Category: Episode/Archives

Hearing Voices- Hour Show

HV022- Mushroom Cloud

Cartoon of man with atomic explosion in his eyesHearing Voices from NPR®
022 Mushroom Cloud: Tales of the Atomic Age
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2012-08-01 (Originally: 2008-07-30)

Documents of our changing perceptions of weapons of mass destruction:

Bomber pilots and bombing victims, and and Colonel Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay in “Enola Alone” by Antenna Theater, mixed by Earwax.

Political speeches and popular songs chart our changing attitudes towards weapons of mass destruction in the “Atomic Age.” Residents recall the Nevada and Utah nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s in their “Downwinder Diaries,” produced by Claes Andreasson.

Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti has “Wild Dreams of a New Beginning,” an excerpt from “One of These days (or Nights)” produced for radio by Erik Bauersfeld (Bay Area Radio Drama), with sound design by Jim McKee (Earwax), and original music by Wieslaw Pogorzelski.

Americans across the country answer Scott Carrier‘s question: “What Are You Afraid Of?”

The story of the Big Bang, with a beat, “Page One” by Lemon Jelly.

And selections from “Atomic Platters: Cold War Music from the Golden Age of Homeland Security” compiled by CONELRAD.com (including Slim Galliard’s “Atomic Cocktail” (1945), versions of “Jesus Hits Like an Atom Bomb” by Lowell Blanchard & The Valley Trio (1949) and by The Pilgrim Travelers, and 1950-60s Civil Defense public service announcements.

Mushroom Cloud (53:00 mp3):

HV021- Tony Schwartz

Tony Schwartz recording childrenHearing Voices from NPR®
021 Tony Schwartz: Documenting Life in Sound
Host: Barrett Golding & Kitchen Sisters of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-10-07 (Originally: 2008-07-23)

“Tony Schwartz” (52:00 mp3):

Tony Schwartz, media pioneer, audio documentarian, and the most famous radio person you probably never heard of, died June 2008. We hear:

The Kitchen Sisters‘ Lost & Found Sound-portrait, “Tony Schwartz, 30,000 Recordings Later.”

And the Tony Schwartz-inspired verite documentary of the town he lived in and loved, “New York City: 24 Hours in Public Places” (thanks to Transom.org).

HV020- The Old Country

Maps of Vietnam, Croatia, and RumaniaHearing Voices from NPR®
020 The Old Country: Back to the Homeland
Host: Neenah Ellis of If I Live to Be 100
Airs week of: 2009-07-29 (Originally: 2008-07-16)

“The Old Country” (52:00 mp3):

Three hearts searching for home:

Going back to Vietnam makes Nguyen Qui Duc realize “Home is Always Somewhere Else,” from Crossing East produced by Dmae Roberts.

Host Neenah Ellis goes looking for her family in Croatia, where “The Old Country is Gone.”

And Andrei Codrescu returns to his Romanian home town and stares into the “Eyes of Sibiu” (produced by Larry Massett.)

HV019- Life on the Mississippi

Tugboat pilot Joe AdamsHearing Voices from NPR®
019 Life on the Mississippi: River Towns
Host: Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2010-06-02 (Originally: 2008-07-09)

“Life on the Mississippi” (52:00 mp3):

A Tour of the River Towns:

“Life on the Mississippi” (1984 / 52:00) Larry Massett

Hannibal, Missouri, birthplace of Mark Twain; a day on a tugboat; St. Louis showboats; and changing the course of mighty rivers. We spend the whole hour on this 1984 downstream trip through the history and mystery of the Big Muddy, with Larry Massett and Scott Carrier.

HV018- Flags and Fireworks

Dog and woman in flags on motorcycleHearing Voices from NPR®
018 Flags and Fireworks: For Fourth of July
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2012-06-27 (Originally: 2008-07-02)

“Stars and Bars” (52:00 mp3):

Celebrating America with Festivals and Flames, featuring:

Recitations and reflections on “The Pledge” of Allegiance” and “War vs. Peace” (by Joe Frank).

