Firesign Theatre Roots web page online since September 1995
THE FIRESIGN THEATRE members are PHILIP AUSTIN, PETER BERGMAN, DAVID OSSMAN and PHILIP PROCTOR.
FEATURED at bottom of Chronology is:
The
Firesign Theatre Roots web page online since September 1995
Excerpt from Mark Time's True Chronology of The Firesign Theatre from 1972 FIRESIGN THEATRE'S BIG BOOK OF PLAYS:
1966
July 24 - The first broadcast of Radio Free Oz over KPFK-FM [
November 17 - The Firesign Theatre's first performance, "The Oz Film Festival," a three-hour improvisation on Radio Free Oz.
December - Peter, David and Phil and Annalee Austin attend the Soyal
Ceremony in Hopiland. (Phil P. is On Tour in
1967
March - The first broadcast of a four-hour radio documentary on the American Indian, written and produced by Peter, David and Phil A., followed by a weekend Colloquium, followed by the first LOVE-IN, organized by Radio Free Oz, which moved to KRLA-AM [Los Angeles] the same day (March 26th).
April-May - After Phil Proctor's return from the East, The Firesign Theatre writes and records "Waiting For The Electrician or Someone Like Him".
April 29 - The Firesign Theatre performs their Bulgarian play called "Waiting For The Electrician or Someone Like Him" at a U.C.L.A. Experimental Arts Festival.
June-July - David and Phil P. conduct Oz during Peter's return trip to
September 14 - Peter and David begin broadcasting Radio Free Oz for three
hours every Sunday night [KRLA-AM 1110] from a
October 29 - Bridey Murphy Eve on Oz begins a series of weekly radio plays written and performed live by F.S.T. at the Magic Mushroom. Among the scripts are "Exorcism In Your Daily Life", "The Last Tunnel To Fresno", "20 Years Behind The Whale", "The Giant Rat Of Sumatra", "The Sword And The Stoned", "Sesame Mucho", "The Armenian's Paw", and "Tile It Like It Is".
December 9 - The Firesign Theatre performs its first stage piece, "Freak For A Week", for a KPFK -FM benefit at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.
1968
January 14 - The last KRLA-AM Oz broadcast (from the studio lobby) includes the performance of "A Life In The Day", based on a trip through television.
February - "Waiting For The Electrician or Someone Like Him" released by Columbia Records [CS9518].
March - The Firesign Theatre plays a week at the Ash Grove. [FST perform] another production of "Freak For A Week" at a Kaleidoscope [on Sunset Blvd. just east of Vine Street and across the street from The Hollywood Palladium] KPPC benefit [concert for striking Underground Radio disc jockeys at KPPC-FM 106.7 Pasadena, California].
April 30th - The Les Crane TV show is devoted to underground filmmakers. The "real" identites of the four guests are never revealed during the program [as the Four members of The Firesign Theatre]
October - The group "breaks up" over a variety of issues, not the least of which is financial insecurity.
November - Radio Free Oz begins on KMET-FM [
1969
January - The Firesign Theatre, back together again, records "How Can You Be...", and writes "Nick Danger" for a radio Special. The Special is cancelled after Oz is fired, and "Nick Danger" is recorded for the Second album.
June - Firesign Theatre writes and records six TV commercials for Jack Poet Volkswagen. The commercials are actually broadcast June 23-27 on [L.A. TV station] Channel 13.
August - "How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All" [CS9884] is released.
November - The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour begins on KPPC-FM from basement of Pasadena Presbyterian Church.
1970
August sees release of "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers" [C30102] and the firing of FST from KPPC-FM
September 9 - first broadcast of a weekly one hour radio show, " Dear Friends" at KPFK-FM, recorded for syndication.
1971
August sees release of "I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus" [C30737]
November - "Dear Friends-Let's Eat!" returns to the air on KPFK-FM
weekly through February 1972, followed by a 90-minute
special "The Firesign Theatre's Martian Space Party", broadcast and
filmed on
[end of Mark Time "Chronology" excerpt]
REMEMBER: Everything You Know Is Wrong!
FIRESIGN THEATRE INTERVIEW BY JOHN CARPENTER IN THE
On page 36, the article begins under the title "Dr. Firesign's Traveling Antique Circus" and it concludes on page 30 under the banner "The Perfect Ralph Williams Mantra". [Editor corrected the typos where Ossman is wrongly spelled Ossmon. Odd spellings of Bergman are kept as printed.]
Three years ago, Peter Bergman was doing the first of many manifestations of Radio Free Oz on KPFK. Phil Proctor was in town working for the East Village Other and appearing in a play. David Ossman was an executive with the ABC network, hanging about KPFK doing a documentary on the American Indian. And Phil Austin was director of literature and drama for the station. Bergman's program was, at the time, one of the most popular on the air, almost a religious cult to many listeners who would phone in to have their Tarot read by Peter the Wizard, or hear the collages he prepared.
Starting with the Oz Film Festival, where the nun and other dirty pictures were shown on radio for the first time, the four got together frequently to do satire and perform radio skits. After a few months the show moved from KPFK where it had been on five nights a week over to KRLA where it was on every Sunday night for almost a year.
The group was signed by Columbia Records to do an album, "Waiting For The Electrician or Someone Like Him," and started appearing weekly at the Magic Mushroom doing live radio dramas from the club's stage that were also broadcast over KRLA. One night Bergman read a commercial over the air, "Put your hands up the skirt of a Toyota Corona and really turn on," and after a short period off the air, turned up on KMET Sunday mornings solo, doing a DJ and talk show.
