Decawatt Playhouse - SFPPN: Recent Episodes
Sf Productions Podcast Network
While a handful of college bands go on to fame and fortune, most of them fade away over time. It’s difficult to keep things rolling when people move away for their own careers and families. This was the fate of Syd Sustain. In 1989, Ray and John got together and put out an album of “synthesized rock” called the “Voltz/Trammell Sessions”. Some of the songs were updated versions of classic Syd, while others were brand new compositions. I’m including “Motorin”, “If You Want Me”, “Take a Look at Yourself”, and “Interstellar Love Song”. To the best of my knowledge, this was the final work for Syd Sustain. What I know for a fact is that this is the final episode of Decawatt Playhouse. I’ve run out of material, so unless I unearth something new, that wraps it up. Please take a moment to check out the other SFPPN podcasts—thanks for listening.
Any college band worth its salt had to be able to perform in front of a live audience, and Syd Sustain was no exception. Here’s a selection from the “Syd Died Today" concert at the college arts center, with a very receptive and active audience. The songs include “Scam Wham Bam”, “Too Much at Once”, and “What It’s Like for You”. Ray and John have quite the patter between songs. Apologies for the audio quality, but that comes with the territory of a live show. One more episode to go, and a familiar concept in college bands—solo (in this case duo) efforts.
Moving on with Syd Sustain, and a more esoteric album. GCC had it’s own poet laureate in the mid-80’s named T. R. Ashe. Rarely seen in public, Ashe published a series of compositions and became a type of muse for Syd Sustain. Many of Ashe’s writings had a “you had to be there” quality to them, especially his epic “Sligo”. The second movement of “Sligo” has a real 80’s video game vibe as well. I had the good fortune to create a Sligo music video, although it did NOT feature Syd members due to a time crunch before a concert. Clear your mind and receive the acquired taste of T.R. Ashe.
Moving on with Syd Sustain, and two more of their albums: “Paranoid About the Fuzzies on My Sweater”, and “Syd Drove West”. “Paranoid…" includes more catchy tunes in the electronica vein such as "Ground to Ground” (possibly influenced by Ray’s time with the National Guard) , “Cruisin’”, and "Syd Takes a Dive” (both referring to road trips). "Syd Drove West” is much more experimental, and is an indicator of Ray and John’s move to do multi-track work in a studio setting. Songs include "Radio Sine” and the aforementioned "Paranoid About the Fuzzies on My Sweater” (there is also a version on the same named album, but I prefer this one). More to come, as Syd gets a little silly.
We continue with the discography of the 80’s college band from GCC, Syd Sustain. The Dig Aquacade album includes a set of catchy 80’s pop/electronica such as “Everything Has It’s Place", “Photographs", and “Room-a-Zoom-Zoom", along with a beautiful piano ballad called “Suspended - China”. More Syd to come!
When you go to college, you’re gonna have college bands. Electronica was big in the 80's, and anyone with a DX-7 gave it a shot at some point. Four "townies" (locals who attended the school) had put together various music since high school, and continued at GCC as "Syd Sustain". Ray Voltz (keyboard), John Trammell (keyboard), Chaz Owens (bass), and P.D. Gregg (drums) put out several albums (mostly distributed via dubbed cassettes) and had various gigs in and around the college and the Pittsburgh area. My connection to this group? I did some audio-video stuff for one of their concerts at GCC and shot material for videos that never saw the light of day. They do have a Facebook page you can find here. Ray was generous enough to allow me to post some of their material in what will most likely be the final batch of episodes for this series. Let’s start off with their “Volume One” EP album and four songs: "See You", "Rocket Man", "One Love", and "Running for Cover".
WSAJ’s “Theatre of the Air” saved the best for last. WSAJ’s version of Orson Welles Larry Bowald couldn’t resist mounting the classic “War of the Worlds” with a western PA twist. This was an extra length production, with Larry leading the cast of Chris Fisher, Darla Vornberger, Cheryl Sheely, Mark Harrison, Bill Koch, Art Wilson, and Donna Kozik. We even get a promo for the program! Somehow, this cassette fared much better over the years, and the audio quality is not bad. We will get into the “college bands” portion of the series next time (you got a taste of it in this production—nice touch, Larry). Enjoy!
