Category: The Arts
Playwright and dramatist Alana Valentine shares her approach to telling the stories of individuals and communities across her works including Parramatta Girls, Letters to Lindy and My Beautiful Man, and for the State Library of NSW exhibition Send for Nellie.
Bluejuice frontman Jake Stone shares some of his vocational history with creative pursuits in music and comedy, following from a discussion of Jake's special interest in martial arts and how it relates to his experiences of school bullying. The song excerpt opening this episode is 'Act Yr Age'. Other songs and videos discussed can be found at wideopenairexchange.com. The comedy and music chat starts at 36:27, if you've already heard the radio broadcast about martial arts.
Greg Poppleton shares the origins of his interests in swing and jazz music of the early twentieth century and archival radio broadcasts of the era that he carefully curates and presents in non-stop mixes for his long running radio program The Phantom Dancer. Greg is a singer in that style and leads a Roaring 20s speakeasy dinner show, and he's an actor on film, TV and stage and currently featuring as Joe Keller in a production of Arthur Miller's play All My Sons
In part two of this chat with author Nicholas Graham we hear about his vocational pathway to becoming a novelist of historical fiction, and what horse riding and reading Latin have to do with this vocational pursuit. This follows an earlier episode about Nicholas' debut novel The Judas Case which is set in the first century with a biblical backdrop and told as a master detective story.
Author Nicholas Graham shares some of the thinking behind his genre bending debut novel The Judas Case which imagines: what if Judas had been working for the Temple police all along? It is both a work of historical fiction set in the first century with a backdrop of the gospels and a reimagining of the narrative of the Passion as a master detective story. This is not a work of religious faith, but this conversation has been shared in time for your Easter listening.
This episode of the Wide Open Air Exchange was recorded with a live audience at the Powerhouse Museum as part of an event celebrating recorded sound, music, radio and audiophile content. We learn about DJ Soup's lifelong interests in sampling and beat-making as a pioneer of the Australian hip hop and trip hop music scene in the 1990s and beyond, as well as his experience playing professional basketball for the Sydney Kings.
Yirrmal joined us via a studio in Yirrkala in North East Arnhem Land to discuss his music, culture, and community connections. Yirrmal shares how his earliest memory of music was as a child playing on stage with members of Yothu Yindi (one of the most famous Aboriginal musical groups) and how growing up in Daliwuy Bay and listening to his elders' stories inspired his song writing. This conversation has been reshared on 26 January which is a significant date in Australia's colonial history. The Wide Open Air Exchange regards that date as a commemoration not a celebration and a moment to focus on Aboriginal perspectives. This is a quote from Yirrmal during the interview: “All of the songs for Yolgnu people it’s pretty much like bringing people together and making a unity as we are one people of Australia. And so our song it’s about healing – healing the times, healing the past – what it was before – and then we’re hoping for the better future to come to everyone living in Australia. We are all Australians”.
Catching up with film enthusiast Davis Rivera about what we've seen at the cinema in the past year and our recent streaming habits. We also draw on Davis' academic studies of film at the University of Oxford for an analysis of why 'Jeanne Dielman' (pictured) topped the critics list of best films of all time in the once a decade Sight and Sound poll.
Tim Ritchie got his first radio gig as a school student and went on to carve out a place for innovative music on the radio as a broadcaster and music curator in a career spanning 46 years to date. Tim shares insights from his vocational experiences, including how being an introvert made him suited to radio and being a club DJ, along with philosophical thoughts on the meaning of life. This episode contains short excerpts of music by Prince Far I, Robert Johnson, Status Quo, Captain Beefheart, Centriphugal, Derek and the Dominos (and The Pogues in our theme).
On hearing the news of the death of Angela Lansbury, I recorded this personal reflection about her influence as a role model of someone doing great work later in life. I quite often remind myself that I've not yet reached the age that Angela Lansbury was when she made Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and I think of what could be possible in the next few decades of my vocational life. Coincidentally I had been thinking of Angela Lansbury before going to bed last night and woke up to the news of her death this morning, Sydney time. I expect there will be others making similar reflections, but here's mine all the same. Thank you, Angela Lansbury, for being a role model of someone who happily did not retire.
"Urbanist" is only one of the vocational descriptors for Dr Sarah Barns who has an interesting and varied vocational life at the intersections of academic research, public art and creative practice, and policy and strategy, with some of her specialities being in Urban Research and Digital Futures. Here we discuss Sarah's early influences and interests and some of the thinking that informs her interdisciplinary approach.
Talking comedy, hip hop and radio with MC and broadcaster Danny Chifley aka Banga. It takes a few minutes to wrangle the conversation from Banga comedically riffing about his form as an altar boy to getting deeper into his experiences with music creation and radio broadcasting. Banga has been making music for more than 20 years including hip hop with Chaos Maths and Dirtbox Kings and more recently making electronic, ambient and experimental sounds with Vape Dadz.
Yirrmal shares insights about his new music, community connections, culture and country in North East Arnhem Land and his experience developing his song writing as a new generation artist.
