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![Radio Temptation [by the Businessmen] (1988)](http://d.furaffinity.net/art/kiffakitmouse/music/1488278723/1145607538.thumbnail.kiffakitmouse_radio_temptation.mp3.gif "Click to change the View")
Radio Temptation [by the Businessmen] (1988)
Well, today, April 21st, is kind of a significant date to me. This happens to be the 18th anniversary of the first 'official' song that I ever recorded (yikes, it's 'legal' now!). The story goes like this...
When I was a child, I met two brothers from Vermont named Jesse and Luke. Their grandparents lived down the street from me, and although I didn't know their grandparents, somehow I ended up meeting Jesse and Luke during one of their summer visits. We became fast friends, and always found time to hang out on their subsequent visits. Jesse and Luke's grandparents accepted me into their home with open arms, happy that their grandchildren had found someone close to their age to spend time with when they visited.
It was weird to have good friends who I only saw a couple of times a year. You never quite knew what the other would be into when you saw them again. And as time went on, and our musical tastes changed, we still always seemed to find some common ground. By the time we reached our mid-teens, each of us had also begun to take an interest in not just listening to music, but trying to create it. I had inherited a drum set from my uncle, Jesse had been practicing playing the keyboard (as had I), and Luke had an interest in the guitar. When Jesse and Luke came down to Massachusetts for a visit during April vacation in 1988, we decided it was time for us to make a stab at a musical collaboration.
Taking inspiration from an audio collage that I had put together (which consisted of 44-and-a-half minutes of chopped-'n-screwed sound clips from actual radio commercials), Jesse and I wrote a song called "Radio Temptation". Meant to be a statement about corporate America and the seduction of advertising, it featured me playing the drums (rather ineptly lol), Jesse on a Casio sampling keyboard (hi-tech! lol), and Luke on vocals. In between each verse there was a "break" during which clips from the radio ad collage played. Given the anti-big-business stance of the song, we decided to go for irony and call ourselves the Businessmen lol.
We wrote the song and recorded three takes of it (one of which is now lost) in my bedroom on April 21. Take 3 is the one that is considered to be the 'finished' version. Two days later we recorded an instrumental jam which we called "Ursa Major" as a B-side, so that we could put together a proper cassette single. "Ursa Major" was recorded literally at the last minute-- as we finished the song, Jesse and Luke's ride was waiting outside to take them home, their vacation time over.
Jesse, Luke and I would record again under the 'Businessmen' moniker in 1989, but looking back at it now, I can't believe it was only a year in between "Radio Temptation" and the stuff we recorded later. But I have the proof in ink, on the hand-written liner notes of the cassette sleeves that I made. The three of us would also record a ton of other music, either separately or in combinations, under several different names-- Isolated Incident, the Warheads, the Novices, Split!, the Other Guys-- but so far as I know, the Businessmen preceded them all.
Now, I'm well aware of how crude this recording is. It comes from a cassette that's probably older than some of the people reading this. As for the quality of the music, well, none of us knew what they were doing, having barely just begun to play. But everybody has to start somewhere, and I think we could've started worse.
So, for the sake of history (and maybe a laugh), here's "Radio Temptation". If the songs you create are truly your children, then my firstborn has come of age. She may not be the prettiest one, but she'll always have a special place in my heart.
Unless she gets knocked up by some no-account lowlife... then she's out of the will. :P
"Radio Temptation" (4:09)
Written and recorded April 21, 1988
Luke H. - vocals, tape manipulation
Jesse H. - keyboards
me - drums
It's a new sensation
Radio temptation
Radio persuasion
Drives you to frustration
On any radio station
Radio temptation
All across the nation
Destroys imagination
(commercial break 1)
Come to realization
Radio temptation
A commercial creation
Don't give in to temptation
(commercial break 2)
Solicitation
Fabrication
It's just temptation
DECAPITATION!!!
(commercial break 3)
When I was a child, I met two brothers from Vermont named Jesse and Luke. Their grandparents lived down the street from me, and although I didn't know their grandparents, somehow I ended up meeting Jesse and Luke during one of their summer visits. We became fast friends, and always found time to hang out on their subsequent visits. Jesse and Luke's grandparents accepted me into their home with open arms, happy that their grandchildren had found someone close to their age to spend time with when they visited.
It was weird to have good friends who I only saw a couple of times a year. You never quite knew what the other would be into when you saw them again. And as time went on, and our musical tastes changed, we still always seemed to find some common ground. By the time we reached our mid-teens, each of us had also begun to take an interest in not just listening to music, but trying to create it. I had inherited a drum set from my uncle, Jesse had been practicing playing the keyboard (as had I), and Luke had an interest in the guitar. When Jesse and Luke came down to Massachusetts for a visit during April vacation in 1988, we decided it was time for us to make a stab at a musical collaboration.
