A cabinet of auditory wonders for the 21st century. If you would like to support this project you can donate to my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/RandomTape Our logo was drawn by James Braithwaite whose lovely work can be found at thebathwater.com
They Were Talking

Philip Matthews is currently the Jr. Writer-in-Residence at Washington University in St. Louis. His work has appeared in Trapeze, Phati’tude, Poets for Living Waters, and Sonora Review. He is continually influenced by surreal visual and sound art, and works as a gallery assistant at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts.

Direct download: They_Were_Talking.mp3
Category:Poetry -- posted at: 2:48pm EDT
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Welcoming the Water Angel

I attended a fancy party where a beautiful woman modeled a dress that was hooked up to a garden hose. The dress sent streams of water into the sky and reminded my friend of this sad tale of enema addiction.

Direct download: Water_Angel.mp3
Category:Interview -- posted at: 5:26pm EDT
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Jennifer Love

Today's episode of Random Tape features a song by artist Daryl Waits. You can find the track, Jennifer Love on the album Eastern Front & Digital Penetration at paradeco.com

Direct download: RT_Podcast-Jennifer_Love.mp3
Category:Music -- posted at: 10:04pm EDT
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Badass Emma-Oh Lord
Direct download: RT_Podcast-Badass_Emma-Benz.mp3
Category:Music -- posted at: 4:31pm EDT
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Badass Emma-This Place

I was hanging out in Cabrini Park, a dog park in the French Quarter in New Orleans when Badass Emma saw my microphone and asked me to interview her. She told me the story of how she lost her dogs in Katrina and about her job as a cook. We talked about the good old days and the future of New Orleans. This is one of several vignettes that make up a portrait of one of the baddest ass women you’ve ever met.

Direct download: RT_Podcast-Badass_Emma-This_Place.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:25pm EDT
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Badass Emma-'85

I was hanging out in Cabrini Park, a dog park in the French Quarter in New Orleans when Badass Emma saw my microphone and asked me to interview her. She told me the story of how she lost her dogs in Katrina and about her job as a cook. We talked about the good old days and the future of New Orleans. This is one of several vignettes that make up a portrait of one of the baddest ass women you've ever met.

Direct download: RT-Podcast-85_was_lively.mp3
Category:Interview -- posted at: 3:30am EDT
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Badass Emma-Miss Clio

I was hanging out in Cabrini Park, a dog park in the French Quarter in New Orleans when Badass Emma saw my microphone and asked me to interview her. She told me the story of how she lost her dogs in Katrina and about her job as a cook. We talked about the good old days and the future of New Orleans. This is one of several vignettes that make up a portrait of one of the baddest ass women you've ever met.

Direct download: RT_Podcast-Badass_Emmas_Pets_II.mp3
Category:Interview -- posted at: 3:19am EDT
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Badass Emma-Mr. Williams

I was hanging out in Cabrini Park, a dog park in the French Quarter in New Orleans when Badass Emma saw my microphone and asked me to interview her. She told me the story of how she lost her dogs in Katrina and about her job as a cook. We talked about the good old days and the future of New Orleans. This is one of several vignettes that make up a portrait of one of the baddest ass women you've ever met.

Direct download: RT_Podcast-Badass_Emmas_Pets.mp3
Category:Interview -- posted at: 8:49pm EDT
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Burn the River

Thaddeus Conti is the self-proclaimed poet laureate of Hog Alley.

This poem can be found in Thaddeus’s book Aepoetics which you can purchase here:

http://www.amazon.com/%C3%A6poetics-Thaddeus-Conti/dp/1935084011

Direct download: Burn_The_River.mp3
Category:Poetry -- posted at: 1:02am EDT
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Pizza Cat

My girlfriend recorded this gem while doing interviews for a radio story about the closing of the beloved Sugar Park Tavern in New Orleans.

Direct download: RT-_PiZZa_Cat.mp3
Category:Interview -- posted at: 2:12pm EDT
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Mississippi River Barge

This is the song of the barge, bobbing on the river near Hopeville.

Direct download: RT-Miss_River_Barge.mp3
Category:Sound -- posted at: 5:48pm EDT
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Posterity

I wore a wire for several years and secretly recorded my life. I recently produced a story about this period in my life for the radio show Wiretap. One of my ideas for the piece was to record myself calling up people from my past to explain that I had recorded them without their knowledge. This is a recording of one of those conversations.

