"Inside Star Trek"

Boldly going forward 'cause we can't find reverse.

Apocalypse War

Judge Dredd - The Original Adventures: Apocalypse War (1995). The follow up to The Day The Law Died as featured on the Mark Goodier show at the time. This adaptation also includes elements from another classic tale, Block Mania a prologue to Apocalypse War. Once again Maggs fills your ears with wall-to-wall sonic adventure in a way and at a pace no other radio producer seems capable of. The file quality is not as good here I'm afraid - unlike the previous post it's not my rip - but still quite listenable. Get yourself a plate of "delicious" munce, sit back and enjoy... the audio adventure that is, you probably wouldn't enjoy the munce.

All credit to the original uploader: dl

The Day The Law Died

Judge Dredd - The Original Adventures: The Day The Law Died (1995). Another sumptuous OTT audio movie production from Dirk Maggs. Read all about the production of both series one and two here.

dl1 & dl2

Age of Steampunk

This week's listening recommendations are once again twofold:

1: Mr Jupitus in the age of Steampunk

An Herr Döktor original, earlier.

"If you've ever encountered a person with flying goggles, clad in tweeds and clutching a mahogany laptop or brass smartphone on a chain, what's the explanation? Phill Jupitus steps into an era where the 19th and 21st centuries charmingly collide, to investigate the time travelling cult known as Steampunk.

Travelling back to the steam-powered future, Phill discovers a cast of modern characters - engineers, scientists, writers, artists and inventors - taking their inspiration from the Victorian and Edwardian arts and sciences, and from the fiction of H.G. Wells.

"It's still the early twenty-first century. The Victorian world, the Edwardian world carried on", explains Ian Crichton aka Herr Doktor amongst an array of fantastical homemade devices: digital camera modified with rivets, brass-etched ray gun, steam pistol and a space helmet like that worn by Lionel Jeffries in The First Men on The Moon. "We've got steam-powered cars on the streets. We've got huge dirigibles flying to Japan".

Steampunk speculates on an imaginary overlap between the 19th century and the present day. Phill investigates at a Steampunk convivial, The Houses of Parliament, on an x-ray ward, at a punk gig and in a shed in suburban Surrey.

You can catch up with a couple more of Mr Jupitus' exceedingly interesting past radio programmes via this very blog, here and here.

2. The Dissolution

Ever since reading Ellis Peters' Cadfael stories and seeing Sean Connery in Umberto Eco's The Name Of The Rose I've always been rather partial to period crime/mystery tales set in and around monasteries. After all they do seem to make for the perfect setting for a good whodunnit peppered with eccentric characters and plenty of intrigue. The new serial in the 15 Minute Drama slot sounds like it could turn out be something worth sticking with for the next two weeks.

"London, 1537. As he plots to bring down the Abbeys, Thomas Cromwell sends his trusted lawyer-detective, Matthew Shardlake, to investigate the murder of a King's Commissioner in a monastery on the south coast of Kent. Which of the terrified monks is the murderer - and can Shardlake catch him before he strikes again? C J Sansom's bestselling Tudor crime novel, adapted for radio by Colin MacDonald.

Harry Harrison's The Technicolor Time Machine

Harry Harrison 1925 - 2012

Very sad to read of the passing of yet another SF hero today, but what a fantastic and enjoyable body of work he has left us. As a young reader I loved such stories as The Men From P.I.G and R.O.B.O.T, Bill The Galactic Hero and of course Slippery Jim DiGriz aka The Stainless Steel Rat. Currently on the "to read" shelf I've a copy of Harrison's A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! (aka Tunnel Through The Deeps) a steampunk/alt. history novel published a good 20 years or so before the sub-genre was first pigeonholed.

Technicolor Time Machine cover art by the great Bruce Pennington

The Saturday Play: The Technicolour Time Machine (1981). Harry Harrison's fun tale of desperate movie moguls, airheaded Hollywood starlets, brawny Vikings and the time machine that brings them all together.

All credit to the original uploader. dl

You can also listen to the rather excellent, BBC Radiophonic LP version of Bill The Galactic Hero here.

Imposter

Brian Aldiss Presents: Imposter. Philip K Dick's paranoid tale is read by Peter Marinker.

"Spence Olham is confronted by a colleague and accused of being an android impostor designed to sabotage Earth’s defences. The impostor’s ship was damaged and has crashed just outside the city. The android is supposed to detonate a planet destroying bomb on the utterance of a deadly code phrase. Olham must escape and prove his innocence, providing he is actually Spence Olham.

First published in Astounding Science Fiction June 1953 issue. 

dl

The Chrysalids

The Chrysalids, John Wyndhams' evergreen tale of a future blighted by fallout, mutation and intolerance is in the Radio 4 "Classic Serial" slot over the next couple of weeks and it's perfect listening for the summer hols. I read the novel for the first time whilst in my early teens, then re-read it again straight after. Not something I was, or am, in the habit of doing but I was obsessed by the story for that summer. The local library also had an excellent unabridged audio-book performed by actor Robert Powell if memory serves.  Auntie Beeb's original radio drama really shows it's age now when you listen back to it, so it's great to be getting this new adaptation 31 years later. It's a long standing audio drama pet-hate of mine, when an adult female voice is cast in the role of a boy and the aforesaid 1981 version has that in spades. I don't know who they thought they were fooling but thankfully at least, the practice seems to have died out in recent times. Also, as was common in radio drama of that time and earlier, there's a plethora of plummy RADA type accents of the old school, which really don't fit the post-apocalyptic agrarian community they are portraying.

I'm pleased to confirm the new 2012 adaptation is a big improvement so far upon first listen. You can catch up with both episodes here until the 12th of August.

