Author: Barrett Golding/Archives

Wedding Entrance

Sez my niece: “This made me laugh so hard I cried.”
Sez my wife: “A very white wedding… but it made me cry, too.”

JK Wedding Entrance Dance:

Dollar ReDesign

The Dollar ReDe$ign Project proffers, “We need to rebuild our country, revive our economy, redesign the Dollar bill. Email us your ideas. Win a prize. In God We Trust, In Change We Believe.”

Some of my fave submissions came from some U on MN students:

Artist: Kelsey Dunigan

Artist: McKenna Seefeldt

via Hip.Young.Thing.

HV065- Cowboy

Hearing Voices from NPR®
065 Cowboy: Cheyenne Frontier Days
Host: Josh Darsa of NPR
Airs week of: 2010-07-28 (Originally: 2009-07-22)

“Cowboy” (52:00 mp3):

Host Josh Darsa of NPR spends nine days with rodeo riders in a rural Wyoming town:

This 1980 classic radio doc from the NPR archives visits Cheyenne Frontier Days, “The Daddy of ’em All.”

Along the way, Darsa digs into the the history of the “cowboy,” mixing in the experiences of Baylis John Fletcher on an 1879 cattle drive, herding 2000 longhorns from Texas to Wyoming (read by Paul Blakemore from the book Up the trail in ’79.

And underscoring it all is the wild-west symphonies of Aaron Copland.

Josh Darsa wrote and narrated. The technical director and recording engineer was John Widoff, assisted by Miles Smith, Dave Glasser and shop technician Bob Butcher.

“While we were at the rodeo, Josh Darsa wanted to record multiple vantage points of a single scene. For instance, I’d have a Nagra tape recorder on the roof of the grandstand and Miles Smith would have a Nagra in the chutes where the riders would bust out for their ride. Then we would have a free-running Nagra III on the rodeo announcer. We ran them in sync kinda like you would do in video with multiple cameras. This gave us three vantage points. During the show you hear the perspective change through cross fading which is a result of these different but simultaneous perspectives.

There must have been 70 hours or more of tape we shot out there in Cheyenne and every single thing got dubbed. What you heard in the halls of the old NPR were rodeo sounds coming from RC1. Constant horses, bulls, things crashing, just all kinds of things. I think it drove people nuts hearing this stuff up and down the halls.

This was the height of my career at NPR. It was a combination of everything… the music recording, the production sound recording, interviews… every single thing that I had ever done for this company all came together in this show. This was probably how Walt Disney felt when he made Mary Poppins. It was a dream come true for me to build something like this. ‘Cowboy’ is the kind of show you would listen to in a darkened movie theatre. The writing is spectacular.”
–John Widoff, “‘Cowboy,’ a Study in Radio Tale-Telling”
Read the entire interview.

More Josh Darsa at NPR.org: “An Italian Mosaic” (1978) | “Josh Darsa Obituary” by Alex Chadwick (2000)

Joe Frank FB

Joe Frank has been writing regularly on Facebook. So for those FB-ers among us, check out his oft-updated page.

Cowboy’s Sonic Capture

“From the opening moments, “Cowboy” seizes the heart and soul of the listener for an extraordinary hour. Josh Darsa’s strong story vision and great writing, combined with John Widoff’s brilliantly clear and intimately warm recordings and mix, produced a radio experience that remains unequaled to this day. Listen to “Cowboy” and think about what went into it: planning, attention to detail, patience, and the faith and confidence that the highest standards are both achievable and worth all the work they require. A masterpiece that has endured for decades already, and surely will for many more.”
–Alex Chadwick, June 1998

“This was the height of my career at NPR. It was a combination of everything… the music recording, the production sound recording, interviews… every single thing that I had ever done for this company all came together in this show. This was probably how Walt Disney felt when he made Mary Poppins. It was a dream come true for me to build something like this. ‘Cowboy’ is the kind of show you would listen to in a darkened movie theatre. The writing is spectacular.”
–John Widoff, May 1998

NPR.org: ‘Cowboy,’ a Study in Radio Tale-Telling
Hearing Voices episode: “Cowboy”

[The following liner notes  are from the 1998 CD of “Cowboy,” Volume 1 in the NPR Engineering Master Series:]

In 1980, journalist-producer Josh Darsa, technical director and recording engineer John Widoff, assisted by Miles Smith, Dave Glasser and shop technician Bob Butcher, collaborated on Cowboy, a project that has become a classic of radio journalism. Cowboy was originally broadcast on October 4, 1980 on a series called The Mind’s Eye. In an interview with Mike Starling, Vice President of NPR Engineering, John Widoff describes their unique effort.

