Do I review this as someone who spent time working on the NPR news talk line up or do I review this as the GM of a non comm AAA?

You know, I reviewed a two hour Dylan show and gave it raves. I guess that because a 30 plus year career as widely influential as Dylan can handle that length. Phish, and I enjoy them, just don’t have enough material or history for a full hour. I’m also a bit concerned that public radio tries to fit contemporary music in to the same mold we put other topics and music. I somehow wonder if our industry at large “gets AAA” in general.

This hour is wonderfully produced, well written story telling centered around Phish’s last big festival. Non-comm AAA stations audience is the same as an full time NPR audience (despite the cooing about KEXP’s younger demo), 25-54 with most in the 35-44 cell. To these folks, their experience with Jam Bands starts and ends with The Dead. To our core, Phish is just a bunch very talented kids repeating history. The show mentions non-profit organizations start at Phish Fest, fans taking care of each other a created community of kindness, and a sense of drug induced environmentalism. The Dead and others have been there done that and created the tie dye t shirt industry.

On the one hand, this piece ignores the context of Jam Band history. Heck The Dead is mentioned just once by an audience member. On the other, it talks a bit down to music lovers who get the roll around in the mud for three experience. Bonnaroo, The All Good Fest, and others provide that same concert bonding with other folks. (Example: six WTMD phone volunteers who had never met decided at our last drive to rent an RV together and go to Bonnaroo—They were all professional folks in their 30s-40s.)

So I am left a bit feeling that the producer thought he was explaining some huge pop culture phenomenon to a bunch of folks for whom this was outside their range of belief. Or perhaps it was an attempt to get that damn younger demo to tune stogy old public radio. In either case I felt it a bit hollow.

Ok, so I should mention a few things to back up my feelings. Most of the actualities are from fans and bands members (I did get significantly choked up when Trey started weeping on stage—cute thing that he is). There is only one real outside expert interviewed, a Boston print rock critic, to provide context. There are a few promoters and other local folks, but not enough to tell the story robustly or engage the context of Jam Bands that precede Phish and context is all important to both the NPR addict and the Non-Comm AAA addict. (pun intended)

We in the AAA side of our industry often feel misunderstood by the rest of the radio. Having been on both sides now, I think this is a valiant attempt to work AAA into what we do on the news side. I applaud that and think this piece represents forward thinking about our audience. I would hope the producer seizes on other similar opportunities. My only real request so we could consider airing it would be to think of a piece like this as enterprise reporting where every possible relevant aspect of the story is included, not just the event at hand.

All that moaning aside, I think most stations interested in bringing a AAA music vibe into their mostly news schedule should air this hour. It’s really very good and the starting point for folks who are not familiar with this side of pop culture.

Well what can you say about a blues piece produced by the head blues guy at the head contemporary music station (is that what we’re calling now? Seems all the rage)?

Not much really, except WOW! What a great piece. The producer and host knows a hell of a lot about the blues (as he should), how to write (as he does) and how to pack a lot of content into shortest amount of time to maximize listener impact (and he does like a Whirlpool Trash Compactor)!

Harmonicas are well intentioned instruments full of romantic history of the muddy backwaters of the Blues Highway. And let’s face it, we all wanted to master it as a seven year old and to this day are envious of those, like Springsteen (see gang, I can work Bruce in anywhere!), who can actually make music on it!

The producer balances a description of the music itself, the event and also manages to critique the performances politely and with the listener in mind. An artful sense of space is created and that’s a tough thing to do when you’re covering an event, but somehow the aura of Chi town is always present in the piece, hanging like a harvest moon low in the sky and illuminating the discussion.

This is a wonder series and this piece is a great example! To be a pit picky on the production---the music is a bit too high under the narration. At several points they compete for the listener’s attention. This is a common problem for many of us…we’re so excited by what we’re doing, that we forget that the real world listening environment is full of distractions like crying kids and noisy traffic. That can make it hard to focus on the information.

I’m running out to the five and dime to get one of those toy harmonica’s to play around with!

Well told, well crafted, well produced. If you are a producer who wants to learn how to make great radio, go be Paul's lawn boy in exchange for lessons.

