Love Workshop - The Wayne Butane Collection
Published August 28th, 2007 in Obsessions, Treasure Tags: Arizona, History.
My “Love Workshop” collection finally reached critical mass last moth, thanks to fellow Phoenician and Verne & Craig enthusiast Wayne Butane. Wayne sent me a full five disks of shows, all lovingly digitized from his crumbling original cassettes. I managed to clean most of the hiss out of them, but they are far from master quality. Some even sound as thought they were captured by holding a microphone up to the radio speaker. But the riches contained therein are fully audible, two hours of which are new to my collection. Then, as if that weren’t enough, Wayne sent me the accompanying picture of “Love Workshop” creator Todd Carroll, hard at work presumedly preparing one of his “National Lampoon” contributions.
In addition to being a generous “Love Workshop” archiver, audio collagist and founding member of the legendary Phoenix cassette rockers The D Cups, Wayne Butane also gains my admiration for being an unashamed Rupert Holmes fan and and enthusiastic lover of cats, both of which are vital qualities in my book. Wayne hosts a weekly Love Workshop posting of his own, over on his MySpace page. This is just the thing for those of you disgusted with my habit of clustering these shows into 100 meg zip files. Those of you with little tolerance for MySpace can visit the KCAC Lives! blog. There you’ll find a playlist of all the tracks from my previous “Love Workshop” post, which you can listen to without having to download a damn thing!
Anyway, to make things a little easier, I’ve split up the Wayne files so that all tracks not previously offered here are together. Those can be found below in parts one and two. The next two feature material offered before, but in some cases the sound is better, or the routines are more complete or in the correct order. No jury in the work would convict you if you wanted to download all four parts. I’ve also included track information for those who are interested.
Meanwhile, to facilitate access to info about the show from a more central location, I’ve combined all the “Love Workshop” content on this site onto one page, which can be accessed from the menu bar above.
And coming soon: an exclusive interview with one-half of the “Love Workshop” team, Wonderful Russ Shaw. Watch for it!
-
Download Part One
- Visit To A Mobile Home/Four Wheel Drive Ham Radio Club/The Edge Of Maryvale/Setting Dexter Straight/A Letter From Don Shula
- Stewardess & Secretary Behavior Modification Center/Coon Line/Mary McCarthy’s Poem/A Letter From MIT
- Live Coverage Of The Crucifixion/Alcoholism In America/Barbi Button Suicide Letter/Vern Rant
- The Yelling Show/A Letter From Margaret Hance
- The Variety Machine/Trapped Miners/Somebody Has To Lose/A Letter From Patrick Moynahan
- Jesus Christ: Air Conditioning Repairman
- Frog Night
-
Download Part Two
- Guessing Games/Convenience Market/American Women’s Credit And Trust/A Letter From Shecky Hallenberg
- A Telephone Conversation/A Funny Letter
- The News/Circus Commercial/Vern & Craig’s Last Name Song
- Arizona State Prison Show
- Special 90 Minute Communism Show/Vern & Craig Song
- Donut Tria/A Letter From Gary Nelson
- The Music Show/Grocery Store Song
-
Download Part Three
- Anita Bryant Orange Juice Commercial/Cryptographer Joke/A Letter From Alexander Solzhenitsyn
- Queers In The News/John Adamson: Master Criminal/Cheryl Finley Cooks A Potato/A Letter From Joan Embrey: Baby Kangaroo
- Mexican Space Probe/American Women’s Credit And Trust/Mexican Top 40 Comedy Record/A Letter From Marilyn Liebermanq
- Johnny Involved: Private Eye/American Women’s Credit And Trust/This Is Your Wretched Life/Another Letter From Shecky Hallenberg
- ASU Football/American Women’s Credit And Trust/Brand New Material!/Hobby Handbook/A Letter From…?
- Friday Afternoon At Victoria Station/A Letter From Joan Embrey: Koala
- Focus On Rapping: Insurance
- Bonus Track: Lou Grubb Commercial
- Bonus Track: The Surgery Store
- Bonus Track: KDIL
-
Download Part Four
- Apartheid In Phoenix/Decorating For The Poor/Teen Consciousness/A Message From Bill Compton
- Project: Suffering/A Message From Charles Manson/Hobby Handbook/Andy Williams Christmas Special/A Letter From The Earl Of Snowden
- Patrika And The Baby
- American Heritage: The Patio/A Letter From Betty Ford
- Where’s Craig/Steps To Approaching The Rape Victim/A Letter From Joan Embrey: Egret
- DES Fashion Show/John Adamson Dancing To A Shadowy Tune/Pima Gymnastics
- The Science Of Comedy/Little Jimmy Harrold/Reaching Out To Touch And Share ‘76/Bobby Basket’s Gay CB Radio Record
- A Light Snack
OH. MY. GOD.
This is the happiest day of my life! My days of late night praying for more Love Workshop are over! Time to chuck that rosary in the garbage!
This really is quite wonderful. Thanks! New Stuff! Hot damn!
Derrick -
You and The Love Workshop light up my life.
Please ask Wonderful Russ Shaw about the female talent in the group - “Karen.”
Your pal,
Chuck Kelley
Much of the female voice work was done by a gal named Mariah Fleming:
http://www.myspace.com/mariahfleming
http://www.blogger.com/profile/10673534
The rest, I fear, are lost to history.
I was going to link to this on this week’s Truffles post, but it’s too damn good. I may have to do a whole post! And hey, what would you think about re-hosting the files over on WFMU and getting rid of that third party download stuff?
