No field recordings this week, just a medley of different things. I attempted something vaporwave-y the first half but it just ended up sounding like what I usually put out, and it opens up towards the second half.
Brianna here! For this week I joined Cooper in the studio to make a special episode for my dad. He is thankfully okay, but he was in a serious car accident while headed back from a work trip earlier this week. Even though he called us right away to keep us updated, it was still a very scary experience for everyone who loves him (and certainly a scary experience for him, too!) I have a poem that I wrote for him and Cooper brought in some field recordings that would best fit my dad- and they're all taken at his house! You'll hear sprinklers, water fountains, and wind chimes.
We love you so much Dad!
-Bri and Cooper
My and Brianna kayaked out to hope island, which has a campsite only accessible by boat. We were hoping to get a spot but all the sites were taken, so we sat on the beach and felt bummed out for a while. During which I took a field recording!
I got a haircut! hear it happen in this episode!
ALSO: I’ve been doing Lullaby Utopia for a year now! Happy Birthday Lullaby Utopia last year I recorded lakefair, so this year I did that too. There’s a big spin-y ride you can hear going wruuuuummb wruuuuumb.
Semi-live this time (had to prerecord it because I’m playing shows in the Olympia Free Jazz Festival!).
The Fourth of July parade in Oakville featured a number of Brianna’s family members as well as a crowd which outnumbered the population of Oakville.
WARNING: FIREWORKS SOUNDS USED
For fourth of july my family went out to eat sushi, and my mom ordered the “mexican roll,” which along with the hotdogs I had for lunch seemed just about the most American meal ever. We went to the 3rd of july fireworks show, which you’ll hear right of the beginning of this episode, and I was able to catch 3, maybe 4 languages, which you’ll hear if you listen closely (there’s other stuff going on).
Also in this episode, samples from Lewis Jordan’s “When the Time Comes,” and Joe Mailhot’s live version of a tune he wrote in 2000 which he didn’t name the name of when he played on Free Jazz with Fred this last Monday. If he did say the name I missed it. He was talking about how he had Syd Potter to thank for starting his compositional career. You can hear that live show for about a week longer before the archive expires here: https://www.radiofreeamerica.com/show/free-jazz-with-fred-2-kaos-community-radio, and you can find out more about the Olympia Free Jazz Festival here: https://www.facebook.com/olympiafreejazzfestival/ You can see Lullaby Utopia live and learn how I do my process for the show Sunday July 14th at St. Martins.
This year I went to three whole graduation ceremonies, two that my sister isabelle was in (whose traveloges you can hear in past episodes), and one that I played in. One was for Capitol High here in Oly, one for South Puget Sound Community College here in Oly, and one for the Freedom Education Project of Puget Sound (https://fepps.org/). Of the three, my favorite was the SPSCC one which you can hear here on the show! Don’t worry I cut out all the boring speeches it’s just all the families cheering in all their own unique different ways. My mom says “way to go peanut.”
We also had some thunderstorms out here which is still a little bit unusual for Western Washington I think. It’s only the second field recording I’ve gotten since I’ve been out here, if I was in Wisconsin I’d probably have over a hundred by now.
The computer programming this time was a little more involved than usual, I feel like I keep pushing myself more and more. This is also the first show featuring a foot pedal I was able to hook up to my computer to control events without taking my hands away from the bass. Cool.
If you have any sounds that make you sleepy or happy or both you can send them to lullabyutopia@gmail.com and I’ll play them on the show. See you next week!
WARNING: THE LASER CUTTER IN THIS EPISODE SOUNDS LIKE A VENTILATOR
Dale (Brianna’s dad) told me about a laser cutter that makes a cool sound at his workplace, so I packed my gear to record it. In person it’s not very loud at all and it makes the room smell like someone is baking.
I suppose that kind of counts as a submission? If you have an idea for sounds I should record, or have a recording to send me please do! (lullabyutopia@gmail.com). I know I’ve had guest frogs and sprinklers on the show before, but I wanted to record the yard at night since the moon’s been out (and will be a full moon sunday night/monday morning), and that meant getting some frogs and sprinklers and an a/c unit too. A cat was slinking around, so successfully in fact that it did not show up in the field recording. It did spook me a little bit.
IF YOU HAVE FIELD RECORDINGS TAKEN ON ANY OLD RECORDING DEVICE (including phones) OF A GOOD PLACE, PLEASE SEND THEM TO lullabyutopia@gmail.com
Recordings in this episode are machinery from spring cleaning and a grange party. Yes, there are granges in Lullaby Utopia, it is there where you find the best marshmallow fluff you've had in your life and the wood creaks good too.
