> The right-wing loons I can handle; it's the insipid music and background
> chatter that drives me mad. . .
The song snippets between stories on ATC can be quite good. Yesterday, I was pleased to hear the piano bits from a song by Sufjan Stevens sympathetic to John Wayne Gacy, the infamous mass murdering boy killer Clown.On an album entirely devoted to Illinois.
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/s/stevens_sufjan/illinois.shtml
>..."John Wayne Gacy, Jr." traces, with alarming accuracy, and over a
hazy swirl of acoustic guitar and piano, the pathology of Illinois'
most infamous serial killer: From 1972 until his arrest in 1978, Gacy
was responsible for the torture, rape, and murder of 33 boys and young
men, many of whom were discovered buried under the floorboards of his
Norwood Park home. Lyrically, Stevens nails the specifics (as a kid,
Gacy was slammed in the head by a swing, resulting in a
blackout-inducing blood clot in his brain; he routinely donned a clown
suit to entertain at a local hospital; victims were typically
immobilized with chloroform-soaked cloths), and shifts perspectives
gracefully; anchored in first-person, the song's narrator prods Gacy's
mother and father, his neighbors, his victims, himself. More than any
other track here, "Gacy" highlights Stevens' literary prowess,
perfectly packed with nuance and detail.
Oops just looked it up on npr.org , another song by Sufjan off the same album was used, time to insert a memory chip in Pugliese, "'Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois' http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?segId=5010737&segSongId=5010695&segNum=5&segSongNum=2
And Fugazi yesterday on All Thing Considered, too. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, a few days ago.
-- Michael Pugliese