Radio Centre-Ville Benefit Performance - April 15th

Village Scene Productions
In association with the Rialto Theatre

Presents

EQUUS

“Passion can be destroyed; it cannot be created.”- Martin Dysart

Written by Peter Shaffer

Directed by Paul Van Dyck

Choreographed by Jacqueline Van de Geer

Wednesday, April 13 to Sunday, April 24, 2011

At the Rialto Theatre, 5723 avenue du Parc.

Tuesdays to Thursdays at 7:30 pm,

Fridays, Saturdays and Sunday April 24 at 8:00pm.

Matinées: Sundays at 2pm.

Tickets: $30 regular, $24 students/seniors.

20% discount off regular rate offered to valid card carrying members of: UDA, ACTRA, CAEA, QDF, QWF, ELAN, at the door only.

Preview, Wednesday, April 13, 7:30 pm, two-for-one (tickets at the door only)

Opening Night is Thursday, April 14 at 7:30pm (By invitation.)

Advance ticket purchase: (Service charges may apply.)

On line at La Vitrine www.lavitrine.com, P.D.A. 145 Ste-Catherine W.,

Priape- 1311 Ste-Catherine St. east.

ÉM - Café Mile End 5718 avenue du Parc.

Information: Tel: 514 965-9VSP (877) www.villagescene.com


Benefit performances:

Friday April 15- Benefit: Community radio station, Radio Centre-Ville CINQ 102.3FM (regular ticket prices).

Sat., April 16- Benefit: RefugeRR, rescue & retirement ranch for horses. Tickets: Regular 30$ ot 24$ Or $50* including : play at 8 pm; meet & greet talk back session with cast; and performance by Soul Fusion at 11 pm. *A 25$ tax receipt willl be issued on request. Available at the door or by reserving directly with Refuge RR.

Easter Sunday buffets: -Brunch buffet service 11:00-13:00 $20; -Dinner buffet service 17:00-19:00 $25. Contact the Rialto for reservations at: 514 268-7069 or ecarosielli@gmail.com

Digital Sound Editing

I spent a couple of months at CKUT during the summer of 1997. I had hoped to gain some on air experience, but aside from recording a commercial, I got stuck in the music library. While I was there, the library was in a very cramped room. I haven’t been to the place since that summer, so they may have changed things around since then. Anyway, there was a way of labelling the CDs, records and tapes and this old Macintosh computer for entering each item into the records. Obviously, like all radio stations now, the station has since gone digital. I think/hope they have also since installed air conditioning. Back then, the place was unbelievably hot in the summer.

I’ve heard stories of how radio people used to have to splice tape back in the day. At CKUT, I was supposed to take a little training on the basics of radio. I only attended one meeting, but that is where I learned the splicing technique, complete with the use of a pretty sharp blade. I was fortunate enough to get through the lesson with all my fingers intact. I can’t say that I still remember how it was done. We would use a similar kind of technique when splicing film once upon a time. Obviously, it was a painstaking way of editing. One mistake could not only ruin your content, but cause physical harm.

There are some pretty cool looking tape reel machines at Radio Centre-Ville. I wonder when they were last put to use. Fortunately, we’ve gone past the tape days. Now we do our editing on computers using some pretty nifty pieces of software. Adobe Audition is the standard at most radio stations, although there are other audio software packages out there. I was first introduced to Audition at the Montreal Radio and Television School. Like everything else, practice is the only way to learn it. You can manipulate your audio almost completely to a point. Still, if it is really bad, there is only so much that can be done to make it “listenable”. In terms of digital “splicing”, your edits can literally sound flawless if done correctly. Of the utmost importance, you can also monitor your waves as you record.

Audition is a huge and expensive program. Many find it out of reach for home use. You can however download it for a free 30 day trial. Fortunately, there are quite a few smaller free programs you can download. They will by no means give you to same degree of control or quality the bigger programs have, but they can still do a pretty nice job. One such piece of software is called Audacity. It isn’t flashy, but it gets the job done. You will need to download an add-on in order to save in MP3 format.

Whether you use something basic or powerful, it beats using a blade… Progress is a great thing.

Getting on iTunes

I’ve recently posted a couple of radio programs on iTunes, including Yesterday’s News. I procrastinated about it for a while because I thought it would be overly complicated. Over the past few weeks, I started looking into how to get an RSS feed up. After a bit of investigating, I decided to go with a podcast host that handled all the tech stuff for me. HTML is one thing, but I didn’t have the patience to take RSS lessons. The only thing I really had to take care of was creating images to go along with the feeds.

It took a few hours to set things up, but once all is up and running, the maintenance is no big deal. After sending iTunes the feed, I thought it might take a while to get it online. Surprisingly, it only took a couple of days for one and four for the other. You notice the difference in “hits” almost right away.

The topic of how traditional radio can compete with sites like iTunes has come up several times on this blog. And as you can clearly see by logging on to iTunes, there seems to be no limit to the amount of podcasts that originated as traditional radio programs. There are also plenty of podcasts that are in no way connected to conventional radio.

