Roy Zimmerman | Satirical Singer and Songwriter

October 1, 2009 | Comments Off

Dr. Kent: Hello, everyone. It’s a beautiful day here in New York. I’m excited about this show’s new format. Every week’s going to be a little bit different. This week, I’m excited because there’s five music guests and one author. Authors of sound are featured on today’s show, and we always feature sound authors and authors of sound. My first guest on the show is Roy Zimmerman, and he’s going to tell us what’s so funny about war, poverty, ignorance, bigotry, neo-conservatism, homophobia, greed and fear. I’m excited about it. Welcome to the show, Roy.

Roy Zimmerman: Thanks very much, Kent.

Dr. Kent: Tell me about comedy and music, do they fit together?

Roy Zimmerman: Certainly not [laughs]. Man, if they don’t, I’m out of a career. I think I’m just sort of wired to equate the two.

Dr. Kent: So are you out of material during this new Obama administration, or are you just fueling off of all this craziness surrounding healthcare and all that?

Roy Zimmerman: Well, I wondered when Obama was elected, and nothing went wrong ever again, what I would write about. But, obviously there’s quite a bit to write about. Census workers being hanged, and, you know, right? There’s stuff that I can write about, definitely.

Dr. Kent: The comedy, the satire for you really does come out of these serious things. Imagine how awful it is in the country today that something like that could happen. He survived cancer too, right, and had a kid?

Roy Zimmerman: Oh yeah, he was apparently a model employee and so forth. It is amazing: this rise of this, if I may be so bold, sort of idiot nation, this kind of notion of America as a lot of lone individualists with no social connection whatsoever. So I’m putting together a new record called ‘Real America,’ where I talk a lot about what it is to be a real American.

Dr. Kent: Wow. Yes, it’s kind of a co-opted term, isn’t it, “American,” at some point?

Roy Zimmerman: That’s right. If you look at human history, you’ll realize that the first real Americans were actually Russians because there were people who migrated across the Bering Straight and came down. After they were Russians, they were Indians, quote, unquote [laughs]. So it wasn’t until Europeans arrived here that the real Americans started.

Dr. Kent: Have you written a song about ‘you lie’ yet?

Roy Zimmerman: About which now?

Dr. Kent: ‘You lie,’ that call out.

Roy Zimmerman: Yes, yes. Not about that incident in particular. That incident is indicative of a whole kind of mind set. Congress I think has become another Civil War reenactment.

Dr. Kent: It’s amazing.

Roy Zimmerman: Yes, I think some of those congressmen and senators are saving their confederate money.

Dr. Kent: Yes [laughs]. Well, it’s a pleasure chatting with Roy Zimmerman. He’s got a great website: RoyZimmerman.com. There’s some good comedic pictures on there, but there’s some real content as well. We’ve got a couple songs here, I’d like to play one that we’ve got. ‘Creation Science’ and ‘To Be a Liberal.’ Which one should we start with here?

Roy Zimmerman: Start with ‘Creation Science.’ This is a song that I’ve got up on You Tube, and it’s made something of a splash there.

Dr. Kent: Here we go, ‘Creation Science 101′ by Roy Zimmerman. Let’s listen to it, here we go. Yes, we’re having some technical difficulties. We’re not able to actually play that track. So, let me talk again to Roy while we’re trying to figure out what’s going on. Tell me what’s on that track; we’re having some technical difficulties playing it.

Roy Zimmerman: This song is about creationism, and teaching that in the public schools, which is what they want to do. I say, teach that. Teach that and the Norse-Odin myth, and the Karmic Wheel, and Scientologist version which states that the world was created on a bet between God and L. Ron Hubbard. Teach it all.

Dr. Kent: Creation and science are so often thought of as contradictions in terms, right? So creation science 101 [laughs].

Roy Zimmerman: Sure. You know the thing is that I wrote that song and then I come to find out there’s a guy named Kent Hovind down in Florida who actually teaches a class called Creation Science 101. That’s an example of humor that isn’t necessarily intentional.

Dr. Kent: Exactly. So let’s listen to the track, ‘Creation Science 101.’

[Music]

Dr. Kent: Well amen to that. That’s a great tune from Roy Zimmerman called ‘Creation Science 101.’ Great tune!

Roy Zimmerman: Thank you! An onslaught, isn’t it?

