The Show That Never Ends
The Movie, a band that barely existed, achieves internet immortality
“Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends.”
— Emerson, Lake & Palmer, “Karn Evil 9 First Impression, Pt. 2”
Earlier this month, in a remembrance of my old friend Mike Martin (“When Euphoria Was More Than Just a Band”), I noted that Mike continued to play music in the decades following our late-1980s basement sessions and, having heard almost none of this vast trove of material, I hoped a compilation of some sort would introduce me to it someday. Mike passed away not long after he heard the piece I wrote, and while attending a celebration of his life last weekend, I learned that he’d done something far more wonderful than compile some choice takes by The Movie, the ad hoc band he played in beginning in 2006.
Mike Martin, mad genius that he was, invented an internet radio station — complete with station ID breaks, fake band interviews, commercials and promotional spots — that randomly and continuously plays well over a thousand songs and jams The Movie recorded in a different basement during sessions spanning 20 freakin’ years. Here it is:
“The Movie is not a band,” they insist in a short essay beneath their YouTube radio station. “We're just four guys in a basement.
”Bands usually try,” they observe. “Bands like to write meaningful songs and refine them and arrange them in a way that will be pleasing to an audience's ear. Bands like to work on their sounds and hone in on familiar tones and timbre that attracts listeners. Bands like to play live as much as possible and rehearse songs over and over to present well. Bands like to release albums and promote themselves and become popular.
”We don't do that.”
The Movie, they wrote, “is basically a musical social club that meets once, maybe twice a month. Same four guys for almost 20 years.” In addition to Mike on drums, that’d be guitarist Joe Bringley, bass player Mike Chambers, and Jack Moore on guitar, lead vocals, pedal steel and keys. Everybody sings a little sometimes.
They plugged in with “[n]o expectations or demands. No clue what will be played or how well it will sound. No care if someone listens or likes it. I mean,” they wrote this month, “we don't even share this music. Or at least we haven't, until now.”
I have no idea what you’ll hear when you tune in, dear reader. The stuff I heard amused and impressed the hell out of me. All four guys are really great players who developed a deep feel for where they were each going, musically, during these improvisations. The unpredictability of it keeps the station fresh, and Mike judiciously selected and edited every track for maximum quality and minimal drag. Most of it’s progressive rock, but I’ve heard some crackpot country, demented pop, psychedelia, and a few left-field covers, so far. Mike’s playing is incessantly creative and always awesome.
What a gift he’s given us! A total surprise. It’s like he said, You wanna hear some of the stuff I’ve been working on all these years? OK, here’s maybe twelve hundred or more cuts, presented at random, with comedic fake-radio bits sprinkled in, continuously broadcasting on YouTube forever … or at least until the Internet either dies or finally takes over the planet. Enjoy!
Mike enjoyed his time in this world. At last weekend’s event, someone said he told them he’d had a good life. It was way too fucking short, in everyone else’s opinion, but yes, I know he did, and that makes me glad. You can hear him enjoying every second of his life, in progress, on this remarkable imaginary radio station.