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"content": "\u003cp>For the final credits of \u003cem>Jersey Boys\u003c/em>, director Clint Eastwood sends the whole cast into a backlot street to dance to the Four Seasons’ most recent chart-topper, 1976’s “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night).” \u003cem>Hmmm\u003c/em>, the confused viewer might wonder, \u003cem>perhaps this is supposed to be a musical\u003c/em>….\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The movie is, of course, derived from the long-running Broadway hit, and includes numerous Four Seasons songs. But this adaptation, as reworked by original writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, adds dialogue and subtracts music. Large sections are devoted to the drama of making it, or of keeping it after initial success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eastwood may not be the project’s ideal director. He’s known for working quickly, which could explain why parts of \u003cem>Jersey Boys\u003c/em> feel undercooked. (The rear projection in car scenes is particularly cheesy.) But the movie is engagingly lively, if not always graceful, and often surprisingly comic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://youtu.be/tL2iILHUsG0\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The laughs can be incongruous, since the backstory is grim: Future Four Seasons Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza), Nick Massi (Michael Lomenda) and Frankie Castelluccio (John Lloyd Young) are inept small-time criminals in a crummy Newark suburb. They’re under the protection of a local mob boss (Christopher Walken), a devotee of sentimental ballads, although that doesn’t keep Tommy and Nick from doing time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such hits as “Walk Like A Man” arrive after Castelluccio renames himself Valli, songwriting prodigy Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen) joins the lineup and veteran producer Bob Crewe (Mike Doyle, teetering on the edge of gay caricature) plumps the arrangements. Crewe and Gaudio are also Jersey boys, although the latter is suspect because he’s from the right side of tracks. (Another local, future tough-guy actor Joe Pesci, plays an amusing role in all this.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Top 40 triumph is scarred by a broken marriage, a fatal drug overdose and massive embezzlement, among other woes. Some of these developments are foreshadowed; others just pop up, as if inserted carelessly from a much longer cut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The stage musical was divided into four chapters, each narrated by a different Season. The movie keeps that device, but scatters each member’s commentary throughout the story. You never know when Frankie, Bob, Tommy or Nick will turn to the camera and start talking to the viewer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such direct address is a little jarring, since the movie often aspires to naturalism. Eastwood includes enough f-words to guarantee an R-rating for a movie about G-rated pop, and deploys careful period details and sepia-tinted images to evoke the days before day-glo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when was that? Onscreen dates identify early scenes as happening in the 1950s, but most of the story occurs out of time. Aside from an appearance by the Angels, who sing their pre-Beatles “My Boyfriend’s Back,” there’s little sense of context, either social or musical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time the Seasons released “Rag Doll” in 1964, they occupied the same universe as Motown, Bob Dylan and the British Invasion. Yet the movie never hints that the group’s doo-wop style had become dated. Still, the fact that the Seasons were older than their Top 40 competitors suits the cast, some of whom have a couple of decades on the teenagers they initially play.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although \u003cem>Jersey Boys\u003c/em> rarely presents an entire Four Seasons number without interruption, the music does propel the movie. The group was known for martial drumbeats as well as Valli’s stratospheric falsetto, and the songs still have juice, even when presented in snippets or as background music. But they may not pack enough Jersey swagger to attract moviegoers whose earliest pop memories are of Katy Perry or Justin Bieber. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=You%27re+A+Little+Flat%2C+%27Boys%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cp>A short time ago, in a city not far away, \u003cem>Star Wars\u003c/em> creator George Lucas decided to build a museum to house his movie memorabilia and his art collection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s just one looming question: Where should it go?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lucas says he’ll spend $300 million of his own money to build the proposed Lucas Cultural Arts Museum and will provide a $400 million endowment after his death. In addition to holding Skywalker artifacts galore, the museum would also host Lucas’ private art collection, featuring works by Norman Rockwell and N.C. Wyeth, among others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after Lucas’ original planned location fell through, it’s not clear where the museum will be located. San Francisco and Chicago are both trying to win the right to host the museum, and Los Angeles just entered the fray as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Francisco: ‘It Is Our History’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story begins in San Francisco, not far from Skywalker Ranch, Lucas’ moviemaking center in Marin County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lucas originally wanted to build his museum in the San Francisco Presidio — a federal park near the Golden Gate Bridge. But park officials rejected that idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now San Francisco officials are scrambling, trying to persuade Lucas to consider another site. They’re offering a scenic waterfront location along the Embarcadero, the road that runs along the San Francisco Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor Ed Lee points to the area’s \u003cem>Star Wars\u003c/em> history to explain why the city wants to persuade Lucas to stay in the region. Lucas’ ranch is nearby, and the Letterman Digital Arts Center, LucasFilm’s headquarters, is located in the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Digital Arts, through George Lucas’ wonderful works, started here,” Lee says. “To have that museum right here under his name would be a wonderful tribute to that. It is our history, and that’s why we want George to be here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Lee knows that first rejection, of the Presidio location, opened the door to competition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chicago: Lucas’ Second Home\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Chicago, city leaders say they’re up to the fight to bring the Lucas Museum to \u003cem>their \u003c/em>city. Kurt Summers, co-chairman of the task force that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel directed to find a location for the museum, casts the struggle in familiar terms — like the dark side of the Force against the light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are the protagonist in sort of a good versus evil,” Summers says. It’s not hard to imagine whom he sees as the Evil Empire. “We engaged fully … and that created real competition. The result of that [is] we saw San Francisco step up its game as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The potential home of the Lucas Museum is near Chicago’s lakefront, on the city’s Museum Campus. The city would convert 17 acres that are currently home to two parking lots behind Soldier Field, the stadium home of the Chicago Bears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chicago would lease the land to Lucas for $1. City officials believe adding his museum to the Field Museum of Natural History, the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium on the campus would bring in a couple of million additional visitors to the city each year, along with millions in tourist and tax revenue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lucas calls Chicago his second home, and he’s married to influential Chicago businesswoman Mellody Hobson. That’s a plus, says Summers, who believes that while San Francisco might once have had home field advantage, Chicago has a very compelling case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Summers says he’s not talking smack. But he does have a message: “I believe the Force is with us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco would say the same thing. And so would Los Angeles, which has offered a museum-campus plan like Chicago’s, at the site of the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in the city’s Exposition Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as the small Jedi Yoda would say, “Impossible to see, the future is” — until the decision, which is expected sometime this summer. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Never+Tell+Them+The+Odds%3A+Cities+Vie+To+Host+%27Star+Wars%27+Collection&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "\u003cem>Star Wars\u003c/em> creator George Lucas wants to build a museum full of movie memorabilia and fine art. But where? Both his hometown of San Francisco and Chicago, his \"second home,\" are vying for it.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A short time ago, in a city not far away, \u003cem>Star Wars\u003c/em> creator George Lucas decided to build a museum to house his movie memorabilia and his art collection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s just one looming question: Where should it go?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lucas says he’ll spend $300 million of his own money to build the proposed Lucas Cultural Arts Museum and will provide a $400 million endowment after his death. In addition to holding Skywalker artifacts galore, the museum would also host Lucas’ private art collection, featuring works by Norman Rockwell and N.C. Wyeth, among others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after Lucas’ original planned location fell through, it’s not clear where the museum will be located. San Francisco and Chicago are both trying to win the right to host the museum, and Los Angeles just entered the fray as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Francisco: ‘It Is Our History’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story begins in San Francisco, not far from Skywalker Ranch, Lucas’ moviemaking center in Marin County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lucas originally wanted to build his museum in the San Francisco Presidio — a federal park near the Golden Gate Bridge. But park officials rejected that idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now San Francisco officials are scrambling, trying to persuade Lucas to consider another site. They’re offering a scenic waterfront location along the Embarcadero, the road that runs along the San Francisco Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor Ed Lee points to the area’s \u003cem>Star Wars\u003c/em> history to explain why the city wants to persuade Lucas to stay in the region. Lucas’ ranch is nearby, and the Letterman Digital Arts Center, LucasFilm’s headquarters, is located in the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Digital Arts, through George Lucas’ wonderful works, started here,” Lee says. “To have that museum right here under his name would be a wonderful tribute to that. It is our history, and that’s why we want George to be here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Lee knows that first rejection, of the Presidio location, opened the door to competition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chicago: Lucas’ Second Home\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Chicago, city leaders say they’re up to the fight to bring the Lucas Museum to \u003cem>their \u003c/em>city. Kurt Summers, co-chairman of the task force that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel directed to find a location for the museum, casts the struggle in familiar terms — like the dark side of the Force against the light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are the protagonist in sort of a good versus evil,” Summers says. It’s not hard to imagine whom he sees as the Evil Empire. “We engaged fully … and that created real competition. The result of that [is] we saw San Francisco step up its game as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The potential home of the Lucas Museum is near Chicago’s lakefront, on the city’s Museum Campus. The city would convert 17 acres that are currently home to two parking lots behind Soldier Field, the stadium home of the Chicago Bears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chicago would lease the land to Lucas for $1. City officials believe adding his museum to the Field Museum of Natural History, the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium on the campus would bring in a couple of million additional visitors to the city each year, along with millions in tourist and tax revenue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lucas calls Chicago his second home, and he’s married to influential Chicago businesswoman Mellody Hobson. That’s a plus, says Summers, who believes that while San Francisco might once have had home field advantage, Chicago has a very compelling case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Summers says he’s not talking smack. But he does have a message: “I believe the Force is with us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco would say the same thing. And so would Los Angeles, which has offered a museum-campus plan like Chicago’s, at the site of the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in the city’s Exposition Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as the small Jedi Yoda would say, “Impossible to see, the future is” — until the decision, which is expected sometime this summer. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Never+Tell+Them+The+Odds%3A+Cities+Vie+To+Host+%27Star+Wars%27+Collection&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Legendary Pianist Horace Silver Dies at 85",
"headTitle": "Legendary Pianist Horace Silver Dies at 85 | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Pianist \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15404943/horace-silver\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Horace Silver\u003c/a>, whose potent and catchy combination of blues, funk and Latin sounds shifted the jazz landscape in the 1950s and ’60s, died Wednesday morning at his home in New Rochelle, N.Y. He died of natural causes, according to his son, Gregory Silver. He was 85.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a bandleader, Horace Silver mentored some of the hottest musicians of his era. As a composer, he devised numerous jazz standards still played today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Silver grew up in Norwalk, Conn. He was 11 when he and and his father stumbled upon a swing band one warm Sunday night. It was the orchestra led by Jimmie Lunceford.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I saw all these black guys getting out of the bus with their instruments, and I said, ‘Dad, can we stay and just hear them play one number? Just one number,'” he told NPR in 1996. “‘No, you gotta go to school in the morning, gotta get up early.’ … I begged and pleaded, begged and pleaded, so he’s, ‘OK, one number.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His dad let him stay for three tunes. Silver credits that one event for a lifetime chasing jazz as a pianist and bandleader.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By his early 20s, he was a good enough pianist to be hired by saxophonist Stan Getz. That was 1950. He moved to the jazz hub of New York City the next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon after, Silver co-founded the Jazz Messengers with drummer Art Blakey. It was a hothouse for young talent and future stars. Some later joined Silver’s bands — musicians like saxophonist Hank Mobley and trumpeter Blue Mitchell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Silver signed to Blue Note Records, and the label gave him free rein as a house pianist and arranger for nearly three decades. He created a sound that provided the blueprint for countless jazz quintets in the 1950s and ’60s: bluesy, soulful, funky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I got the impression that sometimes some of the bebop players thought it beyond them to play funky, you know?” he said. “Just kind of take your shoes off and get down into the real nitty-gritty of the music and get guttural, sort of. Get basic, you know?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The title of Silver’s memoir, \u003cem>Let’s Get to the Nitty Gritty\u003c/em>, says it all. His style was jazz’s next big thing: It was called hard bop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dan Morgenstern is Director Emeritus of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University. Morgenstern says Silver had great melodies, sophisticated harmonies and rhythms you could dance to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were very catchy,” Morgenstern says. “There’s themes of Horace’s that stay in your ear. He just had a knack for that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Horace Silver’s music was just as affecting in person. Dan Morgenstern says he recalls hearing the pianist at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“His hair would be flying,” Morgenstern says. “You know, his head was bobbing side to side and up and down, and he would be wringing wet when he came off that stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drummer Roger Humphries drove Silver’s music into the mid-1960s. Humphries says he saw Silver as not just an inspiring pianist, but as a mentor — “like a wonderful big brother.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He treated me very well,” Humphries says. “He made me want to be in his band. He made me want to play for him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1CilMzT55M\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humphries backed Silver on the pianist’s most famous work. It’s the tune almost everyone knows: “Song for My Father” was written for the man who nurtured Silver’s career in the first place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My dad said to me one time when I was a little boy,” Silver said. “He said, ‘You know, I’m not a rich man, I’m a factory worker. But if you want to go to college, I’ll try my best to try to put you through college.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t want to go to college — I want to become a famous jazz musician. But whether I become a famous jazz musician or not, I just want to play music. If I play in just a local bar all my life — I just want to play music. That’s all I want to do.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Horace Silver did become a famous jazz musician. And he got to play music for more than 60 years. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Legendary+Pianist+Horace+Silver+Dies+At+85&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Pianist \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15404943/horace-silver\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Horace Silver\u003c/a>, whose potent and catchy combination of blues, funk and Latin sounds shifted the jazz landscape in the 1950s and ’60s, died Wednesday morning at his home in New Rochelle, N.Y. He died of natural causes, according to his son, Gregory Silver. He was 85.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a bandleader, Horace Silver mentored some of the hottest musicians of his era. As a composer, he devised numerous jazz standards still played today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Silver grew up in Norwalk, Conn. He was 11 when he and and his father stumbled upon a swing band one warm Sunday night. It was the orchestra led by Jimmie Lunceford.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I saw all these black guys getting out of the bus with their instruments, and I said, ‘Dad, can we stay and just hear them play one number? Just one number,'” he told NPR in 1996. “‘No, you gotta go to school in the morning, gotta get up early.’ … I begged and pleaded, begged and pleaded, so he’s, ‘OK, one number.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His dad let him stay for three tunes. Silver credits that one event for a lifetime chasing jazz as a pianist and bandleader.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By his early 20s, he was a good enough pianist to be hired by saxophonist Stan Getz. That was 1950. He moved to the jazz hub of New York City the next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon after, Silver co-founded the Jazz Messengers with drummer Art Blakey. It was a hothouse for young talent and future stars. Some later joined Silver’s bands — musicians like saxophonist Hank Mobley and trumpeter Blue Mitchell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Silver signed to Blue Note Records, and the label gave him free rein as a house pianist and arranger for nearly three decades. He created a sound that provided the blueprint for countless jazz quintets in the 1950s and ’60s: bluesy, soulful, funky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I got the impression that sometimes some of the bebop players thought it beyond them to play funky, you know?” he said. “Just kind of take your shoes off and get down into the real nitty-gritty of the music and get guttural, sort of. Get basic, you know?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The title of Silver’s memoir, \u003cem>Let’s Get to the Nitty Gritty\u003c/em>, says it all. His style was jazz’s next big thing: It was called hard bop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dan Morgenstern is Director Emeritus of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University. Morgenstern says Silver had great melodies, sophisticated harmonies and rhythms you could dance to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were very catchy,” Morgenstern says. “There’s themes of Horace’s that stay in your ear. He just had a knack for that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Horace Silver’s music was just as affecting in person. Dan Morgenstern says he recalls hearing the pianist at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“His hair would be flying,” Morgenstern says. “You know, his head was bobbing side to side and up and down, and he would be wringing wet when he came off that stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drummer Roger Humphries drove Silver’s music into the mid-1960s. Humphries says he saw Silver as not just an inspiring pianist, but as a mentor — “like a wonderful big brother.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He treated me very well,” Humphries says. “He made me want to be in his band. He made me want to play for him.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/S1CilMzT55M'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/S1CilMzT55M'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Humphries backed Silver on the pianist’s most famous work. It’s the tune almost everyone knows: “Song for My Father” was written for the man who nurtured Silver’s career in the first place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My dad said to me one time when I was a little boy,” Silver said. “He said, ‘You know, I’m not a rich man, I’m a factory worker. But if you want to go to college, I’ll try my best to try to put you through college.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t want to go to college — I want to become a famous jazz musician. But whether I become a famous jazz musician or not, I just want to play music. If I play in just a local bar all my life — I just want to play music. That’s all I want to do.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Horace Silver did become a famous jazz musician. And he got to play music for more than 60 years. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Legendary+Pianist+Horace+Silver+Dies+At+85&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Who can I be now? How David Bowie Spent 1974",
