Interview with Aaron Keim: Boulder Acoustic Society | Sound Authors Radio

December 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment

[Music]

Dr. Kent:  Now it’s my honor to speak with two fellows from the Boulder Acoustic Society; Aaron Keim and Scott McCormick.  What a sound they’ve got, the band is called the Boulder Acoustic Society, tonight they’re playing at the El Ray Theatre in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Welcome to the show.

Aaron:  Thanks for having us.

Scott:  Hey now.

Dr. Kent:  So you’re on the way to the gig right now.

Aaron:  Yep, we’re at a gas station currently in Wallenberg, Colorado.

Dr. Kent:  The sound is amazing, I mean tell me a little bit about how this all got started for you.

Scott:  Yeah it started when Kylinn and I met playing on the street in Boulder, Colorado and you know, Kylinn comes from a different background than me and everybody we’ve always collected around us have been pretty diverse people.  And that’s just kind of how we do it.

Dr. Kent:  It’s sort of like American roots music and I see one of your favorite groups is the Memphis Jug Band and sort of that real old school style but at the same time there’s an element of punk in here, an element of really modern music.  Tell me about that.

Scott:   Absolutely and the reason behind that is mostly because we all come from such diverse backgrounds.  Myself, I actually came from playing in gospel churches and stuff in Chicago and then grew up playing rock at the same time and then Aaron comes very rooted in American music.  Our drummer as well is very rooted in like pop rock and any kind of punk rock.  Kylinn is for lack of a better term is very world music oriented.  He plays a billion different styles; Brazilian and whatever and so when we mix everything, what we try to do is always try to get to the root of the sound but then change it in the way that we can do.

Dr. Kent:  So tell me a little about, another unique thing about your band is three of you play ukulele.

Scott:  That is true.

Dr. Kent:  Tell me how that came about.

Scott:  I started playing ukulele first because I mostly play the upright bass and I was lugging it around just to go to a jam session or hang around at a friends house and I worked at a music store and there was a little old Martin Ukulele on the wall and it was so small and so fun to play that I just kind of taught myself and over the years everybody in the band has picked it up too.  We like it because you can’t be pretentious when you’re playing a ukulele and you can’t be overly complicated.  It’s just the simplest musical expression that you can do, its just rhythm and chord.

Dr. Kent:  Now your drummer plays a kahon, which is a great instrument, a good friend of mine played that in college.  He plays the washboard, the spoons, and things like that.  The sound, you know anything he can get his hands on.  Tell me about that.

Aaron:  Yeah, well the issue is that he for years has played the giant 25-piece rock drum kit and that sound is fine but we want, you know we do things different and so what we told him was just get creative and come up with it and so he sits on a wooden box and he plays all this manipulated and sound objects that he’s invented.  Then he’s got a drum and a big tree full of metal stuff that he hits and yeah, we want him to come up with textures that no ones come up with before.  So we made him put his drum kit away.

Dr. Kent:  So the album is called The Caged Bird.  The artwork is gorgeous so tell me a little about the artwork as well.

Scott:  Actually with that we were trying to go for the simplest version of a CD we could come up with.  So with that we basically just put two big wings on the cover and then that was about it.  We tried to keep it real minimal and real open and real easy.  As graphic design is changing, I’m starting to notice a lot more simplicity in the artwork.  I think what’s happening is especially with the digital creations, right now like a lot of times you’ll find like a simple image that’s kind of engulfed in digital imagery around it and so with this we kind of just went super, super simple and very rootsy and just stand with one image and very little text and everything like that.  So that’s kind of where we were coming from on that one.

Dr. Kent:  How did you come up with the idea of the title Boulder Acoustic Society?  How did that come about?

Aaron:  I don’t really know, that’s like five years old but the main thing about it is that I wanted it to feel like it was bigger than it really was and when people hear that word it sounds large and important.  And we really approached it as there’s four members in the band but there’s thousands in the society.

