Next Tuesday December 16th would have been Philip K Dick's 80th birthday. To celebrate this I have been invited back on the radio for a two-hour tribute to our favorite sci-fi surrealist this Friday December 12 11:59pm -2am on Pirate Cat Radio 87.9 FM in the Bay Area.
The show's called Psionic Dehiscence and I'll be playing some interviews with PKD - old ones - not from beyond the grave, some John Dowland, hopefully the VALIS opera (if you have a copy of this please email me), some Sonic Youth, Flaming Lips, and other strange rock 'n rollers influenced by PKD. I even hope to have some interviews with some of PKD's friends and family (no names just yet). Maybe even some of PKD's old radio plays will find their way on the show. I promise lots of rarities, so fire up your satellite recorders, or load the transmission into your data player for later rebroadcast, but don't miss the satellite firing.
Update: The podcast is available for download here.
Thanks to Yuri G and The Stranger for making this happen.
Have a good time :-)
ReplyDeleteLooks like the boingboing effect has knocked out the 'Cat - I can't get the site today. Hope the show went well.
ReplyDeleteHey, I´ve made my PhD dissertation about PKD and its influences on cpunk. It´s already published but in portuguease. Anyway, if you´d like a copy I could send you.
ReplyDeleteGreetings from a brazilian PKD fan
Check out the song "Replicant" by 80's Texas band Camera on
ReplyDeletethesixtyone.com music page
Fantastic show, a great retrospective for a great writer and human being. Happy birthday, Phil! wtg, David!
ReplyDeleteGreat job, David.
ReplyDeleteFirst time I've heard Valis the Opera. Thanks!
David, very nice presentation on Philip K. Dick, for both novices and "dick-heads."
ReplyDeleteI suspected, when word of a third LoA edition of Dick was rumored about, that it would (logicallY) be a presentation of the so-called Valis Trilogy. It makes sense, as it brings us to the end of Dick's career; it brings together three books which are thematically linked, if not in any way a real trilogy; and these three novels are among Dick's strongest. What a way to end a career!
However, it's little known, I guess, that the Book of the Month Club published an omnibus of the "Valis trilogy" in 1990, in a rather handsome volume, actually, with an afterward by Kim Stanley Robinson. I had heard nothing of it in the PKDick fan community at the time, but I discovered it entirely by accident in the Strand Bookstore here in NYC back around the time of its publication, or at most a year or so after.
It has a nice dustjacket, but the three volumes are printed in different fonts; I suspect the interior pages were simply photographed from other editions of the books, each typeset in different fonts
It will be nice to see this slight aesthetic disharmony corrected in a possible LoA edition; one thing I would like to see in such an edition is the inclusion of the precursor book to VALIS, namely, RADIO FREE ALBEMUTH. Not only is it a strong book in its own right, but it gives the reader a different take on the same material by the same writer.
As for Todd Machover's VALIS, you mentioned that it was available on iTunes, yet I don't find it there, or anything by Todd Machover. I actually have the work somewhere around here. I think it was only available on cassette, as this is the form in which I bought it, and I never bought commercial music cassettes...only lps or cds. I never listened to the whole thing, as I recall, as this sort of art music is not my thing, (although I like some out there stuff, including Pere Ubu, Beefheart, free jazz, Stooges, punk and no wave and other discordant music...I just never got this sort of "high art" art music. Steve Lacy did some stuff of this kind, and although I like Lacy, I'm not interested in his recordings of art songs).
Maybe I should find the tape and digitize it and listen to it; I must admit the excerpts you presented were, if not still quite my dose of Chew-Z, intriguing enough to arouse my interest in hearing more of it.
In the French Itunes' store, the VALIS opera is listed under Patrick Masson no Todd Machover, if it helps.
ReplyDeleteI saw the piece credited to Masson and I assumed it is a completely different work. Is it Machover's piece? If so, why it would be credited to another artist?
ReplyDeleteI forgot to add, I did click on the VALIS by Masson (Mason?), and iTunes would not proceed. It gave me a message that the piece is not curretnly available in the US store.
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed Patrick Mason (my error). He's a performer. Strange, I have the same error in the French store (but I can hear excerpts, buy each song but not the whole record.)
ReplyDeleteNevermind, the CD is available.
Sonic Youth associated themselves with PKD when they decided the trend in reading of teens and young adults were buying his writings. They really are parasites.
ReplyDeleteK.W. Jeter might let you know his playlist, Ronstadt, Dylan, The Byrds, Residents, and possibly The Germs.
Gary Numan's "Are Friends Electric" didnt make the cut?
There was a tribute show to him in the mid 80s in San Francisco (might have been organized from the PKD Society?). Lots of music.
I'm not a fan of Sonic Youth, although I don't hate their music, and the only time I ever saw them perform was a few years ago opening for the reunited Stooges at Jones Beach on Long Island, NY. However, I get the sense they are sincere in their appreciation of other artists, musical, literary, or otherwise, and ask for you to support your accusation that they are parasites.
ReplyDeleteI've seen Thurston Moore speak locally (here in NYC) about No Wave, promoting a book he co-wrote/compiled with Byron Coley. He's a couple of years younger than me, and I got from him the vibe of a true fan, a music geek who was as excited about the musical developments of New York (and elsewhere) in the 70s as I had been, (I lived in Florida at the time).
Additionally, a friend of mine was in a band years ago that shared a rehearsal space with Sonic Youth, and my friend told me then about Thurston being a fan of PKDick, and he told me Thurston was apparently a member of the Philip K.Dick Society, (as I was from the beginning to the end of its life).
In short, I think you're being unfair to the extent you do not or cannot demonstrate that Sonic Youth are, in truth, "parasites."
(My friend, by the way, was in a NYC band called Reverb Motherfuckers, and he wrote and they performed two songs that were inspired by Dick: "Dr. Bloodmoney" on their first album and "Nowhere Nothing Fuckup" on their second album.)
Sonic Youth subscribed to the Philip K Dick Society Newsletter WAY before reading PKD was any kind of trend.... And if you listen to "Stereo Sanctity" on Sister, I think it reflects a pretty good sense of PKD.
ReplyDeleteWhat was the Gary Numan song played around 5 mins in? Thanks...
ReplyDeleteurgh, found it, nevermind :-)
ReplyDeleteHave listened to most of the podcast now - excellent stuff, really enjoyed it. Good work on the interviews, particularly - I am now more favourably disposed to the Radio Free Albemuth film !
ReplyDeleteAnd that VALIS opera - well, 'trippy', indeed.
Hi. I´ve made my PhD dissertation about PKD and its influences on cpunk.
ReplyDeleteLink to the MP3 file is now dead.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nerdnetworks.org/pcr/Psionic-20081213.mp3
Anyone have a copy of this file?
Thanks.
David Gill kept a copy, so I've uploaded it with my other shows! Special thanks and kudos for remembering this for us, and not even wholesale but for radio-free!
ReplyDeletehttps://archive.org/download/stranger_mutiny_radio/Psionic-20081213%20Philip%20K%20Dick%20Tribute.mp3
Thankyou "the Stranger" for posting this link. A pay-off for persistence and optimism! I first tried looking for this in August 2018 in a Reddit post in r/philipkdickheads, and have tried various searches and networking since. Guessing it was you who also replied to that original Reddit post.
ReplyDeleteTalking about the same topic in two different online envt may reveal Clark Kent's secret identity!