Massett, Larry/Archives
HV107- Strange Days
HV/Series/Episode/ Work by: Erica Heilman · Paul Kiernan · Larry Massett · John Rieger · ZBS
Hearing Voices from NPR®
107 Strange Days: Paul Bowles, Coyle & Sharp, Ayahuasca
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2012-05-16 (Originally: 2010-12-29)
“Strange Days” (52:00 mp3):
Way beyond the norm:
Host Larry Massett has an audio essay on the life and literature of Paul Bowles (December 30, 1910 – November 18, 1999) on his 100th birthday.
Includes the ZBS 1967 conversation “A Time in Tangier,” readings of The Sheltering Sky
HV010- All Mom Radio
HV/Series/Episode/ Work by: Beverly Donofrio · Larry Massett · Sound Portraits · Nancy Updike
Hearing Voices from NPR®
010 All Mom Radio: For Mother’s Day
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2012-05-09 (Originally: 2008-05-07)
All Mom Radio (53:00 mp3):
For Mother’s Day, maternal tales from producers around the country:
“Travels with Mom” follows Larry Massett and his mother to the Tybee Island, Georgia of today and of the 1920′s, as recalled by Mrs. Massett.
Writer Beverly Donofrio joins her mom for “Thursday Night Bingo,” produced by Dave Isay of Sound Portraits.
In Nancy Updike‘s “Mubarak and Margy,” a gay man returns home to care for his mom, and to the “cure” his family plans for his homosexuality.
And comedian Amy Borkowsky shares her hilarious phone “Messages from Mom.”
HV055- Wordshakers
HV/Series/Episode/ Work by: Alex Caldiero · Scott Carrier · Andrei Codrescu · Barrett Golding · Larry Massett · Marjorie Van Halteren
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
055 WordshakerS: For Poetry Month
Host: Andrei Codrescu of NPR / Exquisite Corpse
Airs week of: 2012-04-04 (Originally: 2009-04-01)
Wordshakers (52:00 mp3):
Poetry Grits Glory Verve:
POETRY is a discourse
and we its discouragees.
Lord Alfred Tennyson bangs the podium in “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (from the book/CD set Poetry Speaks).
Thomas Edison waxes Walt Whitman’s “America” (Poetry Speaks).
Cheerleaders Chant” a found-poem (CD: The United States Of Poetry, part of the USOP project).
If it’s a worldwide depression, everyone is depressed.
Ah, but try to run a gypsy through the ruins of time.
Host Andrei Codrescu decontructs his “Poetry.” Codrescu assembles The Exquisite Corpse (a Journal of Life and Letters), and is an NPR commentator.
Denise Levertov knows “The Secret” (Poetry Speaks).
Carl Sandburg wonders “What is Poetry?” (produced by Barrett Golding).
Scott Carrier presents the categorical conundrum of “Alex Caldiero- Poet?”
Ed Sanders (fmr Fug) poses “A Question of Fame,” off his CD Thirsting for Peace.
My publisher says “At some people’s readings
the crowd goes out and buys their books.
At yours they run out and steal them.”
HV052- Circus Blood
Hearing Voices from NPR®
052 Circus Blood: Under the Big Top
Host: John Dankosky of Connecticut Public Radio
Airs week of: 2012-02-01 (Originally: 2009-02-25)
Circus Blood (52:00 mp3):
A world-class troupe of audio daredevils and media magicians:
Host John Dankosky takes us to the circus in “Hershey Park Arena, Hershey Pennsylvania. I was 10 years old, and very, very worried.”
SF Chronicle journalist Jon Carroll interviews his daughter Shana as she hang upside down on her “Trapeze”, ready to fly away; from the Life Stories series by Jay Allison. (Shana started swinging with the Pickle Family Circus, about which her dad co-authored a book. She now flies for Les Sept Doigts de la Main.)
Joe Frank loves the lady “Lion Tamer,” an excerpt from his hour “The Dictator- Part 2” (show details).
Adam Rosen mixes a medley of the many versions of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, The Tokens, The Nylons, Miriam Makeba, Robert John, and Manu Dibango).
