- Mama-Oom-Mow-Mow
– The Rivingtons
- Grisgirs – Grimes
- A Prison Break – Mister Loveless
- Psycho Theme – The Fibonaccis
- Cannibal Resource
– Dirty Projectors
- Birthday (Icelandic) – Sugarcubes
- Mehr Von Dir – Martina plus Part Time Punx
- No Memory
– Healamonster and Tarsier
- YoYo Roll – DJ NoNo
- Oedo Nihonbashi – Takeshi Terauchi and Bunnys
- Donkey Ride
– Mr Scruff
- Grav Booby Jamm – Ace Kefford Stand
- Got My Mojo Working
– The Sheffields
- Dynamite
– BadboE
- Sugarfoot Stomp
– Harry James
- Desert Strings – James Bobchak
- Pretty Boys
– Au Pairs
- Kill For Peace
– The Fugs
- Come Into My Bedroom – Delores Ealy and The Kenyaettes
- World We Live In – The Politicians
- Bye Bye Bird – Toggery Five
- Nebulosa – Jenorio Jr
- Phones, Machines, And King Kong
– B Fleischmann
- Delta V
– Squarepusher
- Shut the Door
– Fugazi
- Tequila
– Champs
- Painting For Freakout – John Simon
- New Soul
– Yael Naim
- Jonktion 1205 – Goodbye Ivan
They’ve been profiling show hosts on iBrattleboro for the community station down there, so I just went ahead and jumped in, interviewing myself:
Sunday, December 26 2010 @ 03:00 PM GMT+5
Contributed by: Mark Piepkorn
The WVEW on-air personality profiles Chris has been posting are a great idea, so I’m just gonna go ahead and steal it. I cohost a show (with a mysterious, beloved, and possibly dangerous robot) on the community station in Bellows Falls, WOOL 100.1 FM. Though the broadcast ranges don’t overlap, the stations serve overlapping markets and are complementary. Both offer internet streaming — www.wool.fm and www.wvew.org.
Name: Mark Piepkorn
Show Title: A Pretty Big Place With Lots of Room
When is your show on? Wednesdays, 7 – 9 pm
How would you describe your show? It’s a mischievous grab bag of hand picked, genre-hopping musical delight, careening from dorky to difficult to divine. Crunchy, chewy, sweet, and salty… a generally uptempo and wide-ranging adventure. What’s a little musical schizophrenia among friends anyway? (I’m doing everything I can to avoid the word “eclectic,” it’s tired and deserves a break.) I do happen to like themed, stylistically restricted, predictable shows as much as the next person, but this ain’t one of those. Why be cromulent when we can embiggen!
Real-time song info and occasional other tidbits are posted on Twitter and Facebook (“Follow” on Twitter or “Like” on Facebook to get that stuff fed to your account — Facebook seems to be the preferred user alternative). RSS and SMS are available, and if you know what I’m talking about I probably don’t have to get into that. There’s also a website at www.prettybigplace.com with playlist archives and blog posts.
What’s the first song you ever bought? The 45 (!) of Autobahn.
What’s your most recent musical discovery? Mezz Mezzrow — he did some great swingin’ jazz in the ’30s and ’40s and only hit my radar lately. And I found a Replacements bootleg a couple weeks ago that I’m psyched about.
What do you do when you aren’t on the radio? Wonder where the money will come from.
Last book read: Into The Wild. Currently juggling Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up and The Computer Connection. Brattleboro has excellent used book stores.
Latest personal accomplishment: Fighting back this lousy cold I’m getting over.
A quote that inspires you: “It just doesn’t matter.” But in a celebratory, not defeatist, way. Bill Murray said that line in both Meatballs and The Razor’s Edge.
If you could invite three famous people to come over and listen to music for the evening, who would you invite? Tom Robbins, Richard Brautigan, T. Coraghessan Boyle.
Is there anything you’d like to answer that no one ever asks you? There’s so many things that people never ask me; maybe this is something we should leave alone. Come to think of it though, a couple people have wondered lately about the robot thing, but I just don’t actually know what the deal is with that. (Another quote: “Sometimes you just have to let art flow over you.” — The Big Chill.)
Thanks for taking time with iBrattleboro. No problem!
You can listen to WOOL at 100.1 on your FM dial if you’re in range, or streaming online at wool.fm. WOOL will be upgrading to full power in the near future. Radioke will be back in the spring, yay!, and the Buckwheat Zydeco will be in town on February 10 — HOT!
