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Episode Guide |
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Year One (Episodes 0a-51) Episode 428: Avant Distortions XI (10/16/2005) (every
man) An avant garde DJ set meets an exploration with digital musique
concrete. Jazz, databending, sampling, spoken word, and multiple layers
of notes appropriated from countless modern jazz & classical resources
are combined to bring you these 2.5 hours of aural deconstruction. It
gets to the point where the source of the ingredients just doesn't matter
anymore, it's the "what are they doing there?" and the "where
are they going?" thoughts that can't escape your mind. Sometimes
transcendental, sometimes confusing, and often it's all outright explosive!
Never does a note overstay it's welcome (unless of course that's its
intention.) It's new and fresh old stuff, recycled on medium, sequenced
appropriately, and labored with love. Episode 427: Sounds from the Salon II (8/14/2005)
(every man / Glacial 23 / Widget) A continuation
of last week's theme, but more dreamy and mellow. The sampling techniques
and effects were a bit different from our last attempt, which kept the
level of unpredictability alive, but this time the focus was mostly
on composition. Episode 426: Sounds from the Salon (8/07/2005) (every
man / Glacial 23 / Widget) Sample-based music made entirely from
16th - 18th century compositions (the first era of the traditional French
salons.) Lots of sampling techniques displayed here, which created a
more dynamic listening experience. At times, things got intense, sound
was exploding, going in and out of the proper key, somewhere between
Heaven and Hell, as you indeed heard clouds and fire, and you indeed
saw blue and red, and you indeed felt cold and heat. Transitions were
smooth, themes were unpredictable, and the music was mind altering.
The focus was mostly on soundscape, not composition. Episode 425: Spirit Walk (7/31/2005) (every
man / Glacial 23 / Widget) Slowly evolving improvisational compositions
all peacefully transitioning through various themes. Like walking through
a meadow at night, you are conscious only of your spirit. The sounds
you hear take on a personal form. Your mind relaxed, your body numb,
your spirit awakens. Somewhere near a fire burns, natives dance, beating
their drums, chanting, calling to their gods, and you join along in
the psychedelic prayer for spiritual guidance. It is happy, contemplative,
and saddening, which is the case with all absolute truths. This could
very well be an experiment in effort to answer the question "what
do our souls sound like?" Episode 424: Evangelical Army II (7/24/2005) (every
man / Glacial 23) A continuation of the musical themes introduced
in episode 422, but taking them to greater extremes in rhythm, drone,
melody, and harmony. Whatever we felt worked well last time, we did
more of it, diversifying the technique as much as possible within that
boundary. It was often the sound of tranquility, sometimes love, but
always transcending. Episode 423: Wackily Aggrieve Lamentedly (7/17/2005)
(every man / Glacial 23/ Widget / J. Kyle Moyer)
Skiing uphill over grassy curves, smelling the children's laughter,
at night, the question is asked: Is black key? We're glad he is, we've
missed him so. There the four of them sit together, around a chess board,
hands on deck, it's fantastic! every man, Kyle, Widget, Glacial, all
mixed up into something different. Driving beats like hearts on a golf
course, swinging consistently to the rhythm, turn up the bass, turn
off the amp, Kyle turns that pornographic picture into sound, Mark Piuno
is there but doesn't know it, third hour is the hardest but nothing
crashes, third hour is the loudest, cymbals crash but symbols are nothing,
almost there, reaching the peak, skis come off, very top, enter the
lodge, sit by the fire, sun fades to moon. A building block on the evangelical
army, with Beats in these poems, finding a home at last. Episode 422: Evangelical Army (7/10/2005) (every man / Glacial 23) A mixing of two souls, into one spiritual formation.