WSAJ’s “Theatre of the Air” continues, with the parable “Splash of Water".
Craig Munch stars, with Dave Miller, Cat Fithian, Lisa Harris, Bill Koch, Michelle Petrucci, Mark Harrison, and Jack Wenches rounding out the cast. Craig pulls double duty as director, and took advantage of library stock music throughout.
As usual, the audio quality isn’t great, but what can you expect from 30 year old cassettes?
Enjoy!
WSAJ’s “Theatre of the Air” continues, with the triller “Sorry, Wrong Number”.
Cat Fithian stars, with Paul McGill, Ron Carter, Betsy Diedrich, Cheryl Sheely, Dave Miller, Michelle Petrucci, Keith Parrish, and yours truly rounding out the cast. I was fortunate enough to act alongside Cat on several occasions, and she really belts it out of the park on this one.
As usual, the audio quality isn’t great, but it’s the best it’s going to be.
Enjoy!
WSAJ’s “Theatre of the Air” continues. It’s back to gothic horror in “The Signal Man”.
There’s no cast list in the recording, so I was surprised to hear my own voice as one of the co-stars. I have no recollection of this performance, essentially doing a Graham Chapman (Monty Python) impression. I also recognize Larry Bowald, P.D. Gregg, and Keith Parrish’s voices. I’m not sure of my co-star; perhaps Martin Christoffel? My apologies if I’m in error.
There was a LOT of cleanup for this one, mostly balancing the voice level—damn my baritone!
Enjoy!
WSAJ’s “Theatre of the Air” continues. We go back to the classics for “The Lady or the Tiger”.
Larry Bowald plays the king, with Lisa Hogle, Mark Harrison, Donna Day, Darla Vornberger, and Bill Koch rounding out the cast.
Whomever made the original recordings seems to be doing better as they went along—there was less cleanup on this one.
Enjoy!
WSAJ’s “Theatre of the Air” continues. This is a special episode, consisting of audio from one-man Samuel Beckett play “Krapp’s Last Tape”.
Keith Parrish, who we previously met on the Unnamed Comedy Show, as well as several CRT appearance, plays the sole character. He performed this at the school’s one act festival in 1985—this is an audio recording of his performance, but I’m including it in the CRT set anyway.
Enjoy!
WSAJ’s “Theatre of the Air” continues. Let’s listen to the classic “The Invisible Man”.
The title character is played by the Orson Welles of CRT, Larry Bowald. Lisa Harris, Brenda Kirsch, Cheryl Sheely, Keith Parrish, Wes Hessel, Bill Koch, Dean Widdenstrom, and Mark Harrison round out the cast.
As usual, the audio quality is not great and of very low volume —I did what I could to clean it up.
Enjoy!
WSAJ’s “Theatre of the Air” continues. Let’s listen to “The Hitchhiker”, which consists mostly of a monologue by Marc Stewart.
Karen Singley, Mark Wilson, Joel Rischl, P.D. Gregg, Jan Leuchtenberger, Lisa Quoresimo, and Sandra Kressley round out the cast. Pay particular attention to the sound effects, some of which are actual live “foley” work while others come from Ray Voltz’s synthesizer.
Again, the audio quality is not great—I did what I could to clean it up.
Enjoy!
WSAJ’s “Theatre of the Air” continues. Oh, Henry, you’re going to enjoy “Yellow Hat, Green Feather”. A gothic horror story with a shrew getting her comeuppance.
Lisa Quoresimo, Cathy Fithian, Craig Munch, Jan Leuchtenberger, Lisa Harris, and Bill Koch are cast in this melodrama.
Again, the audio quality is not great—I did what I could. I actually debated about using this material but said what the heck. No one’s listening to it anyway.
Enjoy!
WSAJ’s “Theatre of the Air” continues. We’ve got another potboiler with “After Midnight".
Cheryl Sheely, Michelle Petrucci, Wendy Annett, Sandra Kressley, Janet White, Mike Johnston, and Craig Munch are cast in this Southern drawing room mystery.
I believe the original cassette recording was running at the wrong speed, resulting in a SLOOWW episode. I’ve cleaned it up digitally as best I can, but—I’M A PODCASTER, NOT AN AUDIO ENGINEER, JIM!