"headTitle": "Who can I be now? How David Bowie Spent 1974 | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>To say that 1974 was a year of change and challenge for David Bowie and his fans is an understatement as extreme as the lurid outfits he’d worn as his just-abandoned alter ego, Ziggy Stardust. The incubator for the evolution was Bowie’s U.S. tour that year, which began in Montreal on June 14 — 40 years ago this weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In July of 1973, at the peak of his success, Bowie unexpectedly retired Ziggy — the character and vehicle he’d ridden to fame after nearly a decade of trying. In the months that followed, he abandoned his band, his home and the city (London) and country that spawned him. By the spring of 1974, he’d ditched the zipper haircut, platform heels and vivid glam fashions that he, more than anyone, had brought to the mainstream. And by the end of that year he’d basically abandoned rock ‘n’ roll altogether.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Beatles had acclimated the even-then largely complacent rock audience to changes of sound and vision, at the fateful age of 27, Bowie — fueled by exploding creativity, success and not least the white powder to which he’d become addicted — would try the patience of even his most dedicated fans, producing music that wasn’t dauntingly strange and experimental (that would come later), but instead \u003cem>too\u003c/em> normal and everyday for many of his fans: the R&B that saturated FM radio at the time. That style might have seemed exotic to a Brit, but it was the exact sound that most American rock fans were trying to escape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That the two studio albums associated with the tour — \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em>, released in March of ’74 was already a departure, being musically more subtle than its comparatively garish predecessor, \u003cem>Aladdin Sane\u003c/em>\u003cem>, \u003c/em>and \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em>, put out a year later and featuring Bowie’s first U.S. No. 1 single, “Fame” — made him into a star in America is perhaps the strangest twist of all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 73-date tour also underwent a stylistic change every bit as tectonic as the one Bowie’s music was undergoing. At its outset, the \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> tour was by far the most extravagant and expensive rock outing ever mounted: designed by Broadway veterans Jules Fisher and Mark Ravitz and choreographed by Toni Basil, it featured a towering set depicting the post-apocalyptic city in which the loosely conceptual album was based. It included a catwalk that lowered from the rafters to stage level and a cherry-picker that lofted Bowie 40 feet above the first dozen rows of the audience (and occasionally failed to bring him back). But after 10 weeks of shows, due to expense or boredom, he abandoned the set and the setlist, going for a more stripped-down presentation and an overhauled R&B sound.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I sunk myself back into the music that I considered the bedrock of all popular music: R&B and soul,” Bowie recalled to writer David Buckley years later. “I guess from the outside it seemed to be a pretty drastic move. I think I probably lost as many fans as I gained new ones.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s one of the most drastic image/sound changes in the modern era, and it was just the beginning of the transformations Bowie would make over the next several years. Over the course of the tour, Bowie would drive himself, his band and his audience to the brink: himself to the edge of exhaustion via the physical challenges of the show, overwork and drug abuse; his band to the brink of its musical abilities, energy and salary requirements; his audience to the brink of its patience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I went to the \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> show [in June] expecting something like Ziggy Stardust,” said fan John Neilson, who caught both incarnations of the tour in Detroit. “And then in October I expected to see something like \u003cem>Diamond Dogs,\u003c/em> and it was the soul revue. It might as well have been a completely different artist.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>The basis for the tour and its initial extravagant set lay in \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em>‘ post-apocalyptic world of street urchins and nefarious characters, like Halloween Jack; the album was the end result of an unsuccessful attempt to create a rock musical from George Orwell’s \u003cem>1984\u003c/em>, which had been blocked by Orwell’s widow. While the album — and its classic lead single, “Rebel Rebel,” which was finishing a Top 5 run in the U.K. at the time Bowie arrived in New York on April 11 — retained elements of the aborted musical, like \u003cem>Ziggy Stardust\u003c/em>, it’s a loose concept album not bound to a straight storyline; the songs act as signposts around which listeners can create their own narrative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10137767\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/482119303_master_vert-69d403a3c9185e94733faff07a6c88c8e8cbd2a4.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10137767 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/482119303_master_vert-69d403a3c9185e94733faff07a6c88c8e8cbd2a4-400x533.jpg\" alt=\"David Bowie in February 1974 in the Netherlands.\" width=\"400\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/482119303_master_vert-69d403a3c9185e94733faff07a6c88c8e8cbd2a4-400x533.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/482119303_master_vert-69d403a3c9185e94733faff07a6c88c8e8cbd2a4-1079x1440.jpg 1079w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Bowie in February 1974 in the Netherlands. \u003ccite>(Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I had in my mind this kind of half \u003cem>Wild Boys/1984\u003c/em> world, and there were these ragamuffins, but they were a bit more violent than ragamuffins,” Bowie told Buckley. “They’d taken over this barren city, this city that was falling apart. … I had the Diamond Dogs living in the streets. They were all little Johnny Rottens and Sid Viciouses, really.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That storyline carried over to the show. Framed by towering skyscrapers, Bowie moved from one elaborate scenario to another: He performed “Sweet Thing” from the catwalk as it gradually lowered to the stage floor; was projected over the audience via the cherry-picker as he sang “Space Oddity” into a red telephone microphone; French-kissed a skull during “Cracked Actor”; sang “Time” behind a giant hand festooned with blinking light bulbs that dropped to reveal Bowie inside a neon light box; performed an elaborate walking mime during “Aladdin Sane” very reminiscent of Michael Jackson’s world-famous Moonwalk, unveiled a decade later (Jackson attended one of Bowie’s shows in Los Angeles in September). The Ziggy-era platforms and costumes were replaced by a suave new Bowie, clad in an Yves St. Laurent suit and flat shoes, with a bright orange but calm soul-boy haircut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bowie’s new band was equally state of the art. Herbie Flowers — who’d worked with Bowie since the mid-’60s and played the timeless bassline on Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” — and drummer Tony Newman were veteran British session musicians who’d played on \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em>. Virtuoso pianist Michael Garson and backing singer Geoff MacCormack (aka Warren Peace) remained from Bowie’s 1973 band. Classically trained New Yorker Michael Kamen — a future Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated film composer whose scoring work for the Joffrey Ballet had impressed Bowie — was enlisted as musical director. Kamen brought along two musicians from his former rock bands: future superstar jazz saxophonist David Sanborn and 22-year-old guitarist Earl Slick, who would work with Bowie many times in the coming decades, and also performed on John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s \u003cem>Double Fantasy\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latter got a call from Kamen one day in April and was told he’d be hearing from an important musician he refused to identify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I get a phone call from the Bowie people the next day and they set up an audition — which is the weirdest f- – -ing thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Slick, who speaks in a Brooklynese as rapid-fire as his solos, recalls. “David’s personal assistant meets me at RCA Studios in New York, and she walks me not to the control room, which is dark, but into the main studio. I get out my guitar and I hear a voice with an American accent saying, ‘Hey, how ya doin’? Put the headphones on. We’re gonna play you some tracks, just play along.’ I say, ‘What key are they in?’ He says, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ And he just starts rolling tape! I’m playing over tracks from \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em>, which [hadn’t been released yet] — I’ve never heard these songs, I don’t know what I’m doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m out there for maybe 15 minutes and there’s a little bit of chatter between me and this American guy — who turns out to be [longtime Bowie producer] Tony Visconti — and about two minutes later Bowie walks in,” he continues. “We hung out for about half an hour, fiddling around with guitars. His assistant says, ‘We’ll call you in the next couple weeks.’ But the phone rang the next day and they said, ‘If you want it, you got it.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the following weeks, the band — filled out by saxophonist Richard Grando, percussionist Pablo Rosario and backing singer Gui Andrisano — worked up radically new arrangements of Bowie’s catalog, which were strongly influenced by New York City nightlife. Bowie had become friends with guitarist Carlos Alomar — a veteran of James Brown’s and Wilson Pickett’s bands, as well as the Apollo Theater’s house band — who took the singer to the Apollo and elsewhere to see The Temptations, The Spinners and Marvin Gaye; he also hit Latin clubs and other nightspots in the city’s budding disco scene, as well as rock haunts like Max’s Kansas City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That influence was immediately felt not just in the soul covers the band played on the first leg of the tour — Eddie Floyd’s 1966 classic “Knock on Wood,” the Ohio Players’ 1968 song “Here Today and Gone Tomorrow” — but also in the reinventions of Bowie’s catalog, which went far beyond the blistering power-trio rock of the Ziggy era. “Aladdin Sane” received a Latin treatment driven by Garson’s manic piano; “Jean Genie” slowed to a lounge crawl on the verses and completely dispensed with its signature riff; even the brand-new “Rebel Rebel” got a looser tempo and jazzy backing vocals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was hanging out a lot in New York,” fan Kathy Miller recalls. “I remember seeing him and his entourage snowed in during a blizzard at a [April 22] New York Dolls show at Kenny’s Castaways, and friends of mine saw him at Puerto Rican discos, black discos. So it was not such a shock to New Yorkers that he gravitated toward that kind of music.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After dress rehearsals at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, N.Y. — “Two days? Maybe more, because that was one complicated f- – -ing thing,” Slick says — the entire production headed up the Northway to Montreal for the first of what would ultimately be 30 dates of the initial leg of the \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> tour. Not surprisingly, the opening night had more than a few rough spots. The sound system was distorted, and the catwalk plummeted dangerously to the stage floor with Bowie on it, a problem that happened more than once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The kinks were gradually worked out and the tour carried on across the Northeast and South, playing major venues — Cleveland’s Public Auditorium for two nights, Detroit’s Cobo Hall, Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium — but also many smaller, less-likely markets and theaters, like Charleston, W.Va.; Dayton and Toledo, Ohio; Norfolk, Va. While most nights went off without a hitch, the complexity of the set continued to cause problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Norfolk show, Rob Holland, then 14, recalls, “I remember the cherry-picker got stuck: It moved for a minute and then it moved again to the side of the stage, but then it got stuck and he had to get off of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On at least one other night, the cherry-picker extended to its full length but failed to retract, leaving Bowie stranded over the audience. “When he finished the song he had to shimmy along the [cherry-picker’s hydraulic] arm back to the stage,” Tony Visconti writes in the \u003cem>David Live\u003c/em> liner notes. “Members of the audience were standing on their seats trying to grab him and pull him down. On that night, this was perceived as part of the show: David made it seem to look that way, climbing back in a dramatic, purposeful way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many were dazzled by the stage and the theatrics, some weren’t so impressed. “I really liked the set, but I’ve always felt it would have been a much better show if they had really exploited it, doing \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> semi-theatrically and really using the staging,” John Neilson says. “He did use it for ‘Sweet Thing,’ but the rest of the time it just sorta loomed in the background. It was a kind of wasted opportunity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brad Elvis, formerly of The Elvis Brothers and currently in The Romantics and The Handcuffs, caught shows in Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio. “It got a good reaction, but it wasn’t like pandemonium,” he remembers. He and a couple of friends did, however, spend time with Bowie and band members at a hotel-room party after the Toledo show — where he witnessed the growing R&B influence firsthand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were about five other people in this cramped little room, and they had this big boombox,” he says. “Kind of dancey R&B was playing, and one of the [backing singers] was showing Bowie these dance moves. Everybody’s dancing, having fun, getting loose, except us — we’re watching, wide-eyed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10137766\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d-400x532.jpg\" alt=\"David Bowie onstage at Madison Square Garden in New York City on July 20, 1974\" width=\"400\" height=\"532\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-10137766\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d-400x532.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d-225x300.jpg 225w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d-1080x1440.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Bowie onstage at Madison Square Garden in New York City on July 20, 1974 \u003ccite>(Ron Galella/WireImage)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Occasionally parts of the set would be too large for a venue, forcing the crew to scale down the show, but only once on the tour’s first leg did Bowie perform without it completely. En route to Tampa, Fla., one of the drivers was stung by a bee and crashed a truck carrying key elements of the set into a swamp. Cancellation was considered but “David would not hear of it,” according to an announcement made to the crowd, and the show proceeded. During the set Bowie apologized for it not being “the show I’d hoped to bring you” and played a rare encore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the tour’s first leg reached its home stretch in mid-July, with a run of six shows at Philadelphia’s fabled Tower Theater, the show was beset by a problem that had nothing to do with technology. Eager to get a live album on the market before the tour concluded, Bowie’s then-manager, Tony Defries, arranged to have the Tower shows recorded. Live recordings ordinarily entitle the musicians to a much higher fee than Bowie’s touring group was receiving (Slick recalls getting $300 per week), but Defries attempted to sidestep that issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Back in the day, if you were recording, there were two microphones on everything: one would go to the [venue’s] sound, and one would go to the [mobile recording] truck,” Slick says. “At sound check, I didn’t think anything of it, but Herbie picked up on it right away. Tony Defries was one of the biggest f- – -ing shysters on the planet, and [earlier that day] I had gotten a letter pushed under my hotel door offering me $300 basically to give my rights over. Not long after that, Herbie is on the phone with everybody saying, ‘This is bulls- – -, we’re not gonna do this.’ Basically, with Herbie being the spokesperson, we said we ain’t going onstage until we get an agreement for X amount of money, period. They agreed to it, we signed it — and we didn’t get paid, so we sued David. We won, but it took a long, long time to get the money. I know David pitched a serious fit on Herbie, and I think he was kinda s- – – -y for a couple of days, but then everybody got past it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the bad vibes come through on \u003cem>David Live\u003c/em>, released in the fall. Bowie’s voice is strained, and the band, while competent, played better on other nights of the tour, as bootleg evidence shows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tour wrapped with two nights at Madison Square Garden, Bowie’s first performances at the venue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The stage show got a lot of advance buzz,” Kathy Miller remembers. “We couldn’t wait to see this set, and it really lived up to the expectations, it was gorgeous. But the [cherry-picker] reminded me of a telephone repairman — it was not glamorous; it was actually very \u003cem>Spinal Tap\u003c/em>! It looked dangerous and rickety — there really was a sense of, ‘Oh, my God, is this going to work?'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The shows were a triumph, and an after party was held at The Plaza, during which Bowie, Mick Jagger and Bette Midler reportedly disappeared into a walk-in closet for an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was quite an unbelievable, unbelievable headache, that tour, but it was spectacular,” Bowie told Buckley. “It was truly the first real rock ‘n’ roll theatrical show that made any sense. A lot of people feel it has never been bettered. It was something else, it really was.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite its enormous expense and problems, the tour helped drive \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> to No. 5 in the U.S. — by far his highest chart position at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>In early August, many of the band members gathered in Philadelphia to begin work on the album that would become \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em>, which is where the R&B transformation truly took hold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Bowie had originally intended to work with the house band at the city’s Sigma Sound — which had spawned hits by The O’Jays, Lou Rawls, The Three Degrees and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes — they were unavailable due to a scheduling conflict, and he brought in several members of his touring band, as well as some key new collaborators who would play a huge role in the album: Alomar; his wife, soul singer Robin Clark; and a young friend, future R&B superstar Luther Vandross. The latter two, along for the ride, were playfully riffing on one of the songs in the studio; Bowie loved it and had them sing on nearly every song. It was the first high-profile work of Vandross’ career.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although Bowie was raised on American R&B, like most British musicians of his generation — and he’d even performed James Brown’s “You Got to Have a Job” during the Ziggy Stardust era — the resulting sessions produced music that resembled nothing he had ever done before. Alomar, Sanborn and the singers became Bowie’s primary musical foils, often working in a soulful call-and-response role with him on songs like “Fascination” (a rewrite of Vandross’ composition “Funky Music”), “Somebody Up There Likes Me” and the title track. Bowie, fueled by cocaine, taxed the energy of the musicians by working largely from 11 p.m. until late the following morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(The album sessions, which resumed in November and again in January, featured two more star appearances. Bruce Springsteen, whom Bowie had admired since seeing a New York performance in 1972, visited the sessions but ultimately did not contribute to Bowie’s cover of his “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City.” More fruitful was a visit from Bowie’s new friend John Lennon, who was lured to the studio by being asked to contribute to Bowie’s excruciatingly overblown cover of Lennon’s “Across the Universe,” but ended up co-writing “Fame” — a studio creation conjured from Bowie’s cover of the Flares’ 1961 R&B hit “Footstompin’.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While he dismissed the album as “plastic” not long after its release, Bowie later recanted. “In 1976 I spouted some nonsense about the album being ‘synthetic radio stuff.’ I don’t believe that for one moment now,” he told Buckley. “I was living and breathing soul and R&B at this time. I listened to nothing else. It became America for me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>While Bowie’s cocaine appetite was severe before the ’74 tour began, it had escalated dramatically by the time dates resumed at the end of the summer. A brief second leg of the tour kicked off with a seven-night run at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, and it was at this time that director Alan Yentob interviewed Bowie and filmed the shows for the hourlong BBC documentary \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnIBBkgkO5o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cracked Actor\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. The Bowie on display there is an unsettling sight: fidgety, awkward and alarmingly thin and pale, he’s intelligent but remote and removed; at other times he’s in the throes of cocaine paranoia, wondering whether his car is being followed, sniffling and licking his gums. At one of the Universal concerts, captured on the \u003cem>A Portrait in Flesh\u003c/em> bootleg, Bowie speaks to the crowd almost exclusively in a bizarre pseudo-Italian accent, making inscrutable jokes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bowie that emerges in the documentary is so odd and otherworldly that it convinced Nicolas Roeg he’d found the perfect person to portray the alien in his forthcoming film \u003cem>The Man Who Fell to Earth\u003c/em>, which would mark Bowie’s feature-length debut the following year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the set and setlist were retained for the Universal shows and a few more Southwest dates, the show was completely re-conceived during a break over the second half of September. The city set was abandoned, and the new staging relied on dramatic lighting and clever use of silhouettes (a 50-foot shadow of Bowie was projected onto a screen behind the stage for “1984”). Bowie changed his wardrobe and hairstyle yet again, adopting a sweeping pompadour, jackets embellished with shoulder pads, a thick checkered tie, suspenders, baggy pants and occasionally a cane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of all, the band was overhauled to re-create the \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> sound: Alomar, Vandross, Clark and three other singers who performed on “Young Americans” were brought on board; and Bowie recruited his fifth different rhythm section in a year’s time: rock-solid drummer Dennis Davis (who, like Alomar, would be with Bowie for the rest of the decade) and bassist Emir Ksasan. Garson was made musical director, and Bowie’s revamped backing band became the opening act for the tour, cruising through a 30-minute set of smooth takes on songs like “Stormy Monday,” The O’Jays’ “Love Train” and Vandross’ “Funky Music” before concluding, strangest of all, with a lite-R&B treatment of Bowie’s own “Memory of a Free Festival,” a hippie anthem from his 1969 \u003cem>Space Oddity\u003c/em> album. The crowds hated them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Bowie set that followed kicked off reassuringly with either “Rebel Rebel” or “Space Oddity,” it then headed straight into R&B and ballad territory: a funked up version of “John I’m Only Dancing,” a samba-fied “Sorrow,” “Changes.” Rocked-up versions of “Moonage Daydream” and “Diamond Dogs” were thrown in, but a huge dollop of the unreleased \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> was aired on most nights — along with “Footstompin’,” which would form the basis of “Fame” — before the shows concluded with a one-two punch of “Suffragette City” and “Rock and Roll Suicide.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tour, beginning on Oct. 5 in St. Paul, Minn., soldiered across the Midwest, East and South over the ensuing seven weeks, setting up residencies in several cities — seven nights at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, six in Detroit, three in Boston — before closing in Atlanta on Dec. 1. Bowie’s precious voice, ravaged by cocaine abuse and months of touring, was hoarse on at least a few occasions. Audiences were nonplussed at best by the new production.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d bought a really glam outfit: a top with bell sleeves, skin-tight jeans and mile-high, red-leather platform boots,” recalls Lisa Seckler-Roode, who attended one of the Radio City shows. “People came dressed as Ziggy Stardust, with the Aladdin Sane lightning bolt on their faces. It was sort of like Wigstock: I remember the cops looking at the crowd and shaking their heads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But when Bowie came out in that suit,” she sighs, “I mean, he looked glorious, but it was such a change that the crowd was totally thrown — the atmosphere was just, ‘\u003cem>Huh?\u003c/em> What’s he doing now?’ In retrospect it was a very bold move, but the initial reaction was really confused. I remember going to school the following Monday: ‘How was the show?’ ‘It sucked!'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8TnXRBkYt8\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neilson recalls a similar reaction in Detroit. “The soul show threw everyone, since the album wasn’t out yet and there was a lot of new material,” he says. “The audience reaction was more polite than [hostile], for the most part, because obviously everyone loved Bowie and gave him the benefit of a doubt. But it was muted appreciation at best and probably some quiet disapproval.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least one musician onstage shared the sentiment. “I gotta be honest with you, I wasn’t terribly thrilled with it,” says Slick, whose guitar roars out at a searing volume on bootlegs during the rare occasions he got the spotlight. “[During the opening set] there wasn’t a whole lot for me to do. For the Bowie set I was back on it, but even with that, the way it was being played wasn’t rock ‘n’ roll anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bowie’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8TnXRBkYt8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">appearance on \u003cem>The Dick Cavett Show\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, taped early in November during the Radio City stint, is fascinating, mixing new, (relatively) old and obscure: The band charges through a fast “1984,” Bowie straps on his Ziggy-era 12-string acoustic as the singers groove for “Young Americans,” and concludes with the still-unreleased “Footstompin’.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Bowie is in strong form, if a bit hoarse, when performing, his interview with Cavett could function as an anti-cocaine ad. He fidgets relentlessly with a cane he used as a prop during the performance, sniffles and appears completely ill at ease — at one point Cavett asks him if he’s nervous. “Um … oh, let’s carry on talking,” he replies. “Don’t ask me that. Otherwise I’ll wonder, you see. I’d rather not know if I’m nervous until … ” he trails off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the interview, he’s perhaps most cogent when explaining his rationale for his new look and sound. “We did the \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> tour and took it from New York to Los Angeles, and I felt that that was enough, really. Rather than come back with the same thing, I wanted to give myself an opportunity just to work with the band. … I got a lot of fulfillment from working in productions like \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> or \u003cem>Ziggy Stardust\u003c/em>. But now that I’m working with just a band and singing, which is something I haven’t done for years, I’m finding a new kind of fulfillment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Judging from the reaction of fans and the tepid-to-negative reviews the show received, Bowie’s audience was not yet ready for that new kind of fulfillment.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>Somehow, from such unpromising origins, from such a turbulent, tumultuous, drug-addled year — one that saw Bowie poised for enormous success yet opting not just to challenge his audience but almost to defy it — after 73 concerts and against daunting odds, the tour helped accomplish the ultimate goal: breaking David Bowie in America. \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> reached No. 5 on the Billboard charts. \u003cem>David Live\u003c/em> went to No. 8. The \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> album hit No. 9, and the title track was his first U.S. Top 40 single, peaking at 29. And “Fame” was a global hit single, became Bowie’s first U.S. No. 1 and made him into a superstar. In 1975, he relocated to Los Angeles, launched his movie career, and became an all-around entertainer who appeared on both \u003cem>Soul Train\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Cher\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Despite its now-legendary status, Bowie’s 1974 tour is tragically ill-documented. Apart from fan-filmed super-8 footage, the only video documentation of the Hunger City set that has surfaced is Fisher and Ravitz discussing this scale model in the 1996 \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qKP4oVraDA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BBC documentary \u003cem>Hang on to Yourself\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. (the \u003cem>Cracked Actor\u003c/em> documentary shows frustratingly little of the stage). Likewise, apart from a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjoiIcF6s6Q\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">one-minute-long, professionally filmed segment from a Radio City show\u003c/a> that aired in a VH1 \u003cem>Legends\u003c/em> episode, no footage from the soul concerts has emerged, although the \u003cem>Cavett\u003c/em> show at least documents some performances. While some sources say Bowie filmed rehearsals and the Garden shows, and the VH1 footage suggests there’s more somewhere, Slick says he has no recollection of any shows being filmed.