Above is below and within. What, the past? Tall... deep... tree... green...
coiling sky... earth... stem... root... leaf... green... ooze... sun...
damp light... dark... bright... branch... root, nor mind. What is "what
is to come?" These wooden carvings await the roots, branch— not
bright, out in innumerable living things, forever. Form to thrusting...
sap soil... air, seed soil... from mysterious form, which sending of
it that it is, what is, without is, is to come. What is above... below...
visible, hidden... breathing... sucking bud... decay... laugh, tear...
vein.. rain... mud. Its rising is in branching... leaf.. root... What
is above is below, without is, within is in the past. Uncut within each
unceasing carver's knife displayed in her endless shelves, continuous
branching is forth. We say only from spiral void, its setting dark.
The serpent coil, as the formless existence returns, twisting back beyond
the formless life. Anagrams of "every man" and "glacial",
this is the 23rd. Burroughs cuts up Leary's prayers. There are no lyrics,
only music. The prayers are in song, no Beats in these poems
- without words, trying to find a home. Episode 421: RRX (7/3/2005) Playback of highlights
from Recycled Rainbow X,
featuring Thursday
Club, Animals Within
Animals, Henry James,
and several minutes from the dada tape recorder. Episode 420: Oaxacana Mountain Ride (6/25/2005) (every man) All music and sounds heard in this show came from (or were
inspired by) the nature found within the Oaxacana Mountains in Mexico.
Various musical recordings were sampled liberally, but heavily modified
and mixed into an all together different context. Much of this was performed
live, other sections were pre-mixed specifically for this theme, and
few sections were a combination of both. Low key noise, trippy and heavily
altered melodies, natural found sound collages, and a wide-dynamic range
of volume. It would be unfair to call this program "mellow"
but it clearly isn't over-the-top loud either. It's a good variety of
sound, slightly more than half of it could be called "meditative,"
and the other parts, "disturbing." Episode 419: Vehicular Commotion Disorder (6/19/2005)
(every man / Glacial 23 / Widget) Automobiles,
oil, safety, children, planes, commercials, and car horns. A total deconstruction
of our transportation dependent world. Episode 418: Buddy, the Bees, and the Bus (6/12/2005)
(Negativland's David Wills)
Field recordings, both live and pre-recorded, mixed and altered on the
fly by David Wills, sent over to us live via the internet in hi-fidelity
mp3 format. You hear children playing, cats meowing and growling, vacuums
running, cars and buses driving by, people eating, bees buzzing, wind
blowing, rain falling, and a good deal of creative sampling. This mix
as a whole can be best described as ambient noise, akin to many of the
more drone-ish sections from Negativland's first album (which David
himself mixed on a reel-to-reel deck.) Episode 417: Distintive Individual II (6/5/2005)
(Glacial 23 / Widget) A continuation of
Episodes 377 and 378 by g23 and Widget. This show featured mostly vinyl
acquired since then (with a few older favorites thrown in for good measure),
as well as a fair quantity of spoken Burroughs. Also featured a duet
between Silver Apples and Meat Beat Manifesto playing the song "Lovefingers"
in different decades! Episode 416: RRX Afterparty (5/29/2005) (every man / Dirtgoddess/ Glacial 23 / J. Kyle Moyer / Widget, Hemanat,
Jack Smiley, Ryan
Kuehn, Lisa Miralia, Leia Alligator, stAllio!,
Connie McCue) From stAllio!'s
blog: "press the button was tons of fun; leia alligator
had some electronic kids' book that he hooked into my kaoss pad &
played through its fx. i was on the mic all night, spouting freeform
bulldada along with everyman, kyle, people who called in to the show,
and other guests such as ryan from thursday club. bulldada is pretty
fun when they other people are doing it too; i at least need someone
to riff off of if i'm going to be talking a bunch of nonsense for long
periods of time. i had a lot of fun calling for price checks and clean-ups
all over the galaxy, and our food-related riffs, inspired by all the
food and grocery shopping in leia's book, eventually turned into an
