as yet unwritten and un(de)composed – on Saturday.
We interrupt this programme alphabet to point readers, with a pointy stick, towards The Dabbler, where this week Mr Key’s cupboard contains a couple of pieces about Belshazzar’s feast. Or, more accurately, one is set before Belshazzar’s feast, and the other just after it. Intriguingly, when these little tales first appeared here at Hooting Yard, many readers thought they were about the Swedish pop group Abba, presumably because the protagonists share their Christian names with the Scandinavian foursome, and quote lyrics from a couple of their songlets. I would like to take this opportunity to make it crystal clear that these are sheer coincidences, and no resemblance to any real persons, either living or passed beyond mortal realms, was intended.
ADDENDUM : The two “Belshazzar’s Feast” tales, with musical accompaniment provided by legendary noise decomposer Lepke Buchwater, will form Mr Key’s segment of the Resonance Radio Orchestra evening at the Jellyfish Theatre on Sunday 3rd October. (See D is for Date For Your Diary.)
D is a Date for your Diary
Mr Key is very pleased to announce that he will be reading a couple of (short) stories as part of a night of live radio art presented by the Resonance Radio Orchestra at the Jellyfish Theatre on Sunday the third of October. Tickets are just £5, and doors open at 7.30 PM.
The Jellyfish Theate is a temporary structure built of pallets and discarded doors and old nails. You can read about it here and find out where it is here.
You will recall that last week Mr Key (and Pansy Cradledew) took part in a broadcast performance by Phil Minton’s Feral Choir on ResonanceFM. Now you can listen to a recording of the programme here.
Babbling prose into a microphone for half an hour every week is all very well, but occasionally one feels impelled to vent in a less… shall we say, prosaic manner. To this end, I am very pleased (I think) to be taking part in a performance by Phil Minton’s Feral Choir this coming Saturday, 29th May.
Tune in to ResonanceFM at 8.00 PM, and – as Charles Ives recommended – “sit down, pin back your ears, and listen like a man!” (Women are equally adept at this practice.)
Incidentally, and quite coincidentally, both Phil Minton and I have contributions due to appear in a forthcoming recipe book, to be sold for charity. I am not joking. I will of course keep readers fully informed, so you can buy innumerable copies when this invaluable tome hits the boulevards.
Make sure you tune in to Resonance today, between noon and midnight, for the second half of the Fundraiser Weekend Marathon. Mr Key will be on air from 1.30 to 2.00 PM announcing the auction of Derek The Dust Particle, Bring Me The Head Of Derek The Dust Particle!, and a complete set of Massacre, issues one to five of the anthologies published in the 1990s. I think bidding for items, by telephone, email, or metal tapping machine, continues until midnight, but all will become clear if you listen carefully.
Here is an important auction announcement. This coming weekend, May the first and second, sees ResonanceFM’s fundraising marathon. From noon to midnight on Saturday and Sunday a series of guests will be trooping into the studios offering delectable items to be snapped up in live auctions.
Mr Key will be on air between 1.30 and 2.00 PM on Sunday, eliciting bids for a pair of uberrarities, the books Derek The Dust Particle and Bring Me The Head Of Derek The Dust Particle!, written by Perry Natal and illustrated by Frank Key, published two decades ago by Indelible Inc.
So turn on, tune in, drop what you’re doing, and bid as if your life depends on it. Resonance needs you, almost as much as you need Resonance.
Those of you familiar with the important Hooting Yard Book o’ Days will know that precisely six years ago today, the very first episode of Hooting Yard On The Air was broadcast on ResonanceFM. I will be celebrating by drinking a flask of aerated lettucewater and sacrificing a (vegan, marzipan) goat.
Once upon a time, of course, radio shows were fugitive, ephemeral things, but today, with the wonders of podcasting, untold hours of Mr Key’s babbling remain available for you to download from the ResonanceFM archive. Apparently, thousands of people do, certainly more than ever read this blog.
This seems as good a time as any, then, to note that a new podcast maestro has taken over the reins, whose self-appointed task is to increase the frequency of releases. Past programmes have been issued as podcasts generally about once a fortnight, but the plan now is for them to appear twice a week, until the backlog is cleared.
For an insight into the tremendous technical challenges of the process, I refer you to this piece from the 2006 archives. Little has changed, save perhaps for the metal from which the maestro’s hat has been welded.
My thanks are due to the podcast maestro and his predecessors, and you can make their dedication to this noble cause worthwhile by subscribing, downloading, and listening, for so long and so often that Mr Key’s voice haunts your dreams. And please remember that the very existence of ResonanceFM is a fragile and rickety thing, and your donations to the station will help it to survive.
Your favourite radio programme, Hooting Yard On The Air, will be six years old next month. As happens from time to time, I have been pondering whether or not to change the theme tune, which, since very early in the show’s run, has been the “Caucasian Lullaby” by Slapp Happy & Henry Cow, from the Desperate Straights album of 1975. When I mention to people that I am considering a change, I am almost invariably met with gasps of horror, as if by dumping the eerie lullaby in favour of something else I would be doing violence to a well-loved national institution, much as if I were to throw pebbles at Stephen Fry. So there is every likelihood the sixth anniversary will come and go without any change whatsoever. I am enamoured, though, of the University of Ghana Postal Workers’ Stamp-Cancelling Song, also from 1975, which was brought to my attention by Glyn Webster, to whom many thanks. Should this become the new Hooting Yard theme? Please make use of the Comments to air your views.
The episode of Tunnel Vision in which Mr Key trudges through the sewers declaiming sewer- and tunnel-related prose will be broadcast tonight at 9.00 PM on ResonanceFM. At least, I think so. If through cataclysmic mishap you miss it, it will be repeated on Saturday 15th at 4.00 PM.
UPDATE : And if, through a second cataclysmic mishap, you miss the repeat, I understand that a podcast will be available from Sunday 16th. Check the Resonance podcasts page.
First we had Blodgett in the sewers, now Mr Key himself has been squelching through the subterranean murk. You can hear the results in an episode of Tunnel Vision on ResonanceFM – go here for further details, I am not sure in which week my troglodyte adventures will be broadcast, but you should listen to the entire series in any case. My thanks to Bruno Rinvolucri, who made the programmes, took me down into the sewers (at West Dulwich) and, more importantly, led me back to the surface again.
