The radio program SwaG! is the outcome of numerous experiments on subjects in the 1950s and 1960s. They were based on what Bat Guano learned as a teenaged disk jockey and announcer during military radio broadcasts in the Korean War. His broadcasts of rhythm and blues and bebop jazz on the front lines did not, as far as the evidence showed, demoralize the Communist troops on the other side as was hoped. But they did manage to get him captured by Chinese forces.
When he was freed, Mr. Guano said little about his time in captivity in a remote area of Manchuria. But he did claim his time was spent thinking of new ways to provide entertainment through radio broadcasts.
His experiments were carried out at Western Michigan University Center for Pavlovian and Behavioral Studies, before terminated due to unfortunate results; the positive outcome being the gain of higher standards in respect to voluntary subjects.
Mr. Guano operated a high-wattage boarder station in Mexico following what he calls his “exile.” Very little is known of this period. Sometimes Mr. Guano claims that he never went to Mexico, and has always done his experimental broadcasts from WMU’s student station, WIDR-FM.
History can be a murky subject, prone to misstatements, myth and outright flights of fancy. What can only be known is the present. Which you can hear below.
But below is the past, the Thanksgiving Day Eve broadcast of SwaG!, Nov. 26, 2008.