You can hear the Wiretap story here: http://www.cbc.ca/wiretap/episode/2012/01/20/man-vs-machine/

Direct download: RT_Podcast-Posterity.mp3
Category:Interview -- posted at: 1:34am EDT
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Organtics

"Nothing can stop us. Not even if they try. Not even if they want to, or ask the question why. Mr. Torino, why did you lie to me in seventh grade?" -Mark Excelle Mercer IV

Direct download: RT_Podcast-Organtics.mp3
Category:Mark Excelle Mercer IV -- posted at: 4:39am EDT
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Useless Evidence

Sometimes you wish audio had pictures.

Direct download: RT_Podcast-Useless_Evidence.mp3
Category:Argument -- posted at: 2:19am EDT
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Sellin the Dream

Most days you can find Tim Raines playing guitar on the corner of Ninth and Olive in downtown St. Louis. He's the electric guitar player with a stuffed bear dressed in prison garb perched on the lip of his guitar case.

Direct download: SSL-Tim_Raines_St_Musician.mp3
Category:Music -- posted at: 12:28am EDT
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In Praise of Noise

James Arthur’s poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Poetry, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, New England Review, and Narrative. He has received the Amy Lowell Traveling Poetry Scholarship, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry, and a Discovery/The Nation Prize. Charms Against Lightning, his debut poetry collection, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press. During 2012 he will be in residence at the Amy Clampitt House in Lenox, Massachusetts.

Photo by: Sean Hill

Direct download: In_Praise_of_Npise.mp3
Category:Poetry -- posted at: 1:21am EDT
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Clown Doll

When I was a kid I had this clown doll that would laugh when you pushed a button in its chest. It was terrifying. It's more the cackle of a chain-smoking maniac than the laughter of a clown but then again some clowns are heavy smokers.

Direct download: RT_Podcast-Clown_Doll_Final.mp3
Category:Sound -- posted at: 12:10am EDT
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Get on Fire!

I recorded this fiery sermon that I heard on the radio in West Virginia.

Direct download: RT_Podcast-Get_on_Fire.mp3
Category:radio -- posted at: 7:10pm EDT
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Another Successful Meal by Captain Tom

After a successful meal Captain Tom has no trouble patting himself on the back for a job well done.

Direct download: RT_Podast-Toms_Meal.mp3
Category:Interview -- posted at: 6:39pm EDT
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Captain Tom Wins a Ham

Back when I was a deckhand on the M.V. Ptarmigan, a glacier tour boat in Alaska, I used to hang out in the wheelhouse and listen to Captain Tom tell stories. I called him up recently and asked him to tell me the one about about the time he won a ham in a furthest listening contest.

Direct download: RT_Podcast-Free_Ham.mp3
Category:Interview -- posted at: 7:21pm EDT
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I spent an afternoon in the parking lot of the grocery store asking people to read me their grocery lists and these are a few of the responses i got.

Direct download: RT-Avacados_voxPoppin.mp3
Category:Vox Pop -- posted at: 11:13pm EDT
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Strawberries Oh My Gosh!

Bill Keaggy responded to postings by musicians on fiverr.com who offered to write and record a song for five dollars. He sent each of them a found grocery list and asked them to record a song inspired by the list. This is my favorite track from Let's All Go to the Grocery Store, an album of songs inspired by found grocery lists which you can download for absolutely free here:

http://www.grocerylists.org/

Direct download: RT_Podcast-First_Shopping.mp3
Category:Music -- posted at: 10:22pm EDT
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Jackpot

This is the sound of hundreds of electronic slot machines on the floor of Lumiere Casino in downtown St. Louis.

Direct download: RT-Podcast-Lumiere_Casino_Sounds.mp3
Category:Sound -- posted at: 6:16pm EDT
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Factory Set

If you ever did any late night channel surfing between 1993 and 2001 you probably came across the legendary pitchman Don West hollering about sports cards and Beanie Babies on the Shop at Home network. A friend of mine made a CD of some of the best Don West television moments and this is but a taste.

Direct download: RT-Don_West.mp3
Category:TV -- posted at: 8:32pm EDT
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Gavin's Roar
Direct download: Gavins_Roar.mp3
Category:Dinosaurs -- posted at: 12:21pm EDT
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The Dragon Does Not Wehbay!

