Radio Free Earth

RFE Podcast #6

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 19:29:00 +0000

"Josh and Jordy Get the Blues"

Jordan and I got a pretty bad case of the blues, so I pulled out my slide guitar for this program. After checking into Rob Stoner's "Hotel 1-2-3," we woke unexpectedly from the "Night Dream Blues." The "Steel Guitar Rag" provided some relief, but after setting out "Across the Borderline"(Ry Cooder/John Hiatt/Jim Dickinson) we found ourselves "Buried Alive in the Blues" by Nick Gravenites. We took another detour with my instrumental, "Lemurs and Chameleons" before accepting that the blues really are the only friend you can always count on with Steve Earle's "My Old Friend the Blues."

Enjoy the program and let us know what you think!

Click the icon to subscribe in iTunes or another reader.

This will give you access to all our past and future podcasts!

Merry Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:01:00 +0000

Anti-Kidnapping Expert Kidnapped

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:10:00 +0000

What can be said about this?

RFE Podcast #5

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:06:00 +0000

All right, folks. Here's episode 5. This podcast is a work in progress, a chance to experiment, a chance to play and be heard. This is our first episode in the ubiquitous mp3 format, which we hope will allow more of you to more easily tune into our podcasts and listen.

Episode 5 is good fun, as usual. Kim and Jordan join me for a 25 minute set of music, beginning with "Labor of Love" and then moving from Peter Stampfel's "If You Want to Be a Bird" and Lieber and Stoller's "Framed and Riot in Cell Block #9" to Daniel Lanois's "Under the Stormy Sky," our "Rolling Blackout Blues," and concluding with Kim doing an a capella version of Tracy Nelson's "Down So Low" followed by a duet of Junoon's "Ghoom Tana."

This show will take you somewhere.

Part of the experiment, by the way, is setting up a nice format for this podcast, and making it easier for you to subscribe. We'll keep you posted on how to do that in the new format here.

In Spite of Ourselves

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:01:00 +0000

Until we learn to sing the song ourselves, here's John Prine and Iris Dement singing it:

Goodbye Odetta

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:13:00 +0000

Odetta died yesterday. Here's an obituary from the New York Times.

And here's a very nice interview with and profile of Odetta from 2007 posted on the New York Times web site.

Kim and I were fortunate enough to see and hear Odetta perform a year or two ago in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. She was the definition of class, and she knew how to reel in an audience and take them where she wanted them to go. Her vocal control was amazing, her timing and song selection perfect, and her effect was a total affirmation of life.

I remember her relaying a quote, "People are not afraid of failure. They're afraid of success." She implored her listeners to succeed.

She was never the most famous of singers, yet everyone knew who she was, and she made a difference.

RFE Podcast #4

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:01:00 +0000

The fourth in our series of band performance podcasts is now available. We're going to keep them coming twice a month, so get tuned in and stay tuned!

This episode hear Kim and me joined by our solid-in-the-groove percussionist Jordan Russ and our good friend Vince Snyder tearing it up on mandolin and harmonica.

This show begins with the so-sad-it's-funny "Baby, Won't You Please Come Home?" and gets better with every song. Kim sings about her longing for a life on the range in "Down Home Cowboy," and then I sing an up song about feeling down, my "Real Down Blues." The "Bird of Paradise" flies in from Rhodesia after that, followed by a raucous "Rag Mop" and finally "I Want a Roof Over My Head and Bread on the Table" which Kim copped from Helen Humes.

I promise you'll love the show.

P.S. This will be the last of our AAC file shows for a while, as we'll move to the more accessible MP3 format starting with episode 5. So if you don't have iTunes and are having trouble playing this show and the previous three, do tune in again on December 15th and beyond and have another shot at listening.

Goodnews.com strikes again

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 13:45:00 +0000

A friend sent me this link this morning. It's a story about a paper just written by John Hawks, a University of Wisconsin anthropologist, who says, "We are more different genetically from people living 5,000 years ago than they were different from Neanderthals."

Contrary to popular belief that evolution has slowed down, and humans have weakened genetically during our years as civilized beings, evidence from the Human Genome Project shows we are evolving faster than ever, particularly in terms of becoming resistant to a wide variety of diseases. A gene that evolved in northern Europe to allow us to digest milk into adulthood is another example.

Look at the full story here.

RFE Podcast #3

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:11:00 +0000

Our third podcast is up. In this episode you will hear me on guitars and vocals, Kim singing too, and Jordan on djembe.

We open the show with Ponte Bone's "Frio City Road Polka," which is one of the more inexplicable and fun songs we know, and take it from there:"Never Let Me Go," an acoustic take on our "Pirates at the Helm," and Kim doing Lil Green's gem "Give Your Mama One Smile"; plus I sing "Drive All Night," and we end with the Danny O'Keefe ecologically oriented completion of a song Bob Dylan started but left half finished, "Well Well Well."