Dr. Kent:  Well it’s been a real honor chatting with you and I want to have time to play another tune from your new record The Year of our Lord.  Why don’t you tell me a little about the two tunes Maggie’s Farm and In The Year Of Our Lord from your newest record?

Scott:  Maggie’s Farm, that obviously is Bill’s lyrics but we changed the melody and kind of played it like an old time fiddle tune on crystal meth; we kind of wanted that edge so that song, the lyrics are so universal that we just wanted to put our spin on it.  And then In The Year Of Our Lord is a piece that Scott wrote and that’s kind of like a, if you listen to the lyrics, it sounds like an old murder ballad or something kind of sounding thing.  It sounds old time but it’s got this gospel hip hop feel to it, kind of just too good examples of how we mix things up.

Dr. Kent:  Well the sound is incredible; keep doing what you’re doing.  Tell me about your gig tonight and what you’re on the road for and what the next project is.

Scott:  Tonight we’re at the El Ray Theater in Albuquerque and it’s a big old historical theater and there’s two great local bands opening for us that are really diverse and interesting.  It’s going to be a big party at a great venue.  The show is at nine and tomorrow we’re playing a festival down in southern New Mexico and then we’re actually spending most of September off the road at home because we’re doing a bunch of recording for a TV show and I cant even tell you what it is or what network it is on yet but it’ll be out soon.

Dr. Kent:  Great!  Well the album is called the caged bird; its really beautiful music.  Its wild, it’s punkish and it’s also old-time; I love it.  Thank you so much for being on the show today.

Aaron:  Thank you.

Scott:  Thank you.

Dr. Kent:  Here’s another song from the Boulder Acoustic Society, their latest record The Caged Bird.  This is called In The Year Of Our Lord.

[ Music ]

Dr. Kent:  Well that was a beautiful song from The Boulder Acoustic Society called In The Year Of Our Lord.  Thank you so much for tuning into the show today.  It’s been a great one.  We’re in the middle of political season, only about six days left.  We had some great political guests on the show today; Eric Appleman the author of the Race for the 2008 Democratic Nomination and editor for the Race for the 2008 Republican Nomination, collections of political cartoons.  Second guest was Chris Korzen, author of A Nation for All, how the catholic vision of the common good gave America a politic of division and of course the Boulder Acoustic Society, and Stop Clutter from Stealing Your Life by Mike Nelson.  Have a wonderful week, be safe. Have a good one.  Next week on the show we’re going to have four new guests and be safe and we’ll talk to you then.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Bluegrass, TRANSCRIPTS, Folk, PODCAST 

Norma J. Watts | Nameology

December 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment

 
icon for podpress  Interview with Norma J. Watts [19:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I had a great chat about names and the value of a name with Norma J. Watts. More about her book from the Sourcebooks website:What really is in a name? What does that mean for your baby?Astrologist and nameology expert Norma J. Watts helps every expecting parent explore those questions. By analyzing names using numerology, Watts has crafted a comprehensive guide to using a name’s letters to unlock hidden meaning. Watts instructs readers in the tools of nameology, using famous names such as Martha Stewart, Martin Luther King, and Madonna to further explain personality traits. An A-Z quick reference guide of names along with a chapter on converting names to numbers aids in interpreting uncommon names or those not found in the book.Offering insight for those who want to look past the obvious and explore deeper meaning, The Art of Baby Nameology gives expectant parents a way to preview the personalities associated with names they are considering.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Spirituality, Inspiration, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

Interview with Michael Cleveland | Sound Authors Radio

December 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment

[Music]

Dr. Kent:  That’s a beautiful tune named Troubles Around My Door from Michael Cleveland’s latest album.  Michael Cleveland and Flame Keeper Leaving Town.  IT was released this last summer and now I’ve got Michael Cleveland on the line; welcome to the show.

Michael Cleveland:  Hi sir, how are you?

Dr. Kent:  I’m good man.  That thing was flying!  And the sound of the fiddle in there is just fabulous!

