Paul Frees

 

 

 

Part 3 of our Paul Frees compilation will go on the podcast this week, and perhaps more, down the road; he was an indefatigable presence in audio show biz for 40 years, and this humble collection is but a sample.

 

I should add a word about announcers, as a phenomenon: a public face/voice, coordinating the show before our very ears.  Vaudeville had Masters of Ceremonies, and before that there were Ringmasters.

I always thought announcers were kind of audio craftsmen, in a way.  Standing next to a huge microphone, watching the Director, and being that single point where the whole thing pivoted as it careened through our living rooms.  

Paul Frees was The Announcer.  There were other memorable characters in the profession-- Thurl Ravenscroft, George Fenneman, Ken Nordine, Olan Soule, Mason Adams, Norman Rose-- and even regular actors like Richard Kiley, Lloyd Bochner and Les Tremayne were able to shine as narrators.  

 

But Mr Frees, who had literally hundreds of gigs in his career, was the king.  When you heard Paul Frees, you knew you'd just been announced to.  His tinny baritone ran the range from Imperative to Sinister like few others.  And he was everywhere.  He was almost Hal in 2001 (too busy to fly to England), which would have added another dimension to the character: with all the work he did on TV commercials, the ultimate voice of American Capitalism.  As a killer computer.  Very Kubrickian.

He started doing voices before he was a teenager, and definitely had the talent for it.  He'd play hooky from school, and when the Truant Officer called, pretend to shuffle them around between different members of the household, some of whom spoke only Russian.  

I think the ones who do well tend to start out young.  

ps: The final movie trailer in this set, The Beatniks-- that was his film.  Wrote and directed.

And the music, of course.

The Podcast is Up

 

Clicking on the "Latest Podcast" picture to your right will now take you to our Podcast library.  The first one is available for your amusement.  It's from a 1978 aircheck, and is a pretty good example of what we used to do with Late Nite Radio.

I guess I'll link to the page here, too.  And, what the heck, the file as well.  We (Nockley and I) are going to try to post one of these every Friday.  No idea how that's going to work out. 

The Stream is Down

 One thing about computers: their complexity makes it unlikely they'll totally screw up your work by having everything go wrong at once.  That said, they are also good at fouling up what you do with unexpected failures at critical points.

 The stream is down.  I shut it off to add new stuff, and it wouldn't come back.  Technical issue.  It's raised questions about having a stream in the first place.  Maybe going back to through-the-air radio is better.  Nockley thinks so.  

Update, Aug 26: Yes; yes, I do.  I don't know if you 21st Century-types recall it, but there used to be an expression, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket."  Word to the wise.

Regarding the stream: there's a lot of moving parts in that contraption, and neither of us are techs.  (I'm actually "pre-computer"-- oh, how charming, it's being spell-checked.  The computer doesn't recognize it.)  You get a lot more bang for your buck with a podcast, at this stage of affairs.

So, here's the deal.  The stream is paid up for the next month.  If we drop anything into it, you'll be the first to know.  But watch this space for a weekly podcast starting on Friday.

-Nockley

New CutUpSound album on Bandcamp

You can listen to it for free at this Link.

My first album in 7 years.  Most, maybe all the tracks are already on the site here.  I edited a few when they went to Bandcamp-- ain't sayin' which ones.  

The first two albums, I deleted the tracks from this site, for some reason.  Not worth the fuss this time.  But if you want a handy collection of your favorite CutUpSound audio experiments, the link is probably better than fishing around over here, anyway.  

Police Squad: Metastatized Narrative

I like the way it takes off when they bring Phil Dihn into it.

Augmented White Noise Background Loop

Thank you, Bob.  Hello, all.  A few years since I've sat before a microphone, but on the whole, hale and hearty.  I forgive those who know me not from Edwin Armstrong.  My broadcast home, the Trudy, was drydocked when your grandparents were kids.  Nevertheless, I plied the waters of the Great Lakes from Rochester to Chicago for 20 years, just beyond the 30 mile limit, and cranked out many a radio dream in the leaky hours before dawn.

Our first selection may be useful for those who vainly strive for the embrace of Morpheus-- or perhaps only set the ripples flowing in the same direction.  I speak of noise control, friends; a neighbor arriving home from work at 3:30...every morning.  Or perhaps a happy party across the street.  We've all been there, and who wouldn't want an audio eraser, or even an audio rake, to tidy up their local neighborhood of sounds, and restore a measure of control.  I give you

sleep loop 01_mp3_regiment + artificial canine.

It's a 10-minute loop.  "Canine" is a nod to Jean Dubuffett's soundtrack for Cuckoo Bazaar, an early audio fractal.  The basic track is from Eno/Byrne "Regiment".  There's a kind of scratchy-popping noise from one chuckle, turned into a continuous sound.  And car horn sfx; who says masks can't also be the thing being masked? 

I'm using it right now, and although I think I've heard them getting in and out of their car next door, there's been no discernible random, startling noise.  I'm also playing it with a generous helping of white noise from a TV and a noisy fan, with the window open, on a hot July night.  So, it works.  Adjust the track and the TV noise for flavor.  Fan is optional.

- Nockley

What happened to the audio?

Hi folks.  This is a post I've started a few times, recently.

Now that you're spending more time at home these days, does it seem like your home computer has become considerably more ...well, inept in what you want it to do?  Or even, suddenly unable to do it at all?

I'd rather gloss things over when I can-- as if, having a tool that requires constant attention is going to work with that approach-- but eventually you wake up and go, hey, we're not movin!

Part of it is tech.  I haven't had a working line-in for 3 or 4 months now.  Not a total output killer, there's a stock of raw mp3s around here.  But enough to throw it out of balance, and with everything else bring it down.  The problem is Resiliency of Process.

I'd like to have you meet someone: the late American broadcaster and spiritualist Arthur Haversham Nockley.  He will briefly be returning from the grave to help me administer the site.

AH Nockley, 1893-1959

The stream-- ah yes.  $25 a month.  I think I can afford a dollar a day to keep it trickling out, for now.  Without unleashing my fund-raising myrmidons.  Perhaps Mr Nockley will have something to say about that.

Resiliency of Process.  That, we hope, is a verity.  Mr Nockley's mastery of it created a 40-odd-year record of amazing but lost broadcasts.  I leave you in his hands.

- Old 55