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Nothing Is Real Radio Hour: Here’s Some Tom Smith Stuff (Audio)

Nov 29, 2022
Produced by Sam Sebren.

This broadcast features sounds from musician, producer, provocateur, performer, and sonic pioneer Tom Smith (1956-2022). Smith’s work spanned five decades and multiple bands that experimented in uncharted territories in the studio and on stage. Smith's main project, "To Live And Shave In L.A.," founded with musician and producer Frank ‘Rat Bastard’ Falestra, debuted with the 1994 '30-Minute Mannercreme' CD; their last album was "As Gods Are Skinned" in 2019. Aside from a central aesthetic, that genre is obsolete, Smith said, “Music should ideally be entropic. It should move in all dimensions and spatial configurations, and it should f*****g kick a** while doing so.” As long-time friends and musical comrades, Smith produced two records by host Sam Sebren’s 1990s New York City band Splotch and more recently he collaborated on Sebren’s early COVID-19 project "Feedback Virus" which premiered on the "Nothing Is Real Radio Hour" in 2021.

The Nothing Is Real Radio Hour includes sound and transmission arts works by Sebren, who is based in Athens, and occasionally works by other artists, both pre-recorded and performed live in the studio. In a multidisciplinary practice, much of Sebren's recent work has challenged notions of accepted reality in art, advertising, and public spaces. In mediums including sound, Sebren's work blurs actual, imagined, and technological realities as he critiques socio-political rules & regulations in our consumer "culture" and urges his audience to smile and re-think our priorities.