March 12, 2012: Over The Edge: Riding Railroads

OVER THE EDGE: RIDING RAILROADS

This is five hours of trains, from the building of the transcontinental railroad through the Old West one-and-a-half centuries ago, laced with sounds and dialog from “Once Upon A Time In The West,” to Robert Bloch’s mid-20th-century tale of the Hellbound Train and the hobo jungles of the depression, to Disneyland’s enshrinement of the railroad as toy transportation. You’ve seen all those sound effects discs with the sounds of trains? Well finally, here they all are, from steam to diesel and high speed stereo passes that will blow you right over. America has produced many songs about riding railroads and we have some of those too. And in the end, the whole thing arrives right on time. (January 29, 2004).

Over the Edge (or, OTE) is a sound collage radio program hosted and produced by Don Joyce. Joyce is also a member of the pioneering sound collage band Negativland, members of which frequently make guest appearances on Over the Edge. A series of Over the Edge episodes have been released under the Negativland name. www.negativland.com/ote/?p=944

Founded in 1981, OTE is broadcast live on KPFA in Berkeley, California, every second, third, and fourth Thursday morning from 12am to 3am. On the rare occasion of a month with a fifth Thursday OTE runs an additional two hours, from 12am to 5am. The show is also available on-line, streamed live from KPFA.org (where you can also podcast the show), or from the Negativland website, where many older episodes are available as well.

Because of the 5-hour length of this show, it is archived across two Pop-Up links, below.

Listen to this show:  Pop-up player! |  Pop-up player!