Michael Cleveland:  That’s a mandolin there.  It’s a mid tempo there; you haven’t even gotten into the fast stuff.

Dr. Kent:  Now you’ve played with some amazing groups.  You’ve played with of course some of my heroes, Dale Ann Bradley; she was on the show before and you played with Rhonda Vincent whose one of the hottest bands in the world.  What does it feel like having this amazing album?  You’ve got your second album, or third album this is with this new group.  What does it feel like for you?

Michael Cleveland:  Well it’s really an honor to get by with so many great musicians every day on stage and I mean this band, I’m really fortunate to be able to play with musicians of the caliber of these guys.  It’s an honor to play on stage with them.  We’re really excited about this record too.

Dr. Kent:  The first time I saw you I watched, I’m a big Doc Watson fan and I was watching Gather at the River, the documentary film and there you were as a kid I think still and you were chatting with Doc and you played a tune with him and it was pretty much on fire.  How did it feel for you back in ’93, when you started to get national attention and meeting all these folks?

Michael Cleveland:  Well I’ll tell you what, I was 13 at that time and that was my first time that I was thrilled at the idea.  That was the first time to ever got an idea made so you can imagine a kid 13 years old just in awe of all these great musicians around.  And we just kind of stumbled on the band by accident.  They were picking in a great big restroom believe it or not.  They were in Owensville at IP&A and I walked in and there was Dan Clary and Doc Watson and Tim O’Brien and a whole slew of them just jamming there.

Dr. Kent:  In a restroom?

Michael Cleveland:  Yeah!  And my dad asked if I could play a couple tunes with them and they said well yeah sure get it out.  So it was really an honor to even be a part of that and have part of that documented.

Dr. Kent:  What the coolest part of it was I think was you were less amazed than Doc was.  Doc was pretty amazed by your sound, that you had the sound of the old time fiddlers and that you had some hot licks too.

Michael Cleveland:  Oh well I don’t know about all that; Doc is a great musician and he’s heard a bunch of great musicians that I was just overwhelmed you know?  You can imagine a kid in that situation and that really meant a lot to me getting to pick with those guys at that young of an age.

Dr. Kent:  So how about being on stage with Rhonda Vincent and all those screaming fans.  What did it feel like playing around that mic with a singer like that?

Michael Cleveland:  Oh it was great.  Ron is a great singer and he knows how to put on a show.  He doesn’t let the audience fall asleep.  If it looks like some of the audiences heads are nodding you know it’s going to be a fast tune and she just knows everything about the ins and outs of putting on a great show and it was cool to be a part of that.  There were some great musicians in that band at that time, Ottie Blaylock, Tom Adams and getting to play with those guys, that was a great experience.

Dr. Kent:  How about being on the road.  Of course being on stage is an incredible rush and it’s so much fun but how about the wear and tear of the road?

Michael Cleveland:  Well it kind of goes with the profession.  There’s things that happen, I mean a lot of people that haven’t really been out on the road don’t know.  They’re like you all get to ride around to all these different places; you’re like on vacation every weekend!  And it is fun you know but you really don’t get to do anything, you probably wont see the place you’re playing and of course that’s what we want to do.  I’m not complaining or anything like that but you haven’t lived until you’ve been on a trip where the van breaks down on you and you’re on the shoulder or something like that.  Then you learn about the road but I think that it’s a lot of fun for me to get out and play and we need all these different musicians and fans and things that goes with it.  I couldn’t live without it.

Dr. Kent:  Now you’ve got this album Leaving Town and you’ve won the IBMA’s Fiddle Player of the Year a ton of times now.  What have you got left?  Do you have any big goals left?

Michael Cleveland:  Well this is, we’re getting into the actually this will be let me think, I think it’s the second year of the band and we really just want to see the band thing go as far as it can and we want to reach a lot more people and play wider audiences and we just want to play as much as we can and try to play some good music.  And hopefully make a little money here and there.

