Category: All Posts

Firesign before Python

Before I first heard Monty Python on WBCN in Boston in 1971-72, the station played records by the comedy troupe The Firesign Theatre. Founding member Peter Bergman has died. In The Further Adventures of Nick Danger, Third Eye, Bergman played Lt. Bradshaw, as heard in this audio clip.

http://youtu.be/Ouuq5J7lSuY

The first three Firesign Theatre albums are my favorites. They’re smart, savvy, carefully crafted, intricate, subversive, and for myself Nick Danger led to an interest in what is now called Old Time Radio. For someone of my generation, the Firesign Theatre records hold up well to repeated listenings, and they evoke a great deal of nostalgia. There was that time in college, in a dorm room that was not mine, listening to Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers, and… uh… well, never mind about that.

“… and there’s hamburger all over the highway in Mystic, Connecticut…”

Good intentions, budget constraints

Tom Moroney of Bloomberg News tells this tragic, compelling story about one outcome of the current state of mental health services, in an age of reduced social services funding. Tom was on The Takeaway radio program Tuesday morning.

[audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/audio.wnyc.org/takeaway/takeaway022812h.mp3|titles=The Takeaway – Mental health service reductions]

‘BZ Boston notes

Back in September, WBZ 1030 AM in Boston celebrated its 90th anniversary. On WBGH TV, Boston’s PBS station, veteran ‘BZ announcer Gary LaPierre, now retired, talked about his start at the station, only a few months before the Beatles came to Boston. Note: Paul and Ringo are still working!

[jwplayer config=”wide” mediaid=”17585″]

Another great veteran of WBZ radio, Dave Maynard, died recently. After retiring, Maynard’s familiar voice continued to be heard on the station, doing commercials and promos.

Samjay pointed out that the thing everybody uses to set their car’s dashboard clock, WBZ’s on-the-hour tone, is gone. I had noticed a while ago that it was about ten seconds late, and under the assumption it had mistakenly been put before the delay circuit, I sent a note to the station asking about it. Not much later, the tone once again was synched with the radio-controlled wall clocks in my house, but now the tone is gone. Whuzzup with that?

Follow-up: I wrote to the WBZ engineer, and didn’t receive a reply, but the time tone is back. It’s not hitting exactly on top of my radio-controlled clocks, but I’m not going to quibble over 8-10 seconds.