Share on Facebook- Ha – Charlie Ventura and His Orchestra
- Roadside Distraction
– Aaron Parks
- No Children
– The Mountain Goats
- Fly Me To The Moon
– Ana Caram
- Tell Me Something Good
– Rufus ft Chaka Kahn
- Lady Madonna (remixed by somebody; wish I knew who) – The Beatles
- Boogie On Reggae Woman
– Stevie Wonder
- Day In Day Out ft Cut Chemist
– Nat King Cole
- The Graveyard Shift – Friendship
- 2 Juli 1999 b – Brunk
- Marlene
– Lightspeed Champion
- Oil and Lacquer – Bear Bones
- Boy-Girl
– Sort Sol
- Depois do Carnaval
– Azymuth
- A Good Winter
– Mhairi Hall Trio
- Service Station Man – David Lamar
- Leave Alight
– Krista L L Muir
- Easter Vest – The Persons
- How Could I – Timothompson
- Raya – Wunderbach
- Love Hurts
– Emmylou Harris w Gram Parsons
- Traditie Amme Balle – Amsterdamned
- Believe In The Beat – Carol Lynn Townes
- Boombox (Bassnectar and Ill Gates Remix)
– Bassnectar
- Horizons
– Son, Ambulance
- Pirates – Indigo Jam Unit
- Pictures Of Saint Tropez – Pierre Dutour et son Orchestre
- The People In Your Neighborhood
– Bob McGrath
- Vilgelm Balada – Kazma Kazma
- Mambo Sun
– T Rex
It wasn’t that long ago that big corporate money was allowed to take over the publicly-owned radio waves and squeeze out the small, the local, the independent, the alternative. It was the McRadioing of America. As a result, just one single company, the largest player in domestic radio broadcasting, 
is programming stations in 90% of the country’s biggest markets. You get the same hamburger everywhere you go, made from the same cash cow.
Now, today, the FCC took the first steps in giving the internet to big corporate money too. Before long, you’ll be paying a premium to those fatcats to download music, watch videos, and listen to radio on the internet. Oh, you can bet there’ll be deals preferring their music, their videos, their entertainment. It’ll seem like a bargain, but you’ll still be paying more. In more ways than one. And what happens to the small, the local, the independent, the alternative? Squeezed out again. No more level playing field online.
But wait — just the other day, a little-reported bit of federal legislation was passed to restore some of the public airwaves back to the public, easing restrictions on low-power start-up broadcast stations. The wheel, she turns. Community radio listeners are suddenly back on the fast-track to recognition for being the hip early adopters that they are.
Stay tuned, you visionaries.
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There’s talk of having another Radioke series in a few months. Stay tuned.
And in new news, Buckwheat Zydeco will be at the Bellows Falls Opera House on February 10! Keep an eye on the WOOL website for details.
- Mabelete – Babsi
- Mono Tonic – Connie Boermans
- Lucy Leave – Pink Floyd
- Bastards Of Young (live) – Replacements
- Baroque Music 2 – Automaton of Jaquet Droz
- Par 5 – Kitty Craft
- Green Eggs and Ham – Dylan Hears a Who
- Only You Believe Me When I’m Lying – Rural Alberta Advantage
- Deck The Halls (excerpt)
– Hybrid Kids
- Old Dan Tucker – Cackle Sisters
- Ojitos Lindos
– Juan Miguel
- Orphan Boy – Half Pint and the Fifths
- Devil You Know
– Pinback
- Television – Noice
- Rode Null
– Hauschka
- Cattle And The Creeping Things
– Hold Steady
- Hitch Me to Your Buggy and Drive Me like a Mule
– Casey Bill Weldon
- Sundown
– Don and the Galaxies
- The Grip Of Love – Tom Verlaine
- Floating Vibes
– Surfer Blood
- Ella Es Bonita
– Natalia Lafourcade
- Duppy Conqueror
– Bob Marley
- Mundo Samba (Radio Mix)
– MYPD
- Fever
– La Lupe
- Same Old Thing (live) – Wipers
- Viet Nam
– Minutemen
- Dedicace
– Ennio Morricone
- Dead Lazers – Kap Bambino
- First and Royal Queen
– Lounge Lizards
- Merry Man
– Buddy Ross
- Behind Your Pale Face – Not Moving
- Centerline Reminder
– Svalastog
- Michael Myers Resplendent
– Mountain Goats
- Bitter Heart
– Zee Avi
- Beautiful People
– The Books
Got this today from the WOOL mailing list:
Bundle up and come on out this Saturday, December 18th, for the grand finale of Black Sheep Radio’s groundbreaking, Live-To-Air karaoke competition known as RADIOKE.
Someone’s going to walk away with $350 for first place. 
Rumors are flying of fierce, new talent coming out to throw down and the word on the street is it that some of the finalists will be taking their stagecraft to the next level with props and costumes.
