Fun 2 Know Podcast

On today's show, composer, alto saxophonist and the new Director of Jazz at Princeton University, Rudresh Mahanthappa. Rudresh Mahanthappa came out of Boulder Colorado, was educated by Berklee College of Music and DePaul, and received national attention not long after moving to New York in 1998 where he soon beginning collaborating with the then up-and-coming, now major jazz force, pianist Vijay Iyer. Besides making a series of major statements with Iyer, Mahanthappa has collaborated with guitarist Rez Abbasi and trumpeter Amir ElSaffar for some of the freshest and most-ground-breaking jazz releases of the last decade. He's won the yearly Downbeat Poll multiple times, has had a string of recordings under his own name for Innova, Pi Recordings and the Clean Feed label.and BIRD CALLS, honoring the work of Charlie Parker is his latest on the ACT Music label. Rudresh has reached out to the Princeton community, checking in with WPRB in Princeton, where DJs have been playing his music for over a decade. He dropped in to WPRB's studios late in his first semester teaching there, and was very warm and open, excitingly talking about his plans for the Princeton Jazz program but he also talks about learning his craft in primary school, taking the alto saxophone into the future, working with the elusive Bunky Green, losing a sax in Hurricane Sandy and what's next in his recording and performing career. Artists like Rudressh and Vijay Iyer and their many collaborators, as well as guitarist Mary Halvorson, pianist Matthew Shipp, bassist William Parker, flutist Nicole Mitchell, and still-vital elder statesmen like drummer Jack DeJohnette, composer Henry Threadgill and countless others are what make the weekly jazz show I program at WPRB-Princeton seem to endlessly rejuvenate, despite uninformed naysayers repeating that “jazz is dead” nonsense.

Mary Lattimore has been lending her harp to a number of avant rock recordings for over a decade, as well as releasing her own haunting improvisational work for labels including Thrill Jockey and Ghostly International. Our conversation was recorded just days before Mary left Philadelphia (where she lived for a decade) to relocate in Los Angeles. We talk about her relationship with the harp, the music scene that came together in Philly in the 2000s, making music with Thurston Moore, Jarvis Cocker, The Arcade Fire, The Valerie Project, and Kurt Vile, composing music for soundtracks, playing the classical world vs. the rock world, The American Harp Convention, NKOTB, gentrification, her move to L.A. and more. You can find out more about Lattimore's work at marylattimore,net

On today's show, violinist Diana Monroe. I spent most pf the 90s living in San Francisco and when I returned to my old home of Philadelphia around 2000, I was struck by how rich a pool of musical talent existed in Philadelphia, particularly across the world of Philadelphia jazz. A great place for talent spotting is in Bobby Zankel's incredible jazz orchestra, The Warriors of the Wonderful Sound a striking group led by saxophonist and composer Bobby Zankel whose numbers can swell to a dozen and beyond, all instrumentalists that can play the music to the highest standards. But for me, Diane's fiery and passionate violin playing always stood out as particularly beguiling and brilliant. Entering her name in Google and looking at her credentials informed me on how rich and varied her career has been, from leading the string quartet in Max Roch's ground-breaking Double Quartet, to playing with Wynton Marsalis and Yo Yo Ma and touring with Barbara Streisand, Monroe has been a first-rank session musician and in recent years has turned her attention to jazz improvisation. We finally got to sit down and have a conversation at the studios of WPRB to talk about her music and her life recently, we'll hear that conversation as well as sample her music, in duo with vibraphonist Tony Micelli, with Max Roach's Double Quartet, with The String Trio of New York and finally, alone with a solo piece. I was completely charmed talking the Diane and impressed at how completely she's committed herself to the music.

It's the return F2K's most popular guest, musician and songwriter Kenn Kweder. Our two-part episodes 6 & 7 squeezed in a lot of Kweder's story, growing up in Philly and playing hundreds of gigs a year for decades on stages between New York and Baltimore but mainly in and around Philly, where Kweder is nearly a household name. In the year and a half since he has been on the show Kenn has been the subject of a feature-length documentary, ADVENTURES OF A SECRET KID: THE MASS HALLUCINATION OF KENN KWEDER. Directed by John Hutelmyer, the feature has screened locally and is currently playing the festival circuit. We discuss the film and as you'd guess, a lot more in a slightly melancholy conversation in which Kenn recounts a number of friends who have passed away over the years, but also touches on Pokemon, Miley Cyrus, maintaining friendships in the world of social media, playing prisons and casinos, the secrets of Lithuania, Philly free form radio pioneers, the secret accelerator of the cocaine epidemic, and the proper way to handle yourself in a crack house. We'll hear some excerpts from The Leaves, the mysterious Nikki Jaine and performance poet pioneer Marty Watt. Kenn also brings his guitar and we'll hear a trio of tunes before the episode runs its course.