elaborate routine: i'm so hungry i could eat at subway! i'm so hungry
i want to stuff your small intestines into your large intestines and
eat them! i'm so hungry i want to chew your face off and smother it
in frank's famous bbq sauce! i'm so hungry i could eat a whole batch
of ecstasy rolls, or a bunch of condoms full of cocaine! at one point
i tried to drive it into the realm of non sequitur (i'm so hungry i
want to punch you in the face!)." Episode 415: Coloring Outside the Lines (Special Edition) (5/22/2005) (Dirtgoddess) Episode 414: Colorforms II (5/15/2005) (Colorforms)
After the unexpected artistic success of the previous week's colorforms
radio session, this week presented us with another challenge-- returning
to that same glowing headspace without repeating ourselves, which tends
to be a common situation for us. Somehow we seem to have pushed ourselves
further than ever with this one, and old sounds became new again as
they returned in different contexts and combinations. Interweaving guitars
coalesce into new patterns of conciousness, then submerge back into
ether. Melodic progressions stray further out than usual but always
manage to return to the fold. Rhythmic and vocal elements are starting
to surface more and more, but in that same subliminal manner that marks
the best of what colorforms represents. We liked this one well enough
that we posted it to the colorforms
site. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do. Episode 413: Colorforms I (5/8/2005) (Colorforms)
A soothing series of oceanic waves encompassed the senses with a rain
cloud on the horizon, looming and inevitable. Beautiful patterns of
stonework turned themselves over to reveal their hidden undersides.
The inner-workings of the machine clouded the clear night's sky with
a thick, heavy mist; rich in deep hues and microscopic droplets of floating
condensation. Subtle movements made together kept the carousel in fluid
motion as familiar melodies emerged and ethereal voices responded accordingly.
Episode 412: The Bible and the UFO's (5/1/2005) (every man / Glacial 23 / J. Kyle Moyer) With every man arriving late,
his sister San Fran had to fill in as host while special guest Dr. Vladisimo
Caliente guided a philosophical discussion regarding the connection
between religion and UFOs with the ethereal voices of the night. What
was learned? Well, firstly, the question should be asked; what was asked?
Was Jesus somehow linked to a higher intelligence? Well, yes of course
he was but is the higher intelligence in question really aliens from
outer space? Is the current way we interpret the Bible antiquated? Accounting
for advancements in technology and revisiting the ancient text offered
insight, as well as reviewing centuries-old paintings depicting Holy
figures in close proximity to what would appear to be UFOs. The topics
of the show ranged from the Bible/UFO connection, to the famed tour
of Area 51 by JFK and Marylin Monroe. Some callers revealed personal
accounts of encounters and abductions, while fighting the tears associated
with such retellings. The question lingers... when the "end times"
come, which side will YOU be on? Will you continue to believe in Jesus
if he arrives in a spacecraft, or will you be fooled into oblivion by
Lucifer? Episode 411: Tlatseg (4/24/2005) (every man / Glacial 23 / Widget) The title of this show is "Gestalt"
in reverse. No, it's not last week's show played backwards (which would
be a stellar idear, really) but last week's concept somewhat
in reverse, but not exactly. It wasn't Widget running the show, but
the show running itself, business as usual, back to basics, but but
but but . . . last week's show influenced this week's format, and so
begins a new era for Press The Button. An era of deep listening, where
each performer is all too aware of where the others may roam, careful
to not step on toes, yet still expressing very deliberate audio, creative
soundscapes, loosely based on each other's interpretation of each other's
interpretation of the soundscape that just fed off that other soundscape,
meditation, creating an infinite number of sounds (yet sounding like
they are all the same.) Let's try that again. I mean, this was ambient
textures meets juicy noise meets a DRONE OPERA UNDER THE SEA!