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while many, including this writer, consider \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> to be his weakest 1970s studio album, that is hardly an insult. In terms of influence, it’s hard to know where to begin: Virtually every artist bearing a trace of white soul since its release — from Robert Palmer to Duran Duran, from George Michael to Robbie Williams and far beyond — owes more than a “sho’nuff” and some hair gel to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> and the Soul Tour were way stations: like everything Bowie had done before, he ingested and used them as a foundation for what came next. In this case, it was the pioneering ice-funk of \u003cem>Station to Station\u003c/em>, arguably one of his two best albums, and one that paved the way not only for thousands of artists who were influenced by it, but also for the brilliant wave of experimentation that followed over the next five years: \u003cem>Low, Heroes, Lodger\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Scary Monsters\u003c/em>. But that’s another story …\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sources: David Buckley’s stellar liner notes to the deluxe editions of \u003c/em>Diamond Dogs\u003cem> and \u003c/em>Young Americans\u003cem>, and Tony Visconti’s for \u003c/em>David Live\u003cem>; Kevin Cann’s \u003c/em>David Bowie: Any Day Now, The London Years 1947-74\u003cem>; Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray’s \u003c/em>David Bowie: An Illustrated Record\u003cem>; Chris Carter’s “\u003ca href=\"http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gouster/introduction.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Young American” site\u003c/a>; Chris O’Leary’s “\u003ca href=\"http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pushing Ahead of the Dame” site\u003c/a>; and especially Roger Griffin’s “\u003ca href=\"http://www.bowiegoldenyears.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Golden Years” site\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Special thanks to Ira Robbins, Jennifer Kennedy, Julian Stockton and especially everyone who took the time to be interviewed for this article.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Who+Can+I+Be+Now%3F+How+David+Bowie+Spent+1974&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>To say that 1974 was a year of change and challenge for David Bowie and his fans is an understatement as extreme as the lurid outfits he’d worn as his just-abandoned alter ego, Ziggy Stardust. The incubator for the evolution was Bowie’s U.S. tour that year, which began in Montreal on June 14 — 40 years ago this weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In July of 1973, at the peak of his success, Bowie unexpectedly retired Ziggy — the character and vehicle he’d ridden to fame after nearly a decade of trying. In the months that followed, he abandoned his band, his home and the city (London) and country that spawned him. By the spring of 1974, he’d ditched the zipper haircut, platform heels and vivid glam fashions that he, more than anyone, had brought to the mainstream. And by the end of that year he’d basically abandoned rock ‘n’ roll altogether.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Beatles had acclimated the even-then largely complacent rock audience to changes of sound and vision, at the fateful age of 27, Bowie — fueled by exploding creativity, success and not least the white powder to which he’d become addicted — would try the patience of even his most dedicated fans, producing music that wasn’t dauntingly strange and experimental (that would come later), but instead \u003cem>too\u003c/em> normal and everyday for many of his fans: the R&B that saturated FM radio at the time. That style might have seemed exotic to a Brit, but it was the exact sound that most American rock fans were trying to escape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That the two studio albums associated with the tour — \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em>, released in March of ’74 was already a departure, being musically more subtle than its comparatively garish predecessor, \u003cem>Aladdin Sane\u003c/em>\u003cem>, \u003c/em>and \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em>, put out a year later and featuring Bowie’s first U.S. No. 1 single, “Fame” — made him into a star in America is perhaps the strangest twist of all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 73-date tour also underwent a stylistic change every bit as tectonic as the one Bowie’s music was undergoing. At its outset, the \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> tour was by far the most extravagant and expensive rock outing ever mounted: designed by Broadway veterans Jules Fisher and Mark Ravitz and choreographed by Toni Basil, it featured a towering set depicting the post-apocalyptic city in which the loosely conceptual album was based. It included a catwalk that lowered from the rafters to stage level and a cherry-picker that lofted Bowie 40 feet above the first dozen rows of the audience (and occasionally failed to bring him back). But after 10 weeks of shows, due to expense or boredom, he abandoned the set and the setlist, going for a more stripped-down presentation and an overhauled R&B sound.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I sunk myself back into the music that I considered the bedrock of all popular music: R&B and soul,” Bowie recalled to writer David Buckley years later. “I guess from the outside it seemed to be a pretty drastic move. I think I probably lost as many fans as I gained new ones.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s one of the most drastic image/sound changes in the modern era, and it was just the beginning of the transformations Bowie would make over the next several years. Over the course of the tour, Bowie would drive himself, his band and his audience to the brink: himself to the edge of exhaustion via the physical challenges of the show, overwork and drug abuse; his band to the brink of its musical abilities, energy and salary requirements; his audience to the brink of its patience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I went to the \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> show [in June] expecting something like Ziggy Stardust,” said fan John Neilson, who caught both incarnations of the tour in Detroit. “And then in October I expected to see something like \u003cem>Diamond Dogs,\u003c/em> and it was the soul revue. It might as well have been a completely different artist.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>The basis for the tour and its initial extravagant set lay in \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em>‘ post-apocalyptic world of street urchins and nefarious characters, like Halloween Jack; the album was the end result of an unsuccessful attempt to create a rock musical from George Orwell’s \u003cem>1984\u003c/em>, which had been blocked by Orwell’s widow. While the album — and its classic lead single, “Rebel Rebel,” which was finishing a Top 5 run in the U.K. at the time Bowie arrived in New York on April 11 — retained elements of the aborted musical, like \u003cem>Ziggy Stardust\u003c/em>, it’s a loose concept album not bound to a straight storyline; the songs act as signposts around which listeners can create their own narrative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10137767\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/482119303_master_vert-69d403a3c9185e94733faff07a6c88c8e8cbd2a4.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10137767 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/482119303_master_vert-69d403a3c9185e94733faff07a6c88c8e8cbd2a4-400x533.jpg\" alt=\"David Bowie in February 1974 in the Netherlands.\" width=\"400\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/482119303_master_vert-69d403a3c9185e94733faff07a6c88c8e8cbd2a4-400x533.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/482119303_master_vert-69d403a3c9185e94733faff07a6c88c8e8cbd2a4-1079x1440.jpg 1079w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Bowie in February 1974 in the Netherlands. \u003ccite>(Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I had in my mind this kind of half \u003cem>Wild Boys/1984\u003c/em> world, and there were these ragamuffins, but they were a bit more violent than ragamuffins,” Bowie told Buckley. “They’d taken over this barren city, this city that was falling apart. … I had the Diamond Dogs living in the streets. They were all little Johnny Rottens and Sid Viciouses, really.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That storyline carried over to the show. Framed by towering skyscrapers, Bowie moved from one elaborate scenario to another: He performed “Sweet Thing” from the catwalk as it gradually lowered to the stage floor; was projected over the audience via the cherry-picker as he sang “Space Oddity” into a red telephone microphone; French-kissed a skull during “Cracked Actor”; sang “Time” behind a giant hand festooned with blinking light bulbs that dropped to reveal Bowie inside a neon light box; performed an elaborate walking mime during “Aladdin Sane” very reminiscent of Michael Jackson’s world-famous Moonwalk, unveiled a decade later (Jackson attended one of Bowie’s shows in Los Angeles in September). The Ziggy-era platforms and costumes were replaced by a suave new Bowie, clad in an Yves St. Laurent suit and flat shoes, with a bright orange but calm soul-boy haircut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bowie’s new band was equally state of the art. Herbie Flowers — who’d worked with Bowie since the mid-’60s and played the timeless bassline on Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” — and drummer Tony Newman were veteran British session musicians who’d played on \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em>. Virtuoso pianist Michael Garson and backing singer Geoff MacCormack (aka Warren Peace) remained from Bowie’s 1973 band. Classically trained New Yorker Michael Kamen — a future Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated film composer whose scoring work for the Joffrey Ballet had impressed Bowie — was enlisted as musical director. Kamen brought along two musicians from his former rock bands: future superstar jazz saxophonist David Sanborn and 22-year-old guitarist Earl Slick, who would work with Bowie many times in the coming decades, and also performed on John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s \u003cem>Double Fantasy\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latter got a call from Kamen one day in April and was told he’d be hearing from an important musician he refused to identify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I get a phone call from the Bowie people the next day and they set up an audition — which is the weirdest f- – -ing thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Slick, who speaks in a Brooklynese as rapid-fire as his solos, recalls. “David’s personal assistant meets me at RCA Studios in New York, and she walks me not to the control room, which is dark, but into the main studio. I get out my guitar and I hear a voice with an American accent saying, ‘Hey, how ya doin’? Put the headphones on. We’re gonna play you some tracks, just play along.’ I say, ‘What key are they in?’ He says, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ And he just starts rolling tape! I’m playing over tracks from \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em>, which [hadn’t been released yet] — I’ve never heard these songs, I don’t know what I’m doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m out there for maybe 15 minutes and there’s a little bit of chatter between me and this American guy — who turns out to be [longtime Bowie producer] Tony Visconti — and about two minutes later Bowie walks in,” he continues. “We hung out for about half an hour, fiddling around with guitars. His assistant says, ‘We’ll call you in the next couple weeks.’ But the phone rang the next day and they said, ‘If you want it, you got it.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the following weeks, the band — filled out by saxophonist Richard Grando, percussionist Pablo Rosario and backing singer Gui Andrisano — worked up radically new arrangements of Bowie’s catalog, which were strongly influenced by New York City nightlife. Bowie had become friends with guitarist Carlos Alomar — a veteran of James Brown’s and Wilson Pickett’s bands, as well as the Apollo Theater’s house band — who took the singer to the Apollo and elsewhere to see The Temptations, The Spinners and Marvin Gaye; he also hit Latin clubs and other nightspots in the city’s budding disco scene, as well as rock haunts like Max’s Kansas City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That influence was immediately felt not just in the soul covers the band played on the first leg of the tour — Eddie Floyd’s 1966 classic “Knock on Wood,” the Ohio Players’ 1968 song “Here Today and Gone Tomorrow” — but also in the reinventions of Bowie’s catalog, which went far beyond the blistering power-trio rock of the Ziggy era. “Aladdin Sane” received a Latin treatment driven by Garson’s manic piano; “Jean Genie” slowed to a lounge crawl on the verses and completely dispensed with its signature riff; even the brand-new “Rebel Rebel” got a looser tempo and jazzy backing vocals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was hanging out a lot in New York,” fan Kathy Miller recalls. “I remember seeing him and his entourage snowed in during a blizzard at a [April 22] New York Dolls show at Kenny’s Castaways, and friends of mine saw him at Puerto Rican discos, black discos. So it was not such a shock to New Yorkers that he gravitated toward that kind of music.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After dress rehearsals at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, N.Y. — “Two days? Maybe more, because that was one complicated f- – -ing thing,” Slick says — the entire production headed up the Northway to Montreal for the first of what would ultimately be 30 dates of the initial leg of the \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> tour. Not surprisingly, the opening night had more than a few rough spots. The sound system was distorted, and the catwalk plummeted dangerously to the stage floor with Bowie on it, a problem that happened more than once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The kinks were gradually worked out and the tour carried on across the Northeast and South, playing major venues — Cleveland’s Public Auditorium for two nights, Detroit’s Cobo Hall, Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium — but also many smaller, less-likely markets and theaters, like Charleston, W.Va.; Dayton and Toledo, Ohio; Norfolk, Va. While most nights went off without a hitch, the complexity of the set continued to cause problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Norfolk show, Rob Holland, then 14, recalls, “I remember the cherry-picker got stuck: It moved for a minute and then it moved again to the side of the stage, but then it got stuck and he had to get off of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On at least one other night, the cherry-picker extended to its full length but failed to retract, leaving Bowie stranded over the audience. “When he finished the song he had to shimmy along the [cherry-picker’s hydraulic] arm back to the stage,” Tony Visconti writes in the \u003cem>David Live\u003c/em> liner notes. “Members of the audience were standing on their seats trying to grab him and pull him down. On that night, this was perceived as part of the show: David made it seem to look that way, climbing back in a dramatic, purposeful way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many were dazzled by the stage and the theatrics, some weren’t so impressed. “I really liked the set, but I’ve always felt it would have been a much better show if they had really exploited it, doing \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> semi-theatrically and really using the staging,” John Neilson says. “He did use it for ‘Sweet Thing,’ but the rest of the time it just sorta loomed in the background. It was a kind of wasted opportunity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brad Elvis, formerly of The Elvis Brothers and currently in The Romantics and The Handcuffs, caught shows in Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio. “It got a good reaction, but it wasn’t like pandemonium,” he remembers. He and a couple of friends did, however, spend time with Bowie and band members at a hotel-room party after the Toledo show — where he witnessed the growing R&B influence firsthand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were about five other people in this cramped little room, and they had this big boombox,” he says. “Kind of dancey R&B was playing, and one of the [backing singers] was showing Bowie these dance moves. Everybody’s dancing, having fun, getting loose, except us — we’re watching, wide-eyed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10137766\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d-400x532.jpg\" alt=\"David Bowie onstage at Madison Square Garden in New York City on July 20, 1974\" width=\"400\" height=\"532\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-10137766\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d-400x532.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d-225x300.jpg 225w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/06/105742923_master_vert-31c00bc8e6efa97f3c636bad2fe55b57d5919d3d-1080x1440.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Bowie onstage at Madison Square Garden in New York City on July 20, 1974 \u003ccite>(Ron Galella/WireImage)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Occasionally parts of the set would be too large for a venue, forcing the crew to scale down the show, but only once on the tour’s first leg did Bowie perform without it completely. En route to Tampa, Fla., one of the drivers was stung by a bee and crashed a truck carrying key elements of the set into a swamp. Cancellation was considered but “David would not hear of it,” according to an announcement made to the crowd, and the show proceeded. During the set Bowie apologized for it not being “the show I’d hoped to bring you” and played a rare encore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the tour’s first leg reached its home stretch in mid-July, with a run of six shows at Philadelphia’s fabled Tower Theater, the show was beset by a problem that had nothing to do with technology. Eager to get a live album on the market before the tour concluded, Bowie’s then-manager, Tony Defries, arranged to have the Tower shows recorded. Live recordings ordinarily entitle the musicians to a much higher fee than Bowie’s touring group was receiving (Slick recalls getting $300 per week), but Defries attempted to sidestep that issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Back in the day, if you were recording, there were two microphones on everything: one would go to the [venue’s] sound, and one would go to the [mobile recording] truck,” Slick says. “At sound check, I didn’t think anything of it, but Herbie picked up on it right away. Tony Defries was one of the biggest f- – -ing shysters on the planet, and [earlier that day] I had gotten a letter pushed under my hotel door offering me $300 basically to give my rights over. Not long after that, Herbie is on the phone with everybody saying, ‘This is bulls- – -, we’re not gonna do this.’ Basically, with Herbie being the spokesperson, we said we ain’t going onstage until we get an agreement for X amount of money, period. They agreed to it, we signed it — and we didn’t get paid, so we sued David. We won, but it took a long, long time to get the money. I know David pitched a serious fit on Herbie, and I think he was kinda s- – – -y for a couple of days, but then everybody got past it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the bad vibes come through on \u003cem>David Live\u003c/em>, released in the fall. Bowie’s voice is strained, and the band, while competent, played better on other nights of the tour, as bootleg evidence shows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tour wrapped with two nights at Madison Square Garden, Bowie’s first performances at the venue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The stage show got a lot of advance buzz,” Kathy Miller remembers. “We couldn’t wait to see this set, and it really lived up to the expectations, it was gorgeous. But the [cherry-picker] reminded me of a telephone repairman — it was not glamorous; it was actually very \u003cem>Spinal Tap\u003c/em>! It looked dangerous and rickety — there really was a sense of, ‘Oh, my God, is this going to work?'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The shows were a triumph, and an after party was held at The Plaza, during which Bowie, Mick Jagger and Bette Midler reportedly disappeared into a walk-in closet for an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was quite an unbelievable, unbelievable headache, that tour, but it was spectacular,” Bowie told Buckley. “It was truly the first real rock ‘n’ roll theatrical show that made any sense. A lot of people feel it has never been bettered. It was something else, it really was.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite its enormous expense and problems, the tour helped drive \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> to No. 5 in the U.S. — by far his highest chart position at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>In early August, many of the band members gathered in Philadelphia to begin work on the album that would become \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em>, which is where the R&B transformation truly took hold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Bowie had originally intended to work with the house band at the city’s Sigma Sound — which had spawned hits by The O’Jays, Lou Rawls, The Three Degrees and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes — they were unavailable due to a scheduling conflict, and he brought in several members of his touring band, as well as some key new collaborators who would play a huge role in the album: Alomar; his wife, soul singer Robin Clark; and a young friend, future R&B superstar Luther Vandross. The latter two, along for the ride, were playfully riffing on one of the songs in the studio; Bowie loved it and had them sing on nearly every song. It was the first high-profile work of Vandross’ career.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although Bowie was raised on American R&B, like most British musicians of his generation — and he’d even performed James Brown’s “You Got to Have a Job” during the Ziggy Stardust era — the resulting sessions produced music that resembled nothing he had ever done before. Alomar, Sanborn and the singers became Bowie’s primary musical foils, often working in a soulful call-and-response role with him on songs like “Fascination” (a rewrite of Vandross’ composition “Funky Music”), “Somebody Up There Likes Me” and the title track. Bowie, fueled by cocaine, taxed the energy of the musicians by working largely from 11 p.m. until late the following morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(The album sessions, which resumed in November and again in January, featured two more star appearances. Bruce Springsteen, whom Bowie had admired since seeing a New York performance in 1972, visited the sessions but ultimately did not contribute to Bowie’s cover of his “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City.” More fruitful was a visit from Bowie’s new friend John Lennon, who was lured to the studio by being asked to contribute to Bowie’s excruciatingly overblown cover of Lennon’s “Across the Universe,” but ended up co-writing “Fame” — a studio creation conjured from Bowie’s cover of the Flares’ 1961 R&B hit “Footstompin’.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While he dismissed the album as “plastic” not long after its release, Bowie later recanted. “In 1976 I spouted some nonsense about the album being ‘synthetic radio stuff.’ I don’t believe that for one moment now,” he told Buckley. “I was living and breathing soul and R&B at this time. I listened to nothing else. It became America for me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>While Bowie’s cocaine appetite was severe before the ’74 tour began, it had escalated dramatically by the time dates resumed at the end of the summer. A brief second leg of the tour kicked off with a seven-night run at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, and it was at this time that director Alan Yentob interviewed Bowie and filmed the shows for the hourlong BBC documentary \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnIBBkgkO5o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cracked Actor\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. The Bowie on display there is an unsettling sight: fidgety, awkward and alarmingly thin and pale, he’s intelligent but remote and removed; at other times he’s in the throes of cocaine paranoia, wondering whether his car is being followed, sniffling and licking his gums. At one of the Universal concerts, captured on the \u003cem>A Portrait in Flesh\u003c/em> bootleg, Bowie speaks to the crowd almost exclusively in a bizarre pseudo-Italian accent, making inscrutable jokes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bowie that emerges in the documentary is so odd and otherworldly that it convinced Nicolas Roeg he’d found the perfect person to portray the alien in his forthcoming film \u003cem>The Man Who Fell to Earth\u003c/em>, which would mark Bowie’s feature-length debut the following year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the set and setlist were retained for the Universal shows and a few more Southwest dates, the show was completely re-conceived during a break over the second half of September. The city set was abandoned, and the new staging relied on dramatic lighting and clever use of silhouettes (a 50-foot shadow of Bowie was projected onto a screen behind the stage for “1984”). Bowie changed his wardrobe and hairstyle yet again, adopting a sweeping pompadour, jackets embellished with shoulder pads, a thick checkered tie, suspenders, baggy pants and occasionally a cane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of all, the band was overhauled to re-create the \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> sound: Alomar, Vandross, Clark and three other singers who performed on “Young Americans” were brought on board; and Bowie recruited his fifth different rhythm section in a year’s time: rock-solid drummer Dennis Davis (who, like Alomar, would be with Bowie for the rest of the decade) and bassist Emir Ksasan. Garson was made musical director, and Bowie’s revamped backing band became the opening act for the tour, cruising through a 30-minute set of smooth takes on songs like “Stormy Monday,” The O’Jays’ “Love Train” and Vandross’ “Funky Music” before concluding, strangest of all, with a lite-R&B treatment of Bowie’s own “Memory of a Free Festival,” a hippie anthem from his 1969 \u003cem>Space Oddity\u003c/em> album. The crowds hated them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Bowie set that followed kicked off reassuringly with either “Rebel Rebel” or “Space Oddity,” it then headed straight into R&B and ballad territory: a funked up version of “John I’m Only Dancing,” a samba-fied “Sorrow,” “Changes.” Rocked-up versions of “Moonage Daydream” and “Diamond Dogs” were thrown in, but a huge dollop of the unreleased \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> was aired on most nights — along with “Footstompin’,” which would form the basis of “Fame” — before the shows concluded with a one-two punch of “Suffragette City” and “Rock and Roll Suicide.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tour, beginning on Oct. 5 in St. Paul, Minn., soldiered across the Midwest, East and South over the ensuing seven weeks, setting up residencies in several cities — seven nights at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, six in Detroit, three in Boston — before closing in Atlanta on Dec. 1. Bowie’s precious voice, ravaged by cocaine abuse and months of touring, was hoarse on at least a few occasions. Audiences were nonplussed at best by the new production.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d bought a really glam outfit: a top with bell sleeves, skin-tight jeans and mile-high, red-leather platform boots,” recalls Lisa Seckler-Roode, who attended one of the Radio City shows. “People came dressed as Ziggy Stardust, with the Aladdin Sane lightning bolt on their faces. It was sort of like Wigstock: I remember the cops looking at the crowd and shaking their heads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But when Bowie came out in that suit,” she sighs, “I mean, he looked glorious, but it was such a change that the crowd was totally thrown — the atmosphere was just, ‘\u003cem>Huh?\u003c/em> What’s he doing now?’ In retrospect it was a very bold move, but the initial reaction was really confused. I remember going to school the following Monday: ‘How was the show?’ ‘It sucked!'”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/P8TnXRBkYt8'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/P8TnXRBkYt8'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Neilson recalls a similar reaction in Detroit. “The soul show threw everyone, since the album wasn’t out yet and there was a lot of new material,” he says. “The audience reaction was more polite than [hostile], for the most part, because obviously everyone loved Bowie and gave him the benefit of a doubt. But it was muted appreciation at best and probably some quiet disapproval.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least one musician onstage shared the sentiment. “I gotta be honest with you, I wasn’t terribly thrilled with it,” says Slick, whose guitar roars out at a searing volume on bootlegs during the rare occasions he got the spotlight. “[During the opening set] there wasn’t a whole lot for me to do. For the Bowie set I was back on it, but even with that, the way it was being played wasn’t rock ‘n’ roll anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bowie’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8TnXRBkYt8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">appearance on \u003cem>The Dick Cavett Show\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, taped early in November during the Radio City stint, is fascinating, mixing new, (relatively) old and obscure: The band charges through a fast “1984,” Bowie straps on his Ziggy-era 12-string acoustic as the singers groove for “Young Americans,” and concludes with the still-unreleased “Footstompin’.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Bowie is in strong form, if a bit hoarse, when performing, his interview with Cavett could function as an anti-cocaine ad. He fidgets relentlessly with a cane he used as a prop during the performance, sniffles and appears completely ill at ease — at one point Cavett asks him if he’s nervous. “Um … oh, let’s carry on talking,” he replies. “Don’t ask me that. Otherwise I’ll wonder, you see. I’d rather not know if I’m nervous until … ” he trails off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the interview, he’s perhaps most cogent when explaining his rationale for his new look and sound. “We did the \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> tour and took it from New York to Los Angeles, and I felt that that was enough, really. Rather than come back with the same thing, I wanted to give myself an opportunity just to work with the band. … I got a lot of fulfillment from working in productions like \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> or \u003cem>Ziggy Stardust\u003c/em>. But now that I’m working with just a band and singing, which is something I haven’t done for years, I’m finding a new kind of fulfillment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Judging from the reaction of fans and the tepid-to-negative reviews the show received, Bowie’s audience was not yet ready for that new kind of fulfillment.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>Somehow, from such unpromising origins, from such a turbulent, tumultuous, drug-addled year — one that saw Bowie poised for enormous success yet opting not just to challenge his audience but almost to defy it — after 73 concerts and against daunting odds, the tour helped accomplish the ultimate goal: breaking David Bowie in America. \u003cem>Diamond Dogs\u003c/em> reached No. 5 on the Billboard charts. \u003cem>David Live\u003c/em> went to No. 8. The \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> album hit No. 9, and the title track was his first U.S. Top 40 single, peaking at 29. And “Fame” was a global hit single, became Bowie’s first U.S. No. 1 and made him into a superstar. In 1975, he relocated to Los Angeles, launched his movie career, and became an all-around entertainer who appeared on both \u003cem>Soul Train\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Cher\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Despite its now-legendary status, Bowie’s 1974 tour is tragically ill-documented. Apart from fan-filmed super-8 footage, the only video documentation of the Hunger City set that has surfaced is Fisher and Ravitz discussing this scale model in the 1996 \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qKP4oVraDA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BBC documentary \u003cem>Hang on to Yourself\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. (the \u003cem>Cracked Actor\u003c/em> documentary shows frustratingly little of the stage). Likewise, apart from a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjoiIcF6s6Q\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">one-minute-long, professionally filmed segment from a Radio City show\u003c/a> that aired in a VH1 \u003cem>Legends\u003c/em> episode, no footage from the soul concerts has emerged, although the \u003cem>Cavett\u003c/em> show at least documents some performances. While some sources say Bowie filmed rehearsals and the Garden shows, and the VH1 footage suggests there’s more somewhere, Slick says he has no recollection of any shows being filmed.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while many, including this writer, consider \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> to be his weakest 1970s studio album, that is hardly an insult. In terms of influence, it’s hard to know where to begin: Virtually every artist bearing a trace of white soul since its release — from Robert Palmer to Duran Duran, from George Michael to Robbie Williams and far beyond — owes more than a “sho’nuff” and some hair gel to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, \u003cem>Young Americans\u003c/em> and the Soul Tour were way stations: like everything Bowie had done before, he ingested and used them as a foundation for what came next. In this case, it was the pioneering ice-funk of \u003cem>Station to Station\u003c/em>, arguably one of his two best albums, and one that paved the way not only for thousands of artists who were influenced by it, but also for the brilliant wave of experimentation that followed over the next five years: \u003cem>Low, Heroes, Lodger\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Scary Monsters\u003c/em>. But that’s another story …\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sources: David Buckley’s stellar liner notes to the deluxe editions of \u003c/em>Diamond Dogs\u003cem> and \u003c/em>Young Americans\u003cem>, and Tony Visconti’s for \u003c/em>David Live\u003cem>; Kevin Cann’s \u003c/em>David Bowie: Any Day Now, The London Years 1947-74\u003cem>; Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray’s \u003c/em>David Bowie: An Illustrated Record\u003cem>; Chris Carter’s “\u003ca href=\"http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gouster/introduction.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Young American” site\u003c/a>; Chris O’Leary’s “\u003ca href=\"http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pushing Ahead of the Dame” site\u003c/a>; and especially Roger Griffin’s “\u003ca href=\"http://www.bowiegoldenyears.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Golden Years” site\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Special thanks to Ira Robbins, Jennifer Kennedy, Julian Stockton and especially everyone who took the time to be interviewed for this article.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Who+Can+I+Be+Now%3F+How+David+Bowie+Spent+1974&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Casey Kasem, an Iconic Voice of American Radio",
"headTitle": "Casey Kasem, an Iconic Voice of American Radio | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Casey Kasem, the countdown king of music radio and the voice of \u003cem>Scooby-Doo’s\u003c/em> Shaggy, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/06/15/322264872/casey-kasem-legendary-radio-dj-dies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">has died at 82\u003c/a>, his publicist confirmed Sunday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kasem hosted \u003cem>American Top 40\u003c/em> for four decades. He presented the week’s hits with a sincerity and authority that made him essential listening for million of Americans every weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kasem was born Kemal Amin Kasem in 1932. His parents were Lebanese immigrants who had settled in Detroit. Kasem was drafted into the military and began his broadcasting career as a DJ for Armed Forces Radio in Korea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he returned to the U.S., he perfected his sound at radio stations around the country before launching his show from California on July 4, 1970. As \u003cem>American Top 40\u003c/em> evolved, Kasem added music trivia, and the long distance dedications that became a hallmark of his show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a voice not just that was smooth and perfect that you recognized but one that you the listener had an emotional relationship with,” says Neil Strauss, a contributing editor for \u003cem>Rolling Stone,\u003c/em> who sat down with Kasem for a rare interview in 2004. He says the DJ represented the best of an age before the Internet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You wouldn’t know what was No. 1 because you didn’t subscribe to \u003cem>Radio & Records\u003c/em> or \u003cem>Billboard\u003c/em>. Only he knew what was No. 1. He had that power,” says Strauss. “You didn’t know all these details about the artists; only he knew. He actually was a source of so much of your information about pop music and popular culture that nowadays you can just search online.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm0LnxB2c9Q\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the show, Kasem was an accomplished voice actor. He was Shaggy in \u003cem>Scooby Doo\u003c/em>. He voiced several of the \u003cem>Transformers\u003c/em> on TV, and he was an emcee for Jerry Lewis’ annual telethon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For listeners, his was an empathetic voice, but behind the scenes he could be exacting and temperamental.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was a stickler for doing enough takes until he got it just right,” says Strauss, “that a level’s never too loud, never too quiet; that there was no single aberration in anything he said.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The contrast was so striking that several of his in-studio tirades \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDYK2H0ldbo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">went viral\u003c/a> (audio NSFW). For Strauss, those outbursts prove just how seriously Kasem took his hosting duties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The reason he’d done these shows for 39 years and survived where other people haven’t was that he never associated himself with the music,” says Strauss. “He never tried to become or embody the music. He never tried to be cool or hip, whatever the trend was at the time. In fact, he never even cared about the music or was a fan of it or liked it — he just liked counting it down and delivering his segments of trivia and dedications.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But off the air, Kasem was passionate about the environment, homelessness and the Arab community. He spoke out against racial profiling and against war in the Middle East.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1988, Kasem “left over a contract dispute and started his own Casey’s Top 40,” the \u003ca href=\"www.ocregister.com/articles/radio-255910-kasem-seacrest.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">OC Register says\u003c/a>. “Shadoe Stevens replaced him on AT40 until 1995, when it was canceled and off the air until 1998 when it returned with Kasem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ten years ago, Kasem handed off \u003cem>American Top 40\u003c/em> to Ryan Seacrest. Five years later, he presented his \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106333928\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">final countdown\u003c/a> and withdrew from public life. Kasem’s health had worsened in recent years and as he suffered from worsening dementia, his wife and children from his first marriage began a painful and very public feud over his care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In today’s personality-driven industry, Kasem’s original broadcasts can sound a little earnest. But Strauss says Kasem was serious and it was reflected in his show’s catchphrase.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He said, ‘I believe we’re in a great country, we have a lot of opportunity and nothing’s going to limit you, so go for it. But don’t hurt anyone along the way.’ Obviously that’s not catchy, so \u003ca href=\"http://youtu.be/RnBFBilOk-o?t=40s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">he reduced it.\u003c/a>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>I’m Casey Kasem. Now one more time, the words I’ve ended my show with since 1970: Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Casey+Kasem%2C+An+Iconic+Voice+Of+American+Radio&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Casey Kasem, the countdown king of music radio and the voice of \u003cem>Scooby-Doo’s\u003c/em> Shaggy, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/06/15/322264872/casey-kasem-legendary-radio-dj-dies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">has died at 82\u003c/a>, his publicist confirmed Sunday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kasem hosted \u003cem>American Top 40\u003c/em> for four decades. He presented the week’s hits with a sincerity and authority that made him essential listening for million of Americans every weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kasem was born Kemal Amin Kasem in 1932. His parents were Lebanese immigrants who had settled in Detroit. Kasem was drafted into the military and began his broadcasting career as a DJ for Armed Forces Radio in Korea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he returned to the U.S., he perfected his sound at radio stations around the country before launching his show from California on July 4, 1970. As \u003cem>American Top 40\u003c/em> evolved, Kasem added music trivia, and the long distance dedications that became a hallmark of his show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a voice not just that was smooth and perfect that you recognized but one that you the listener had an emotional relationship with,” says Neil Strauss, a contributing editor for \u003cem>Rolling Stone,\u003c/em> who sat down with Kasem for a rare interview in 2004. He says the DJ represented the best of an age before the Internet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You wouldn’t know what was No. 1 because you didn’t subscribe to \u003cem>Radio & Records\u003c/em> or \u003cem>Billboard\u003c/em>. Only he knew what was No. 1. He had that power,” says Strauss. “You didn’t know all these details about the artists; only he knew. He actually was a source of so much of your information about pop music and popular culture that nowadays you can just search online.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/xm0LnxB2c9Q'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/xm0LnxB2c9Q'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>In addition to the show, Kasem was an accomplished voice actor. He was Shaggy in \u003cem>Scooby Doo\u003c/em>. He voiced several of the \u003cem>Transformers\u003c/em> on TV, and he was an emcee for Jerry Lewis’ annual telethon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For listeners, his was an empathetic voice, but behind the scenes he could be exacting and temperamental.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was a stickler for doing enough takes until he got it just right,” says Strauss, “that a level’s never too loud, never too quiet; that there was no single aberration in anything he said.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The contrast was so striking that several of his in-studio tirades \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDYK2H0ldbo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">went viral\u003c/a> (audio NSFW). For Strauss, those outbursts prove just how seriously Kasem took his hosting duties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The reason he’d done these shows for 39 years and survived where other people haven’t was that he never associated himself with the music,” says Strauss. “He never tried to become or embody the music. He never tried to be cool or hip, whatever the trend was at the time. In fact, he never even cared about the music or was a fan of it or liked it — he just liked counting it down and delivering his segments of trivia and dedications.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But off the air, Kasem was passionate about the environment, homelessness and the Arab community. He spoke out against racial profiling and against war in the Middle East.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1988, Kasem “left over a contract dispute and started his own Casey’s Top 40,” the \u003ca href=\"www.ocregister.com/articles/radio-255910-kasem-seacrest.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">OC Register says\u003c/a>. “Shadoe Stevens replaced him on AT40 until 1995, when it was canceled and off the air until 1998 when it returned with Kasem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ten years ago, Kasem handed off \u003cem>American Top 40\u003c/em> to Ryan Seacrest. Five years later, he presented his \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106333928\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">final countdown\u003c/a> and withdrew from public life. Kasem’s health had worsened in recent years and as he suffered from worsening dementia, his wife and children from his first marriage began a painful and very public feud over his care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In today’s personality-driven industry, Kasem’s original broadcasts can sound a little earnest. But Strauss says Kasem was serious and it was reflected in his show’s catchphrase.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He said, ‘I believe we’re in a great country, we have a lot of opportunity and nothing’s going to limit you, so go for it. But don’t hurt anyone along the way.’ Obviously that’s not catchy, so \u003ca href=\"http://youtu.be/RnBFBilOk-o?t=40s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">he reduced it.\u003c/a>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>I’m Casey Kasem. Now one more time, the words I’ve ended my show with since 1970: Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Casey+Kasem%2C+An+Iconic+Voice+Of+American+Radio&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Watch Oakland's tUnE-yArDs Live in Concert from D.C.",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"689\" height=\"388\" src=\"http://www.npr.org/templates/event/embeddedVideo.php?storyId=319137516&mediaId=319155167\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>See tUnE-yArDs in a live video webcast, with an opening set from Sylvan Esso. Both concerts will begin streaming live on NPR Music from the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., at 6 p.m. PT Friday, June 13.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Below is a review from NPR’s Ken Tucker, titled “tUnE-yArDs: Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing”\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/122443700/tune-yards\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tUnE-yArDs\u003c/a>\u003cem> is\u003c/em> Merrill Garbus. She writes the songs, which frequently consist of musical riffs broken into pieces and shards, glued together with an organizing rhythm. She provides most of the multi-layered vocals and much of the percussion, as well as various keyboards, ukulele and other instruments and objects. Working with bassist Nate Brenner and occasionally a few other singers and instrumentalists, Garbus gives electrifying performances that showcase her remarkably flexible singing voice. In her ability to create music that sounds at once invitingly familiar and disorientingly new, Garbus is the real thing — an original artist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her stated influences are a patchwork, including everything from kids’ games and TV shows to the drum rhythms she’s heard in music from Kenya and Haiti, as well as every kind of American pop. I also hear the sort of strongly willful naivete that in the past has powered music by idiosyncratic artists such as Captain Beefheart, Pere Ubu’s David Thomas, Jonathan Richman and the children’s-music genius-eccentric Jim Copp. But in \u003cem>Nikki Nack\u003c/em>‘s “Real Thing,” Garbus worries over the notion that she’s just an accumulation of her influences, and she fights back wonderfully, calling out the “curse of the real thing.” This song and many others are showcases for her striking vocals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbiFcPhccu8\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are quiet moments on this album, such as “Look Around,” which commences with Garbus’ stark, lovely, soulful singing. That song builds and builds into a rich, multi-tracked, orchestral swirl that surges with confidence even as its lyric describes examples of what Garbus calls “the most brilliantly rhyming terrors.” tUnE-yArDs’ music plays with notions of assertiveness and weakness, power and passivity. Garbus’ voice is so flexible, assuming so many roles within a single song, and her music is so artfully ramshackle, it can confuse a newcomer. Is she a kid just fiddling around with do-it-yourself technology? No. Now a thirtysomething based in Oakland, Calif., Garbus is an artist whose process has become more complex with each of her three albums. She took her album title \u003cem>Nikki Nack\u003c/em> from the “This Old Man” nursery rhyme, but she’s never childish — her songs raise the subjects of personal and political revolt, of natural and man-made disasters, of the difficult work of trying to achieve happiness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At one point during “Hey Life,” Garbus sings, “Hey, life, I love you so much I scream and shout.” tUnE-yArDs’ music contains some of the most thoughtful and artful screaming and shouting I’ve heard in a while. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=tUnE-yArDs%3A+Ain%27t+Nothing+Like+The+Real+Thing&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cp>Singer \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15395174/little-jimmy-scott\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jimmy Scott\u003c/a> died Thursday morning at his home in Las Vegas at age 88, according to his booking agent, Jean-Pierre Leduc. Scott’s death was a result of complications from Kallmann’s syndrome, a lifelong affliction that prevented his body from maturing through puberty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The condition slowed his growth, leaving his stature at 4 feet 11 inches until his late 30s. It also affected his vocal cords, giving him a high voice that was often misidentified as a woman’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scott was labeled Little Jimmy Scott by bandleader \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15770474/lionel-hampton\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lionel Hampton\u003c/a> in the late 1940s. Hampton also delivered the first of many professional slights in 1949 when he left Scott’s name off on an early hit, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvJeMqPY7WA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scott’s career seemed promising after he left Hampton’s orchestra. He recorded for various independent labels and toured with a revue run by dancer Estelle “Caledonia” Young that included R&B singer Big Maybelle and comedian \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90188763\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Redd Foxx\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Throughout the early ’50s and ’60s, Scott recorded for various indie labels including Savoy, where he was under the tight control of owner Herman Lubinsky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Scott’s 2002 autobiography, \u003cem>The Life of Jimmy Scott\u003c/em> (written with David Ritz), Lubinsky halted production of a 1963 album that was personally supervised by Scott fan \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/14951033/ray-charles\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ray Charles\u003c/a> for his own Tangerine label. Lubinsky used legal proceedings to halt distribution, claiming Scott was under contract to Savoy. The album was eventually rescued and released in 2003 and has been widely hailed as one of the great jazz vocal albums.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The experience of having his album shelved — not to mention the hardships he experienced being misidentified as a woman, accused of drug addiction and harassed about his sexual identity because of his voice — took a toll and Scott left the music business, moving back to his native Cleveland and becoming a hotel clerk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite his absence, Scott maintained friends and fans in the music business, including legendary R&B producer \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2013/10/24/240487765/the-life-of-doc-pomus-songwriter-to-the-stars\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Doc Pomus\u003c/a>, who requested that Scott sing at his 1991 funeral. A record executive in attendance heard the performance and signed him to a record contract on the spot, kick-starting Scott’s second act. This time adulation came rushing in, resulting in a string of albums that received both popular and critical acclaim. He even \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIXPG8NR5iI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">appeared in the final episode\u003c/a> of the singular TV hit \u003cem>Twin Peaks\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For most of his nearly nine decades Scott’s life and art were affected by loss: first his mother’s death when he was 13, then the personal slights and missed opportunities in his fractured career and decades of anonymity away from the record business. In 2000, \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> called him “perhaps the most unjustly ignored American singer of the 20th century.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And yet in a late-career interview Scott was philosophical about the bad breaks he had caught along the way. “I’ve learned that music is such a healer,” he said. “As long as I could sing my songs, I wasn’t as angry about what had happened, about being shoved back for this or shoved back for the other. I’m a singer, and I never lost sight of that.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Ethereal+Jazz+Singer+Jimmy+Scott+Dies+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Scott’s 2002 autobiography, \u003cem>The Life of Jimmy Scott\u003c/em> (written with David Ritz), Lubinsky halted production of a 1963 album that was personally supervised by Scott fan \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/14951033/ray-charles\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ray Charles\u003c/a> for his own Tangerine label. Lubinsky used legal proceedings to halt distribution, claiming Scott was under contract to Savoy. The album was eventually rescued and released in 2003 and has been widely hailed as one of the great jazz vocal albums.