Tag: Music

Tiger Radio, named for the school mascot

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Our local radio station is licensed to the high school. Seriously. And it’s as quirky as KHBR-AM 570 in the legendary TV series “Northern Exposure,” even without Chris Stevens as the DJ. Or I’d contend, even more.

The television show never got into young people, for one thing, but there aren’t many in Sunrise County, where the seven public high schools together have about 200 graduates a year, half of them from just two schools. A private academy adds another 100. It’s a long stretch, by the way.

Pointedly, Eastport’s Shead Memorial High has only about a hundred students, down from 300 a few decades earlier, and a faculty of 11, some of whom also teach at the junior high or elementary. The principal serves all three. The school proudly proclaims its emphasis on personalized education, which I applaud. What’s obvious is the incredible student-faculty ratio.

One big challenge is in trying to find ways to lure more of the younger generation into staying put here. Maybe the economic tide is changing in that direction.

In the meantime, the radio station gives them an opportunity to learn production skills. In fact, the station started out as a school club in 1983 and took off from there. Throughout the day, the station’s IDs feature the different kids, however bashfully, and it’s charming.

Much of the programming is a stream of music, a mix of blues, jazz, rock, country, bluegrass, and more, I’m assuming streamed from somewhere. Yes, and there are public service announcements as well as the honor rolls and other local touches. Truly. And then the DJs kick in, including some of the kids, with surprisingly sophisticated tastes.

They’re not the only ones.

The station’s modest tower sprawls over the high school. Here it’s seen from the front.
And from the back, by the gym.

The local demographics skewer sharply upward, and volunteers at the station are welcome. In fact, they create much of its most distinctive programming. As I was saying about do-it-yourself participation?

There’s Cracklin’ Jane, with only 78 rpms, a weekly theme, and radio dramas from a golden age, including commercials for brands that no longer exist. And others like Sam’s Caffeine Café, yes, it’s redundant, but mostly acoustic Americana two mornings a week; the Bass Lady’s informed insights into anything with a bass line, Chloe’s folksy Friday afternoon transition; Firedog’s Electric Doghouse, Boldcoasting; and the like.

Well, this is a town filled with eccentrics and geezers. Its low-power radio station reflects that. And to think, it all started as a school club in the ’80s!

I think of it as Radio Free Eastport, broadcasting to the free spirits on and around our islands.

Dealing with the off-season in a tourist town

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Come the first touch of chill here, and three-quarters of the population begins to vanish. Those folks quietly pack up and return to their primary residence, as have the many tourists. It rather reminds me of living in a college town, but in reverse.

Downtown Eastport in the off-season. The Tides Institute and Museum sits in the old bank building in the center of the scene.

The waterfront and downtown are no longer crowded and festive. Many of the stores, galleries, and eateries are closed up, as are the whale watch, water taxi, and passenger ferry to Lubec. By Halloween, roughly two stores, a diner and a restaurant plus a gallery or two remain open downtown, plus the IGA, two banks, and Family Dollar over on Washington Street.

It makes for a challenging business model, trying to pay the rent and all on a four-month retail prime time. Here the highly watched Black Friday, the make-it-or-break-it financial hurdle of American retailing, doesn’t wait till the day after Thanksgiving but probably hits sometime around the beginning of August.

I have to admire the entrepreneurs who manage it anyway, especially those who stay open through the slim volume of the two-thirds of the year when Eastport’s remote fishing village nature is most prominent.

It also means a lot of do-it-yourself involvement. If you want to see movies, you join the film society. Music? Pitch in with the choir or orchestra. Theater? You guessed it. Dining out? One of the neighboring towns must be having a church supper. Seriously.

And you turn out for others.

Yes, it means more work than just sitting on the sidelines, and with a small population, keeping things going can be a struggle.

But one thing I’ve noticed. It doesn’t take long to be appreciated when you take part.

 

Some notable New England pipe organs

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The region is rife with some stunning instruments and their makers. Start nosing around, and you find them nearly everywhere. For starters, let me mention …