Do you want the love of the fire? Cuz I’m not gonna wait around to give you my desire.

For some reason an ex-girlfriend of mine gave her number to a guy who called himself The Dragon. Not surprisingly he left her a string of insane voice messages. These are just a few of The Dragon’s many attempts at wooing.

Direct download: The_Dragon_Montage.mp3
Category:Voice Message -- posted at: 3:25pm EDT
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BrailleNote Apex

This is the sound of Matthew Shifrin using his BrailleNote—a computer for the blind that pushes plastic nodes through tiny holes to display text in braille.

Direct download: RT9-Braille_Note_Apex.mp3
Category:Sound -- posted at: 3:17pm EDT
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So Long Pujols

Five Days after I began broadcasting classical music over one of St. Louis' existing Christian stations Albert Pujols announced he was leaving the St. Louis Cardinals for the Los Angeles Angels. Now what does Albert Pujols have to do with JOY-FM you might be asking. Pujols was one of the major donors to the down payment fund for the purchase of KFUO. I propose Pujols take JOY-FM with him and in exchange we get one of L.A.’s classical stations. We would even settle for kMozart 1260 AM.

For this episode of Random Tape I hit the streets to find out what people in St. Louis think of Pujols’ departure.

Direct download: RT8-So_Long_Pujols.mp3
Category:Vox Pop -- posted at: 3:09pm EDT
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Radio Graffiti

Classical music station KFUO in St. Louis was one of the oldest radio stations west of the Mississippi. The stationed was owned by the Lutheran church up until last year when it was purchased by Gateway Creative Broadcasting’s JOY-FM. On July 6th, 2010 KFUO broadcasted Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor and then went silent. The following morning JOY-FM began it’s broadcast of Christian contemporary pop music. There are now six christian stations in St. Louis and zero classical stations.

On Saturday December 3rd, I powered up the 40-watt FM transmitter I built and “tagged” a Christian station (89.5 FM) with Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor K. 626: Sanctus. For a couple square miles at least, you can hear classical music on the radio again coming from high atop the chimney of a former convent.

This is a recording of the moment my signal went live.

Direct download: RT7-Radio_Graffiti.mp3
Category:radio -- posted at: 3:07pm EDT
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Martial Law

My friend Casey was a holdout during Hurricane Katrina. He worked occasionally for a friend who owned Old Time Photo, one of those business where you take fake historical photos with your friends. On the night president Bush came to the city there was a seven-o-clock curfew. Casey was heading home at seven twenty when he had an encounter with a couple of state troopers. Casey tells the story of what happened next.

Direct download: RT6-Martial_Law.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:49pm EDT
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I was walking my dog the other night when I came across Larry Boutan sitting on a concrete wall drinking a beer. I noticed he was missing his right thumb so I asked him how he lost it. This is the story of that fateful night when a large woman started hurling canned goods at him…

Direct download: RT5-Larrys_Thumb.mp3
Category: -- posted at: 11:34pm EDT
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Just Molly and Me

Francis Matherne was the organist at St. Henry’s catholic church in New Orleans for 25 years. A while back he brought some of his poems over to my house so I could record them. This is a short clip from that recording session.

Direct download: RT4-Just_Molly_and_Me.mp3
Category:Poetry -- posted at: 11:27pm EDT
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Goddamn Great Drum Music

I came across this LP from 1963 that features three naked women playing bongos on the cover. It’s one of the most inexplicable recordings I’ve ever heard. Each side is a single fourteen-minute track of what appears to be two people having sex on a rusty bed while a man plays the bongos and shouts in what may or may not be a real language. I give you the final two minutes of side A.

Now that’s what I call goddamn great drum music!

Direct download: RT3-Goddamn_Great_Drum_Music.mp3
Category:Audio Smut -- posted at: 11:07pm EDT
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Broken Brain

These voice messages were left on my friend Danny’s phone by his dad. They are two of my all-time favorites. We’ll never know how the second message ends. The machine cut Danny’s dad off mid-message.

Direct download: RT2-Broken_Brain.mp3
Category:Voice Message -- posted at: 10:46pm EDT
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Faisdodo's Stomach

I was reading in bed one night when I heard a strange sound coming from the foot of my bed...

Direct download: RT1-Faisdodos_Stomach.mp3
Category:Sound -- posted at: 5:35pm EDT
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