Firesign : the electromagnetic history of everything as told on nine comedy albums / Jeremy Braddock.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Braddock, Jeremy, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Firesign Theatre (Performing group)--History--20th century.

Firesign Theatre (Performing group).

Comedians--United States--History--20th century.

Comedians.

Sound recordings--United States--History--20th century.

Sound recordings.

Physical Description:

xviii, 302 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2024]

Summary:

"A cultural clearinghouse of the American 1960s and '70s as told through the story of the period's most important forgotten comedy group. This expansive book reclaims the Firesign Theatre (hazily remembered as a comedy act for stoners) as critically engaged artists working in the heart of the culture industry at a time of massive social and technological change. Working at the intersection of popular music, sound and media studies, cultural history, and avant-garde literature, Jeremy Braddock reveals how this inventive group made the lowbrow comedy album a medium for registering the contradictions and collapse of the counterculture, and traces their legacies in hip-hop turntablism, computer hacking, and participatory fan culture. Focusing on Firesign's work in Los Angeles from 1967 to 1975, Braddock deploys a vast range of material sources, informed by numerous interviews and writing in tune with the group's obsessive and ludic reflections--on multitrack recording, radio, television, cinema, early artificial intelligence, and more. This ebullient act of media archaeology reveals Firesign Theatre as authors of a comic utopian pessimism that will inspire twenty-first-century recording arts and urge us to engage the massive technological changes of our own era"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Liner notes

Album : talking book : Waiting for the electrician or someone like him (1968)

Radio : duplicity is the double of duality : How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all (1969)

Cinema : remediating the studio system in May 1970 : Don't crush that dwarf hand me the pliers (1970)

Artificial intelligence : up against the wall of science : I think we're all bozos on this bus (1971)

Television : what is television? : The Martian space party (1972), The Firesign Theatre vs. Dream monsters from el outer space (1972), Not insane (1972), TV or not TV (1973), Roller maidens from outer space (1974), In the next world you're on your own (1975)

Coda : run-out groove

Appendix A : Firesign Theatre discography

Appendix B : Firesign Theatre samples in hip hop and electronic music, 1989-2023.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Braddock, Jeremy. Firesign

ISBN:

9780520398511

0520398513

9780520398528

0520398521

OCLC:

1428531614