Kohl and Kolar in Chicago! Shortwave Collective in Rotterdam! DJ Paz in Miami!
Dorit Chrysler in Italy! Martiensgohome in Brussels! LoVid in Toledo! Or London?
This Week in Radio Art and Unlicensed Transmissions:
Inevitable court clash over constitutionality of massive pirate radio fines now underway?
Lia Kohl and Jeff Kolar tune in Chicago.
Dorit Chrysler waves a Siren song in Italy.
The current weather-radar-facilities-must-be-attacked conspiracy theory.
Delta Listening with Radio Worm.
LIA KOHL AND JEFF KOLAR
The rest of the bill ain’t shabby July 11 (Daniel Wyche, Emily Beisel, Bill Harris, and others), but radio art stars Lia Kohl and Jeff Kolar would be the big draw for me at Marmalade in Chicago.
RADIO WORM
DORIT CHRYSLER
Thereminist Dorit Chrysler guides the waves at the Siren festival on July 11.
MARTIENSGOHOME
Martiensgohome provide this week’s Radia episode, and write, “The inspiration for this piece came from the idea of treating the radiowaves as a living environment, a complex landscape just waiting to be explored. Applying field-recording methods to the shortwave signals of the radio highlights its various sceneries, and its diverse inhabitants. From radio amateurs to state propaganda, and from entertainers to religious freaks, all types of discourses can be found here competing for attention. Surrounding these voices is an equally fascinating ocean of electronic sounds : magnetic storms, carrier waves, interferences, radio-jamming, hum and buzz. The aether is an infinite synthesizer. The natural tones and human-made noises of the airwaves represent an inexhaustible source of sound material and inspiration.”
PIRATE RADIO NEWS
Fabrice Polynice, or DJ Paz, microcasting since at least 2012 according to the Federal Communications Commission.
This is the largest pirate radio story in years. A buccaneer broadcaster in Miami who has been on the air illegally since 2012 was recently denied a reduction in his unpayable $2.4 million fine. Now lawyers for Fabrice Polynice, or DJ Paz, are challenging his fine citing last year’s SEC v. Jarkesy Supreme Court decision. Polynice is being fined for operating a radio station on 90.1-FM in North Miami in February and March of 2023, but the Federal Communication Commission claims he has been on the air with “Radio Touche Douce” since at least 2012.
Polynice’s lawyers first proved he cannot possibly pay the $2.4 million fine, providing tax returns showing his gross adjusted income from 2021—2023 was less than $16,000 in each of those three years. That did not sway the FCC, as they seemed to take Polynice’s decade-plus success on the air personally, releasing this statement: “Some of the most egregious pirate radio operations are run by individuals who have ignored prior enforcement actions by the commission. This is one such case. As such, it merits the strongest possible enforcement measures to the fullest extent of the law.”
So now Polynice’s attorney’s are arguing his lack of a trial after the SEC v. Jarkesy Supreme Court decision should mean the case is thrown out. Cameron Coats and Adam R Jacobson report in Radio and Television Business Report that in the Supreme Court’s 2024 SEC vs. Jarkesy ruling the nation’s highest judicial body “neutered an independent agency’s ability to levy a forfeiture, declaring that administrative enforcement proceedings seeking punitive fines fall squarely within the definition of ‘suits at common law’ and must be tried in federal court.” Former FCC Deputy General Counsel Peter Karanjia is supporting this interpretation, so it has some validity. He warns that most FCC forfeiture actions may now be unconstitutional.
Polynice’s attorneys claim that, “before the federal government can impose a punitive fine” such as the $2.4 million in his case, DJ Paz has a right to a judge and jury, according to the Seventh Amendment. “That right has not been afforded to Mr. Polynice in this proceeding,” his legal representation wrote. With the current state of the courts, who knows how a court trial might turn out. Pirate radio could soon be legal, or pirate radio operators might all be in concentration camps. So this story just might blow up.