Clare Atkins shares her experiences of scriptwriting for television and researching for novels as well as insights from her role as a development executive assessing proposals for new television programs.
Visual artist Tom Swain aka Dript shares his experience of discovering an expression through art after struggling at school with ADHD and dyslexia. Tom shares his experience of realising he’s an artist and the stories behind some of his artworks.
Tim Hansen is a music composer, youth arts tutor, and satirical cabaret performer. Tim advocates for investment in the arts and is optimistic that Covid lockdowns have reminded people of the value of shared cultural experiences.
Film scholar Davis Rivera shares his favourite films of the 2010s including narrative films, documentaries and a couple of exceptional stand-out series. Davis has kept a record of his personal ratings of films since he was aged 13 and has a database of more than 3000 film ratings. These are his picks of the decade.
Boy & Bear guitarist Killian Gavin shares thoughts on some of the albums which have been influential in his musical awakenings—Cat Stevens' Tea for the Tillerman, Neil Young's Harvest, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and Tamam Shud's Evolution—as well as other reflections on song writing and live performance.
In this 90 second edit from a podcast conversation about crate digging, Danny Chifley aka Banga explains which parts of two songs from the 1970 album Band of Gold by Freda Payne were sampled in the creation of the 1988 hip hop song 'Strong Island' by J.V.C. F.O.R.C.E.
Danny Chifley a.k.a. Banga is a familiar voice on Sydney radio station 2SER where he hosts Friday Drive and co-hosts the hip hop program Hardcore Classic. He is a funk, soul and hip hop music aficionado who has recorded and performed as part of the groups Chaos Maths and Dirtbox Kings. Banga has an impressive vinyl record collection and here he shares five albums to look out for when crate digging in Australia.
Old-time is a genre of American folk music which developed in the Appalachian Mountains region from a fusion of British/Irish folk and West African musical traditions. Joe Glover is banjo player for the band Shelley's Murder Boys and he explains the roots of old-time music along with sharing techniques for playing the banjo and banjo making. Joe also plays harmonica for the blues band Backsliders.
From Ovid's Metamorphoses to the poetry of Charles Bukowski, the textual nuances of Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and the genre-bending of Jamaica Kincaid's The Autobiography of My Mother, Sarah Houillon shares insights from her broad interest in literature and her own artistic inclinations. Sarah has been a fellow of New College, Oxford where she taught French literature and language and a member of Pembroke College, Oxford as a graduate of English literature.
For the 50th anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, a companion episode to The Beatles' album with Chris Bayne from The Oxford Beatles edited from a discussion of every Beatles album in episode WOAE028.
Theologian Dr Chris Deacy from the University of Kent in Canterbury specialises in analysing the intersections of religion and secular films. Chris explains his approach with reference to popular films including Groundhog Day and Fight Club. We also discuss some philosophical questions about religion and Chris shares stories from his formative years and his discovery of film and theological studies.
An explanation of why The Jungle Book was recognised for best visual effects at the Academy Awards. Below is an excerpt of my pre-Oscars conversation with James Whitlam from Framestore. James explains the visual effects techniques used in the film based on the five categories it won at the Visual Effects Society Awards beginning with Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature.
Learn about the films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects this year. You'll hear industry and technical knowledge from James Whitlam who is executive producer of film at Framestore in London where he's currently in final delivery on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Previously James worked with Iloura as a producer on Deepwater Horizon, which is one of the nominees this year, and with Rising Sun Pictures on five of the Harry Potter movies, Wolverine, Superman and other major Hollywood films. James shares insights from his 25 year career in visual effects.
Tim Sampson is communications director for the Soulsville Foundation which runs the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, the Stax Music Academy, and the Soulsville Charter School in Memphis. We discuss the history of Stax Records including artists Booker T. Jones, Otis Redding, Jean Knight, the Staple Singers, and Isaac Hayes as well as the establishment and operation of Soulsville which Tim has been involved with since day one.
Miss Joyce is a Memphis soul/R&B singer with an inspirational story. Joyce Howard-Hemans was a preacher’s kid who found a secular spirituality and left home at fourteen to carve out her own place in the world. She’s faced hardships including a period of homelessness and losing multiple friends to gang violence and she’s channelled her experiences into her music and songwriting.
Don Cusic is Curb Professor of Music Industry History at Belmont University in Nashville. He's been in the music business for 45 years as a journalist, record producer, artist manager and songwriter. Don explains the development of the Nashville Sound and discusses country stars Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Roger Miller, Dolly Parton, Keith Urban and others and what it was like working with Roy Orbison at Monument Records.
Davis Rivera is an Oxford scholar specialising in Film Aesthetics. He wrote his dissertation about the Hungarian director Béla Tarr. Davis is originally from Port Arthur, Texas. He fields my questions about film makers and actors, the state of Texas and Southern rap. Among it we discuss two of Davis' favourite artists Warren Beatty and Kanye West.
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