Radio Slipstream » announcements

a slight change of pace

damon — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 03:40:09 +0000

As a gift for all of y’all my glorious listeners, this Christmas Eve I am officially announcing that I’m gonna cease with the 2 hour radio showpisodes, because i don’t think anyone really wants to spend that much time listening to the same thing. As of Jan 1st, or whenever the first new episode is released, it’s gonna be 1 hour episodes. The main benefit to this is that I’ll be able to release shows much more quickly (we all know that’s been an issue lately) and that you’ll be able to listen through them more easily (the average human attention span is down to what like 2 seconds these days is it?). The drawback (and probably I’m the only person who will notice or care) is that it’ll be a little harder to fit everything in and also to cover as much ground with as much epic flow.. but to counteract that I’ll probably try and have one show start up where the last left off.

Just, you know, so you know.

Questions? Comments? Snide remarks?

the new www.radioslipstream.com

damon — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 02:59:48 +0000

So. This right here is the brand new and massively improved Radio Slipstream website that I’ve been working on. It is now officially open for business. Though there’s no business to be done here, so more like.. open for community?

The Slipstream began in January 2005 as a weekly mixed genre radio show on 93.3 CFMU, which ran until October 2007 when my relocation to London kept me from filling the station’s hosting requirements. It is now about to continue as a web-only podcast, which, so long as you have already found it is probably a good thing as it allows me to be more much rigorous with quality assurance.

The format of the program remains unchanged, but you will see fewer new episodes (roughly every other week). That might be a net benefit, because it means that each episode will be better! The website also allows me to focus more on commentary, reviews, links and features, which will grow to be a more integral part of Radio Slipstream. Hopefully there will be enough content to keep you coming back, and if not there’s always RSS feeds!

Content aside, the site itself has changed dramatically, both aesthetically (now it actually has aesthetics!) and functionally (note the easy to use sound players in each post!). And because the increased functionality is especially present behind the scenes, it will be much easier for me to add and update content. The new site is run by WordPress and the extremely helpful podPress plugin. The design is based on the shades of gray template of the sandbox theme. It has been customized heavily, as you can probably see. All the graphic design is my work and the recoding also, though with help from friends and people at various forums. Big ups.

If you have any comments on the new site or any suggestions on what you want to see me doing with this little corner of the internet, do let me know! While the site is ready for public consumption, there still may be a few glitches, so if you run into any please don’t hesitate to tell me!

Look for a new episode of Radio Slipstream shortly.

Slipstream Season 4 – Tonight! …and free stuff

damon — Mon, 07 May 2007 22:48:49 +0000

As I’m in Hamilton over the summer of COURSE I’m keeping up with the radio show! I’m sure everyone who knows me assumed as much. It’s the same deal as always.. just hoping that the kinda sketchy CDs work tonight better than last week (which was a repeat of this old playlist and went horribly wrong so I haven’t bothered posting it). Season 4, as we’re calling it here at the institute, will be exactly the same as you’re used to, so why even make a point about it?
Well, I have a present for you, if you want it. Because I’m dorky and ever so slightly pretentious, I’m calling it the “Slipstream Season 3 Official Commemorative DVDR” and what it is, is a burned dvd with every single song (604 of them) that I played on the show since last September and a playlist so you can listen to them all in order on your computer or your ipod or what have you. How do you go about getting one? Well, you get in touch with me, by commenting on the site, email, msn, facebook, word of mouth or telegram, however you want (the more creative the better!) and you say something along the lines of “Hey Damon, that dvdrwhatsit thing sounds pretty neat, I wouldn’t mind having one” and then, presumably through that same or a similar form of communication, we’ll figure out how to get one to you (if you can drop by my house or I’ll be seeing you any point in the near future, that’s probably best). And seriously people, don’t be shy! If you want one let me know.. I’d make ‘em for everyone I know, but I don’t want to give ‘em to people who don’t actually care all that much about having a lot of obscure songs Damon really likes. There may be many of you who think that would be really awesome, so just holla.. even if you don’t know me that well or you don’t like me particularly or you think I harbor some strange grudge against your pet rabbit. I fully suspect maybe 5 people to take me up on this, and to the rest.. your loss! bwahaha?

radio slipstream – SEASON 3 – tonight

damon — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 03:04:30 +0000

My little college radio show is set to enter its third year, which will most likely also be its last. As we have come to expect (a recurring pattern with 2 instances) the timeslot is slipping. This time backwards.