Lets break this down a bit. First, Paul has taken the time (and ok, he has access to great equipment) to repair older live music and interview tracks to form a seamless sonic experience for listeners. Paul knows where to put ambient sound under tracks, when to end the background between narration and cuts. I just love the attention to detail. Second, the story telling is exquisite. Paul must have spent months shuffling the cuts from multiple sources to form a more than a coherent portrait of one of the most influential songwriters of all time (Shameless self promotion--Dylan was voted number in our countdown of WTMD's countdown of 50 most influential songwriters of all time). Paul forms an organic story. It's smart, he writes for smart guys without talking up or down. He approaches it with an authenticity that makes Dylan human, not just a legand.

This is the kind of piece I could glow over for days. Please, just air the dang thing. The 4th of July is a perfect time for these slices of America from the Pie of Bob Dylan as baked by Paul Ingles.

On its own, Bluegrass is, to say the least, a point of heated discussion in public radio. American, yes; listened to by lawyers in Washington DC, sure-I'll buy that as a former WAMU employee!

But for the most part, Bluegrass is one of those things we want to adore on air, but kind puts our collective guts in a wrench.

This piece is the way to bring this music to the air! It's essentially a news magazine piece, but I could see AAA stations incorporating this into either their morning shows or specialty hours. Heck, mixing race issues and bluegrass--That is SO SO SO public radio and done in a way only we know how to do it!

The editing it tight, the story well told. New information is given...the bite on how music decreased deaths on slave ships is a downright wow factor! Some of the levels were a bit muffly but nothing too terrible.

What I liked most about this piece is the deft use of music under the voices. It kept me engaged and signaled some pacing changes when the music was not being used as specific example. Masterful!

Thanks for making great radio we can all use!

I only hope those folks in Congress can listen to this piece to know why public radio is crucial to a successful American Democracy. (Can't help being a GM!)

Big band music is a lot of fun. It’s nostalgic for those in our audiences over the age of 65 and kitsch, a throwback for everyone else. This is the music that today’s bands, like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Brian Stetzer give new life too.

However, big band stand alone fundraisers are not in big demand and while this series has a certain historic feel to it, it does not provide anything special or insightful for the public radio listener to grab onto. Nor, as a fund drive piece does it adhere to the basic principles of fund raising.

In fact, it sounds like an infomercial for their website and upon inspection, I have grave concerns about the listener encounters there. The show gives the impression that by going to the website, they will be making a contribution to their public radio station and the Tuxedo Club. On their site, I found no place to enter the call letters or name of a local public radio station. Perhaps I am missing something, but I didn’t feel comfortable giving a credit card number to see if the entry point was on the other side of the CC number input. I am not sure why a station would want to air a piece that sends listeners anywhere other than the station’s own website.

But back to the show. The music is fine and well thought out, and there is the allusion of being in a big park with white dinner jackets and fashionable cocktails. The announcer sounds right out of the 40s. The echo and ambient sounds are really sweet as is the writing—it’s authentic to the era. The interviews are comfortable and interesting in the second part of the series. However repeating multiple versions of Tuxedo Junction got particularly boring.

The production is competent, but I could detect some changes in the ambient noise between the music and the interviews leading me to be believe the show wasn’t, as inferred, recorded all at once at the park. The premise, playing at the original Tuxedo Junction, is cute and warming to the heart. I was taken back to that era and that’s a sign that these folks can create a sense of place in the listeners mind.

This a wonderful mini-piece promoting the bigger, yet to come, special. It pulls in enough "stuff" to make you want to hear the full show. Wonderfully mixed and the number of voices in this short piece shows just how powerful the special will be.

Why wasn't this posted sooner! If it was, we could have considered using the piece as part of our Dylan celebration!

This is very cute piece that takes a news paper report and brings on-air humor to it. It’s clever and interesting. Dead on with our listeners needs and wants. Who doesn’t think their boss is off kilter and now there is a test! YEAH!

The producer certainly knows how to use humor to grab folks. The piece is consistently a chuckler all the way through and would work well on any news station inside or outside of a national program. It will have people searching the New York Times web site for the test to find out if your boss is insane!

The reader reads just too fast. I had to listen to the piece 3 times to get all the jokes and impact. Perhaps this piece was produced to time, but it is so crammed and speedy the listener can’t dive in. If the reader slowed down, the piece would give more hooks for a listener to grab on to.