What a treat! Been meaning to leave a post here for awhile now. Bravo! This is an endlessly entertaining and historically unique diary of that twisted time.
Thank you for acknowledging me by name in some of your info about the Love Workshop. It’s a kick to listen to these and recall how much fun everyone at KCAC had together. And the KCAC crew, under Compton’s helm, sense of humor intact, didn’t take themselves all too seriously or they wouldn’t have recruited people like me to do stuff like the Love Workshop!! All I did was happen to be in the right place at the right/wrong (depends on who you’re asking) time with my guitar in tow (yes, that Minny Mouse sounding jingle at the end of First Women’s is me, too)
I loved being a very small part of the Love Workshop stuff, even though it did ruin me with my feminist friends of the time. Who’d a thunk that I’d become “persona non grata” among them for becoming a “persona unknown-a” on the coolest radio station in the universe?! I was even banned from the Women’s Folk Festival I was booked to play (saner heads came to my defense and prevailed; but upon arrival I was banished to an adjacent stage.) It’s been pondered why the 1970’s Women’s Movement didn’t succeed on the scope that it should have. Um, a general lack of sense of humor maybe?! That’s one thing the Love Workshop didn’t lack. Those guys were willing to offend anyone and to be offended in return.
Looking over your list of downloads from the shows, one seems to be missing…a script that I found particularly hilarious to read that my w-o-m-a-n friends found sacrilegious: Shirley MacLaine’s endorsement of First Women’s Credit and Trust and her rambling about how great things were under that oh so benevolent leader Chairman Mao. I recall the first line being “Hi, I”m Shirley MacLaine, and in my travels throughout the People’s Republic of China the one thing Chinese peasant women everywhere said they lacked was their own bank!!” Do you have that one among those listed above?
I see you’ve listed the sticky old orange juice queen Anita Bryant. I’d completely forgotten about hers! I think I did that one too, but have to listen to it to be sure. It’s wonderful that you’ve enabled folks to download these rare gems. My all time favorite is the one about the free sperm bank at First Women’s. To this day I remember saying this line: “And for those of you who find pro-creation cumbersome and distasteful, First Women’s has our own Sperm Bank…”
I haven’t ever asked Russ but I suspect that the inspiration for the bank ads came after the actual first women’s bank (in New York I believe) by women, for women,
closed abruptly after it’s grand poobah’s (oops, ‘poomahs’) were charged with embezzlement.
Welcome Mariah!
Our collection is indeed not quite complete. As I’ve mentioned somewhere on one of these pages, I remember an episode in which the boys berate a woman (you perhaps?) for buying tubs of cut-rate peanut butter at Newberry’s. (Not only do I remember that episode, but I remember Newberrys!) Unfortunately, that routine hasn’t yet surfaced.
I would tend to agree with you about the success of the various movements and their problamatic attitude towards ridicule. Unfortunately, I fear that, given the forces stacked against them, it might take a little more than a sense of humor to insure victory!
But while we’re waiting, there’s always “Love Workshop!”
HI Derrick,
Good to hear back! I think this is such a cool, fun website. It took a lot of work for you to put it together I’m sure! Thanks from a whole generation of twisted thinkers (o: I don’t know if my tongue ever came out of my cheek after those days.
No, I hadn’t remembered the Newberry’s skit till you mentioned it but the peanut butter thing rings a bell. Not sure it was me, I’d have to hear it. I was yelling and being yelled at in “A Light Snack” though. Who knew criminally bad taste could be so entertaining!? And I am proud to say I was there! (o: There were other gals in that skit too as I recall, and of course others who did Love Workshop episodes, but I don’t know who. I wish I did. Wouldn’t it be a kick to get together and trade memories of all of us doing that crazy stuff at KDKB for The Love Workshop gurus?
I remember Newberry’s too, specifically the one that was at Park Central (am I right?) that had a photo booth out front and a lunch counter ala the ’50’s. It was usually crowded with lovable geezers eating mashed potatoes and gravy over something that resembled a piece of roast beef, or some such delicacy. Do you remember that store from Park Central? We often used to hang out there, it was a pretty place in the midst of a concrete town.
Last time I talked to Russ about the Love Workshop stuff we did (at a KCAC LIves Blog reunion a couple of years ago) it amazed me how clear those memories were for me. I was surprised Russ remembered me so well. He was his typically larger than life, welcoming, grinning and joking self. Great bear hugger that Wonderful Russ!
When I listen to the Love Workshop bits now I clearly recall walking in the door of KDKB one evening, guitar in hand, going into the production room and Russ telling me to make up a song on the spot for the bank jingle. One take wonders, those guys! I sound like I was about 14 years old. (I wish, but not quite that young at the time!) BTW Russ told me he didn’t know where the Shirley MacLaine thing went. I am looking for my tape, but there’s a snowball’s chance in hell I can still find it. If I do I will send it to you if you want.
Did you make it to the 2005 (6?) KCAC/Rebirth Reunion at Alwun House? I hope we can do another one in the fall and you can be there. If I’ve met you I don’t recall your face, but of course am well acquainted with your name, Wayne Butane and the whole labor of love (and lunacy) you do about the Love Workshop and those days.
When I worked at RFP Andy Olson burned a copy of a cd of the bits that I think came from you (where else?) which I enjoy immensely. Especially when I play it for people who are floored at the contents. Your comment about the success of various movements hit the nail on the head…it takes a little more than a sense of humor to insure victory. But it doesn’t hurt, eh?