THE SLIPSTREAM, with your delicious host Damon Muma
from MIDNIGHT Monday to TWO on Tuesday
on CFMU 93.3 …follow link to discover lo-bitrate webcast of radio!

So I thought in honour of the new season, and because I take this little radio gig perhaps far too seriously, I’d formalize the structure of my radio program, by way of -

THE MANIFESTO. [scrawled with half a pen on the back of your tim horton paper muffin bag].

Programming:
Music is art. Art is communication. Art should move us, spiritually and intellectually. Maybe moreso spiritually, but in a way they are one and the same. I aim to present, each week, a collection of songs that acheive small greatness in the field of musical endeavor, no matter the genre. What that really means is that I play the songs I like. I just choose them very carefully from a veritable slew (to illustrate this slew, I’ve so far listened to more than 150 albums that were released in 2006; and no, of course I don’t pirate music). I aim to play only songs that have a lot to offer, and of course what exactly that is can change wildly from song to song. I also want to make the best of what time I have, so I have determined not to repeat the same artist within one show, nor the same song within the same few years, except by accident. Of course taste is subjective, but I believe there is a large amount of objectivity in the analysis of art. There is good art and less good art, and of course a rather extensive middle ground. The Slipstream tries its darndest to be a place for good art. I want every person who listens to the program to hear and be moved by music they have not heard before or did not take note of on the first go round. A sort of goal for the show is to create for myself the ultimate playlist for my Ipod or Winamp or what have you.

Engineering:
The songs are selected well in advance, by being sent to my special playlist in winamp. Then they are arranged into a coherent order, shuffled around for a while, mixed and matched and blended (using mixmeister) so that they flow smoothly into each other. Also, the last song of a set will link sounways somehow to the next song. If the talking were removed one would hear a coherent mix. I do this all in advance and show up at the station with a few CDs full of each set as one track. Each show takes at least 2-3 hours to sequence, not including all the music listening or the burning, playlist writing, webposting, mp3 recording tagging and posting, manifesto writing, etc. The mp3s that show up here are recorded from the CFMU webstream and are therefore not particularly good quality. I apologize.

Hosting:
I basically sit in the studio, say some stuff and then press play. This year I’ll probably be bringing my shiny new laptop with me so that I can look stuff up if I need to and also lurk on msn and harass people into listening. Previously, everything I said about the show was just from trivia I have accumulated and stored in my indie-musically-overwhelmed mind. I like to be a big goofy now and then, but ultimately the me talking part is only so that you can know who these cool music making cats are.

So in the end, ignore all that jibber jabber up top, and what you get is a series of really good songs from a variety of genres flowing together for two hours every week around islands of Damon talking. What I get is something that I am almost always quite proud of.

Full stop.

Music: tonight’s show
Mood: pretentious

Introducing The Slipstream

damon — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 01:39:08 +0000

The slipstream lies under, above and within the mainstream. It’s a safe zone in the wild currents where nothing is anything but what it is.The slipstream is about music first and foremost, and it tries to be fairly all-encompassing about it. I can’t (and won’t try to) say that I provide an equal representation of all genres, but I can say that there’s hopefully a pretty varied array of music to hear. There is an emphasis on that which would fall under the very broad umbrella of ‘rock/pop’ or ‘electronica’ but there’s no limitation on what gets played. You might hear indie rock, hip hop, oldies, classic rock, IDM, trance, symphonic, electro, pop, folk or anything else that happens to pop up. The criteria for selecting songs is fairly simple: quality, interest, newness (in that order). Every week I’ll highlight new music of note, play some old favourites, and the maybe one or two rare, random or off-the-wall cuts, and likely spend a fair amount of time yammering about this, that, or the neighbour’s pudding.

Which is all a fancy way of saying that I play the music that moves me to want to share it with anyone who will spare some part of their hearing for 3 or 1 or .0005 hours on a late Monday night. And I can only hope that every now and then you’ll hear a song that does something to you, triggers a thought or a feeling or a smile, rings with truth or hammers and grinds with affecting intensity… and if you hear such a song on my little radio show, then together we have won a small victory.