The annual “Rainbow Family” migration into the Montana forest on July Fourth — their day of prayer for peace (produced by Barrett Golding, photos by Chad Harder).

A town that covets their title of the “Armpit of America” — host Larry Massett welcomes you to Battle Mountain, Nevada.

Mississippi moonshine, barbecued goat and old-time Fife & Drum at “Otha Turner’s Afrosippi Picnic” with producer Ben Adair.

HV017- No Place Like Home

Roy Tea Hastings Road, Utah's West DesertHearing Voices from NPR®
017 No Place Like Home: Shifts in Time and Towns
Host: Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-07-08 (Originally: 2008-06-25)

“No Place Like Home” (52:00 mp3):

The places we live and the people who live there; a desert, a city, two small towns, and another country:

Scott Carrier has a cultural history of the Great Salt Lake’s “West Desert,” a land of polygymists, bombing ranges, and toxic waste incinerators. There’s chlorine gas in the air, anthrax stored underground, and people who call the place home.

Sarah Vowell‘s childhood move from rural Oklahoma to small-town Montana was, for her, a change from the middle ages to a modern metropolis.

And two Stories from the Heart of the Land: NYC native Natalie Edwards hates grass, bugs, dirt, and trees, but attempts a walk thru Brooklyn’s Prospect Park; and Carmen Delzell tells why she moved to and has stayed in Mexico.

HV016- Bugs and Birds

Jumping spider, Habronattus dossenusHearing Voices from NPR®
016 Bugs and Birds: Sounds of Summer
Host: Jeff Rice of Western Soundscape Archive
Airs week of: 2009-06-24 (Originally: 2008-06-18)

“Bugs and Birds” (52:00 mp3):

Jeff Rice of the Western Soundscape Archive hosts an hour of creeping, crawling, flying critter sounds for the start of Summer:

Sound artist Nina Katchadourian makes car alarms from bird calls.

Ken Nordine argues “For the Birds” on his 2001 CD A Transparent Mask, with music by Paul Wertico and Jim Hines.

Virginia Belmont’s Famous Singing and Talking Birds tweet the “William Tell Overture (Canary Sextet).”

Recordist Lang Elliot‘s CD Prairie Spring captures a “soundscape of prairie meadows and potholes in spring and early summer.”

An extinct woodpecker revives an Arkansas town; it’s “The Lord God Bird” by Long Haul Productions, with an original song composed for ther story by Sufjan Stevens.

Brian Eno’s music mimics some “Flies,” from the 2006 compilation Plague Songs.

Folk are buggin’, gettin bittin, swatting and swearing at “Mosquitos,” by M’Iou Zahner Ollswang (from the 1985 collection
Tellus #11: The Sound of Radio.)

Scott Carrier takes a morning walk with poet Jim Harrison.

Lang Elliot soaks up the sounds of “Sora Dawn” — “a pothole marsh at dawn with bittern, wrens, rails, and more (Prairie Spring).

Dr. Rex Cocroft, of the University of Missouri, attaches a phonograph needle to a blade of grass, plugged it into a tape recorder, to go “acoustic prospecting” for little-known suburban lawn sounds like “Leafhoppers,” rarely hard by humans.

Host Jeff Rice breeds bugs to make “Moth Music.”

Ken Nordine declares this “A Good Year for Spiders” (A Transparent Mask).

Entomologist Ian Robertson,, of Boise State University, does the “Gnat Dance” with host Jeff Rice and an outdoor chorale performance for insects.

And special thanks to Dr. Hayward Spangler of the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson for braving bugs between his teeth while “Listening to Ants.”

