Buffalo Rising Online

Mar 31st 2008, 3:53pm By buffalorising

The following was written by David Benders Program Director WBFO 88.7 FM HD-1/WBFO XPoNential:

On Segues

Segue is a funny word. As I think about the various elements of the WBFO XPo Music that Matters work I find myself longing more and more for a earlier time in FM radio. Forget about the free-form blah blah blah, we all understand playlists tightened as FM audience grew. This is not nostalgia; I think I’m talking art.

I see one of my radio colleagues says many music shows on public radio these days leave the listener hungry for the music. I agree but I don’t find that gap caused by an imbalance of music versus commentary in a piece of music journalism or a documentary; or a lack of quality in the music selected for the playlist. I think I’m longing for the lost art of the segue (pronounced se-gway); that skill to make a smooth, almost imperceptible transition from one state, situation, or subject to another. It follows. We might say music that feels spliced together, mixing, smoothly transitioning from Doors to Stones is a cool segue. A famous NYC jock supposedly had the Singing Nun between the two voices of evil in some sort of Satan/sacred/Satan, profane juxtaposition but I’ve never heard the aircheck so I don’t know how to connect the dots. Sgt. Pepper's made use of the segue between songs without jarring. It was a concept.

Part of the old-time practice of hosting a music program was all involved in music selection, rotation, preparation that went into building the playlist. Yes preparation of the show was done from a perspective of personal choice; an individual level with lots of added consultation, debate, argument, rules and insubordination. A station’s music programming guidelines and suggestions to just play the good ones, let alone developing a station consistent sound, were subordinate to thinking mood.

At the beginning of my time at WBFO doing a music show was not just a stack of records played in random order. A music host would have an idea for a program, sometimes it may be a simple theme or dumb: some Clancy Brothers on St. Patrick’s Day; a Van Morrison hit “Brown Eyed Girl” followed by something lesser-known from an album and then one from the band Them ("Gloria," "Mystic Eyes"). A favorite theme at WBFO would be to play a Dylan song and then the original folk ballad from which it was derived. A theme might be as silly and straightforward as “This is Wednesday” or the cliché of playing songs about rain & water. OK that’s not too deep – but still that little playlist had some thought behind it; it had integrity, maybe a principle or some standard for inclusion. In any case it was not “Let’s hear this one next” nor was it selected by a computer program. I might work off-the-cuff to play ragtime, raga, reggae, and “Rawhide” just to see what it would sound like. You never know.

A programmer/host/DJ can do a show and go in a direction, take a listener along. In times gone by, the programmer had auditioned each record and written out a playlist. Some variations, emotional responses and inspirations would take place (and maybe some mistakes!) but the intention was to head in a meaningful direction – one was making a show as in crafting the program with a theme. One reason you wrote out a playlist is because you had an engineer…an operator who was going to cue up the records for you and push the start button; they followed along on a list with the right side and cut listed.

Yes your whole evening could be ruined if the wrong song would play from side 1 instead of 2 or turntable 2 went on air when you introduced the band on table 1…and you had to decide was it better to let it go or scratch that selection and quickly get to the right number! I mean after all the mood was destroyed with the wrong sound. The playlist had passion in it. These days I get an empty feeling like music is so everywhere that it leaves me nowhere.

I kind of guess that the pop-rock, folk and blues, and jazz DJs of a station like noncommercial educational WBFO may have been inspired to do this type of programming by the presence of the early evening classical hosts. The classical hosts were all so serious, earnestly reading the record jacket liner notes about a piece of music or performer or period of music. Classical hosts were presenting musical pieces and they had purpose and content on their side. There wasn’t a lot of commentary on the back of the contemporary rock pop album. Classical hosts had prepared the music shows a month in advance so the major selections could be listed in the program guide. A person presenting popular or vernacular music would be somewhat envious of this composed music presentation that required thought, attention and offered opinion. Classical music wasn’t light entertainment it was culture. Popular was considered superficial, though we now understand all that was about to change. What did a contemporary music host have to say in the program guide a month in advance? “Join me for an eclectic mix of jazz and blues as we wile away the late night hours!” Goodness wasn’t this insincere bologna just what we were countering in a counter-culture? This was the sixties when the youth-pop culture was emerging and rock and roll was moving toward a new aesthetic, rock becoming more important; a youth culture signaling a more substantial and critical attitude toward American values. For the right feelings about that emerging music culture see Paul Williams, Crawdaddy! The Book: Writings from the Magazine of Rock.

