I just found out, by way of the brand new issue of Phil Proctor’s always wonderful Planet Proctor e-zine, that all four members of the Firesign Theatre recently got together in the studio in Washington State to record some podcasts for Peter Bergman’s Radio Free Oz. I haven’t listened yet myself, but intend to partake immediately upon posting this and smoking an incredibly massive joint…

Surreal wordplay, witty banter and liberal kvetching with Proctor, Bergman, Philip Austin and David Ossman, together in one room again! Listen to “The Firesign Theatre’s new recordings “Talking Over Each Other” at Radio Free Oz and subscribe to Planet Proctor here (you’ll get it in your email as a PDF)

Firesign Live! Portland Center For The Arts, Winningstad Theatre in Portland, Oregon. Get tickets here for the shows on December 9 & 10!

The Firesign Theater in Debit! Debit! Debit! Said the Chinese Machine Gun

The Firesign Theater in Faster than the Speed of Light

And here’s today’s installment of Radio Free Oz:
We’ll Occupy The Streets, We’ll Occupy the Courts

 
If you couldn’t make it to Los Angeles this holiday weekend for the INSANE five-day long Everything Is Festival! taking place at Cinefamily, fret not because you can watch today’s festivities live beginning at 2:30 PST.
 

 
At 2:30, America’s funnyman Neil Hamburger will be doing his special tribute to Dora Hall, the septuagenarian grandmother who turned entertainer with TV specials and record albums paid for by her rich husband, who owned the Solo cup company. Not to be missed!
 

 
Then at 4:30, there will be a special Firesign Theatre mini-film festival with Peter Bergman and Phil Proctor of the Firesign Theatre, in attendance. Films include the only film visual record of one of their legendary radio shows, Martian Space Party and a new 5.1 surround version of Everything You Know is Wrong.
 

 
On Sunday as part of the grand experiment in entertainment excess that is the five-day long Everything Is Festival! held at Cinefamily here in Los Angeles, there will be a Firesign Theatre mini-film festival starting at 4:30p.m. (just after Neil Hamburger’s Dora Hall tribute, which starts at 2:30).

The event will feature two Firesign Theatre shorts that have not been shown theatrically in many, many years (probably not since the mid-70s, in fact) and that are not currently available on home video (yet), plus other previously unseen goodies and rarities.

First up will be the only cinematic documentation of their legendary free-form radio shows, Martian Space Party. The “Martian Space Party” show was the final program in the “Let’s Eat” radio series of 1972 and was staged for cameras and a small audience.

Everything You Know is Wrong, which is a lip-sync’d visual interpretation of their 1975 album of the same name, will be premiering in a new 5.1 surround sound presentation, prepared from a digital dupe of the film supervised by famed cinematographer Allen Daviau (E.T. Bugsy, The Color Purple).

Plus some other SUPER SECRET Firesign Theatre films and videos and a live Q&A with Peter Bergman and Phil Proctor of the Firesign Theatre, EYKIW director Allen Daviau and Firesign Theatre archivist Taylor Jessen, author of the new book and DVD-ROM Duke of Madness Motors. Yours truly will be asking the questions.

Below, the trailer, which is already in progress…
 

Peter Bergman and Firesign Theatre producer and archivist, Taylor Jessen, discuss the newly released box set of Firesign Theatre radio shows (1970-72), Duke of Madness Motors, featuring over 80 hours of MP3 audio on a DVD-ROM and a 108 page full-color book! Order your copy of Duke of Madness Motors today, because there are only 200 copies left and it’s unlikely to ever be reprinted.

 
Dear Friends,

You may or may not be aware that there is a brand new Firesign Theatre book and DVD-ROM with over 80 hours of audio material comprising ALL of their staggeringly genius radio shows from 1970 to 1972.

Well there is, and it’s called Duke of Madness Motors, the result of an over ten-year-long labor of love—indeed an odyssey of careful detective work—by their longtime archivist, and my pal, the grand and groovy Mister Taylor Jessen. The story is told of young Taylor locating a fan with a copy of one show he had not been able to track down otherwise. The problem was, the tape was in a shed that had fallen victim to a Malibu mudslide. For an entire day, Taylor tried to find the tape to no avail. So what did he do next? He returned the following week and and he DID locate the tape. That’s dedication! That’s school spirit!

It even has a blurb on the back from little old me: “This is comparable to being a James Joyce fanatic and finding not just one notebook where he’s working out the themes that would become fully developed in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, but an entire crate of ‘em. Some of the most mind-bending, thought-provoking and hilarious material of their career. A counter cultural treasure of the highest order.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself…

Here’s how Firesign Theatre put it on their website:

It’s been such a long exposition, you know. Countless hours spent poring through the personal archives of Firesign group members and devoted fans alike. Fragile, aging reel-to-reel tapes handled with great care and transferred to digital media for restoration. Information and images gathered, processed and refined. Interviews conducted, transcribed and edited. The whole enchilada cubed, reheated, inspected, injected, detected, filtered, digitized, edited and assembled to perfection.