This show exhibits further development of what has lately been referred
to as "The Button drone." It ebbs and flows (and comes and
goes) and that wasn't supposed to rhyme but instead make some bullshit
pretentious point that no one actually believes when they see it in
print, but change their minds when they sea it in sound, seeing the
saw, up and down, see saw, children playing in the park in slow motion,
Kyle says the sound provokes him to tear his face apart, it makes Jack
"smiley smile", the goddess has something dirty to
say, glacials have 23 more reasons to stay in Canada, and it's met the
approval of every man. Tlatseg! Episode 410: Gestalt (4/17/2005) (every man / Glacial 23 / Widget) A strictly improvisational performance
with Widget acting as the leader, with every man & Glacial 23 following
in her direction. This worked so remarkably well that selected
hHighlights of this program are being used for a future Widget album
release! Very mellow, meditative, respectful, mystical, and light on
the noise. One fan's observation that these sounds were reminiscient
of "classical music from another planet" wasn't too far fetched!
We look forward to doing more of these kinds of shows in the future.
Episode 409: WRUW's 2005 Telethon (04/10/2005) (every man) Pre-recorded highlights from Press The Button shows in 2004, mixed with every man's telethon pitching. Very busy show, didn't get it recorded, not for sale. Episode 408: This! (04/03/2005) (every man / Glacial 23) Disturbingly quiet at times, with quick, jerking,
unexpected segues of loud collages of music, spoken word sampling, callers,
prerecorded field recordings from the 1980's, and odd vocal sound effects
made in real time on the mic. Often, however, it would go calm, with
almost no sound whatsoever, and then out of the ashes comes classical
music being played backwards, and then it stops, and you hear a man
from the DEA telling you that crack kills, and more classical music
(forwards this time) with a board game commercial from the mid-1970's
playing in its entirety. The callers were present for the first hour,
but not for the last hour and a half. Lots of juvenile profanity and
bitching from teenagers logged onto Yahoo! chat-rooms took their place.
This show was meant to be something else this week; it was meant to
be that, and spontaneously became this! Episode 407: Vocal Dischords (03/27/2005) (every man / Dirtgoddess/ Glacial 23 / J. Kyle Moyer / Widget, Jack
Smiley, Ryan
Kuehn, Leia Alligator, Vanler, Emanoise) A completely unplugged,
meticulously outlined, all vocal Press The Button. The following review
was written by Lisa Miralia: "After listening to the first 10 minutes
or so, it became apparent that the direction you were taking on this
vocal experiment was very different from what I had imagined it would
be. I hadn't factored in sounds like swallowing... that was absolutely
hilarious! The mouth and throat sounds like "mmmmmm" and lip-popping
were so funny to listen to. I could hear you guys cracking up too, which
made me laugh even more! The No-Yeah segment was interesting. A study
in inflection. The 'This is...' part will probably make for good source
material. The show began to hit its stride during the Lullaby segment.
It was a nice contrasting of syllables by different voices - a good
example of word deconstruction shown audibly. We normally think of words
as written entities. This demonstrated words as sound. How tone, inflection,
pitch are the vocal artist's palette for an aural canvas. And how the
presentation of a word can dramatically change its implied and subjective
meaning, regardless of what Webster's might indicate its objective meaning
to be or how it is used in a phrase. The singing vowel drones were nice
ambient interludes, painting a more abstract picture. I liked the mix
of harmony and discordancy in the voices. One of my favorite segments
was the word chanting. Choosing 3 or 4 words spoken at the same time
with varied tone, patterns and syncopation. This broadcasted well. As
is PTB's custom, the last 20 minutes or so of the broadcast (d)evolved
into a free-for-all. I thought the train ride was entertaining, but
was delighted when you suddenly switched gears and it became a bus ride.
That was really funny! And good acting. Very believable. Good show!"
Episode 406: Hodgepodge Times Three! (03/20/2005)
(every man / Glacial 23 / Widget) The show
begins with the sounds with an innocent trip to the toy factory, which
eventually turned more trip than innocent. It eventually explodes
into electronic beats mixed with short-wave radios, and then some beautiful
ambient drones partly inspired by Coil's Time Machine, followed
by mashups of sound effects combined stuttering rhythm sections, and
finally ending with a half hour's worth of the dada tape-recordings
from Recycled Rainbow 9.