Mega Decks, Mega Mics, Mega Mix

JW: While we were at the rodeo, Josh Darsa wanted to record multiple vantage points of a single scene. For instance, I’d have a Nagra tape recorder on the roof of the grandstand and Miles Smith, a freelancer out of New York (currently Boston), would have a Nagra in the chutes where the riders would bust out for their ride. Then we would have a freeorunning Nagra III on the rodeo announcer. We ran them in sync kinda like you would do in video with multiple cameras. This gave us three different vantage points. During the show you hear the perspective change through cross fading which is a result of these different but simultaneous perspectives. More…

Grooveshark

The DJ deep w/in me can’t help screwin’ w/Grooveshark. I kicked out an hour of song and spoken-weird to stream outta our HV1 Grooveshark playlist:

W Cronkite 1916-2009

Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009). Here’s a couple Cronkite clips…

The “Prologue” from the 1970 albom I Can Hear It Now: The Sixties written and edited by Fred Friendly and Walter Cronkite, (2:13):

From the compilation A Lincoln Portrait: The Music of Abraham Lincoln by the Bands and Choruses of the US Military, “A Lincoln Portrait Part 2” by US Coast Guard Band & Walter Cronkite (6:35):

HV064- Outer Space

Hearing Voices from NPR®
064 Outer Space: Moon and Beyond
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-07-15 (Originally: -0-0)

“Outer Space” (52:00 mp3):

For the anniversary of the first Man on the Moon, July 20th 1969:

“Exploration” (3:25) is put to music by The Karminsky Experience from The Power Of Suggestion (2003).

In the early 1960’s, the United States was losing the Space Race. The first satellite in was the USSR’s Sputnik, 1957. The first human in space was Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, April 1961. The next month President JFK made a Special Address to the US Congress (2:10), that started the program which landed us on the moon eight years later.

“President John Kennedy’s Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs, May 25, 1961”

“Zero G, and I Feel Fine” (6:01) transmissions are from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, with music by Jeff Artnsen of Racket Ship.

A women dreams of a visitor from the “Third Planet” (2:14) by Bisophere.

The “Last Man on the Moon” (2:41) are Apollo 17 astronauts Ronald Evans, Eugene Cernan, and Harrison Schmitt. They left the lunar surface December 1972. No one’s been back since. The music was by Jeff Arntsen.

A President has a distorted phone conversation with an underwater spaceman in “LBJ & the Helium Filled Astronaut” (7:21). Commander Scott Carpenter spent thirty days in the ocean at a depth of 200 feet as part of the Navy’s SeaLab project. This 1964 tape of helium speech comes to us from Larry Massett and Lost and Found Sound. More…

Sahel Sounds

Got an email yesterday:

Name: christopher
Subject: field recordings in the sahel
Message: greetings – currently tramping around the desert recording music and sounds. thought something you all might find particularly interesting.

http://www.sahelsounds.com

‘Deed I did find the site interesting. Lots of great street and county music from Africa. Like “Mohammad accompanies Boubacar, a Songhai guitarist, in a group in Timbouctou.”

“Boubacar on guitar” (mp3):

What: Living and traveling through West Africa along the fringes of the Sahara. Collecting sounds and music in guerilla recordings and unorthodox ethnomusicology.
Place: nouakchott, timbouctou
Tools: zoom h2 recorder and folk guitar

“The traditional music of Fouta is based on the Hoddu; but many traditional ‘universal’ songs have been adapted to the guitar.”

“Tidiane playing Douga” (mp3):

Butch in Stars

Robert “Butch” Nauheim (friend, bro, bro-in-law, husband, father, Environmental Law attorney for the State of Alaska) died Friday after a knock-down drag-out 15-round 3-year bout with pancreatic cancer. As his wife Beth sez:

“He put up such a spectacular fight, that even now it seems impossible that he has gone. His struggle is over. Let the peace begin… As he once told Julia, he’s heading back to the stars. Let it be.”

His was surrounded by his lovely family when he went. His sons, mom, wife, sisters (one being my wife), and some close in-laws were all theret. This from my sis-in-law, Penny:

“It was a moment that was tremendously difficult to witness but completely immersed in love. His boys were at his side each holding a hand. With tears streaming down their faces and their hearts shattered into a million pieces they held strong and true to their father. When the funeral home came later to take their father away each boy went to one side of the gurney and carried him out of the house and put him safely in the van. We watched with swollen hearts as our boys turn into men.”

I’ll see you at celebration of his life: this Thursday July 16 (would have been his 54th birthday!) 7pm at the Hilltop Ski Chalet, anchored down in Anchorage AK.

 

Photo, above-right: Butch with daughter Julia on her third birthday. Below: A very young Butch with his dad in the California mountains, 1970:

 

Young Butch with a trout on the line:

 

Was great knowing you, Butch. You’ll be in my thoughts often.

Interview Project

Filmmaker David Lynch presents Interview Project:

“There was no plan really. Interview Project is a 20,000 mile road trip across the United States. The team found these people driving along the roads, going into bars, and there they were. The people told their story.”