Dr. Kent:  Doc Watson always talks about when he gets home he doesn’t really ever want to look at the guitar; when he’s home, he’s home.  Do you ever still sit on the porch and play some fiddle?

Michael Cleveland:  When I’m home I should be practicing but I usually don’t.  But I tell you what I often do and this is well more times than not.  I will jam and play like local shows, even when I’m home I’ve got a bunch of people that I know that I just play with around here.  When I got bit I got bit bad.  I can’t just sit for two weeks and not play some kind of music and I enjoy that.

A lot of people go I don’t see how you can do that, go out on the road and do it and be gone about a month or so and come back and play but that’s what I wanted to do.  I’ve got other little hobbies but music is my main thing that I enjoy doing and I’m lucky enough that it can be a job and a source of income too, but I really love to do it, I love to play just for the sake of playing when I’m home.

Dr. Kent:  Where do you live?

Michael Cleveland:  I live in Charleston, Indiana.  It’s right close to Louisville, Kentucky.

Dr. Kent:  I got one last question for you about the sound of this album.  Right after we get done talking I’m going to play Jerusalem Ridge.  The sound of the album is its not just new amazing bluegrass.  Its fast, its cutting edge, but it also has that old sound in it.  Tell me about how you keep that old sound in there?

Michael Cleveland:  Well, I’ll tell you a lot of it is everybody in the band, all these guys in the Flame Keeper band, we all listen to the same people and that’s the people like Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Jimmy Dempsey and all the great traditional bluegrass bands and we try to not copy what they did but at least have the I don’t know I guess just listening to those people, we’re automatically going to try to play in that way; those people are our idols.  So yeah, there’s some newer things and there’s some newer licks on there that those people might not have played but it’s still based on what they do and it’s still a huge part of what we do.

Dr. Kent:  It’s been a real honor speaking with Michael Cleveland.  I’m going to play Jerusalem Ridge and thanks for being on the show.

Michael Cleveland:  Oh thank you sir and I also want to tell you if you want to check out our website online its flamekeeperband.com.

Dr. Kent:  Flamekeeperband.com; we’ll check it out and thanks for being on the show.  Now here’s Jerusalem Ridge by Michael Cleveland and Flame Keeper Band.

[ Music ]

Dr. Kent:  Well that’s an amazing version of Jerusalem Ridge by Michael Cleveland and Flame Keeper, released on Rounder Records on July 29 of this year.  Check that out on his website flamekeeperband.com, it’s a great website.  Thank you so much for tuning into the show today, have a safe week and enjoy this crisp autumn air.  See you next time.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Bluegrass, TRANSCRIPTS, Folk, MUSICIAN INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

Interview with Carson Gilmore | Sound Authors Radio

December 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent:  Welcome back to Sound Authors!  My next guest on the shot is an author named Carson Gilmore.  He is a young man and he’s written a novel called Boy On Fire.  It’s a powerful cover; all aflame the book.  This book is acclaimed as a 21st Century Catcher in the Rye.  Very critical of the no child left behind act and the school system in the United States.  Welcome to the show Carson Gilmore.

Carson Gilmore:  Hello, hello, thank you for inviting me.

Dr. Kent:  Tell me about the impetus behind the book Boy on Fire.

Carson Gilmore:  Oh well the book was originally about left behind exclusively; I was always a tortured student and I was in high school and I just started some journaling in character.  I don’t know why I started doing that but I had been journaling in character while I was in high school.  When I was there, you know I wasn’t a gifted student and I noticed that I wasn’t the only one who was having all sorts of trouble keeping up and being able to do all the assignments and everything.

There were a lot of students who were somehow getting more dissatisfied with the sort of established quo of education.  I mean there a lot of arts programs that were being cut every year, the nature of the way things were being taught were changing even and I soon realized I got bad eventually.  I realized that I had a sort of unique condition; having dropped out and having all these sorts of journals about the torture system and I just figured well why not put it in the form of art?