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The experience of having his album shelved — not to mention the hardships he experienced being misidentified as a woman, accused of drug addiction and harassed about his sexual identity because of his voice — took a toll and Scott left the music business, moving back to his native Cleveland and becoming a hotel clerk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite his absence, Scott maintained friends and fans in the music business, including legendary R&B producer \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2013/10/24/240487765/the-life-of-doc-pomus-songwriter-to-the-stars\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Doc Pomus\u003c/a>, who requested that Scott sing at his 1991 funeral. A record executive in attendance heard the performance and signed him to a record contract on the spot, kick-starting Scott’s second act. This time adulation came rushing in, resulting in a string of albums that received both popular and critical acclaim. He even \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIXPG8NR5iI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">appeared in the final episode\u003c/a> of the singular TV hit \u003cem>Twin Peaks\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For most of his nearly nine decades Scott’s life and art were affected by loss: first his mother’s death when he was 13, then the personal slights and missed opportunities in his fractured career and decades of anonymity away from the record business. In 2000, \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> called him “perhaps the most unjustly ignored American singer of the 20th century.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And yet in a late-career interview Scott was philosophical about the bad breaks he had caught along the way. “I’ve learned that music is such a healer,” he said. “As long as I could sing my songs, I wasn’t as angry about what had happened, about being shoved back for this or shoved back for the other. I’m a singer, and I never lost sight of that.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Ethereal+Jazz+Singer+Jimmy+Scott+Dies+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>When you’ve played Austin Powers, Shrek, The Cat in the Hat and the title dweeb in \u003cem>Wayne’s World\u003c/em>, what do you do for an encore? If you’re comedian Mike Myers, the next logical step, evidently, is to direct a documentary about your agent. And damned if it doesn’t turn out to be a decent career move — as smart, and sometimes even as funny, as anything Myers has done recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not that \u003cem>Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon\u003c/em> is likely to do the kind of business most Myers movies do (might do as well as \u003cem>The \u003c/em>\u003cem>Love Guru\u003c/em>, I suppose), but it’s competent enough to suggest the filmmaker has more arrows in his quiver than “yeah, baby.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He starts the film with five minutes of celebrity testimonials telling you why you should care about this guy you’ve never heard of — Willie Nelson calling Gordon the “proverbial canary in the marijuana mine,” chef Emeril Lagasse saying Gordon invented the concept of celebrity chef, a parade of film stars testifying to his libido (Michael Douglas remembers a T-shirt emblazoned with “No Head, No Backstage Pass”).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://youtu.be/Zd0VOkPOrV0\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then, an obviously hero-worshipping Mike Myers lets the man himself take over — Gordon recounting how in 1968, he arrived in a Los Angeles motel, fresh out of college, with no money, no job, having just dropped some acid, utterly at peace with the world, and got slugged by a gal who later identified herself as Janis Joplin. She introduced him to Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix, who suggested that, since he was Jewish, he should become a manager.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Who should I manage?” wondered Gordon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Alice Cooper,” came the reply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At which point, Alice Cooper picks up the story, chortling about the 43 years they’ve worked together without ever signing a contract, and the schemes they’ve hatched to turn Cooper into a rock ghoul — the coat made of dead rats, the live chicken tossed into the audience, the clear plastic clothes that made it look like the star was performing naked. Also the hotel bills skipped out on (that Gordon went back and paid, once they were solvent).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gordon didn’t just hang out with rockers. He also became buds with the Dalai Lama, helped rescue Groucho Marx from poverty, shaped movie careers galore, and almost more intriguing than all of that, was never especially enamored of fame. Having seen it close-up — engineered it close-up, in fact — he found it so centrally unhealthy that he introduced a warning ritual into the signing of new artists, saying, “If I do my job right, I’ll probably kill you.” Fame, the great equalizer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a documentary director, Myers has the comic timing to make the celebrity anecdotes click along nicely. He isn’t quite as sharp at narrative, so a bit of the oomph goes out of the film when the star wattage dims and he tries to shape the legend of this guy who spends so much time on everyone else, he’s not really taking care of himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Any slack, though, is picked up by Shep Gordon, who seems every inch the “supermensch” of the title — splendid company, a sterling storyteller, and yeah, a real mensch. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Mike+Myers+Steps+Behind+The+Camera+With+%27Supermensch%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When you’ve played Austin Powers, Shrek, The Cat in the Hat and the title dweeb in \u003cem>Wayne’s World\u003c/em>, what do you do for an encore? If you’re comedian Mike Myers, the next logical step, evidently, is to direct a documentary about your agent. And damned if it doesn’t turn out to be a decent career move — as smart, and sometimes even as funny, as anything Myers has done recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not that \u003cem>Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon\u003c/em> is likely to do the kind of business most Myers movies do (might do as well as \u003cem>The \u003c/em>\u003cem>Love Guru\u003c/em>, I suppose), but it’s competent enough to suggest the filmmaker has more arrows in his quiver than “yeah, baby.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He starts the film with five minutes of celebrity testimonials telling you why you should care about this guy you’ve never heard of — Willie Nelson calling Gordon the “proverbial canary in the marijuana mine,” chef Emeril Lagasse saying Gordon invented the concept of celebrity chef, a parade of film stars testifying to his libido (Michael Douglas remembers a T-shirt emblazoned with “No Head, No Backstage Pass”).\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/Zd0VOkPOrV0'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/Zd0VOkPOrV0'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>And then, an obviously hero-worshipping Mike Myers lets the man himself take over — Gordon recounting how in 1968, he arrived in a Los Angeles motel, fresh out of college, with no money, no job, having just dropped some acid, utterly at peace with the world, and got slugged by a gal who later identified herself as Janis Joplin. She introduced him to Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix, who suggested that, since he was Jewish, he should become a manager.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Who should I manage?” wondered Gordon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Alice Cooper,” came the reply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At which point, Alice Cooper picks up the story, chortling about the 43 years they’ve worked together without ever signing a contract, and the schemes they’ve hatched to turn Cooper into a rock ghoul — the coat made of dead rats, the live chicken tossed into the audience, the clear plastic clothes that made it look like the star was performing naked. Also the hotel bills skipped out on (that Gordon went back and paid, once they were solvent).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gordon didn’t just hang out with rockers. He also became buds with the Dalai Lama, helped rescue Groucho Marx from poverty, shaped movie careers galore, and almost more intriguing than all of that, was never especially enamored of fame. Having seen it close-up — engineered it close-up, in fact — he found it so centrally unhealthy that he introduced a warning ritual into the signing of new artists, saying, “If I do my job right, I’ll probably kill you.” Fame, the great equalizer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a documentary director, Myers has the comic timing to make the celebrity anecdotes click along nicely. He isn’t quite as sharp at narrative, so a bit of the oomph goes out of the film when the star wattage dims and he tries to shape the legend of this guy who spends so much time on everyone else, he’s not really taking care of himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Any slack, though, is picked up by Shep Gordon, who seems every inch the “supermensch” of the title — splendid company, a sterling storyteller, and yeah, a real mensch. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Mike+Myers+Steps+Behind+The+Camera+With+%27Supermensch%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>If there’s any doubt that \u003cem>22 Jump Street\u003c/em> is a cartoon dressed in live-action clothing, it should disappear completely when Channing Tatum’s lovably lunkheaded Detective Jenko is puzzling over an obvious set of connected clues when – DING! – the answer suddenly comes to him. That “Ding” is literal – the sound is just an office noise from somewhere in the formerly abandoned Vietnamese church where his investigative unit is based. But it might as well be accompanied by a light bulb flickering to life above his head, before he begins running excitedly around the office like Yosemite Sam with the seat of his pants on fire, excited beyond measure that for once a thought has survived the leap between synapses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Cartoonish” isn’t a criticism here any more than it would be in reference to a classic Looney Tunes short. It just means that directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller feel no need to maintain any tether to reality or plausibility in service of a good gag. And these two are never at a loss for good, self-aware gags – like the red herring tattoo emblazoned on a character who is exactly that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://youtu.be/qP755JkDxyM#aid=P8-L-CioG3Q\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What worked last time, in Miller and Lord’s unexpectedly successful 2012 adaptation of the ’80s cop drama, \u003cem>21 Jump Street\u003c/em>, also works here. That’s part of the joke. Just as that movie made fun of its own existence by calling attention to the ridiculousness of rebooting an already kind of ridiculous TV show about adult cops posing as high school students, \u003cem>22 Jump Street\u003c/em> recognizes its perceived status as a cash grabbing action sequel. Then it mercilessly mocks the tradition it’s becoming part of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Acknowledging the fact that they’re essentially ripping themselves off allows Miller and Lord the freedom of not having to try to hide it. The setup isn’t just similar, it’s identical: demonstrate that Jenko and his partner Schmidt (Jonah Hill) are screw-ups, send them to the angry Chief’s (Nick Offerman) office for a dressing-down, and then on to their captain (Ice Cube), who continues berating them before sending them undercover to infiltrate a drug ring selling a new designer drug to students. The only difference is that the students that the pair have to pose as this time are in college instead of high school this time around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miller and Lord have become so successful because they’re able to make dumb ideas into brilliant comedy simply by acknowledging that audiences aren’t as dumb as the industry often seems to think they are. In any other hands, their \u003cem>Lego Movie\u003c/em> could have just been a two-hour toy commercial, big business exploiting children’s creative love of Lego for their own ends. Miller and Lord flipped it into a hilarious critique of exactly that idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>22 Jump Street\u003c/em> plays on expectations – specifically, lowered ones — of sequels just as effectively. That Vietnamese church is right across the street from the Korean church at 21 Jump Street that was the site of the investigation’s headquarters in the previous movie. Next to that site, at 23 Jump Street, there are construction crews already at work on a new building. With the recent announcement that Marvel already has their movie sequels mapped out until 2028, the implication couldn’t be more timely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside the new HQ, everything is glass and computers and ostentatious spending – Iron Man gets name-checked, along with another sequel-heavy franchise, James Bond. The Captain isn’t any more subtle about calling attention to the unit’s (and the sequel’s) newly increased budget than he is about telling Jenko and Schmidt that the assignment is exactly the same.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plot becomes incidental to the jokes, only existing in service of them. Again, that’s not a bad thing; how many substantively different plots did Looney Tunes or Tom & Jerry ever really have?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “breakup” of Jenko and Schmidt’s formerly solid dude-bond is the central conflict here, as they migrate to different cliques in their new college setting. But that’s really only an opportunity for Miller and Lord to take pot shots at bromance as a genre trend as well as making the subtext of buddy cop movies into text with overt romantic comedy parallels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If it’s not quite as funny as its predecessor, that’s only because it’s not quite as unexpected. The directors know familiarity breeds tedium, but try to alleviate that by just being honest about it. We know what sequels do and why. They know that we know. What separates \u003cem>22 Jump Street\u003c/em> from sequel mediocrity is that everyone’s in on the joke. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Familiarity+But+No+Contempt%3A+The+Sequel+Says+%27Jump%2C%27+You+Say+%27Oh%2C+Hi%21%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>If there’s any doubt that \u003cem>22 Jump Street\u003c/em> is a cartoon dressed in live-action clothing, it should disappear completely when Channing Tatum’s lovably lunkheaded Detective Jenko is puzzling over an obvious set of connected clues when – DING! – the answer suddenly comes to him. That “Ding” is literal – the sound is just an office noise from somewhere in the formerly abandoned Vietnamese church where his investigative unit is based. But it might as well be accompanied by a light bulb flickering to life above his head, before he begins running excitedly around the office like Yosemite Sam with the seat of his pants on fire, excited beyond measure that for once a thought has survived the leap between synapses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Cartoonish” isn’t a criticism here any more than it would be in reference to a classic Looney Tunes short. It just means that directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller feel no need to maintain any tether to reality or plausibility in service of a good gag. And these two are never at a loss for good, self-aware gags – like the red herring tattoo emblazoned on a character who is exactly that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://youtu.be/qP755JkDxyM#aid=P8-L-CioG3Q\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What worked last time, in Miller and Lord’s unexpectedly successful 2012 adaptation of the ’80s cop drama, \u003cem>21 Jump Street\u003c/em>, also works here. That’s part of the joke. Just as that movie made fun of its own existence by calling attention to the ridiculousness of rebooting an already kind of ridiculous TV show about adult cops posing as high school students, \u003cem>22 Jump Street\u003c/em> recognizes its perceived status as a cash grabbing action sequel. Then it mercilessly mocks the tradition it’s becoming part of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Acknowledging the fact that they’re essentially ripping themselves off allows Miller and Lord the freedom of not having to try to hide it. The setup isn’t just similar, it’s identical: demonstrate that Jenko and his partner Schmidt (Jonah Hill) are screw-ups, send them to the angry Chief’s (Nick Offerman) office for a dressing-down, and then on to their captain (Ice Cube), who continues berating them before sending them undercover to infiltrate a drug ring selling a new designer drug to students. The only difference is that the students that the pair have to pose as this time are in college instead of high school this time around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miller and Lord have become so successful because they’re able to make dumb ideas into brilliant comedy simply by acknowledging that audiences aren’t as dumb as the industry often seems to think they are. In any other hands, their \u003cem>Lego Movie\u003c/em> could have just been a two-hour toy commercial, big business exploiting children’s creative love of Lego for their own ends. Miller and Lord flipped it into a hilarious critique of exactly that idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>22 Jump Street\u003c/em> plays on expectations – specifically, lowered ones — of sequels just as effectively. That Vietnamese church is right across the street from the Korean church at 21 Jump Street that was the site of the investigation’s headquarters in the previous movie. Next to that site, at 23 Jump Street, there are construction crews already at work on a new building. With the recent announcement that Marvel already has their movie sequels mapped out until 2028, the implication couldn’t be more timely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside the new HQ, everything is glass and computers and ostentatious spending – Iron Man gets name-checked, along with another sequel-heavy franchise, James Bond. The Captain isn’t any more subtle about calling attention to the unit’s (and the sequel’s) newly increased budget than he is about telling Jenko and Schmidt that the assignment is exactly the same.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plot becomes incidental to the jokes, only existing in service of them. Again, that’s not a bad thing; how many substantively different plots did Looney Tunes or Tom & Jerry ever really have?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “breakup” of Jenko and Schmidt’s formerly solid dude-bond is the central conflict here, as they migrate to different cliques in their new college setting. But that’s really only an opportunity for Miller and Lord to take pot shots at bromance as a genre trend as well as making the subtext of buddy cop movies into text with overt romantic comedy parallels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If it’s not quite as funny as its predecessor, that’s only because it’s not quite as unexpected. The directors know familiarity breeds tedium, but try to alleviate that by just being honest about it. We know what sequels do and why. They know that we know. What separates \u003cem>22 Jump Street\u003c/em> from sequel mediocrity is that everyone’s in on the joke. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Familiarity+But+No+Contempt%3A+The+Sequel+Says+%27Jump%2C%27+You+Say+%27Oh%2C+Hi%21%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Jack White’s performance takes place the day he releases his new solo album \u003ci>Lazaretto\u003c/i>, a bold, shape-shifting collection of eclectic rock songs that rank among White’s wildest and most imaginative efforts. He’ll showcase much of the record in this full concert, presented here as a live video webcast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The performance will begin streaming on NPR Music at approximately 9:45pm PT (12:45am ET).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hear \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2014/05/20/jack-whites-lazaretto-the-all-songs-interview/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jack White talk about Lazaretto\u003c/a> with \u003ci>All Songs Considered\u003c/i> host Bob Boilen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"http://www.npr.org/templates/event/embeddedVideo.php?storyId=319666614&mediaId=319666680\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Bob Mould's Beautiful, Ruinous Life in Punk",
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"content": "\u003cp>Long before \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15446165/nirvana\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nirvana\u003c/a> made it popular, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15182660/bob-mould\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bob Mould\u003c/a> helped create the heavy-but-hummable rock sound that would become so big in the ’90s. Hüsker Dü, the band he co-founded in 1979, was among the most prominent in the punk underground that blossomed across the country during the Reagan years. The trio broke up in 1988, just as punk was beginning to hit a mainstream tipping point — but Mould has kept recording ever since, as a solo artist and with his band Sugar, and has pushed himself to keep innovating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a new record called \u003cem>Beauty & Ruin\u003c/em>, out this week, Mould looks back on his life and long musical career, both of which were profoundly influenced by his father — a music enthusiast who bought him records and guitars, but could also be cruel. In a conversation that covers Mould’s entire artistic life — from playing along to Ramones albums in rural New York to building a DIY touring network with Hüsker Dü, through sobriety, sexual self-discovery and the death of his father — the elder statesman of alt-rock tells NPR’s David Greene that at 53, he’s finally starting to have fun. Hear the radio version at the audio link, and read more of their conversation below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAVID GREENE: I wanted to start with where you grew up: It was a small, rural town in upstate New York. Describe the place for me and how you got your first taste of punk rock.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BOB MOULD: \u003c/strong>Well, I was born and raised in a small farm town called Malone, which was the county seat of Franklin County, the northernmost county in New York state. So when people would say, “Oh, you’re from upstate New York?” I go, “No, I’m actually from northern New York.” The closest city was Montreal, which was about 50 miles due north.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>So you’re way up there. You probably got some snow occasionally.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Laughs.\u003c/em>\u003cem>] \u003c/em>A little bit of snow, yeah. I was north of Lake Placid. It was just a quiet farm town — very idyllic, very beautiful. In the ’60s and ’70s it was unscathed; they hadn’t started building all the prisons that currently occupy the area. But in order to find this elusive punk-rock music that I’d started reading about in magazines and seeing occasionally on television, I would have to drive either due east to Plattsburgh or Burlington, Vt., or, more likely than not, north to Montreal to buy music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>And you\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> say “elusive.” Is that because the punk-rock scene was kind of hidden in the underground?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, for a farm-town kid, yeah. I didn’t have Max’s [Kansas City] or CBGB’s or anywhere like that at my fingertips, so it took a little bit more research. And coming across punk rock, it was in the funniest ways. When I was a small child, I had all these jukebox singles my dad used to get for me, so I grew up listening to all the great ’60s radio music. In the mid-’70s, I was listening to what my friends were listening to: heavy metal, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/102442872/fleetwood-mac\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fleetwood Mac\u003c/a>, Foghat, that kind of stuff. And I used to read this monthly music magazine out of New York City called \u003cem>Rock Scene\u003c/em>: They would cover \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/129085773/aerosmith\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Aerosmith\u003c/a> and Kiss, but they would also cover \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/16737462/debbie-harry\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Blondie\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15778481/television\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Television\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15180457/the-ramones\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ramones\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I saw these pictures of the Ramones trying to buy a P.A., or trying to find a practice space. It would be these three-page photo spreads, and they looked infinitely cooler than the metal bands that I was listening to. And then, for my 16th birthday, I got the first Ramones album.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>From your dad?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I got to go to the record store and pick something out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>That was a big moment, I can imagine.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was a big moment, yeah. I already had a Sears guitar, which I was trying to learn how to play. But when I heard the Ramones, that was the moment when I realized that it was actually easier than it seemed. It was very doable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What do you mean by that? What exactly struck you when you heard that music?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just the simplicity of it. It was very transparent. You know, on the first Ramones record, drums and vocals were set in the center, the bass was on one side and the guitar was on the other. It was almost as if it was an instructional record: I could get close to the bass guitar, hear the drums and vocals, and I could play guitar to that. Or I could go over and listen to the guitar, and learn that constant downstroke, power-chord style that Johnny Ramone came up with. It was just very, very different than these hugely produced pop records at the time. And going back to \u003cem>Rock Scene\u003c/em> magazine and bands with private jets and groupies and cocaine — that all seemed unattainable, I guess. And complicated, and not really that interesting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Unattainable. “I want to be in that world with the cocaine, but I just can’t get there.”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah, a private jet was very daunting. It seemed much easier to take the subway like the Ramones did. It’s just, I guess, an aesthetic call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I’d like to hear about your father. As you say, he was giving you these singles and kind of getting you into music. But I\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>‘ve read he was a difficult personality in many ways.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My dad passed away in October of 2012. He was a pretty amazing person — a very, very complicated person, a very, very smart person. When I was 6 or 7 years old — that would be 1967, ’68, maybe — he bought a mom-and-pop grocery store, and we packed up the family and moved into this small house that had the grocery store attached to it. People would come to the store and this little buzzer would flip when the door opened, and we would go out through the kitchen and wait on the customers. I think I learned a lot from my dad about business that way — how to run a register, things like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, my dad, he was a drinker. He liked to drink. Weekends could be tough. It’s funny — in retrospect, it didn’t seem that strange, because I only had a handful of friends in junior high and high school that I remember going to their houses, and it was a similar thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You mean, dads who were doing some drinking?