Friday glee

 Joel Mabus' new rendition of "Swing that Thing" - great clip here, and it doesn't even get to the bit where Mozart tells Bach to "drop that horn" - and then JM swings some Bach on his guitar (along with a few other musical quotes - hee hee!) . . . I was listening to Boston's WUMB on the kitchen Logitech radio ("I'm in love with the modern world!"), and started laughing so hard Delia came in to see what I'd eaten....

And it was immediately followed by Nancy Griffith's rendition of Richard & Linda Thompson's "Let me Ride on the Wall of Death" - Alec's favorite song!  I'll never forget the first time I heard Richard live - a sunny afternoon at Newport - and a half-naked teenage boy standing in the front row on the grass shouting, "DO THE ONES ABOUT DEAAAAATH!"

Just got back from recording Witches promo copy

Sue & David are still working mixing (and created SFX, and editing, and timing and refining) The Witches of Lublin, but meanwhile I just wrote and recorded a bunch of promo spots for stations to air in the days leading up to the broadcast.  I'll put a couple of them below for you to enjoy. Meanwhile, I know you're dying to appreciate the Finer Points of the Art:

Promotional spots for public radio stations have to be :30 or :60, to fit into those little spots left by carefully-timed NPR breaks, etc. 

But really they're just :20 or :50, because you have to leave a :05-:10 music bed for the local announcer to be able to say: You can hear The Witches of Lublin at 5:00 Saturday/tomorrow/today right here on WXXX, 98.6 FM.

Yes, you can grab a few critical seconds by reading extra-fast - or by cutting those fantastic adjectives you know you had no business putting in in the first place.

Yes, it all timed out perfectly when you read it at home/at your desk.  That's because you were muttering, not using your Good Radio Voice.

And, really, your :50 copy is more like :30 because you need to leave a few seconds for establishing music at the top . . . and for the clips of the actual actors delivering cool excerpted lines.

Fortunately, I am a master at this craft.

That said, not sure which of the many we wrote & recorded will actually make it to air - but here are hot contenders:

( Sample on-air promos )

* * * 

I hope your appetite has been whetted.  By next week we should have posted on our website a list of stations who plan to carry it . . . And if you'd like to help add to that list by writing to your local station, please click here.  It really works:  We've had several stations say they were alerted to the show by interested listeners who, my intelligence network revealed, were YOU.

We also, aherm, have bills to pay - and promotional items to print up, and, well, expenses.  Please don't break your piggybanks to send us your last $5 - but if you've got a few bucks for a worthy arts endeavor, contributions are tax-deductible, and we'll appreciate it greatly.  There are very cool thank you items for generous donors of $250 and up - if that's possible for you, please contact me and I'll fill you in.