Dr. Kent: [Laughs] So, it’s been an honor chatting with Roy Zimmerman. We’re going to have to go, but on the way out, I want to play another song. Tell us about this song, ‘To Be a Liberal.’

Roy Zimmerman: ‘To Be a Liberal.’ I come from Marin County, which is sort of the bluest county in the bluest state of the Union, and it’s a lovely place to be, and we just pat each other on the back, and untie those macramé things that people did in the 70s, it’s wonderful. But I did want to get out across the country and bring a message of hope from the great Bay Area.

Dr. Kent: All right, well, it’s been an honor, and we hope to talk to you again.

Roy Zimmerman: Thanks, Dr. Kent!

Dr. Kent: All right, let’s listen to ‘To Be a Liberal,’ by Roy Zimmerman. Here we go.

[Music]

Dr. Kent: That was a great tune from Roy Zimmerman. Hysterical, for sure!

Posted by jamie | Filed Under Comedy, Concerts in Your Home, TRANSCRIPTS, Folk, MUSICIAN INTERVIEW, PODCAST

Peter Siegel | Radical Roots Music

September 30, 2009 | Comments Off

Interview with Peter Siegel [15:53m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

From his website:

Peter’s music is a melting pot of radical Americana. With roots in the Hudson Valley of New York, Peter was raised on Phil Ochs, lefty Jewish politics, the post 60’s environmental activism of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Pete Seeger, the old time square dance scene, Warner Brothers cartoons, Jimi Hendrix, and 70’s and 80’s pop. Put that together in a warm stew and you’ve got the mix that is Peter Siegel’s Radical Roots music.

The story began as a red diaper grandchild was trained by his violinist grandfather classically at the age of 3. From there, piano and classical guitar were corrupted by the 70’s folk scene in New York. Somewhere in between there was an awkward new wave mullet BUT in the last ten years Peter’s work as a singer songwriter, music teacher, kids’ performer composer, and player of roots music and fiddle tunes on a whole mess of stringed instruments has earned him acclaim locally and around the nation.

As a father and activist, thinking and acting locally come first. Traveling’s gotta, and will happen, but staying around home and biking to a gig is even better!

Posted by jamie | Filed Under Pop, Concerts in Your Home, Bluegrass, Comedy, MUSICIAN INTERVIEW, Folk, PODCAST

Roy Zimmerman | Satirical Singer and Songwriter

September 29, 2009 | Comments Off

Interview with Roy Zimmerman [13:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

From Wikipedia:

Roy Zimmerman is a Californian satirical singer-songwriter and guitarist with outspoken left-wing opinions.

In the early 1980s, he wrote a series of satirical musical reviews which were presented in association with the San Jose Repertory Theatre, including “YUP!” (1984) “Up the YUP” (1985) and “YUP it UP!” (1986). The musicals parodied the excesses of the evolving Silicon Valley culture associated with the term Young Urban Professionals: hence “YUP.” The songs from these reviews — like “Teen-age Computer Tycoon” and “The Bay Area Crawl” and “I Want to Be in a Pepsi Commercial” — have remained in the memory of Bay Area professionals long after they, and Silicon Valley, have ceased to be young.

He was the founder of the Southern California folk quartet The Foremen, which performed at the national conventions of both major American political parties in 1996. Zimmerman then went on to become a solo act, writing and performing humorous songs on increasingly political subjects. Zimmerman said, “There’s nothing funny about World Peace. Social Justice never killed at the Comedy Store. If we ever attain a worldwide consciousness of peace and justice, I’ll be happily out of a job. But as long as there’s poverty, war, bigotry, ignorance, greed, lust and paranoia, I’ve got a career.”

Zimmerman performed his song “Chickenhawk,” an indictment of those who approve of militarism as long as they and no one they know has to be directly involved, at the counter-events to the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City. His songs are played regularly on the Doctor Demento show.

Roy Zimmerman lives and works in Marin County with his wife and frequent collaborator, Melanie Harby, and their sons Joe and Sam.

Posted by jamie | Filed Under Concerts in Your Home, Comedy, Folk, MUSICIAN INTERVIEW, PODCAST

Interview with Circus Contraption | Sound Authors Radio

November 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent: What a song! That’s a tune by Circus Contraption called Elephants on Parade. Circus Contraption is a non-profit collective of more than a dozen physical performers and musicians. They come out of Seattle Washington and their music is extraordinary. I haven’t seen the act, but the music is amazing. I’ve got a couple guests on the show; one is Kevin Hinshaw and the other is David Crellen and they’re both from Circus Contraption. I guess David is not answering but we have Kevin on the line. Welcome to the show.

