I’ve neglected you, dear blog. Here’s a few thoughts I circulated in an email awhile back, and decided to put it up here.
I’ve been noticing over the last year or so what seems to be movement afoot of people who are bringing music to storytelling in new ways. I tend to find it as I’m perusing WMBR’s stacks prepping for my radio show, and maybe you’re on to it, too. I’m loving these new approaches and thought I’d share/attach the latest, Charles Spearin’s “Happiness Project,” which is a collection of some of his Toronto neighbors who frequent his front porch in the summertime. He says, “I wanted to see if I could blur the line between speaking and singing and write music based on these “accidental melodies.”
Others in this vein include Phillip Bimstein (esp his homage to baseball, “Bushy Wushy Rag“) and the Matthew Herbert Big Band whose new CD “There’s Me and There’s You” includes “the sounds contributed by Palestinians of their favorite of their most hated sound…”
I just had a look at Dale Hobson/NCPR’s “listening post,” one of the few, truly worthwhile e-newsletters. He distills in a wonderful way the real-life implications from a station POV the most recent news coming out of NPR…the acquisition of Public Interactive, and its decision to adopt Application Protocol Interface (API). The latter is revolutionary, not only because of the new gateways to listeners this decision will open up, but also from the standpoint that NPR is one of the first major news organization in the U.S. to make this move. Here’s what Hobson has to say:
What do we need to “forget,” then, in public radio? There are two sacred concepts that make a good starting point: the supremacy of content, and public service.
Let’s start first with public service. Public service is public broadcasting’s holy grail. Service defines our very reason for being. We have in public broadcasting over the years devised specific and clear audience research methods to measure and define “public service.” More measured listeners = more success at serving the public = more compelling reason to be funded, be picked up by a distributor, or to be given air-time on a broadcast outlet. The public service mantra also offers a blend of humility and “make the world a better place” sensibility that’s pleasing to the dominant culture of the industry.
But in this time of forgetting, of re-imagining everything, I wonder what it would mean to let go of public service and consider a new raison d’être?
The year ahead will have its ups and downs, just like 2007. Ella, sweet harbinger, is my gift to you, with wishes for a prosperous, healthy New Year. Praise the good.
I’m presenting on Wednesday at the reunion of the The International Youth Forum, invited by a former client-colleague, Ginger DaSilva from Radio Netherlands. This group, founded in 1947, was a ground-breaking initiative of the New York Herald Tribune… Ginger is an esteemed alum. Fueled by post-WWII idealism, the newspaper and the Forum’s first director, journalist & war correspondent Helen Waller, took a UN-style approach to organizing young people from across the world. The idea was that, if seeds of understanding were planted in the youth, it would cultivate in them their “common humanity” and lead to a more peaceful and tolerant world. Participating countries selected chose one of their best and brightest to serve as their delegate who traveled to an annual gatherings (transportation free-of-charge, courtesy of Pan Am). In it’s heyday, round about 1959, it was quite prominent, with delegates participating in live, nationally televised debabes on world issues called “The World We Want.” By the ‘70s, after churning out 900 young delegates, the organization died a ‘natural death.’ Since the ‘90’s the alumni get together from time to time, and this year, delegates from 30 countries will hunker down in Boston to exchange ideas and have some fun. The cast of characters at last night’s meet-greet-cocktail party was fascinating… a former UK Permanent Representative to NATO, the former head of Chinese culture for Iran (she was appointed by the Shah, and survived the transition), and a tea grower from India.
I went to the One Hundred Club dinner this week hosted by one of my mentors, Norman Knight, honoring Peter Smythe. Smythe is Prez & CEO of Greater Media operating 20 radio stations around the country; one of the rare small to mid-size radio groups that didn’t get gobbled by Clear Channel. Knight was a colleague/contemporary of my radioman father, Don Schardt. My father and Norman are from the “innovation” era of commercial radio…when it was run by people who knew the power of the medium, made interesting programs, and who also carried a deep sense of public service.
I just had a look at Dale Hobson/NCPR’s “