At this particular grange, a guy went up to the piano said "y'all want to sing some songs?" and before people could even say "heck yeah brother" he's playing tunes that somehow everybody but me knows the words to. I said "holy moly" and ran out to get my recording equipment, but I had some trouble getting to my car because an Australian (who made it onto one of the recordings in the episode) ran over a tree. By the time I managed to get back I had missed it but witnessing it first hand definitely left an impression on me. I did get a little bit of a guitar player though doing sort of the same thing.
See you next week!
It’s been too long since I last had Christopher William Wolter on the show so I thought I’d ask him to do me a favor. You might have already figured out Lullaby Utopia is a large scale simulation, but down here we also play video games too. Some of the NPCs (non-player characters) have started thinking for themselves! They’re going through a rather angsty phase but the scientists/game designers don’t care what they think as long as they think for themselves. When I asked the head scientist, Maralindorothy Burnosamastein what she thought about it she said “it’s a necessary part of growing up.”
Also the sprinklers are on! We have special night-time ones.
There were two things that happened this last week, my good friends Kylie and Chris got married! To each other! And I stole the sounds from the ceremony! Or rather Brianna did, because I was honored to be able to PLAY FOR THE CEREMONY! What are you kidding me? That’s boss! Thanks for trusting me with potentially ruining everything Kylie and Chris!
The other thing that happened was Brianna’s birthday, so the second half of the show is a super special surprise from me and her families to her. About three hundred of her siblings and parents all called into the radio station at once, and you’ll be able to here them.
I found a field recording that I thought I lost! The landing from Madison in it’s entirety, from before we touch down to when I get out of the airport, and then a long field recording from around where I live where there’s a abandoned railway.
I always fly with this special airline “Sunbeam” out of Seattle where the sides of the plane are all clear glass (probably some sort of plastic but it looks like glass) and they only schedule flights where you’ll see a sunrise or a sunset. I guess they recoup the costs of those things by not serving soda, but you can bring your own which I do. Over the course of the field recording, the sky goes from sunny to dark (I took pictures during which are in the attached image).
And the trail/rails where I was walking you can still find people who catch freight in and out of Olympia and if you stop to talk to them, they’ll cook you a can of beans over their campfire and tell you about jobs they’ve worked in Kansas City, and all the best (FREE!) things to discover across the US. I waved hello to a couple folks here and there, but I didn’t want a whole lot of talking in the recording so I just kept to myself mostly.
Some neighbors were celebrating Cinco de Mayo so I stole some of their music with my recording device! Don't tell anyone!
Also in this episode is procession of the species, a local parade here in Olympia WA. You won't find any marching in formation in this parade, it's all pretty freeform. Incidentally, I use stock photos for the images I post when I announce the show: when I searched for "parade" all the top results were Russian military parades.
Next week some more long-form field recordings I think.
This will be the last show featuring field recordings from Madison, there’s a couple things that I put on the backburner, mainly Procession of the Species (a parade in my hometown Olympia, WA celebrating Earth Day), so expect some of that next week.
I managed to get a small field recording in the car of rain while I was waiting for my buddy Jake to pick up groceries. I tried to do very many things with one small recording, which is a little different than what I usually do. There’s a brief field recording from my visit with my mentor Richard Davis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Davis_(bassist)), as well as some synth stuff too.
I had a wonderful time in Madison reconnecting with Musician friends and teaching at the Richard Davis Foundation for Young Bassists conference. And I played a live show at the Alchemy with Left Field Compatriots Alex and Jake where we tried integrating the “Phonelines Stress Me Out” patch from Lullaby Utopia into the show. Thank you especially to Isaac Suprenant, one of the first people to listen to this show, Aaron Gotchberg and Delane Doyle for your guys’ support, feedback and real talk. No recordings from the show unfortunately, but I did return with some recordings from the bass conference as promised.
The bass conference was another resounding success, thank you to Ben Ferris and Catherine Harris for all the hard work that you guys do to put it on.
Some more plane sounds in this episode. Flying is becoming a different experience the more I do it. The Seattle, Milwaukee, Madison, Chicago, etc. airports all remain remarkably the same, the planes are pretty much the same since I was growing up, the same sounds, procedures. And at the end of it you’ve gone across the country in very little time, which holds a good amount of significance/weight. It’s like a bigger, more expensive, more inconvenient stargate portal. Still really cool.
I had to prerecord the show (I usually do it live) because I just flew into Wisconsin today! In Wisconsin I will be teaching at the Richard Davis Conference for Young Bassists, and I will be reuniting for a show Saturday Night with my long lost bandmates Jacob Bicknase and Alex Charland from Left Field Quartet. So naturally I included a little bit of chopped up Jake playing from the show he did with me (https://www.cooperschlegel.com/lullaby-utopia/2019/2/16/seatac-airport) and a little bit from one or Alex's new projects the amazingly heartfelt All of Me to You (https://alexfranzen.bandcamp.com/) where he uses field recordings in an album! Cool idea! If you live around Madison, WI come and see us and say hi! (https://www.facebook.com/events/268667090747893/)
And I did use one last field recording from me and Brianna’s trip to North Bend of powerlines buzzing in the rain, but that’s the ACTUAL last field recording from that trip I promise.
