Lodestone Blog

Music: Loud, overcompressed TV commercial music from a music library.
Announcer: It’s March Madness! It’s March Madness, at Lodestone….

But seriously folks….

We are saddened to announce that after 13 years in business, and 3 years under its current ownership, the Lodestone Catalog is going out of business.

We are putting everything in the catalog on sale, with huge savings on many items. So our pain is your gain — here’s a chance to stock up on some really great audio theater while it lasts.

Every item in the catalog has been reduced — a full listing is at http://lodestonecatalog.com/cgi-bin/sale.cgi

Specific Artists include:

Louis L’Amour dramatizations produced by NATF’s Charlie Potter
http://lodestonecatalog.com/cgi-bin/sale.cgi?lim=LOLA

Sci-Fi Channels Seeing Ear Theater
http://lodestonecatalog.com/cgi-bin/sale.cgi?lim=HBRG021zHCOL

Firesign Theatre
http://lodestonecatalog.com/cgi-bin/sale.cgi?lim=MSUGzFSOLzFTEEzFMCHzFSOL

Alien Voices (Leonard Nimoy and John DeLancey)
http://lodestonecatalog.com/cgi-bin/sale.cgi?lim=ALEN

Norman Corwin
http://lodestonecatalog.com/cgi-bin/sale.cgi?lim=CORW

Yuri Rasovsky
http://lodestonecatalog.com/cgi-bin/sale.cgi?lim=YROS

ZBS
http://lodestonecatalog.com/cgi-bin/sale.cgi?lim=ZBSF

and my fave, Hayward Sanitarium
http://lodestonecatalog.com/cgi-bin/sale.cgi?lim=LMP

and many many more — over 350 items, all on sale.

I have a confession to make — something you’re not supposed to say if you’re promoting yourself or your business:

I’m not very good at this.

By “this”, I mean the marketing stuff — about 50% of what I do as someone running a small business like Lodestone.

You see, my first inclination is to be cynical about things like marketing. I go to the mall and all I can see is the way that everything from the colors of the walls, to they seemingly casual way the shirts are laid out on the table is pre-programmed, determined by some marketing researcher at national headquarters to make you buy, buy, buy. It is the job of marketers to make you want things you don’t want.

I don’t want to make you want things you don’t want. Which is why I’m a poor marketer.

Marketing guru Seth Godin just came out with a new book entitled All Marketers Are Liars. His premise seems to be (though I haven’t read it) that marketers aren’t liars, they’re storytellers, who through their stories help consumers lie to themselves.

They tell a story that brand x of bottled water will take them to a tropical paradise. And the consumer lies to himself that it is true.

How disgusting.

The thing is… I try to market audio theater, and I don’t want to lie, or mislead, or anything — which makes me a bad marketer.

But the other thing is — I really do believe listening to audio theater strengthens the imagination.

I really do believe good audio theater is much better than television because of the pictures it paints directly in my mind.

I really do believe listening to ZBS transports you to the Amazon or Bali, or India. I’ve been there, and Jack Flanders was my tour guide.

And I really do believe I’ve learned lessons from Norman Corwin, that I’ve learned nowhere else.

Sometimes a true believer is the best marketer.

On the other hand, Audio Theater is intensely personal. And I honestly don’t know if you’ll get the same thing out of it I did. I have a hard time making a blanket statement that you will.

But I hope you’ll give it a shot.

You never know where or when inspiration will strike. I got to work today, started reading emails, and the following suddenly flowed out of me onto the page:

SFX: Paper Shredder whirring away unobstructed.

Fred: (Alarmed)What in a motherless dog-biscuit are you doing?

George: (Sarcastic)What does it look like I’m doing?

Fred: It looks like you’re trying to shred your television.

George: That’s right. I don’t need it anymore.

Fred: Don’t need it anymore, but…

George: I found this great site, called the Lodestone Catalog…

Fred: But…

George: It has all this great audio theater – kinda like movies for your mind, like those old stories on the radio, only its all new stuff, made with modern technology. It sounds great….

Fred: But… that’s a paper shredder! You need at least some sort of industrial….

George: I went to their site, lodestonecatalog.com – that’s L.. O. D. E. stone, like the magnetic mineral, and catalog, like catalog. Anyway they had science fiction, adventure, comedy… all kinds of things, all on CD!

Fred: My point is….

George: And they have Firesign Theatre, remember them? Funny stuff. And they even have CDs of the great Norman Corwin. You know he’s still making new stuff…?

Fred: My point is, if you’re going to shred your TV, you’re gonna need something a little larger, like…

George: And its all right there – Lodestone Catalog dot com…

Fred: Like this…

SFX: Giant metal industrial machine being dragged across a concrete factory floor.

George: What the….

SFX: Industrial shredder starting up.

