2025-02-17 (broadcast date)
My friend BrotherSoul has a terrific creative challenge for his radio show. He invites someone to put together a virtual "crate" of songs, and then he mixes them live on the air. He calls this magic trick a "PickNMix", and I was excited to be asked to put together a crate for him.
The tracks I chose were drawn from experiences in my performing life. Each one is an auditory time capsule for me, and I've made some "listening notes" here to provide context.
A few of the songs didn't make the final mix, but I've included notes on everything in the crate.
One of my clown partners performed a fantastic dance routine to this song. The development and rehearsal process burned it deeply into my auditory memory.
video: https://circusfreaks.org/video-2/#blue-light-red-light
Mi eklernis Esperanton dum la pandemio.
During my days with Creative Motion, I owed any resemblance to a trend-aware person to the wonderfully monikered "DJ T.J. Whiskernibbles". TJ ran audio for almost every community project we worked on at the time, and introduced me to so much amazing music.
As for this track, I first heard it at a juggling meet up. I vividly remember crossing the park on a pair of jumping stilts to ask him the name of the "hippopotamus" song.
Back in my metalsmithing days, one of the shop apprentices also worked nights at a nearby hookah bar. As a result, our studio soundtrack featured a lot of Middle Eastern music, I love that this high-energy dance track is actually a folk song, taught to the artist by a granparent.
I've read stories about how this song's lyrics were inspired by flipping through a phonebook. When I first discovered it, the opening description made me wistful for far away friends.
This song stands as a reminder that an idea can be so completely absurd that it somehow gets elevated to greatness. Were I to tell you that you would enjoy listening to Captain Kirk sing Pulp's quintessential punk anthem, you'd think me mad. However, I did not initially mention that Shatner would have both Joe Jackson and the entire Vienna Boys Choir as backup.
Mein Deutschlehrer stellte mir so viel Popmusik vor.
Das verbesserte meine Musiksammlung mehr als meine Sprachkenntnisse.
One of the first "extra" videos filmed at the Open Stage was a recording of him playing this in the lobby. Eric later teamed up with the show's co-producer, Kelly Nygren, to perform a terrific show called "Live at the Kessler"
I was invited to host the show, and we had an amazing night together.
Rahim performed at the Open Stage a bunch of times. We later performed together a few times at other events, which was always a treat.
I accidentally met this band in New Orleans when they took over a street for an unsanctioned concert. Watching the band's choreographed move in and out of traffic as cars needed to pass was almost as good a show as the music.
Almost5 was performed entirely in mime, and depended on my movements to set the tempo for the rest of the cast. To insure my pacing was consistent, I used to listen to this album on repeat backstage before each show.
This song seemed to be the one my mind understood to mean SLOW DOWN.
Amusingly, some of the other cast members thought I was being antisocial for always wearing headphones during pre-show. We had a laugh about it when I revealed how desperately I was trying not to screw up the timing of their acts!
This became my go-to version of the song after my first time hearing it.
One of my clown students introduced me to Poppy, before the toxic drama in her backstory was revealed. The silver lining of digging in that muck was discovering the music of Mars Argo.
Sooj is a longtime friend. She graciously encouraged us to use some of her music in a show, which subsequently played during my first standing ovation.
The Wired CD was among the first Creative Commons music I encountered.
I once visited a French cafe which specialized in crepes, who's entire soundtrack consisted of different versions of this song. All the other versions blended together, and I only knew time was passing because I would occassionaly hear Louis crooning.
An angry girl introduced me to this angry music. I was grateful.
I knew a sword swallower who loved this band.
Bret was originally part of the Stage Left Band, who is directly responsible for whatever hearing loss I have on that side of my head. He later became the one-man band of the Open Stage. He went on to do a lot of terrific improv work, and several musical projects.
A few years later, I got a chance to work on a family-friendly dinner theater show called Salmagundi. I invited Bret on as a guest star, and he played this song while dressed as a banana.
As a clown, I felt morally obligated to include at least one rendition of Chaplin's Smile in the crate. This version was relatively new to me, and I enjoy how it breathes some new life into an old standard.
I managed to accidentally behaviorally condition myself with this song.
My first performance with the mob of motley fools who would later coalesce into the Circus Freaks was at a circus-themed baby shower.
Cirque du Bebe was a big enough production to have a bunch of moving parts, and we were worried about missing our queues. We asked the DJ to slide this track into the playlist two songs before we were scheduled to perform, to warn us that it was time to grab our props and move to positions.
For weeks, our rehearsals included reminders to listen for the "Go Song".
Thankfully, the run time of this track is exactly the length of time it takes an entire performing company's collective nervous bladder to empty sequentially in a small guest bathroom. We made it to our marks with moments to spare, and to this day I feel the urge to pee whenever I think about this song.
The track we performed to at Cirque du Bebe
(See 'Zap Mama - Wadidyusay?' for context)
A decent rendition of an overplayed classic, added to the crate specifically because it was on theme.
Another Creative Motion era song.
Seeing dozens of of jugglers and flow artists throwing their hands in the air to this song is a vivid and exceptionally silly memory.
I first encountered this song on a video clip of a contact juggling move I was trying to learn. After dozens of listens, I acquired the move.
Having the song permanently etched into my neurons encouraged me to chase down the musician. I can't recommend The Flower Book enough.
One of my clown partners is so musical that I have often suggested that English was her second language. As a result of trying to speak her native tongue, I have been introduced to some incredible songs.
I have many memories of juggling and playing to this album.
The music we used for one of my all-time favorite juggling acts, which I performed with Alan Blakely at Salmagundi. The story of the performance is a juggling instructor teaching a clown to juggle, and there were some spectacular moments in the high energy routine.
This was the music I used for my first contact juggling performance.
As my contact juggling routine evolved, we replaced the Dub FX song with Nature Boy. While Django is a nearly unmatched talent, I remain an ardent fan of Foley's live melodica rendition of the song.
In my experience, there are only two versions of the song Black Coffee. The first is an amazing instrumental version by Victor Sirker, and this is the second. All others are filthy lies.
The canonical "end of the night" song from the Open Stage. After years of hearing it every week, it now sounds odd to my ear when anyone other than Bret Crow sings it.
Like a lot of people my age, I was introduced to this song by the movie Fight Club. When the film released, I was going through a series of "life explosions" which would ultimately lead me to becoming the person I am now. Looking back, I sometimes wonder if I knew that "going mad" was going to look like things I'm doing now.
mi olin mute e kalama musi kepeken toki pona.
I discovered this band from Los Angeles on mp3.com during the early days of the internet. I really enjoyed their music, and for a while I was on their mailing list. I received a few CDRs of pre-release music by mail before they disappeared entirely. They remain an obscure gem in my music collection.
I slid this track into a slideshow celebrating the final night of Salmagundi, secretly hoping that the band might chase me down to yell at me about royalties.
Another track we used to use to get people at SpinFest up and playing.
Written specifically as a theme for Liam's clown Chadwick Valentine.
Originally a song from the HitRecord project by Peppina, which my clown partner re-arranged for voice and toy piano. It ultimately became the music for a contact juggling / clown performance by the same name.
When I performed in a few shows without her for live accompaniment, she sent along this wonderful recording for company on stage.
kalama musi ni li pana e pilin pona tan pilin mi.