Joseph Matheny interviews “another Joe”, AKA Bazooka Joe, from Solipsistic Nation and formerly of the smallWorld. They talk about music, podcasting and get into a weird Joe to Joe cross interview feedback loop.

Also, another episode of In Your Ear, this week reviewing “Variant Frequencies” a podcast of (mostly) short fiction in the horror/subgenre sci-fi vein. From Puske: I pay special attention to the podcast novel which they debuted – “The Failed Cities Monologues” http://www.podiobooks.com/title/the-failed-cities-monologues/) – link is to the podiobooks version.

 Joe’s bio info:

• My dad was a singer and guitarist in a cover band in Mexico City. They were called Los Checkmates and they put out a record or two and I think they may even of had a television appearance. My dad always had a hunger for music and he had put together a pretty eclectic record collection. It was the soundtrack of my childhood: classics like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin and new oddball stuff like The Firesign Theater, Segovia, Gilbert O’Sullivan and Kraftwerk. It was my dad’s record collection and his love for music that led to me collecting a lot of music and eventually becoming a DJ.
•  In my teens I lived in South Bend, Indiana and while i was still listening to stuff like The Doors and Black Sabbath I was also listening to what was being blasted over the airwaves and over the television in the form of MTV. That meant stuff like Culture Club, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, etc. I was starting to hate rock and roll. There had to be more than the same ol’ same ol’. Fortunately a girl that I dated showed me the way with a mix tape she made me. It had stuff like King Crimson, The Buzzcocks and The Cure. That doesn’t sound like such a big deal but at the time it blew my 16 year-old mind. It was still pop rock but done in such unique and surprising ways that I could understand why it was being broadcast in my hick town of Indiana but still made me wonder why such great stuff wasn’t on the radio!
• When I was 18 I moved to Boston and was digging deeper and deeper into all this new music I was discovering. And then I totally fell for the who punk/hardcore thing. For a brief time I was into the purity of punk and it’s DIY ethic. I still treasure that about punk but the conformity of punk drove me crazy. The uniformity, the attitudes, the slang, etc. Also, I was tired of getting shit for admitting that I liked Wire’s electronica related album or The Coctau Twins.
• Around this time I got a gig at WMFO, a college/community radio station. The format was freeform and the station attracted a lot of serious music nerds who totally geeked out on the subgenres of music they were into. My time at WMFO was spent talking with DJs about everything from contemporary classical music to the latest Pailhead release.
• Techno was huge and at one station meeting the hosts of an industrial show suggested doing a techno show. I was at the end of punk phase but I still scoffed that techno was just a fad and would fade into obscurity. Little did I know that a year later I would totally embrace electronic music. Oh, and I’ve always loved disco, it just wasn’t cool to admit that as a punk.
• In 2000 I moved to San Diego. I had quit radio for good. Or so I thought. Eventually that craving to spin over the air got me looking for a radio station to call home. That home turned out to be a pirate radio station (Free radio San Diego)  and an activist hippy/punk station (RadioActive san Diego). I still tried to do a freeform show but I eneded up playing a lot of electronic music. I decided to to do an all electronic music show called Solipsistic Nation so I could still have my electronic music fix and still do a freeform show.
• Later on I had to give up both stations due to time constraints but did launch my interview show, Small World. A year or so later I relaunched Solipsistic Nation as a podcast. After nearly 500 editions of Small World I closed it’s doors and now focus on Solipsistc Nation.
• Solipsistic Nation is a weekly hour long show where I play the best of all genres of electronic music. Once a month I showcase a record label and feature a recording of a live electronic performance. I’ve also had various guest DJs that have come on the show, featured retrospective mixes from select artists and done a handful of documentaries of subgenres of electronic music. I kind of think of Solipsistic Nation being what NPR might have done if they had decided to do a show focusing on electronic music.

 The GSpot: Solipsistic Nation [67:16m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download