The videos are directed by Austin Lynch and Jason S, the interviewers are Angie Schmidt and Julie Pepin, and each video has it’s own original music by Dean Hurley and Stoll Vaughan. On June 1 2009 they started posting episodes, and will release a new one every three days, till all 121 eps are up.

via Mtn Music.

iPhone = Recording Studio

Rock & rollers The 88 releases a song, “Love is the Thing,” recorded on an iPhone:

This Spring, we were on tour opening up for the B-52s, with shows all around the East Coast. One day while we were driving, Keith was browsing through the applications on the iPhone and came across FourTrack. We thought this app would be a great way to record song ideas while we are away from home.

Details at The 88‘s site. Here’s a screenshot of FourTrack:

Rez Radio

Great clips from Native-run stations in this video by Jesse Hardman for Time.com, “Tribal Radio on the Reservation:”

via Gregg McVicar- Undercurrents.

Reporter’s Center

The YouTube Reporters’ Center Channel (“Helping You Report the News”) has videos of Katie Couric, Bob Woodward, Scott Simon, Arianna Huffington, Tavis Smiley, PolitiFact. and others sharing tips on interviewing, fact-checking, story-telling and a host of reporterly topics.

Here’s AP planning editor Jon Resnick and AP Editor Donna Cassata, “Associated Press: How to Pitch a News Story:”

Radio Not Dead Yet

Arbitron’s 2008 National Radio Listening Report estimates 235+M U.S. listeners per week tune into their radios (up from 234M in 2007):

Radio reaches 92 percent of persons 12+ each week, despite the adoption of MP3 players and the growth of Internet-only stations. Even 89 percent of the youngest radio audience, teens ages 12-17, most accustomed to using new technologies and forms of media, continue to tune in each week. Network radio also reaches nearly 85 percent of the ad elusive and media multi-taskers Adults 18-34.

Radio reaches more than 94 percent of college graduates ages 25-54. Ninety-five percent of adults 25-54 with a college degree and an annual income of $50,000 or more tune into radio over the course of a week.

Network affiliated stations reach nearly 86 percent of college graduates ages 18-49 with a household income of $75,000 or more. All radio stations reach close to 94 percent of this age group.

HV063- Lincoln Monument

Hearing Voices from NPR®
063 Lincoln Monument: A Civil War
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-06-29 (Originally: 2009-07-01)

“Lincoln Monument” (52:00 mp3):

For Lincoln’s birthday bicentennial year and Independence Day, Old Abe, the Civil War, and its still-present aftermath:

The United States Marine Band recorded a “Lincoln Centennial” on February 12 1909 (from A Lincoln Portrait).

Abe’s 1860 presidential campaign song was “Lincoln and Liberty;” it’s sung for us by Dan Zanes (ex-Del Fuegos, off Parades And Panoramas: 25 Songs Collected By Carl Sandburg For The American Songbag).

“I Heard Lincoln That Day,” says Gettysburg eyewitness Walter Rathvon, in archival audio recorded on Lincoln’s birthday 1938 by WRUL radio, Boston. Set to an instrumental “Lincoln’s Triumph (a Funeral March),” part of the Lincoln Shuffle (by Bryce Dessner, guitarist for The National and Clogs, composed for the great bicentennial site 21st Century Abe, used with their re-mixing blessings).

NPR recreates the “Gettysburg Address,” with the words of John Dos Passos read by Noah Adams, and Lincoln’s speech read by Lars Hoel; produced by Bob Malesky for NPR’s The Sunday Show. More…

Michael RIP

From Fatboy Slim’s 1996 Better Living Through Chemistry, “Michael Jackson” (5:49 mp3):

which samples the samples in the 1987 Negativland track on Escape from Noise, “Michael Jackson” (2:08 mp3):

Clash of Civilizations

4 POTUSAs (Ford, Carter, JFK, Reagan), 2 Dems and 2 GOPs lay down a “Legacy,” by Clash of Civilizations:

Their upcoming CD, COUNTER-PROPAGANDA, is at the COC site (and in widget below). Check “Declaration of Independence” for some 4thJuly topicality.

Pie Ribbons

Breaking News: Ben Lloyd, artitect, intellect, and corn-crust wizard of Comma Q, has swept the Fort Benton MT Summer Celebration Pie Contest, winning:

• First Place Fruit
• First Place Cream
• +
• BEST OF SHOW!

Needless to say, this is causing quite a stir among the locals, especially in light of last year’s pastry-based controversy reported in the Great Falls Tribune.

Maira’s Monticello

I love the work of illustrator Maira Kalman. First saw her art at 21st Century Abe’s “Finding Lincoln.” Today a friend showed me her NYTimes And the Pursuit of Happiness Blog: Maira’s pointed her pen at Thomas Jefferson, “Time Wastes Too Fast.”

Maira also illustrared the recent edition of the writing-essentials classic, Strunk and White’s Elements of Style.