Fred: Here, let me help you with that TV…

In the 90s I found myself in the midst of a whirlwind of innovation in audio theater. For some of it, I was on the periphery. But for parts of it, I found myself in the eye of this little hurricane.

The revolution started without me, in the hands of David Ossman. David is a member of the Firesign Theatre, and was a producer for NPR. He has produced several of what to me are the best-sounding, best-written pieces of audio theater ever done. One of these was his 1988 50th Anniversary Production of War of the Worlds. Sound Designer Randy Thom came on board, and the whole thing was produced as if taking place in 1988 over National Public Radio (instead of 1938 over CBS radio).

Now, Randy Thom is one of the smartest, boldest, and overall best sound designers in Hollywood. A good example of this is the move of putting several minutes of dead silence at the beginning of the movie Contact. This is something you simply don’t do — but as used in Contact, it moved the story forward, and communicated the absolute depth and vastness of space.

For War of the Worlds, every scene is from the perspective of a microphone. The microphone is part of the scene, and there is a reason for it being there — from being an on-the-scene reporter’s microphone, to a program host’s studio microphone, to a fighter pilot’s radio, to a scientist’s dictaphone. Each scene is on location, and each scene is utterly realistic. The locations used, are the vast back-lot of Skywalker Ranch. The intent is to make it sound exactly as it would if the events were actually occurring over the radio today — an update of the 1938 “panic broadcast” that convinced so many in the early days of radio.

My involvement comes with Hayward Sanitarium. Hayward was the product of the fevered brains of a bunch of post-college hangers-on who hooked up with radio producer Richard Fish. Most of us came from a background of comedy, but somehow this horror script arose. I was a freelance audio engineer with a college education, and too much time on my hands. None of us were weened on the classics of OTR, and all of us wanted to break the mold — whatever that was. It was decided to do it with the location technique.

The thing is — it was a perfect match. The central question in the script — is the supernatural real or crazy imaginings — was heightened by giving it a sound which was utterly real. The microphone was almost an invisible character in the scene — moving around to listen in on what was going on. It hung close to Dr Richard Atwater, the character through whom the audience was meant to experience the proceedings, but it was never in his head, or through his ears directly. And it was always close enough to make everything clear, but far enough to give the ambiance of the scene.

Lastly, came Goldfish – David Ossman’s adaptation of the classic Raymond Chandler story. The gritty realism of the film-noir, cum audio-noir story, was complemented perfectly by the gritty, and utterly realistic location recording. It was recorded on location around Seattle, including scenes in a genuine 1940’s car. And you hear it. It sounds like the 1940’s I was priviledged to be involved in some of the post-production recordings of ambiances and sound effects, in the few places where they were needed. The story moves forward, and the sound moves the story forward, giving an audio equivalent to a grainy black-and-white movie feel to the entire thing.

These three productions are still three of my favorite productions. Of them, I have to say my favorite is Goldfish. The location work meshes perfectly with the story, and the story and performances are wonderful, including veteran film actor Harris Yulin, and Harry Anderson (of Night Court).

The thing is — none of these were easy. Recording on location did not make life easier, it made it harder. Each of these had great attention to detail. And most importantly, each of these had a reason to use the technique. Sound design is a series of choices, and the script must be served by those choices.  Location is not the best choice for everything — but it certainly was the best choice for these.

One audio drama from the catalog that I am always amazed doesn’t sell more in the catalog is the production of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas.

I come from an audio engineering background, so sound design really turns me on. This production has it in spades. The book is a dizzying combination of skewed reality, and drug fueled confusion — and the producers chose to reflect this in their sound choices. It begins with the narrator and the lead character Gonzo, who are the same person, shouting over each other to achieve dominance. They continue to trade off the narrative throughout the book, so that neither the listener nor characters are ever really completely sure whats going on. This even breaks into the main action when Gonzo has to ask a young hitchhiker if he overheard his internal narrative about murder.

Sound effects are well used in this production indicate, illustrate, and underscore the action. Period music, including well known tracks from the Stones, Three Dog Night, and Jefferson Airplane are integrated into the action, to good effect. They are part of the plot, as in the book, and are wholly appropriate, and even necessary. No doubt, costs of rights to these songs are responsible for the slightly elevated ($19.95 in the catalog) price.

This was produced by Thompson’s old flame, Laila Nabulsi, with engineering and sound design by Bruce Barris. The cast is headed by Harry Dean Stanton, Maury Chaykin, and filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, and it features a truly wonderful cast including Dan Castellaneta, Joan Cusack, Buck Henry, Laurie Metcalf, Larraine Newman, and guest spots by Jimmy Buffett, and Jann Wenner. It was put out by Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville Records.

