May 11, 2021
Episode 53, Introduction: "Seltzer Jokes, Good Deeds, and Rest In Peace, Bob Fass!"
SPOKEN WORD WITH ELECTRONICS #53: A Broken Appliance Buys You a Room Full of Synthesizers (Tutorial)
How to turn a broken dishwasher into a synthesizer
Hi, everyone, welcome back to the show. This week we remember Bob Fass, who passed away on April 24th (the first night we recorded this current episode, on a three week cycle this week) – Fass was an radio innovator, turning a regular control booth into a soundboard for politics, yippie activism, and genuine bizarre antics, even said to influence WFMU's switch to freeform as a format. This episode is dedicated to Fass.
In a practical matter, our discussion this week describes a useful currency exchange system where broken appliances are turned into synthesizers. Our clothes washer's bearing broke a few years ago and I decided to instead sell the individual working parts (circuit boards, front panel, glass lid, cables, screws, rubber feet, etc) and ended up with more money than the new washer, along with thousands of dollars in extr…