Announcing the news on Facebook, Phil Proctor said it for everybody who loved the guy's work:
Rest in Peace, Regnad Kcin.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
An idiosyncratic blog dedicated to the precursors, the practioners, and the descendants of power pop. All suggestions for postings and sidebar links welcome, contact any of us.
Contributors
PowerPop Fund
Blog Archive
-
▼
2015
(264)
-
▼
June
(22)
- Who Listens to the Radio?
- Thank You, Supreme Court -- I Just Went GAY All of...
- And So You See....Ennui!!!
- Taylor Hawkins: Living Saint
- Closed for Monkey Business
- Dave Grohl: Living Saint (An Occasional Series)
- Nick Danger Has Left the Office
- Weekend Social Notes
- Tom-Tom, C'est Moi
- Annals of Shameless Self-Promotion (An Occasional ...
- Meet the Beatles
- The Glory of the Human Voice
- Continental Drifting (Part Deux)
- Live from New York -- It's Mr. Death!
- Continental Drifting
- Closed for Monkey Business
- Your Monday Moment of Musician's Humor
- Weekend Listomania's Greatest Hits: Special And Y...
- Letter From Liverpool Test Pressing
- Give the Drummer Some
- Your Tuesday (Truncated) Moment of Awesome
- Your Monday Morning Moment of Musician Humor
-
▼
June
(22)
Music Resources & Blogs
- .
- Absolute Power Pop
- AMG
- Aversion.com
- Basshead
- Bedazzled!
- Dewey Beach PopFest
- Fingertips
- fluxblog
- For the Records
- Glorious Noise
- Hooks and Harmony
- IPO Festival
- Little Hits
- Lost Bands of the New Wave Era
- Music Web Express 3000
- New Wave Outpost
- New York Power Pop
- Obsessed with Music
- Perfect Sound Forever
- Pitchfork Media
- Pop Narcotic
- PopMatters
- Post Punk Junk
- Power Pop Lovers
- Powerpopaholic
- Powerpopulist
- Ready Steady Go
- Rick Redux
- Seattle Power Pop
- Sheer Golden Hooks
- Smother.net
- The 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s of Power Pop!
- The Cure for Bedbugs
- The Mod Pop Punk Archive
- the old punks blog (inactive, but great archives)
- Trouser Press Online
- TweeNet
Bands We Love
- 20/20
- Apples in Stereo
- Barenaked Ladies
- Beat, The
- Brinsley Schwarz
- Cheap Trick
- Couple
- Dave Edmunds
- Dressy Bessy
- Elvis Costello
- Fountains of Wayne
- Lolas, The
- Matthew Sweet
- Move, The
- Myracle Brah
- New Pornographers, The
- Nick Lowe
- Portastatic
- Records, The
- Redd Kross
- Richard X. Heyman
- Robert Pollard
- Rockpile
- Shoes
- Sid'n'Susie
- Starjets
- Superchunk
- They Might Be Giants
- Velvet Crush
- XTC
Other Good Blogs on Progressive Politics & Culture
- Adventus
- Americablog
- Atrios
- Bitch, PhD
- Blah 3
- Blast Off!
- Bouphonia
- Cab Drollery
- Corrente
- Dependable Renegade
- Dohiyi Mir
- Echidne of the Snakes
- FireDogLake
- First Draft
- Gardner Writes
- Great Orange Satan, The
- Huffington Post, The
- Hullabaloo
- I speak dog
- Jesus' General
- My DD
- New Pairodimes
- No Capital
- No Pants Productions
- Online Blogintegrity
- Opinions You Should Have
- Pax Americana
- Poor Man Institute, The
- RawStory
- Rising Hegemon
- Rising Hegemon After Dark (NSFW)
- Stayin' Alive
- SteveAudio
- Suburban Guerrilla
- The Kenosha Kid's Blog
- The Supreme Irony of Life
- Thje Rude Pundit
- Welcome to Pottersville
- Whiskeyfire
- Wolcott
- Wordshed
- Zen Cabin
7 comments:
This sucks!