The story, and much of the language, is not for the squeemish — it is a tale of drugs, debauchery, and paranoia, which is at the same time amusing and revolting. While wallowing in drug-induced self-indulgence, it at the same time condemns its own excesses, and those of the era, as the inevitable extention of the naive experimentation of just a few years previous. It is both ambivalent and celabratory about the ride it is taking the lead character and the listener on.

And what a ride! The pacing zooms. It jumps into a new scene, dazzles the listener, and moves on. It wraps up within a single CD, leaving the listener both wanting more, and a little strung out from the crazy journey.

All too infrequetnly, we send out an email newsletter — here’s the one for November.

The Lodestone News
A (very) Periodically Published Newsletter from The Lodestone Catalog
——————————————————————–

LONG TIME NO SEE

Those who have been receiving this newsletter for a while will know that it is all too frequently, well, infrequent. Our last edition was way back in June.

And, as usual, it is because we sometimes get a little too busy around here improving the catalog.

This summer saw a major re-design of our shopping cart, with the help of our friend, “Doc Technical”, Tom O’Neill (www.doctechnical.com). It became simpler to use, more understandable, and implemented improvements for international ordering. Thanks, Doc.

This year saw a number of new products in the catalog.

Finally, this month saw the release of our first print catalog in over 5 years, and the first one under the catalog’s current ownership. If you didn’t get one, you can get one sent to you by going to: http://lodestonecatalog.com/printcatalog.html

— NEW STUFF —

A number of new recordings and other items have been added over recent months:

THE RONALD REAGAN MURDER CASE: A GEORGE TIREBITER MYSTERY. Firesigner David Ossman, has released his long-awaited book, The Ronald Reagan Murder Case. This is the tale of George Leroy Tirebiter, famed actor of screen and radio featured in Firesign’s “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers” album. George is a young man, the toast of Hollywood, at the beginning of 1945, attending a cast party with his buddy and colleague, actor Ronald Reagan. Much to their surprise, Ronny and George stumble across the body of… Ronald Reagan. A mystery indeed. Part mystery, part comedy, this book is a lot of fun.
– http://lodestonecatalog.com/cgi-bin/ltmcat.cgi?sku=BEAR002

THE POET LAUREATE OF RADIO
In 2004, Norman Corwin sat down with filmmaker Mike Kacey for an interview to be part of Kacey’s planned documentary “Radio Changed America.” Both Kacey and Corwin were so pleased with the interview that
Corwin asked that it be released on its own. It is a wonderful look at the career and the mind of Corwin, who at 96 still teaches at USC. Excerpts from the interview can be seen at http://normancorwin.com/video.html, and the documentary itself is available on DVD at: — http://lodestonecatalog.com/cgi-bin/ltmcat.cgi?sku=CORW060

A NEW RUBY AND A NEW JACK
Meatball Fulton, Tom Lopez, and the crew at ZBS Foundation have brought us a new adventure from Ruby: The Galactic Gumshoe, and intrepid adventurer Jack Flanders. Ruby travels to the planet Möbius-Morpheus, where life is but a dream, and someone is invading the dreams. And Jack travels to the Caribbean, where the mysterious Ghost Islands appear only once per year, and this year some islands are missing. Both can be found at — http://lodestonecatalog.com/zbs.html

HORRORS FROM ATLANTA
The Atlanta Radio Theatre Company has come out with three new CDs of wonderful audio horror. They include “The Happy Man,” “Special Order,” and H. P. Lovecraft’s “At The Mountains of Madness.” — http://lodestonecatalog.com/artc.html

HOLIDAY ORDERING
The holiday season is coming up, and based on USPS delivery estimates, we suggest that you order by December 11 to receive items by Christmas with standard shipping, or order by December 18 with rush shipping.

THANKS
Thanks for your interest in the Lodestone Catalog. We are here to serve you. As always, if you know of any production you would like to see added to the catalog, please let us know. Our contact page is at: http://lodestonecatalog.com/contact.html

Feel free to forward this to friends who have an interest in Audio Theater. And if you had this forwarded to you, and want to join the list, go to http://lodestonecatalog.com/news.html

I got back from vacation this past weekend, and was greeted with the news that an internet friend had died.

I never met him in person — I knew him only through the Firesign Chat, and a few emails.

His name was Brian Converse, though I knew him by his chat nicknames: klokwkdog, or klok, or stephenfostkerkane. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of the Firesign Theatre, and quoted them liberally. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of many other things as well, from pop culture to computers, and frequently helped friends with complicated computer issues.

He had a quick and offbeat wit — perhaps a prerequisite for being a Firesign fan — but his was quicker and more offbeat than most. In chat sessions, he could be counted on to put in a zinger, or continue a riff started by other chatters. But more importantly, he could be counted on to offer his help, and would devote much time and long-distance all-night phone calls to helping friends with OS setups or computer malfunctions.

I never met him in person, but I wish I had. Many who knew him much better than I have posted tributes to him online. (Bambi, Elayne, and Tweeny)

Brian, you will be missed.

