Part two in this three hour-long retrospective of the first decade, of the century, of the millennium:
Shortcut Thru the 21st Century, Part Two (52:00) Peter Bochan
We survey selected speech, song, and soundbites from 2003 thru 2005; from the invasion of Iraq, to electing a U.S. President, to the flooding of New Orleans.
Shortcuts are assembled, mixed and mashed by audio wizard Peter Bochan, of All Mixed Up, WBAI-NYC and WPKN-Bridgeport CT. Next week, the final part: 2006-2009 (all three at PRX).
Happy birthday to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968)…
Common, produced by Will.i.am “A Dream” Freedom Writers soundtrack
“Dr. King at Temple Israel” Queena Kim
In 1965 Martin Luther King. Jr. delivered a sermon at Temple Israel in Hollywood. King was invited to the temple by Rabbi Max Nussbaum, who himself used the pulpit to rail against injustices in Nazi Germany. King’s sermon was recorded on an old-fashioned reel-to-reel audio tape and buried in a pile in the Rabbi’s home. His widow Ruth, now 95-years-old, tells the story of that day. [transcript]. Aired Jan 15 2007 on NPR Day to Day (7:55 mp3)
“Taylor and Bessie Rogers” StoryCorps
Retired Memphis sanitation worker Taylor Rogers and his wife, Bessie, remember Martin Luther King Jr.’s final speech (more strike StoryCorps), (1:35 mp3)
Elvis Presley (born Jan 8 1935 Tupelo, Mississippi; died Aug 16 1977 Memphis, Tennessee), a 75th Birthday Party fit for a King, with fans, friends, religion and rockin’:
Interviews from the Elvis archives, and new ones with Gordon Stoker of The Jordanaires (Elvis’ backup singers) and Elvis friends (aka, Memphis Mafia) Jerry Schilling and Patty Parry. Produced by Paul Chuffo and Joshua Jackson of Joyride Media, for the Sony Elvis 75 project, which has more music and interviews. Also check Joyride’s other Elvis hours: The Early Years, In Memphis, and He Touched Me- Elvis Gospel Music.
Chuck Denault is a Police Officer for the small town of Kittery, Maine. He has two passions;: Serving the community he lives in and being the best possible Elvis Impersonator he can be. In April of 2003 the producer went for a squad car ride-along for some behind the scenes aspects of law enforcement and Elvis.
This week he found what he accurately describes as “Stunning Unheard Nigerian Gem”. The LP is Hikima (Creativity) by sax great Yusef Lateef. All the album trax are up at WFMU BOTB. Here’s a taste…
My audio album, Fragments, is back up on iTunes — they pulled it because it violated several international treaties regulating maximum overt kewlness (or maybe it was site update glitch). Anyroad, it’s back and I kinda like the fact that in iTunes listings, I’m an Artist: Me = BG = The Wandering Jew.
DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid combines field-recordings and feelings he collected in the South Pole into Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica, a “large scale multimedia performance work” (NPR story):
Miller’s field recordings from a portable studio, set up to capture the acoustic qualities of Antarctic ice forms, reflect a changing and even vanishing environment under duress. Coupled with historic, scientific, and geographical visual material, Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica is a seventy minute performance, creating a unique and powerful moment around man’s relationship with nature.
Heard this morn on KGLT, a new Flaming Lips silly song w/ a silly vid w/ some silly spoken and mouth-sound effects: aka, we love it; from their album Embryonic:
The Flaming Lips – “I Can Be A Frog” (Official Video)
Beck (-Hansen not Jeff-) has a Record Club of rock ‘n’ luminaries. They’ve covered the songs of Leonard Cohen, Velvet Underground, and now Skip Spence (of Moby Grape). Beck, Feist, and Wilco recorded their studio session tackling this track from Skip’s 1969 solo LP Oar:
David Greenberger meanders around America, lovingly collecting the life stories of old people like fireflies in a jar. On Cherry Picking Apple Blossom Time he visits Milwaukee which, as one elderly resident explains, has the same number of letters as Wisconsin. Over a smoky grid of blues-funk and acoustic guitar played by Paul Cebar and his band, David recites anecdotes and reflections from the Milwaukee senior citizens that he has interviewed on his recent visits there.
In an America that seems increasingly dominated by amnesia, and the erosion of its history, it’s very heartening — and poignant — to hear these fragments of lives as they draw to a close. The rootsy tone of the music — Ry Cooder, Tom Waits, David Byrne and even Beefheart’s Magic Band come to the mind’s ear — adds Americana to these tales of vanishing Midwestern life. Here are the man who cheated at tomato- growing by hanging a purchased one on a vine; the man who made peace with his artificial arm and hung shopping bags from it; and the man in a red shirt who feels like a king. There are exuberant moments, but the most moving pieces are the elegies: people who gently mourn their vanished partners — one speaks of his wife as his co-pilot, another of how he’s tried to replace his wife with crossword puzzles. The matter-of-fact tone that David uses in these vignettes is partly what makes them so emotional. In ‘No Rooms Here’ you can hear the life and memory of the elderly female narrator dissolving as she speaks. Just as certain as our death is the uncertainty of what follows — this ambiguity riddles the inhabitants of Cherry Picking Apple Blossom Time. More…
The new movie “The Mountain Music Project” (by HV producer Jack Chance) is “A Musical Odyssey from Appalachia to Himalaya.” The film screens Sunday December 6th at 7PM at the Emerson Center, Bozeman MT. Families and Fiddles welcome.
The flick looks/sounds superb: just played to a packed house at National Geographic’s Grosvenor Auditorium, DC. Now it makes it’s Montana debut.
We’ll leave you with “this historic recording was made by D.H. Van Lenten in 1962 as part of a series of experiments at Bell Laboratories to understand the nature of speech and hearing.” From Vintage Computer Music, “Computer Speech Demonstration w/ “Bicycle Built for Two” (2:19 mp3):
“Two coyotes attacked a promising young musician as she was hiking alone in a national park in eastern Canada, and authorities said she died Wednesday of her injuries. The victim was identified as Taylor Mitchell, 19, a singer-songwriter from Toronto who was touring her new album on the East Coast.
She was hiking solo on a trail in Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia on Tuesday when the attack occurred. She was airlifted to a Halifax hospital in critical condition and died Wednesday morning, authorities said.…
Wildlife biologist Bob Bancroft said coyote attacks are extremely rare because the animals are usually shy. Bancroft, a retired biologist with Nova Scotia’s Department of Natural Resources, said it’s possible the coyotes thought Mitchell was a deer or other prey.
“It’s very unusual and is not likely to be repeated,” Bancroft said. “We shouldn’t assume that coyotes are suddenly going to become the big bad wolf.”
The NPR Halloween music playlist is screaming thru Nov 3, click the image below to start the scare; hours of horror, from Bach’s Toccata to Bauhaus’ Bela Lugosi. Complete list of spooky songs at Ghosts In The Machine: A Haunted Mix:
Hearing Voices from NPR®
My audio album, 
DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid combines field-recordings and feelings he collected in the South Pole into 
A sparkling revu of David Greenbergers spoke-word w/ music 
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