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes, exactly. So it didn’t strike me as being particularly abnormal or different. I guess in this day and age, people would be more upset about raising a kid in that environment. I’m sure it still happens; I know it does. But I guess I never really thought it was that strange. It almost just seemed like, “Oh, here comes Friday afternoon and here comes trouble.” Sunday night it calms down, and then we go back to school on Monday. I could go into deeper details, but I think that sets it up pretty good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How tough did it get? I mean, \u003cem>\u003c/em>I’ve read the word “abusive” in some places, describing your household.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, there was physicality. But I wouldn’t — I don’t think it was abuse in an endemic kind of way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Is there a tie here to the music? Punk rock tends to have a lot of anger in it. I wonder if, as a kid getting into that kind of\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> music, you were venting some of the anger and frustration from being in a tough family environment.\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=938czNAsHeM\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah, I think so. A record like \u003cem>Zen Arcade — \u003c/em>that was a double album that my first group, Hüsker Dü, put out in 1984 — that record has a lot of those rites of passage, trying to separate once and for all from your childhood, as we all want to do when we’re 22 or 23, and not realizing that we can never fully separate from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>We should say, complicated as your dad might have been, he bought you your first guitar, right?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, going back to when I was getting these boxes of used jukebox singles, that was how I learned music: I would listen to these records and I could sit at a piano and figure out the melodies. He would take me record shopping, got me my first guitar, got me my second guitar, which was the guitar that people watched me play for eight years with Hüsker Dü. So again, a complex person, but I’m very grateful for all those gifts that he exposed me to — even through Hüsker Dü, buying a couple different vans and driving them out to Minnesota so that the band would have decent vehicles to tour the country in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>And Hüsker Dü became one of the biggest alternative \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>bands in the country — though even then you were below the radar in a way. Can you take me into that world? How did punk-rock fans find each other in those days? What were the nights like?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I went to college in St. Paul, Minn., a school called Macalester. Within the first semester, I met a fellow named \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/123786490/grant-hart\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Grant Hart\u003c/a>, who was working at a record store down the street from school. He had a friend who worked at another record store named Greg Norton. So we now have a drummer, a bass player and me on guitar. We get together, and we’re trying to write some songs to possibly play at this club called The Longhorn, which in 1979 was \u003cem>the\u003c/em> punk-rock club in the Twin Cities. It’s where all of the big bands would play, like The Police and Blondie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Those are big names.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And we managed to get a gig there. And we kept playing, kept meeting people. We went through a number of different styles at the beginning: some sort of simple punk rock; some sort of surfy; some chimey and depressing almost like \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/16229401/joy-division\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Joy Division\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15790060/the-cure\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Cure\u003c/a>, little bits of sort of industrial noise. And then we arrived at this hardcore punk sound.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During these years — 1979, 1980, the beginning of 1981 — other bands from around North America would come to Minneapolis, and invariably we would be the opening band. They’d see us and they’d say, “You guys are really great. If you ever come to Vancouver, give us a call. If you ever come to San Francisco, give us a call.” And once we had enough phone numbers together, we decided to try to book a tour. That took us up into Calgary, playing six nights at a sort of SRO hotel lounge, and then over to Vancouver for a week, Seattle for a week, Portland and then San Francisco for a couple weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was just this network of like-minded musicians. We all started in the vacuums in our hometowns, and once a few bands started touring, the information started to spread. There were fanzines like \u003cem>Maximumrocknroll \u003c/em>that helped to spread the word. You know, this was all before the Internet. This was before cellphones, this was before any of this. You were very tethered to conventional telephones and maps, so things grew very organically; they grew very slowly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>And what was a night on the punk scene like? At a concert or something like that?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, I currently live in San Francisco, and in walking to do this interview I passed by what used to be Mabuhay Gardens, which was booked by a fellow named Dirk Dirksen. I think the first time Hüsker Dü played there would have been in August of 1981. We were one of five or six bands on the bill. It was a Wednesday night. We made $12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A whopping $12.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And three plates of spaghetti and meatballs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Which might have been more important than the money.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think it was at the time. We had been in San Francisco for three or four days and had already gone down and gotten food stamps, so we were able to buy generic beer at the \u003cem>\u003c/em>Safeway. But, yeah, it would be five or six bands, 10, 20 bucks, plate of food, and you’d just try to weasel your way onto a show on Friday night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Was there a philosophy behind that? “We’re not gonna charge big tick\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>et prices; this is a scene that’s open to anyone who is like-minded and wants to be involved”?\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was an idea to try to keep it affordable. I don’t think there were any particular strict rules; it just happened that way. In Minneapolis, when a punk band would come through and they wanted to do an all-ages show, we would go and rent a VFW hall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>All ages, meaning all ages are welcome?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah, all ages are welcome: no 18-plus, no 21-plus. A lot of the kids that were in that scene, they were \u003cem>kids\u003c/em> — you know, they were 14-, 15-year-old skateboard kids. We would rent a VFW hall for 50 bucks. We’d rent a P.A. for 75 bucks. We’d spend 25 bucks on advertising, so that’d be $150. If you could get 200 people to pay five bucks, that’s $1,000, and you can actually pay the touring band a bunch of money. And then they tell their friends, and you get more bands in your hometown that want to do that kind of thing, and it just sort of feeds on itself. It was about making enough money to be able to do another show. That was enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Did some of these nights get crazy dangerous?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think everybody has a different definition of what danger is. The shows were very physical. The music was very loud, very violent music. When you get a bunch of kids with skateboards dancing in a circle really fast, throwing elbows and knees in the air as they’re dancing and diving off the stage and knocking equipment over, you know, people come up bloody off the floor. But I don’t know — it’s not really that dangerous to me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I guess it strikes me as dangerous. If you’ve been in that scene, maybe that’s a normal night.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs7wGhk_Yvg\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah, other people have commented, “Don’t you think that’s strange?” I’m like, “Well, not really, ’cause that’s, again, not unlike my childhood.” That’s sort of what I grew up with, so my baseline for “normal” is different, I suppose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Some people think of the ’80s, the Reagan years\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>, as a happy time; I’m thinking of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Don’t Worry, Be Happy\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>.” Where was the anger and loudness and frustration in your scene kind of coming from during that time?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, when you say the word “Reagan” — he was the coal that fueled that train of discontent for hardcore for so long. For me, as a not-out gay man in the early ’80s, what the Reagan administration did — I guess, more importantly, what they \u003cem>didn’t\u003c/em> do — they couldn’t say the words “AIDS” or “HIV” until the middle of 1985. So here I am, 20 years old, sexually aware but not out, confused, sometimes self-hating, with a president who cannot name the disease that may or may not kill me or my friends. That would be a source of anger for anybody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Do you think there were a lot of other people in a similar position, who were gay but not out, who were part of that scene? Ma\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>ybe larger numbers than we really know or think about?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In hindsight, yes — I think there were more gay and lesbian folk in that scene than we knew. Again, in the early ’80s things were very different, very repressed. We didn’t even have a concept of what a hate crime was. But the hardcore scene, and the punk scene, and art rock, and even the big haircut bands — you know, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15396803/scritti-politti\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Scritti Politti\u003c/a>s, or people who liked \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/17079067/new-order\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">New Order\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/145639858/the-smiths\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Smiths\u003c/a> — we were all different. And we were all different together. So I think there was a safety in numbers. I often joke that in the military it was, “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” and in the punk community it always felt like, “Don’t advertise, don’t worry.” It was almost as if, if you were who you were, you were OK.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“Don’t advertise, don’t worry.” Tell me more about that.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s funny, because the look and the feel of hardcore punk was not that different from male prostitution in some ways. You know, the bandannas that would give off codes for whether you’re active or passive or what type of sexual behavior you enjoy, that whole sort of pseudo-military look — all of that is almost bordering on gay fetish. But that was this accepted look for hardcore punk in the early ’80s, so it was almost as if you could pass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pass as what?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, almost like people who dress a different gender. You’re dressing as if you’re in the military or you’re a hustler, but you’re actually a hardcore punk. So it’s almost as if you could pass for any of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Were you able to have relationships with men during that time?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Little bits here and there, and then my first partner and I got together in April of ’83 and we were together for six years. So, yeah, I was 22 when I had my first long-term relationship — and I guess by then, in Minneapolis, my sexuality was an open secret. But without the Internet, it’s not getting posted on somebody else’s social-media page right away, so it takes a little more time for the information to get around the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I want to play one Hüsker Dü song if we can and talk to you about it a little bit. Tell me what we’re listening to here.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a song called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WialdbCrNM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">I Don’t Know for Sure\u003c/a>.” I believe it was on the \u003cem>Candy Apple Grey\u003c/em> album, which was March of ’86, the first album that Hüsker Dü made for Warner Bros., a major label. That was our jump away from the independent music world of SST Records over to Warner Bros.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I listen to this and I feel like I could sing to it: It’s hard, certainly, but there’s also something melodic about it. As you experimented with more melody and more singable songs, did some of the crowds start to say you were leaving the true punk scene in a way?\u003c/strong><\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, we fell into this hardcore punk sound, and we quickly moved away from the dogma — the strict sort of anarchy-slash-destroy-the-government thing. By 1985 with \u003cem>New Day Rising\u003c/em>, as a songwriter I was already trying to be a bit of an older soul. I started thinking about time, the temporal nature of relationships, opening myself up more personally. By the time we got to “I Don’t Know for Sure” off of \u003cem>Candy Apple Grey\u003c/em>, punk rock had become “alternative rock”; it was on MTV all the time. It was just a natural progression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Having said that, as far as people accusing Hüsker Dü of selling out or whatever, it was a pretty ferocious live band. If the records had been softened even one bit, all anybody had to do was come and see the band live and they’d recognize that there wasn’t anything soft about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You guys were still hard as can be.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah. I think compared to “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” that was still pretty tough music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I can imagine that time being frustrating: You were bringing alternative rock into commercial rock, sort of experimenting with a sound that was about to become much more popular — and then Hüsker Dü breaks up. How tough was that?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, it was tough for different reasons. In the middle of 1986, right after \u003cem>Candy Apple Grey\u003c/em> came out, I was 25 years old and made what I think was a pretty big life choice: I quit drinking. I had started drinking when I was 13 and I didn’t miss a day until I quit at 25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Being a touring musician, there’s alcohol available 24 hours a day. You get to a club at 2 in the afternoon, you wait around ’til 5 o’clock to do your sound check, so in those three hours, you’re sitting at a bar. What do you do? You drink. And then you’ve got all that time from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., and what do you do? You drink. I had found a place to work where I could continue drinking all day. So when I was 25, I just looked in the mirror and I said, “You know, this has to stop. I’m not gonna make it to 30 if I keep this up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That same summer, the bass player in Hüsker Dü got married and moved away from the Twin Cities, down maybe an hour south, and we started seeing him a little bit less. And Grant Hart, the drummer, basically found a new set of friends separate from the band and started spending a lot more time with those other folks. You can see what was happening: three people that had this one reason to be together, and all of the other reasons had disappeared. The camaraderie, the mutual drinking and all that stuff that the band was built on, that was all falling apart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the next 18 months, everybody really started to separate, started to pull away from the band. We were still touring, still making records and working hard, but it didn’t feel like a band as much as it felt like a job at that point. And the beginning of 1988, we just closed up shop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It wasn’t long after you made these big decisions that Nirvana showed up and really exploded. \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>Hüsker Dü had had the potential to go down that road, as well. Where was your head at during those years, watching other bands from your world start to take off?\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Hüsker Dü wrapped up in ’88, I moved up to northern Minnesota. I bought a farm up there and sat more or less by myself for a year, relearning music and relearning how to write songs for myself. I had no friends; I’d cut myself off from everybody just to focus on my work. And out of that I came up with a solo album, \u003cem>Workbook\u003c/em>, that came out in 1989.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Which is being \u003ca href=\"http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19051-bob-mould-workbook-25/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">re-released this year\u003c/a> for its 25th anniversary. But a farm by yourself, no alcohol — I can’t imagine a place more different from the underground punk scene.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003c/strong>Yeah, it was completely different, and I think you can hear the difference. I was looking for a new way to look at music, because the last thing that I wanted to do in 1988 was to emulate the band I had just been in. I just didn’t want to use that language anymore, at least at that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75VNKc8Aduk\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I started listening to a lot of world music, a lot of folk music, Appalachian music. Started experimenting with open tunings, purchased a couple new guitars that sounded very different than anything I had in my collection. I started looking at words differently — less concerned with formal rhyme and meter and more experimenting with “through writing,” just having a series of words or a short story in front of me and picking up a guitar and improvising and not being worried about four lines of this and two lines of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1990, I make a second solo record, \u003cem>Black Sheets of Rain\u003c/em>. I move to New York City, end my first relationship, get dropped by Virgin Records after two records. I spend almost all of 1991 on the road with an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar, playing solo shows. I was touring a lot in Europe and I was playing these festivals with, you know, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15373040/sonic-youth\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sonic Youth\u003c/a>, who I knew, and Nirvana, who I knew their music, obviously. It was funny to see these bands that had been either part of the hardcore scene or were affected by that music, being on this precipice of enormity. And especially, I guess, in the case of Nirvana, in the fall of ’91, when \u003cem>Nevermind \u003c/em>came out — a record I had been in contention to produce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Oh, wow.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003c/strong>Music is such a circular thing. When \u003cem>Nevermind\u003c/em> came out, that album changed the way people listen to music. A lot of the songs that I had been writing in 1991 led up to my next group, Sugar — and had it not been for \u003cem>Nevermind\u003c/em>, I don’t know if Sugar’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6dzOsM0gTw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Copper Blue\u003c/a>\u003c/em> would have stood a chance in ’92. But people were now receptive to this sound.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You’re saying some of your influence for Sugar came from Nirvana?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No, I’m saying the success of \u003cem>Nevermind\u003c/em> re-tempered the ears of the listeners throughout the world. It was a heavy, punky record, but there was something about it that was so accessible that it opened up all these pathways for other musicians — myself included — to have our music heard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>As I listen to the new album, \u003cem>Beauty & Ruin\u003c/em>, it sounds like you’ve experimented with lots of sounds — acoustic, electronic — and now you’re going back to your musical roots.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Beauty & Ruin\u003c/em> is the culmination of a lot of things that have happened over the past three years in my life. In 2011, I released my autobiography, \u003cem>See a Little Light\u003c/em>. I was spending a lot of time doing readings and performances, where I would marry passages of the book with a group of songs to give people sort of an insight as to what it all means. I’d also done some work with the Foo Fighters: \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/173424658/dave-grohl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dave Grohl\u003c/a> gave me a call and had me come and sing and play guitar on a song on their album, and I got to do some shows with them, as sort of a walk-on guest at the end of the night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November of 2011, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles, there was a tribute show to my songbook. Dave was a big part of that, as well as \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoLW7g8pLaI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ryan Adams\u003c/a>, a group called \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/96823034/no-age\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">No Age\u003c/a>, Margaret Cho, Craig [Finn] and Tad [Kubler] from \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15197852\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Hold Steady\u003c/a>, Britt [Daniel] from \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15189629/spoon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Spoon\u003c/a>. It was an amazing night, and funny to see all these people assembled \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoLW7g8pLaI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">singing my songs back at me\u003c/a>. In 2012, there were Sugar reissues, and then \u003cem>Silver Age\u003c/em>, a new studio album. Things were really, really great in September of 2012 — I’m doing a lot of touring, \u003cem>Silver Age\u003c/em> is taking off. And then my dad passes in October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Of 2012?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of 2012, yeah. And that, to me, was the marker that sets the stage for \u003cem>Beauty & Ruin\u003c/em>. It was a “best of times, worst of times” kind of thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Well, I’m sorry to hear about your dad. I wonder what that moment was like and how, as you say, it led to this album.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I had gotten a lot of good time with my dad in his last six months. We had a lot of really great conversations: a lot of pieces of the puzzle about his childhood and his history before I was born, things he didn’t share much with me until then, that helped me understand why he was the person he was. And I think it meant a lot to him to be able to tell his story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a long battle for him, lung cancer. And in the moment, of course you have to take care of your mother, be with your siblings, do the right thing, try to keep things moving forward. But for me, that was also the beginning of a 12-month writing process: writing music, gathering words, gathering ideas, waiting, waiting, waiting. And about nine months into the process, around June of 2013, I started to see the themes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003c/em>There’s four basic themes to \u003cem>Beauty & Ruin\u003c/em>: loss, reflection, acceptance and future. Those four “picture frames,” as I call them, made themselves known to me. And once I had those four frames and I could see how to construct the story of the record, then it was just a matter of grabbing the snapshots and putting them in the right frames. Then the record fell into place pretty quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There’s a song called “The War” that yo\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>u’ve said has something to do with your dad. Which frame does that song fit in?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003c/strong>That’s the bridge between reflection and acceptance. It’s the end of side one, which is always an important place on a record. It touches on my dad’s battle at the end, and on life in general as a battle for all of us. I’m getting to that age where people around me are having a lot of health problems, and it touches on that, as well. It deals with a number of not-so-happy things, but I tried to wrap it in an uplifting melody. It seems to be my M.O. these days: the dark lyric and the happy melody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I guess I wondered if the war was, in some ways, between you and your father.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No, no. I mean, I gave up that war a long time ago. I think I closed that war up with \u003cem>Zen Ar\u003c/em>\u003cem>cade\u003c/em> back in ’83.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You turn from “The War” at the end of side one to “Forgiveness” at the beginning of side two. What is that transition, exactly?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The War” is very, very dense, very electric, very layered, very visceral, sort of a spontaneous outburst. It literally was written in the studio: I sent the guys away one night and just holed up in the room, sort of took myself apart emotionally and then started putting myself back together with these words that I had written. It’s a very energetic song that has a quiet resolve at the end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you were listening [on vinyl], you would have to get up at that point to flip over the record. And the beginning of side two, “Forgiveness,” is a complete reset: very clean guitars, very crisp, measured drumming. And it’s this song about forgiveness that’s essentially built on the old saying, “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Who are you forgiving?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oh, I’m just working that axiom. It’s nobody in particular.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>But is that song, and is \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>the whole album, personally cathartic in some way?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The autobiography was very cathartic. I think this record is just 12 months in the life, you know? Catharsis is an awful big word. You know, it’s always capitalized and it always has two or three exclamation points after it — at least in my life. So I don’t know if I want to pin the tail on this one with that word. It’s a very personal record, and I’ll take ownership of all the words, but I would like for listeners to be able to appreciate the shiny, metallic pop nature of it, as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes laying my meaning so heavily on a record, it may exclude some people. People may go, “Oh, my gosh, this might be too much for me on my drive to work.” Hopefully, it’s 36 minutes of pop music that can create a nice shine for people, as well as be this 12-month journey that I had. “Catharsis” makes it a little too exclusive, I think.