Space Pirate Radio

I ended up with quite a few tapes of the show and just threw them away in the past year.

 

No worries ... none of the music in them was missed, with the exception of a couple of cheap tapes from Radio Shack and such, but in general, they are excellent and are now MP3'd ... the only thing I have not done is finish the Excel Spreadsheet that listed the music played and the many of Guy's comedy highlights.

 

I have not shared these with anyone, mostly via Guy's request. For the most part the life of an artist sux, and for as much as Guy has done for so many in music, not enough of them have returned the favor ... and helped him. Not to mention the Radio Station blues and wars ... I know .. I helped pay rent to help Guy get going for the first several years and put up the money to produce his record album and a SPR T-shirt (the one with the nun) ... I finally left in 1978 when I was accepted into UCSB and could not afford rent and 40 hours per week of work and do my Theater work at nights.

 

It was the best of times ... no doubt about that!

 

All told I have over 400 hours of shows and they span 1974 to 1978 mostly with one show in '81 or '82 and then a show in '87 or '88 and then one more that I got from Paul B in '95.

 

When I first started recording these, I did them all in 120 Cassette tapes, and always turned the tape over during the ID"s (top of the hour) ... which on occasion was a source of fun and consternation for Guy, since that was one minute where he would always like to play with what he had if he was bored ... so you might here Bela Lugosi backwards! And Guy the translator behind it ... but all in all, I really wanted the music I did not have yet ... and Guy was playing in those days everything that both him and I had ... and could afford, mind you ... which means that there were priorities, like Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Amon Duul 2 (still the best ... ever the best ... I miss more Wolf City's and Apocalyptic Bore's! ... do I ever!!!) ... before one could splurge.

 

Since then, I have dutifully taken care of the tapes, as best as possible, always protected and covered.

I have not undertaken to spread the word that I had them ... well ... at Guy's request. He knows I have them, and I think he would like to gain something from it all, however ... there might be copyright issues ... and selling of these may not be the appropriate forum for it ... but sadly ... Guy also needs to live, and support his family ... I just never thought of sharing it openly. And I have respected the wishes, although somehow I accidentally shared a few shows with one of the friends here. 

 

I did see him at Progfest in 1999 .... where I was one of the official photographers for the event. I think a few emails since.

 

With all the commotion and lousy situation that music is in, I was trying to tell GONG (whom I toured with some and took pictures) what they had already started doing ... you gotta own your own and get on the Internet and maximize your visibility ... there is no such thing as record contract anymore or waiting to sign on the dotted line.

 

Guy needed to do the same thing ... and I think he wanted to ... but ... there are a lot of geeks out there ... not a single one that can put together 2 cd-roms (or 3 or 4) and a microphone, and then record these with a mp3 tool (you can get it free on the internet) ... and plug it ... and I am positive that Guy is capable of putting together the computer systems ( I have them now Guy ... come on over!!!) and then find a place to accept it, and not charge an exhorbitant fee ... I would even go so far as to see if we could get the musicians themselves to do promos for a trade off ... so Guy could do this ...

 

But it is not likely to happen ... I'll tell you why ...

 

The biggest secret to Guy's comedy ... and it showed in our own apartment more than once, was when you let him flip on his insanity and no one could see it ... and in that way he could rehearse it himself and then ... unload it on us, the unsuspecting audience. In this way he also would play off his memories and experiences that afflicted him ... be it a movie, a show, a person ... anything ... which added a large amount of freshness to his comedy material ... the good side of this is that you would fall off your chair laughing so hard ... the bad side was that there were times when the political jusdgment/commentary was ... pushing it a bit far ... and something that in the Bush era's would not be acceptable and only get him in trouble ... and I'm not sure that you can keep a Spike Milligan down, or Peter Sellers, or Chuck Jones, of Mel Blanc ... or a Guy Guden ... you can only contain them for so long.

 

But it was always a dichotomy ... no one but him ... can ever explain the connection between The Goons, and Klaus Schulze ... Edgar Froese maybe since he has a connection to that surrealistic thing ... which his music doesn't btw!!! -- not at least like FAUST (for example).

 

I do think of Guy, now that I am 58 ... as very DALI'esque ... in both comedy, acting and presentation ... he is not afraid to experiment (witness the weirdness and all the stuff he did on radio no one else did) ... and this ... of all things was what radio does not have, has never had ... and Sirius/XM will never have ... because the extent of their "talent" is not about "the art" or "the music" ... it's about Howard, or Martha ... like they needed to do the same thing over and over again for your benefit!

 

Progressive, Experimental stuff and thing (as Guy would say) ... is never going to get better and better and be more visible, until all the progarchives, progrocks and what not ... accept someone like Guy ... that can be a "personality" that is capable of putting them on the air and make them more visible.

 

But sadly ... like everything else ... the Internet is as much about information as it is about mis-information ... and I don't think that Guy is wanting to do it anymore ... I would move to where he is with all my computers and wash dishes if I had to ... if we had a chance to get things going on the Internet ... specially now that bandwidth is a lot less of an issue than it was 15 years ago. But I am not sure that he has the energy or the heart to do this anymore ... he took a massive beating physically and health wise ... because there were unsavory types around him many times ... and it was not a pleasant sight to see on occasion!

 

For all intents and purposes, when I saw him last in 1999 ... he looked good, and seemed well. But between you and I ... another KTYD ... which paid less than I made as a cook to help pay rent ...

 

There you have it ... my ancillary name was Chef Bruno (at least so I thought!) ... otherwise my name is Pedro ... I go by Moshkito or Moshkiae these days, both names based on Aldous Huxley, and one was a Bard character created in Everquest, where I did a lot of poetry and published several Bard poetry issues ... and Moshkito was the World of Warcraft equivalent. I don't play those that much anymore but the names mean something to me -- personally.

 

Yes, I hope that he can return ... but it will take a heck of a lot more than talk and hope ... and he certainly deserves more than for his work. 

 

Thx

 

In looking around, I found this forum, and whaddayaknow?

     - Mr. Mastous had posted something on it.

 

I signed up so that I could tell him:

 

I have many, many hours of recordings of SPR material.

Some are compilations; some are complete shows.

All are on VHS HiFi.

 

Arrangements can be made for copying any or all of what I have,

although I can't put other things on hold to do it.

 

To all others: Please don't swarm all over me about this.

I am specifically responding to one person's plea; I cannot afford

the time to answer requests from anyone else for this material.

If doing so ever becomes possible, I will say so. Thank you.

 

 I have to use the library's konfuzers to skid across the infernalnet,

so my response to anyone  may take several days. Please be patient.