This hour produced with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

HV015- Father Figures

Kids playingHearing Voices from NPR®
015 Father Figures: For Father’s Day
Host: Jay Allison of Transom.org
Airs week of: 2012-06-13 (Originally: 2008-06-11)
Father Figures (54:00 mp3):

Paternal praise, pride, disappointment and love:

Scott Carrier gives his son Milo a “Ski Lesson.”

From Animals and Other Stories we hear “Reflections of Fathers,” aka, Bugs & Dads (producers: Jay Allison & Christina Egloff, music: Ben Verdery & Rie Schmidt).

Comic strip artist Lynda Barry wishes her divorced dad a “Happy Father’s Day.”

A doctor tells his daughter about her granddad in “StoryCorps Dr. William Weaver.”

“Grilling Me Softly” is how host Jay Allison describes his daughter’s questions about his love life.

Dan Robb’s family remembers the day “Dad’s Moving Out” (from Jay Allison’s Life Stories).

Doc Merrick” and daughter Viki go through some girl problems.

David Greenberger tells David Cobb’s story “Because of Dad” (music performed by Bangalore, composed by Phil Kaplan).

Deirdre Sullivan’s father advises “Always Go to the Funeral” (from This I Believe).

And Dave Masch wants to be “A Better Father” (produced by Viki Merrick).. Photo © Scott Carrrier.

HV014- Fans and Bands

Weird War CD coverHearing Voices from NPR®
014 Fans and Bands:
Groupies, Gravediggers & Rock n’ Roll Singers
Host: Ian Svenonius of Weird War
Airs week of: 2009-5-13 (Originally: 2008-04-06)

“Fans and Bands” (52:00 mp3):

Features a tribute to Bo Diddley (December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008):

Host Ian Svenonius, of the band Weird War, introduces “The Groupies,” an album of 1969 interviews by producer Alan Lorber (Iris Music Group, Alan Lorber Orchestra).

We visit with the pilgrims at Pere LaChaise cemetery, come to see “Jim Morrison’s Grave” (a sound-portrait by Mark Neumann of Documentary Works and Barrett Golding).

John Denver‘s anti-Christian conspiracy is exposed in the series “Song and Memory” from producers Ann Heppermann & Kara Oehler, with Rick Moody.

And Bo Diddley blows up his mom’s radio in David Schulman’s series “Musicians in Their Own Words.”

HV013- Crossing Borders

Women with children crossing desertHearing Voices from NPR®
013 Crossing Borders: From Mexico to US
Host: Marcos Martinez of KUNM-Alberquerque
Airs week of: 2012-01-18 (Originally: 2008-05-28)

“Crossing Borders” (52:00 mp3):

A Tale of Two Countries:

In “Sasabe,” a Sonora, Mexico border town, Scott Carrier talks to immigrants on their hazardous, illegal desert crossing, and to the border patrol waiting for them in Sasabe, Arizona.

Luis Alberto Urrea reads from his books Vatos and The Devil’s Highway, about death in the desert.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña imagines “Maquiladoras of the Future,” fantasy border factories.

“And I walked…”, by Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler, is a sound-portrait of Mexicans who risk their lives to find better-paying jobs in the United States.

And sounds from the Quiet American’s one-minute vacation.

Photos © 2004 Julián Cardona from Sasabe, Sonora, Mexico :

HV012- For the Fallen

Soldiers salute at graveHearing Voices from NPR®
012 For the Fallen: For Memorial Day
Host: Major Robert Schaefer of US Army Special Forces
Airs week of: 2012-05-23 (Originally: 2008-05-21)

For the Fallen (54:00 mp3):

Green Beret and poet, Colonel Robert Schaefer, US Army, hosts the voices of veterans remembering their comrades:

We talk with troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, reading their emails, poems, and journals, as part of the NEA project: “Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience.”

We hear interviews from StoryCorps, an essay from This I Believe, and the sounds of a Military Honor Guard, recorded by Charles Lane.

And we attend the daily “Last Post” ceremony by Belgian veterans honoring the WWI British soldiers who died defending a small town in western Belgium (produced by Marjorie Van Halteren).

