Posts Tagged ‘Ira Glass’
“I don’t know what this is, but I can’t stop listening”*…
Joe Frank passed away last Monday. A purveyor of humorous, often surreal, radio monologues and dramas, he began his career in 1977 on WBAI in New York, then moved in 1978 to National Public Radio. producing 18 award-winning dramas for NPR Playhouse (while serving as co-anchor of Weekend Edition). In 1986 he moved to KCRW in Santa Monica, where he produced a weekly hour-long radio program, Joe Frank: Work In Progress, until 2002. He also wrote stage plays and short stories, and saw several of his radio works used as the bases of films and television programs.
Beloved by a loyal audience, he was never widely known. Still, his influence has touched mass audiences: Ira Glass (one of whose first jobs was as a production assistant for Frank) credits Frank as his greatest inspiration for This American Life; TAL contributor David Sedaris modeled his work in material measure on Frank; Prairie Home Companion drew on Frank’s approach; and filmmakers including Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Mann, David Fincher, Ivan Reitman, and Martin Scorsese have worked from stories from Joe Frank’s radio shows.
Hear his extraordinary work on JoeFrank.com (free registration), Last.FM, and Soundcloud, among other repositoroes.
* Ira Glass, recounting his first experience of Joe Frank
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As we lend an ear, we might send tuneful birthday greetings to Huddie William Ledbetter; he was born on this date in 1888. Better known by his stage name “Lead Belly,” he was folk and blues musician known for his distinctive vocals, virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar (though he also played the piano, mandolin, harmonica, violin, and “windjammer” [diatonic accordion]), and the blues standards he wrote and introduced– covered over the years by acts including Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Johnny Rivers (“Midnight Special”), Delaney Davidson, Tom Russell, Lonnie Donegan, Bryan Ferry (“Goodnight, Irene”), the Beach Boys (“Cotton Fields”), Creedence Clearwater Revival (“Midnight Special”, “Cotton Fields”), Elvis Presley, ABBA, Pete Seeger, the Weavers, Harry Belafonte, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, the Animals, Jay Farrar, Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, Dr. John, Ry Cooder, Davy Graham, Maria Muldaur, Rory Block, Grateful Dead, Gene Autry, Odetta, Mungo Jerry, Paul King, Van Morrison, Michelle Shocked, Tom Waits (“Goodnight, Irene”), Scott H. Biram, Rod Stewart, Ernest Tubb, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Spiderbait (“Black Betty”), Blind Willies (“In the Pines”), the White Stripes (“Boll Weevil”), the Fall, Hole, Smog, Old Crow Medicine Show, Meat Loaf, Ministry, Raffi, Rasputina, Rory Gallagher (“Out on the Western Plains”), the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Deer Tick, Hugh Laurie, X, Bill Frisell, Koerner, Ray & Glover, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, Meat Puppets, Mark Lanegan, WZRD (“Where Did You Sleep Last Night”), Keith Richards, Phil Lee (“I Got Stripes”), and Aerosmith (“Line ‘Em”)…
Lead Belly. photo by Alan Lomax
“Disco is from hell, okay? And not the cool part of hell with all the murderers, but the lame ass part where the really bad accountants live”*…
A 1976 recording of the theme from M*A*S*H, about the 1977 release of which, Tom Mouton of Billboard wrote:
The strongest [of three recent singles from FARR Records] is ‘Song From M*A*S*H’ by the New Marketts. Here is a beautiful and well-orchestrated melody featuring guitar and synthesizer playing the melody line and pleasing synthesizer solo in the vamp. The record was produced by Joe Saraceno…
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Interesting fact: The lyrics of the song were written by Mike Altman, the son of Robert Altman, director of the original movie. Appearing on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show in the 1980s, Altman reported that his son had earned more than a million dollars for his part in writing the song… while Altman himself made just $70,000 for directing the movie.
More at “‘Suicide is Painless’ (AKA ‘The Theme from M*A*S*H’)– the Disco Version.”
* “Hyde,” That 70s Show
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As we take something for the fever, we might send repetitive birthday greetings to Philip Glass; he was born on this date in 1937. A composer who describes himself as a “Classicist,”” he is considered by most to be (with the likes of Steve Reich) one of the “Major Minimalists”– and one of the most influential music makers of the late 20th century. He has written works for the musical group which he founded, the Philip Glass Ensemble (with which he still performs on keyboards), as well as operas, musical theatre works, solo works, chamber music (including string quartets and instrumental sonatas), film scores, ten symphonies, and eleven concertos. Three of those film scores (Kundun, The Hours, Notes on a Scandal) have been nominated for Academy Awards; his score for The Truman Show won a Golden Globe. He is the second cousin of This American Life‘s Ira Glass.
A Toyota’s a Toyota…
Readers will likely know Dmitri Martin as an actor, or as a musician, or perhaps most likely, as a comedian. But it turns out that he’s no mean mangler of words. He recently composed the poem below– which is a 224-word palindrome, as readers will discover if they read it both from the beginning and from the end.
But even as the Universe gives, it takes away. Lou “Who’s on first?” Costello died that same day.
Costello with his partner, Bud Abbott (source)
Relatively speaking…
Max Fleischer and his lady love (source)
Max Fleischer and his brother Dave were giants in the history of animation. The most significant competition to Walt Disney in the formative years of the art, they created Betty Boop and Koko the Clown, and brought Bimbo, Popeye, Superman, and Gulliver’s Travels to the screen. Along the way, they invented a number of technologies and techniques that have become essential to the form.
Rotoscope by Max Fleischer, patent drawing from 1914
But possibly the the strangest– and arguably the most wonderful– thing they ever did was this 1923 short film blithely and elegantly explaining the concept of relativity:
TotH to Curiosity Counts.
As we await the animators of our new paradigms, we might wish a minimal(ist) birthday to Philip Glass, award-winning composer and first cousin once removed of (R)D friend and hero Ira Glass; Philip was born on this date in 1937.
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