Today it's conversation with writer, music journalist, WFMU DJ and record producer Kurt Gottschalk. Originally out of Illinois, Kurt's earned a masters at the Columbia School of Journalism in 1997. He has written about arts and politics for All About Jazz, Signal to Noise, Time Out-New York, The Village Voice, The Wire and publications in Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Russia. He has twice been recognized for "best feature writing" by the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalist. He also has hosted the Miniature Minotaur radio show on WFMU. He's also the author of two works of fiction, LITTLE APPLES: A STORY CYCLE and SENTENCES. Kurt's cover story on guitarist Loren Connor is the cover story of the June 2016 issue of the British magazine The Wire. I became familiar with Kurt in the most modern of ways, a mutual Facebook friend neither of us really know saw our shared interests and recommended that we became Facebook friends. We both have avid interest in jazz music, 20th century rock and pop music and experimental sounds. We met for lunch about a year ago when Kurt was down from New York City for a Philadelphia trip and when we planned to meet up in early summer for a show from the Philadelphia chamber choir The Crossing I took the opportunity to sit Kurt down to record a conversation at the show kitchen table studio. We discuss Kurt's love of avant gardist Anthony Braxton as well as his record collecting roots, getting cheated by the Kiss Army, living in Chicago in the 90s, John Zorn's New York, Kurt's work with guitarist Loren Connors, the late Bernie Worrell and being visited by Prince in his dreams.

Today show, an epic conversation with artist and painter Skirmantas Pipas. Skirmantas Pipas is a Lithuanian-American artist in the process of painting fantastic otherworldly landscapes that serve as History Paintings of a world yet uncharted. I first met Skirmantas (aka "Skip") when he briefly worked at a Philadelphia cafe in my neighborhood, a lovely spot called The Chapterhouse, where Skip revealed himself as an unusually thoughtful and perceptive 29 year-old. Only after getting to know him better did he share his story as a 21st century American Immigrant relocating from Lithuania to Philadelphia in the years after the Soviet Union's collapse. Living under the Soviet system and the West, has given Skip a rich perspective on our country and our moment in time. Over our expansive conversation Skip discusses arriving in the U.S. as a non-English speaker, navigating the city's somewhat insufficient English as a Second Language program, attending art school, we discuss modern Lithuania, ROBOCOP, Iphones, I-Pads, Gaming and the internet, and the interests and concerns that Skip is working into his paintings. There is an eloquence to Skip's insights that I found particularly intriguing as I pieced together this episode, I think you'll enjoy the ideas he brings to this week's show. The F2K studios went mobile to the back room of Skip's West Philly apartment, and you will a steady array of passing sounds in the background, circular saws, car alarms, sirens, crashes from the other room that I'm embracing as a certain aural scenery of the bustling neighborhood of West Philly.

Today our guest is novelist Beth Hahn. Beth received her masters in writing from Sarah Lawrence and has had her short fiction published in The Hawai'i Review, The South Carolina Review, The Emrys Journal and Necessary Fiction. Her debut novel THE SINGING BONE through Reagan Arts in hardcover, e-book and as an audio book as well. The book is a sort of psychological thriller following Alice, who along with three friends in 1979 fell under the spell of a con man named Jack Wyck. A horrible act of violence occurred that changed the course of these people lives and the story continues twenty years later, when true crime fans begin to search for the answer of what ever happened to Alice after these violent events. We talk to Beth about the novel, its writing and its ramifications as well as talking music, the 1970s, religious cults, free range kids, teenage girls, and "zebra wealth"...

