In the light of a huge full moon, this piece was performed at the New Music America festival in Chicago at 11:00 PM, July 7, 1982 and broadcast on WFMT FM and NPR affiliates; an excerpt was also broadcast on CBS-TV. Two fleets of boats, large ones stationed at Navy Pier and the Night Squadron over the horizon, were conducted through radio by Chris Merrick and Ed Hermann of KOPN FM. The FCC in a rare waiver of its code permitted the live broadcast of ship to shore radio, which carried the communication between the DJs and ship captains. The toots and blinks increased in density as the Night Squadron joined the Pier Fleet in the harbor, culminating in an “excellent jam,” in the words of Hermann. Morrow’s original statement for New Music America 1982 is reproduced here:

Charlie Morrow
TOOT N’ BLINK CHICAGO
An event/composition for boats conducted by radio.

Recipe: Large boats, at anchor in a semi-circle near shore, toot their horns and blink their lights on command by a conductor. The conducting is entirely by voice over broadcast radio. Power boats zoom from a distance to the performance site. The power boats arrive in a rush to end the performance. The power boat travel and the crescendo of toot'n blink activity by the anchored craft are timed to coincide - approximately half an hour: The entire composition can be performed in reverse, as a decrescendo. A crescendo/decrescendo version and a decrescendo/crescendo version are also possible. In each case, the power boat arriving or leaving plays against systematic numerical toot'n blink patterns and segments of free signaling.

Last but perhaps first, I am a horn player and amateur radio operator since childhood and an admirer of boat spectacle. The correspondences with the Futurists make me acutely aware of coming from a place of childlike excitement with outdoor event making and not a place of ideology and mass manipulation.

In October of 2010 Toot N’ Blink was re-staged for New York Harbor and broadcast on WFMU, to close the three-day Little Charlie Festival celebrating the artist’s work. On this occasion the boats were conducted via cellphone by Joan La Barbara and Ed Herrmann.