Tonight Jack and Kay Enyart brought me to the Downtown Artists Space in the Los Angeles Downtown Arts District to record a webcast interview for Art With Enyart, Jack’s bi-monthly show for LA Artstream.

Meet Jack Enyart, animation artist/writer/agent/consultant, my friend since junior high school, and host of the show, and Jonathan Jerald, producer of LA Artstream, Mark Walsh, our director, and Kay Enyart, soon to be head of the pattern-making department at the Pacific Design Center’s Academy of Couture. Jonathan turns out to have visited or lived almost every place I have visited or lived in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 60s and early 70s. Amazing that we never met before.

Twilight in the first floor of the Downtown Artists Space.

DAS’ classic artist loft kitchen

I sit with Jack on the set for soundcheck. I am wearing the Living on the Earth illustration print dress that Tokyo fashion designer Aya Noguchi made for her autumn line in 2007. The interview was fun, and, at the end, I played on guitar and sang “Sometimes It Takes A Long Time,” one of my original songs from my CD What Living’s All About.  You can see the show HERE.

Listen here for a wide-ranging 38-minute radio interview with me by Alastair Gordon, author of Spaced Out: Radical Environments of the Psychedelic ‘60s (2008, Rizzoli), in which he featured illustrations from my books Living on the Earth and Being of the Sun, which I co-wrote with Ramon Sender. Alastair Gordon also interviewed Ramon Sender for this radio series, which was part of Art Basel Miami Beach 2008; you can listen to his interview on the same page. You can pick up a copy of Alastair’s wonderful book here.

Joe Dolce and I, along with Nick and Tanya Alva, did a live radio interview and performance at 10 PM PST, Thursday, November 13, on KPFA Pacifica Radio in Berkeley, on Derk Richardson's show Hear and Now. You can listen to the show from the internet; here's the link.

 
Joe Dolce and I are friends from our commune days in the early 1970s. He lived for a while at Star Mountain, the music commune I started in 1971 with the money from the Random House advance for Living on the Earth. He’s been living in Australia for nearly 30 years now, but we’ve been in touch by email, and he visited me in Hawaii four years ago.

Recently Nicholas Alva created the Morningstar musical, based on the story of Morningstar, the first Open Land commune, which begat Wheeler Ranch (where I wrote Living on the Earth), which begat Star Mountain (where I met Joe Dolce). Nick solicited original music from people who lived on those communes, and selected some of mine, some of Joe’s, some by Ramon Sender, and some by Lou Gottlieb, the founder of Morningstar, philosopher, and comedian/bass player of the Limeliters.

Joe, Nick and I cooked up the idea of this concert by email, and I insisted that Nick reprise Joe’s and my songs from the show with the original cast (in full hippie regalia) as a grand finale. And so it is.

Do come if you’re nearby, and please forward this blog post to any of your friends in the Bay Area who might want their minds expanded over that weekend.

My Hawaiian Hanukkah song, Festival of Lights, has been getting some airplay from podcasters this year. You can listen to it here.

Festival of Lights was podcasted on Washington Travel Cast 12-01-07

Festival of Lights was podcasted on Ed’s Mixed Bag 12-15-07

Festival of Lights was podcasted on Podcast Ping 12-17-07

Festival of Lights was podcasted on Power Ogg 12-18-07

Festival of Lights was podcasted on Becoming 12-20-07

Oh, they’ve been a long time coming! And now, THEY’RE HERE! Go to the site, download any/all of these 8 Talk Story Radio shows, featuring the tellers & tales of Hawaii & the Paicific Rim (and friends)...and please subscribe, FREE! There’ll be many more shows coming a few at a time for a good year to come! YES!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/TalkStoryRadio

To SUBSCRIBE: go to feedburner above, choose preferences, copy address (above) & paste into ‘Subsribe to podcast. OR do a search in iTunes for Talk Story Radio.

JEFF GERE hosts TALK STORY RADIO, a weekly show sponsored by the City & County of Honolulu’s Parks Department featuring the tales and tellers of Hawaii (and related friends). No, Hawaii has no snakes – yet. Enjoy, and subscribe!

