Death Of A Ladies' Man

On our last show, we included a small tribute to the brilliant, reclusive British singer-songwriter Kevin Ayers, who left this world just last week. Kevin Ayers began his career with the legendary 60s psychedelic band The Soft Machine. (This clip here probably looked much better in color, but this version is all we have):



In this interview for Catalan TV, he recalls those heady days of the mid-to-late-60s:



More memories, from the 24 Hour Technicolor Dream documentary:



After two long, grueling US tours opening for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Kevin grew disgruntled with the Soft Machine's increasingly jazz-influenced direction and moved to Majorca. In November 1969, he released his first solo album, Joy Of A Toy, the first step in a long, fascinating solo career. He developed a songwriting voice that was both quirky and wise, rambling through a wide-ranging variety of musical styles courtesy of his wide circle of musician friends, topped by his deep, sonorous basso profundo. Some of his finest classics:









And from his great final album from 2008:



Farewell Kevin Ayers. You were one of a kind.

Big Bad Benny-Roaring on the mic

Hi Listeners and readers!  My name is Big Bad Benny. I really am not big or bad but radio can kind of do that to you if you let it carry you away. And that is just what we want to do on our show Fridays from 7 PM to 8 PM. We would like to carry the music over the net to your ears, your eyes, your imagination and beyond. With the time we share, with you are audience, we hope to inspire deeper thoughts by some of the songs we select and the blogs we write and respond to.

            We go beyond what you may normally hear on a classical rock station and play some of the other songs that are usually not the popular mainstream cuts. I personally like the story behind the song, or the inspiration behind the lyrics. Each week we will comment on songs that we have some extended appreciation for either the artist or style that is unique to our genre.

            The Deep End is co-hosted with J Neo Marvin, who is also a very talented musical performer. Jeff Burns also co-hosts our show and, can perform a variety of voice over characters and plans to pursue voiceover work.

            I am currently focusing on video editing and production work. I work mostly now on industrial videos. My outside likes are vegan food, classic cars, radios, cameras, animals, solar power, infrastructures and functionality in design.

My first experience with radio was in the AM format. I grew up listening to AM 920 KVEC,  93.3 KZOZ and 95.5 KLOS. As a young business owner I utilized radio through advertising and live remote radio broadcasts. My business created cross promotions with other business owners to increase sales. It would always amaze me the power of the radio and how many people listen. Although my passion is currently in video I think that radio is making a powerful and important comeback. I often recall the song "Video Killed the Radio Star", and I think that the net has reinvented radio into a very functional form of new media. I like to think the radio star is back in the studio and can now be heard across the world. I look forward to seeing radios on portable mobile devices and becoming a standard. Over the years my appreciation and interest for independent talk, news, sports and music via radio has deepened. I think the independent, free voice of the people should always be heard. Thanks for listening. What are your thoughts?

             

Space Age Love Song And Sym-Bionic Titan

A few weeks ago when we were putting together setlists for our first show I was going through and thinking about songs from bands I knew and liked that you don't here on the radio that often. For example when most people think of A Flock Of Seagulls they think of their hit "I Ran (So Far)" but not so much for their other songs. To this day "I Ran" is probably their biggest hit and almost a decade ago it experienced a resurgence in popularity by being included in the hit video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Moving on to how I discovered "Space Age Love Song" for the show, back in 2010-2011 Cartoon Network was airing a then new series called Sym-Bionic Titan, the story revolves around the life of two teenage "aliens" trying to adjust to life on earth while on the run from an evil general, they possess unique robots that can combine into a giant "Titan" so to speak. Although it was considered an animated show for kids it possessed a lot of elements that made it have a much more mature tone plus it had deeper character development and relationships than a lot of other animated series airing at the time and it pays homage to a lot of elements from Science Fiction movies and John Hughes Comedies and sad to say only one season of 20 episodes was produced before it got canceled. The scene above is how I first heard "Space Age Love Song" and I absolutely loved how it was used as a way to convey one characters true feelings for another. It's a powerful scene and it goes to show that animation is not just kids stuff, it can just as effective towards an adult audience as well.