Yes, thanks to the tireless efforts of official Firesign archivist Taylor Jessen, we are proud to present, for the first time anywhere, the complete, mammoth, authoritatively definitive and totally awesome Duke of Madness Motors: The Complete “Dear Friends” Radio Era 1970-1972 book and DVD-ROM combo pack.

The DVD-ROM disc contains high-resolution MP3 audio files of every Firesign radio broadcast from their three series’ of the early 1970’s:
The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour (24 episodes);
Dear Friends (21 episodes); and
Let’s Eat (12 episodes)

...ending with their big final blockbuster, Martian Space Party. A total of 58 shows in all, 80 hours of audio, on a single DVD-ROM disc. Each broadcast is completely restored and remastered for your protection. There’s also the syndicated versions of the Dear Friends and Let’s Eat episodes, and a handful of additional goodies and surprises from the vaults.

The full color 108-page 7"x10” book contains:

Complete rundowns of every broadcast;
A lengthy and thorough historical/hysterical essay on the troupe;
New intereviews with each Firesign group member;
Interviews with long-time Firesign associates, producer Bill McIntyre and engineer The Live Earl Jive;
Collages by Phil Proctor;
Vintage found objects, original scripts and more.

This is indeed the cultural landslide of a lifetime, more pure unadulterated Firesign than has ever been available in a single package. You’ll revel in the lightning-fast word play, bon mots, sparkling repartee, inside jokes, jokey insights, non-sequitors, surreal flights of fancy, bizarre sound effects, social studies, poetic justice, and downright jaw dropping serendipitous synchronicity that this landmark institution of comedy managed to pull off from out of left field in a mere two-year period. Don’t miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity to own and experience this cornucopia of creamy Firesign goodness.

Here is the thing: Duke of Madness Motors has been published in a STRICTLY limited edition and when it’s sold out, it’s GONE for good (or will command top dollar on eBay). Snooze and you shall lose, in other words. My guess is that within a matter of weeks the entire run of this set will be gone. Order your copy of Duke of Madness Motors today! (My own copy should arrive this afternoon. I can assure you that I’ll be watching for the postman like a hawk!)

Here is Firesign’s Phil Proctor holding his copy of Duke of Madness Motors.

Below, my interview with Phil Proctor last summer when some of these shows were airing on WFMU.
 

 
More Firesign Theatre on Dangerous Minds

 
Dear Friends, just a reminder that the legendary comedy troupe, Firesign Theatre will be performing at the Barnsdall Gallery Theater in Los Angeles this weekend, doing their classic album I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus (my personal favorite) in its entirety.

Get tickets for Friday here and for the Saturday night performance, here.
 

 
It’s a time of the year even better than Christmas in the Metzger household, as my comedic heros, the legendary Firesign Theatre will once again be playing a three-day residency in Los Angeles, Oct 21,22,23, at the Barnsdall Gallery Theater and performing my personal favorite album of theirs, I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus, in its entirety. YES!

Later this week, on October 8, the “4 or 5 crazy guys” will be performing at the Marin Center Showcase Theater, San Rafael, CA and Oct 9, at the Golden State Theatre in Monterey, CA. Don’t miss them if you are in the area(s)!!!

Get tickets at Firesign Theatre.com
 

 
Thank you Peter Bergman/Radio Free Oz.com

 
Dangerous Minds pal Taylor Jessen, the fabulously meticulous archivist for the Firesign Theatre is in the process of putting together the ULTIMATE collection of rare Firesign Theatre radio shows for a limited edition release via www.firesigntheatre.com. I’ve been raving about these programs (all recorded between 1968-72) on this blog for months and now you can hear them yourself, every Tuesday on WFMU radio at 7:00 pm in the New York area over the airwaves and streaming over the Internet on WFMU.org.

Below Taylor writes of what it was like trying to track down the audio cues used by the FST in an online essay on WFMU’s popular blog, with 30 mp3 files and a contest to win Firesign Theatre photographs signed by all four members:

For ten years or so, the Firesign Theatre has been engaging me in a friendly round of “Stump the Archivist.”

Between 1970-1972, Firesign did about seventy hours of original radio broadcasts. The shows were mostly an excuse for them to riff, but they also played a lot of music breaks, sound effects, incidental music, and total dada noise foofaraw. During those original broadcasts of The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, Dear Friends, and Let’s Eat, they put the needle on the record about 1000 times, and one of the most fun aspects of restoring all those airchecks (soon to be reissued, yes the whole schmear, in remastered digital audio with an accompanying 108-page comic-book-size color fan guide featuring complete show rundowns, an historical essay, new interviews with the 4or5 guys and their engineer & producer, never-published photos, collages, found objects, scripts, and good God make it stop, it’s just too awesome. Please check regularly here and at http://www.firesigntheatre.com for an official announcement; we’re only making 500 copies and they’ll never be sold in stores) – one of the most fun aspects, I say, of all this obsessive archival work was identifying those 1000 needle-drops.