Snake!

4 SSNNAAKKEE Tales by 3 tellers: LYN FORD (from Ohio, at Talk Story Festival ‘05) shares a hilarious creation joke/myth. JIM LEWIS (Talk Story Festival ‘95 guest) with 2 tall tales from the Sierra Mountains. The Big Island’s pro teller SANDRA MacLEES tells between Jim’s tales. JEFF GERE hosts.

Ready For Bed

READY FOR BED in songs & tales. JOHNNY MOSES tells the BEAR & ANT (Northwest traditional tale, why days are so long (and short). The Big Island’s JACK BOYLE reads his poems “Marina Of The Wash-Me Sea,” “Johnny Jump-Up,” and “The Yawn” throughout. MAKIA MALO (Kalaupapa, Molokai) tells his “Babby Bottle” tale. ANGELA LLOYD sings “Baby Southwind” and, ending the show, “Bye ‘n Bye.” JAMES McCARTHY tells of his “Sleep-walking Brother.” JEFF GERE hosts.

Kids Fear New Pig Snips

Four FEARSOME KID Tales called NEW PIG SNIPS. Huh? After 5th grader John Sahne’s family scarey, ETHNOHTEC (awesome duet from San Francisco,) tell ‘The New Ghost’ (NEW). BRET FETZER shares his odd original fairytale, The Romantic Pig (PIG), and MARGARET READ MacDONALD shares the eerie folktale of SNIP SNIP. JEFF GERE hosts.

Death International

INTERNATIONAL TALES of DEATH. ANGELA LLOYD recites the Carl Sandburg poem, ‘The Junk Man’. BRENDA WONG-AOKI (with musical score by MARK IZU, tells ‘Monkey Defeats Death’. Slam poet LUMENZ 1 scores & raps his ‘Mortuary Rhyme’. A gorgeous few lines by TOM WAITS leads into JOEL BEN IZZY’s tell of ‘King Solomon & Death’. Big Island pro SANDRA MacLEES closes with the epic ‘Egyptian Journey of the Soul Into Death’. JEFF GERE hosts.

Peace Tales by MacDonald

FIVE PEACE TALES collected & written by MARGARET READ MacDONALD in her book PEACE TALES. They are told by Ms. MacDONALD herself and the Big Island’s JACK BOYLE at the Talk Story Festival 2003. Hosted by JEFF GERE.

Sweet Earth

Gorgeous SWEET EARTH Tales shared by 5 storytellers. BARBARA STEVENS-NEWCOMB shares a Central American tale, ‘The Woman Who Outshone the Sun.’ DAVID NOVAK tells a brief parable. RAFE MARTIN shares a trilogy of short true experiences of grace. Kupuna MARIE SOLOMON (Hawi, Big Island) tells of ‘Healing Aunt Nancy’. Finally, NONA BEAMER tells ‘The Golden Lehua Tree,’ music by her son, Keola Beamer. Hosted by JEFF GERE.

Two Miraculous Fish

TWO MIRACULOUS FISH Tales. BRET FETZER (Seattle, Washington) tells his macabre, fascinating original fairy tale, ‘The Elegant Fish’ at the Talk Story Festival 2001. ALTON CHUNG (Portland, Oregon) follows with the Japanese folk tale, ‘Koji The Priest’ (who painted fish). JEFF GERE hosts .

Love is Sacrifice

3 tales of LOVE’S SACRIFICE. ‘I’m Hungry,’ a Marshall Islanders tale told by Dan Kelin. Will Hornyak (Portland, Oregon) tells the ‘Yakama Salmon & Rattlesnake’ tale, and Alton Chung tells the Korean story of ‘The Pheasants Bell’ with Les Adam on piano. JEFF GERE hosts.

Breaking news:

Jeff Gere will receive the 2007 Oracle Award for Service in the Western Region from the National Storytelling Network in St. Louis at the National Storytelling Conference! Also, his CD, RANK DEVIL MOUNTAIN, received ‘HONORS’ as an ‘Outstanding Storytelling Recording’ for 2007 from the national ‘STORYTELLING WORLD’ Resources Project (out of Tennessee). AND Jeff’s website now takes Paypal, so now you can buy his story CDs for $10 each (discounted from $17) online, OR by mailing him a check at PO Box 37495, Honolulu, Hawaii 96837.

