This piece lacks the spell of the feature length documentary film but it's trying to achieve the same thing. At less than three and a half minutes there's not a full enough portrait of Charlie and cutting between spelling words and some quick biographical details doesn't seem to work so well either. This story doesn't seem to have an ending. How did Charlie do in the competition? Were we listening to the official Bee or a warm-up? Who won?
This is a wonderful hour of radio. Part One is superb. A bicycle trip retracing Lewis and Clark's expedition becomes a tour through American history and modern day Americana. In the capable hands of Barrett Golding and comrades this documentary is a radio tapestry of sounds (the break is killer) and layers of storytelling. Barrett quotes extensively from the journals of the explorers and muses some on the course of our civilization 200 years on. Part Two has a different energy to it. Lewis and Clark aren't as present; the sounds of nature recede a bit and we get to meet and spend some time with some interesting characters.
This hour would be ideal to run anytime this summer. There's a real summerime feel to it -- lots of terrific sound of barbecues, camping, little league games and some great music too.
There is indeed a symphony of sound on the New York City subway, and it's fun to hear. This piece reminds me of the sonic IDs WCAI on Cape Cod produces to great effect. They brand their station with local sounds and voices.
Makes you think... a whole collection of sounds like these, locally or not so locally, would be a nice way to break up the broadcast day.
This is a lovely impressionistic piece rich with imagery and feeling. More than a story or narrative, it's a record of loss and it succeeds by working almost entirely on an emotional level. It's stirring and stays with you; it's maddening and confounding. Seen from here, the Middle East conflict looks impenetrable and the headlines simply repetitive and tiresome. Seen from the Imaginary Village, it seems much closer to home.
There's a good story in here with some strong elements but they're somewhat out of place. As someone not familiar with the opera world or Venice's place in it, I felt like I needed more of a handle before I was ready to be launched into the heart of the story. There's some interesting historic, literary and musical background in the middle of the piece that I could have used at the beginning. When the narrator mentions that Elton John played at the Teatro la Fenic, I was waiting to hear "Crocodile Rock." Where have you gone Savvy Traveler? Is there an outlet for travel pieces on public radio now? Maybe stations need to create their own....
This piece has a TAL sensibility: a young man confronts his adolescence by listening to tapes he made as a lonely teenager. It's a good story; it's poignant and sweet and the "moment of reflection" as Ira calls it isn't what you'd expect. Listening to his younger melancholy, self-conscious self, Eric doesn't cringe from an out of body audio nightmare. He wonders thoughtfully what "he'd" say to him now. What would "he" think of him and how much of "him" was left? The story inspires a kind of Proustian retrospection: Beware the Remembrance of Tapes Past.
Movies are a great subject for radio often. At such short lengths these pieces don't really work as features though, and they don't sound much like commentaries. The first two -- let's hear some clips from some great baseball movies because there are none this summer and a plug for the Zagat's movie guide-- dont' work so well. The third one, the Marx brothers piece, gets closer to an idea that might be workable for stations. The hook is the release of several Marx brothers movies onto DVD and there's some short clips from Harpo's son Bill Marx which are sort of fun. Quick reviews of new films newly availalbe on DVD could be a feature stations might like -- on Friday mornings as a ME cut-in for instance.
I've heard the future of public radio and this is it. Jad Abumrad has lots of obvious talent and WNYC is smart to be pushing him to help brand the station. He sounds, to this reviewer anyway, to be where public radio wants to be heading after the defenestration of Bob Edwards; that is to say he's young, he's smart and incredibly engaging to listen to. What Jad accomplishes in this piece is not easy -- boiling down something as daunting as Wagner's Ring Cycle into an hour of exciting, smart, entertaining, edgy radio. It's layered with music, with terrific expert types to explain this thing to us neophytes and with Jad's own journey to understand this paragon of high culture which takes him from Brooklyn to Broadway to Hollywood by way of a Manhattan supermarket and from Marx to Tolkien. We're along with him for the ride and he doesn't disappoint. The production is flawless, the timing and pacing are perfect, the music illustrates, punctuates and stimulates the piece. At the end you feel as though you've learned something important at the hands of a new young master of the radio craft and you're ready for more!