Enjoy!
WSAJ’s “Theatre of the Air” continues. Come aboard for “Captain Paul”, a nautical yarn that gives you an idea of how the show became known as “Gothic Horror Theater”.
Andy Schrum, Lisa Harris, Jan Leuchtenberger, Craig Munch, and Bill Koch are cast in this spooky story.
Again, these are 30-year old cassette recordings, mostly from a microphone parked in front of a speaker. I’ve done what I can to clean them up.
Enjoy!
Decawatt Playhouse 19
WSAJ’s “Theatre of the Air” continues. This time, we segue to comedy with “The Bob and Ray Show”. Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding had a long radio and TV career doing odd skits and wordplay, mostly satirizing media tropes. I’m a huge fan of their work. Elliott started a comedy dynasty, with son Chris (David Letterman) and granddaughter Abby (SNL).
WSAJ stalwarts Bill Koch and Keith Parrish stepped into the roles of Bob and Ray, with Deanna Czarnecky, Dave Miller, Mark Harrison, P. D. Gregg, Mike Pfeiffer, Andy Schrum, and yours truly rounding out the cast.
The audio isn’t great—I bumped it up as far as I could. Just the result of taping off a radio speaker, I guess.
Enjoy!
Decawatt Playhouse 018
We continue through the run of WSAJ’s “Theatre of the Air”. Larry Bowald is behind the mike this time, along with my old co-host Kenn Fetterman. This episode is more in “The Twilight Zone” than the last one. It also has a “message coming in, sir” vibe.
If you’re not a fan of enclosed spaces and social monologues, you may want to move on.
Enjoy!
Decawatt Playhouse 017
You’ve already heard from Larry Bowald in this series. While he did various shows for WSAJ (some of which I’m skipping as they mostly involve copyrighted music), he may have been best known as the creator of “Classic Radio Theatre”. He produced a series of radio plays, which we will be covering over the next several episodes. He tended to veer into tales of mystery over time, to the point it was referred to as “Classic Gothic Horror Theatre” by the listeners.
Mark Twain's classic “Tom Sawyer” is our first entry. Notable among the cast is Bill Koch, half of the comedy team of Parrish and Koch.
Enjoy!
Decawatt Playhouse 016
OK—so I’ve put the Keith and Bill shows out of order, but in my defense, I don’t think there’s a strict continuity going on here.
Larry attempts to keep the show on the rails, and Andy Schrum aka Andrew Danger stops by to cover the pineapple conspiracy. Andy was another member of the Karl Herman repertory company. Bologna rinds, fog, Jesus Jones, underwater bowling, and Wham breaking up are the topics at hand.
Enjoy!
Decawatt Playhouse 015
If you’ve gotten this far, I don’t think there’s much more I can say about this radio show from the 1980’s. Keith and Bill continue their hijinks, including a discordant multiple alma mater performance. Larry is still in the peanut gallery, and Lisa Quoresimo is now in the mix. Lisa, or “Q”, also participated in the Karl Herman saga.
Enjoy!
Decawatt Playhouse 014
After a LOOONG hiatus (last posted in 2011), I’m returning to this podcast. I ran out of material featuring me, and reached out to some old my old college friends for their tapes. Converting them to MP3s happened a while ago, but I’m just getting to packaging them up now.
As a reminder—these are segments from radio shows produced (a loose term) at WSAJ, Grove City College, Grove City, PA back in the mid-80’s. You can check out the previous episodes for “Karl Herman in the Shower” and “Go to Bed with Mark and Kenn” (there’s a teaser if I ever heard one).
We’re restarting things with Keith Parrish and Bill Koch—GCC’s own comedy team, known for their hilarious “Majorca” routine (ask them about it if you have an hour to kill). The “Unnamed Comedy Show” you are about to hear has plenty of non-sequitours, inside jokes, and dead air. Larry Bowald (we will get to him later) is the special guest star. Perhaps they shouldn’t have broadcast their planning meeting?
Enjoy!
Decawatt Playhouse 013
A few more thoughts on "Go to Bed with Mark and Kenn"...
Kenn normally manned the main studio and played the records, while I sat in another studio next door with a window between us--it wasn't a personal issue, but a logistical one. The studio was so small that you couldn't shoehorn two people into it.