Episode 404: Recycled Rainbow 9.5 (03/06/2005) Playback show of the recorded performances from Recycled Rainbow 9.5, featuring Trippy Town, Yeti Scalp, Steve Dracula, a solo performance by J. Kyle Moyer on the DJ decks using effects boxes and (some pre-made material specially for this set), and a good 25 minutes of people playing Ryan Kuehn's audio dadaist game made using a pizza box, scissors, several ping pong balls, a contact mic, and several effects boxes. The music crossed over several genres, from the noisy, to the psychedelic, to the absurd, to the new-school industrial beat-driven psyche that ended the final hour. Episode 403: Per Chance A Rainbow (02/27/2005) (every man / Glacial 23 / Widget / Dirtgoddess, Ryan
Kuehn, Jack Smiley, Lisa Miralia,
Mike Cormier, Erin
Peterson, Hetmana, Leia
Alligator, and some girl I don't know) Post-Recycled Rainbow 9.5
improvisational performance. The first 90 minutes featured mostly every man, Glacial 23, Ryan Kuehn, and Widget (with Kyle performing over the
phone.) Everyone was in sync, everything gelled right, and all the audio
speed limits were obeyed! Very soothing, psychedelic, and emotionally
powerful; with callers who really caught on to the vibe of the show.
Musically, these were among some of the finest moments we've had to
date! Drone, melody, tempo, and collage . . . all gelled together into
an extremely edible format. The last hour of the show was complete insanity!
All the other guests arrived, turned the energy level up a few notches,
and the callers poured in and behaved accordingly. If The Boredoms
got together with the Acid Mothers Temple and threw a fraternity
party, I think it would sound a little something like this. Noise at
an acceptable listening level meets random spouts of reverberated vocal
harmonies meets spoken word absurdity. Episode 402: Datafields (Beta) (02/20/2005) (every man / Glacial 23 / Widget) A first attempt to make an entire radio
show "datafields" style. There is a very specific definition
as to what a "datafield" is, probably so that it can be pushed,
broken, and turned upside down . . . but first, the idea is to master
the art within specified parameters. We specified the parameters for
ourselves, as we also invented the term. A typical "datafield"
is a lengthy field recording that gets increasingly digitally manipulated
as it reaches its center, and then the manipulations become less present
as it reaches its ending . . . so if it loops, one may never detect
the beginning from the ending. Well, it didn't quite work out this way,
but the results were darned interesting nevertheless! So this is "Datafields
(Beta)" until we find our muse . . . in the fields. Each of us
produced an hour long recording, each recording was startlingly different.
So sayeth our now famous listener / reviewer Lisa Miralia, who was previously
informed as to what the show was going to be about: "Hmm. I had
a hard time following the description as it applied to what I was listening
to. During the first hour, there were some nice builds of a background
sort of screech/squeal that sounded both musical and like train wheels?
It seemed to become more musical as the hour wore on . . . subway journeys?
Towards the end, there were parts with children in them that I could
tell were being altered." Yes, she was a bit confused by what we
did, and rightfully so. We were confused as well. It was a mind
trip of sorts, a mind fuck of other sorts, but entirely pre-produced
with very little caller interaction, and very few dead-on examples of
how we defined a true "datafield" to ourselves. The pieces
that appeared on this show intrigued us nevertheless, and are currently
being tweaked, re-visited, re-edited, and re-mastered for potential
solo album releases. We felt they stood very well on their own, even
if they missed the mark on what we were going for. Episode 401: How Do You Field? (02/13/2005) (every man / Glacial 23 / Widget) Over 24 hours worth of field recordings
digitally manipulated, delayed, cut-up, reversed, inversed, pitch-bent,
crunched, and stretched into a 150 minute Press The Button program.
The recordings came from quiet basements in Ohio, train rides, cheers
and screams from a Pro-life / Pro-choice protest rally in Washinton
D.C., various instruments and chants from center camp at Burning Man,
and crashing waves from an unpopulated Atlantic Ocean at night.
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