In this episode of the Thomas Peake Memorial Podcast, we offer up a “regular shift” — Thomas doing a 90-minute Atmospherics block on June 5th, 1992. Atmospherics is the name of a programming block on WREK that airs right after midnight every weeknight, offering up ambient and electronic sounds — in the parlance of Thomas, “mutant space blues, resonating stones, exotic foreign acoustic music”. It started as a weekly specialty show in the late 80s (hosted by Dan Leithauser) and then expanded to the nightly block. You can hear the care and enthusiasm that Thomas put into all of his on-air time, and also you can hear him stepping aside to let the trainees (“dummy ops”) run the board for bit.
This tape comes to us courtesy of Dena Peake; Thomas had recorded this show for some reason. It does have some of his favorites on it, including Neil B. Rolnick, to whom Thomas would dedicate an entire Sunday Special a year later.
As mentioned in the intro to this episode, there is a Beautify the Beltline project being conducted on October 9, 2010, in memory of Thomas. Coordinated by Dena, it will run from 9am to noon, and participants will meet up at The Depot at 904 Memorial Drive.
Playlist:
“Loopy” by Neil B. Rolnick from album “Solos”
“Among Icebergs” by Jay Greinke
“Rain” by The Judgment of Paris
“Evening Song” by The Guo Brothers and Shung Tian
— voice break
“Fortune” by Felt from album “Crumbling Antiseptic Beauty”
“Bydlo (Mussogorsky)” by Tomita
“Canopy” by Kit Watkins
— voice break (with dummy op, apparently)
“Voyager” by Jay Scott Perry (?)
“The Wind and All This Noise” by Lonely Universe
“Agua e Vinho” by Egberto Gismonti
— voice break (dummy op, still learning)
“Playing The Bridge For Heaven” by C. W. Vrtacek
“Rosindo El Post” (?) by Arawi, The Contemporary Orchestra of Native Instruments
“As the Bell Rings the Maypole Spins” by Dead Can Dance from album “Aion”
“Roots III” by Wagner Tiso
“Miss Noble” by Nicholas Blanton from album “Ways Upon Bells”
— voice break, with a different dummy op
“The Hole To Heaven” by Randy Greif from compilation Dry Lungs II
“Ballerinas of Manaus” by Monochrome Bleu from compilation Dry Lungs II
“More Dust” (Herbert Brun) by Cincinnati Percussion Group from a box set on Opus One Records