HV011- Road Trip

Larry driving with his dog BoHearing Voices from NPR®
011 Road Trip: Travelers’ Tales
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-5-27 (Originally: 2008-05-14)

“Road Trip” (54:00 mp3):

Host Larry Massett spends a “Long Day on the Road” with ex-KGB in the Republic of Georgia.

Scott Carrier starts in Salt Lake and ends on the Atlantic in this cross-country “Hitchhike.”

Lemon Jelly adds beats to the life of a “Ramblin’ Man.”

Writer/singer Willie Vlautin with his band band Richmond Fontaine sends musical postcards from the flight of “Walter On the Lam.”

And Mark Allen tells a tale of a tryst with a “Kinko’s Crackhead.”

HV010- All Mom Radio

Whistler's MotherHearing 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.”

HV009- Shoah

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
009 Shoah— For Holocaust Remembrance Day
Host— Rabbi Samuel Cohon of Temple Emanuel, Tucson
Airdates— 4/30/2008 – 5/7/2008

Shoah (53:00 mp3):

Men in campsRabbi Samuel Cohon of Too Jewish Radio, presents stories of survivors, for Holocaust Remembrance Day:

In “Descended from the Holocaust” Dr. Alan Berkenwald records his trip with his parents to the Holocaust Museum — it was first time they talked openly about their experience in the concentration camps; this audio diary is of Jay Allison’s Life Stories.

“Yom Hashoah 1994” is Shoah services in Billings MT and Cleveland OH, survivor interviews, and the story of the Billings communities united “Not in Our Town” response that stopped a series of anti-Jewish crimes. The Rhino Records documentary project “Voices of the Shoah: Remembrances of the Holocaust” is drawn from interviews with 180 survivors.

Also survivors sing Hebrew, for the first time in years, in a live May 1945 BBC report by Patrick Gordon Walker from the just liberated “Belsen Concentration Camp.”

HV008- About Aging

Duplex Planet magazine coverHearing Voices from NPR®:
008 About Aging—
I Thought You’d Never Ask
Host— David Greenberger of Duplex Planet
Airdates— 2009-04-22 (Originally: 2008-04-23)

“About Aging” (53:00 mp3):

Host David Greenberger of Duplex Planet presents glorious moments and observations from people in the last years of their lives:

Dave Alvin discusses the song he wrote about his dying father, “Man in the Bed,” from the Western Folklife Center’s What’s in a Song? series.

Comedians Bob & Ray are “The Whirleys”.

From StoryCorps comes a remembrance from Richard Craig of his days as a dance host on cruise ships.

In Sound Portraits “The Ground We Live On” journalist Adrian Nicole LeBlanc faces mortality in recordings she made during her father’s last months alive.

And host David Greenberger shares some stories told him over the years by the elderly, including “Growing Old in East LA“.

HV007- The Earth Sings

Earth from spaceHearing Voices from NPR®
007 The Earth Sings: For Earth Day
Host: Dmae Roberts of Stories1st.org
Airs week of: 2012-04-18 (Originally: 2008-04-16)

The Earth Sings (53:00 mp3):

Host Dmae Roberts of of Stories1st.org, for Earth Day, presents Sounds for and from Mother Earth:

The Quiet American takes an audio trek through Nepal”s “Annapurna” Circuit.

Host Dmae Roberts records Maori music and culture. We hear Pulse of the Planet’sExtraordinary Sounds From the Natural World.”

And from Gregg McVicar and the Earthsongs series: Sioux Soprano Bonnie Jo Hunt layers opera over insects (on Robbie Robertson’s Music for the Native Americans), and the band Pamyua mimics creature calls.

