Chunky Homestyle Breakdown
Saturday, February 2nd, 2008
The web stream that accompanies the Audio Kitchen blog (“Chunky Homestyle Radio”) is down. My non-stop audio-stream of found and obscure recordings is on hiatus until I can resolve a technical problem here at the house. The other day I noticed that the cranky old Pentium II box that sends out the chunky sounds had shut down. And then after rebooting the old boy a couple times and restarting the stream I’ve come to realize that the computer will only run for an hour or two before passing out again. My hardware guru tells me it’s probably the power supply or the processor fan. I have yet to actually open it up and learn more.So, Chunky Homestyle Radio will be probably be down for over a week or two as I try to resolve this issue. I’m going to hold back on buying parts until I take a look at a newer machine (a Pentium 4, I believe) that a friend has promised me. If I see that it’s actually fit I may upgrade to the new computer, which will take at least a few more days or longer to set up.
However, I have to admit that I wish I could report that I’ve received numerous complaints about this outage. But sadly, nobody seems to have noticed but me. And frankly, I’ve been surprised and a little dismayed at) how few people have actually taken advantage of the Chunky Homestyle station I installed with this blog. Perhaps I haven’t promoted it very well, but since I opened this site for business there was only a smattering of interest in Chunky Homestyle Radio. And within a few weeks the listenership dropped down to little more than a handful of people tuning in at one time, and then often none at all.
While it takes me quite a bit of time to get the posts where organized and written, but the Chunky stream has always been a way I could easily and indiscriminately share my bulging collection of home recorded detritus. It’s no surprise to me that providing some context would drum up anticipation and curiosity and make the make listening to the blog post audio more popular than clicking on the Chunky Homestyle stream and its random deluge of found sound. There’s many hundreds of hours of conversations and performances and untold numbers of lost dispatches and messages in the Chunky Homestyle Radio library. I personally find it an intriuging stew of words, noise and situation. But there is no announcer or blogger to guide your mind through the arbitrary blather. Maybe it’s too much for anybody to handle. I don’t know. Either way, the Chunky stream will be coming back sometime soon. At least for a while.
Also, sorry there hasn’t been a new post here in a little while. But the good news is that I’m taking a little break from working on a new Audio Kitchen post just to let you know why the Chunky Radio link is not operational right now. And to be honest, I’ve been posting more often over at my radio blog (The Radio Kitchen) just because I’ve been getting substantially more traffic and feedback over there so far. Which is kinda funny, because my original inspiration was to only create this blog. The Radio Kitchen site was sort of an afterthought.
And in the spirit of after-thinking, let me append this post with some mildly savage multimedia content out of the many hundreds of files that have been in rotation on Chunky Radio. This is some burnin’ some lo-fi tribal rock unearthed on a soiled cassette tape by the late and great “Georgia” Todd Butler. As I recall, this was the only audio recorded on this particular tape. The subject matter is ostensibly about a certain earring and a back door. The real meaning is anybody’s guess.
Wang-Q - Q-Shaped Earring 1:22
That’s it. Now I’ll get back to work on the next Audio Kitchen post, which should be up soon. Expect more tales of youth, desire and passion. And less.
This one came in on the request line. And if your’re in the mood to hear a haunting high tenor belt out a few cat ballads, then you are in luck. But first let me digress here for a moment, and then… music!
hitting shuffle, letting the first one that hit me over the head win the day. But you know, I didn’t have to scan through many before I found a good one.
short list of possible initial posts, I’d already included these. And then when I recently got an email suggesting I feature them, I moved ‘em to the front of the queue.
It doesn’t bother me, sharing people’s home recordings– personal or not. Let’s face it, once the artifacts of your existence end up in resale shops, the mass of it all is passed down. Passed along. Iti’s more than fair use. But It’s history on the march. But for a number of reasons. And I think Terry is going to be just fine with his cat anthems getting some play here.
The initial appeal of these recordings for me was Terry’s voice– a tender upper register not unlike 
good-natured with almost no irony. And the arrangements are good too. Is it kid’s music? Maybe. But it’s really more than that. 
Terry McMahon - 04 - Scaredy Cats
If there’s a single in the bunch it’s “Secret Agent Cat.” It’s a catchy ode to a feline forest ranger turned undercover operative, and his penchant for tuna pie. This tight and urgent arrangement is as spectacular as it is wacky.
Terry McMahon - 11 - Cat Dancing Song
Yes, I think there always will be Kitty Love Songs. I don’t see why not. They’re high grade amateur recordings– folk art flavored compositions done with a professional flair using an affordable musical gadget. It’s a pleasure to share them here. (And yes, they are 
Assuming everything’s A-OK, I suppose I’ll hear from Mr. McMahon soon, or he’ll hear from me. And Terry, if you’re reading this now and haven’t figured it out yet, let me be specific– I salute you. And if I never come across a message from you in my inbox, perhaps I’ll run into you in that place where the window sills are wide. And there are no fleas. In Kittyland.