To play along and try to identify these music cues—-some are easy: Beatles, Stones, Dylan, but others are pretty darn obscure—visit Firesign Theatre is Playing At My House (WFMU’s Beware of the Blog). You only have to be able to identify ONE of the musical mysteries to win!

Below, my recent interview with the Phil Proctor about the vintage Firesign Theatre radio shows being aired on WFMU:
 

 
Firesign Theatre on Dangerous Minds

Beginning June 15, vintage Firesign Theatre radio shows, dating from 1970-72 will be rebroadcast for the first time since their original air dates on WFMU radio. This is comparable to being a James Joyce fanatic and finding not just one notebook where he’s working out the themes that would become fully developed in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, but an entire crate of ‘em. Some of the most mind-bending, thought-provoking and hilarious material of their career and unheard for the past 40 years. A counter cultural treasure of the highest order. Firesign Theatre LIVE in Portland and Eugene, Oregon this weekend!

 
Dangerous Minds pal, Peter Bergman is back on the radio! The Firesign Theatre funnyman has resurrected the Radio Free Oz moniker of his legendary KPFK radio show of the mid-1960s and is trying something new for 2010.

Broadcasting from his new homebase in Whidbey Island, WA, Bergman’s new incarnation of Radio Free Oz continues on with his unique take on freeform radio and features cameo appearances from his comrades in the Firesign Theatre (I even make an appearance in one of them). Currently a weekly program going out live on Sunday nights, Radio Free Oz will soon be on five nights a week.

The highlight for me are the segments about weirdo evangelist Tony Alamo by Philip Proctor in each show. I laughed so hard I cried. Co-hosted by David Ossman.

And speaking of Radio Free Oz, Proctor and Bergman, I found this unusual—and really interesting—piece on YouTube today and it features Peter Bergman and Philip Proctor reading from William Burroughs. Peter reads “Death Dwarf in the Street” on the old Radio Free Oz show in the ‘60s and Phil reads “The Saragossa Cafe” in a more recent recording. An excerpt from Nova Express, a film by Andre Perkowski.
 

 
Get tickets at www.firesigntheatre.com. And you can listen to an NPR interview with David Ossman and Philip Austin here.

For the first time in a very long time, an interview with Philip Austin, Peter Bergman, David Ossman and Philip Proctor, the legendary Firesign Theater. (Jan 8 & 9, 2010 shows in Whidbey Island, Washington, see www.firesigntheatre.com for more information)
 

 
Word of mouth “buzz” should prove strong for reunited comedy icons The Firesign Theatre’s four evening run at the Barnsdall Gallery Theater after Wednesday’s well-received opening night. Performing some of their “greatest hits” including the complete librettos for fan favorites “Don’t Crush That Dwarf Hand Me the Pliers” and their debut record 1968’s “Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him,” the troupe were in fine form, winning two standing ovations from the wildly enthusiastic audience. The second act consisted of scenes from “Anythynge You Want To: Shakespeare’s Lost Comedie” which the group has been working on and retooling for several decades and an appearance by their most popular character, Nick Danger, “America’s Only Detective.”

More from The Calendar: The Firesign Theatre returns to its Los Angeles roots

Here’s an extraordinary performance of the Nick Danger adventure Frame Me Pretty from an 1981 episode of Evening at the Improv:
 

The Firesign Theatre’s “Forward Into the Past”
Where: Barnsdall Gallery Theatre, 4800 Hollywood Blvd., L.A.
When: 8 p.m. Oct 14 to 17
http://www.firesigntheatre.com

Cross posting this item from Brand X

 
I have a short article in the Calendar section of today’s Los Angeles Times. It was clear to me when I read what my editor there, Dean Kuipers, added to my original draft that he, too, was a big Firesign Theater fan:

The Library of Congress called the Firesign Theatre “the Beatles of Comedy” when its 1970 album “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers” was selected for the National Recording Registry.

An apt comparison, considering that, along with contemporaries Monty Python in Britain, the searing and psychedelic satirical troupe helped invent a literary brand of album comedy that lodged itself in the culture of college students across the country. The group paved the way for later arrivals such as Cheech & Chong, “Saturday Night Live” and Second City.

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of one of its most popular characters, detective Nick Danger, Third Eye, the four-man troupe makes a rare local appearance next week, performing Oct. 14 to 17 at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre with a new show, “Forward Into the Past.”

Read the entire article at the Los Angeles Times

Tickets on sale for the Firesign Theatre show in Los Angeles next week here