KOOP Party Theme (Excerpt)

A million years ago or in 1993/1994 (?) I was an integral member of the engineering collective that put KOOP radio on the air. Not only did Bob, myself & others in the collective build their first studio, their original mixing desk (from KMFA) first came to life on my workbench at my house. No, I had nothing to do with them getting their FCC license, that was solely due to Jim Ellinger's hard work, all I did was help them get on the air. But like all 'pioneers', all of us who founded KOOP radio were kicked out in a coup from the 'leftier than thou' cadre - once they had secured the efforts of our money & hard work they decided they had no room there or use for straight white males at their 'community radio station'. Last thing I heard, Mr. Ellinger is still banned from appearing on their premises although after his ten-year fight to secure the original license, while he was perfectly within his rights to have kept the license in his name, he graciously put the license in the name of the KOOP board of directors which proceeded by means of rigged elections to shut the original people out. F*ck 'em, my last involvement with 'em was in '97 or thereabouts and I haven't listened to 'em in over a decade.

Anyway, this piece dates back to a fund-raising party thrown by the engineering collective which quite possibly was the very first fund-raiser for KOOP thrown by KOOP at the KOOP studio. Through 400' of single-pair shield wire that night I sent a sub-mix of our audio directly to the control room and out on the air. I was demoing a Sequential Circuits Six-Track keyboard at the time which I brought with me and composed this piece on the keyboard's internal sequencer as the party was beginning to start, December 16, 1995. The next morning I recorded it to 2-track cassette. The original is over 16 minutes so I excerpted it but as it's an ambient piece there's not much in the way of changes in the missing 12+ minutes. The music did what it was supposed to, it helped a small group exhausted by setting up 400 lbs of PA gear chill out & catch a breath while soundchecking the PA and greeting the early arrivals. It was the only ambient music of the night.

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KOOP Party Theme(Excerpt)