Independence Day UK

Sir Patrick Caldwell-Moore, earlier.

Independence Day UK (1996) the Audio Movie from Dirk Maggs and rather a peculiar cast. Lots of fun to be had here I think. According to the link above the original broadcast was immediately followed by John Peel, who dryly commented: "Well, it's been like an hour-long intro to a Man or Astro-man? single." More info here.

Here's a link to a recent interview with Maggs on the Radio Drama Revival podcast. I can't wait for his upcoming BBC radio adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, supposedly airing later this year.

dl: 1 & 2

Super Space Detective Captain Zep

Theme From The BBC TV Series Captain Zep - Space Detective by The Spacewalkers (1983). I have no recollection of watching this at all, guess there must have been something better on "the other side".

Captain Zep looks like it was a pretty awful show but it's a great pop theme tune all the same. Side B "A Race Against Time" very much sounds like an instrumental by Rush or Marillion if they were on a tight budget. Fans of anal retentiveness may also be pleased to note that I have added a bonus 'side C', being "Zep One Interior" by Dick Mills as taken from BBC Essential Hi Tech Sound Effects. 

The Spacewalkers (Paul Aitken and David Owen Smith) also made music for other BBC children's favourites Take Hart, Hartbeat with Tony Hart and Knowhow with Johnny Ball, under their own publishing company Catslick Music.

Whilst throwing this post together I was both surprised and extremely pleased to discover that two albums by Paul Aitken and David Owen Smith (The Catslick Gallery 1 & 2), featuring music taken from both of the Tony Hart shows, are currently available as legit downloads from all the usual legit mp3 vendors. If you've enjoyed the music of Richard Denton and Martin Cook I've already posted on Ripping Yarns, or if your simply after more "Programmes For Schools and Colleges" nostalgia, I highly recommend searching them out and giving them a listen.

Captain Zep patronising two dimensional aliens with ropey accents, earlier.

dl

Keep This Frequency Clear!

Gerry Anderson Presents: Thunderbirds & Captain Scarlet On One Record! (1968?)

Q: Can one a single disc of ordinary black vinyl contain so much excitement?

A: Yes, but only just.

If you are of a certain age and remember those UK chart-topping house singles from the late 80's by acts like M|A|R|R|S, Coldcut and Bomb The Bass, then you will probably spot many vocal samples liberated from this recording. It only adds to the listening pleasure as far as I'm concerned. The score interspersing all the high drama comes, as always, from the late great Barry Gray.

dl

Home Movies

Thanks to Herr Döktor for pointing out this gem.

No.14 - Signature Tune: A New Beginning

Brian Hodgson with the dismembered piano that created the Tardis sound.

Dr Who: 30 Years at the Radiophonic Workshop (1963-93). Essential electric goodness from Radiophonic heroes, Brian Hodgson, Delia Derbyshire, Dick Mills, Elizabeth Parker, Paddy Kingsland and Peter Howell.

dl

A New Hope

BBC Radio 1 feature Skywalker 1997 - broadcast during the 20th anniversary hype building up to the original Star Wars CGI re-tinkerings. From a time when the prospect of episodes I-III had yet to fill the Internet with fear, anger, hate and the other thing. From a time when George Lucas had barely begun to troll his own back catalogue. 

The show is made up of interviews with cast & crew, just about everybody apart from Carrie Fisher and particularly worth hearing for the bits on sound design, Harrison Ford/Mark Hamill on dialogue, Irvin Kershner on The Empire Strikes Back and for how they (George Lucas and Rick McCallum) envisaged the prequels would pan out.

This is an old off-air recording, although I've done my best to clean it up, there is some static occasionally.

dl

No.19 - Metebelis III Atmosphere

To celebrate its imminent return to our observation screens, here's No.19: Doctor Who Sound Effects. Of all my Radiophonic collection ripped so far I'm afraid this is in the least best condition. I've done the best I can restoration wise, but there are still clicks and pops in places. It's interesting to reflect how menacing and otherworldly the show sounds circa 1978 in comparison to the sonic blandness of the orchestrafillinginallthegapssothatyoucanbarelybreath approach favoured by more recent regenerations.

This album has been re-released and is therefore no longer available for download via this blog.

No. 26 - Dodecahedron Energy Beams

Sound Effects No.26 Sci-Fi Sound Effects (1981) . A classic and home of "The core, a huge evergrowing pulsating brain which rules from the centre of Ultraworld". Ripped @ 320 kbps into individual tracks. Enjoy.

dl

The Machine Stops

'Out Of The Unknown: The Machine Stops' (BBC 1966)

"Oh, hush!" said his mother, vaguely shocked. "You mustn't say anything against the Machine."

It must be almost a quarter century since we studied E.M. Forster's 1909 short story in Eng. Lit. It seemed a quite otherworldly and a bit daft to me at the time, with none of the thrills or prescience of Messrs Wells, Huxley or Orwell. 102 years on however and The Machine Stops seems to have finally come of age...

"How we have advanced, thanks to the Machine!"

The Machine Stops (2009) by The Freise Brothers 

Free E-Book version dl

Librivox audio book dl
 

Nostromo - Alien

One of my favourite charity shop finds is this 1979 12" disco re-working of Jerry Goldsmith's theme from Alien. It brings back happy memories of reading the paperback, poring over the colour movie stills in the middle, long before I was old enough to actually be allowed to watch the film itself. The B-side is pretty groovy too, the sort of tune that would play well on the jukebox in any seedy space ranger's bar. 

dl

Ken Freeman - Theme from The Tripods

Classic mid-80's synth 7" by Ken Freeman. Infamously the show never got past 2 seasons because, unlike this lovely sleeve here, there just weren't enough Tripods on display each week. That's how I remember it anyway...

dl