[Note: this appeared in the January/February edition of Old Radio Times, issue #124]
Over a year ago, I started noticing some unusual traffic and comments on our YouTube channel for the first audition episode of Dangerously Yours titled “Masquerade”, recorded on June 20, 1944. We were getting regular comments that listed a timestamp within the episode and nothing else. Eventually one of the commenters mentioned the band TV Girl and the song “Cigarettes Out the Window” as one of the sources of the traffic.
In the last few months, “Masquerade” has come to dominate the traffic on our channel. In December 2022 alone, it garnered 63,390 views – nearly double the rest of the top ten combined. Additionally, the Dangerously Yours episodes “The Pirate of New Orleans” and “The Highwayman” – both sampled by TV Girl – were the number two and number five most viewed episodes in December, respectively.
Curious as to how the band came across an obscure audition for a radio series that aired for about three months towards the end of World War II, I emailed them with some questions. Brad Petering, the lead singer, was gracious enough to respond. The interview has been edited for grammar and clarity.
Interview
OTRR: That is an obscure episode from a relatively unknown series. How did you learn about it?
Brad: I’m prone to scouring the internet for things to sample and came across the cache of old radio shows. I like the Dangerously Yours series. I quite like the voice of Victor Jory and the female cast as well. They have a very melodramatic way of speaking that works well when laid over an instrumental. That episode in particular, “Masquerade”, is just great.
OTRR: What was the process for incorporating it into your songs? Did you have the episode in mind when writing them, or did you write the songs first and look for appropriate samples for them?
Brad: I have the songs pretty much done and then fool around putting various sounds after, various snippets of dialogue and what have you. Usually, I look for a scene that has some kind of relevance to the topic of the song.
OTRR: What songs have you used it in? I know of “The Getaway”, “Cigarettes Out the Window” and “Heaven is a Bedroom”. Are there others? [Editor’s Note: see the list as of January 2023 at the end]
Brad: Probably little pieces in a whole bunch of songs.
OTRR: Are there other examples of old-time radio episodes in your songs?
Brad: I know There’s a little snippet of some forgotten talk show in “Stupid Actress”. Can’t remember them all.
OTRR: According to your band’s Wikipedia article, you have often sampled 1960s songs and media. This is quite a bit before that period. Is that an accurate description (and this episode is an outlier), or is the range of things you sample broader?
Brad: I don’t place any restriction on what I might sample. But it’s more satisfying to pick out something old. Something obscure and untouched. It’s nice to give a little life to forgotten media, especially since some of it was so good.
OTRR: Do you (or did you) listen to old-time radio and, if so, what series did you typically listen to? What were some of your favorites?
Brad: I do sometimes. Especially if I’m actively putting songs together and have a space for a bit of dialogue or something to scratch into the hook. I’ll put it on in the background while I play chess or do chores and wait for something interesting to catch my ear. I’m not gonna lie, a lot of these old stories are quite generic and formulaic, so I generally prefer stories that are a bit odd. I can’t for the life of me remember what it was called, but there was this one story, I sampled it at the end of “Death of a Party Girl” The story was about a young girl who has an imaginary friend in the form of a doll. She ends up murdering a would-be suitor, bashing his head in with a rock in fact, when he tries to rid her of her childish fantasies. That would be strange enough as it is, but the story continues, it jumps ahead to the future when the girl has grown up to be a sad and desperate alcoholic old woman. And then it just ends. It was incredibly sad and strange. I wish I could remember what it was called. [Editor’s Note: from the description, James Decker was able to identify it as the episode “The Torment of Henrietta Robinson, and Why She Killed” from Crime Classics].
OTRR: Anything else that might be interesting to our group?
Brad: You may be aware of it already, but there’s a really funny podcast called “Mike Detective” by Scott Aukerman and Rob Huebel that’s basically a parody of an old-timey Philip Marlowe radio series. I recommend it!
Sampled Episodes
Here are the old-time radio episodes known to have been used by TV Girl, and the songs they were used in, as of January 2023. This reddit thread will be updated as others are discovered.
Dangerously Yours – “Masquerade” (audition)
Dangerously Yours – “The Pirate of Orleans”
Dangerously Yours – “God’s Country and the Woman”
Crime Classics – “The Torment of Henrietta Robinson, and Why She Killed”