This is the handsome cover (adapted by Ben Long from his equally handsome flier) of True Fiction Magazine's new CD, On The Radio 1994-97.
It contains seven stories that we improvised on the radio show West Coast Live, which airs on many NPR stations.It is available for $10 at our shows.
Here is the eloquent text from the back of the CD, carefully contrived to inspire the casual store-goer to plunk down his or her disposable income on this, rather than any other, CD:
TRUE FICTION MAGAZINE, the Bay Area ensemble of nonpareil improvisors that recently celebrated its twelfth anniversary, is best known for its work creating completely improvised full-length plays, usually interweaving a handful of wildly divergent story lines into a seamless whole. But the troupe of seven actors and a keyboardist has, from its inception, also been regular guests on Sedge Thomson's weekly public radio variety show, West Coast Live, and it is there that they have explored the smaller, less complex but no less challenging format of the short radio play, seven sterling examples of which are contained herein.This album is, in a way, an anomaly - a recording, playable and listenable countless times, of events that were improvised in the moment, to be experienced in the moment, and never to be witnessed again. "Disposable theatre," as Keith Johnstone once described improv. The thought of someone revisiting these used tissues is as strange as wanting to watch a video of a ball game again and again. You know the outcome - where's the thrill?
But another way to consider True Fiction Magazine's radio work is the way one would approach an album of the finest jazz: Watch the interplay, the give-and-take as they assemble a narrative before your very ears, as if they were building a skyscraper by instantly forging beams and fitting them together perfectly without a blueprint. Listen as they feed off each others' offers, mistakes, and even the random squall of a baby in the audience, to create a story that no one of them could have predicted, yet is as inevitable as death or taxes. Marvel as they take the basic building blocks of performance and recombine them into something wholly original and unique.
This is not to say they're not funny - one listen to this recording will reassure you on that score. But it's the subsequent listens that will reveal to you True Fiction Magazine's art.
And, for those of you who are either not persuaded by the above or simply fetishists for completeness, here is the text of the credits that are printed on the back of the cover (if you were shopping in a real store, rather than here in cyberspace, you would have to slit open the shrinkwrap in order to read this!):
at the time of these recordings, TRUE FICTION MAGAZINE was: Joshua Raoul Brody, Rafe Chase, Stephen Kearin, Paul Killam, Diane Rachel, Reed Kirk Rahlmann, Regina Saisi, and Barbara Scott with special host Sedge Thomson All spoken material was improvised on the spot and is © 1994-97 True Fiction Magazine. Nearly all the music was improvised on the spot and is © 1994-97 Joshua Raoul Brody, BMI except the West Coast Live theme which is © 1994 Diane Hidy and was played by her and J. Raoul Brody in a rare 3-handed arrangement that was improvised on the spot. Audio recordings were engineered on the spot by Mitch Holman and Bert Schneider and are © 1994-1997 West Coast Live, San Francisco's radio show to the world. Cover: Ben Long Compilation producer: Joshua Raoul Brody Executive producer of West Coast Live: Sedge Thomson Special thanks: Robin Tenenbaum, Ian Gerrard, Olde West, KALW-FM West Coast Live info@wcl.org www.wcl.org True Fiction Magazine 220 Mullen Avenue San Francisco CA 94110 415-824-1559 TFMSF@earthlink.net www.sirius.com/~truficma