Kevin Himshaw: Hey, how are you doing?

Dr. Kent: I’m great. Tell me a little bit about this Circus Contraption. What is this? When I stumbled across it, I thought it was just music but it turns out it’s a whole theatrical work. Tell me about it.

Kevin Himshaw: Yeah it’s true. It’s a beast with many heads. So yeah, people will come across it in many different ways. But the group started and it’s now in its tenth year. It’s a small troupe of about 13 of us based in Seattle, Washington that yeah has been performing circus arts and music and in various ways for those ten years. So yes, if you come to see one of our full productions, you’ll see jugglers, acrobats and aerialists, puppetry, some clowning, all intermixed with more theatrical elements and we have like a six or seven piece live band that accompanies the whole thing and plays live original music for all of our shows.

Dr. Kent: That’s what I love is I heard the music and said man, these guys know how to play. There’s an element of Tom Waite’s, there’s an element of the real circus in there. What inspired the music? The acting? What am I not seeing onstage when I’m listening to the music?

Kevin Himshaw: Well, I mean yeah, there’s elements of the surreal and the physical performance and musically there’s certainly some Tom Waite’s influence and Danny Elfman and kind of the Tim Burton type things sometimes. From the music side, we have many members of the group who’ve written music over the years so we pulled musical influence from all over the place too. It ends up being a pretty interesting mish mash of things that somehow manage to hold together despite their disparate origins.

Dr. Kent: Tell me about what these, what your events are like? How does it happen? How does it hold together?

Kevin Himshaw: Well, I mean it varies. I typically think some of our biggest productions we’ll put together like a two hour full-length theatrical production. That’s more like going to a circus themed theatre than say going to Barnum & Bailey Circus Show but you have all the performers and musicians there for that and we usually do that run for awhile. We’re based in Seattle but we’ve taken that show on tour and have gone to New York to do it off Broadway a couple of times and I hope to do that again.

We’re taking kind of a variety version of that to push through a few of our shows through November. So that’s one thing that we’ll do. Right now we’re doing a series of weekly cabarets that are a mix of performers from our own group and performers we know who are here based in Seattle. It’s actually a pretty thriving circus community or we’ll put together a variety cabaret show each Friday night involving the acrobats, aerialists or whoever we get to come in and play music for them and stuff. So we’ll do that and we put together a super scary Halloween show for Halloween, which is the tradition of our theatre. There’s always a variety of things we can do.

Dr. Kent: I have a couple of questions for you. One of them is, I had the pleasure of hanging out with a fellow named A.J., who was the original Ronald McDonald, but he grew up as a carny. He grew up as the son of a man who owned a traveling circus and he told many stories that really turn heads. He’s working on a book and there’s so many ideas I mean talk about the carnival atmosphere. What it used to be like at a carnival.

Kevin Himshaw: Well let’s see, what can I say about that? I think we try to draw on some of that you know. We had done some of our shows and tried to create some of that before the show that midway feeling of you just walk in the door and you’re overwhelmed by the sights and smells and walking through the games.

We would have games for people to play as they came in. its certainly one of the things that people associate with the sort of seedy underbelly aspect of the fact that you’re going to see the show and be entertained by these people. But there’s something rather unsavory about the characters involved and so that aspect is kind of important to this and its something we seem to convey I think sometimes in our group. Whether or not that’s us in real life or not.

Dr. Kent: You yourself, Kevin Hinshaw, I guess your name is Camelio on stage?

Kevin Himshaw: Yeah, that’s me onstage.

Dr. Kent: And you are a clarinetist, pianist, accordionist, composer, treasurer, webmaster, director of small packages according to your website. What does this group mean to you? What is this all about?

Kevin Himshaw: Well, its been I mean a group that I’ve been a member of the group for over eight years now so its something I wanted to do as a little side project that had a way of taking over my life but it’s a really fun, interesting group of people who are able to tap into this darker side of entertainment that I think people enjoy and particularly right now.