Expect some exciting Bass Conference field recordings coming up soon…
This week is the 89.3 FM KAOS fund drive, and since I can’t pitch and play my bass at the same time I thought I’d do more of a themed show sort of deal. Lullaby Utopia has come a long way since I started, and being able to do the show live every week was a big part of that. I have to be accountable for everything in the moment, and I cannot obsess over every little detail like I would if the whole show was pre-produced. Also what other radio station would answer "can I do a live free jazz sleep aid show every week" with "go for it" ? So if you listen to the podcast regularly please consider donating to the radio station via https://3897.thankyou4caring.org/kaos-membership.
The second half of the show has a field recording of a tunnel in North Bend where me and Brianna went. This will be the last field recording from our trip, which was great and you can hear about in detail in last week's episode.
In February of 2018 me and my girlfriend Brianna decided to go on a trip instead of exchanging anything. We saved some money since then and finally took that trip this week. We drove up into the middle of Snoqualmie-Mt. Baker state forest, spent the night and started a hike right before dawn to Goldmeyer Hotsprings. I won’t say too much about it, because in this show I have a special guest! My girlfriend Brianna! She gives a little info at the beginning of each field recording, as I have more than I usually do. This way each section has a little background for it in the show. We actually had to cut ~3 field recordings in studio to stay on time.
Recently I listened to “Sorry Wrong Number,” a Suspense radio show episode from 1945. It’s an amazing short radio play from 1945 where there’s an entire universe encapsulated in one woman’s room and her phone. Terrifying! People just give her customer lip service when all she needs is someone to calm her down. “Hello Operator? Can you connect me to the police?” “Oh, you can call that number direct.” ?!?!?!? Lady call the police!
Anyway, when I first started working on pure data, one thing multiple beginning tutorials walk you through is how to recreate phone machinery, DTMF tones, dial tones, busy signals, etc, so I thought hey, why not try to capture that feeling of a small phone universe on my show?
The people which I’ve scrambled together on the other end of the line are my girlfriend Brianna, my mom Michele, friends/cohorts/musicians/teachers/gigmasters Chris William-Wolter, Alex Charland, Dave Cohen, Joe Mailhot, Steve Luceno, and Richard Davis, and robots who keep telling me the police are on their way to arrest me for tax invasions and/or to sell me insurance/a credit card account.
Towards the end of the show are weird ventilation machines around Evergreen, which is on it’s spring break right now and so therefore is the equivalent of a ghost town. Not one soul except the DJ before me, (K-punk, the DJ of the ultradope show The Sound).
Last episode I got some feedback that listening on bigger speakers yielded sort of boomy results so I tried to remedy that in this episode, and re-upload last weeks’ episode as well.
Did you know that the first slot machines were made by the “Liberty Bell” company, which is why they have bells? And that when San Francisco outlawed cash-payout slot machines in 1909, they were converted into gum dispensers, hence the fruit symbols for fruit flavors and the BAR for sticks of gum? Neither did I!
This show starts off with 3 different frog recordings from around the local area, thanks to Jacqueline, Brian and Kai for the recording from Chehalis, WA, thanks to my sister Isabelle for the recording from east Olympia. Frogs have just begun croaking within the last couple weeks for spring, so I thought they’d get a prominent place on the show. By comparing the Wikipedia list of frogs in the Pacific Northwest to online recordings to the field recordings taken, my best guess is that all the frogs in all the field recordings are pacific chorus frogs.
The crux of this episode was the slot machine music program I made which pays out based on matching pitches in the left, middle and right channels. I got the idea from an game app designed for blind people. On average it was supposed to “pay out” every ~3 minutes or so, but during the show on air it took 18! I was scrambling to try to figure out a way to force it to win without stopping it on air after the 11 minute mark rolled around, so it ended it up having a good 6 minutes or so of the just the computer program which I trimmed down in the podcast. Perhaps I invited the devil into my show by taking a field recording at a casino. The field recording of the casino only lasts as long as me and my girlfriend Brianna's 20$: around 15 minutes. Also, I must say that going to the casino on a Wednesday afternoon wasn’t my favorite thing due to the money loss and the gloomy atmosphere, but listening to the sounds is cool. Bonus points for finding quotations of “John Brown’s Body,” “Histoire du Soldat,” my own piece “West” and “My Foolish Heart.”