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There’s a song on the album \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>called “Hey Mr. Grey,” which\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> has this image of an older \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>guy, maybe about your age, yelling at kids to get off his lawn.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Laughs.] \u003c/em>Isn’t that awesome? \u003cem>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It’s pretty awesome. But what strikes me is that you might be this guy in your 50s yelling at kids t\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>o get off your lawn, but you’re also rocking like you’re 20-something.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I know. I love the contrast in this record — whether it’s the title, whether it’s the artwork, whether it’s a song like “Hey Mr. Grey” that would actually take me more time to describe than it took me to write.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/140389851″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why do you say that?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because literally it took, like, two minutes. It’s a continuation of the self-awareness that I exhibited with calling the previous album \u003cem>Silver Age\u003c/em>; I can only laugh at my aging. And then, mentioning The Replacements’ “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV55IwBEa14\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kids Don’t Follow\u003c/a>,” that was an accident that I instantly recognized and said, “Oh, I’ll leave that in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Is it different playing this kind of hard music in your 50s, compared to\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> in your 20s?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Physically, it’s harder, yeah. I’ve done a lot of damage to my voice over the years, so I have to be a little more careful with it. My energy level is not as consistently high as it was when I was in my 20s. But the beauty of things like the Disney Hall tribute show or revisiting the Sugar material is that, for so many years, I ran away from my own sound, and other people took it and ran with it. Now, it’s almost as if I’ve caught up with myself. And what the listener might perceive as, “Oh, he’s going for the glory. He’s going for that anger” — it’s like, no, I’m actually having a great time. I’m having a good laugh on all this, because it’s very clear what this is now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, I’m getting up there. I can’t do this forever. People like what I’m doing right now; they like it when I play fast, they like pop songs. I’ve challenged people for 35 years. I’ve made people follow me, jump through my hoops, try to figure out all these crazy twists and turns that I’ve taken. Now, we’re at this moment where I have an amazing rhythm section — we sound great together, we have fun playing together, it’s simple. It might not be like that in five years. So I’m just gonna go for it while it’s working. I’m fully aware that at my age I should be coming up with some complicated opera, but that’s really not who I am. I’m pretty much a meat-and-potatoes singer-songwriter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You said the last of the four themes on \u003cem>Beauty & Ruin\u003c/em> is “future.”\u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>Not to give it away, but when you get to the end of the record, is there a sense that you figure out what’s ahead?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m working on it. At least being conscious that there \u003cem>is\u003c/em> a future, and that your future does end at some point, so it’s fun to have possibilities. It’s different for me; I’m growing into this “fun” thing, this “sense of humor” thing. It’s all new. People are shocked by it. I’m just trying to lighten up a little bit. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Bob+Mould%27s+Beautiful%2C+Ruinous+Life+In+Punk&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript :\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DAVID GREENE, HOST: \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apologies if you’re not quite awake yet because it’s about to get loud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF HUSKER DU SONG)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: The band here is Husker Du. They were part of the underground punk scene in the ’80s. This is lead singer Bob Mould.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BOB MOULD: The shows are very physical. You know, the music was very loud, very violent. And when you get a bunch of kids with skateboards dancing in a circle really fast, throwing elbows and knees in the air as they’re dancing and diving off the stage and knocking equipment over and people come up bloody off the floor – it’s not really that dangerous I guess.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: It strikes me as dangerous. But, I mean, if you’ve been in that scene, maybe that’s a normal night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: My baseline for normal is different, I suppose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: Today Bob Mould is considered one of the elder statesmen in the world of alternative rock. He’s given credit for taking that abrasive, hard-core sound and making it more radio-friendly. Nirvana called him a big influence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mellowing over time – in a way, that’s the story of Bob Mould’s life. He grew up in a rural town in New York state, and his baseline for normal, as he puts it, was thrown off in his childhood by an unpredictable father.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: He was a pretty amazing person – a very, very complicated person. You know, he was a drinker, weekends could be tough – a lot of chaos in the house. I guess I never really thought it was that strange. It almost just seemed like, oh, here comes Friday afternoon. And Sunday night it’s going to calm down, and then we go back to school on Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: It was his father, though, who got him into music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: He would take me record shopping, got me my first guitar, got me my second guitar, which was the guitar that people watched me play for eight years with Husker Du. So, yeah, very, very important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF HUSKER DU SONG, “ZEN ARCADE”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: Is there a tie here to the music? There’s so much anger in it, and I guess I wonder if you were venting some of the anger and frustration from being in a tough family environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: Yeah, in some ways it was an extension of my childhood – not being heard as a child and now as a young man wanting to be heard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “ZEN ARCADE “)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HUSKER DU: (Singing) Something I learned today…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: And he was heard. But not by that many people in the early days. He remembered a typical performance in San Francisco in 1981.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: We were one of five or six bands on the bill. It was Wednesday night. We made $12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: (Laughing) A whopping $12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: Twelve dollars and three plates of spaghetti and meatballs. And…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: Which might have been more important than the money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: I think it was at the time. There wasn’t a goal of, let’s make $2,500 so that we can do this. It was more like, let’s at least break even so we can do another show. That was enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: You know the ’80s are known to some people as a happy time. I mean, I’m thinking about, you know, Bobby McFerrin and “Don’t Worry Be Happy” and it was the happy Reagan years to some people. Where was the anger and loudness and frustration in this scene coming from during that time?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: Well, I think when you say the world Reagan, he was the coal that fueled that train of discontent for hardcore for so long. Personally, for me as a not-out gay man in the early ’80s and what the Reagan administration did to – I guess more importantly what they didn’t do – they couldn’t say the words AIDS until the middle of 1985. So here I am, 20 years old, sexually aware but not out, confused, sometimes self-hating, with a president who cannot name the disease that may or may not kill me or my friends. That would be a source of anger for anybody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: And Mould coped by drinking a lot. He decided to quit. It’s a decision that helped drive a major wedge in the band just as they were getting big. How much was your father in your mind when you decided to quit?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: My father was in the mirror when I decided to quit drinking. (Laughing) You see what you will become if you don’t stop. That’s why when I looked in the mirror, and was like, I can’t do this. I know where this is going to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF HUSKER DU SONG)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: I think about, you know, a group like Nirvana exploding. And then here you are, you’re on that potential road, but then you make this big decision. Where was your head as you were sort of exploring something new and personal, and you’re watching a band like Nirvana and kind of the world around you take off?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: Well, at the beginning of ’88 when Husker Du wrapped up, I moved up to northern Minnesota. And I bought a farm up there and sat more or less by myself for a year relearning music and relearning how to write songs for myself. I had no friends. I had cut myself off from everybody just to focus on my work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF HUSKER DU SONG)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: I was looking for a new way to look at music because the last thing that I wanted to do in 1988 was emulate the band I had just been in. I didn’t want to use that language anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: Over the years, Mould experimented with different kinds of music – acoustic, electronic and pop. But now at age 53, he’s been revisiting the past. He wrote an autobiography, and he just put out this new record, “Beauty And Ruin.” It was inspired by his father’s death from cancer in 2012.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE WAR”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DU: (Singing) And all these songs I write for you, they tear me up. It’s not hard to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: There’s a song called “The War” that you said has something to do with your dad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: You know, it touches on my dad’s battle at the end. It touches on, you know, life in general as a battle for all of us. It deals with a number of not-so-happy things, but I tried to wrap it with an uplifting melody. Seems to be my M.O. these days – the dark lyric and the happy melody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: I guess I wondered if “The War” was in some ways between you and your father.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: No. I mean, I gave up that war a long time ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: Loud as this album is, there is a sense of peaceful resolution. He even mocks himself in a song called “Hey Mr. Gray”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “HEY MR. GRAY”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DU: (Singing) Hey, Mr. Gray. That’s what the children say. Life used to be so hard, well, get out my yard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: It’s funny because it has this image of an older guy, maybe a guy about your age in his 50s, yelling at kids to get off his lawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: Isn’t that awsome? (Laughing).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: It’s pretty awesome. It’s pretty awesome. What strikes me while listening to it is, you might be this guy yelling at kids to get off your lawn, but you’re also rocking like you’re 20-something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: I know. I love the contrast in this record all the way around. But I think the beauty of it to me, you know, for so many years, I ran away from my own sound. And other people took it and ran with it. And it’s almost as if I’ve caught up with myself somehow. You know, for so long when I go back to ’88 and the farm and wanting to be so different – you know, now it’s like, people like what I’m doing right now. They like it when I play fast, and it might not be like that forever. It might not be like that in five years. So I’m just going to go for it while it’s working.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “HEY MR. GRAY”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DU: (Singing) Gets him – it gets him down…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: Well, Bob Mould ,it’s been a lot of fun of talking you, really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: Great. Thank you, David.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: That’s Bob Mould. His new album came out yesterday. This is NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\n\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Long before \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15446165/nirvana\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nirvana\u003c/a> made it popular, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15182660/bob-mould\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bob Mould\u003c/a> helped create the heavy-but-hummable rock sound that would become so big in the ’90s. Hüsker Dü, the band he co-founded in 1979, was among the most prominent in the punk underground that blossomed across the country during the Reagan years. The trio broke up in 1988, just as punk was beginning to hit a mainstream tipping point — but Mould has kept recording ever since, as a solo artist and with his band Sugar, and has pushed himself to keep innovating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a new record called \u003cem>Beauty & Ruin\u003c/em>, out this week, Mould looks back on his life and long musical career, both of which were profoundly influenced by his father — a music enthusiast who bought him records and guitars, but could also be cruel. In a conversation that covers Mould’s entire artistic life — from playing along to Ramones albums in rural New York to building a DIY touring network with Hüsker Dü, through sobriety, sexual self-discovery and the death of his father — the elder statesman of alt-rock tells NPR’s David Greene that at 53, he’s finally starting to have fun. Hear the radio version at the audio link, and read more of their conversation below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DAVID GREENE: I wanted to start with where you grew up: It was a small, rural town in upstate New York. Describe the place for me and how you got your first taste of punk rock.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BOB MOULD: \u003c/strong>Well, I was born and raised in a small farm town called Malone, which was the county seat of Franklin County, the northernmost county in New York state. So when people would say, “Oh, you’re from upstate New York?” I go, “No, I’m actually from northern New York.” The closest city was Montreal, which was about 50 miles due north.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>So you’re way up there. You probably got some snow occasionally.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Laughs.\u003c/em>\u003cem>] \u003c/em>A little bit of snow, yeah. I was north of Lake Placid. It was just a quiet farm town — very idyllic, very beautiful. In the ’60s and ’70s it was unscathed; they hadn’t started building all the prisons that currently occupy the area. But in order to find this elusive punk-rock music that I’d started reading about in magazines and seeing occasionally on television, I would have to drive either due east to Plattsburgh or Burlington, Vt., or, more likely than not, north to Montreal to buy music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>And you\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> say “elusive.” Is that because the punk-rock scene was kind of hidden in the underground?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, for a farm-town kid, yeah. I didn’t have Max’s [Kansas City] or CBGB’s or anywhere like that at my fingertips, so it took a little bit more research. And coming across punk rock, it was in the funniest ways. When I was a small child, I had all these jukebox singles my dad used to get for me, so I grew up listening to all the great ’60s radio music. In the mid-’70s, I was listening to what my friends were listening to: heavy metal, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/102442872/fleetwood-mac\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fleetwood Mac\u003c/a>, Foghat, that kind of stuff. And I used to read this monthly music magazine out of New York City called \u003cem>Rock Scene\u003c/em>: They would cover \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/129085773/aerosmith\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Aerosmith\u003c/a> and Kiss, but they would also cover \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/16737462/debbie-harry\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Blondie\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15778481/television\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Television\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15180457/the-ramones\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ramones\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I saw these pictures of the Ramones trying to buy a P.A., or trying to find a practice space. It would be these three-page photo spreads, and they looked infinitely cooler than the metal bands that I was listening to. And then, for my 16th birthday, I got the first Ramones album.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>From your dad?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I got to go to the record store and pick something out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>That was a big moment, I can imagine.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was a big moment, yeah. I already had a Sears guitar, which I was trying to learn how to play. But when I heard the Ramones, that was the moment when I realized that it was actually easier than it seemed. It was very doable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What do you mean by that? What exactly struck you when you heard that music?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just the simplicity of it. It was very transparent. You know, on the first Ramones record, drums and vocals were set in the center, the bass was on one side and the guitar was on the other. It was almost as if it was an instructional record: I could get close to the bass guitar, hear the drums and vocals, and I could play guitar to that. Or I could go over and listen to the guitar, and learn that constant downstroke, power-chord style that Johnny Ramone came up with. It was just very, very different than these hugely produced pop records at the time. And going back to \u003cem>Rock Scene\u003c/em> magazine and bands with private jets and groupies and cocaine — that all seemed unattainable, I guess. And complicated, and not really that interesting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Unattainable. “I want to be in that world with the cocaine, but I just can’t get there.”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah, a private jet was very daunting. It seemed much easier to take the subway like the Ramones did. It’s just, I guess, an aesthetic call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I’d like to hear about your father. As you say, he was giving you these singles and kind of getting you into music. But I\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>‘ve read he was a difficult personality in many ways.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My dad passed away in October of 2012. He was a pretty amazing person — a very, very complicated person, a very, very smart person. When I was 6 or 7 years old — that would be 1967, ’68, maybe — he bought a mom-and-pop grocery store, and we packed up the family and moved into this small house that had the grocery store attached to it. People would come to the store and this little buzzer would flip when the door opened, and we would go out through the kitchen and wait on the customers. I think I learned a lot from my dad about business that way — how to run a register, things like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, my dad, he was a drinker. He liked to drink. Weekends could be tough. It’s funny — in retrospect, it didn’t seem that strange, because I only had a handful of friends in junior high and high school that I remember going to their houses, and it was a similar thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You mean, dads who were doing some drinking?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes, exactly. So it didn’t strike me as being particularly abnormal or different. I guess in this day and age, people would be more upset about raising a kid in that environment. I’m sure it still happens; I know it does. But I guess I never really thought it was that strange. It almost just seemed like, “Oh, here comes Friday afternoon and here comes trouble.” Sunday night it calms down, and then we go back to school on Monday. I could go into deeper details, but I think that sets it up pretty good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How tough did it get? I mean, \u003cem>\u003c/em>I’ve read the word “abusive” in some places, describing your household.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, there was physicality. But I wouldn’t — I don’t think it was abuse in an endemic kind of way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Is there a tie here to the music? Punk rock tends to have a lot of anger in it. I wonder if, as a kid getting into that kind of\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> music, you were venting some of the anger and frustration from being in a tough family environment.\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/938czNAsHeM'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/938czNAsHeM'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Yeah, I think so. A record like \u003cem>Zen Arcade — \u003c/em>that was a double album that my first group, Hüsker Dü, put out in 1984 — that record has a lot of those rites of passage, trying to separate once and for all from your childhood, as we all want to do when we’re 22 or 23, and not realizing that we can never fully separate from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>We should say, complicated as your dad might have been, he bought you your first guitar, right?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, going back to when I was getting these boxes of used jukebox singles, that was how I learned music: I would listen to these records and I could sit at a piano and figure out the melodies. He would take me record shopping, got me my first guitar, got me my second guitar, which was the guitar that people watched me play for eight years with Hüsker Dü. So again, a complex person, but I’m very grateful for all those gifts that he exposed me to — even through Hüsker Dü, buying a couple different vans and driving them out to Minnesota so that the band would have decent vehicles to tour the country in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>And Hüsker Dü became one of the biggest alternative \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>bands in the country — though even then you were below the radar in a way. Can you take me into that world? How did punk-rock fans find each other in those days? What were the nights like?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I went to college in St. Paul, Minn., a school called Macalester. Within the first semester, I met a fellow named \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/123786490/grant-hart\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Grant Hart\u003c/a>, who was working at a record store down the street from school. He had a friend who worked at another record store named Greg Norton. So we now have a drummer, a bass player and me on guitar. We get together, and we’re trying to write some songs to possibly play at this club called The Longhorn, which in 1979 was \u003cem>the\u003c/em> punk-rock club in the Twin Cities. It’s where all of the big bands would play, like The Police and Blondie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Those are big names.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And we managed to get a gig there. And we kept playing, kept meeting people. We went through a number of different styles at the beginning: some sort of simple punk rock; some sort of surfy; some chimey and depressing almost like \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/16229401/joy-division\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Joy Division\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15790060/the-cure\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Cure\u003c/a>, little bits of sort of industrial noise. And then we arrived at this hardcore punk sound.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During these years — 1979, 1980, the beginning of 1981 — other bands from around North America would come to Minneapolis, and invariably we would be the opening band. They’d see us and they’d say, “You guys are really great. If you ever come to Vancouver, give us a call. If you ever come to San Francisco, give us a call.” And once we had enough phone numbers together, we decided to try to book a tour. That took us up into Calgary, playing six nights at a sort of SRO hotel lounge, and then over to Vancouver for a week, Seattle for a week, Portland and then San Francisco for a couple weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was just this network of like-minded musicians. We all started in the vacuums in our hometowns, and once a few bands started touring, the information started to spread. There were fanzines like \u003cem>Maximumrocknroll \u003c/em>that helped to spread the word. You know, this was all before the Internet. This was before cellphones, this was before any of this. You were very tethered to conventional telephones and maps, so things grew very organically; they grew very slowly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>And what was a night on the punk scene like? At a concert or something like that?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, I currently live in San Francisco, and in walking to do this interview I passed by what used to be Mabuhay Gardens, which was booked by a fellow named Dirk Dirksen. I think the first time Hüsker Dü played there would have been in August of 1981. We were one of five or six bands on the bill. It was a Wednesday night. We made $12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A whopping $12.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And three plates of spaghetti and meatballs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Which might have been more important than the money.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think it was at the time. We had been in San Francisco for three or four days and had already gone down and gotten food stamps, so we were able to buy generic beer at the \u003cem>\u003c/em>Safeway. But, yeah, it would be five or six bands, 10, 20 bucks, plate of food, and you’d just try to weasel your way onto a show on Friday night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Was there a philosophy behind that? “We’re not gonna charge big tick\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>et prices; this is a scene that’s open to anyone who is like-minded and wants to be involved”?