The hook of this story is so far into the piece that listeners may have mentally, if not physically, tuned out by the time you find out this is a warning about genetically modified food from America has invaded Mexico.

That’s important, exciting and something our listeners must know about!

But it comes after too much picturesque location set up. Bang ‘em over the head from the start! Iowa Frankenstein Food Invades Mexico! This story is urgent, but I didn’t get a sense of urgency from the narrator. This is s a bit tough because urgency can often be seen as anger, and that is a subtle way of inferring bias in a story. Hmm, you think?

The piece does a great job of taking to Mexico and into the lives of the people who are directly affected by this circumstance. I like the piece, don’t get me wrong, but given the paranoia storm clouds gathering around public radio, I wonder if I am over analyzing my feelings about pieces like this. Thank goodness I don’t run a news station and have to question myself everyday like that!

Again, this makes a great collaboration piece when mixed into over all coverage.

This is the kind of story that makes Public Radio the best medium in the world! It blends economics, societal changes and religion in a non confrontational. UNBIASED way. It would be easy to dish religious telemarketers, but the piece presents the facts and allows listeners to draw their own conclusions.

The story is about the often misunderstood, mysterious Mormons and how they have helped bring business into Utah with a multi lingual telemarketing operation.

What a hoot! The Mormons are telemarketers! Who Knew?

The piece is well written and the actualities are well recorded. It’s sound rich and fully rounded. The narrator is well paced and interesting. To be overly picky, there is some extra bass in her recording that does not match the actualities exactly—a little hard for the ear to make the jump, but not noticeable to listeners perhaps.

Listen to this piece even if you are not going to air it. As listener it’s a great piece of knowledge about America!

Called tech support lately? Transferred to India and have to translate the accent to figure out your computer issue? Yep, we all know the outsourcing story. We bitch, moan and complain then go back tap-tap-taping on our keyboards.

This piece gives a wonderful and chilling look behind those voices, and the economic impact this aspect of globalization. The piece looks at the poor in slums and how the high tech workers wages are not translating into an economic boom for all in India. Chilling, because it infers civil unrest if the situation is not rectified.

It’s a compelling piece, and I hope this story is more fully explored in other Collaboration works. It’s a bit thin, being more descriptive than transcendent between all the groups affected. I was left wanting more. One person tells how the new High Tech folks are not sharing the riches of this new economy, there are no actualities from one of those High Tech folks disputing or feeling guilty about their apparent lack of charity. Is it cultural? Is it selfish? We just don’t know and I hope another piece in the series tells us.

The piece is perfectly mixed and well written. It would be seamless within any news programming. There are street interviews that provide for a sound rich experience.

Oh my gosh. I hate to say this, but this piece is just boring. Walt Whitman is a pretty hip cat for his time. He hung out with prostitutes, he was the original Down Low bro. He was as openly gay as you can…and in NYC, well just look at Chelsea!

But this documentary is old school, and we’re talking about that overly educated professorial delivery. This seems like a bunch of dull old over educated white dudes trying to take old Walt up to their level instead of getting down and dirty with poetry.

First off, this hour focuses too much on opera and other hi brow interpretations of Whitman’s work and his budding life in New York. Frankly, I thought it was an opera piece (and we all know what an audience killer opera is) not a poet profile for a while. In fact, the use of opera really kills the sense of time. Whitman is a Civil War era kind of guy, but you can never tell, if you didn’t know this to be the case, because the of the focus on the opera.

The delivery around the gay depictions of Whitman’s work is, well, quite frankly a bit nerdy titillating. I mean, the tone is kind like “ooohhhh look, we’re going to talk about the----shhhh---gay part! I kind of chuckled. After all, that’s one of the reasons he is so popular today.

It is a pretty well planned and produced story of his life. All of the facts are here and there are some insightful pieces of information and commentary. The tour of his NJ home is a nice touch. There is a lot of effort here and I am feel kind of guilty not really liking this piece more.

Addendum: After writing this review, I ran into the producer and we talked about his process a bit. I am happy to report that the producer is as smart as he is talented. He did contact the copyright holder for permission who granted it as long as the piece was not used for revenue generation. I'm leaving the original review so folks can see just how whigged out a GM can get over legal issues associated with a piece. But Please...someone...give this kid a job, he's gonna rock!