The occasion for the discussion is the 40th anniversary of Dylan's Halloween concert at Philharmonic Hall in New York City and of the release of the live concert cd (Bootleg series, Volume 6). I listened over a long car ride and found it to be mostly interesting. I kept waiting for the conversation to take off in a kind of free for all and away from the controlled Q followed by A format. One of the panelists, the historian Dave Marsh I think, quotes the line "talking about songwriting is like doing card tricks on the radio." This is much livlier than that and it's also instructive for thinking about how to turn a live event -- a lecture or discussion, say -- into an hour or two of radio. This program had the music going for it and the conversational thread about the impact of music in the turbulent period of the 1960's as compared to the times that are a changin' in America right now. The radio hour could have been improved with more post production -- more songs, more music intervals, funkier opens, breaks and closes and voice overs that let us keep track of who the speakers were -- but that's probably not what the producer had in mind; more likely it was to simply let us listen to an event we couldn't attend. So for that I was grateful and I think lots of other listeners would be too.
Comment for
"Pop Vultures #9: Pink & Most Memorable Concerts" (deleted)
Review of Pop Vultures #9: Pink & Most Memorable Concerts (deleted)
Disclaimer: I am an avowed Pop Vultures Fan. I continue to marvel at Kate Sullivan's prodigious knowledge of pop music and I wonder who else could get away with talking about Lesbian musicians on the radio or saying this:
"That's the biggest shock about seeing a Rolling Stones concert live --is that they're actually the Stones and Mick is actually Mick and he actually does all the things that Mick Jagger does."
After having listened randomly to several programs I'm confused at times about whether Kate is talking to us in a kind of monologue or whether her co-Vultures are with her in the studio. I prefer when the show starts seemingly in the middle of a conversation with Garth Belkin. Kate is the band leader but it's the back and forth with her bandmates that gives the show a kickin' tempo.
Question: Kate often refers to interviews she's done (in this program she mentions Joan Jet). Are they recorded? Does she write for any music publications? This is obviously good material for the web site. There's lots of possibilities here too for local stations that run the show to use the web to develop a community around this program.
This is the sort of piece that makes public radio look bad. A reporter is assigned to cover Ohio's new concealed carry law and profiles herself -- a card carrying vegetarian whose never touched a gun before -- taking the required weekend gun safety course. Get the picture? Some 15 other men and a few couples have signed up for the course. We don't hear from them at all though it's likely that their stories would have been more interesting. Later the reporter complains that the course wasn't "straight", there was lots of complaining about liberal politics so she decides to call some of her liberal friends and air out some predictable gun control bromides. Unfortunately the audience isn't getting this story straight. We don't learn much. Perhaps if the reporter is well known in her area this sort of treatment works; for the rest of us better to label it striaight -- as a commentary.
This is a very good commentary perfect for Mother's Day. The phone messages help tell a moving story about a mother's life and her death and they give the piece another audio dimension. How did we communicate with our mothers before answering machines by the way?
The actual time is under 5:00; there's a long music tail.
First rate piece by the maestro of the audio diary form. It contains many memorable moments including what has to be a first for radio: the sound of a Tourette tic unleashed after being stifled all day at school. This piece achieves what Joe Richman's other diary pieces do -- documenting the life of a teenager, in this case, one who lives with a neurological distoder, in his own words, surrounded by the sounds of his life. It's a moving, funny and arresting portrait of a wonderful kid. Run as a series, the Teenage Diaries would be a very special treat for listeners this summer or perhaps for back to school.
This piece turned me on to a great new band. Big Phat Band swings! What a sound -- Count Basie meets Quincy Jones.
But for a new listener who wanted to learn more about Gordon Goodwin (he's apparently a very talented emmy-award winning composer who's done a lot of work in film and television) I just didn't get a good thread here. The pieces are broken into 5 roughly 2 and a half minute segments for use as drop-ins. I would have preferred a longer piece with more of a narrative. I'm not sure these would work well as drop ins. The production is first rate though, the music is clean and the cuts are nice and long.
This piece could use tightening and the levels are off throughout. However, the reporter has done an interesting series of stories documenting social change in China. Her perspective is fairly fresh -- she doesn't have the voice of a journalist so much as that of a young woman who's worked and studied there. This piece, about the very limited amount of sex education available to young people in a country with an official family planning policy has an astonishing revelation in it -- namely that a fairly relied upon source of information for college students comes from porn movies and porn shops. I think these pieces smoothed out and cut down would be worth running as a series perhaps with a two-way with the reporter.
This hour celebrates the intuitive power and creative spirit of children and reminds you that we become less intuitive as we learn more. That said, I have a hunch any station would be serving its audience by running this hour on a weekend morning. Looseleaf is a first rate show. The host is engaging and fun; the guests are always terrific and the production is superb. The vibe of the show is books for kids and for parents of elementary shoolers/middle schoolers its a terrific way to stay on top of great new childrens books and the classics too. For anyone else who enjoys suprising, fun radio, it's an enjoyable hour that takes you places your more rational instiincts may not.
