Portsmouth Community Radio has gone live in the community this

Charlie Griffin interviews  a patron at the Farmers' Market

summer. In addition to the well received Live from Market Square (Fridays, 1-1:30 pm), hosted by our Director of News & Public Affairs, Ann Haggart, quite a number of volunteers have been hitting the Portsmouth Farmers' Market each Saturday to meet and greet visitors. Interviews with Market patrons are broadcast as "cut-ins" during the popular radio show Scratchy 45s and Beyond, hosted by John "Supersport" Scavo (Saturdays, 10 am-noon). In addition, a Portsmouth Community Radio booth entices patrons with a raffle offering a prize of a membership in AAA of New England and, for the kids, a contest: "Guess how many Tootsie Rolls are in the jar, and win the whole jar of Tootsie Rolls!"

His name is Jayson Kohl, but he goes by "Eggman," serving up a satisfying scramble of pop music from its most creative era. You're going to eat it up.

Metaphysical Circus is a radio program of obscure oldies, presenting the sounds of the '60s and early '70s, mixing all genres from when rock 'n roll was fun and the world was sunny-side-up: psychedelic, surf, progressive, garage, folk, folk-rock, bubblegum, acid rock, country-rock, sludge, metal, punk, krautrock, avant-garde, fusion, electronic, power pop, classic rock, girl groups, and hard R&B. (Whew! That's more than a dozen genres.) Then add to that some music from the '50s and '80s, even today.

Friday nights, it's Metaphysical Circus with the Eggman.
 

Schedule Updates 

The History of Broadcast Radio - Vaudio Anyone?
  
By John Lovering
Host of Audio Theatre (Tuesdays, 6-8 pm) 

Vaudio? That is what radio was called by many of those working in the industry in the 1920s.

Ed Wynn

You see, most of the performers heard on the air at the time were ex-vaudevillians. After the grueling road-show life and one-nighters, radio seemed as if it would be a snap for the transient vaudevillians.

However, the disastrous result for many of these performers was agonizing and frightening. Radio was a lot trickier to master than it sounded. Of course, some ex-vaudevillians like Jack Benny, Ed Wynn, Fannie Brice, and Jimmy Durante were able to make it on radio, but even they agreed it wasn't as good as their old vaudeville days.

Fannie Brice as Baby Snooks

People could now sit around in their underwear and attend vaudeville. The problem was that most of the vaudeville acts were more visually entertaining than the jokes in their routines. So when it came to radio, the visual piece was missing.

The result? Only those who were able to adapt and modify their verbal comedy to the new medium of radio were successful. Most of the others either faded away or had to wait for television, where the audience could see their wacky costumes and makeup (photos).

Milton Berle?

One other thing of note, many vaudevillians who were used to performing in close proximity to the audience, were petrified to be in an enclosed studio with the audience now forced to peer at them through thick glass walls. You see, the directors felt that sounds coming from the audience would disrupt the on-air performers, so they separated the two. The directors were obviously not ex-vaudevillians. 

Jack Benny once said that in the early years of radio, after he delivered the punch line to a joke, he would peer through the glass, and when he saw the majority of the audience shut their mouths, he would go on with the next joke.

That, in a nutshell, is the story of Vaudio.