Today, our first show to feature two segments, and three guest as we welcome film director Jeremy Saulnier and Will and Brooke Blair, known professionally as The Blair Brothers. The Brothers are childhood friends of Saulnier's who have scored all three of his features as well as writing and performing with two popular Philadelphia bands over the past decade and a half, the hip-hop group Infectious Organisms and the dreamy pop rock group East Hundred. The third Blair brother, Mason Blair, was the lead in Saulnier's 2014 breakthrough film BLUE RUIN playing the haunted murderer at its center and he has supporting roles in both Saulnier's first film, 2007's MURDER PARTY, a gore satire about young artists in Brooklyn as well as Saulnier's latest, THE GREEN ROOM. THE GREEN ROOM gives Saulnier's nuanced work a wide release for the first time as the film is being marketed to young audiences as a seat-clutching thriller. It succeeds admirably on that level, helped immeasurably by performances by a top-flight set of actors, including Anton Yelchin of Jim Jarmusch's vampire pic ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE and Chekov in the Star Trek reboots, Imogen Poots from Terrence Malick's most recent film KNIGHT OF CUPS, Alia Shawcat of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT and the Starship commander himself, Patrick Stewart. We discuss Saulnier's body of work as well as Brooklyn today, film funding, what Saulnier's future looks like and what THE GREEN ROOM might be saying about America today.

On today's show, musician blogger and label owner, Jim Slade. I met Slade back in the mid-80s, when his band Nixon's Head was a regular in Philadelphia area clubs. A five-piece rock and roll titan, The Head specialized in loud rock and roll inspired by 60s garage pop nuggets and the early New Wave all brought to life by a quintet of close-knit friends. Their shows are some of the most joyous rock and roll shows I've ever witnessed and they were a big part of a under-documented Philly scene of the mid to late 80s, sharing gigs with similarly-minded bands like The Ben Vaughn Combo, Baby Flamehead, Sky-Grits, The Wishniaks, Electric Love Muffin as well as the Dead Milkmen, whose reputation spread world-wide. You can check out all these bands and more on a compilation called “You're Soaking in It” a compilation produced by New York rocker Palmyra Delran, released in 1988 on Apex Records Although the Head broke-up for a few years in the early 90s they soon reformed and have continued on for over three decades now, recording a number of releases, their most recent being the 2014's MOD!, a dual disc with the band The Donuts. In late April, the band will play a one-time only gig at The Boot & Saddle in Philly as THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, performing a set of your favorite Clash tunes, as long as your favorites are pre-COMBAT ROCK. Outside of his time with The Head, Slade is the Moderator on the popular music blog ROCKTOWNHALL, a spirited forum to discuss the aesthetics of classic rock and roll, you can find them at rocktownhall.com. Slade also founded the Groove Disques label, which besides releasing Nixon's Head music has distributed releases from the bands Trollyvox, The Knife and Fork Band, Dave Ragsdale and the Stiff Records tribute disc, "The Stiff Generation." You can find out more at groovedisques.com I met with Slade a few weeks back at the Fun 2 Know kitchen studio, our conversation fueled by Jim's as-yet unfinished memoir, entitled AND IT WAS ALRIGHT, named after a line form the Velvet Underground tune “Rock And Roll.” It is an inspiring honest and intimate look at growing up in love with rock and roll in the 70s and 80s that also touches on family strife and the struggle of a young man to forge a place in the world. It's a music-drenched, extended conversation between two rock and roll disciples, littered with many asides and a batch of great tunes from across Nixon's Head's discography, hope you enjoy it.

F2K Ep. 24 William Parker Among the most prominent New Yorkers in the world of contemporary jazz and creative music, Parker first gained notice playing with the groundbreaking pianist Cecil Taylor in the 1980s and has gone of to release dozens of his own recordings on numerous labels internationally as well as on his on Centering label. Parker has worked extensively with many of the most-uncompromised talents of his time including David S. Ware, Matthew Shipp, Billy Bang, Charles Gayle and Jeanne Lee. For me, he is a favorite artist among musicians worker today with an endlessly searching quality that makes each of his many diverse releases a discovery. Much like his music, I was delighted to find the man to be of big ideas and goods humor and our time together seemed to go by much too soon. We discuss Parker's beginnings on the bass, his love of foreign films, The NYC "Loft Scene" of the 70s and 80s, "The Hallelujah Stage," his late collaborators Billy Bang & David S. Ware, his poetry and other writing, The Vision Festival and future projects. This conversation took place in May of 2014