Snore & Guzzle Radio Hour #20

Snore & Guzzle Radio Hour #20

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This radio hour covers portuguese guitar, primitive blues, French soundtracks, Argentine chorale music, West coast pop, British chamber pop, French impressionist, and Northern Soul, to name a few. I hope you like it; this one was 4 months in the making. I’d say this radio hour would be a good soundtrack to accompany the study of the anatomy of flight and bird migration patterns.

Tracklist

Andres Chazarreta - Gato Cordobes
Big Bill Broonzy – Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen
Neil Young – Motion Pictures
Carlos D’Alessio – India song
Josephine Foster – Hells Bells are Ringing
Ariel Ramirez – Misa por La Paz y La Justicia: Credo
Van Dyke Parks – Laurel Canyon Blvd
Blue Boy – Clear Skies
Faure – Pelleas et Melisande: Sicilienne
Roedelius – Le Jardin
Daniel Rossen – Waterfall
Beach Boys – Do You Like Worms
Ella Jenkins – Where Has My Little Dog Gone?
Vivaldi – Concerto for Mandolin and Strings
E.T. Mensah – Day by Day
Bill Callahan – Sycamore
Judee Sill – There’s A Rugged Road
Hardingfeletrioen – Fjell
Little Ann – Deep Shadows
Gino Washinton – Puppet On A String
Kronos Quartet (Foday Musa Suso) – Tilliboyo
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott (George Sibanda) – Guabi Guabi
David Darling & The Wulu Bunun – Ku-Isa Tama Laug
Harry Belafonte – Goin Down Jordan

Earlier in the spring, we took a trip to visit the home of Martha Cansler and Danny Rosenberg, in Portland, OR. Here are some photographs from the visit.

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Down Down Down: The Music of Harry Nilsson

Snore & Guzzle Radio Hour #19

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I’ve listened to a lot of Nilsson. Some might say too much. In fact, a couple people have declared a moratorium on his music due to my repeatedly plattering Harry Nilsson records. My copy of The Point looks like it has gone through the wash one too many times.

What is the allure? First and foremost, it’s his talent for melody and harmony. Harry Nilsson songs contain some of the most rhapsodically colorful melodies I’ve ever heard. It’s little wonder that the Beatles declared him their favorite American artist. At a press conference in 1968, John Lennon was asked to speak about his favorite American musician. He laconically said, “Nilsson.” Paul McCartney was then asked to name his favorite American band. He replied, “Nilsson.”

If Nilsson were only interesting for his melodies, his discography would not warrant an entire radio show. But Nilsson’s career only gets more interesting the closer you look at it. The name of Nilsson’s second album, “Aerial Ballet,” comes from an act his Swedish grandparents performed in the circus. I can only imagine that some of Harry’s vaudevillian style and vocal acrobatics were influenced by his heritage.

Nilsson’s career was characterized by wild swings of ups and downs. He started out the gate strong as a songwriter and attracted the attention of Phil Spector and The Monkees. As a solo artist, he had a string of hits in the late 60s and early 70s and racked up a serious level of acclaim. From there, things got loopy. It’s almost like he approached his career with kamikaze abandon. He pursued whatever styles he liked and approached showbusiness with a wicked sense of black humor and cynicism. That said, he simultaneously evinced a child-like playfulness, a quality that allowed him to contribute to films like Popeye, The Point, and Skidoo. It’s only fitting to Nilsson’s career that all of these films tanked. The soundtracks however, are — to me — some of the best vocal soundtracks produced in the 1970s.

I won’t go much further into Nilsson’s life and work, except to say it’s fascinating, and warrants a thorough and thoughtful biographical treatment. His relationship with John Lennon, Paul Williams, Randy Newman, Van Dyke Parks, Hollywood, women, and substance abuse all deserve a solid exploration.

Nilsson’s work has recently been revived by the likes of P.T. Andersen (clearly a fan), Jon Brion, Quentin Tarantino, Andrew Bird, Brian Wilson, and Aimee Mann. Nilsson left behind a scattered portfolio of demos, commercials, out-takes, and unreleased recordings–most of which are only just now beginning to be unearthed. For further research, I can recommend For the Love of Harry, which has lovingly and exhaustively assembled everything you would ever want to know about Harry Nilsson. For this podcast, I tried to sample at least one song from every one of his 15+ albums. To relieve ear fatigue, I introduced a few interpretive tracks where Nilsson is not singing, but either wrote the song, or contributed to its recording.

One of the most interesting themes in Nilsson’s career is the repeated motif of slow-motion descent. There are at least half a dozen Nilsson songs that introduce the idea of falling down into the depths, usually in an aquatic environment. It would appear that he was obsessed with this theme–even in The Point, you hear a very personal statement in his song Lifeline, even though it’s cloaked in the context of a children’s film…

Hello (Hello, Hello, Hello)
Won’t you throw me down a Life Line?
I’m so afraid of darkness,
And down here it’s just like night time.

Down,
And there isn’t any hope for me,
Unless this dream which seems so real,
Is just a fantasy.

Tracklist

Open Your Window (Harry)
Miss Butter’s Lament (Aerial Pandemonium Ballet)
Jon Brion – He Really Needs Me
Goin’ Down (Knnillssonn)
Everything’s Got ‘Em (The Point)
John Lennon – Only You
Everybody’s Talkin’ (Ariel Ballet)
She’s Leaving Home (Pandemonium Shadow Show)
Wasting My Time (Aerial Pandemonium Ballet)
Dawn Landes – Lifeline
Turn On Your Radio (Son of Schmilsson)
Counting (The Monkees Demos)
Shelley Duvall – He Needs Me
Ban Deodorant Radio Commercial
How Can I Be Sure Of You (Nilsson Schmilsson)
I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now (A Little Touch Of Schmilsson In The Night)
Learning From You (Hollywood Dreamer)
Living Without You (Nilsson Sings Newman)
One (Aerial Ballet)
The Moonbeam Song (Nilsson Schmilsson)
Everyone’s Got To Eat (The Popeye Demos)
Mucho Mungo (Pussy Cats)
Me And My Arrow (The Point!)
Blackalicious – Blazing Arrow
This Could be the Night (30 second acetate demo)
The Modern Folk Quartet – This Could Be The Night
Buy My Album/Down To The Valley (The Point!)
Paul Williams – Nilsson Sings Newman
That Is All (Reprise) (…That’s The Way It Is)

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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