Okay here’s three short ones, all from found cassettes. I’ve grouped these all together in one post for a simple reason. They all express a mode of affection for a dude named named Bob (or Robert). And really, who hasn’t loved a Bob at one time or another? The name just has an affable buzz. Think about it. Sometime when you feel the need to reach out, you really just wanna grab a hold of some Bob out there and squeeze.
Anyway, this is a quirky tune. The band, such as it is, seems to be a few wholesome college types with a keyboard device. The cassette collection of songs I have from these folks is actually quite entertaining. Very earnest. A little odd and kinda kooky. Art school perhaps. I think these songs hail from the 1980’s. This particular number is a tight and out of tune plea for Bobby companionship. The vocals are fast paced and overlapping, and I suspect it might be a gay kind of thing. The Bobby protagonist of the song is referred to as “sugar,” “darling,” “honey,” and “angel” (and maybe “throbby” as well). And the crescendo at the end is a celebration of the “three of us.” Not quite like anything I’ve ever heard before. And you? I think I need to make a point of sharing more of this tape in a future post. It’s a lot of fun. Musical nerds having a good time.
The next offering is a bit strange, which may have gay overtones as well. (Okay, there are girls named “Bobbi” out there, but it’s not that common.) It’s a unique item, recorded on a late-model audio cassette. I’d guess it’s from the 1990’s. The “creator” of this recording has foisted his microphone up to the speaker of his stereo while playing the opening of a soprano sax power ballad. And then, right before the female singer starts to warble on nostalgically about never ending love the guy holding the mic intones– “Bobby” in an urgent half spoken whisper. Then she sings for a minute about the wild and free days of yore. He then hits the pause button, restarts the song, and does the same urgent thing all over again– the sax intro, the “Bobby” whisper, and that pop diva chorus about wildness and freedom (and love). He does this several times.
Although it’s impossible to be sure, the cryptic presentation here doesn’t seem to hard to decode. It would seem that the fella misses his “Bobby,” and can’t stop thinking about all the 
The final entree here also invokes “Bob love.” Actually the it’s the love of a Robert and his bride to be, Sandra. However, instead of idealized adoration or yearning for the return of a Bob, this is fully realized affection. No irony either. Not to reveal all the details in this rich two minutes of fun, but there’s some sweet singin’, a little 
While I’m not the biggest fan of Halloween (I get enough vicarious dread and terror from a typical newscast), it’s certainly more entertaining than most holidays. And the festive music of the season is so much better than the true horror of Christmas carols. And speaking of that, don’tcha ever 
As this blog begins, I suppose it’s fitting to go back to the beginning of my fascination with found sound– a day of sorting through junk that launched what has become a large and disparate collection of amateur recordings over at my house.
It all began on a hot dusty afternoon in 1996 as I was browsing through a squalid little booth at a Florida flea market. It wasn’t the tied-died shirts or patchouli oil that had kept bringing me back this particular dealer. No, it was his abundant selection of cheap and dirty albums. I’d often dug up gems out of those splintering crates, but not that day. I had been there a week or two before and wasn’t finding anything I hadn’t passed up on other trips. As the friend I came with was still elbow deep in the lp’s, I started prowling around under the tables. In the middle of a lot of useless crap I came across a little cardboard box filled with cassettes. The stout bearded guy in the psychedelic 
For those of you who weren’t around in the early mid-70’s, it was a rather messy and pessimistic time. While the political assassinations, urban riots and the Vietnam War (which we’d just gotten out of) had driven many to anger, isolation or a drug-addled haze. And then there was the Watergate scandal, runaway inflation, another Arab-Israeli war, and a worsening 
From the accent, I’d guess the kid grew up in or near Georgia. His family may have relocated somewhere down the line, as the tape bears evidence of being recorded in California (a 
While he mentions regretting souping up his car against his parents wishes and generally goofing off in his supplication to science and warfare on side A, side B is the flip side to all the sober consternation. Here’s our hero at play. It’s a party. And a couple of guests have brought in a guitar and a banjo. And it’s a teenage “pot party” jam session, including "Proud Mary," “Stairway to Heaven,” and the theme to the “Beverly Hillbillies.” It’s not a great recording. The instruments sound out of tune, and there’s lots of chatter and party coughing. I’m including it to provide a more representational archive, and to give the fossil sounds of a forgotten gathering some online posterity. I almost feel like I was there.
