Radio Clip: Jewish Nazis





OK, no progress on my zine. I've been working on other projeX. I've been digitizing audio recordings on tape. And the tapes I'm digitizing are VHS.

Yes, I made audio recordings on VHS tape. Why? Well, back in the old days, you could record with a cassette tape but the best you could do was 45 minutes per side. Yes, there were 120 minute blank tapes, one hour each side, but they had a tendency to break or jam.

So when I wanted to record an hour-long program or longer on radio, I would hook up the audio jack on the VCR to the radio and left the video going. If I eliminated the visual part the recording would screw up, the VCR would go crazy. Actually the video part is helpful, making it easier to locate audio sections I want to digitize, especially with fast-forward/rewind searching.

I wanted to share a couple of audio clips here at my blog and so I'm been trying to use the editing program Audacity. It works OK -- when this damn computer works right. Sometimes Audacity won't allow me to click certain options or I have to restart the computer when the program freezes up.

I won't bore you with all the details but I want to point out that all of this takes time, locating the particular recording I want to digitize, connecting a VCR up to my computer with a special USB hook-up, converting the video to audio only, and then editing down the audio to a clip for sharing.

To add to the time suck, Blogger won't let me upload audio files so I have to throw up a visual title card to create a fake video that it will allow (in case you're wondering why the same image is burning itself into your screen).

This clip dates from way back to 1994 when I was promoting my new zine. Back then the big thing was domestic US shortwave radio, programs like Bill Cooper's The Hour of the Time and Texe Mars' World of Prophecy. Some broadcasts were live and callers were welcome to join in. Most of the superpatriot programs were on WWCR in Nashville, Tennessee, a station still known for its ultra-right-wing Christian line-up. (Some joke that WWCR is short for World Wide Conspiracy Radio).

One program I used to tune in was the Kurt Saxon Radio Show. I didn't agree with everything Kurt said; sometimes there seemed to be a subtle tinge of racism in his comments. But he was a character who belonged to all sorts of groups from the American Nazi Party to Scientology. He could tell a good story. Kurt's schtick was into being prepared for the approaching collapse of civilization -- within in two or three years. (Funny how that turned out, even with Y2K.)

In this clip -- according to my records is dated 7/17/94 -- I'm talking on the phone with Kurt about Jewish Nazis and his days as a member of the Nazi Party.

The audio quality is fair at best. It's SW radio, after all. At times reception conditions on shortwave are challenging, if not impossible.