HV026- Prime Candidates
HV/Series/Episode/ Work by: Alex Blumberg · Peter Bochan · Larry Massett · Art Silverman · This American Life · Sarah Vowell
Hearing Voices from NPR®
026 Prime Candidates: Portraits of Past Presidential Primaries
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-12-28 (Originally: 2008-08-27)
“Prime Candidates” (52:00 mp3):
The plight of pols on the campaign trail:
From the 1980 primary: politicians who fancy themselves president tromp thru the mill town of Claremont, New Hampshire. Produced for NPR by Larry Massett and Art Silverman, with Betty Rogers.
From the 2000 primary: The media spin myths out of misquotes; produced by Alex Blumberg and Ira Glass for the “Primary” episode of This American Life.
From the 2003 California Gubernatorial Recall: Douglas Fleishut and the Language Removal Service concoct the world’s first wordless political debate in their “California Recall Project.”
From the 2008 primary: Losers in the March “Super Tuesday” vote re-appear, w/ music by Robert Wyatt and Bruce Springsteen, from Peter Bochan‘s series Presidential Shortcuts.
Photo: Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller administering the oath of office to Benjamin Harrison on the east portico of the U. S. Capitol, March 4, 1889; from the Library of Congress “I Do Solemnly Swear…”: Presidential Inaugurations.
HV128- Prisoners of War
Hearing Voices from NPR®
128 Prisoners of War: Battle of the Bulge
Host: Erica Heilman of Vermont Folklife Center
Airs week of: 2011-12-13
“Prisoners of War” (52:00 mp3):
Four American soldiers share their WWII experiences, before, during, and after their time in a German POW camp:
Produced for the Vermont Folklife Center: In December 1944 the Allies were closing in on Germany. Hitler had a desperate plan to save the Third Reich, a massive assault he believed would so demoralize that the Allies, they would seek a separate peace, leaving only the Russian army on the eastern front. On December 16 the Germans unleashed an offensive that would become the most brutal battle of the European war: the Battle of the Bulge. Nineteen thousand Americans were killed, about the same number were taken prisoner. We hear from four Americans soldiers about their time in — before, during and after — a German POW camp: Cliff Austin, Harrison Burney, Bill Busier, and Robert Norton.
VFC Radio published a transcript and a CD of “Prisoners of War.” Harrison Burney wrote “From The Bowels of Hell, a soldier’s memoir of World War II, 1944-1945 (143k PDF). Music: “Reitba” and “Concerto No. 3 for Double-Bass and Piano,” composed and performed by cellist Francois Rabbath; “String Quartet in C Major”, the second movement in the “Emperor” by Franz Joseph Haydn, performed by the Concord String Quartet
HV072- Predator
HV/Series/Episode/ Work by: Mark Allen · Alex Chadwick · Carolyn Jensen Chadwick · Hillary Frank · Barrett Golding · Erica Heilman · Long Haul Productions · Larry Massett
Hearing Voices from NPR®
072 Predator: Hunter and Hunted
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-09-14 (Originally: 2009-10-14)
“Predator” (52:00 mp3):
For the opening of hunting season:
A teenage babysitter convinces his younger siblings he’s a werewolf… who’s going to kill them, produced by Hillary Frank (author of I Can’t Tell You) for This American Life.
Beatrice is a white toy poodle, a neighbor, and “the most evil entity, force, energy known to man. Death to humans is a mere plop of a pebble in the ocean that is the evil that you are Beatrice. Evil Beatrice the white poodle.”
Grizzly Bear 0:00-0:17
Harbor Seal 0:17-0:33
Dall’s Sheep 0:33-0:44
Timber Wolf 0:44-0:51
Moose 0:51-1:22
Cougar/Mountain Lion 1:22-1:26
Sea Lion 1:26-1:51
Porcupine 1:51-1:58
Bison 1:58-3:26
Ringtail/Rodent 3:26-3:41
Musk Ox 3:41-4:11
Columbia Black Tail Deer 4:11-4:37
Caribou 4:37-5:06
Coyote 5:06-5:25
Mountain Goat 5:25-5:48
Peccary 5:48-6:26
Mule Deer 6:26-6:58
From Sonic Scenery, an exhibit I worked on at the natural history museum in Los Angeles a couple years ago. Composers were invited to record music specifically to be heard in wings of the museum. The visitor wears a headset, which plays the compositions when triggered by remote signals in the galleries. Experimental duo Matmos took it all the way by making audio environments for each of the seventeen dioramas in the North American Mammals hall. The timechart (above) was intended to cue the visitor to move from one window to the next, but you can read along for a similar effect.
