Murmur Digital Radio
Summary: Where craft meets culture. Hosted by The Modern School of Film’s Robert Milazzo, Murmur is a prescient tour through our sight and sound culture; featuring scenes, songs, and an array of guest tour-guides from all sides of the brain. See you there.
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Podcasts:
The DJ. Certain figures, certain forms, certain words survive in time because they were simply great from the jump. The DJ has gone from "great idea" to "transcendental figure" in no time. And, as the age of curation only strengthens, so shall the spell this hybrid artist (half-lover/half-craftsperson) casts. Cue: pioneering DJ, Pete Tong! There is an underbelly, however; as the DJ-life is, ironically, not for the romantic. Long nights short rests, and expectations to mix for the masses. Hang the DJ? Nah. Long may he and she reign/rain.
Identity. The classic ideal of identity is a detriment. The Stoics should have been more clear -- yes, "Know Thyself"; however, know that you are the sum total of multiple compounds, not merely a carrier identity. Kevin Barnes knows this. His many faces, styles, curiosities, sounds, stories, genres, personae...are all one. Oh, and by the way, he's also a huge Cleveland sports fan who loves a meditative baseball game at the Jake. Surprised? Here's your chance to not be.
The Rockstar. Certain ideas need to be revisited; surprisingly, this is one. It is our p.c. culture that's taken it from us? Is it our long-overdue examination of what allowances artistic professionals are granted? Or, is it that everyone now is called a "Rockstar" except Rockstars? Only one occupant of interplanetary craft can untie this knot - Frankie Poullain of The Darkness - offering-up his own definition of the word; who's "in", who's "out", and who should be scared.
Legacy. A maddening topic, typically deflected. Perhaps, as with cats, there are far too many variables to manage; rather, as with Rashomon, no two people see their legacies, let alone those of others, similarly. To make matters more vexing, when one's legacy is connected to nine other Killa Beez (aka The Wu) straight from the slums of Shaolin, why even bother? We trouble U-GOD with our complexes; he, in turn, picks-up the flag and holds it high and, as always, raw.
Art as Autobiography. Consider the source of all painting, cinema, music, performance, and literature. Genre notwithstanding. The source is Self. Life. Details, echos, remembrances and references of our "real" life, midwifed into creation. Conscious or not, narrative or not -- art is always about what we're going through at the time. Acclaimed writer Paul Auster probably disagrees. And he should. As this author of iconic literature - including five memoirs (!) - has always been in the eye of the self-reflexive storm of creating, he would only feel its calm. Assuming there is one.
Murmur 76 : Guy Maddin "The Stupidest Man At Harvard (In Praise of Beloved Aunt Li'l)"
The Artist-as-Parent. Singer/songwriter/musician José González provides us an exclusive, beyond-rare opportunity to share his (and Mom's) navigation of the early months, hours, days, and seconds of their baby Laura's life. Do artist/parents read "how-to" books or are they uniquely intuitive? To wit, does parenting make artists of us all, or fools? It's also humbling which decisions are made pre-birth, pre-sound, pre-geography, pre-art. Laura, naturally, will have the final say.
Faith. In all forms. Secular, religious; man-made and ephemeral. What gets you out of bed, everyday? Efrim Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mount Zion) reviews his own journey in-and-out-of Faith. Totems useful and elusive. Is religious-faith the only kind possess-able? In the absence of faith is meaning even possible? And, are artists priests of a sort? Light topics for a complex mind.
Fear. A baseline for many. That timeless of motivators; back and forth. Such thins line, though, as fear continually masquerades as hate (and "phobia"). Hamed Sinno of the band Mashrou' Leila has been banned, labeled, censored, cursed, followed, chased, reviled, revered, applauded, lauded, targeted and blamed; yet, never silenced. Fearless. Well, maybe a fear or two has crept (and crawled) in along the way. No one is immune, entirely.
We're all from somewhere else, no? If one were, however, to sketch-out the concept of "The Outsider", know that those who make-home in a country/community/culture outside of their birthplace, can potentially reflect, contribute, protect, nurture, extol, farm, and touch a world in ways no "insider" ever could. Asking Alexandra's Ben Bruce has no fear of the Expat. Here, he explores both the currency and privilege of living a life somewhere else; and why he's continually drawn to a life naturally impervious to homesickness.
The two edges of "Intelligence". One is steeped in curiosity, humility, and understanding; the other, in fear, judgement, and power. Which will you choose and how will you apply it? Here, filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer carves us a path; including the value in words such as "genius", "master", "masterpiece"; and whether or not art can in fact increase one's "Intelligence".
Don't be a tourist, be a traveller... or, so they say. But do they also say that to musicians? If so, then why do most musicians continue to "tour"? Is it a means of rebooting? Surviving? Seeking? Erasing? Healing? Communing? Curing? Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie) has utilized movement as a agent for all of the above; as well as a conduit for lessons he continues to pass on. Lessons co-promised both in art and in love.
Most pioneers are dead. So when we have one on the show, it’s humbling. Especially one we grew up listening to Monday-Friday for five-and-a-half hours a day; once for 24hours straight. As Mike Francesa has left his weekly radio show and “power chair” after 30 years, we (and he) finally get our lives back. So, let’s talk about it with the man, himself -- A teacher without students. An artist without a brush. The icon who now seeks a new audience.
There is a word that signifies a perpetual state of fandom. A state that artists never surrender to, no matter how accomplished or revered their work. The word... Mondo. Edison, Welles, Kubrick were Mondo; so was Picasso. Jock is a modern master of this über-genre; an artist whose singular DNA can be seen in his best-selling posters for Carpenter’s “The Thing”, Del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” & Deodato’s “Cannibal Holocaust”; as well as in Ava/"Ex Machina" and an Aurebesh Easter Egg he left for his son in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (a small, indie film in which Jock served as Costume Concept Artist.)
There is an internal, human art to acting, independent of the technical execution of craft. Which human elements feed that mechanism? Or, as Brando once said, are we all “merely actors, everyday”? For Jeff it begins and ends with two gifts; one from his mom (his “first acting teacher”) and one from his dad. We’ll give you a hint... Time and Love. Five years in the making, Jeff joins us to cover the Art of the Actor, up to and including (sigh) the art of retirement. Rage on.