#The Firesign Theatre
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With nothing much else to post at the moment, Berit has suggested that I share some tracks from maybe the biggest influence on Life With Althaar with "the yutes."
The Firesign Theatre was a surreal comedy group -- composed of Phil Austin, Peter Bergman, David Ossman, and Philip Proctor -- that worked in audio, from 1966 to 2012, on radio in a mostly-improvisational form, and on LP and CD (and occasionally stage, film, and video) in a densely scripted and layered series of landmark audio works combining high and low comedy, poetry, literature, music, philosophy, metaphysics, theatre, surrealism, absurdism, and social commentary into a thick audio stew.
I've been listening to their albums for literally all 54 years of my life, and my voice (physical and creative) owes everything to them (probably all 75 voices I've performed on Althaar could be directly traced back to one of the Firesigns, if not deliberately imitating some other famous person).
While our show is more plot and character-driven and less abstract than most of their work, I think the influence is apparent, both in audio production and in a kind of philosophy of sonic comedy.
So I'll be sharing some of their work here over the next week, hoping to keep it alive in the Future. No problem if it's not your bag -- there are plenty of dated references, and some of the dialect voices verge on (or cross into) the problematic -- but maybe someone out there catches the bug.
Here is the title track from their first album, Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him, from 1968, originally all of side 2 of the LP. It's a simple start from them, getting to know the capabilities and limits of a real recording studio (only 4 tracks!), but it's pure Firesign.
(and yes, I chose to make one of the opening scenes of Althaar's first episode a Customs check in homage to this piece...)
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The Wikipedia article on The Firesign Theatre is a detailed and accurate history if you want to know more.
When meeting the Firesigns at a signing in 1993, I mentioned to David Ossman their huge influence on me and he asked, "What do you do? Comedy?" And I replied, "No, I'm in Audio" (which was my job at the time). And he slammed his signing pen down and said:
"You see! People are always asking me 'where are the comedians influenced by Firesign these days? why does no one do comedy like you anymore?' And I always tell them, the people influenced by us didn't go into Comedy, they went into Audio! That was our real influence!"
And so, 30 years on from that, I find myself winding up doing both.
Hope you enjoy the all-nite images.
#the firesign theatre#four or five crazee guys#audio comedy#1968#waiting for the electrician or someone like him#life with althaar#influences#Youtube
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Spots of ads, tributes and noise!
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Watch "Everything You Know Is Wrong (Side A) - The Firesign Theatre" on YouTube
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Everything You Know Is Wrong, side B
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I still can't get over the fact that the first real piece of cyberpunk fiction was "I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus".
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#Cyberpunk#The Firesign Theatre#Proto-cyberpunk#Pre-cyberpunk#I mean they use 'hologram' instead of 'avatar'#And 'the shadows' instead of 'cyberspace'#But y'know#This was before the vernacular existed#Also kinda pre-transhuman-biopunk#Given that the 'bozos' are implied to be genetically-altered clown-men#Youtube
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AllMusic Staff Pick:
Firesign Theatre
Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers
An evening of late night television sometime after World War III: George Tirebiter and his pals try to find their stolen high school, someone has changed the water, Joe Beets demands shoes for industry, and the pizza guy still won't come up into the hills. Quite simply, the greatest comedy album ever made.
- Mark Deming
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gather round the radio for tonight's Extra-Ghoulish episode of Detective Diaries.......
#amelia watson#hololive#holomyth#radio drama#that vid was so good man#she should listen to the firesign theatre#and You Should Too!!#wlart#williamleonard
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"This Is No Movie -- This Is REAL! (The Last Reel...)"
Mig Living, Michael A. Singer, Firesign Theatre, et al.: '"This Is No Movie -- This Is REAL! (The Last Reel...)"'
[This post’s title alludes to a favorite bit from Firesign Theatre‘s 1970 album, Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me Those Pliers. If I could find a transcript of it, I’d link thereto… but I can’t. So allow me to introduce you to the album in its entirety, above, via the magic of YouTube. I’d hate to isolate the specific location in the audio where this line occurs — thus robbing you of the full, rich, 40-some-minutes experience — so, well, just listen.]…
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#Wislawa Szymborska#Firesign Theatre#Basho#Adyashanti#Michael A. Singer#Mig Living#appearance vs. reality
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Everyone was going on about the Indiana Jones reference, but the Firesign Theatre was all I could see.
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I respect Firesign Theatre, but they never ever made me laugh.
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hearing david ossman talking about memes is so. weird
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Continuing with this week's posts of audio wonders from the surreal comedy group The Firesign Theatre (1966-2012). Previously:
1. Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him (1968) and notes about the influence on us and Life With Althaar.
2. How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All (1969)
Bringing us up to 1970's Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers.
In which the central hapless hero figure of their previous longform works ("P," played by Phil Austin in the first; "Babe," played by Peter Bergman in the second) is transmuted into David Ossman as "George Leroy Tirebiter Camden N-200R" ("Camden N-200R" being a location-specific surname in an obliquely suggestive fascist future world), who in an evening of late night TV viewing finds himself sucked into the televisual world itself after accepting its sustenance. As he tries to find a way out, he passes through the Seven Ages of Man, reliving his past in fragments of an anti-Communist teen movie (High School Madness) and a Korean War picture (Parallel Hell).
This LP (originally titled We'll Be Hieronymus Bosch in Jest a Minute, but Faust...) was the first time the Firesigns had spread a single piece over two sides of a vinyl album, and was an immediate commercial and critical success. It was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1970 for Best Dramatic Production, and has been inducted into the Library of Congress's registry of notable American recordings.
Hope you enjoy it, take off your shoes, and don't touch that little chromium switch...
#the firesign theatre#1970#don't crush that dwarf hand me the pliers#comedy#life with althaar#influences#audio comedy
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I beg your pardon sir, but is this your bar of soap?
Well, I suppose it is.
So do we.
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Watch "They Were Just in the Way | Indian Removal" on YouTube
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Temporarily Humboldt County
#Youtube#first nations#native american#american indian#indigineous people#the firesign theatre#firesign theatre#firesign theater#american history
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Bugs: The pyramid is opening up!
Daffy: Which one?
Bugs: The one with the ever widening hole in it!
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Theme song from the ersatz film "High School Madness", originally presented on Firesign Theatre's "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers" (1970).
"It's the Howl-of-the-Wolf movie. Presenting honest stories of working people as told by rich Hollywood stars."
#firesign theatre#don't crush that dwarf-hand me the pliers#George Tirebiter#Youtube#peorgie and mudhead
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Rocky Rococo's Basilisk
(Be nice to AI or you get an immensely wet slab of pizza)
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