Thought, originality, a new emphasis on lyrics, the concept album, professional recordings and PA sound, stage presence and career was all coming to contemporary popular music. That thought, originality, taking oneself seriously, would come to FM free-form radio. At that time it was a given that the programmer had the freedom to play long music sets without reminding you how many in a row were coming. FM contemporary music radio could build a suite one music piece next to another: the segue - continue to the next section without a pause. No not every segue was intelligent but it could be beautiful. The show had a goal. We tried to bring something more to music than the sounds of the music; a social-cultural context came out of the speakers. Yes, for some listeners and jocks the connection may have been artificially induced as an apparition seen in a cloud of smoke, but face it, from that time on the culture has never been the same. Rock (and communication media) grew up. Meaning in the music was built cut by cut, idea by idea. The mix through a good segue ran a spine down the playlist going in a programmatic direction. It had the intention this wasn’t background music.

Now please don’t get me wrong, you can’t lead or teach or compel someone to like a musician or a piece of music or eclecticism. If you add something in a mix that’s too bizarre or amorphous you don’t get surprise or delight; you force the listener to tune away. This ease to tune away with a lack of attention may be part of the heart of our modern day problem; though really which came first the chicken or the egg, the crappy radio format and then the push button radio? I’m thinking I might support legislation to ban all pre-set buttons, scan and shuffle features on audio devices. Let the musical idea(s) play through. This may be a core concept if more contemporary eclectic music needs to get more exposure. Eclecticism needs to be supported by a listening community letting it play. Let your ears agree to reciprocity in the sense of sharing without expecting anything in (immediate) return or for no apparent good reason; agreeing to variety even if each minute isn’t your thing. Think sonic sustainability. If we just need to get to the Internet to get that fav (music) (media) (blog) stuff that fits what we already like and believe – then we can’t reverse the radio/media trend to middle-to-low-brow bland.

Oh the educated listener! On public radio there are many examples of pedantic radio presentations that have not necessarily furthered music appreciation or breadth: more people learn more about the wonders of the vast music genres in Prairie Home Companion than in Adventures in Good Music. Frankly I don’t always get what Marian McPartland is driving at but she sure has one heck of a musical dialogue with her guest. The NY Times described McPartland’s character as lightness yet her radio show as edifying. It does not mean a good program, an eclectic music mix with solid segues, can’t educate or set up sign posts for the curious life-long learner to listen to more sound with big ears; but it may be the hardest thing to do. McLuhan thought Jean Shepherd was using radio as a new medium for a new kind of novel that that was written nightly. So the standard is high.

The segue, transition, mix may have been the high water mark of the underground FM alternative free-form DJ from the late sixties into the early seventies as different music genres could be blended together in a late night program. At WBFO after midnight was called Extension.

A good segue would add meaning to the music 'set' - it would build an idea just as a writer would build on a compositional theme one word, one sentence, paragraph-to-paragraph at a time to make a clear point. The FM free form disc jockey was carefully selecting each record to create a flow that built on emotions or themes…or followed some pattern – or to compare and contrast. Yes you practiced all this literary stuff in your English reading and writing classes at UB. Damn if it didn’t rub off on your radio show.

OK out of the past, we spin to 2008 where I find this art of the segue seems to be totally lost in today’s entertainment media, radio or any other ICT. Sure the Pandora music genome project is going to program only music you like! But how is that going to expand your consciousness or raise awareness let alone end the war, feed the homeless, save the environment or jump start the newBuffalo?

So as we continue to mull over the WBFO XPoNential Music that Matters project I think we should give harder consideration to the art of radio and how it can engage the listener. The music service on WBFO HD2 XPoNential has all the freedom and excitement of the earliest days of FM, but it has to live in a community with those curious, maybe naïve, trusting ears. Maybe there are great music sets and meaningful segues out there and I’m not getting it just yet – but I think there is a wonderful, fun potential to have this music travel in places, communicating sonically, nonverbally, more than what you can download in your iPod set to shuffle.

I’m interested in making these segues, these connections, on the radio because radio is public community space, more like our parks and open waters. We can share our ideas more openly on radio. (Uh, consider the original name, to broadcast the message, casting seeds.) Your iPod and ear buds is private listening. Think about how do you share that experience?

I have always thought of radio as going everywhere, touching everybody. It was ephemeral, in the air, magic (until now, yes, right, when it can be frozen in a sound file for a web site).

I still am fascinated with this theme of just the sound, this aural stuff; it is so environmental; I call radio part of the aural architecture of the community, the ecology of sound. Yes environmentalists may be concerned with noise pollution, but we should be just as aware and concerned with the preservation, propagation and development of our communal aural architecture.

Can you help? If you have a favorite segue set pass it along. In order to make our little hothouse music project grow we’re going to need a whole community of music lovers to come together believing in the glue that will make a sustainable adventurous radio service once again.

BTW for pure sound inspiration I keep going back to books by David Toop (Ocean of Sound, Haunted Weather) and Sonata for Jukebox by Geoffrey O'Brien. If you want to read some playlists try Love Is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield and The Rough Guide Book of Playlists by Mark Ellingham.

Music heads - keep those cards and letters coming, and pass along a great segue.