With that being said if you want to catch Sym-Bionic Titan, it is back on the air in reruns on Cartoon Network every Saturday Night at 2AM on Adult Swim's Toonami Block.

Further Reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sym-Bionic_Titan
Watch Sym-Bionic Titan here:
http://video.adultswim.com/sym-bionic-titan/

Jeff's Intro

I suppose now is a good time to introduce myself and give you readers/listeners out there a better perspective of who I am

I'm Jeff Burns, my role on the show is being the voice monkey on the show so occasionally you'll hear demonstrate some of my voice over skills throughout the show. The reason for this is because I am a Voice Actor and while I don't have any professional credits yet, I'm mostly taking classes at this point to improve my skills and become more competitive. One of the reasons I decided to branch out into radio was to get practice, in addition to staying sharp because radio can be very spontaneous just like a lot of different types of Voice Over where you have to be quick on your feet and able to improvise without relying on a script.

As for being on the deep end, despite being the youngest person on the show I have a very deep appreciation of classic rock music and being on the show with Benny and J Neo allows me to discover classic rock songs that I may have missed out on for years or even discovering new songs that rock so to speak. A lot of my favorite music derives from the 60s, 70s and 80s and occasionally from other genres as well. My setlists usually feature music that I've found primarily through Television or Film being a huge TV nut and film buff (with particular interest in Animation and Sci-Fi as well as a lot of media from Japan). Occasionally I may post trivia in relation to finding songs in animated shows and I do have an upcoming post that covers this with a song we featured on the show not that long ago.

Thanks for reading and I hope you like plunging into the Deep End with us.
Jeff

DJ Profile: J Neo Marvin

Welcome to The Deep End. It's time that each of us introduces himself. I'll start.

My first experience of college radio was at KZSC at UC Santa Cruz at the end of the 70s. It was the beginning of the punk scene, when the tools of rock and roll were suddenly accessible to anyone with the nerve to try using them, with wonderfully diverse and weird results. By 1980 I was involved in two radio shows (one punk/post-punk/indie, one reggae) and filling in for other DJs when needed. College radio had become one of the last bastions of the spirit of early-70s freeform FM radio, and it still is today. A good DJ is an artist, combining songs and sounds in a way that entertains, communicates, and surprises. Hits are fine, but if you are not exposing the audience to new experiences, you are not doing your job (in my not so humble opinion).

I also have my own online radio station, Ear Candle Radio, and make my own music which you can find on Ear Candle Productions, the label I run with my wife, Davis Jones. We also make videos, which you can find here and here.

So what about The Deep End? Well, in this show I work with two other DJs to create an hour each week of "classic rock" radio with a difference. Most classic rock stations will draw from the same small pool of songs from the same small pool of artists. Where's the fun in that? We are committed to finding the hidden corners in the catalog. I mean, yeah yeah, everybody likes the Beatles, but when was the last time you heard "The Inner Light" or "I'm Down" on the radio? Thus, The Deep End.

My role in this trio seems to have settled into being the wild card. I will throw in delightfully odd cover versions, dig up overlooked personal favorites, and dip occasionally into what's happening right now. I'm not particularly respectful of genre boundaries, either. You might hear soul, indie, Krautrock, or reggae on occasion because any of it is legitimately classic rock as far as I'm concerned. Add the aesthetics of my co-DJs to this mix and you have a tug-of-war worth tuning in to.

Join us every Friday, from 7 to 8PM Pacific Time at KSFS.

Show # 2: February 22, 2013

The Deep End - Show 2 - Feb. 22, 2013 by Thedeepend on Mixcloud

Show # 1: February 15, 2013

The Deep End - Show 1 - Feb. 15, 2013 by Thedeepend on Mixcloud

Plunging

And the adventure begins.