China is the story of our time and what happens there in the next decade or so will surely shape the world we live in.
I think all journalism about China is incredibly important and this story adds quite a lot to what little I know about the people and the country. This piece could run cut down or perhaps as a series during Morning Edition or ATC; news pegs abound. It could use some smoothing out -- the naration and ambient levels were off in places.
Joe Richman's "New York Works" series remind me of the best Murray Kempton columns. It's a sensitivity and a style not to mention a sound that's missing from our media and our lives. Richman champions real people who discourse knowledgeably and beautifully on the mundane and the notorious. This series would be a treat anytime; how about this summer during the Repbulican convention?
The metaphor is the message in this piece. The opera Kurt Weill wrote 75 years ago with Berthold Brecht "The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny" imagined a city of sin decades before Las Vegas became the capital of American decadence. The music from the opera is a wonderful flourish at the beginning and at the end of this piece but I tiredof hearing it throughout. The story would work best at a much shorter length; less of a documentary and more of a travelogue.
Ebony's story didn't really come through in her telling of it. And the reporter seemed to be more present than either Ebony or her diaries. David Isay and the Radio Rookies and the kids on Blunt Radio have paved some new ground in the way stories like these are presented and they've set the bar pretty high. It takes a certain kind of power and honesty and fearlessness to pull this off and draw strangers into the private space of another person's life. There's ten million stories in the naked city, but only a few audio diaries.....
The Loose Leaf Book Company joins that estimable list of good (as opposed to bad or very bad) public radio shows that went off the air because of funding issues. Loose Leaf had a professional, dedicated team and while the show was designed for adults interested in children's literature, at least this episode was one kids of a certain age would certainly enjoy. As it happened, I listened to this hour with my 10 year old son while driving to the Boston Public Library. The first segment was an interview with Russell Freedman about his book "Cowboys of the Wild West" which my son promptly checked out and read. There was an interview with Jim Dale, the narrator of the Harry Potter books on tape and other segments with and about books both of us had heard of. The production was first rate, guests and commentaries were very good. Stations devoted to airing more family-friendly content on the weekends should take a close look at these shows and think of running them as an extended special.
This is a very good radio piece. We've heard the story before -- Post Partum Peace Corps Disorder -- but told with audio diaries and some production flourishes it sounds different and fresh. The narrator uses her Thirteen Symptoms of Chronic Peace Corps Withdrawl ("...1: subscribing to music normally only found in a library; 2: salivating to the sounds of polyrhythmic music...") as a framework to move around in time and space. We hear her reflections before, during and after her experience living in Benin, Africa nicely edited with some great African music. There's a lovely description of the proper way to clean a dirt florr. The piece ends beautifully. Newspeg: Peace Corps celebrates 43 years in March 04.
Another strong piece from the Salt alum and the mean streets of Portland, Maine. The L. H. Karaoke Lounge shares its storefront with a pawnshop, a travel agency, a Vietnamese restaurant and a tailor but on weekend nights it becomes a popular hangout for Vietnamese crooners. If art imitates life, then karaoke imitates the life of Asian immigrants. I think many of the Salt pieces are deserving of airtime outside of the Maine listening area. A Salt series or a Salt special (maybe paired with a two-way with Salt radio director Rob Rosenthal) could be a terrific one-off idea for a station interested in highlighting how radio gets made.
Full Disclosure: my kids and I are Dan Zanes fans. The former Del Fuegos rocker is filling an important niche in making cool family music. Like Pixar movies, it appeals as much to us discerning grownups as the kids. Zanes has enlisted some of his famous pals like Sheryl Crow, Lou Reed and Deborah Harry to sing along with him but he doesn't really need to. The fun and the surprise come from Zanes himself and the dancehall rapper Rankin' Dan (aka "Father Goose") and kids and musicians from his Brooklyn neighborhood. My kids and I enjoyed the Behind the Music aspect to the Well-Rounded Interview. It's a good conversation; the host doesn't step on Zanes; there's music throughout which is woven in fairly seamlessly; it doesn't feel long at 20 odd minutes. We all learned something about the journey of a rock musician-turned dad who wouldn't settle for mass market kids music.
Stations would be doing a service for kids and parents suffering from Raffi-itis (or worse) to run this some weekend.
The very best of this kind of first-person radio.
The first piece, the audio journal of a young pastor in Chicago, is the strongest. I was transported into the church and into Susan Johnson's world. In a beautiful patchwork of sounds, voices, music and reflection we can hear a young woman straining to hear the call of God as she goes about the disparate activities of ministering to an urban community. Jay Allison's Life Stories Collection are a rare radio treat. They could air as an extended series at any time.