Happy listening!

RFE Podcast #2

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 03:16:00 +0000

Here's our second podcast. Download and enjoy! And drop us a line to let us know what you think.

Label Art

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:55:00 +0000

My friend Razvan Mitulescu, a Romanian living with his wife and child in Toronto, Canada, produced some curious pieces of art work and posted them on his blog. Have a look.

CBC Radio 2

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Wachtel) — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 13:55:00 +0000

I just returned from a weeklong work-related trip to Toronto, and discovered an excellent radio station -- CBC Radio 2. I was happy to see that they offer live streaming on their website so I can continue my listening back in the USA. Check it out.

http://origin.www.cbc.ca/radio2/

Deportee

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Wachtel) — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 21:23:00 +0000

After you check out the premiere of Josh and Kim's new Radio Free Earth podcast, check out this vintage video of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez singing Woody Guthrie's "Deportee" (a.k.a. "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos," from the Rolling Thunder Revue, at Fort Collins, Colorado, 23 May 1976).

RFE Podcast #1

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:55:00 +0000

Here's a link to our first podcast episode. I'm still learning how to set up the RSS feed which will allow you to subscribe to our show, but enjoy this for now, and stay posted for updates on how to subscribe, and also new shows.

Foxes in the Hen House

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:00:00 +0000

According to one politician, "We are now in the golden age of thieves."

"Pirates at the Helm," we say.

Click here to listen and here to read the lyrics of "Pirates at the Helm" by Radio Free Earth.

Folk Music Revival

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:51:00 +0000

This article discusses the new wave of folk music. It's got roots, a noncommercial attitude, but it also takes in influences of contemporary music, like punk and rock.

Update (evening):
And then there's this interview from Salon.com, with Amanda Petrusich, who wrote a book called It Still Moves, based on a road trip through the south for the roots of American music.

There's some reconsideration of American roots music going on, and some questions being raised about how to take the old and make it new.

Fiddlesticks!

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Wachtel) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 18:47:00 +0000

I was pokin' around on YouTube looking for Cajun music clips and came across this. I'd never seen this before.

Blind Johnnie Hammond

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 02:11:00 +0000

Conversation Between Freedom Workers

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:14:00 +0000

Here's a nice 24 minute video with Pete Seeger and Majora Carter, an activist. You too can learn to sing:

Who Are the Real Music Pirates?

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:38:00 +0000

In this Wired blog entry David Kravets reports on the music industry's attempt to make AM and FM radio pay not only songwriters and composers, but also record labels and recording artists, to broadcast songs.

The radio broadcasters say they are in the business of promotion, and shouldn't have to pay. They help artists.

The labels say broadcasting without paying is akin to piracy. And because they have succeeded in making on-line music providers and broadcasters pay, there is now added weight to their argument.

But I wonder where the public, who theoretically owns the airwaves, and the independent artist, who can't get played on radio to save his life, figures in the equation.

Who are the real pirates and what has been stolen?

Art and War

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:15:00 +0000

Here's a short video of a news profile of Si Lewen, the father of a longtime friend of my parents, who donated all his artwork a couple years ago to the nonprofit organization my parents run. Click through to see the video.

Bo Diddley Buy You a Mockingbird

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:14:00 +0000

Here's a nice remembrance of Bo Diddley by Dave Alvin, who played with him in LA one night in 1983. Bo Diddly died on Monday, June 2.

Song Cousins

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Wed, 28 May 2008 12:05:00 +0000

Here's Little Richard singing about "Bama Lama Bama Lou" - she may be related to our "Bama Lou," but it's so hard to tell:

Karen Dalton

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:36:00 +0000

It's been beautiful out, and spring isn't leaving me much time for blogging. However, here's an interview about Karen Dalton with a guy who ran a folk club in Boulder, Colorado until the early Sixties. If you don't know about Karen Dalton, here's your chance to find out.

Start with this video if you like:

Sympathy for the Devil (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Wachtel) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 11:13:00 +0000

by Josh Wachtel

Behind-the-scenes RFE-er Alexei Panshin has just posted the first of five parts of an essay titled "Sympathy for the Devil," about a Robert Heinlein story called "Solution Unsatisfactory" written in 1941 before the U.S. entered World War II, and prophesying that the war would be put to an end in 1945 by a radiological weapon that could destroy entire cities.

The story is tricky, though, and in untangling it, Alexei has a lot to say about contemporary politics and how we might solve one of the major problems of the world we live in today: With the power available to destroy ourselves and our environment, how can humans survive?

Part 1 is here. Parts 2, 3, 4 and 5 will be published every other day until the whole is available on-line.