http://archaicinventions.blogspot.nl/2017/09/care-of-cow-dogs-ears-are-stupid-1983.html
Archaic Inventions
October 22, 2017WFMU blog
January 13, 2013Discovered this in an interview with DJ Dave Mandl:
Every program on WFMU is a unique mixture of loam and silt, manure and peat, each lovingly tended to bring the finest harvest of ephemera, flotsam and mixed metaphor that can be guaranteed. In this installment, Dave Mandl explains what makes his garden grow.
Some WFMU DJs spend days preparing a show. They think about it all week, make notes, put select records from their collection aside in advance, plan exact sets, or even work out precise segues well ahead of time. Some DJs come down to the station with long, painstakingly assembled lists, so virtually all they need to do when they arrive here is mechanically pull each of those CDs or LPs from the wall ad they’re all set. Some do their entire show from their personal collection, so they can step out of the elevator two minutes before airtime and stroll into the studio with three full crates of records, confident and ready to go. These DJs produce some of the best radio in the world.
I do things a little differently. I don’t prepare days in advance. I never make lists. I grab maybe a dozen of my own records and CDs (often fewer) just before I leave the house. To be honest, I haven’t got the faintest idea what my show’s going to sound like at that point, and five minutes before showtime I’ve still got almost no idea.
What I do do is pull almost my entire show, on the fly, from the walls of WFMU’s main library and New Bin in the few hours before I go on the air. The way I do this is the same every week. I pick a section of the library (say, the P section of CDs) and flip, flip, flip through each individual disc till I find a couple of things that (a) I’ve never heard before but look interesting or (b) I do know, and strike me as something I happen to feel like playing that day. Then I go to another section of the library (say, the Ws, or the film soundtracks) and do it again, then again. Occasionally I’ll think, “Hmmm, I haven’t played Care of the Cow in a while,” in which case I’ll go over to the C section, grab I Still Don’t Know Your Style, and toss it on the pile. But that’s the exception. For the most part I just go through the library as if I’ve never seen it before, flip through individual discs, and pull things one by one with absolutely no plan. For the discs in the resulting stack that I’m not at all familiar with (and there are always a few of those), I’ll then give them a quick listen to see whether they’re any good, and a lot of those will go right back in the wall. Then I flip through some more sections. I’m finished when it’s time to go on the air, and lo and behold, I’ve got a pool of maybe 75 records and CDs broadly representing how I happen to be feeling that evening. This is a s-l-o-w and tortuous process, and it’s why I prefer to arrive at the station a good four hours before airtime….
from The Chicago Reader
July 29, 2010
by Steve Krakow aka Plastic Crimewave
Link to Steve’s 2 August interview with COTC on WGN:
from Sonic Asymmetry
March 23, 2009
An incredibly brave analysis of what the cow would no doubt construe as an unanalysible recording!
There are insights here that are truly fascinating: some are breathtakingly accurate, others profoundly humorous and all the commentary provokes some reflection (technical and aesthetic) from our pov.
Thanks to this fastidiously impressive musicologist for providing such entertaining scholarship and diagrammatic praxis.
my favorite line:
“The band’s melodic indifference is remarkable.”
http://sonicasymmetry.wordpress.com/2008/08/23/care-of-the-cow-i-still-dont-know-your-style/
c1980
February 1, 2009
Care of the Cow
c. 1980_artwork from “I Still Don’t Know Your Style” vinyl lp album
Sher Doruff, Christine Baczewska, Victor Sanders
artwork for album cover “Ode on a Gertrude Stein”
February 1, 2009
Care of the Cow c. 1978
artwork for “Ode on a Gertrude Stein” never-released album on Dharma Records. Portrait of band with projected images concept: Sher Doruff, photos: Daniel Lerner
left to right: projection: Victor Sanders, Victor Sanders; projection: Sher Doruff, Sher Doruff; Christine Baczewska, projection: Christine Baczewska
I Still Don’t Know Your Style – Sise Two
May 20, 200805 The Slope of Her Nose
06 Downstream
07 Clippings
08 Strophe
I Still Don’t Know Your Style – Side One
May 20, 200801 Conversation piece
02 Eternally at Work
03 Christinatron
04 Que Sera Sarah
Dogs’ Ears Are Stupid Side Two
May 20, 200801 Oceans In My Ears
02 Dog’s ears Are stupid
03 Australia / Sleepwalker
04 European Trains
05 No Beethoven
Dogs’ Ears Are Stupid Side One
May 20, 200801 Chinese Food part One
02 Cemetery
03 Like Me
04 Chinese Food Part Two
Australia and Sleepwalker
May 19, 2008Australia: The Sleepwalker Bites Herself in French
from Dogs’ Ears Are Stupid, 1983
Photo archive.
December 1, 2007
From 1974-1983 Care of the Cow, an alternative, idiosyncratic band made their home in Chicago.
Chrstine Baczewska, Kevin Clark (74-77), Sher Doruff and Victor Sanders.
Niagra Falls in the winter of 1977 or 78 on route to Toronto for a concert.
Care of the Cow 
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