by Eugene ChadbourneThe following are notes from the diary of a progressive teenager, arriving at his 16th year of life on this earth. The location is Boulder, Colorado. "Jan. 4, 1970: It is the night of my birthday and they are at it again. "They" being the new radio station, KRNW. The disc jockeys don't sound at all like the ones on the Top 40 stations, who speak so rapidly. These ones take a long time explaining what it is they are playing, separating phrases from time to time with "Like...uh...." "Jan. 13, 1970: They call it an "underground" radio station, but I know it is located right downtown on Pearl Street and is in fact upstairs. They are at it again, what they call a "music trip." Sometimes they say "Like...uh...we are going to do another of these trips." This means they are going to play a bunch of records, going from one right to the next, sometimes playing one right on top of the other. "Tonight they did this with Pink Floyd, which I recognized, but then the music got much weirder. I have to say it didn't do much with this problem I am having sleeping with the lights off, the results of some bad acid I took a few months ago. Maybe it wasn't even what they said it was. Anyway it is also the reason I am sleeping with the radio on all night, something happens inside my head if there is silence and it feels like I am falling."The finale of the trip tonight was all these strange sounds, like a bunch of robots meeting to discuss strategy. Then sometimes the sounds were normal, like water dripping, except it isn't normal to hear this on the radio. This is the kind of stuff we are hearing on the radio now, however, thanks to this new radio station. The "like..uh.." guy comes on and announces something about the last piece that makes me feel better about it all: the record is actually made by someone who lives right here in Boulder. His name is Tod Dockstader. "February 23, 1970: The music trips are really helping me get through this intense winter. Dockstader is the only one you can count on to show up, trip after trip after trip. It always seems to be the climax, too, after pretenders such as Pink Floyd have shot their wad. Exposure to Dockstader has made me really critical of the music my friends are listening to. But I am still too scared to buy the records themselves, some of which are put out on a record company right here in Boulder, Owl.... Read More...