So it’s a fun, yeah, its I’m not sure what the best words are to describe it but it seems to be one of the things where if people normally hear the circus then there’s an association with you think of kids, animals, elephants, and ring masters and that’s not us. We’re a different version of that; we’re not that type of circus. It’s more adult and we do some performances for kids but it’s always been aimed at an adult audience.

You know, kind of the red velvet curtains, candles on the table kind of feeling so that you can anyway. It’s that, there’s something that it taps into that I think people enjoy because it’s a little less wholesome than you think of a traditional circus being.

Dr. Kent: Apparently you also have a PhD dissertation. Are you Doctor Hinshaw?

Kevin Himshaw: Technically, I’m Dr. Hinshaw yes. I have a PhD in computer sciences. That’s my other life. I lead kind of a split life.

Dr. Kent: Wonderful. Well it’s really a pleasure speaking with Kevin Hinshaw of circus contraption. I’d like to play another song here and hopefully we’ll have a minute to chat afterwards. I’ll play the whole song. Would you rather hear Raining Pianos or We’re All Mad?

Kevin Himshaw: Oh I say go for We’re All Mad.

Dr. Kent: Talk about that song for one second.

Kevin Himshaw: Oh, this is one written by one of our key main songwriter/singers right now. So this is the first track off our most current album, definitely written from I think he and some friends were having darker visions of where this world is headed and I think that was the inspiration beyond the song.

Dr. Kent: It’s a song called We’re All Mad from the album Grand Traveling Dime Museum by Circus Contraption. Here we go.

[Music 51:04 – 54:22]

Dr. Kent: What a song from Circus Contraption, the song We’re All Mad. Kevin Hinshaw is my guest on the show; we’ve got about a minute left. Tell me about that sound and about the show. Is this something you want to keep going? What’s your plan?

Kevin Himshaw: Oh I mean it’s something we’re hoping to keep going. We had a new full length show we did earlier this year that definitely was a hit. That’s coming up as to kind of where we’re going next. I think we’re planning on trying to bring that in February or so of next year and run it here and hopefully try to get that out on tour. So that’s something we’re looking forward to.

Dr. Kent: The sound is just extraordinary to me. I’m a huge fan of Tom Waites, a huge fan of Out Jazz and the funny thing is that there almost seems like there’s a little bit of metal in there. There’s almost a little bit of folk music. Its fascinating sounds coming out of that album.

Kevin Himshaw: Well thank you very much. I think we’re able to tap into a variety of styles and pull them all together.

Dr. Kent: Well it’s been an honor speaking with Circus Contraption. Their website is circuscontraption.com. The newest album is Grand Traveling Dime Museum. I wish I had the chance to check them out when they come to New York. I’m going to do my best. It’s been an honor speaking with Kevin Himshaw. We’ll see you next week on Sound Authors. It’s been a real pleasure speaking with Erica Ferencik, author of Cracks in the Foundation. That’s a book about real estate and about the comedy; her character is selling an outhouse.

The second guest we had on the show was Nuala Gardner, she’s the author of A Friend Like Henry and we talked about autism and all of that. In the political season, autism has come up between the candidates; it’s a fascinating story, it’s already an international bestseller.

My third guest was Richard Singer, author of Daddy, What is Success? And more interestingly of course wants to break the Guinness book of world records record for the quickest run across the country in 46 days. My last guest was Circus Contraptions Kevin Hinshaw, the clarinetist, composer, treasurer and much more. Be safe, we’ll see you next week.

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

Circus Contraption | Show Music

November 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Interview with Circus Contraption [20:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Crazy amazing music from Circus Contraption. We spoke with Kevin Hinshaw (Chameleo) from Circus Contraption about their music and their show. More about them from their website:

In classic circus fashion, Circus Contraption performances feature live, original music. The Circus Contraption Band plays quirky-jerky loony-croony gypsy carnival opera music, both to accompany our full-circus shows and to aurally ambush patrons at finer musical establishments far and wide.

You want us to describe what we sound like? Sometimes spooky, sometimes strange, sometimes raucous, and sometimes sweet. Imagine an off-kilter carousel accompanied by Halloween music gone wrong. At any given moment, you could hear accordion, banjo, clarinet, musical saw, trumpet, marimba, trombone, tuba, guitar, bass, theremin, 3 lead vocalists, washboard, violin, saxophone, drums, beer bottles, rusty junk and elbow grease.

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