The show, "Son Of Radio Free Oz," was canceled after Bergman played the Fugs' "Johnny Pissoff Meets The Red Angel." The following interview was taped in the Board room of Columbia Records.
CARPENTER: How did the Firesign Theatre start?
BERGMAN: Proctor and I had a blind date when I was at Yale and...
PROCTOR: No, we had a good feeling between us, so to speak. Then, we started doing this radio program which I call Bregman.
BERGMAN: It's Bergman.
PROCTOR: Birdman, that's right. He was known at the time as the birdman of KPFK because they kept him in this little office, a closet, it was - with bars, though. The show was called Radio Free OOze. Later it was changed to the Electric Brew, due to the influence of our first record. My first lover, Phil, was working as a program manager at KPFK, and my second lover, Davey or Davey Beck to his friends -
BERGMAN: Like Olga?
PROCTOR: - was working as an announcer and best boy at the station, so the four of us, counting Peter, did a put-on, a hoax. The first hoax was the Oz Film Festival. We showed a dirty movie on the radio, yes, which got us into a lot of trouble. After that, we did a lot of skits on the radio all of which were a lot of bunk. I was writing articles and doing collages for the East Village Other at the time, and I knew Peter from Yale.
I was with Peter Fonda and Brandon De Wilde and we were at the Sunset Strip riot doing research for a movie about the Youth Revolution called "Easy Rider" ... It has changed a great deal since then ... Well, at the Sunset Strip riot, I sat on a picture of Bergren when the police pushed us into this Happy Pup, a homosexual restaurant. I looked at him and he said, "KPFK newsman," and I said, "Gee, I know him. Maybe he can get me a place to sleep." I spent the next three weeks in the KPFK studio curled up under a big table while Peter was rapping on the radio.
OSSMAN: I was an ABC executive then. I was down at KPFK trying to convince Peter Indians would be interesting. I knocked on the closet door and this muffled voice came out from inside. "Peter! What about doing something on Indians?" "On what? What about Indians? What Indians?"
PROCTOR: I went on tour in a play with Robert Cummings. We played nine
months (or was it six weeks?) in
BERGMAN: Were you f**king her?
PROCTOR: I was back in
CARPENTER: What was that?
PROCTOR: He was tried as a Communist before it was in vogue.
BERGMAN: Yes. That was in Vogue just last week.
PROCTOR: I walked into Peter's house and he said, "Speak English. You can sleep in the attic with the dogs and cats. We start recording next week." I said fine, and moved in three weeks later. We were in the studio a lot.
CARPENTER: You had all worked in radio individually?
BERGMAN: The first of the three times I've been kicked off the air was a
PROCTOR: I was schooled entirely in the East. I was in a gang - Dayton Vallis and Quin Robinson. Dayton Vallis is now a hot rod motorcycle driver and Quin has fallen off a garage.
CARPENTER: How Did "Waiting For The Electrician" do?
BERGMAN: It's doing really well now but it started slow. I remember when it
first came out we got a call from this guy and he says, "You're dead in
PROCTOR: It was just, "You're dead in
BERGMAN: Remember what happened? Nobody laughed at all. We did "Profiles in Barbecue Sauce," remember?
CARPENTER: I used to hear a lot of talk about doing street theatre, gypsy-like
all over
OSSMAN: We came out with the props and the full theatre.
PROCTOR: I went to see the Congress of Wonders, and I thought they were into the same trip we are, you know; we'd never known there was anyone like us. They did it the logical way, and played to the Fillmore audience, and we were out in left field somewhere.
BERGMAN: Comic strips - that is what we were doing, we didn't know what it was.
OSSMAN: It was a put-on theatre, of the tradition of the old touring shows. "Dr. Firesign's Antique Traveling Circus."
CARPENTER: When did the car dealer, Ralph Spoilsport, come into your act?
OSSMAN: Peter had taken some gorgeous woman off to
BERGMAN:
OSSMAN: Proctor and his old lady and me and my old lady were living in this big hilltop house while he was over there, and one day Phil walked down the stairs and did it. He said, "I have just worked out the Ralph Williams Mantra." "Huh," we said, then he did it and we were on the floor.
PROCTOR: Hiya friends...
OSSMAN: When Peter came back I said, "Phil's got the perfect Ralph Williams Mantra, you know and he spends a good deal of time in the bathroom because of it." Ralph became Ralph Spoilsport, one of the sponsors on Freak For A Week, one of our radio skits. He was great, always a guaranteed laugh and gradually all of us began to be able to do the voice.
PROCTOR: We had discovered the American salesman. Two things happened to Ralph after that. He got written into the "How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Really Noy Anywhere At All" side of the record, which was to be his apotheosis. The apotheosis of Ralph Williams because he talks over himself, five times. All of us do it. Peter picked it up and started using it on the Jack Poet ads, its identified with those as well.
OSSMAN: Here we are, sitting on this record, and all of a sudden every one is doing Ralph. He goes on -
PROCTOR:
CARPENTER: I read about a put-on you did at the Columbia Convention.
PROCTOR: Yes, all of the
I said, "At EuroPulse we have determined that the buying public is the youth market. What are the youth? In order to determine this, we at EuroPulse have determined that we had to do what youth do. We smoked pot, we sniffed glue, we dropped acid, some of us found the tabs and took them. But so that we wouldn't lose touch with reality, we drank too. Heavily.
Please Note: KRLA is AM and KMET is FM
In a
Radio Free Oz on KPFK-FM Sundays through Thursdays from
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The Planet Proctor Archive maintained by Tiny Dr. Tim features recent
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Chromium Switch: The Original Firesign Theatre Newsletter featuring Edgar's
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