The FCC regulates the airwaves in the United States, and typically first warns pirates to get off the air, which they usually do before fines are levied. In early 2020, Congress first allowed the agency to hand out multi-million dollar fines, which has not yet been fully challenged in court. Since then, the fines have been rising. For instance, on Sept. 26, 2024 the FCC gave Masner Beauplan of Middletown, NY a $920,000 fine, “for operating an unauthorized radio station, known as “Radio Leve Kanpe”, on 91.7 MHz (Station) in Irvington, New Jersey and Maplewood, New Jersey, by which Beauplan apparently willfully and knowingly did, caused, or suffered to be done pirate radio broadcasting on weekdays and Saturdays from November 16, 2023, through January 8, 2024, resulting in 46 days of apparent violations.” Beauplan, apparently lives in Middletown, but does his microcasting in New Jersey. Or he is the landlord of a building with the alleged illicit broadcasts. The station transmits Haitian programming, like a large plurality of American pirate radio stations. During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump seemed to particularly target Haitian immigrant communities (he falsely claimed they were eating dogs). Will Trump now target the pirate radio stations in those communities? It is not out of the realm of possibility that the President of the United States rails against some particular pirate radio station run by an immigrant community that has little access to the legal airwaves. Trump might even be raving about Fabrice Polynice sometime soon.
MEANWHILE, BACK IN GOTHAM
The evil Oligarchs are everywhere, of course, and here is another one promising a Utopia you know somehow is really a noose. Jack Dorsey, formerly of the thing the evil Nazi is now running, is creating “Bitchat” to send messages without internet or cell service, over Bluetooth mesh networks. Explain to me why I should not be afraid?
HAVE YOU HEARD THE ONE ABOUT…
A militarized conspiracy theorist group believes radars are ‘weather weapons’ and is trying to destroy them
The American right-wing terror group “Veterans on Patrol” wants to destroy Doppler radar stations around the country because they consider the structures “weather weapons,” according to an internal NOAA email seen by CNN. “This group is advocating for anyone and everyone to join them in conducting penetration drills on NEXRAD sites to identify weaknesses which can be used to ultimately destroy the sites,” a NOAA email stated, using the NEXRAD acronym for the weather radar network. “The group referred to the NEXRAD system towers as ‘weather weapons,’ and claimed there were no laws preventing American citizens from destroying the ‘weapons,’” the email said.
An Oklahoma TV station has been reporting on “Veterans on Patrol” activity there, showing that the group left this sign, explaining some of their rationale and intentions.
The station’s Chief Meteorologist David Payne said, “We have one of the most powerful live radars in Oklahoma, and one of the most powerful live radars in the country, but we cannot do any weather modification at all,” he said, explaining, that when it's sabotaged, “We cannot track severe weather. We cannot track tornadoes, and it basically becomes instantly obsolete.”
Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer, the founder of Veterans On Patrol, said that is his point. "They can embed their technology and civilian infrastructure in every home and every household utilizing the phones and their network towers to not only control the weather, modify the weather, but they can [target] individuals,” Meyer falsely claims.
“It started with the chemtrails, and then it moved into Hurricane Helene,” said Southern Poverty Law Center senior research analyst Rachel Goldwasser in a July 10 story in The Hill.
I spent some of my holiday this summer with the book “Hedy’s Folly” by Richard Rhodes about the discovery of spread spectrum by the Hollywood actress.
Hedy Lamarr’s story in the 2011 book predates the “Bombshell” documentary that followed a few years later. So I imagine many of my readers know some of Hedy Lamarr’s secrets, but, sadly also many do not.
Lamarr went from becoming an actress by hanging out at the studio, to making a scandalous film as a teenager, to marrying a 1930s Austrian arms merchant, to listening and taking some of his military secrets to America, to inventing a military solution for this country’s torpedo problem before military experts could properly understand with.
Collaborating with experimental musician George Antheil, the actress Hedy Lamarr is the first person on record to have figured out spread-spectrum technology, used today for GPS, cell phones, and many other devices. Lamar conceived of spread spectrum technology because the Germans were sinking ships filled with children, and she wanted to improve American torpedoes, which were notoriously poor at blowing up their targets at the beginning of World War Two.
The book begins bouncing back and forth between Lamarr’s Austrian and German beginnings, and the American Antheil’s attempt to be taken seriously in Europe. He eventually create’s an early mechanichal concert that was reviled at the time, but was later quoted by John Adams. Their stories dovetail in Hollywood, where Antheil’s use of player-piano reels meshes with Lamarr’s recent use of a remote-control device, and her intuitive brain that suggests combining the two technologies into using “frequency-hopping” as a way better guide torpedoes to their targets, and avoid jamming interference.
[SPOILER ALERT] If you don’t know the rest of the story, you might not be surprised that Lamarr was ahead of the U.S. government, who did not use her patent until long after the war to successfully upgrade U.S. defenses. Only much later, in 1997, Lamarr and Antheil were jointly honored with the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Award. Later, Lamarr was the first woman to receive the Invention Convention's BULBIE Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award, known as the "Oscars of inventing."
