Jeff Adams' Radio Drama Blog

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Location: International Falls, Minnesota, United States

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Andy Warhol and the future of Audio

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve blogged, but much is happening around here at the moment. But for tonight, I think I’d like to focus on an idea I’ve been kicking around for some time.

As I write this, I’m watching part two of PBS’s documentary on Andy Warhol. Warhol’s genius was tied completely to a time and a context. His paintings, his films, his art need the 60’s to be understood and the 60’s can’t really be understood without the 50’s, and the 50’s without the 40’s and so on. This is how things have been forever. We move forward on a line, each decade or era informing the next. In this way, things – like radio drama – are lost. Next to television, radio looked old and silly. It was left behind. We look back and form opinions on the past, but our opinions are informed by the eras in which we live. In this way, in this way, things left behind truly appear to die.

But, does it need to be that way.

Without a timeline, in a context where everything exists on a plane together, audio can become art again, and not just what grandpa used to listen too. If the audience is free to select our art without prejudice, without a notion that this thing is not ours, just something we’re borrowing from the past, then we can be relevant. And that world is close.

Kids listen to The Beatles and Fat Boy Slim on the same iPod. Old Jimmy Stewart flicks and the latest blockbusters reside on the same NetFlix lists. And technologies are improving things too. No more scratched LPs, fading audio tape, movies that close never to been heard of again or TV shows that skip syndication. It’s all changing to granite. All of performing art is starting to resemble a bookstore with the ancient masters sharing shelf space with the latest bestsellers. This is a very good thing. It means the technologies and techniques we use are not dated, just different. Television did not replace our art, it simply evolved from it.

The sixties were all about tearing down. I wonder now if there is an age ahead of us that is about building up, about putting something back where there has been a hole for a time. There is no ‘Now’ in a world where art from all times can co-exist. This goes for audio, as well as anything. That is why we who tell stories just with sound should have hope.

One man’s thoughts at a late hour.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

A Call for Submissions: Sound Stages

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:

Sound Stages: an Audio Theater Podcast, has just marked its 70th episode. We’ve been featuring all the best drama, spoken word, aural art, etc that we can find since March of 2005.

As a weekly cast, we need lots of material and are in search of new artists to contribute for this season. If you’d like your work featured on Sound Stages, please write Jeffrey Adams at this address. Write first.

PLEASE DO NOT SEND MP3’S WITHOUT WRITING FIRST.

We can’t promise much, but we’ve been averaging 2000 listeners per episode, and we get emails from Europe, South Africa and Australia. This year, we will be working on an advertising program could lead to income for both of us. No promises, but we’ll work on it. For right now, I’m offering exposure with a non-exclusive arrangement.

Again, write to jeffreyamn@frontiernet.net if you’re interested. Or even if you’re not, for that matter.