[PREV - FURRY_DREAMS] [TOP]
IS_OLD_AGAIN
August 2, 2010
September 20, 2013
I often listen to "old time radio"
shows... even before they became We called it "Golden
ubiquitous on the internet (e.g. see Age Radio" when I was
the internet archive), I would go out a kid: there was a
of my way to buy them on cassette flood of cheap
tape... and I've got a few even older television ads pushing
vinyl releases as well. nostalgia tie-ins.
But with only a few exceptions, And one of the Firesign
I can't stand any of the later Theatre's best known
attempts at doing such things. pieces was "The Further
Adventures of Nick
The WBAI production of Delany's Danger, Third Eye", on
"The Star Pit" was pretty brilliant, their second record
(circa 1970, at a guess), release in 1969.
and Joe Frank skirts the edges of
this kind of "radio drama"... This backward gaze at
but in general a modern radio those old-fashioned
drama is badly acted, and poorly days of yore seems
written: amateurish in the worst funny when you consider
sense. that it was taking
place in the late 60s,
When OTR was new, it was an outlet and the last radio
for professionalism in an era when detective ("Johnny
the professionals knew what they Dollar") only left the
were doing (e.g. the studio machines air in 1962.
of early hollywood films could
actually make good movies). Less than a decade
before the revival?
Now that the Radio Drama
is intentionally retro, It could be that the
it's almost always big 60s push for the
something done by people new, young and
who would rather be doing revolutionary produced
something else if they this immediate counter
could. Hence the evident reaction.
low-quality, amateurish NERDS_BEYOND
nature of the new radio THE_VOICE_OF_DOOM
drama you're likely to There are,
find dumped in the however,
internet archive. exceptions:
FRUITS_BASKET
And yet: there are This makes me wonder
other fields where EDICT_ZERO if my initial
being an outsider is impression ("It's
almost a prerequisite All Crap") was
for doing interesting mistaken: Sturgeon's
work, notably music. law has a way of
fooling the casual
It might be that there simply observer... but
aren't *enough* amateurs it could be that the
interested in radio drama, Crap Wave was a
if every college station result of the early
had people fighting for the "podcasting" fad,
few time slots allocated for and now that it's
this, that might raise the bar. peaked, anyone who's
still interested has
more of a clue.
--------
[NEXT - NERDS_BEYOND]