Some Assembly Required is a sound collage radio program in the United States, produced in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the first radio show known to focus exclusively on works of sample based music, and appropriation in audio art. The nationally syndicated program features work by artists from a variety of genres, including plunderphonics, hip hop turntablism, musique concrète, noise, bastard pop, sound art and more. The program celebrated its tenth anniversary on January 27, 2009. [1] The final episode originally aired in 2011.
Since 2021, new episodes are being produced, monthly, via the website and for radio stations, such as KBOO, in Portland, OR. Additional monthly episodes are also produced for The Wiggle Room, on The Sheena's Jungle Room stream, at wfmu.org.
Some Assembly Required has featured interviews with a number of influential sound collage artists including The Bran Flakes, Emergency Broadcast Network, The Evolution Control Committee, Omer Fast, DJ Food, The Freelance Hellraiser, Girl Talk, Go Home Productions, Christian Marclay, Negativland, John Oswald, People Like Us, DJ Qbert, DJ Spooky, Steinski, The Tape-beatles, Wayne Butane and many more. [2]
The program began as a streaming online radio show in 1999, at the University of Minnesota's college radio station (KUOM), [3] [4] [5] and quickly became a feature on the station's broadcast schedule. The radio program has aired on dozens of college, community and public radio stations across the United States and Canada [6] and is heard online via its podcast. Some Assembly Required is hosted by Jon Nelson [7] [8] and produced at Post Consumer Productions.
Coldcut are an English electronic music duo composed of Matt Black and Jonathan More. Credited as pioneers for pop sampling in the 1980s, Coldcut are also considered the first stars of UK electronic dance music due to their innovative style, which featured cut-up samples of hip-hop, soul, funk, spoken word and various other types of music, as well as video and multimedia. According to Spin, "in '87 Coldcut pioneered the British fad for 'DJ records'".
The Golden Age of Radio, also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the early 1920s and lasted through the 1950s, when television gradually superseded radio as the medium of choice for scripted programming, variety and dramatic shows.
The Evolution Control Committee is an experimental music band based in Columbus, Ohio. The ECC was founded by Mark Gunderson in Columbus in 1986. They create music that falls within the borders of the sound collage genre, typically using uncleared and illegal samples from various sources as a form of protest against copyright law. The ECC also produces numerous audio experiments that goes outside regular composition methods, including the disfiguring of compact discs in a live performance known as "CDestruction". They have produced a few video works as well, ranging from re-edited 50's corporate shorts to Teddy Ruxpin reciting the works of William S. Burroughs. Other activities include culture jamming.
Broadcast syndication is the practice of content owners leasing the right to broadcast television shows and radio programs to multiple television stations and radio stations, without going through a broadcast network. It is common in the United States where broadcast programming is scheduled by television networks with local independent affiliates. Syndication is less widespread in the rest of the world, as most countries have centralized networks or television stations without local affiliates. Shows can be syndicated internationally, although this is less common.
In music, montage or sound collage is a technique where newly branded sound objects or compositions, including songs, are created from collage, also known as montage. This is often done through the use of sampling, while some playable sound collages were produced by gluing together sectors of different vinyl records. In any case, it may be achieved through the use of previous sound recordings or musical scores. Like its visual cousin, the collage work may have a completely different effect than that of the component parts, even if the original parts are completely recognizable or from only one source.
Highway Patrol is a 156-episode action crime drama series produced for syndication from 1955 to 1959. It was "one of the most popular syndicated series in television history", and it was the first American series broadcast in West Germany on that country's commercial TV channel.
Over the Edge is a sound collage radio program hosted and produced in the United States by Jon Leidecker ("Wobbly") and Robert Cole ("KrOB"), who took over in 2015 after the death of longtime host Don Joyce.
Go Home Productions is the alter ego of Mark Vidler, a producer/remixer/DJ based in Northampton, England. GHP has produced well over 200 mash-ups since May 2002, many of which have been played on both national and independent radio stations around the world. He was born on May 4, 1967, in Barnet, Middlesex, England.
A mashup is a creative work, usually a song, created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs, typically by superimposing the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the instrumental track of another and changing the tempo and key where necessary. Such works are considered "transformative" of original content and in the United States they may find protection from copyright claims under the "fair use" doctrine of copyright law.
Premiere Networks, Inc. is an American media company, a subsidiary of iHeartMedia, for which it currently serves as its main original radio content distribution and production arm. It is the largest syndication company in the United States. Founded independently in 1987, it is headed by Julie Talbott, who serves as president.
KFAI is a community radio station in Minnesota, United States, the station serves the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. The station broadcasts a wide variety of music, and also airs programming catering to many of the diverse ethnic groups of the region. KFAI has frequently been honored by local media critics for its shows and musical diversity.
Broadcast journalism is the field of news and journals which are broadcast by electronic methods instead of the older methods, such as printed newspapers and posters. It works on radio, television and the World Wide Web. Such media disperse pictures, visual text and sounds.
Jason Forrest is an American electronic music producer known for noisy experimental electronica and breakcore incorporating many ideas of mash-up and rock and roll. Largely produced and performed on a single computer, his songs tend to be constructed from digital samples of found sounds and other artists' music. Until 2004 he recorded under the name Donna Summer, an allusion to disco singer Donna Summer.
The Tape-beatles are a multi-media group that formed in Iowa City in December 1986. Its members have included Lloyd Dunn, John Heck, Ralph Johnson, Paul Neff, and Linda Morgan Brown. Beginning with analog tape recorders, and later expanding to include digital technology and film media, the group has used collage techniques to create works that challenge the notion of intellectual property. Their works make extensive use of materials appropriated from various sources through a process they call "Plagiarism®". The Tape-beatles' body of work consists mainly of noise music and audio art recordings, expanded and performed cinema performances, videos, printed publications, as well as works in other media. They produce and release work under an umbrella organization called Public Works Productions.
Escape Mechanism is the title of a sound collage project instigated by Minneapolis based artist Jonathan Nelson. Using fragments of audio from a variety of previously recorded sound sources, the project is an experiment in recycled media.
Donald S. Joyce was an American musician who was a member of the experimental music group Negativland. He also hosted a weekly radio program called Over the Edge on the Berkeley, California, radio station KPFA, for more than 30 years.
The History of Rock & Roll is an American radio documentary on rock and roll music, first syndicated in 1969. Originally one of the lengthiest documentaries of any medium, The History of Rock & Roll is a definitive history of the Rock and Roll genre, stretching from the early 1950s to the present day. The "rockumentary," as producers Bill Drake and Gene Chenault called it, features hundreds of interviews and comments from numerous rock artists and people involved with rock and roll.
Plunderphonics is a music genre in which tracks are constructed by sampling recognizable musical works. The term was coined by composer John Oswald in 1985 in his essay "Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative", and eventually explicitly defined in the liner notes of his Grayfolded album. Plunderphonics is a form of sound collage. Oswald has described it as a referential and self-conscious practice which interrogates notions of originality and identity.
Jon Nelson is a sound collage artist and a radio show host for Some Assembly Required. He "mashes music and found sound — from old movies, laugh tracks, the news — to make what he calls the audio dreamscape of the media age." Jon Nelson has been championing the genre of mashup music for more than 10 years; Some Assembly Required is now syndicated throughout the United States and Canada. 262 episodes were produced from 1999 to 2011.
The Skewer is a topical radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and as a podcast on BBC Sounds. Created and produced by Jon Holmes, the 15 or 30 minute episodes are a sound collage which combine topical soundbites with excerpts from popular culture, historical quotations and songs, often in unsettling or surreal ways.