RADIOKE is part theater, part night club, part cozy community event and you don’t want to miss it.
If your body can’t make it, listen in from 9:30pm at 100.1fm or www.wool.fm.
Doors open at 7:30 pm at Black Sheep Radio Headquarters, 33 Bridge Street in Bellows Falls.
$4 Admission. Cash Bar.
And remember, all proceeds go to support member-owned, non-profit, community radio!
Complete competition rules: www.wool.fm.
If you are on Facebook go to http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=42789476202 and check out our Radioke photo album – and feel free to “friend” us while you’re there.
Thanks,
Kristen
- Background Music No 123, track 2 – Kresge Co
- On And On
– Incredible Funk League
- Coney Island Cyclone
– Mercury Rev
- Looking for Logic – Trane
- Chronic Alkie – Wilma and The Wilbers
- Aliens – Ronald Reagan
- Sheena Is A Punk Rocker
– Yeah Yeah Yeahs
- Fired Up – Manitoba’s Wild Kingdom
- u_03
– Alva Noto
- They Have A Name
– Chap
- Kentucky Pill
– Johnny Flynn
- Problemes – Stone
- Beat Control
– Tilly and The Wall
- Camel Is Kept In A Cage At The Zoo
- Tre – Dan Moi
- On The Nickel
– Tom Waits
- Swingin’ Them Jingle Bells
– Fats Waller and His Rhythm
- Canada – Themselves and Why
- I Like Giants
– Kimya Dawson
- What’s In The Fridge – Baby Astronauts
- I Dreamed I Had To Take A Test
– Laurie Anderson
- Odjus Fitxadu
– Idan Raichel Project
- It’s Wonderful
– Ella Fitzgerald
- Blood Dries Darker
– Woods
- Jive Township
– African Jazz Pioneers
- Pajdusko
– Storsveit Nix Noltes
- Happening
– Pixies
- Heartbreaker At the End of Lonely Street
– Dread Zeppelin
- Daisy Girls
– Haley Bonar
- Pork Chops – unknown artist
- Deity
– Ministry
- I Want – Karen Kilgariff
- Barn Porn Star – Doo Rag
- Prologo – Quella Vecchia Locanda
- Money
– Flying Lizards
- Canceling Stamps Song – Ghana Post Office Workers
- – -
We also filled in for the Lost Marbles show, the one right after Pretty Big Place. The host, Julio, was home sick, poor guy. It was old-school radio, pulling up tracks on the fly.
- Une Nuit A Paris
– 10CC
- L’Anarchie Pour Le UK
– Jerzimy
- Dance of the Coco Crispies
– The Ordinaires
- Zoom Ra Zoom In – Zoom Tochka Ra
- Marcelle A Vahina – Chango and The Polynesians
- Der Hund von Baskerville – Cindy und Bert
- Chatterbox Rag
– The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra
- A Man With No Ankles
– Owen Pallett
- Words of Reason – Rifle Sport
- No Fun – Ridiculous Trio
- Voodoo Princess Terror
– Hawaii Samurai
- I, Mudd – Hawkline
- Oh Yeah
– House Of Large Sizes
- Tomorrow Not Today – J Sap’n
- Mimi On The Beach – Jane Siberry
- If You Want To Sing Out
– Cat Stevens
- It Ain’t You I’m Lookin’ At – Baldo Rex
- Elephant Theme – Pierre Dutour et Son Orchestre
- Moonbound – The Picadors
- Le pianiste s’eclate – Serge-Andre Jones
- I Wanna Be Sedated – Shonen Knife
- Olsen Olsen
– Sigur Ros
- Three Primates
– Steve Tibbetts
- Idiot Voodoo – The Suburbs
- Patricia
– Trip Shakespeare
- Roundabout – The Leland Stanford Marching Band
- Friends Of Mine
– Frank Meyer
- Smells Like Rockin’ Robin – Go Home Productions
- Lovin’ Cup
– Jane Siberry
I’m not entirely certain who’s writing the Radioke wrap-ups on the WOOL site, but — like Radioke itself — they’re getting increasingly personable, charming, and hilarious in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Check out the 12/6/2010 notes on Round Four: a hip New England rural smallholder bit of gonzo if ever there was one, opening in a disturbingly crèche-like setting. Some highlights:
Though some of the credit for the fun goes to everyone who participates, the lions’ share goes to John Michael Maciejewski, “The Juice,” as he’s known, who runs Radioke like Moses leading the talented and the tone deaf through a parted sea of music. Really, the guy’s got a gift. He doesn’t condescend because, well, he can’t.
