About the piece Vinyl by Jonathan Mitchell:

In February I said:
For me, the reviewer: this is the kind of thing I'm waiting around for: use of sound to unearth unexpected beauty. For programmers: if you're programming classical music, and/or serious contemporary music, you probably have listeners that remember vinyl - or younger ones that know about the difference it made. A built-in talking point. This is an hommage! Sounds like a rainstorm, sounds like a symphony of ants, sounds like: listen and see!

Notes added on 13 March 05
I recently played this piece for 12-year-old French students (fans of Hip Hop and Destiny's Child) in a sound atelier. They were fascinated -they understood instantly that there was something to listen to. I was alittle shocked by the review by the PD who wrote it off as "a first attempt at Cubase, etc." He should really know better - of course it's not made that way. It was a painstaking analog composition effort.

I understand as well as anyone else the problem of survival - and the PD doesn't have to run it -but this does not excuse highhandedly snickering at people who experiment. Especially if you're taking public funding for what is supposed to exist as an alternative medium. Public radio's quest to be above all popular usually ends in a kind of mediocrity that can't compete with the big bucks of popular entertainment. The lovely things come from going another way

Especially in this case - because it has been done with technique, substance and talent.

Also - as a reviewer - am I just patting the back of another producer? Perhaps. I listen to lots of stuff I don't review. I'm a producer too - feels like bad luck to trash someone else - so I'm a "surfacer of work" only, I guess.

This is two minutes of stunning, natural music - impeccably recorded and seamlessly compiled - with no intervening voice - it just needs a simple front or back-announce, like a music cut. For any show featuring sounds that open and pleasure the ears.

When I first saw the subject, I thought, yes, there's something people should hear about in these times - are younger people really aware of where the first amendment was in those years? Then when I listened, a strange feeling came over me, as I wondered, why does it seem so long ago now, yet so close again? Why does what Lenny Bruce had to go through (serious harrassment over the uttering of words in public among consulting adults - never mind sticks and stones!) - seem to fade disturbingly in shock value when set again the backdrop of the current climate? How far we've come - and fallen back again! The piece is elegantly done - the comedy clips are clean and crisp - and message is, to me, slightly understated. Let listeners make their own conclusions. Yes, he yelled fire in a crowded theatre. Because there was, as the interviewee said, "a fire." Did anyone put it out?

I have a feeling that most people who knew about Spaulding Gray - as audience members, etc. (and I think there are alot of us! Even Marge Simpson!) - reacted to the events that surrounded his unusual death with that special feeling of loss you get for a friend you didn't get a chance to know. You wanted to know more about what happened - much more to the point than the New York Times was ever going to tell you. This piece delivers that - and I have to say that this is really wonderful tape for the producers to have. They've done a lovely, sensitive job of sharing it and I'm grateful.

Who wouldn't relate to this? We all know what this is about. A very engaging bit for that all-too-short-won't-it-ever-end?-I-just-can't-wait-I've-had-just-about-enough holiday week that stands perfectly alone and can be sandwiched in between just about anything. Go on. Your listeners need a laugh.

I too approached listening to this with trepidation - could be an annoying trival idea, I thought, youth in Minnesota talking about why they - like almost every youth populaton in every language and country on the planet - rap or imitate rap. But, no, the piece isn't that at all - in fact what they do considering their frame of reference is interesting - the group makes the music and writes the words that come dead center out of who they are. They are straightforward and unpretentious talking about it - plus their work sounds pretty good. Now, throw in the natural, intelligent style of the reporter, then the fact that a great many listeners to public broadcasting probably live in out-of-the-way, off-the-beaten-track places, and you have here a good piece to stick in during any number of magazine programs.

This quite unexpectedly made me laugh outloud all alone in front of my computer. It also taps into that special delicacy that public radio listeners must covet, that pleasure in the narrative, what I might personally term "the story gesture." You don't get it anywhere else besides in reading, do you? Plus this is young, passionate and professional. The next generation.

Nice job and good sound - anything but boring (even if you're not obsessed with cats which I am and millions of listeners are) mostly because the personality of the producer is so winning - he's kind of like David Letterman without the nastiness. It's not easy mike yourself and be witty at the same time -then go back and treat the sound so carefully to make it sound like he was so relaxed and witty the whole time. A pro.

Takes the most deeply American, earnest and lyrical of all the sports - starts out clever and sweet and then in half two takes a plunge down into the dark heart of turn-of-the-century America - with a symphonic story that successfully defends serious, longer-bite listening and makes it worth it - let's give audiences a little credit!

Choosing three tones this time was challenging. This one runs round lots of bases.

I have chosen the tone NPR-ish because I rather wish it wasn't. I like the idea - and I enjoyed listening to the different kinds of rock except that I forgot why he was playing them - exactly why is he afraid to stop rocking? In another review I said I love the Blunt Youth project - it gives me hope. This young producer sounds very good but in this piece I think he is alittle too controlled - he's verging into the Public radio "men-who-bake-bread-and-aren't-ashamed" vocal smoothness! Don't do it! That's a fine kind of voice in these days of media shrillness, and would life be without them - but it's a 35-54-year-old voice - happy to hear very young people and I hope the edgier of these find a context as they are. Please.

The question is: what do you want to hear on the radio? well, OK, why not this? Perhaps some station should run a day of soldier eulogies - the way the New York Times eulogized the individuals that died on September 11 person-by- person to great effect - because, in my opinion, it might be the only way to help humans really understand with their gut the loss of other humans. In the piece the father says "he was 538. That number is burned in my memory. It's over 600 now." That's a great detail - but it took mea moment to pick up on it - I think it's a little buried in the piece, and I think the information could be presented in a different order (that's the constructive criticism part), but all in all quality of this is good.

For me, the best part here is the subject - what an idea - art in vending machines... an intriguing metaphor - for instance, is PRX a radio vending machine? Why not - and it too renders something deserving more accessible. The style of this piece is very traditional "track and ac" -but it's well-tracked and well-ac'd. The interviews do their job by making you see the objects, and the situation - and holding your interest.

Very nice performance - certainly can't ignore it - I could imagine this coming on during news - as a kind of chaser, a palette-cleanser for the news junkie listener - it has the energy and immediacy of news but it's "not news." It's un-news. The flip side. It's not soft, though - it's other.

Good length - and - no talk-in, talk-out needed. Why not just put pure poetry in between our daily info-doses?