I came across the following abstract in a recent google search:

The British Journal of Aesthetics 2005 45(2):157-174; doi:10.1093/aesthj/ayi018
Th© British Society of Aesthetics 2005
Phenomenology and Radio Drama
Clive Cazeaux

Clive Cazeaux, Cardiff School of Art and Design, University of Wales Institute—Cardiff, Howard Gardens, Cardiff CF24 0SP, UK. Email: ccazeaux@uwic.ac.uk

Radio drama is often considered an incomplete or ‘blind’ artform because it creates worlds through sound alone. The charge of incompleteness, I suggest, rests upon the orthodox empiricist conception of sensation as the receipt of separate modalities of sensory impression. However, alternative theories of sensation are offered by phenomenology and—of particular importance to this study—the restructuring of cognition that takes place in these theories plays a central role in phenomenology’s account of artistic expression. The significance of this phenomenological link between cognition and expression is that it can provide the basis for a more positive evaluation of the aesthetics of radio drama. From a phenomenological perspective, the alleged ‘incompleteness’ of sound becomes an -exemplary form of the process whereby material elements in an artwork interact with or beckon towards one another to express a world. In this paper, I (i) show how Merleau-Ponty’s ‘invitational’ account of the senses meets the charge of ‘blindness’, (ii) -demonstrate how radio drama employs the aesthetic interactions that, from the theoretical standpoints of Merleau-Ponty and Dufrenne, are definitive of expression in art, and (iii) indicate how some of my claims for the aesthetics of radio drama are supported by recent accounts of metaphor in music.

In other words, Radio drama fires the imagination. I knew that.

(abstract found at: http://bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/45/2/157#search=%22%22radio%20drama%22%20concept%22)

The Rabbit Ears CDs that I wrote about recently arrived yesterday, and are available now. They are as good as I remembered.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0608/S00120.htm

… And I thought the last NATF performance was ambitious…

72 Hours to Full Stop the End

A gutsy plot, a cliff hanger conclusion and an ocean sized serving of deceit and innocence are the ingredients for a 72 hour radio drama project to be staged in Nelson next week.

“It is deadline time for the New Zealand Radio Drama Competition (NZRDC) so we decided to stage an act of dramatic empathy to show what can be done under pressure,” said NZRDC Executive Producer Kim Merry.

“Tuesday morning 15 August at 10am we start recording the play called Big Balls, which has two substantial challenges.

“A large number of the parts will be performed by volunteer actors recorded where they are standing, it will be lines off the cuff and entirely original. Secondly the studio actors will not see the scripts until they arrive half an hour prior to recording.

“Big Balls will be a test of talent under pressure with the finished product, a piece of great entertainment,” said Mr. Merry.

The Nelson Arts Council is co-funding Big Balls with Fresh FM, which is this year’s principal NZRDC sponsor.

Online broadcast deadline is 10am Friday 18 August with the first radio airing of “Big Balls” in the “Fresh FM Drama and Story Showcase” Wednesday 23 August at 3.10pm.

Entry forms and a selection of locally produced radio dramas are now available on line, at www.freshfm.net.

Update: I’ve been had!

The way the first article was written, it looked like a 72-hour long radio drama. But this new article makes it clear that its a half hour radio drama, written and produced in 72 hours.

NATF’ers could do that in their sleep. (and they frequently do)

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0608/S00162.htm

Now Only 36 Plus Hours Plus to Full Stop the End

The pressure, to finish writing, recording, and producing a thirty minute radio drama within a 72 hour deadline using scripted and unscripted dialogue, has been turned up a notch.

“Last night we completed the bulk of our scripted dialogue for the play Big Balls, but our young star who delivers the solution to the dilemma facing the lead character, was unable to join the cast as he was recovering from flu,” said New Zealand Radio Drama Competition Executive Producer Kim Merry. (NZRDC)

“Later today we will be heading to Nelson Central School with the lead character and sound engineer to record the final scenes, while Sam who plays the character Pluto is on lunch break.

“Yesterday we hit the streets to record the impromptu off the cuff scenes with unrehearsed talent, the result of which took the plot to a new level. New Zealand has a lot of natural actors who are only too willing to spare some of their talent, you just have to ask them.
Big Balls is being produced with co-funding from The Nelson Arts Council and Fresh FM, which is this year’s principal NZRDC sponsor.

Online broadcast deadline is 10am Friday 18 August with the first radio airing of “Big Balls” in the “Fresh FM Drama and Story Showcase” Tuesday 22 August at 3.10pm.

The Big Balls Production Blog, entry forms and a selection of locally produced radio dramas are now available on line, at www.freshfm.net.

ENDS

Another update…

well, here it is  http://www.freshfm.net/downloads/bigballsthewriterscut.mp3   I’ll refrain from comment.