Capt. Al
He was always ready for excitement, and he was always ready for anything. I loved Firesign, but many of my contemporaries didn't. And I especially loved Phil Austin for Nick Danger.
Firesign did the same thing for radio (when it was king, and prior to the rise of TV) that Jon Stewart does for news: allow listeners (or viewers) to back-contruct cultural history and daily events from very pointed commentary.
About four years ago I drove from Brooklyn to Syracuse with my (now 31 year old) younger daughter and my suhhhh ... suhhhhhnnnnn ... suhhhnnn-in-lllll ,.. her husband and put on How Can You Be In Two Places during the drive. Betty, my daughter, didn't get the references (who could on a first listen?), but she got the timing and watched me for my reactions. Matthew, her husband, who doesn't lack a sense of humor, didn't get the references either, but saw the timing thing as something old fashioned and difficult to "get."
And I thought "getting" Nick Danger in the time of Firesign was a sign of intelligence, even though I would occasionally have to look up some of the more arcane references. Looking back, it may have been less a sign of intelligence than a love of parody.
Either way, Phil Austin, I thank you.
Give me immortality or give me death.
VR
Just dug out Austin's "solo" album "Roller Maidens From Outer Space" (other Firesignees were present) and played the classic country song "C'mon Jesus (Show Yourself)". In the crazed fuckery of current wingnutty pseudo-Christianity, it's still relevant.
I guess Firesign never achieved the immortality that Vickie mentions above might be because they utilized contemporary popculture references (anyone remember California's Ralph Williams, who was the basis for Ralph Spoilsport?), and moreso because they were just too damned smart for most people to get, with some exceptions–Principal Poop's speech was a staple on WABX in Detroit. ("Eat it!" "You bet!" "Eat it raw!" "Raw, raw, raw...that's–that's the spirits we have here!") Cheech & Chong were easier to digest for most folks; more's the pity.
Oh, and these days, I live just up the street from a long-gone Los Angeles VW dealership that Firesign did ads for (I think they were aired during the "Howl Of The Wolf Movie" on some local TV station):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rCY6StJNVU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA2431JIAQQ
They're well worth the watching, and I think a lot of the "Ralph Spoilsport Motors" bit came from those, or was reused from them. The Firesign webpage store has Ralph Spoilsport license plate holders for $10 that I think I'm gonna have to get:
http://firesigntheatre.com/firesale/firesale.php
(Go to the bottom of the page.)
Anyway...RIP, Phil. You and the rest of Firesign's wonderful dada comedy saved me in my teens.
Sadly, Jack Poet Volkwagen is now a CVS Pharmacy. Mr. Poet passed away a couple of years ago. He was a huge Firesign fan, obviously. He sponsored their radio show on KPPC too. Firesign did the commercials. Not sure, but I think the Ralph Spoilsport bit preceded the Jack Poet TV commercials. They're both circa 1969-1970-ish.
Mr. Poet would also occasionally have airplanes sky-write "Jack Poet Loves You" across the Los Angeles firmament. After leaving the car biz, he got into organic juices and hydroponics.
More Poet ads here:
https://archive.org/details/Firesign_Theatre_Podcasting_003
VR
The Firesign Theater changed my life. I'm rather fond of their later albums like "Boom, Dot, Bust."
Bummer. I was a freshman nerd at a Los Angeles area engineering college and a senior exposed me to Firesign Theatre. Most of the comedy I had been exposed to was traditional stand ups and sitcoms. Firesign was in large part responsible for the evolution of my appreciation for intelligent and absurd comedy.
I was also fortunate enough to be able to listen to the Hollywood Nite Shift, a weekly Sunday night radio show in LA on KROQ with Austin, Frazer Smith and Michael C. Gwynne. It was some sketches and some improv and as I recall was very funny. https://archive.org/details/Hollywood_Nite_Shift_16bit_44_1ksamp_sec
Sometimes the other "bozos" from Firesign would drop in.
Have to dust off the FT discs...
Post a Comment