Comment for
"The Reek of Chic. . . Offramp" (deleted)
Offramp comes from a radio theatre group at WMNF in Tampa. All the voices recordings are improvised and it sounds like a professional outfit. Having said all that, this reviewer just didn't get it. I couldn't find my way through the characters and the scenes. I wasn't invited to join the fun and I felt left in a corner with the decidedly uncool cats. The experience left me wanting to try some other editions. I'll report back.
Food writer and cook Ali Berlow muses on food and love and the ingredients in both. This is a thoughtful, commentary perfect for a ME or ATC cut-in or really any day part leading up to or on Valentines Day. The writing is nice, though she sounds as if she's reading more than musing. A station should add a music head and tail.
A thoroughly interesting documentary on the Jim Crow era in American history beginning with the origins of the term "Jim Crow." While it's not an exhaustive history of the time, it's a very good overview containing compelling stories and interviews with people who experienced segregation and who enforced it. There are interesting Ken Burns-esque interstitials between segments, in this case voices reading from official laws and statues codifying the subordination and disenfranchisement of African Americans in society. These American Radio Works documentaries reported and produced by Steve Smith and presented by Deborah Amos are first rate. This is a worthwhile hour during Black History month or any other time.
One of the short docs commissioned by the Third Coast Festival on the subject of "thirst."
"Wets" are the name given to the Mexicans illegally crossing the desert between Tucson and Mexico. Author Charles Bowden provides a poetic, spare commentary which also includes haunting interviews with border crossers about the experience of walking 30, 40, 60 miles in the blistering sun and heat.
I'm thirsting to hear all of these pieces presented together. Could work nicely in summer.
One of the pieces on "thirst" commissioned by the Third Coast Festival this fall. It's a compelling, moving remembrance by a Russian man about his trip as a boy to the Siberian Gulag. For him thirst was physical torture as well as an emotional and existential nightmare.
The piece is thoughtful and engaging. I'd suggest running all of the Thirst pieces together. Together, they tell a kind of radio story.
Comments by Mary McGrath
Comment for "Charley the Spelling Whiz"
Mary McGrath
Posted on June 28, 2004 at 05:19 PM | Permalink
Review of Charley the Spelling Whiz
This piece lacks the spell of the feature length documentary film but it's trying to achieve the same thing. At less than three and a half minutes there's not a full enough portrait of Charlie and cutting between spelling words and some quick biographical details doesn't seem to work so well either. This story doesn't seem to have an ending. How did Charlie do in the competition? Were we listening to the official Bee or a warm-up? Who won?
Comment for "HV Special: 200 Years Later (Lewis & Clark)"
Mary McGrath
Posted on June 20, 2004 at 06:20 PM | Permalink
Review of 200 YEARS LATER Lewis & Clark Special
This is a wonderful hour of radio. Part One is superb. A bicycle trip retracing Lewis and Clark's expedition becomes a tour through American history and modern day Americana. In the capable hands of Barrett Golding and comrades this documentary is a radio tapestry of sounds (the break is killer) and layers of storytelling. Barrett quotes extensively from the journals of the explorers and muses some on the course of our civilization 200 years on. Part Two has a different energy to it. Lewis and Clark aren't as present; the sounds of nature recede a bit and we get to meet and spend some time with some interesting characters.
This hour would be ideal to run anytime this summer. There's a real summerime feel to it -- lots of terrific sound of barbecues, camping, little league games and some great music too.
Comment for "Subway Symphony"
Mary McGrath
Posted on June 17, 2004 at 10:33 AM | Permalink
Review of Subway Symphony
There is indeed a symphony of sound on the New York City subway, and it's fun to hear. This piece reminds me of the sonic IDs WCAI on Cape Cod produces to great effect. They brand their station with local sounds and voices.
Makes you think... a whole collection of sounds like these, locally or not so locally, would be a nice way to break up the broadcast day.
Comment for "The Imaginary Village"
Mary McGrath
Posted on June 13, 2004 at 06:04 PM | Permalink
Review of The Imaginary Village
This is a lovely impressionistic piece rich with imagery and feeling. More than a story or narrative, it's a record of loss and it succeeds by working almost entirely on an emotional level. It's stirring and stays with you; it's maddening and confounding. Seen from here, the Middle East conflict looks impenetrable and the headlines simply repetitive and tiresome. Seen from the Imaginary Village, it seems much closer to home.