This book tells the story well, with many interesting stories, a site-setting details. It tells the fascinating Lamarr story that will keep the radio-purist, and those with only a passing interest, quickly turning pages. About the only thing to complain about “Hedy’s Folly” is its unfortunate name.
OPPORTUNITIES
OPEN CALL: Labocine’s Resonance issue looking for sound/film “frequencies that resonate beyond the ear” due July 20.
Send opportunities, word of available grants, residencies, etc. to tomroeradio@proton.me.
Tune in soon…
40 WATTS FROM NOWHERE
The "40 Watts From Nowhere" film is coming to the East Coast at the first-ever LIMEHOF Music Documentary Film Festival on Long Island at 1:40 p.m. on August 8. The documentary is about the '90s Los Angeles pirate radio station KBLT (formerly San Francisco-based KPBJ), and based on the book by Sue Carpenter (above, and below).
Carpenter started the microradio station on her own, and grew a community music scene at the same time. Her book, “40 Watts From Nowhere” came out in 2004, a few years after KBLT was taken off the air. A station volunteer turned over all sorts of video archives a few years ago, making way for this documentary of one station among many during the microradio movement in the 1990s. Tune in!
TAEZOO PARK
LOVID
“Threaded Frequencies,” by LoVid at the Gazelli Project Space in London includes recent and historical works following the transmission artist duo’s digital residency in November 2024. It is up through July 26.
The duo are also included in this show opening this weekend:
LAURA SPLAN AND LUKE JERRAM
Laura Splan and Luke Jerram explore the, “hidden beauty within the invisible world of viruses” in this transmission exhibit at the NYU Langone Art Gallery through July 25, with a July 8 reception.
MAGZ HALL
England-based radio artist Magz Hall writes, “My Radio Air Garden Coils, expanded sound art sculptures for the garden, designed from radio transmitter coils which I repurposed for their electroculture properties and will be part of The Garden and The Hedge Exhibition at Kulturhus Björkboda (Kubu) Finland from Thursday, June 5, to August 31.”
PIERRE SCHAEFFER
On June 18 the “Schaeffer Galaxy Exhibition” opened at the House of Radio and Music in Paris. The show was commissioned by Radio France, so there is an agenda. They claim in the exhibition text that Pierre Schaeffer, “heralded the era of ‘Recording Arts’ - what he called relay arts - cinema, radio, television, and today the Internet - which have brought about a fundamental shift in social values and modes of expression. Commissioned by Radio France, this exhibition in his honor marks a double anniversary: the 30th anniversary of his death (August 19, 1995), and the 50th anniversary of the INA, which he helped to create in 1975. It takes the form of a 40-meter visual and sound fresco imagined by Jean-Loup Graton and Marc Jacquin using numerous audio and audiovisual extracts taken from the INA archives, the Schaeffer family collections, and other institutional sources. It traces the life and activity of the musician-inventor and media theorist, from his professional beginnings in 1936 in an under-equipped radio station with little control over its means of expression, to the heyday of the ORTF Research Service and the creation of the INA, which he initiated.”
GREGORY WHITEHEAD
RADIO POP SONG
Matthew Shipp’s latest album, and this radio-centric song, both live up to their titles as otherworldly trips using a language both familiar and entirely new. Tune in “The Cosmic Piano” and these “Radio Signals from Jazz Keys.”
RADIO DRAMA
Tom Roe, the writer of this column, makes this weekly radio show.
Donald Drumpf Theatre #244: What Is Donald Drumpf Theatre?
It is professional wrestling.
This week: “What Is Donald Drumpf Theatre?” The new/old president explains how professional wrestling works this week on the “Donald Drumpf Theatre” radio show. Opening theme includes clips from Rod Serling; Bill Cosby; Donald Drumpf; Eric Cartman; Jon Stewart; Richard Nixon; Kent Brockman; and Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Thanks for the songs from Golden Earring ("Twilight Zone"), Ross Goldstein (“Odd Man Out”), Lou Christie (“Lightnin’ Strikes”), Busta Rhymes (“What It Is”), The Village People (“Y.M.C.A”), and Manfred Mann’s Earth Band (“Blinded By The Light”). Clips and excerpts from Jon Stewart, Anthony Anderson; Willie Geist; John Roberts; Pam Bondi; Chris Hayes; Mickey Rooney; Judy Garland; Josh Hawley; Ron Johnson; Tim Burchett; Ryan Nobles; Lisa Murkowski; Troy Nelhs; Andy Kaufman; David Letterman; and Jerry Lawler. Episode 244.
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