Tomita: A Live Radio Tribute, October 17
I’m excited to announce that on October 17 at 10:30 p.m., I’m hosting a live, two-hour tribute to Isao Tomita! The genius behind sweeping, lush synth epics like Snowflakes Are Dancing and Kosmos, Isao Tomita interpreted classical music through synthesizers and Mellotrons, blowing up the charts in the 1970s and 80s and inspiring a generation…
Dream ’til Dawn: An all-night Tangerine Dream marathon
Incredibly excited to announce that on April 11, I’m hosting a live, overnight Tangerine Dream show on 90.7 KSER and streaming around the world. I’ll play their long-form, universe-expanding 70s work like Phaedra, Rubycon, and Alpha Centauri, as well as their driving 80s soundtracks and studio albums like Risky Business, Hyperborea, Tangram, and more. Plus…
Sesame Street’s “How Crayons Are Made” might be stock music’s most beloved track
Richard Harvey was unemployed. He had been the woodwind player and keyboardist for the progressive rock band Gryphon, and their music—with its Medieval influences, album covers of wizards playing chess, and album titles like “Midnight Mushrumps”—was passe. Instead, punk was ascendant, and had destroyed Gryphon like a switchblade through a jester’s hat. Their company had…
We’re back November 1!
This radio show was a pandemic baby. Born in the back room of my house in the spring of 2020, it spent its youth as a recorded show. It was a bit coddled, to be honest. All mistakes were edited out, all transitions between tracks smoothed, all filters and compression carefully applied. But now, it’s…
Mike Oldfield for Babies
The 1970s was a magical time in which a centuries-old Italian folk song, played on a jaunty recorder, and accompanied by a kazoo, guitar, and string synthesizer, could blow up the charts. Mike Oldfield’s single “In Dulci Jubilo,” released around Christmas 1975, reached #4 in the UK and became a hit across Europe. It was…
Violins Don’t Grow on Trees: An Interview with Klaus Schulze Biographer Olaf Lux
With around 100 albums to his name and a 50-year career, writing about Klaus Schulze’s output alone would be a major undertaking. But Olaf Lux managed to write the most in-depth book yet about both his music and his life. This interview is edited lightly for length and clarity. Dead Electric: So how did you…
Klaus ‘Til Dawn: An Overnight Klaus Schulze Marathon
I’m very excited to announce that on Friday, March 19, I’m presenting an all-night Klaus Schulze marathon. From 10:30 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. PST, celebrate the dark genius of one of the greatest masters of electronic music. If you haven’t heard Klaus Schulze, picture planets being built, event horizons being crossed, and the veil ripped…
An Introduction to Isao Tomita, Part One
Isao Tomita was nine years old when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. In the years that followed he found himself surrounded by destruction: Half a million men, women, and children–the majority of whom resided in Tomita’s home city of Tokyo–would be killed in air raids or die from starvation. To know where the bombs would fall…
Constance Demby’s “Novus Magnificat” and the Limits of 80s New Age Music
Like a divine, unearthly presence descended from the heavens, bearing pastel-drenched album covers and titles like Angelic Music and The Sky of Mind, the New Age section had appeared out of nowhere at my local record store. It was the late 80s—that most shallow and greedy of ages—and some enlightened consciousness had seen humanity’s pain…
Future Schlock: The Quiet Comeback of ELO’s Once-villified Album “Time”
I’m unsure whether to pity or envy the Baby Boomer. Their mid-20th century childhoods were filled with visions of a grand future filled with stainless-steel cityscapes traversed by robots and flying cars. After spending three years riding the subway in Philadelphia, which both looked and smelled more like a public restroom than a place to…
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