Expecting Rain

Theme Time is talked about in the new Uncut magazine as part of discussing Bob's busy 2009. Apparently no mention either way of the future of the show... I'm guessing England is still on their first round of repeats and haven't had the news officially broken to them yet?

Would be nice if someone (Fred) could post the TTRH contents of said article in here for us to pour over. Theme Time news these days is pretty scarce.

It usually takes a few weeks for the most recent issue of Uncut to reach my local Barnes & Noble, but I'll pick up a copy when I see it and reproduce it here.

There is a link to download a pdf of it in the General Discussion. Lee Abrams talks and the biggest insight is that apparently most of the shows were recorded the weekend before the show aired on Wednesday. Sometimes they only had 4hrs to put together a show based on the pieces provided. That is something, in that many were guessing where and when the shows were recorded.

Abrams isn't sure where anything was recorded, though clearly with the equipment they could do it anywhere. He also isn't sure if the show is finished (and isn't in a position to know for sure). Only met Bob in person once, at a show, in which Bob talked at great length about the show, very enthusiastically.

I'll have to take a look at it. Rapidshare is overloaded right now. With all due respect to Lee Abrams, I don't believe he was all that connected to the TTRH production process after the initial business negotiations. If accurately reported in Uncut, I'd disagree with his claim that the shows were "...recorded the weekend before the show aired on Wednesday." They key word is "recorded" vs. "produced." My information has it that after several failed attempts to build up a backlog of episodes, the TTRH team settled into a process where Damian Rodriguez would deliver a rough master to NYC sometime in mid-week, and then Damain and Rob Macomber would work together, usually all day Thursdays and Fridays, to produce the final cut for the next week's show. It wasn't unusual for Eddie G. and the NY TTRH associate producer to review and ask for minor tweaks and changes to be made over the weekend.

In most cases, the completed show was ready by Monday for Wednesday airing. Because of technical glitches in the early days of the show when each segment was recorded as separate tracks, the TTRH team made the decision to deliver later episodes as one complete track. Jim McBean and team then had to cut the complete, delivered show back into separate pieces in order to be "ingested" correctly into the XM Radio system with needed PAD information (the PAD is used to display track/artist info on a receiver), sometimes making for unhappy campers when a show was delivered behind schedule.

Finally got the PDF downloaded. As AWA indicated, it's a pretty typical "Lee Abrams on TTRH" type interview, no earth-shattering revelations, which I'm sure is just how Dylan's camp wants it.

It's pretty much the party line, spinning Dylan's direct involvement - or lack thereof - with the show; avoiding any direct mention of voice tracking, although that what Lee's talking about when he says that "parts were being delivered and [we] added the music," not mentioning that the Abernathy was a floating production location that included the XM Studios at Lincoln Center and a Brooklyn basement. Not mentioning that Randy Ezratty was a key figure in the genesis of the show. And so on. I doubt that the TTRH team will be very happy with even the hint that Mr. D. and Eddie G. collaborated on the playlists, as playlist origin seemed to be something of a sore point with them.

Probably the most accurate line in the interview is Abrams noting that, "...they're [Gorodetsky, Rosen, et al) pretty good in maintaining the mystery and we didn't want to interrupt that, that was part of the magic." Two words I could live without ever hearing again in relation to TTRH, "mystery" and "magic." The third is "mystique," which I think Abrams also uses somewhere in the interview. If I sound a little bitter, forgive me. I had those three words thrown at me too many times over the past year.

It's the magician's choice whether to reveal how the trick was done, but it's a little annoying to pretend to reveal the trick, when you're actually determined to keep your audience in the dark. But, as I said, it's the magician's choice. And fwiw, the illusion is the important thing.

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one" - Albert Einstein

and on a lighter note, HOLIDAY GREETINGS, friends! We had our first snow here today, ah...winter!

I went back to the ER Archives for the front page of Nov. 30, but was unable to find the link to the Uncut Abrams interview. Could someone post that link here for me? Thanks.