HV006- Radio Dial

KPRK art-deco building, Livingston MTHearing Voices from NPR®
006 Radio Dial: Signals from the Sky
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2010-05-26 (Originally: 2008-04-09)

“Radio Dial” (52:00 mp3):

Radio stories about radio, then stories about radio stories:

“Dueling XMTRs! #3: VOIRI vs. the World” (2003 / 1:01 excerpt) ShortWaveMusic

These “Dueling Transmitters” are an atmospheric found-sound un-manipulated mix of Spanish ham-radio operators, slow Morse code, data squalls, and the Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran. From the Shortwavemusic blog post “The Effects of Radiation.”

“Urbana FM” (2004 / 4:05) Jake Warga

An FM radio station in Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo, is called Urbana. It’s hip, bilingual, plays music from all over the world, and is famous in Uruguay for its 30-second sound portraits featuring the voices of famous people mixed over avante-garde music.

“Radio Reloj” (2005 / 1:02 excerpt) Vocal Sampling

The Cuban a-capella ensemble approximates a radio dial with their vocal chords. From the group Vocal Sampling’s (site | space) CD Una Forma Mas.

“The Grotesque” (2007 / 1:07 excerpt) Myke Weiskopf

Shortwave/music mixes by LA sound artist Myke Dodge Weiskopf, off his 30: a Retrospective 1976-2006

“WWV- The Tick” (0:46) Douglas Grant

The government’s all-time all-the-time radio station goes commercial, voiced by former WWV announcer John Doyle.

More…

HV005- Backroads

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
005 Backroads — For Station Pledge Drives
Hosts— The Kicthen Sisters, Scott Carrier, John Rieger, Larry Massett
Airdates— 2008.04.02-09

Backroads (54:00 mp3):

Pickup truck on dirt road; photo by Scott CarrierAudio excursions from the early eighties; four traveling stories from public radio’s past, hosted by the independent producers who made them:

Scott Carrier attends a native service of “Navajo Pentacostalists.”

The Kitchen Sisters ride with the “Road Ranger,” an American auto-mechanic hero.

John Rieger samples small-town life “Fifty Miles Out of Gerlach.”

And Larry Massett takes a nitrous-oxide fueled “Trip To the Dentist.”

Music from Jeff Arntsen of Racket Ship.

HV004- Comedy with a Beat

Firesign Theatre logoHearing Voices from NPR®:
004 Comedy with a Beat—
Comic Bits with Music Beats
Host— David Ossman of Firesign Theatre
Airs week of— 2009-04-08 (Originally: 2008-03-26)

Comedy with a Beat (54:00 mp3):

Laughs and lyrics:

Wally Cox yodels. Peter Sellers sings while shaving.

Jack Kerouac croons “Ain”t We Got Fun.”

Charles Mingus jazzes up Jean Shepherd”s “The Clown.”

Comedian Greg Giraldo is layered over Lazyboy.

“Lenny Bruce Gets Busted” in Jonathan Mitchell“s documentary.

And we hear rare and classic sketches from host David Ossman’s Firesign Theatre.

“Underwear Goes Inside the Pants” Lazyboy fea. Greg Giraldo:

HV003- Her Stories

Painting of a women and leaves by Victoria GoldingHearing Voices from NPR®
003 Her Stories: For Women’s History Month
Host: Dmae Roberts of Stories1st.org
Airs week of: 2012-02-29 (Originally: 2008-03-19)

“Her Stories” (52:00 mp3):

The Kitchen Sisters go to “Tupperware®” parties.

A supermarket checker checks out her life, in ZBS‘s radio soap Saratoga Springs.

Jenifir returns “Home From Africa” with all 13 Symptoms of Chronic Peace Corps Withdrawal, produced by Jake Warga.

Host Dmae Roberts has a collage of and about “Sisters.”

In a new syntax of whispers and words Susan Stone tells the story of “Ruby” and her husbands.

And Sonia Sanchez (produced by Steve Rowland of Shakespeare Is), Tracie Morris, Jill Battson and Meryn Cadell perform short poems.

Music from Tara Key’s Ear & Echo.