Dr. Kent:  My last guest on the show Amiri Baraka was quite critical of the Bush Administration as a lot of people are but now talk about the policies of the government that’s leaving power?  And they have this policy No Child Left Behind, which I believe Obama will now continue but maybe he’ll actually live up to the name.

Carson Gilmore:  Yeah it would be nice if somebody finally committed to what they projected.  No child left behinds been around I think since 2002 and its sort of a continuation of the ESEA, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act signed by Lyndon Johnson and the whole point of it is to bring all of the nations schools up to snuff.  They claim, the agency that got to back up this claim, that everyone who was behind, and the schools were not giving education to the children.  The way they determined this was by a series of standardized tests and what no child left behind is supposed to do is bring everyone up to the place where they should be to bring students and teachers to the same level of achievement all the time.

The great fallacy of this is that no group of students across the board is ever going to do, are not going to score exactly the same way.  So the program, which basically is just a series of tests to being instituted, government mandated tests, it is an attempt to as they claim bring everybody up to capacity but because not everyone can score the same way, what ends up happening is these tests have to be dumbed down sequentially every year to the point where everyone can take them and score the same way, which never really works.

Dr. Kent:  The book itself; now you had the idea of writing a novel based on your own experiences?  Or when did you get that idea?

Carson Gilmore:  Well yeah.  The hero of the book is this sort of tortured musician.  He falls in love with this senior girl who is ridiculously out of his league and those sort of came from my own experiences.  I was pretty isolated all through school and had a strange group of friends and I was always yearning for more.  Part of me was always yearning to be in the accepted set and that’s one of the things I explore in the book that certain people can’t ever really be accepted and they should just embrace the fact that they are on the outside.  There are a lot of strange people I mean we hear it every time.  He meets the brother of the girl he’s obsessed with who is totally burning pyres of hate for those left behind and he gets involved with him.  But a great deal of the book comes from as I said my own sort of torture among the social set in high school.

Dr. Kent:  So your whole book starts out with a quote from John Jacque Rousseau.

Carson Gilmore:  Oh yes I do, yes.  The book starts out with a quote from Rousseau.  That was something that seemed appropriate.  I have it here.  I hear from afar the shouts of the false wisdom, which is ever dragging us onward, tempting the present of nothing and pursuing without pause a future which flies as we pursue that false wisdom which removes us from our place and never brings us to any other.  What that means to me or at least applies to what I was writing about is the whole thing about no child left behind, the false wisdom, basically these corporate powers.

I mean the government and everyone has sort of sold American education out to corporate people for power.  This so called false wisdom which the government is dragging us forward, dragging us into this empty future created not by no child left behind but created by government interference in education.  It brings everyone to a place where in the future we really won’t have any leaders because this generation is being deprived of real education.

Dr. Kent:  Now your book starts in sort of a sensational spot.  You’re on your back in the middle of the dance floor in a tuxedo with a girl’s stiletto heel going towards your head.  Talk about, I mean obviously this is a very male book, in a lot like something like John Irving or Catcher in the Rye Salinger would write.  So what inspired you to write a book with this kind of you know, the drinking and the sort of sexual stuff?  What pulled all of that into your novel?

Carson Gilmore:  A lot of this was extensions of how I had been feeling for a really long time.  I never really got too involved in drinking or drugs or any of the wild sex in high school but I saw it around me and I mean my art personally, the writing is the only way I’ve been able to purge my not fitting into things.  I included all of these aspects in my novel but I didn’t really include them, they came out on their own as I realized that the people I was writing about were being tortured by both their own issues and by the system in which they were placed and it seemed in so many ways that the only way these kind of people can deal with it, since the system isn’t giving them what they need, the only way they can deal with it is by doing some substance abuse and the social abuse and whatnot.