Comment for ""Out of the Ashes: Teatro la Fenice""
Mary McGrath
Posted on June 10, 2004 at 06:37 PM | Permalink
Review of "Out of the Ashes: Teatro la Fenice"
There's a good story in here with some strong elements but they're somewhat out of place. As someone not familiar with the opera world or Venice's place in it, I felt like I needed more of a handle before I was ready to be launched into the heart of the story. There's some interesting historic, literary and musical background in the middle of the piece that I could have used at the beginning. When the narrator mentions that Elton John played at the Teatro la Fenic, I was waiting to hear "Crocodile Rock." Where have you gone Savvy Traveler? Is there an outlet for travel pieces on public radio now? Maybe stations need to create their own....
Comment for "Hello Finland" (deleted)
Mary McGrath
Posted on June 10, 2004 at 06:15 PM
Review of Hello Finland (deleted)
This piece has a TAL sensibility: a young man confronts his adolescence by listening to tapes he made as a lonely teenager. It's a good story; it's poignant and sweet and the "moment of reflection" as Ira calls it isn't what you'd expect. Listening to his younger melancholy, self-conscious self, Eric doesn't cringe from an out of body audio nightmare. He wonders thoughtfully what "he'd" say to him now. What would "he" think of him and how much of "him" was left? The story inspires a kind of Proustian retrospection: Beware the Remembrance of Tapes Past.
Comment
Mary McGrath
Posted on June 02, 2004 at 05:23 AM
Review of Movies For Grown-Ups (deleted)
Movies are a great subject for radio often. At such short lengths these pieces don't really work as features though, and they don't sound much like commentaries. The first two -- let's hear some clips from some great baseball movies because there are none this summer and a plug for the Zagat's movie guide-- dont' work so well. The third one, the Marx brothers piece, gets closer to an idea that might be workable for stations. The hook is the release of several Marx brothers movies onto DVD and there's some short clips from Harpo's son Bill Marx which are sort of fun. Quick reviews of new films newly availalbe on DVD could be a feature stations might like -- on Friday mornings as a ME cut-in for instance.
Comment for "The Ring and I: The Passion, The Myth, The Mania"
Mary McGrath
Posted on June 01, 2004 at 06:16 AM | Permalink
Review of The Ring and I: The Passion, The Myth, The Mania
I've heard the future of public radio and this is it. Jad Abumrad has lots of obvious talent and WNYC is smart to be pushing him to help brand the station. He sounds, to this reviewer anyway, to be where public radio wants to be heading after the defenestration of Bob Edwards; that is to say he's young, he's smart and incredibly engaging to listen to. What Jad accomplishes in this piece is not easy -- boiling down something as daunting as Wagner's Ring Cycle into an hour of exciting, smart, entertaining, edgy radio. It's layered with music, with terrific expert types to explain this thing to us neophytes and with Jad's own journey to understand this paragon of high culture which takes him from Brooklyn to Broadway to Hollywood by way of a Manhattan supermarket and from Marx to Tolkien. We're along with him for the ride and he doesn't disappoint. The production is flawless, the timing and pacing are perfect, the music illustrates, punctuates and stimulates the piece. At the end you feel as though you've learned something important at the hands of a new young master of the radio craft and you're ready for more!
Comment for "The Times They Are A-Changin': A Radio Symposium on Bob Dylan & His Times"
Mary McGrath
Posted on May 25, 2004 at 07:51 AM | Permalink
Review of The Times They Are A-Changin': A Radio Symposium on Bob Dylan & His Times
The occasion for the discussion is the 40th anniversary of Dylan's Halloween concert at Philharmonic Hall in New York City and of the release of the live concert cd (Bootleg series, Volume 6). I listened over a long car ride and found it to be mostly interesting. I kept waiting for the conversation to take off in a kind of free for all and away from the controlled Q followed by A format. One of the panelists, the historian Dave Marsh I think, quotes the line "talking about songwriting is like doing card tricks on the radio." This is much livlier than that and it's also instructive for thinking about how to turn a live event -- a lecture or discussion, say -- into an hour or two of radio. This program had the music going for it and the conversational thread about the impact of music in the turbulent period of the 1960's as compared to the times that are a changin' in America right now. The radio hour could have been improved with more post production -- more songs, more music intervals, funkier opens, breaks and closes and voice overs that let us keep track of who the speakers were -- but that's probably not what the producer had in mind; more likely it was to simply let us listen to an event we couldn't attend. So for that I was grateful and I think lots of other listeners would be too.
Comment for "Pop Vultures #9: Pink & Most Memorable Concerts" (deleted)
Mary McGrath
Posted on May 14, 2004 at 10:06 AM
Review of Pop Vultures #9: Pink & Most Memorable Concerts (deleted)
Disclaimer: I am an avowed Pop Vultures Fan. I continue to marvel at Kate Sullivan's prodigious knowledge of pop music and I wonder who else could get away with talking about Lesbian musicians on the radio or saying this:
"That's the biggest shock about seeing a Rolling Stones concert live --is that they're actually the Stones and Mick is actually Mick and he actually does all the things that Mick Jagger does."
