Caption: Buzz Aldrin Apollo 11
Buzz Aldrin Apollo 11 

A Shortcut Back To 1969 -"The Lunar Module"

From: Peter Bochan
Length: 12:13

40th Anniversary Mix of man's trip to the moon which began on July 16th, 1969 Read the full description.

275px-aldrin_apollo_11_small This segment of "A Shortcut Back to 1969" -The Lunar Module,  is a mix of the sounds, voices and music of the summer of 1969 featuring original NASA recordings of the launch of Apollo 11, Richard M. Nixon, Neal Armstrong, John F. Kennedy, The 5th Dimension, David Bowie,The Who, The Beach Boys, Burgess Meredith, General Westmoreland, various soldiers and reporters in Vietnam, astronauts, mission control specialists and much more...

Part of a 40th Anniversary look back at 1969

To hear the full audio, sign up for a free PRX account or log in.

More from Peter Bochan

Caption: April 15th, 2013

All Mixed Up-Boston Marathon (59:47)
From: Peter Bochan

April 15th came with an explosion this year at the Boston Marathon, this mix blends sounds from that afternoon with the ongoing bad history on that taxing day with the ...
Caption: MLK Jr-Washington,DC 1963

All Mixed Up with Martin Luther King Jr. (58:43)
From: Peter Bochan

A Celebration of Martin Luther King Jr and the historic March on Washington that took place 50 years ago this August with new mixes featuring Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, Ingrid ...
Caption: Russell Means

A Shortcut through 2012: Tributes (29:26)
From: Peter Bochan

Additional tribute mix of more incredible people who left us in 2012--legacies that will continue to inspire...part two of A Shortcut through 2012
Piece image

A Shortcut Through 2012 (59:14)
From: Peter Bochan

A retrospective of 2012, mixing the sounds and emotions of an incredibly dark and stormy year into a hour long montage.
Piece image

All Mixed Up: Newtown Tribute (57:33)
From: Peter Bochan

A collection of children's choirs, inspirational music, and personal remembrances, mixed with Barack Obama speaking in Newtown, CT Sunday night.
Caption: Ernest Borgnine as "Marty"

A Lonely Shortcut (28:41)
From: Peter Bochan

A classic year-end show that highlights the celebration of the holiday rather than the passing of any specific year. It's all about the going out, or staying in, having a ...
Piece image

All Mixed Up : Shakedown with James Ellroy (58:08)
From: Peter Bochan

Conversation with author James Ellroy about his online book "Shakedown" featuring Confidential magazine and LA Detective Fred Otash. Featuring classic Interview by Mike ...
Piece image

A Shortcut Back Home (28:43)
From: Peter Bochan

A nostalgic trip back to your home town with memories of Main Street, Mom & Pop, the Savings & Loan, the Village Green and that house you grew up in on "A Shortcut Back Home"
Piece image

All Mixed Up-Thanksgiving (58:19)
From: Peter Bochan

The Holiday classic: "A Shortcut Back Home" plus music from Charlie Chaplin, Neil Young, the Avett Brothers, Laura Nyro, Ray Davies, Kronos Quartet, and Max Steiner.
Piece image

All Mixed Up with Pinback (58:31)
From: Peter Bochan

An interview with Pinback founders Zach Smith and Rob Crow featuring music from their latest release "Information Retrieved" and all mixed up in the usual style.

Piece Description

This segment of "A Shortcut Back to 1969" -The Lunar Module,  is a mix of the sounds, voices and music of the summer of 1969 featuring original NASA recordings of the launch of Apollo 11, Richard M. Nixon, Neal Armstrong, John F. Kennedy, The 5th Dimension, David Bowie,The Who, The Beach Boys, Burgess Meredith, General Westmoreland, various soldiers and reporters in Vietnam, astronauts, mission control specialists and much more...

Part of a 40th Anniversary look back at 1969

1 Comment Atom Feed

User image

Forty Years Later

This is the week that was. My family and I rented a black-and-white TV and couldn’t take our eyes off the event 240,000 miles away. In a Colorado mountain cabin during July 1969 we listened to Neil – not “Neal” as sadly misspelled in this program’s liner notes – Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin say their first words and take their first moon walk.

Forty years later Michael Jackson’s dance is associated with that term. How fast four decades have replaced lunar dreams with terrestrial hard knocks. Hardly anyone nowadays recalls that “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” were watchwords meant to be prophetic. Hardly anyone today in D.C. cares about manned space operations. What JFK famously said, “We choose to go to the moon,” is now no more than a footnote.

Which makes Peter Bochan’s “shortcut” all the more important to hear this Week of the Lunar Walk. One of the best facets of Bochan’s medley is that it’s easily capable being edited and used in excerpts. Jam-packed with sound bites of voices and musical squibs from the Sixties, the first half of this piece pretty much sums things up. I found the mid-section a bit slow, and the rest spends quite a bit, perhaps too much, of itself on David Bowie’s superb “Ground Control to Major Tom.” Bochan’s “shortcut” becomes a tad longish.

No matter. This is still a valuable auditory collage. If, as somebody says here, “1968 was a disastrous year” – with assassinations and an ever more meaningless war in Vietnam – 1969 was fantastic. One issue now is to see whether the Week of the Lunar Walk is, for us in 2009, a science fantasy we dare not hope to replicate – or whether Neil Armstrong’s words and the deeds of Apollo 11 represent something we may again aspire to.