  1. Symphony Hall, Boston: Wish they’d showcase it more in performances but it really looks great.
  2. Busch-Reisinger, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Used by E. Power Biggs to advocate a then-revolutionary awareness of the classic and baroque sounds Bach was grounded in. Many new organs were commissioned with this ideal, while others were “slimmed down,” often ill advisedly.
  3. St. John Methodist/Grace Vision church, Watertown, Massachusetts: A four-manual Aeolian-Skinner instrument that escaped the Biggs’ touch, retaining what’s described as a sweet sound but in need of some serious, costly restoration.
  4. Methuen Memorial Music Hall, Methuen, Massachusetts: Built in 1909 to house the first concert organ in the United States after the instrument had been placed in storage. More than 6,000 pipes in what’s probably the largest hall built solely for an organ.
  5. Memorial Chapel, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Only the best for the best, and they do their best to maintain it. Or them, since the church has several in its space. Used daily, and visitors welcome.
  6. St. John Episcopal, Portsmouth, New Hampshire: An impressive instrument for services, but the tiny Brattle Organ up at the front right of the balcony is believed to be the oldest playable instrument in America. It was rescued from Boston and is said to have a bell-like sound.
  7. Merrill Auditorium, City Hall, Portland, Maine: The Kotschmar Organ built in 1911 by the Austin Organ company was the second largest organ in the world at the time, and it’s still a musical monster, as the ongoing series of concerts demonstrates. Organs were, after all, a mainstay of live entertainment as well as church services.
  8. St. John Methodist, Dover, New Hampshire: The 1875 Hutchings’ instrument was rescued from the old church in 1970 by two Boy Scouts when the congregation moved to a new site and then stored in a barn for 17 years until it was installed in the new sanctuary. The builder also created the first organ for Boston’s Symphony Hall.
  9. Durham Community Church (UCC), Durham, New Hampshire: A lovely two-manual baroque-style instrument, as the local guild of organists proved for a Bach birthday celebration a few years back.
  10. First Parish (UCC), Dover, New Hampshire: A hybrid machine with a classic New England core that’s been augmented several times and now includes electronics. Big sound, as the likes of Cameron Carpenter and Hector Olivera have proved in their appearances as part of an ongoing concert series. The bass notes can really make the whole house shake … notes you feel in your feet and then your ears.

~*~

Not to leave Roman Catholic churches out, let me mention the Casavant instruments built in Quebec and found throughout New England. As an example, when the Shaker Village in Enfield, New Hampshire, was purchased by a monastic order, a Romanesque chapel was inserted into the site and a marvelous Casavant was installed, as I heard on a visit to what’s now mostly a museum.

I also want to mention Houghton Chapel at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, as another fine period instrument, one with hand-powered bellows rather than electrical fan. The bellows fellows sometimes get a bow of their own at the end.

Some of my most memorable folk music events

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I’m also quite fond of folk music. Here are some concerts at the top of my list.

  1. Peter, Paul, and Mary in Dunn Meadow, Bloomington, Indiana, 1968. Also performing were Phil Ochs, Tom Lehrer, and a raft of others.
  2. Bill Harley and friends at Friends General Conference, Kingston, Rhode Island. The friends included Sally Rogers and Reggie and Kim Harris.
  3. Joan Baez, St. Louis, 1964.
  4. Fiddler Lissa Schneckenburger. She blew us away when she sat in as a teen guest with the contradance band Yankee Ingenuity in Concord, Massachusetts, and later in concert, Rollinsford, New Hampshire, when she also sang.
  5. David Francey at Mill Pond, Durham, New Hampshire. Also on the billing were Bill Staines and bluegrass band Lunch at the Dump.
  6. Pete Seeger in Akron, early ’80s. Charlie King was part of the show.
  7. Peter Blood and Annie Patterson, sometimes just sitting down together after dinner at yearly meeting.
  8. Mike Seeger in a survey of the development of roots styles in America, Bloomington, 1969 or early ’70.
  9. Patty Larkin, Prescott Park, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Twice.
  10. In the chorus at the Revels equinox concert along the Charles River in Boston, five years, if I’m counting right. It’s impossible to describe the joy of working with Noel Paul Stookey, for sure.

Cutting to the core about Wagner

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Is the German Romantic opera composer the biggest successful egotist in the history of art? (He couldn’t even compose an effective symphony, yet look, he couldn’t trust anyone else with a libretto, either.)

He was definitely stuck in a Madonna/whore complex regarding women and, more specifically, women within further Roman Catholic entanglements like relics and grails and a sword or spear or two. Where was Freud? Talk about symbolism? It all gets pretty lurid, even before we get to the serious limitations regarding his immortals. I wouldn’t call them gods, exactly, but rather something more like today’s tainted celebrities and political hopefuls. What losers! So badly dressed, at that.

He definitely wouldn’t have gone for today’s fashion supermodels, either. Everything in his world is hefty, leading to some of the most sumptuous music ever. Seems nobody ever asked how he really felt about his mother. Give me some more sumptuous scoring, please.

And yes, he goes way over the top, including the seemingly endlessly boring stretches of boredom.

As Mark Twain said, he’s not nearly as bad as he sounds.

Not that he can apparently help it.

But then, as critic Alex Ross has elaborated, he’s also the foundation of Hollywood, from the plots and scenery all the way up. Think of the thousands involved in each movie and then the music.

For years now, I’ve been explaining opera as the movies of their time. Turns out to be more accurate than I imagined.

Care to boogie?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In my novel What’s Left, Cassia’s family turns an old church into a hot music center. It seemed like a natural extension from their restaurant.

Where do you go to hear live music?

~*~

Well, when an old church something like this came up for sale next door to their home, how could Cassia’s family resist? They weren’t about to turn it into a parking lot, either.

Glorious auditoriums in my life

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Often, the halls where I’ve encountered the most incredible musical performances have been pretty utilitarian. Some were cramped, others had questionable acoustics or sight lines, and many were bland to the eye. Something, quite simply, was missing.

