Dear friends,
As we enter the final week of Real Deep Radio, we want to extend our deepest gratitude to all of you for lending us your ears and eyes this past year. Before we go, we each wanted to offer some reflections on our time together. We’ve got a week full of great programming lined up, and hope you’ll join us one more time. Until then:
HUGH: I used to take the late shift for my solo radio show in college. From midnight to two (and very often beyond) in a windowless booth in a dingy basement, I’d spin my greatest hits of the day for a tiny audience that would steadily dwindle until it was just me playing back to back Pharoah Sanders to no one, save perhaps for the occasional insomniac or hapless long haul trucker scanning their dials. I liked to think I was doing it for these potential (if unlikely) listeners, fulfilling some vague fantasy of reaching out to a stranger with something they’d never heard and needed to hear, but I wouldn’t have kept it up all those years if I hadn’t enjoyed having a quiet room where I could blast music all to myself. Sharing tunes might have been intended as a social gesture, but the real appeal of that slot was its anti-social trappings. Life outside the booth was constant socializing, but in there I could find some reprieve.
The intent and experience of Real Deep Radio could not be further from those formative years broadcasting. In the absence of every familiar form of socializing, it’s been a blessing to have this space to fill the void left by live music or those casual hangs at friend’s homes, time spent chatting and listening to music together. I’ve always been uncomfortable on a video chat, never made a habit of calling up friends on whim, and have been known to hole up in my room for hours on end, so a sense of isolation was particularly strong last Spring. RDR helped pull me out of that. We all needed moments of reprieve throughout this last year in one way or another, and I hope this little enterprise provided you with that, as it did for me each and every time I tuned in or got on the air. Thanks to all of you for making it something special.
ADAM: A lot has happened this past year and my radio shows have happened during a variety of different phases, moods, and moments for me. There have been many shows where I was feeling the emotional fatigue of covid, being in my 20’s, work, etc. and listeners/DJ’s have always made me feel a part of something. Sometimes it surprises me to look out and realize that people are there looking and listening right back. I had several attentive listeners last week when I was playing some free jazz that’s at the absolute extremity of listenability. But, as usual, there’s someone listening, chatting, appreciating etc. The end of Real Deep Radio doesn’t mean the end of this community. I always say this, but I’m grateful to everyone who’s tuned in, read the recs, or had a show. You all made something special out of a truly trying year. I hope we can all stay engaged and connected. Until then, thank you.
KEVIN: Last May, right around the “official” start of Real Deep Radio (though we’d been broadcasting for more than a month by then!) musician and writer David Toop wrote an essay for The Quietus titled “Music Is A Memory Machine.” I often have this concept in mind when I think about what we’re doing here on Real Deep Radio. To Toop, when we give attention to music we’re always “recalling what happened and has gone, what is happening right now as a passing moment, what is coming into itself as if as listeners we are living permanently in the future.” Toop’s writing can be a little opaque to me, but I think he means that in music, there’s no such thing as a still frame. You can’t grasp just one moment. Not the past, not the present, not the future. We hear all of it at once. I don’t know—I won’t try to say something big about the whole last year; how could I?
I really do think something like magic happens when we pay attention together with others. I can listen as deep as I want on my own—I can close my eyes and think hard—but I’ll never experience anything alone like the feeling that can happen when we’re in time together, hearing, remembering, and reacting at once. So I’m grateful to everyone who’s hosted a show on Real Deep Radio and I’m grateful to everyone who’s listened. It wouldn’t have been half as fun without everyone who posted in the chat or sent a text to shoot the shit, to send recipes and make dumb jokes, to hear all together even when we’re apart. All my love to new friends and old.
Yours,
Real Deep Radio
SCHEDULE
all times EST, tune in at https://mixlr.com/real_deep_radio/
Sunday, 5/9
8:30-9:30PM – Toxic Dogs with Ivana Ng
An ode to Ivana's radio show in her college days, Toxic Dogs is an exploration of avant-garde jazz from around the world, with the occasional soul, funk and R&B. This is music for deep listening, introspection, and joyous movement.
Monday, 5/10
8-10PM – Deep Trough with Lucas Knapp, Jack Washburn & Hugh Wilikofsky
Join us for one last slop in the trough. As is tradition, we’ll be trading tracks back and forth to collectively weave a coherent but eclectic mix with no preparation whatsoever. If someone derails the vibes they will be shamed on air and the vibes will be reset. Turn on, tune in, call us out; slop in the trough with us.
Tuesday, 5/11
8-10PM – a little of this a little of that with Adam Brill
For my last show on Real Deep Radio, I’ll be keeping things unpredictable. I enjoy the spontaneity and sense of discovery that comes from having a completely undetermined playlist. We’ll see where the vibes take us.
Wednesday, 5/12
7-8PM – Turn It Up Mimi! with Mary Hollyman
Bringing you a mix of mostly early r&b and rock 'n' roll with other eclectic sounds and decades sprinkled in, this show will make you want to cut a rug and shout 'Turn it up Mimi!' For her final show on Real Deep Radio, Mary (Mimi) will be playing a mix of tunes she's been enjoying as of late, as well as songs about magic which will be woven throughout her set.
Thursday, 5/13
7-8:15PM – The Final Hour with Charlie Collison
A farewell to and celebration of Real Deep Radio.
8:30-10PM – Mondo Alienation with Hugh Wilikofsky
Listening beyond our comfort zones with a sense of openness expands them. To conclude our long, strange journey, the tone of this final program will be celebratory, melancholy, maybe a bit mawkish, and of course reliably off.
Friday, 5/14
9-10:30PM – Hot Wax Vol. 5: Dark Night, Quiet Storm with Jon Loeb
Thank you to Hugh, Adam and Kevin for starting this Real Deep. I can't imagine the quarantine year without it. Your passion for music has helped rekindle mine. My final Real Deep show will be a misty, foggy journey through the night with eerie and soothing grooves to guide you along. As always Hot Wax will be straight from the turntables to your ears. Expect records at weird unrecognizable speeds. Real Deep Forever.
Saturday, 5/15
7-9PM – Nearer/Clearer with Kevin McKinney
Each installment of Nearer/Clearer will be different, but its spirit lives in the idea that we listen better when we listen together. Nearer/Clearer is devoted to approachability without predictability. For our last ever installment, why don’t you sit down with me and listen to some jazz? I’m cooking up a perfect playlist for you and I’m pulling out all the stops: expect to hear a lot of favorites and almost certainly something new, too.
RECOMMENDED
ADAM: This week, I listened to Scot Ray’s new album Hypnogogic for the first time. Its style of improv, which incorporates any and every sound in service of the album’s beauty and catharsis, feels liberatory and freeing. I’ve also been returning to an old favorite in the historic Indestructible Beat of Soweto. This collection, one of the first collections of South African music to become widely available on an international scale, is joyous and lively. A good primer for a hopefully wonderful Summer.