After having listened randomly to several programs I'm confused at times about whether Kate is talking to us in a kind of monologue or whether her co-Vultures are with her in the studio. I prefer when the show starts seemingly in the middle of a conversation with Garth Belkin. Kate is the band leader but it's the back and forth with her bandmates that gives the show a kickin' tempo.
Question: Kate often refers to interviews she's done (in this program she mentions Joan Jet). Are they recorded? Does she write for any music publications? This is obviously good material for the web site. There's lots of possibilities here too for local stations that run the show to use the web to develop a community around this program.
Comment for "Packin' Heat" (deleted)
Mary McGrath
Posted on May 10, 2004 at 08:08 AM
Review of Packin' Heat (deleted)
This is the sort of piece that makes public radio look bad. A reporter is assigned to cover Ohio's new concealed carry law and profiles herself -- a card carrying vegetarian whose never touched a gun before -- taking the required weekend gun safety course. Get the picture? Some 15 other men and a few couples have signed up for the course. We don't hear from them at all though it's likely that their stories would have been more interesting. Later the reporter complains that the course wasn't "straight", there was lots of complaining about liberal politics so she decides to call some of her liberal friends and air out some predictable gun control bromides. Unfortunately the audience isn't getting this story straight. We don't learn much. Perhaps if the reporter is well known in her area this sort of treatment works; for the rest of us better to label it striaight -- as a commentary.
Comment for "Memorial"
Mary McGrath
Posted on May 05, 2004 at 11:15 AM | Permalink
Review of Memorial
This is a very good commentary perfect for Mother's Day. The phone messages help tell a moving story about a mother's life and her death and they give the piece another audio dimension. How did we communicate with our mothers before answering machines by the way?
The actual time is under 5:00; there's a long music tail.
Comment for "Josh's Diary, Part 1: Growing Up with Tourette's"
Mary McGrath
Posted on May 04, 2004 at 08:08 AM | Permalink
Review of Josh in New York City: Growing Up with Tourette's
First rate piece by the maestro of the audio diary form. It contains many memorable moments including what has to be a first for radio: the sound of a Tourette tic unleashed after being stifled all day at school. This piece achieves what Joe Richman's other diary pieces do -- documenting the life of a teenager, in this case, one who lives with a neurological distoder, in his own words, surrounded by the sounds of his life. It's a moving, funny and arresting portrait of a wonderful kid. Run as a series, the Teenage Diaries would be a very special treat for listeners this summer or perhaps for back to school.
Comment for "Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band - "XXL""
Mary McGrath
Posted on May 04, 2004 at 07:34 AM | Permalink
Review of Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band - "XXL"
This piece turned me on to a great new band. Big Phat Band swings! What a sound -- Count Basie meets Quincy Jones.
But for a new listener who wanted to learn more about Gordon Goodwin (he's apparently a very talented emmy-award winning composer who's done a lot of work in film and television) I just didn't get a good thread here. The pieces are broken into 5 roughly 2 and a half minute segments for use as drop-ins. I would have preferred a longer piece with more of a narrative. I'm not sure these would work well as drop ins. The production is first rate though, the music is clean and the cuts are nice and long.
Comment for "Arcade Girl"
Mary McGrath
Posted on April 28, 2004 at 09:31 AM | Permalink
Review of Arcade Girl
This piece could use tightening and the levels are off throughout. However, the reporter has done an interesting series of stories documenting social change in China. Her perspective is fairly fresh -- she doesn't have the voice of a journalist so much as that of a young woman who's worked and studied there. This piece, about the very limited amount of sex education available to young people in a country with an official family planning policy has an astonishing revelation in it -- namely that a fairly relied upon source of information for college students comes from porn movies and porn shops. I think these pieces smoothed out and cut down would be worth running as a series perhaps with a two-way with the reporter.
Comment for "Intuition"
Mary McGrath
Posted on April 27, 2004 at 06:38 AM | Permalink
Review of Intuition
This hour celebrates the intuitive power and creative spirit of children and reminds you that we become less intuitive as we learn more. That said, I have a hunch any station would be serving its audience by running this hour on a weekend morning. Looseleaf is a first rate show. The host is engaging and fun; the guests are always terrific and the production is superb. The vibe of the show is books for kids and for parents of elementary shoolers/middle schoolers its a terrific way to stay on top of great new childrens books and the classics too. For anyone else who enjoys suprising, fun radio, it's an enjoyable hour that takes you places your more rational instiincts may not.