Whatever the future holds, the more choice you have, the better. The worst thing you can do is to not keep up with the times. Btw, here is the link to Yesterday's News.

RCI Turns 66

We've just passed the 66th anniversary of the launch of Canada's shortwave service. Radio Canada International first started broadcasting on February 25th, 1945. Originally, it was known as the CBC International Service or “Voice of Canada“. The service was launched as the Second World War was drawing to a close. In the beginning, it was meant to keep Canadian military personnel in touch with Canada.

After the war ended, the mandate would become focused on spreading news, information and entertainment from and about Canada throughout the world. This was done in many languages. Like most western broadcasters, RCI would pump their content into the Soviet bloc during the Cold War. What would become RCI also broadcast events from Expo '67 to the rest of the world. Of course, shortwave listening was more widespread in western countries in those days than it is now.

The service is based in Montreal, which makes it about the only branch of the CBC aside from Radio Canada that is based here. It has faced a number of budget cuts over the years, as radio enthusiasts are probably well aware. It's not unique to Canada though, as we have recently seen with the announcement coming from the BBC. Budget cuts over the years have resulted in cutting back many foreign language broadcasts.

RCI currently broadcasts in 7 languages: Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Arabic and Portuguese. RCI’s only transmitter is located in Sackville New Brunswick. The service can also be heard on satellite and of course online.

What does the future hold in store for RCI and other shortwave services? Hard to say, but these broadcasts are favourite targets for budget cuts, as mentioned above. That will probably remain the case for the foreseeable future. New media is seen as a better way to deliver content to far away places. However, realistic access to digital technology is still not within reach of a high percentage of the world's population.

Aaron Rand Leaving "The Q"

Montreal radio circles are abuzz with the news that Aaron Rand will be leaving “The Q” in April. He’s been working for the same company for 26 years, under several different call letter variations and ownership groups. It is a truly remarkable feat in any market anymore. Most of Aaron Rand’s time has been spent as the morning man at what was once known to all as CFQR. And up until 2009, he was joined by his long-time friend Paul Zakaib, also known as Tasso Patsikakis.

You don’t last that long in any market unless you are really, really talented. Aaron Rand really is in a league of his own, especially now that greats like George Balkan, Gord Sinclair and Ted Blackman have passed away. There is no doubt that radio was far different when the preceding were in the prime of their careers. Rand sort of acknowledged the change during his departure announcement on Friday. No news as to whether he has plans to jump to another station or leave town. He did say he wasn’t ready to retire just yet. Hopefully that means we haven’t hear the last of him.

If you are too young to remember the mid 1980s, then you missed out on what was without a doubt the best radio show “anglo” Montreal has ever produced. The Aaron Rand Show on CFCF 600 was appointment radio. When you think about how much work it takes to produce a quality program, you just have to marvel at how much effort it must have taken to put that kind of show together 5 days a week. I first discovered the Aaron Rand Show in November of 1985. It was like nothing I had ever heard before or since. The “Ask my Dad” segments were pure gold. The way they would go to the lines at any time and talk to the quirkiest callers was classic. You could tell how much fun these guys were having and the amazing chemistry that existed between Rand and “Tasso”. I could go on, but I urge any fans of classic Montreal radio to get a hold of some old recordings of that show - you won’t be sorry.

WKRP Turkey Drop in 30 Seconds

Oh, the humanity!

BBC World Service Cuts

The BBC’s shortwave presence is going to all but disappear in the coming few years. Recently, BBC officials announced massive cutbacks and layoffs at the World Service. In making their decision, they argued the need for them to adapt to “new” media. In other words, shortwave is considered expendable. We faced the same issues with cutbacks in Canada at Montreal-based RCI a while ago.

It seems that running the World Service is extremely expensive, which isn’t really surprising. They are being forced to trim about £46 million out of their present budget of £237 million-a-year over the next three years. They estimate the cuts will cost them around 30 million listeners worldwide. Keep in mind, there is no financial profit to be made of that seemingly large amount of people, which of course makes them expendable in the eyes of the BBC.

And when you bring up the concept of new media, it can’t be overemphasised how most shortwave listeners that will be lost do not have access to Internet or cell phones. In many cases, these are extremely impoverished areas of the world. Some are war-torn or under dictatorships. The BBC feed was one of, if not their only sources of un-filtered news and information - sometimes about stuff that was going on in their own backyard. As we have seen in recent years, there are ways to censor TV and the Internet, or even cut off phone service. Shortwave, as old a concept as it might sound, is still one of the most viable ways to broadcast without being censored.

Many people travelling abroad from Europe in particular have also used the BBC service to keep informed when no other means were available. To assume that the Internet is already at the point where all people in all places have equal access is not a fair or accurate statement. But then again, I am not a U.K. tax payer who might have a different opinion as to the viability of spending so much money on a service that does not directly benefit them. In terms of England’s image around the world, the damage of the World Service’s absence might be more substantial.