The Wireless: what about it, then?

[xidrep]

I think the Radio's bloomin' great. Loads better than film, 'cos of the expansive imaginative potential of former. In fact, I have a heirarchy of media graded according to the relative creative scintillation generated in the recipient's brain cells:

-Music
-Fictional writing
-Factual writing
-Radio/ Spoken Word
-Film
-TV
-Jeffrey Archer

Have there been any 'dramatisations' of Moorcockiana on the wireless? And if not, why doesn't someone do one? I'd propose the End of Time cycle personally - potentially great radio; certainly unfilmable.
I reckon Philip Madoc for Lord Jagged. Bit Welsh and that, admittedly, but just the right timeless timbre and resonance I'd say.
Why doesn't someone give Mr M's agent a call? Eh? Eh?

[Michael Moorcock]

There was a very good reading of Warhound and the World's Pain a few years ago, which seems to be lost now. It IS odd that something like End of Time hasn't been broadcast and I agree they would make great radio. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have an agent who is focussed on radio. I'm a huge listener to Radio 4 (and 3 and 2, depending on what's on). I default to 4 because it remains the best way of getting a lot of different information relatively painlessly and also the news tends to break faster on 4 -- sometimes a couple of days before you see it on US
TV (if ever). I hear more news about Texas, for instance, via BBC Radio 4 than I do from the local NPR station. That said, I've read from End of Time on the local NPR station, since the guy who's the main host during the weekday mornings enjoys those books a lot. Which was why he sounded a little taken aback when interviewing Martin Amis who pronounced (as he does) that comic fantasy couldn't successfully be written over more than about six pages... :D

[DeeCrowSeer]

That said, I've read from End of Time on the local NPR station, since the guy who's the main host during the weekday mornings enjoys those books a lot. Which was why he sounded a little taken aback when interviewing Martin Amis who pronounced (as he does) that comic fantasy couldn't successfully be written over more than about six pages... :D

Poo to him.

I agree, it would make a great radio transfer. Not only do you have a fantastic mix of voices (from various classes and ports of call), but also an ever-changing landscape which the FX types could really sink their teeth in to... from a rolling sea to a humming city of memory banks... it makes my ears happy just thinking about it.

Of course, I'm available to take the part of Amelia's stuffy husband, should any members of the regular cast fall ill. :)

[Michael Moorcock]

It's a deal.
I listen to the stations via my computer. RealPlayer is all you need. You go to bbc.co.uk/radio and that will give you all the information you need both to get the stations and to load RealPlayer, if you don't already have it.
Among other things you could have listened to in the past year was a very good radio presentation of the Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy,
done as a three part serial. They also reran their original Lord of the Rings and in the past have done Gormenghast (with Sting -- not so successful) and famously read the whole Harry Potter opus over Christmas a couple of years ago. You can also hear, of course, Hitchiker's Guide (which originally was a BBC broadcast series) and lots of very good comedy shows, as well as in-depth news and current affairs programmes. There are four main stations -- 1 is pop music, 2 is 'light' music (lots of good programmes by and about well-known contemporary rock musicians, blues players, jazz people and the like), 3 is classical music and more ambitious drama (Greeks, Shakespeare, Moliere and so on) and 4 is current affairs, comedy (News Quiz very funny), drama (regular plays) etc. There are also channels devoted entirely to BBC classics (many of the great comedy series from the Goons onwards),
black music, world music and so on. Check it out. It's easy to get to and the sites are completely explanatory. If all you've experienced is BBC World, you'll realise just how rich the BBC still is (in every sense -- which is why they can afford to put so many reporters in the field and cover so many different arts).

[Governor of Rowe Island]

Ah, Mr M. you're making me nostalgic and I listen to them.
Seriously, though, I wish I could have heard 'The Warhound and the World's Pain', it would lend itself readily to a reading.
I should probably have started another thread with this suggestion, but I think that many of your works could be adapted this way. I would particularly like to hear a version of 'The Distant Suns.' The cliff-hanger chapter endings, the dramatic constructions... It would sound fantatic serialised!
Anyone else got any thoughts?