Comment for "City Lights"
Mary McGrath
Posted on April 02, 2004 at 07:54 AM | Permalink
Review of City Lights
China is the story of our time and what happens there in the next decade or so will surely shape the world we live in.
I think all journalism about China is incredibly important and this story adds quite a lot to what little I know about the people and the country. This piece could run cut down or perhaps as a series during Morning Edition or ATC; news pegs abound. It could use some smoothing out -- the naration and ambient levels were off in places.
Comment for "Charlie Zimmerman, Water Tower Builder"
Mary McGrath
Posted on March 29, 2004 at 11:03 AM | Permalink
Review of Charlie Zimmerman, Water Tower Builder
Joe Richman's "New York Works" series remind me of the best Murray Kempton columns. It's a sensitivity and a style not to mention a sound that's missing from our media and our lives. Richman champions real people who discourse knowledgeably and beautifully on the mundane and the notorious. This series would be a treat anytime; how about this summer during the Repbulican convention?
Comment for "Weill and Vegas"
Mary McGrath
Posted on March 29, 2004 at 09:02 AM | Permalink
Review of Weill and Vegas
The metaphor is the message in this piece. The opera Kurt Weill wrote 75 years ago with Berthold Brecht "The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny" imagined a city of sin decades before Las Vegas became the capital of American decadence. The music from the opera is a wonderful flourish at the beginning and at the end of this piece but I tiredof hearing it throughout. The story would work best at a much shorter length; less of a documentary and more of a travelogue.
Comment for "Ebony's Story"
Mary McGrath
Posted on March 22, 2004 at 08:37 AM | Permalink
Review of Ebony's Story
Ebony's story didn't really come through in her telling of it. And the reporter seemed to be more present than either Ebony or her diaries. David Isay and the Radio Rookies and the kids on Blunt Radio have paved some new ground in the way stories like these are presented and they've set the bar pretty high. It takes a certain kind of power and honesty and fearlessness to pull this off and draw strangers into the private space of another person's life. There's ten million stories in the naked city, but only a few audio diaries.....
Comment for "Good Guys/ Bad Guys"
Mary McGrath
Posted on March 22, 2004 at 07:54 AM | Permalink
Review of Good Guys/ Bad Guys
The Loose Leaf Book Company joins that estimable list of good (as opposed to bad or very bad) public radio shows that went off the air because of funding issues. Loose Leaf had a professional, dedicated team and while the show was designed for adults interested in children's literature, at least this episode was one kids of a certain age would certainly enjoy. As it happened, I listened to this hour with my 10 year old son while driving to the Boston Public Library. The first segment was an interview with Russell Freedman about his book "Cowboys of the Wild West" which my son promptly checked out and read. There was an interview with Jim Dale, the narrator of the Harry Potter books on tape and other segments with and about books both of us had heard of. The production was first rate, guests and commentaries were very good. Stations devoted to airing more family-friendly content on the weekends should take a close look at these shows and think of running them as an extended special.
Comment for ""Home From Africa""
Mary McGrath
Posted on March 09, 2004 at 04:58 PM | Permalink
Review of "Home From Africa"
This is a very good radio piece. We've heard the story before -- Post Partum Peace Corps Disorder -- but told with audio diaries and some production flourishes it sounds different and fresh. The narrator uses her Thirteen Symptoms of Chronic Peace Corps Withdrawl ("...1: subscribing to music normally only found in a library; 2: salivating to the sounds of polyrhythmic music...") as a framework to move around in time and space. We hear her reflections before, during and after her experience living in Benin, Africa nicely edited with some great African music. There's a lovely description of the proper way to clean a dirt florr. The piece ends beautifully. Newspeg: Peace Corps celebrates 43 years in March 04.
Comment for "L. H. Karaoke Lounge" (deleted)
Mary McGrath
Posted on March 05, 2004 at 07:58 AM
Review of L. H. Karaoke Lounge (deleted)
Another strong piece from the Salt alum and the mean streets of Portland, Maine. The L. H. Karaoke Lounge shares its storefront with a pawnshop, a travel agency, a Vietnamese restaurant and a tailor but on weekend nights it becomes a popular hangout for Vietnamese crooners. If art imitates life, then karaoke imitates the life of Asian immigrants. I think many of the Salt pieces are deserving of airtime outside of the Maine listening area. A Salt series or a Salt special (maybe paired with a two-way with Salt radio director Rob Rosenthal) could be a terrific one-off idea for a station interested in highlighting how radio gets made.
