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Snore & Guzzle Radio Hour #18

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Why, what do we have here? It’s a new radio hour! This one only took 3 months to assemble. Hey, we’re up to #18. Only 6 more to go in this finite series of 24 podcasts.

What is this one good for? I’d say this one is good accompaniment for:

• embarking on an all-night train ride
• reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• curing leather
• riding bicycles at night at the same exact speed
• synchronizing with the film L’ascenseur pour L’echafaud
• eating rum balls
• dreaming of galloping horses
• smeary scribbling in pen & ink
• marow-warming hot toddies
• restless nights

Selections include: a neo-folk mash-up cover of an iconic disco track, a chamber-pop cover of a classic Genesis single, Greek rebetika, new new age, Pacific Northwest drone, needle-in-the-arm country, slow-burn Icelandic chamber-pop, Argentinian experimental, Krautrock, Japanese new classical, summertime songs from Isle of Wight, African mass, Mbira music from Oregon inspired by Bolivian melodies, Field recordings made in a studio.

Track list embedded in image.

Some much anticipated updates.

1. The studio I work for, Second Story, made a website for the AIGA design archives. You can find a detailed case study I wrote about the process right here. You can find the design archives and all 20,000+ records at this address: http://designarchives.aiga.org. The image above is a Toy box made by Chermayeff & Geismar.

2. We made New Year’s cards for friends & family. The cards are crafted from scratch with hand-made teabags tucked in the pouch.

3. Typical Day in the Pacific Northwest, no. 1

Snore & Guzzle Radio Hour # 17

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This edition of the Snore & Guzzle radio hour is dedicated exclusively to my favorite female Brazilian vocalist — perhaps my favorite female vocalist period — Nara Leão. The mix focuses on the decade of the 60s, but also bleeds into the early 70s. I tried to sequence a representative cross-section of selections across her 30 some odd albums. These albums are exceedingly difficult to come by in North America, and it’s rare to come across any of them in a record shop. For whatever reason, Nara’s music was neglected in the tropicalia renaissance. However, she would not be particularly disappointed by these circumstances. Although she in many ways inspired the tropicalia movement, she never committed herself politically or culturally. Musically, she straddles the more traditional bossa nova with the latter progressive psych-leaning era of tropicalia.

I predict that this music will see a rebirth in the coming decade. There’s something classic about her style, relevant in her philosophy, and enspiriting in her compositions that I think people will find undeniably compelling. It is just a matter of getting the stuff out there.

Below you will find a number of snapshots I took of a booklet I designed to house an article about a small family farm in western New York…

Snore & Guzzle Radio Hour # 16

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NEWSFLASH: There will be a brief intermission from Snore & Guzzle updates in the month of November. The show will resume come December 1st. There’s a groundswell of activity in the substrate, but these projects are a wee more labor-intensive than the standard; thus the delay. Here’s what is going on just beneath the surface. I’m writing a non-fiction piece about Delmore Schwartz + Lou Reed + Saul Bellow. I’m assembling a profile and extended interview with Norman Greenbaum. I’m starting to compile the materials for a graphic arts project involving classroom charts. I’m in the midst of working on a visual music micro-cinema program involving the films of the Whitney Brothers and musical accompaniment by Adam Forkner, to be staged in Portland, Oregon. These projects will start to see some light over the next couple months.

THIS MONTH: While there are no major updates, I did create the next installment in the series of podcasts. This brings us up to Snore & Guzzle Radio Hour # 16, in a finite series of 24. The Radio Hour this month is a pair of flushed cheeks. These are sounds good for ushering in hibernation, songs that hold hands with bourbon sipping, ember-gazing, quilt-wrapping and chapped lips. One of the big inspirations this month was a quote from a music review for Broadcast’s most recent album. Of the record, the critic said that it was, “Like a nursery rhyme trapped in amber.” There is much more to be found in the graphic I designed to accompany this set of music. See above.

LASTLY: As something of a ruse, I thought I would experiment with posting to Tumblr via a mobile phone, mostly as a way to get a summer’s worth of photos off the thing. I’ve been having fun with the device, and below is a selection of the results. If you want to see a continuous string of this stuff, check in at Faff&Natter on tumblr. I think of this as a little pet-project of Snore & Guzzle, to be managed on a much more micro level than this site.

~Michael R. Neault

A shrewdness of apes
A dule of doves
A skulk of foxes
A charm of goldfinches
A husk of hares
A smack of jellyfish
A rhumba of rattlesnakes
A dazzle of zebras
A euphoria of updates from Snore & Guzzle!

So many new things, where to start?

I made a poster for Camera Obscura, who is playing a show for Croquet Booking in November. If you’re anywhere near the area, I strongly encourage you to check it out. Here’s a preview of the poster…

And a detail view…

I captured a slew of stills from films I’ve been watching: An Angel At My Table, The Perfect Human, 7362, Aleph, Hamfat Asar. Here’s a taste:

And more can be seen on the stills page.

Here’s a story. One time there was a beautiful diner in Portland, Oregon. And within that diner there was a wholly unbecoming sign advertising “cocktails.” A few people determined to rectify the situation with… well, something we’ll call, pro bono graphic design. A replacement sign was made with the collaboration of Sarah Hudson and Marcus Smith and deployed with the cooperation of Sarah Herbolsheimer. If you like, you can see the new sign in action at Zell’s Diner. Or, you can also take a look right now:

Of course, the latest gossip has been documented in SOCIETY.

Lastly, and most importantly. I’ve just posted an article about a small, family-run farm in Western New York. I’m hesitant to say too much about this piece, because I’m hoping it will speak for itself. I think I’ll quote Wendell Berry to cut the ribbon on this one:

A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one’s accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes.

The article is entitled, The Sun in the Apricots: The Story of Hurd Orchards, and you can read it by following the link.

~Michael Neault, October, 2009