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The CHIRP Blog
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writes@CHIRPRADIO (Week of April 3)
Special Events
- Saturday, April 8: Spring is here! It’s time for the annual CHIRP Record Fair & Other Delights! Vendors will be there selling vinyl, CDs, tapes, posters, and more! Vintage Garage and their mini retro-marketplace will be there! CHIRP Radio will be there with station DJs, guest DJs, and lots of activities! It’s going to be a blast..see you Saturday!
New Media
- Jennifer Roger chats with The Radio Dept.
- Julie Mueller meets local Chicago band Nest
- Marites Velasquez talks with Vanessa Briscoe Hay of Pylon Reenactment Society
- Josh Friedberg spells out the sentimental hits he cherishes...whether you like it or not
- Kevin Fullam and Clarence Ewing discuss the movies The Big Short and Song to Song
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesThe Fourth Wall: Song to Song
[Welcome to the Fourth Wall, CHIRP's weekly e-conversation on cinema. This week's subject is the Terrence Malick film Song to Song. This edition is written by CHIRP Radio volunteers Kevin Fullam and Clarence Ewing.]
Kevin: Music reviews have never done much for me. Besides the fact that I find music to be a much more subjective art form than, say, narrative fiction, I simply have a hard time translating a paragraph or three about an album into an actual sound. Let me have a listen, and within a couple of minutes, I'll know whether I want to hear more.
Why am I mentioning this? Because I view Terrence Malick's last few films in the same light, from the acclaimed The Tree of Life (2011) to the new Song To Song. One knows early on whether Malick's style is for them, and I don't think it's possible for me to do his brand justice via print. His recent works all share an ephemeral quality which has polarized audiences and critics alike, featuring scenes that seem to have no clearly-defined beginning or end, oodles of internal monologues, and a dearth of exposition. (You'd think the monologues would actually translate into more exposition, but the voice-overs don't have much to do with the actual action on screen; more often, they're ruminations on life in general.)
Quick recap: BV (Ryan Gosling) and Faye (Rooney Mara) are budding singer/songwriters in Austin, Texas, where they're embroiled in a love triangle with big-time producer Cook (Michael Fassbender). The three pick up new significant others of varying durations, reflect on their aspirations and regrets, and bump into real-life celebs (including Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, and Val Kilmer, among others) along the way.
Susan writesCHIRP Radio Welcomes Loudon Wainwright III To The Old Town School of Folk Music
by Susan M. Garza
Loudon Wainwright III will be performing Surviving Twin at the Old Town School of Folk Music on the 1st and 2nd of April. He is a humorist, singer, songwriter, and actor.
Surviving Twin is a song and storytelling show inspired by Wainwright’s review of his father’s LIFE magazine columns and wartime letters. His posthumous relationship with his father started when he got to laughing while reading the column his father wrote about their family dog. Wainwright wrote he and his “… long gone old man…are getting along better than we ever have.”
A visit to his homepage Lw3.com includes a link to a video of a song he wrote before the last presidential election had come to its conclusion. "I Had a Dream" is a song about what it might be like if Trump were to become president.
“Locked up the opposition and the demonstrators too
“That would be me and it might be you”
Humor is also integral to the song Man & Dog which includes:
“When a man has a dog in the city
a man has to carry him a plastic bag on his person at all times”
If you want tickets to hear Wainwright’s songs and stories in person, get on the waiting list on The Old Town School of Folk Music website. The April 1st & 2nd shows are sold out.
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesThe Fourth Wall: The Big Short
[Welcome to the Fourth Wall, CHIRP's weekly e-conversation on cinema. This week's subject is the Adam McKay film The Big Short. This edition is written by CHIRP Radio volunteers Kevin Fullam and Clarence Ewing.]
Clarence: Kevin, I watched The Big Short twice. In trying to form an opinion of it, I had to look up the word “ambivalent” to make sure I was using it correctly. Turns out I was. I am deeply ambivalent about this movie, and I can’t figure out exactly why.
A brief synopsis: The movie, based on the best-selling book by Michael Lewis, dramatizes events leading up to and immediately following the 2007-08 U.S. financial crisis where the housing market, once considered a bedrock of the economy, blew the F up as a result of Wall Street greed and incompetence.
Three separate groups of hedge fund managers (portrayed by a group of actors that includes Christian Bale, Steve Carrell, Brad Pitt, and Ryan Gosling) see the disaster coming and try to position themselves to make a ton of money by shorting (betting against) the value of the financial instruments they are convinced will soon be in the toilet. The story follows them as they encounter skepticism and ridicule from colleagues while discovering just how far the rot goes when it comes to high finance in the USA.
Josh Friedberg: Music Historian's Corner writesFive Sentimental Hits that I Refuse to Feel Bad for Liking
By Josh Friedberg
You know, maybe it’s just my appreciation of sincerity, but sentimentality can get an unfair rap among many critics and fans. However, sometimes, it can make for classic pop music: think of Bill Withers’s “Lean on Me,” Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” and Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend,” for example.
But for the overwhelming majority of pop hits that could be called cheesy or sappy, there may be a deserving stigma for excessive emotion. That said, I wanted to list five of my favorite sentimental pop hits that deserve another listen. They are ranked, leading up to the one that could feel like the guiltiest of guilty pleasures. And I will defend each pick.
5. “You Are Not Alone” by Michael Jackson
It’s easy to forget that in the last couple decades of Michael Jackson’s life, a lot of his music was panned. Despite the boring melody of this song, penned by R. Kelly, “You Are Not Alone” became the first song ever to debut at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart. And for at least the last two minutes, such an achievement sounds justified. Ignore the steamy video with his then-wife Lisa Marie Presley, and just focus on Jackson’s passionate vocals, backed by a stirring gospel choir. As Little Richard once said of Jackson, “Michael’s one of the few people in rock ‘n’ roll that can really sing.”