I would read Billboard and the local paper to come up with things to discuss. since we were making it up as we went along. Some friends would hang out as well.
Two bits I wish I had on tape--
We ordered a pizza on the air, and when we said to deliver it to the WSAJ studio, the person on the phone asked us to spell it. "W...S...A...J".
We altered a promo spot from one of the sororities. The promo had the girls saying "Hey Hey Hey, we listen to WSAJ", so we changed it to "Hey Hey Hey, we (Go to Bed with Mark and Kenn)"--both of us saying it in a loud voice. We figured no one was listening, but someone at the sorority was, so we had to retract it on the air.
After I graduated, I did have one more appearance on WSAJ. The next semester, I hung out at the school for a few days while I was waiting for a job offer to be finalized. Kenn was doing a play, and realized at the last minute that he would be late for his show that week. The station had really cracked down by then, so he would lose his show. So, I unofficially substituted for Kenn for about half an hour, talking as little as possible and saying I had a cold. Kenn showed up, and I then dropped by as a special guest. I assume the statute of limitations has run out on that.
Well, that's all the recordings I have so far. The podcast will go on hiatus until I can get more recordings (hint hint Ray, Keith, Larry, Bill....)
I was able to scrape together a few minutes of relative coherence from the final episode of "Go to Bed with Mark and Kenn"--Enjoy!
Click here to listen...
It's now a year later at WSAJ. After our success as a news team, Kenn and I went onto two more shows in our senior year.
"Saturday Afternoon with Mark and Kenn" aired during the football season, so we ended up monitoring the board most of the time, and then get 30-45 minutes if we were lucky to do wacky stuff on the radio. Our high point was hosting the post-holiday parade show, where Tony Bennett (via an armed forces recording) performed live at the Pick and Save.
In the second semester, we grabbed an 11p-1a time slot, just before the station shut down for the night. We came up with the idea that we were lulling students to sleep with the lilting tones of "Go to Bed with Mark and Kenn". Could we help it if prurient minds came up with a different take on the name?
Here is a clip from the final episode, on the one year anniversary of Karl Herman's assassination.
If I can find anything interesting in the rest of the recording, I'll post it in our next episode. Otherwise, I'm out of material unless someone else from that time has tapes (hint, hint).
Onto "We Remember Karl"...
Click here to listen..
The finale of Karl Herman in the Shower is quite the spectacular--an extra long tribute show, a newsbreak, and a news program, played in 3 sections over the course of 30 minutes during Chaz's show. I don't want to say too much and spoil the multiple surprises, but let's say this is a turning point, involves a virtual line, and the Gold Standard.
I'm guessing that "Karl Herman Bloopers and Practical Jokes" was more my idea than Ray's. The fact that I did basically the same bit in SF Productions "Outstanding in Our Field" tends to back up that theory.
A bit of a break from the wackiness as Dr. Reitz, Grove City College math professor, stops by the shower for a visit. The fact that Dr. Reitz left the school soon after should not be tied to his decision to get involved with the show.
Karl finds himself in a race for "Spring King" at Grove City College in this episode. Of course, his election headquarters is next to the shower. We dragged a typewriter and a recording of a teletype and a telephone into the bathroom.
With episode 6, things got more interesting. Why? Well, because this is when I got involved in the show.
Mister Roger's Neighborhood is a fond memory to people from my time, and the fact that it originated out of nearby Pittsburgh, must have made Ray think a parody was a good idea.
No, it's not a mistake in editing--there were two versions of Karl Herman in the Shower Episode 4. Both include the disclaimer regarding the mention of alcoholic beverages in episode 3--Grove City was a dry town and college--so Ray was supposedly told to explain that upfront. Interesting that no one complained about the "shower girls".
Karl's antics continue this week, in the "Shower Party" episode. This also begins a period of controversy for the show, resulting in disclaimers later in the series.
Now that you've had a chance to hear the glory that is Karl Herman in the Shower, some additional details on how it became a radio show.
Back in the 80's, I attended Grove City College, a small liberal arts school in western Pennsylvania, partly due to a wide range of communication options. One of these was the college radio station, WSAJ (it's still in operation, but a bit more buttoned-down than in my day).