By Mateo Burtch '82 |
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The
first thing you’re apt to notice is the head of Elvis floating in
a jar of pink formaldehyde.
Or the three-hundred pound statue of Howlin’ Wolf made of processed
meat slices.
Or the gold-plated throne that plays “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow
Polka Dot Bikini” whenever it’s sat upon.
Or not.
Actually, the high priest of radio weirdness, Doctor Demento—aka Barry
Hansen ’63—lives in an unassuming house in an unremarkable Los
Angeles suburb with none of the fanciful accoutrements listed above. Aside
from several gold records adorning a living room wall (gifts from Hansen’s
friend Weird Al Yankovic), there’s virtually nothing on view to indicate
that its owner is the sort of man who plays songs like “My Girlfriend
Is Inflatable” and “The Day Ted Nugent Killed All the Animals”
on the airwaves, where anyone might hear them.
Barry Hansen may not be the most famous Reed alumnus, but his alter ego
is certainly the most heard. The Doctor Demento Show has, since
the early ’70s, been pumping out a steady stream of musical curiosities
on radio stations nationwide, playing everything from mid-50s Spike Jones
to “Quidditch Ball Wizard,” a recent Harry Potter-meets-the-Who
parody, with the occasional Cab Calloway shouter or Skip James blues thrown
in for good measure. Radio cognoscenti know that if they want to hear the
Arrogant Worms, “Boy Scoutz in the Hood,” or “Let’s
Remove Our Genitalia,” they need a house call from the good Doctor.
Doctor Demento’s origins begin when eleven-year-old Barret Hansen,
taking a cross-town trolley in Minneapolis in 1952, spots a storefront sign
advertising used records at 19 cents apiece; he decides to take a look.
The platters are mostly discarded 78s, including a lot of rhythm and blues
from jukeboxes in African American bars, and Hansen walks away with six
records. He later discovers a sale at a Salvation Army, two records for
a nickel, and within a year is spending a dollar a week on music. He begins
listening to late-night R&B and country-western programs beamed from
radio stations as far away as Arkansas, shows playing Hank Snow and Sonny
Boy Williamson, thrilling stuff for an era awash in Perry Como and Der Bingle.
(A couple of hundred miles north, in Hibbing, Robert Zimmerman, the same
age, listens to the same “illicit music”; he, too, will go on
to take a stage name: Bob Dylan.)
Fast forward a bit, and Barry Hansen is now a serious musical scholar at
Reed College, toiling on a thesis, Studies in Post-Wagnerian Opera.
He is also broadcasting a show called Musical Museum on Reed’s
radio station, featuring records rescued from thrift shops. The show’s
not Doctor Demento, not yet; the presentation is low-key and serious. But
it is a radical departure from the nearly all-classical format that KRRC
follows. Country, blues, folk, R&B, rock and roll, even what might be
termed “world music”: Hansen plays it all, and prudes and traditionalists
within KRRC’s ten-watt radius shiver in their boots.
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