Taking inspiration from an audio collage that I had put together (which consisted of 44-and-a-half minutes of chopped-'n-screwed sound clips from actual radio commercials), Jesse and I wrote a song called "Radio Temptation". Meant to be a statement about corporate America and the seduction of advertising, it featured me playing the drums (rather ineptly lol), Jesse on a Casio sampling keyboard (hi-tech! lol), and Luke on vocals. In between each verse there was a "break" during which clips from the radio ad collage played. Given the anti-big-business stance of the song, we decided to go for irony and call ourselves the Businessmen lol.
We wrote the song and recorded three takes of it (one of which is now lost) in my bedroom on April 21. Take 3 is the one that is considered to be the 'finished' version. Two days later we recorded an instrumental jam which we called "Ursa Major" as a B-side, so that we could put together a proper cassette single. "Ursa Major" was recorded literally at the last minute-- as we finished the song, Jesse and Luke's ride was waiting outside to take them home, their vacation time over.
Jesse, Luke and I would record again under the 'Businessmen' moniker in 1989, but looking back at it now, I can't believe it was only a year in between "Radio Temptation" and the stuff we recorded later. But I have the proof in ink, on the hand-written liner notes of the cassette sleeves that I made. The three of us would also record a ton of other music, either separately or in combinations, under several different names-- Isolated Incident, the Warheads, the Novices, Split!, the Other Guys-- but so far as I know, the Businessmen preceded them all.
Now, I'm well aware of how crude this recording is. It comes from a cassette that's probably older than some of the people reading this. As for the quality of the music, well, none of us knew what they were doing, having barely just begun to play. But everybody has to start somewhere, and I think we could've started worse.
So, for the sake of history (and maybe a laugh), here's "Radio Temptation". If the songs you create are truly your children, then my firstborn has come of age. She may not be the prettiest one, but she'll always have a special place in my heart.
Unless she gets knocked up by some no-account lowlife... then she's out of the will. :P
"Radio Temptation" (4:09)
Written and recorded April 21, 1988
Luke H. - vocals, tape manipulation
Jesse H. - keyboards
me - drums
It's a new sensation
Radio temptation
Radio persuasion
Drives you to frustration
On any radio station
Radio temptation
All across the nation
Destroys imagination
(commercial break 1)
Come to realization
Radio temptation
A commercial creation
Don't give in to temptation
(commercial break 2)
Solicitation
Fabrication
It's just temptation
DECAPITATION!!!
(commercial break 3)
Category Music / 80s
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 120 x 81px
File Size 3.81 MB
Listed in Folders
The EBN? Is that anything like EBN-OZN? lol... I'm not actually familiar with the EBN, I'll have to check them out. Yeah, I really only uploaded this song as a lark (and for historical interest), but it's nice to get a couple of positive comments on it.
Although I think we can both agree, I will not be challenging you to a drum-off anytime soon LOL. ^_^
Although I think we can both agree, I will not be challenging you to a drum-off anytime soon LOL. ^_^
LOL That's so funny that you say that, because I only just heard that song for the first time. I was previously only familiar with "AEIOU", and one night I was looking for the video for that on YouTube so I could show it to a friend who'd never seen it, and we came across "Bag Lady". Good stuff. Now I only wish I could find it on CD.
That's funny, because actually, I did something exactly like that. I wrote a song called "The Politicians" (which I'm thinking about trying a new recording of), and the original version I recorded began with manipulated clips from the speech George Sr. made when the first Gulf War began.
There was a part where he said "Prior to ordering our soldiers into battle..." and another part where he gave a line about saving "innocent children", and I changed it so he says "Prior to ordering our innocent children into battle..." lol.
There was a part where he said "Prior to ordering our soldiers into battle..." and another part where he gave a line about saving "innocent children", and I changed it so he says "Prior to ordering our innocent children into battle..." lol.
"HOOOO Hooo hooo...." :) I have 4-track casettes filled with what I got that little thing to do, even after the keys started breaking off, heheh. I have to say you used it to much better effect than I ever did though. That must have taken a crazy amount of work - as I remember the sampler could only play from the beginning, so you would have had to piece everything together. Did you ever discover that if you took the AC adapter out and plugged it back in just right it would scramble the sample memory and add this really cool ring to the programmable 'synthesizer'?
No, I never used an AC adapter on it, just batteries... Actually, the only sample in this song that's being played on the SK-1 is the voice saying "Radio temptation". All of the ad clips were on a tape that was on 'pause', and was un-paused when we wanted the clips to play.
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