As you’re reading this review, go back and reread the producers description of this piece.

Now, you walk into my office, as the general manager of a music station and play your piece for me. I love it. It’s great I wonder where this music came from! Okay, it’s not Marvin’s What’s Going On, but I’m hip, I’m cool, I’m Youth Oriented. I’m down, Let’s spin it!

Then you tell me what is in your description and I fire you and tell you never to come back to the station again. Why?

Did you clear this remix with the copyright holder? No? Then by broadcasting it you make the station a target for a big lawsuit that will get you, the PD, the GM and everyone else who knew about it fired. Sorry, bud, you may not like the laws, but a radio station is business that has to live by them. (Yo-PRX-You guys covered on this!?)

Frankly, the producer of this piece should be immediately hired by a record label and paid lots of money. The remix does indeed make song more danceable, more accessible to older folks like me. Heck, it’s in my iPod and I’ve played for folks who resist Rap and Hip-Hop and they too enjoy it. This guy knows how to do it and deserves attention. But given by not knowing if the copyright holder is cool with it…in my iPod it stays not on the air.

When you remix a tune, you should be doing it with the listener in mind, not your own agenda. Ok, sure your agenda is going to be there but don’t tell anyone. Leave a them guessing a bit. Believe in the listener enough that the ones who are aware will figure something out like the Justin thing, or just let them enjoy your work. Tell me that you remixed this so it could be used on stations with differing formats, or in clubs across cultures. Expanding the reach of a song through your work (if done legally) is a wonderful accomplishment.

There is a reason Minnesota Public Radio is the Clear Channel of the non commercial world. They do damn good radio and this documentary is a prime example of how high they raise the bar for the whole industry.

I’ve listened to this twice now, and I am constantly enthralled with the storytelling and organization. I am amazed how three elements are going on all at the same time. First, you have the base story about the Supermax and why it doesn’t work. Second, there are layers upon layers of personal stories of the prisoners that so compelling you have to listen twice. Third, it details the effects, personal, political and social of the greater community. Wow!

Ok, as a big fan of the HBO series OZ (and those of you who watched know exactly what I am talking about) so maybe I am already predisposed to enjoy the more voyeuristic elements of this kind of story. But, be honest, who doesn’t want to sit in the cell with a tough guy gang member and find out more about him? Why their life turned out this way, how does the prison fulfill it’s mission in his eyes. Great stuff. Great Interviews.

This story really brings out some complex issues and keeps you from loosing interest, even at an hour long. The problem with long form documentaries is that we ask listeners to set aside a period of time that they may not have. If you have an hour long commute and hit it right, this piece will be heard. Either that or you’ll have to set up an appointment to hear the whole show…of course with all this podcasting stuff going on, maybe that isn’t so important anymore.

Deb Amos provides the inter-connection narration and it’s written quite well. Though sometimes it’s a bit over the top…kind of like that guy who does the movie trailers. But no big deal. You have to capture their attention somehow.

This producer and host show a great deal of promise. The guy has an engaging natural ability and, for what I suspect is a college student, a good pre plan of his interview.

Too bad the subject didn't show him the respect he deserved. The KOL drummer was engaged in a poker game and the interview is done by phone, most likely cell. That made for a painful to listen to segment. Sure, it's "real" but the message of the band was significantly clouded by the distractions.

There are some points that are made about how the band got to be famous and the interviewer asks great questions, but the pay offs are few and far between for this to remain interesting at 30 mins.

The songs are the mixed in ok, but some more writing and resetting is needed. Also, the levels with the interviewer over music are a bit out of whack, but nothing that experience won't improve.

This is one "College" Radio personality to keep an eye on.

What a sweet piece! This is a very well done short documentary about someone you might not know about if you didn’t heard this piece. It’s well constructed showing exceptional story telling skills and editing.

Technically the piece is perfectly produced with levels, mixing and timing all in tip top order.

I was engaged and entertained and glad I listened to this piece. I am not going to go too far in the details. It’s a short piece that is better listened to than read about. If you’re a jazz station, this is perfect for your morning show!