About a thousand years ago, or in the 1980s which sometimes feels like much the same thing, there was a superb show on the radio called A Prairie Home Companion. Way back when jihad was just something the Dukes of Hazzard used to say I travelled around the prairie, and that ain’t no lie. I got caught in a prairie lightning storm outside Colby, Kansas, sleeping in my old Chevrolet while I went to hunt Hunter Thompson, but that’s a whole other story. The whole point of the Prairie Home Companion is that nothing much happens on it, which is much the same as what happens on the prairie and if you think it’s easy to make that sound realistic on the radio, think again.
Lifeboat Party
It was my first live radio show today. The Lifeboat Party went out on www.Radio Castle.com at noon. Come February it’s going on old fashioned radio as well as out as a web broadcast, so I can really put the F in FM.
So today I’d cycled out to the auctions at half past nine to see what was happening, see whether my friend with the live milk farm was there (she was), see if there were any bicycles I could buy and sell on eBay to Japan (there weren’t, but it did happen once) and to see if friends from the village really were going to buy some chickens at the livestock auction.
Tracks Of My Tears
Well, they meant to. It’s about comfort zones. What you’re used to. The bidding started on a cardboard box containing four Light Sussex chicks. Hardly anyone bid. They went for £2. No, all four for £2. The person I knew was going to bid on some hens. He’s got a sensible, responsible job where he needs to keep control of a lot of different things going off at the same time. And he froze, bidding on a chicken.
When I cycled on to Framlingham my show was about the same. The first ten minutes were fine. My guest came in and if I got the name of her company wrong it was sort-of ok. It was after that, when the mixing deck froze so I could only play CDs and I couldn’t remember which CD was in which rack and …..
And.
Looking Counter Clockwise
Ok. Nobody in Suffolk would know the difference between the Gotan Project and Federico Aubelle at noon on a back-to-school Monday anyway. But I do. And I need to do it better next time. Rabbit in headlights. Moth to a flame. You know, I’d sell my soul for total control.
Yes Mr B, in the early 1980’s, as I drove across the states and slept in a Toyota, I got caught in a lightning storm in Oklahoma same one maybe? Unforgettable.
Where is that photo taken above? V nice. Jon
The show sounded great!
Oh wow, thank-you! I messed up the mix I thought – what I heard in the cans wasn’t exactly the level it goes out at.