Comment for "The Well-Rounded Radio Interview with Dan Zanes"
Mary McGrath
Posted on February 27, 2004 at 08:14 AM | Permalink
Review of The Well-Rounded Radio Interview with Dan Zanes
Full Disclosure: my kids and I are Dan Zanes fans. The former Del Fuegos rocker is filling an important niche in making cool family music. Like Pixar movies, it appeals as much to us discerning grownups as the kids. Zanes has enlisted some of his famous pals like Sheryl Crow, Lou Reed and Deborah Harry to sing along with him but he doesn't really need to. The fun and the surprise come from Zanes himself and the dancehall rapper Rankin' Dan (aka "Father Goose") and kids and musicians from his Brooklyn neighborhood. My kids and I enjoyed the Behind the Music aspect to the Well-Rounded Interview. It's a good conversation; the host doesn't step on Zanes; there's music throughout which is woven in fairly seamlessly; it doesn't feel long at 20 odd minutes. We all learned something about the journey of a rock musician-turned dad who wouldn't settle for mass market kids music.
Stations would be doing a service for kids and parents suffering from Raffi-itis (or worse) to run this some weekend.
Comment for "Life Stories - Jobs: Women at Work"
Mary McGrath
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 06:18 AM | Permalink
Review of Life Stories - Jobs: Women at Work
The very best of this kind of first-person radio.
The first piece, the audio journal of a young pastor in Chicago, is the strongest. I was transported into the church and into Susan Johnson's world. In a beautiful patchwork of sounds, voices, music and reflection we can hear a young woman straining to hear the call of God as she goes about the disparate activities of ministering to an urban community. Jay Allison's Life Stories Collection are a rare radio treat. They could air as an extended series at any time.
Comment for "The Reek of Chic. . . Offramp" (deleted)
Mary McGrath
Posted on February 11, 2004 at 04:50 PM
Review of The Reek of Chic (deleted)
Offramp comes from a radio theatre group at WMNF in Tampa. All the voices recordings are improvised and it sounds like a professional outfit. Having said all that, this reviewer just didn't get it. I couldn't find my way through the characters and the scenes. I wasn't invited to join the fun and I felt left in a corner with the decidedly uncool cats. The experience left me wanting to try some other editions. I'll report back.
Comment for "A Cook's Notebook: Falling In (& out of) Love"
Mary McGrath
Posted on February 11, 2004 at 04:41 PM | Permalink
Review of A Cook's Notebook: Falling In (& out of) Love
Food writer and cook Ali Berlow muses on food and love and the ingredients in both. This is a thoughtful, commentary perfect for a ME or ATC cut-in or really any day part leading up to or on Valentines Day. The writing is nice, though she sounds as if she's reading more than musing. A station should add a music head and tail.
Comment for "Remembering Jim Crow" (deleted)
Mary McGrath
Posted on February 10, 2004 at 09:39 AM
Review of Remembering Jim Crow (deleted)
A thoroughly interesting documentary on the Jim Crow era in American history beginning with the origins of the term "Jim Crow." While it's not an exhaustive history of the time, it's a very good overview containing compelling stories and interviews with people who experienced segregation and who enforced it. There are interesting Ken Burns-esque interstitials between segments, in this case voices reading from official laws and statues codifying the subordination and disenfranchisement of African Americans in society. These American Radio Works documentaries reported and produced by Steve Smith and presented by Deborah Amos are first rate. This is a worthwhile hour during Black History month or any other time.
Comment for ""And I Walked..." Stories from the Border"
Mary McGrath
Posted on January 30, 2004 at 06:17 AM | Permalink
Review of "And I Walked..." Stories from the Border
One of the short docs commissioned by the Third Coast Festival on the subject of "thirst."
"Wets" are the name given to the Mexicans illegally crossing the desert between Tucson and Mexico. Author Charles Bowden provides a poetic, spare commentary which also includes haunting interviews with border crossers about the experience of walking 30, 40, 60 miles in the blistering sun and heat.
I'm thirsting to hear all of these pieces presented together. Could work nicely in summer.
Comment for "Vagy/Szomjusag/Thirst"
Mary McGrath
Posted on January 30, 2004 at 06:01 AM | Permalink
Review of Vagy/Szomjusag/Thirst
One of the pieces on "thirst" commissioned by the Third Coast Festival this fall. It's a compelling, moving remembrance by a Russian man about his trip as a boy to the Siberian Gulag. For him thirst was physical torture as well as an emotional and existential nightmare.
The piece is thoughtful and engaging. I'd suggest running all of the Thirst pieces together. Together, they tell a kind of radio story.