This week was more “the bomb” than last time: the crowd was bigger, the judges were “feistier,” and the singing, though heartfelt, sometimes careened around the songs the way people leaving Nick‘s drive home at closing.
When the young rake John Blair busted into a fervent version of perhaps the worst song in musical history — Wham!’s Wake Me Up — two boozy Rockettes skipped through the crowd, mounted the stage like a family of Angora goats, and gave us a workout that would have put Suzanne Somers in the hospital.
Fun this morning with Bad Translator, a web page that iterates text from English to other languages and back again using Google translator.
“Take a genre-hopping rollick with me in A Pretty Big Place With Lots Of Room.”
…10 translations later we get:
“Enough space between the state, I am a very big movement of gas.”
Original text:
“A Pretty Big Place With Lots Of Room is an unpredictable and unformatted mostly-music show on WOOL-LP FM, Black Sheep Radio, 100.1 FM — a low power community radio station broadcasting from a quaint New England studio in Bellows Falls, Vermont.”
…20 translations later we get:
“Plenty of space is very large, unexpected by the coordinator and the labels are usually in the form of waves Waijiaobuzhang Black Sheep Radio 100.1 FM – low power consumption, New England, USA incredible cascade pump activity.”
Original text:
“Listen world-wide on the web at www.WOOL.fm; see their website for the broadcast schedule and other goodies.”
…30 translations later we get:
“Www.WOOL.fm the online world, Web please see the sweets and other costs and transition plan for the site.”
Original text:
“WOOL-LP FM serves the Great Falls area of New Hampshire and Vermont, and webcasts live at www.WOOL.fm. Black Sheep Radio is a project of the Great Falls Community Broadcasting Company, a Vermont Non-Profit Corporation with 501c(3) status.”
…40 translations later we get:
“Great Falls, lives in England, and even exotic, Vermont, New Hampshire, waterfalls www.WOOL.fm. Burakkushiputerebi, community radio, Vermont, 501c (3) nonprofit organizations, national radio show.”
Original text:
“WOOL is supported by contributions and memberships. You can see the programming schedule, get goodies, become a member, or make a tax deductible donation on the WOOL website.”
…50 translations later we get:
“assistant candidate. Sweets, gifts for friends or brochure promoting the development of the network.”
The Brattleboro paper has an article about Radioke today. (Round IV is tonight! If you can’t turn up, you can still tune in from anywhere.)
Choice bits from the article:
Radioke is a live, on-air event that pits local residents, with varying degrees of talent, against each other in a karaoke competition in front of three judges.
Each week, three winners are chosen and the finalists will compete on the Dec. 18 for the grand prize.
The station has 18 months from when the license was first issued to raise enough money and get the equipment needed to send its signal up and down the Connecticut River Valley.
At the third competition on Nov. 20 more than 100 people showed up to belt out their tunes and cheer on their favorite singers.
Seven-year-old girls have gone head to head with professional singers who are followed by tone-deaf rockers who are all trying to impress the three judges.
With interest expected to continue to grow, WOOL fm office manager Kristen Fehrenbach said the station might be scheduling other Radioke competitions after the grand prize is given out on Dec. 18.
“It’s part theater and part event and a party,” she said. “We wanted to do something fun and experimental. No one knew what to expect.”
(I took the picture they used with the article. Same one I used here.)
Share on Facebook- Hey Conductor – Sonny Flaherty and The Mark V
- Rockin’ Bones
- Paranoja
– Letu Stuke
- Teen Beast
– Los Straitjackets
- 73 In 83 – Legend
- Lipsill – Dungeon
- Se Fue
– Maria Estela Monti
- Stumble and Fall – Razorlight
- Stop Thinking or Get Out of the Way – John Devine Saxaphone Quartet
- Gloomy Monday Morning
– Black Hollies
- Fairy Tale
– Cloud Cult
- Continue To Call
– Nino Moschella
- Prince of Darkness
– Indigo Girls
- The Purpose – Purpose of This Record
- Hours After
– Sun Ra Arkestra
- The Motivator
- Kids In America
– The Muffs
- Cobrastyle
– Robyn
- Sonnet No 3, Like A Duck – MC Honky
- Gauze
– Red Red Meat
- Karaharapriya, Athi – Brahma Sri Tiruchendur Appadurai Aiyengar
- Es Schneit
– Pantha Du Prince
- Spinnin’
– Speech Debelle
- The Gaze
– The Bell Orchestre
- Joy
– Citizen Bird
- Di Nagara Deungeun
– Sabah Habas Mustapha
- Everybody Loves the Sunshine
– Roy Ayers Ubiquity
- Spring To Come
– Digging Roots
- Bodhisattva (live)
– Steely Dan
