Tothar

The Beyondophonic Action Hour

with Tothar

. . .curiously arranged, infectiously melodic, and/or confoundingly conceived pop recordings from the post-1948 microgroove vinyl era.

Beaming in from the planet of Akron, Ohio, Tothar has been amassing a diversity of records since his toddler days. As the story goes, Tothar learned to read from 45 labels, by matching favorite songs with particular letter combinations like “Shadows On My Wall – The Poppy Family.” Before hosting The Beyondophonic Action Hour on LuxuriaMusic, Tothar co-hosted The Beyondo Mondo Record Party, a freeform radio show on WAPS-FM in Akron from 1999-2008.

In his alter ego of Michael David Toth, Tothar has produced the Perez Prado ¡Primal! CD for the UK Rev-Ola label, has written for Cool & Strange Music! Magazine and major NE Ohio entertainment weeklies. Semi-annually starting in 1996, Tothar organized local live DJ events memorializing the nearby Canton, Ohio birth of Enoch Light, which expanded into an odd international franchise of simultaneous Enoch Light DJ events. He’s also criminally overdue in making updates to his Three Suns Universe reference Web site, which has long since fallen off the Internet.

Philosophy of my radio show:There’s a wildly infinite world of music out there just waiting to be tasted and explored and enjoyed. My obsessive addictions to retro-futurism and catchy pop hooks spun in mind-meltingly inventive arrangements will invariably influence my song selection.
Five artists LuxuriaMusic listeners will hear on my show:Perez Prado, Barry Gray, The Free Design, Sparks, and the Japanese stage cast of “Hair”
To derive the maximum pleasure from my radio show: Listeners should imagine themselves simultaneously living inside of Forbidden Planet, Tati’s Playtime, the 1965-1969 Avengersepisodes, and every 1950s UPA Gerald McBoingBoing cartoon.
When I’m not DJing I can be found:Consuming British spy/sci-fi TV and comics and/or contemplating questions like, “How have modernism and post-modernism both failed to reflect the reality of human nature in an intellectually honest way?”
The secret superpower I possess: Phonosynthesis – the ability to use carbon dioxide and water to turn recorded sound waves into oxygen and a substance not unlike Cap’n Crunch.