FOUR NEW PODCASTS AT THE FEEDBURNER: Maui (Luia Jensen), Mahukona Heiau (Marie Solomon & Jeff Gere with Les Adam), Momotaro (‘Tita’ Kathy Collins & Karen Yamamoto-Hackler), and Beautiful Hawaii (Nona Beamer with Keola Beamer, Hina Kahanu, Jeff Gere with Les Adam, and Dawn Wasson).

Arthur Kopecky and Alicia Bay Laurel at the panel discussion at the CSA conference.

Listen to the panel discussion. 

Alicia Bay Laurel, Ramon Sender, Delia Moon and Arthur Kopecky, four authors who each lived in more than one commune during the late ‘sixties and early ‘seventies in northern California, discuss the significance of those communities at the 30th annual conference of the Communal Studies Association, an international group of scholars who present papers on communal societies of many eras and locales.

Ramon Sender, Delia Moon, Arthur Kopecky at the panel discussion.

The panel is chaired by Timothy Miller, a much-published author on communal societies, professor at University of Kansas, and founder of the Communal Studies Association. The panel discussion took place on September 30, 2006 at the Marconi Conference Center in Marin county, California, a site which was once a commune run by Synanon.

Friday, January 26, 2007. I visit Andy Olson and Cheryl Sweet at Radio Free Phoenix, their home-based local and internet radio station, for an interview.

Andy Olson is a veteran DJ of the early 1970’s FM radio revolution, which, he told me, played a big part in creating the singer/songwriter phenomenon of those days. The commercial stations on AM wouldn’t play the thoughtful, political and psychedelic music that was born of the consciousness boom of the late 1960’s, but a bunch of maverick DJs used the unwanted FM bandwiths of the time to promote these songs. After they proved there was a large listening audience for the new singer/songwriters, the big labels began to pick them up and the commercial stations began to play them.

Andy and Cheryl in the recording studio of Radio Free Phoenix.

However, now that a few media megaliths own the great bulk of the radio stations and play only whatever the big record companies are promoting, a similar revolution is taking place on the Internet radio.  Maverick DJs are playing "indie" music,  that is, self-produced recordings by singer/songwriters that do not conform to the commercial norm.  That's me.  Thanks to artist Tracy Dove for giving a copy of What Living's All About to Cheryl Sweet last summer, and to DJs Andy Olson, Cheryl Sweet, Liz Boyle and Miss Holly King for playing four cuts from the CD ever since.

Andy told me that, since many commercial stations simply computerize their programs and no live DJ actually chooses or comments upon the music, in-studio radio interviews with musicians rarely air. But on non-commercial station programming and on Internet radio, the DJs and hosts welcome all kinds of content, including live interviews.

Considering the service that independent stations render to the community, they ought to be well-funded. However, most are running on scarce donations and volunteer work. Cheryl works nights as a cardiac nurse in a local emergency room, in addition to hosting her own radio show and, with Andy, raising four children. The station owes its continuation to her efforts.  Andy predicts that with the expansion of "wi-fi" (wireless internet connection) to cover entire cities, Internet radio will one day be as ubiquitous as conventional radio.

I loved being interviewed by Andy Olson and I hope you’ll enjoy listening to us. Click here to pick up a podcast of it.

Here’s a podcast of America the Blues!

http://www.archive.org/details/AliciaBayLaurelAmericatheBlues

It’s an in-your-face protest song, featuring avant/rock guitar legend Nels Cline and a seeming cast of thousands, including Great Lakes Indians and humpback whales. Alicia Bay Laurel goes skronk.

Keep up with my music and work by subscribing to my podcast
channel

My Odeo Channel (odeo/a594d480ca9f11e4)

My second podcast, 1966 from my 2000 album, "Music From Living On The Earth".

This link will take you to the channel so you can subscribe to the podcast.

My Odeo Channel (odeo/a594d480ca9f11e4)