Totally Awesome Fest 11… on this weekend’s edition of the Saturday Six Pack

Every time I think about retiring from radio, a new poster comes out featuring my head crudely sewn on to yet another body more interesting than my own, and it occurs to me that I need to keep going, if only to see where my severed head will wind up next. This week, it looks as though the AM 1700 art department has seen fit to graft my noggin onto the trunk of a young and virile Tiny Tim, which I think is pretty fitting, given the weirdo vibe which I’m sure will permeate this week’s show, seeing as how it’s being presented in partnership with Totally Awesome Fest 11.

So, if you’ve always wanted to attend the Ypsilanti rite of spring known as Totally Awesome Fest, but you’ve always been too afraid of what you might encounter, or perhaps worried that your beard might not be up to snuff, you can tune in from the safety of your home come Saturday and hear about three hours worth.

I don’t know how well the magical spirit of Totally Awesome Fest will travel over AM, but I like that we’re at least trying. I’m thinking of this episode kind of like the Voyager spacecraft, sent out into the universe to tell hungry aliens everywhere of our planet’s existence, only instead of audio of whales mating and crickets chirping, we’ll be broadcasting the echoes of Rotokiller and Sky Thing into the void.

In addition to Rotokiller, who I’m told only play songs about organic gardening and skateboarding, and Sky Thing, who are going to be driving in from Indiana to project soundscapes on the spongy grey matter of Ypsilanti’s crazative class, we’ll also be joined by Andrew Mitchell II and his akioke machine, and writer/critic Patrick Dunn, who will be critiquing my performance throughout the night, among other things… Oh, and akioke, if you’re not familiar with the concept, is like karaoke, but different. With akioke, only the singer hears the music, so everyone in the audience just hears the singer’s voice, devoid of context… And, for what it’s worth, I’ve yet to decide whether I’ll be performing Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’, Barry Manillow’s Oh Mandy, or Styx’s Come Sail Away.

Oh, and feel to come down to the station and sit outside if you’d like to hear any of this live, or take your turn at achieve. We’ll have a PA outside, and it should be fun… Maybe not as fun as that time about half a dozen years ago when This Must Be The Place played the roof above Deja Vu, but still fun. Or at least I imagine it’ll be cool to stand outside the strip club and watch Rototiller tear it up in the station, on the other side of the glass.

[note: If you should want to check out any of Totally Awesome Fest for yourself, here’s the entire three-day lineup.]

AND, HERE, FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE NEVER TUNED IN TO THE SIX PACK BEFORE, ARE THE DETAILS:

If you’d like to tell your friends about the show, feel free to share the Facebook event listing. As of right now, it looks as though only a few dozen people are planning to listen, so, if you don’t like crowds, this may be a good one to tune in to.

Unless you live really close by, I’d recommend streaming the show online, which you can do either on the AM1700 website or by way of TuneIn.com.

And for those of you who aren’t yet familiar with the show, and need to get caught up, you can listen to the entire archive on iTunes.

One last thing. We love phone calls. So please scratch this number into the cinder block wall of the recreation room of whichever facility you’ve been assigned to… 734.217.8624… and call us between 6:00 and 8:00 this Saturday evening.

Oh, and if you don’t live close enough to the AM 1700 studio to pick us up on the radio, and you don’t have access to a computer, I’m told that, again this week, the folks at 826michigan will be hosting a listening party at their downtown Ann Arbor Robot Supply Store. So, if you can’t hear it any other way, or you’re just curious as to what Annarbourites look like when they listen to the radio together, head over to Liberty Street and pound on the door until they let you in.