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Re: R.I.P. Peter Bergman
Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2012 7:11 pm
by Sonic Youth
Shoes for industry!
Culturally they were before my time, and I must confess I never knew which member was which (a hazard for primarily audio. But - especially *ahem* during my brief flirtation with mind-altering substances - I dug them. The ultimate stereosonic comedy troupe.
R.I.P. Peter Bergman
Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2012 5:00 pm
by Mister Tee
Don't know how many people are even familiar with their work anymore, but, when I was in college, Firesign Theatre was the quintessential "Smoke a joint/listen to its profundities/laugh your ass off" combo. You could walk into almost any campus crowd and shout "What is reality?" or "Should I sit in the waiting room or wait in the sitting room?", and most everyone knew what you were referencing. These guys were, for a short time, amazingly creative. Porgie and Mudhead forever.
Peter Bergman, founder of the surreal comedy group Firesign Theatre, and the man who coined the term "Love-In," died Friday morning in a Santa Monica hospital. He was 72, and had been suffering from leukemia.
Firesign grew out of a radio show Bergman hosted at KPFK in the late 1960s. The group made two dozen popular comedy records — the most popular of which included “We’re All Bozo’s on This Bus,” and “Don’t Crush that Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers” — and continued performing live into last December.
On his own, Bergman produced a political satire series for KPCC called “True Confessions of the Real World,” which ran in 2002 and 2003.
We've posted two pieces of audio, a full episode of "True Confessions of the Real World," and Off-Ramp host John Rabe's conversation with Firesign co-founder Phil Proctor.