The big auditorium at Indiana University comes to mind or the related high school where the weekly Saturday night operas were presented or my hometown’s Memorial Hall and National Cash Register Company’s venue. (NCR’s back in the day before naming rights.) Even Philharmonic Hall in Manhattan, as it was known then, or Chicago’s.

Here are ten I remember quite differently, with fondness.

  1. Music Hall, Cincinnati. The acoustics up in the second balcony, where I usually sat, were crisp and clear. The two-tier Italianate horseshoe balcony looked timeless. And the proscenium was encased in a lacework of small golden lights. Yes, it was a large hall and still is, even after some judicious trimming. Home of the Cincinnati Symphony, as well as the opera and May Festival. My favorite of all time.
  2. Musical Arts Center, Bloomington, Indiana. Designed primarily as an opera house, it has some of the best technical support for creative stagecraft in the New World, and acoustics to match. It’s a small theater by American standards, a plus for the singers and audience alike, and its three-tier balcony makes you feel like you’re onstage when it comes to observing the action. The hall’s still flexible for orchestral and ballet performances by the world-acclaimed Jacobs School of Music students and faculty and guests.
  3. Sanders Theater, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. It’s like an indoor version of Shakespeare’s Globe, with plenty of glowing wood all around. It’s a small stage, although the Boston Symphony used to play there in its early days. For us, it’s the home of the Boston Revels’ Christmas productions, first and foremost.
  4. The Meyerhoff, Baltimore. Opened in 1982 in the Mount Vernon neighborhood, the hall is a delight that includes clean sight lines throughout the auditorium and wonderful spaces for audiences before, after, and during intermissions. When I lived just up the street, folks in the know were still lamenting the orchestra’s move from the Lyric Opera House a block away, but I never had an opportunity for comparison.
  5. Symphony Hall, Boston. For many, this is the ideal hall, rich in history. Two-thirds the size of Cincinnati’s, its acoustics are often praised, but I sense it’s a case of the sound onstage, where musicians can hear each other with ease, versus what’s heard in the audience. (Carnegie Hall in Manhattan is a similar situation.) I’m hoping to get back, maybe taking the train down for a Friday afternoon BSO concert.
  6. Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory, Boston.  Having undergone an expensive restoration, it’s a jewel of a historic concert hall. Just the right size for performers and audience alike.
  7. Severance Hall, Cleveland. It’s like being encased in pearls, the best I can explain it. The orchestra’s summer home, the Blossom Music Center, has a similar feel, except it’s in glowing wood and open on all sides – I’ve always heard the concerts while sitting on blankets on the sloping hillside.
  8. The Peristyle, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio. The open space is more like an Italian garden without the greens. The idea of attending concerts in an art museum leads to other memories, especially Dayton’s delightful hall with tapestries on the wall or Manchester, New Hampshire’s, before the additions.
  9. Akron Civic Theater, Ohio. A wonderful example of preserving an old movie house.
  10. Music Hall, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A small horse-shoe balcony type house built in 1878 for vaudeville and lovingly restored, it’s home to everything from live music and dance to lectures to classic movies and the Met’s Live-in-HD series.

~*~

Let me add honorable mentions to Mechanics Hall in Worcester, Massachusetts, and Faneuil Hall in Boston. I’ve been inside both and am impressed but have yet to hear a live performance in them.

 

Some things about NW grunge

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Although I’ve concentrated a lot on the hippie end of the counterculture revolution, I’m not that conversant in many of its more recent manifestations.

Considering the events in my novel Nearly Canaan, when Joshua and Jaya settle into a place unlike anything they would have imagined, out in the desert on the other side of the mountains from Seattle, I see I need to pay attention, especially since grunge entered the scene just a little later.

Here are ten points.

  1. Sometimes called the Seattle Sound, grunge was a blend of punk and heavy metal revolving around the local independent record label Sub Pop and featuring a distorted electric guitar sound. (I’ll let others define both punk and metal.) And then it took off into the ’90s and mainstream.
  2. The lyrics are typically angst filled of a socially alienated sort. Apparently, we could do a Tendrils right there.
  3. Kurt Cobain’s suicide in 1994 likely played into its demise.
  4. Its mundane, everyday style of clothing sharply contrasted to punk’s mohawks, leather, and chains. It also featured Doc Martens boots, wool flannel plaid shirts, and thermal underwear befitting the Pacific Northwest.
  5. It was seen as anti-consumerist. The less you spent, the cooler you were. Cobain’s widow Courtney Love was the embodiment of the thrift-shop philosophy.
  6. Males, especially, had unkempt hair.
  7. Espresso, beer, and heroin have been cited as its three main drugs.
  8. It led to a distinctive graphic design based on “lo fi” or low fidelity imagery, with intentionally murky lettering, photography, and collage enhanced by desktop publishing and digital image processing on Macintosh computers.
  9. The appearance of ‘zines, often of a literary sort, blossomed as an off-shoot of this. I’ve appeared as a poet in many of them, mostly photocopied and stapled.
  10. Some see the movement as introducing non-binary sexual awareness to the wider culture.

~*~

Can’t help thinking this sounds like hippie on a downer trip to me.

What’s your take on grunge?