Artist statement:
In general, our work starts by taking an object, making sounds with that object, and working outward from those sounds in a free-associative manner, without a preconceived result or specifically targeted genre in mind.
In this case, we have had to reverse this process and have tried to think about the precise specifics of the North American Mammals hall and work to gather sounds that will evoke both the natural locale and the specific behaviors of the animals in the room. We decided to anchor our piece around the sounds of animals eating, breathing, and sniffing their environment, and to locate these noises of animal life against a backdrop of plateaulike drones generated with musical instruments associated with “Americana”: pedal steel, acoustic guitar, banjo, harmonica, and autoharp. Feeding peanut butter to a friend’s dog, we built up a basic library of mammalian lip-smacking, huffing, barking, whining, sniffling, and breathing noises, and combined this with a percussive battery of antler noises made by smacking deer antlers against each other and some softer rustling textures harvested by stroking and rubbing the pelt of a wolf.
The work is divided into miniature ‘cells,’ which stand in for the seventeen distinct dioramas/environments and animal species represented in the room, and this is split down the middle by a central section that corresponds to the large bison display at the far end of the room. Our work is intended to be a sound map of a walk through this room and is paced to coincide with a five-to-seven-minute counterclockwise walk through its contents
–Matmos
via futurechimp
“17 Species of North American Mammals” (2:22 excerpt) Matmos
LA’s The Natural History Museum commissioned original music compositions to accompany their 2006 exhibit Sonic Scenery: Music for Collections. Matmos’ music used the vocal sounds of North American mammals.
One of America’s oldest roadside attractions is the Linesville Spillway in northwest Pennsylvania. Tourists toss bread; carp amass at the spillway’s edges: The fish are so thick that mallard ducks hop, skip and jump on the fish’s backs to compete for a slice of bread. Original music by Tim Fite, part of LHP’s song/story series.
More music from the LHP story.
Writer (Amazon), hunter, angler, outdoorsman, Norman Strung demonstrates the shrill sound and thrill found in calling for elk. (Miss ya, Norm: “Labradors [are] lousy watchdogs. They usually bark when there is a stranger about, but it is an expression of unmitigated joy at the chance to meet somebody new, not a warning.” –Norman Strung)
Father Rupe LaRock and son Joe provide a hunter’s perspective of the annual deer breeding cycle. “You can just smell the heat and smell the rut right in the air.” Another of the Deer Stories , produced with Gregory Sharrow at the Vermont Folk Life Center.
Guns, guitars, guts, and wild game. Hunting wildlife and the wild life in the mountains of Payette National Forest. From the Chadwick’s Conservation Sound series. Audio by Micheal Scweppe.
HV119- Trouble
HV/Series/Episode/ Work by: Katie Davis · Joe Frank · Erica Heilman · Larry Massett
Hearing Voices from NPR®
119 Trouble: From Bad to Worse
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-07-20
“Trouble” (52:00 mp3):
If you’re looking for trouble, you come to the right place:
Erica was a private investigator; now she’s a radio producer. The skills overlap: you ask questions, try to figure what happened, and make a report. (None of the interviewees were clients when she recorded them.) Produced by Larry Massett.
Recitations from the nightly news: a litany of tragedy, mayhem and murder. From Joe’s 2005 hour Bad Faith, and in his collections in the Joe Frank Shop, on the CD Joe Frank Team Favorites, Volume 2. Music: “A Mother (For Your Mind)” The Herbaliser, Blow Your Headphones.
A good neighbor goes bad in the producer’s DC block. Dozens of rats are infesting her yard and attacking other houses. Produced for This American Life, “Neighbors,” and part of Katie’s Neighborhood Stories series. End music: Music: “Cheval Noir” Fug, Ready For Us.
“I can break the law because… I am the law.” Sleepless in Tbilisi. A twenty-four hour tour, from Turkish baths to Batumi beaches, through the country of Georgia, in Southwest Asia. High-speed sight-seeing, driven by the accidental tourguide: “a ‘detective,’ or ‘special police,’ or ‘security force.’ It’s not clear. Sometimes he even says ‘KGB,’ though that no longer exists… does it?” Music: “Dachrilis Simgera (Song for Wounded)” Tbilisi Vocal Ensemble, Georgian Folk and Sacred Songs (2002). (Annotated transcript.)