Its part of the ugly part of our generation.  My next book which I’m writing about is the sub-prime mortgage crisis and college students and things like that.  My generation isn’t really given much.  We’re told so much, we are the ones that are really going to matter, we’re the future and we have to take care of ourselves, and everyone is special and the world the way it’s going it’s just for profit.  Everything’s been turned into just a profit machine.  We aren’t given what we need and this is the only way to deal with it sometimes so you don’t end up losing yourself that way. At least so I’ve perceived.

Dr. Kent:  It really is and I remember my time from both high school and college I never really fit in because I didn’t want to I guess abuse myself like the other kids did.  Its fascinating sort of extremes and my time in Europe although we sort of make fun of them for having early drinking age and all of that; they’re much more mature by similar ages by the time they hit 18-20 they’ve got it out of their system, they’re not into all of the splurging and all of that.  What do you foresee in the future of education in this country and is there any way to make No Child Left Behind work?

Carson Gilmore:  What I believe is that the people who created no child left behind weren’t being honest with anyone.  I think they knew to begin with.  Any agency studying this knows that people are never going to score the same way on tests.  The whole thing is for profit, I believe it’s for profit.  One of the provisions of no child left behind is that if the individual schools don’t meet what they call the yearly average progress for six years in a row then after a series of infiltrations, the government bringing in their own teachers and things, they can shut the school down eventually and the way I foresee this, and this is kind of what I’ve gathered from people I’ve talked to.

It’s a radical viewpoint about it but I believe that’s what they want to do and privatize education and make it private the same way that the whole medical world is private.  Something with the national work out because to have certain publishing companies who publish the educational material have their specific companies declared as the only ones who are actually viable, the only ones who can actually teach people.  McGraw-Hill, which is working very deeply by the government, I see it as everything will be private.  All these certain test materials will be able to be used and very few people will be able to afford private education.

There are so many multitudes that can’t afford it and probably by 2014 or whatever it is if no child left behind continues and public education really won’t exist.  That’s how I feel it’s going to go, especially with the economy the way it’s going now and the only way to fight that is from an individual level at the schools.  I kind of get into that in the book.

Dr. Kent:  Well, it’s been an honor speaking with Carson Gilmore.  His website is carsongilmore.com and his book is called Boy on Fire and its been an honor speaking with you.

Carson Gilmore:  Well thank you very much Kent it’s been an honor being here on the show.

Dr. Kent:  My next guest is a musician; his name is Michael Cleveland and here’s a couple of tracks.  We’re going to play a couple of tracks from his album Leaving Town from his new album just released in July.  So here’s a song called Around My Door.

Posted by admin | Filed Under TRANSCRIPTS, Politics, Fiction, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

Nadeem Aslam | Politics & Fiction

December 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment

 
icon for podpress  Interview with Nadeem Aslam [34:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

One of the best interviews I’ve ever conducted. What a pleasure to speak to award-winning author Nadeem Aslam about his most recent book “Wasted Vigil.”More about The Wasted Vigil from the Random House website:The author of Maps for Lost Lovers gives us a new novel—at once lyrical and blistering—about war in our time, told through the lives of five people who come together in post-9/11 Afghanistan.

Marcus, an English doctor whose progressive, outspoken Afghani wife was murdered by the Taliban, opens his home—itself an eerily beautiful monument to his losses—to the others: Lara, from St. Petersburg, looking for evidence of her soldier brother who disappeared decades before during the Soviet invasion; David, an American, a former spy who has seen his ideals turned inside out during his twenty-five years in Afghanistan; Casa, a young Afghani whose hatred of the West plunges him into the depths of zealotry; and James, the Special Forces soldier in whom David sees a dangerous revival of the unquestioning notions of right and wrong that he himself once held.

In mesmerizing prose, Nadeem Aslam reveals the complex ties—of love and desperation, pain and salvation, madness and clarity—that bind the characters. And through their stories he creates a timely and achingly intimate portrait of the “continuation of wars” that shapes our world. 

In its radiant language, its depth of feeling, and its unflinching drama, The Wasted Vigil is a luminous work of fiction. 

Posted by admin | Filed Under History, Politics, Fiction, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

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