From the Vault marches on as Pacifica Radio Archives staff prepares for our annual one-day on-air fundraiser (Save the Date! November 18, 2008).

Special guest hostess Cassandra Peterson, known to the world as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, takes us into the deep, dark (and haunted???)corners of the Pacifica Radio Archives, this week on From the Vault. After all, it is the week of All Hallows’ Eve and we have a ton of scary stuff in the Pacifica Radio Archives, so who better to present some of the very scariest radio drama ever recorded? Sit back, relax, and join Elvira as we hear two of the most ghoulish and ghastly stories in our collection, taken from a radio production produced in 1972 by Charles Potter and David Rapkin of the horror stories “The Monkey’s Paw” and “The Cask of Amontillado” by WW Jacobs and Edgar Allen Poe, respectively.

The second half of this week’s episode features a delightfully frightful interview with Elvira… Join Archives Director Brian DeShazor and FTV Writer and Producer Christopher Sprinkle as they speak with The Mistress of the Dark about the origins of Elvira, the war in Iraq, PETA, and Elvis. Happy Halloween!!!

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

From the Vault marches on as Pacifica Radio Archives staff prepares for our annual one-day on-air fundraiser (Save the Date! November 18, 2008).

This week, on From the Vault, Pacifica Radio Archives presents Part Two of its original documentary, Revolution Rewind: 1968 Year in Review. As part of our 1968 Revolution Rewind Preservation and Access Initiative, we combed through literally hundreds of hours of Archival audio to mix up a three hour special on 1968. In the second hour of this three-hour documentary, we trumpet the spirit of the times as captured through the arts — think literature, poetry, music, and the cinema!

This program was written and hosted by BBC collaborator Joanne Griffith.

Executive Producer: Pacifica Radio Archives and Brian DeShazor. Produced and Edited by Mark Torres.  Presenters: Brian DeShazor, Joanne Griffith, Sonali Kolhatkar, Mark Maxwell, Margaret Prescod, Aura Bogado, and Mark Torres.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

From the Vault marches on as Pacifica Radio Archives staff prepares for our annual one-day on-air fundraiser (Save the Date! November 18, 2008).

This week on From the Vault, we put our focus on one of the true legends of radio, the father of free form radio, the voice of the cabal, Bob Fass. Prior to this program, the Pacifica Radio Archives held only a few examples of Fass’s regular radio program Radio Unnameable, in production since 1962. Today we present new additions to the historic collection of the program that spoke to the people of New York City from midnight to 6 a.m. five nights a week. We’ll hear excerpts from the best of Fass’s programming from the 1960’s: Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, and Roger McGuinn of the Byrds. Along with these marquis names, you will hear what we mean when we say Free Form Radio.

Also, we’ll hear from Paul Lovelace and Jessica Wolfson, film documentary producers from New York who have selected Bob Fass as the subject of their current project. They came to Los Angeles to visit the Pacifica Radio Archives’ vault as part of their research, and sat down with us to talk about how Bob Fass inspired an entire project. For more information about helping with the Bob Fass Tape-In, which rescues Bob’s recorded history, please contact Paul Lovelace and Jessica Wolfson at lostfootagefilms@gmail.com.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

From the Vault marches on as Pacifica Radio Archives staff prepares for our annual one-day on-air fundraiser (Save the Date! November 18, 2008).

This week, on From the Vault, Pacifica Radio Archives presents an original documentary titled Revolution Rewind: 1968 Year in Review — a 40th Anniversary celebration of a year in which a radical wave crashed across the globe, changing the world and its people politically, socially, and culturally. Wars, marches, elections, assassinations, human rights, civil rights, women’s rights, the explosion of consciousness and creativity… no event took place in isolation; the Vietnam War ducked and wove through 1968, depositing destruction and igniting defiance against injustice; students worldwide took to the streets to not only speak out against social ills in their own land – but also in support of their international brethren; civil rights campaigners spoke in unity about the need for equal rights and respect; and a new battle – the war of words – is penned amidst the tide of change brought to artists struggling to comprehend and express the social and political upheaval surrounding them. And Pacifica Radio was there to capture it all…

Featured this week is Part One of Revolution Rewind - 1968 Year in Review, which focuses on the politics and culture of 1968, with audio selections ranging from Pacifica’s courageous and uncensored coverage of the Vietnam War, to Martin Luther King, Jr., members of the Black Panther Party, Cesar Chavez, Robert Kennedy, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Pete Seeger, Jesse Jackson, Muhammad Ali, Ayn Rand, and many more.

Executive Producer: Pacifica Radio Archives and Brian DeShazor. Produced and Edited by Mark Torres. Written by Joanne Griffith. Presenters: Brian DeShazor, Joanne Griffith, Sonali Kolhatkar, Mark Maxwell, Margaret Prescod, Aura Bogado, and Mark Torres.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.