[Michael Moorcock]

Distant Suns wouldn't be my first choice. As you might know, it was originally written in the4 1960s as a weekly serial for the Illustrated Weekly of India. The editor wanted me to write something which got more Indians thinking in terms of technology and electronics. By that reckoning, people probably have me to blame for all the outsourcing now going on...
Cure for Cancer was also written as a serial (monthly in that case) for NW. Now that one I'd like to see read on radio... :)

[xidrep]

Yep, the BBC do some top stuff. Has anyone noticed , though, how R4 readings/ serialisations always seem to have a female role with a British actress* doing an American accent? Always. It's wierd.
The quality of the R4/ R3/R2 axis and many digital stations is emphasised by the inane barrage of pure imbecility that seems to vomit out of the receivers of any shop/ practice/ garage I visit. Not only is the music of dubious quality and variety, but the apparently incessant need to chop any dialogue into 'beat-backed' five-second soundbites, preferably with heavy distortion applied, is driving me MAD! There seems to be a school for DJ's that trains them to talk in a certain...what's the word?...wankerish manner, distilling all their perfidious media-pratt smug tosserishness into oily tones of patronising, ill-informed, bigoted, uneducated CRAP!!! And that's just the girls...And WHY do they have to have a 'sting' every 30 seconds - a crashingly painful zip of noise usually followed by the flipping frequency of the dribbling crap station shouted out by a raving loony? Ah! I know what flaming frequency it is - I'M TUNED TO IT!!!! But not for long...Sorry. Had to get that off my chest while we were on the subject.

Don't start me on the advert's....




*Apologies to The Guardian: I meant 'actor' :lol: [/i]

[DeeCrowSeer]

Had to get that off my chest while we were on the subject.
Don't start me on the advert's....

When I worked in a packing warehouse, they had local radio on all day, and there was absolutely no escape... it was bad enough that the work itself was mindless and repetitive, but to have to listen to mindless and repetitive prattle and music at the same time... gah! Not fun. The very opposite of fun. Even listening to Radio 1 on the way home seemed like heaven by comparison...

[Mikey_C]

Just got turned on to DAB. Radio 6 seems pretty cool - there was a programme on tonight called the "Freakout Hour" or something similar, which plays Tull, plus also the glorious Gong. 8O

[Michael Moorcock]

Ho yus. UK radio can indeed be as banal as US, but at least we have plenty of alternatives with the BBC. And I really don't know why the BBC has to employ Brits with bad US accents as often as they do, I must admit. Even the otherwise excellent version of AS I LAY DYING was a little marred here and there by accents not quite Mississippi. Still, the yanks retaliate all the time with fake British accents on the radio, especially the ads for some reason.

[Dead-Air]

I was a community radio dj from 1985 until 2003 when a move forced me into retirement. This thread has reminded me of an excellent Tod Machover opera called "Valis" based on the Phillip K. Dick novel. I highly reccomend it to any who find it. I played the entire thing on my radio show at KAOS in Olympia one night at 3 or 4 a.m., and despite the relatively small potential listening audience received phone calls asking what it was months later.

Michael, if your agent ever decides to look past books and movies, you might point him towards Machover as a possible adapter of your work to an audio format. That is, if you like what he does. He's an MIT faculty member too, if I remember correctly, adjunct to the Media Lab.

[McTalbayne]

I wish theyd do cool stuff on the Radio Here, Instead of playing the same crappy music over and over again.

[Michael Moorcock]

As many Americans have pointed out, the US was the only developed nation which sold off all its airwaves and kept nothing back for public radio. Now so-called public radio depends upon government grants (a very bad idea), private subscription and increasing numbers of ads. It makes for an impoverished programming schedule and also tends to make the news people cautious about what and how they report. I have every respect for those who work in NPR, but they have none of the resources which, for instance, the Canadian, Australian, French or German public radio stations possess. One thing which the BBC does is keep the levels and ambitions high amongst many commercial stations, just as the National Health system is inclined to keep the price of private doctoring and prescriptions reasonable. The reason drugs are cheaper outside the US is largely to do with the fact that the national health systems keep the prices down. Something which Bush can't really afford to let be known. After all, the US has the best broadcasting and health systems in the world, doesn't it ? Or so we're constantly assured.

[Doc]

Clear Channel makes it worse. They dominate both radio and television. Corporate radio seems worse, for some reason, because radio seems to be so much more a medium of the people (or at least it used to seem that way).

I always laugh when I hear about "the liberal media." When most outlets are owned my media conglomerates, how liberal can they be? I'm guessing Clear Channel will pick profits over ideology (or accuracy or truth) any day. And Clear Channel is small compared to the corporate television world.

[Dead-Air]

Yes, Clear Channel actually sponsored pro-Iraqi invasion "protests", so that's your "liberal media" for you.

Nonetheless, as a long-time community radio volunteer I do have to raise a voice that there is good programming in America, though it's a constant struggle to keep it around (often with the very managers of the stations where the great stuff happens as was always the case at KAOS.) Since many of my old friends are still doing great shows, and they are streaming, I'll post the link: http://www.kaosradio.org There are still no playlists and the djs pick what they want to play, which is unusual even for "college radio" these days. You'll generally here more interesting stuff after 9 p.m. when the management goes to bed.