From UBUWEB

“Duo for Radio Stations” is a surrealist version of a half-hour live radio show. The form follows a typical format for local small-town commercial radio prior to the Reagan-era corporate takeovers of the 1980s, featuring a live talk show (with hosts Judy Dunaway and Chris Nelson), music, commercials, and finally making a segueway into the next faux-program, “The Gospel Show.” The piece was performed live on WFMU (New Jersey) and WKCR (New York City) in March of 1992.

The composition exists both as two separate pieces, one broadcast on WFMU and the other broadcast on WKCR, and as a single work which can be experienced by listening to both stations at the same time. The reception of the two stations at the listener’s location provides a unique experience for each listener. Additionally, the listeners were instructed beforehand to freely manipulate their radio dials during the piece, providing an audience-participation aspect to the work (Paula Gordon, who documented the piece from her apartment in lower Manhattan, manipulates her radio dials near the end of the recording).

The piece involved 14 live musicians ( including contributions from Tamio Shiraishi via telephone from Japan) and over 20 tape creations. The overall structure, radio jingles, commercial “soundtracks,” pre-recorded noises, improvisational instructions (both live and on tape), and the song “Everything Good”, were created by Judy Dunaway. The musicians involved with the project provided substantial improvisational contributions. The piece also features a wide variety of electronic transmissions. In addition to the actual broadcasts, there are recordings of various noises and types of static from radio and television signals (FM, AM, UHF, VHF and short-wave), a telephone beeper, and recorded phone-in contributions by Anna Homler.

Improvisational forms are always connected to a broadcast signal of some sort. Julie Nichols and Fred Lonberg-Holm listened to taped radio commercials trying to imitate them and/or accompany them spontaneously for their taped “commercial” contributions. Anna Homler used her memory of various television and radio commercials to create her nonsense-language versions of them. Charles Rogers was instructed to imitate pitches derived from various FM-classical music broadcast snippets (heard on the tape) in order to create improvisational music for Judy Dunaway’s poem “Taxi Driver.” Most live improvisations during the piece are created while one or more of the participating musicians are hearing the broadcast from the opposite station live through headphones.

List of performers

WFMU:
Chris Nelson - vocals, toys
Julie Nichols - vocals
Steve Waxman - electric bass
Evan Gallagher - electric keyboards and piano
Charles Lee - clarinet and alto sax
David Watson - electric guitar, ebow and vocals
Bob Lipman - electric guitar
Blaise Siwula - alto sax
Matt Ostrowski - engineer


WKCR:
Judy Dunaway - vocals, balloons
Steve Buchanan - electric guitar
Michelle Kinney - cello
George Cartwright - soprano sax
Mark Howell - electric guitar, ebow and vocals
Ronnie Butler and Tony Faulkner - engineers


Live via phone from Japan:
Tamio Shiraishi - vocals


Recorded contributions:
Anna Homler - vocals via phone from Los Angeles (“commercials”)
Ellen Christie - vocals (jingles)
Charles Rogers - vocals (jingles and “Taxi Driver”)
Fred Lonberg-Holm - cello and percussion (“commercials”)
Julie Nichols - vocals (“commercials”)