Moles Sonoris (Whatever That Means)

By: DThompson | in: Music |

Moles Sonoris

When I was in college one of the things that kept me there was working at the campus radio station. Rooting around in a storage closet I had discovered a VERY old reel of demo ads for KLC and had decided to turn the goofiest one into a modern promo. It would be easy to update it by surrounding it with a collage of brief snippets from songs of the day (and that day was sometime in spring of 1981). It turned out, however, that I had so much fun making the collage it kind of took over and the whole thing quickly grew much too long for a standard station promo (though you can still hear that ancient 50’s KLC promo buried in there somewhere).Now, to quote Stephen King, the journey had become the thing. Now, this wasn’t today’s piss easy electronic editing. This was Geico caveman stuff. This was reel to reel audio tape and turntables, grease pencils and razorblades and scotch tape. Every 15 to 20 seconds you hear accounts for an hour of my life. And the reel to reel sound quality, at least to start, on the old and constatly hum-emmitting board we had in Studio B accounts for some stone age sound quality as well. My apologies to your digitally blessed ears.

I decided to call it ‘Moles Sonoris’ after stumbling onto a Latin/English dictionary. Don’t ask me what it means, the last time I knew that I could still drink all night and get up for an 8am class. I worked on the Moles Sonoris thing about once a week, or more if we got more records in, or if the spirit hit me. Why not? I had access to close to every rock and pop album in existence and the time and energy to listen to them all, not to mention the memory to recall where all the “cool bits” were.

KLC

If you listen, you’ll hear a not precisely chronological history of those “cool bits” slide by – about four years worth – and you’ll hear the sound quality dramatically improve when we got a new mixing board. (With “I tried to warn you” from some Prince song). You’ll also hear clips too short to identify, clips I wish I hadn’t included and even the sound of a toilet flushing from our massive collection of 78rpm sound effects records. Yes, a toilet, because that’s the kind of sense of humor I had when I was 18.

In fact, if you can tell me who all the bands and song snippets that go by are I’d be in your debt. One of the coolest things about Moles Sonoris is that for years I’ve been playing music and bang! There goes a clip and I think “Ah! THAT’S who does that ‘blew, brew, brew, boo” guitar riff!” Maybe with the passage of years the collage has become more like my original intention, a kind of sonic sculpture divorced from the meaning of its original source material. I hope so. I hope it hasn’t become an unlistenable, tear my ears out, “I’ll get you for this, D Thompson!” mess. Enjoy your listen, or hip-deep slogging wade, through Moles Sonoris and remember “Ten bucks an hour. Better than working at the gas station. Ding, ding.”

D Thompson - Moles Sonoris

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Posted on August 22, 2007

Comments

8 Responses to “Moles Sonoris (Whatever That Means)”

Charbarred on August 22nd, 2007 5:56 am

This is really great D. The first time I listened to it it felt like falling asleep on the remote - in the eighties. A second listen really took me back to my childhood. I especially like the commercial snippets between the tracks…Kudos for manually stitching this all together…did you get any studying done at college as well?

DThompson on August 22nd, 2007 9:15 am

I was sort of famous, (or should that be infamous?) for having passed a class I only attended once.

Itax on August 22nd, 2007 12:02 pm

So the truth finally comes out, you boozed, floozed and cruised your way through higher learning while I toiled away in the salt mines. Thanks for posting this collection it brings back all kinds of wonderful memories from my youth, like the time you got busted with all that weed and said it was mine. Or when you took all my money and bought a copy of that godforsaken movie Phantasm. Or when you got busted stealing the vodka and said it was all my idea. Or even that time you told Anna I had a “social disease”. Ah those were the days.

Kendall on August 22nd, 2007 12:15 pm

D! I’m glad you have a copy of this. I have nothing to remember my days of college radio. I don’t even have anything from my days of commercial radio.

DThompson on August 22nd, 2007 12:23 pm

Itax
A) That weed WAS yours bro.
B) Phantasm is one of the best horror movies ever made, if not the very bestest movie in the history of cinema.
C) OK, I’ll give you the vodka.
D) Anna was a terrible person and you were better off without her.
They were the days, weren’t they?

Kendall
I’m happy to share it with you. Moles is one of a few tapes that I saved from my campus-radio-guy days. Certainly the strangest!

Charbarred on August 22nd, 2007 1:22 pm

I’d steal from my own brother to buy a copy of Phantasm…you hear that Rusty? lucky for you I already own it and it only cost £5