\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was an idea to try to keep it affordable. I don’t think there were any particular strict rules; it just happened that way. In Minneapolis, when a punk band would come through and they wanted to do an all-ages show, we would go and rent a VFW hall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>All ages, meaning all ages are welcome?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah, all ages are welcome: no 18-plus, no 21-plus. A lot of the kids that were in that scene, they were \u003cem>kids\u003c/em> — you know, they were 14-, 15-year-old skateboard kids. We would rent a VFW hall for 50 bucks. We’d rent a P.A. for 75 bucks. We’d spend 25 bucks on advertising, so that’d be $150. If you could get 200 people to pay five bucks, that’s $1,000, and you can actually pay the touring band a bunch of money. And then they tell their friends, and you get more bands in your hometown that want to do that kind of thing, and it just sort of feeds on itself. It was about making enough money to be able to do another show. That was enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Did some of these nights get crazy dangerous?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think everybody has a different definition of what danger is. The shows were very physical. The music was very loud, very violent music. When you get a bunch of kids with skateboards dancing in a circle really fast, throwing elbows and knees in the air as they’re dancing and diving off the stage and knocking equipment over, you know, people come up bloody off the floor. But I don’t know — it’s not really that dangerous to me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I guess it strikes me as dangerous. If you’ve been in that scene, maybe that’s a normal night.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/hs7wGhk_Yvg'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/hs7wGhk_Yvg'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Yeah, other people have commented, “Don’t you think that’s strange?” I’m like, “Well, not really, ’cause that’s, again, not unlike my childhood.” That’s sort of what I grew up with, so my baseline for “normal” is different, I suppose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Some people think of the ’80s, the Reagan years\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>, as a happy time; I’m thinking of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Don’t Worry, Be Happy\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>.” Where was the anger and loudness and frustration in your scene kind of coming from during that time?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, when you say the word “Reagan” — he was the coal that fueled that train of discontent for hardcore for so long. For me, as a not-out gay man in the early ’80s, what the Reagan administration did — I guess, more importantly, what they \u003cem>didn’t\u003c/em> do — they couldn’t say the words “AIDS” or “HIV” until the middle of 1985. So here I am, 20 years old, sexually aware but not out, confused, sometimes self-hating, with a president who cannot name the disease that may or may not kill me or my friends. That would be a source of anger for anybody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Do you think there were a lot of other people in a similar position, who were gay but not out, who were part of that scene? Ma\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>ybe larger numbers than we really know or think about?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In hindsight, yes — I think there were more gay and lesbian folk in that scene than we knew. Again, in the early ’80s things were very different, very repressed. We didn’t even have a concept of what a hate crime was. But the hardcore scene, and the punk scene, and art rock, and even the big haircut bands — you know, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15396803/scritti-politti\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Scritti Politti\u003c/a>s, or people who liked \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/17079067/new-order\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">New Order\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/145639858/the-smiths\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Smiths\u003c/a> — we were all different. And we were all different together. So I think there was a safety in numbers. I often joke that in the military it was, “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” and in the punk community it always felt like, “Don’t advertise, don’t worry.” It was almost as if, if you were who you were, you were OK.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“Don’t advertise, don’t worry.” Tell me more about that.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s funny, because the look and the feel of hardcore punk was not that different from male prostitution in some ways. You know, the bandannas that would give off codes for whether you’re active or passive or what type of sexual behavior you enjoy, that whole sort of pseudo-military look — all of that is almost bordering on gay fetish. But that was this accepted look for hardcore punk in the early ’80s, so it was almost as if you could pass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pass as what?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, almost like people who dress a different gender. You’re dressing as if you’re in the military or you’re a hustler, but you’re actually a hardcore punk. So it’s almost as if you could pass for any of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Were you able to have relationships with men during that time?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Little bits here and there, and then my first partner and I got together in April of ’83 and we were together for six years. So, yeah, I was 22 when I had my first long-term relationship — and I guess by then, in Minneapolis, my sexuality was an open secret. But without the Internet, it’s not getting posted on somebody else’s social-media page right away, so it takes a little more time for the information to get around the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I want to play one Hüsker Dü song if we can and talk to you about it a little bit. Tell me what we’re listening to here.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a song called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WialdbCrNM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">I Don’t Know for Sure\u003c/a>.” I believe it was on the \u003cem>Candy Apple Grey\u003c/em> album, which was March of ’86, the first album that Hüsker Dü made for Warner Bros., a major label. That was our jump away from the independent music world of SST Records over to Warner Bros.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I listen to this and I feel like I could sing to it: It’s hard, certainly, but there’s also something melodic about it. As you experimented with more melody and more singable songs, did some of the crowds start to say you were leaving the true punk scene in a way?\u003c/strong><\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, we fell into this hardcore punk sound, and we quickly moved away from the dogma — the strict sort of anarchy-slash-destroy-the-government thing. By 1985 with \u003cem>New Day Rising\u003c/em>, as a songwriter I was already trying to be a bit of an older soul. I started thinking about time, the temporal nature of relationships, opening myself up more personally. By the time we got to “I Don’t Know for Sure” off of \u003cem>Candy Apple Grey\u003c/em>, punk rock had become “alternative rock”; it was on MTV all the time. It was just a natural progression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Having said that, as far as people accusing Hüsker Dü of selling out or whatever, it was a pretty ferocious live band. If the records had been softened even one bit, all anybody had to do was come and see the band live and they’d recognize that there wasn’t anything soft about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You guys were still hard as can be.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah. I think compared to “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” that was still pretty tough music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I can imagine that time being frustrating: You were bringing alternative rock into commercial rock, sort of experimenting with a sound that was about to become much more popular — and then Hüsker Dü breaks up. How tough was that?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, it was tough for different reasons. In the middle of 1986, right after \u003cem>Candy Apple Grey\u003c/em> came out, I was 25 years old and made what I think was a pretty big life choice: I quit drinking. I had started drinking when I was 13 and I didn’t miss a day until I quit at 25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Being a touring musician, there’s alcohol available 24 hours a day. You get to a club at 2 in the afternoon, you wait around ’til 5 o’clock to do your sound check, so in those three hours, you’re sitting at a bar. What do you do? You drink. And then you’ve got all that time from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., and what do you do? You drink. I had found a place to work where I could continue drinking all day. So when I was 25, I just looked in the mirror and I said, “You know, this has to stop. I’m not gonna make it to 30 if I keep this up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That same summer, the bass player in Hüsker Dü got married and moved away from the Twin Cities, down maybe an hour south, and we started seeing him a little bit less. And Grant Hart, the drummer, basically found a new set of friends separate from the band and started spending a lot more time with those other folks. You can see what was happening: three people that had this one reason to be together, and all of the other reasons had disappeared. The camaraderie, the mutual drinking and all that stuff that the band was built on, that was all falling apart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the next 18 months, everybody really started to separate, started to pull away from the band. We were still touring, still making records and working hard, but it didn’t feel like a band as much as it felt like a job at that point. And the beginning of 1988, we just closed up shop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It wasn’t long after you made these big decisions that Nirvana showed up and really exploded. \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>Hüsker Dü had had the potential to go down that road, as well. Where was your head at during those years, watching other bands from your world start to take off?\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Hüsker Dü wrapped up in ’88, I moved up to northern Minnesota. I bought a farm up there and sat more or less by myself for a year, relearning music and relearning how to write songs for myself. I had no friends; I’d cut myself off from everybody just to focus on my work. And out of that I came up with a solo album, \u003cem>Workbook\u003c/em>, that came out in 1989.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Which is being \u003ca href=\"http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19051-bob-mould-workbook-25/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">re-released this year\u003c/a> for its 25th anniversary. But a farm by yourself, no alcohol — I can’t imagine a place more different from the underground punk scene.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003c/strong>Yeah, it was completely different, and I think you can hear the difference. I was looking for a new way to look at music, because the last thing that I wanted to do in 1988 was to emulate the band I had just been in. I just didn’t want to use that language anymore, at least at that time.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/75VNKc8Aduk'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/75VNKc8Aduk'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>I started listening to a lot of world music, a lot of folk music, Appalachian music. Started experimenting with open tunings, purchased a couple new guitars that sounded very different than anything I had in my collection. I started looking at words differently — less concerned with formal rhyme and meter and more experimenting with “through writing,” just having a series of words or a short story in front of me and picking up a guitar and improvising and not being worried about four lines of this and two lines of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1990, I make a second solo record, \u003cem>Black Sheets of Rain\u003c/em>. I move to New York City, end my first relationship, get dropped by Virgin Records after two records. I spend almost all of 1991 on the road with an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar, playing solo shows. I was touring a lot in Europe and I was playing these festivals with, you know, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15373040/sonic-youth\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sonic Youth\u003c/a>, who I knew, and Nirvana, who I knew their music, obviously. It was funny to see these bands that had been either part of the hardcore scene or were affected by that music, being on this precipice of enormity. And especially, I guess, in the case of Nirvana, in the fall of ’91, when \u003cem>Nevermind \u003c/em>came out — a record I had been in contention to produce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Oh, wow.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003c/strong>Music is such a circular thing. When \u003cem>Nevermind\u003c/em> came out, that album changed the way people listen to music. A lot of the songs that I had been writing in 1991 led up to my next group, Sugar — and had it not been for \u003cem>Nevermind\u003c/em>, I don’t know if Sugar’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6dzOsM0gTw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Copper Blue\u003c/a>\u003c/em> would have stood a chance in ’92. But people were now receptive to this sound.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You’re saying some of your influence for Sugar came from Nirvana?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No, I’m saying the success of \u003cem>Nevermind\u003c/em> re-tempered the ears of the listeners throughout the world. It was a heavy, punky record, but there was something about it that was so accessible that it opened up all these pathways for other musicians — myself included — to have our music heard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>As I listen to the new album, \u003cem>Beauty & Ruin\u003c/em>, it sounds like you’ve experimented with lots of sounds — acoustic, electronic — and now you’re going back to your musical roots.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Beauty & Ruin\u003c/em> is the culmination of a lot of things that have happened over the past three years in my life. In 2011, I released my autobiography, \u003cem>See a Little Light\u003c/em>. I was spending a lot of time doing readings and performances, where I would marry passages of the book with a group of songs to give people sort of an insight as to what it all means. I’d also done some work with the Foo Fighters: \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/173424658/dave-grohl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dave Grohl\u003c/a> gave me a call and had me come and sing and play guitar on a song on their album, and I got to do some shows with them, as sort of a walk-on guest at the end of the night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November of 2011, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles, there was a tribute show to my songbook. Dave was a big part of that, as well as \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoLW7g8pLaI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ryan Adams\u003c/a>, a group called \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/96823034/no-age\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">No Age\u003c/a>, Margaret Cho, Craig [Finn] and Tad [Kubler] from \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15197852\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Hold Steady\u003c/a>, Britt [Daniel] from \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/artists/15189629/spoon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Spoon\u003c/a>. It was an amazing night, and funny to see all these people assembled \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoLW7g8pLaI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">singing my songs back at me\u003c/a>. In 2012, there were Sugar reissues, and then \u003cem>Silver Age\u003c/em>, a new studio album. Things were really, really great in September of 2012 — I’m doing a lot of touring, \u003cem>Silver Age\u003c/em> is taking off. And then my dad passes in October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Of 2012?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of 2012, yeah. And that, to me, was the marker that sets the stage for \u003cem>Beauty & Ruin\u003c/em>. It was a “best of times, worst of times” kind of thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Well, I’m sorry to hear about your dad. I wonder what that moment was like and how, as you say, it led to this album.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I had gotten a lot of good time with my dad in his last six months. We had a lot of really great conversations: a lot of pieces of the puzzle about his childhood and his history before I was born, things he didn’t share much with me until then, that helped me understand why he was the person he was. And I think it meant a lot to him to be able to tell his story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a long battle for him, lung cancer. And in the moment, of course you have to take care of your mother, be with your siblings, do the right thing, try to keep things moving forward. But for me, that was also the beginning of a 12-month writing process: writing music, gathering words, gathering ideas, waiting, waiting, waiting. And about nine months into the process, around June of 2013, I started to see the themes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003c/em>\u003cem>\u003c/em>There’s four basic themes to \u003cem>Beauty & Ruin\u003c/em>: loss, reflection, acceptance and future. Those four “picture frames,” as I call them, made themselves known to me. And once I had those four frames and I could see how to construct the story of the record, then it was just a matter of grabbing the snapshots and putting them in the right frames. Then the record fell into place pretty quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There’s a song called “The War” that yo\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>u’ve said has something to do with your dad. Which frame does that song fit in?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003c/strong>That’s the bridge between reflection and acceptance. It’s the end of side one, which is always an important place on a record. It touches on my dad’s battle at the end, and on life in general as a battle for all of us. I’m getting to that age where people around me are having a lot of health problems, and it touches on that, as well. It deals with a number of not-so-happy things, but I tried to wrap it in an uplifting melody. It seems to be my M.O. these days: the dark lyric and the happy melody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I guess I wondered if the war was, in some ways, between you and your father.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No, no. I mean, I gave up that war a long time ago. I think I closed that war up with \u003cem>Zen Ar\u003c/em>\u003cem>cade\u003c/em> back in ’83.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You turn from “The War” at the end of side one to “Forgiveness” at the beginning of side two. What is that transition, exactly?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The War” is very, very dense, very electric, very layered, very visceral, sort of a spontaneous outburst. It literally was written in the studio: I sent the guys away one night and just holed up in the room, sort of took myself apart emotionally and then started putting myself back together with these words that I had written. It’s a very energetic song that has a quiet resolve at the end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you were listening [on vinyl], you would have to get up at that point to flip over the record. And the beginning of side two, “Forgiveness,” is a complete reset: very clean guitars, very crisp, measured drumming. And it’s this song about forgiveness that’s essentially built on the old saying, “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Who are you forgiving?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oh, I’m just working that axiom. It’s nobody in particular.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>But is that song, and is \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>the whole album, personally cathartic in some way?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The autobiography was very cathartic. I think this record is just 12 months in the life, you know? Catharsis is an awful big word. You know, it’s always capitalized and it always has two or three exclamation points after it — at least in my life. So I don’t know if I want to pin the tail on this one with that word. It’s a very personal record, and I’ll take ownership of all the words, but I would like for listeners to be able to appreciate the shiny, metallic pop nature of it, as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes laying my meaning so heavily on a record, it may exclude some people. People may go, “Oh, my gosh, this might be too much for me on my drive to work.” Hopefully, it’s 36 minutes of pop music that can create a nice shine for people, as well as be this 12-month journey that I had. “Catharsis” makes it a little too exclusive, I think.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There’s a song on the album \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>called “Hey Mr. Grey,” which\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> has this image of an older \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>guy, maybe about your age, yelling at kids to get off his lawn.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Laughs.] \u003c/em>Isn’t that awesome? \u003cem>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It’s pretty awesome. But what strikes me is that you might be this guy in your 50s yelling at kids t\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>o get off your lawn, but you’re also rocking like you’re 20-something.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I know. I love the contrast in this record — whether it’s the title, whether it’s the artwork, whether it’s a song like “Hey Mr. Grey” that would actually take me more time to describe than it took me to write.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe width='”100%”' height='”166″'\n scrolling='no' frameborder='no'\n src='https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/140389851″&visual=true&”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false”'\n title='”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/140389851″'>\n \u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why do you say that?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because literally it took, like, two minutes. It’s a continuation of the self-awareness that I exhibited with calling the previous album \u003cem>Silver Age\u003c/em>; I can only laugh at my aging. And then, mentioning The Replacements’ “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV55IwBEa14\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kids Don’t Follow\u003c/a>,” that was an accident that I instantly recognized and said, “Oh, I’ll leave that in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Is it different playing this kind of hard music in your 50s, compared to\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> in your 20s?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Physically, it’s harder, yeah. I’ve done a lot of damage to my voice over the years, so I have to be a little more careful with it. My energy level is not as consistently high as it was when I was in my 20s. But the beauty of things like the Disney Hall tribute show or revisiting the Sugar material is that, for so many years, I ran away from my own sound, and other people took it and ran with it. Now, it’s almost as if I’ve caught up with myself. And what the listener might perceive as, “Oh, he’s going for the glory. He’s going for that anger” — it’s like, no, I’m actually having a great time. I’m having a good laugh on all this, because it’s very clear what this is now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, I’m getting up there. I can’t do this forever. People like what I’m doing right now; they like it when I play fast, they like pop songs. I’ve challenged people for 35 years. I’ve made people follow me, jump through my hoops, try to figure out all these crazy twists and turns that I’ve taken. Now, we’re at this moment where I have an amazing rhythm section — we sound great together, we have fun playing together, it’s simple. It might not be like that in five years. So I’m just gonna go for it while it’s working. I’m fully aware that at my age I should be coming up with some complicated opera, but that’s really not who I am. I’m pretty much a meat-and-potatoes singer-songwriter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You said the last of the four themes on \u003cem>Beauty & Ruin\u003c/em> is “future.”\u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>Not to give it away, but when you get to the end of the record, is there a sense that you figure out what’s ahead?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m working on it. At least being conscious that there \u003cem>is\u003c/em> a future, and that your future does end at some point, so it’s fun to have possibilities. It’s different for me; I’m growing into this “fun” thing, this “sense of humor” thing. It’s all new. People are shocked by it. I’m just trying to lighten up a little bit. \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Bob+Mould%27s+Beautiful%2C+Ruinous+Life+In+Punk&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript :\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DAVID GREENE, HOST: \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apologies if you’re not quite awake yet because it’s about to get loud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF HUSKER DU SONG)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: The band here is Husker Du. They were part of the underground punk scene in the ’80s. This is lead singer Bob Mould.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BOB MOULD: The shows are very physical. You know, the music was very loud, very violent. And when you get a bunch of kids with skateboards dancing in a circle really fast, throwing elbows and knees in the air as they’re dancing and diving off the stage and knocking equipment over and people come up bloody off the floor – it’s not really that dangerous I guess.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: It strikes me as dangerous. But, I mean, if you’ve been in that scene, maybe that’s a normal night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: My baseline for normal is different, I suppose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: Today Bob Mould is considered one of the elder statesmen in the world of alternative rock. He’s given credit for taking that abrasive, hard-core sound and making it more radio-friendly. Nirvana called him a big influence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mellowing over time – in a way, that’s the story of Bob Mould’s life. He grew up in a rural town in New York state, and his baseline for normal, as he puts it, was thrown off in his childhood by an unpredictable father.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: He was a pretty amazing person – a very, very complicated person. You know, he was a drinker, weekends could be tough – a lot of chaos in the house. I guess I never really thought it was that strange. It almost just seemed like, oh, here comes Friday afternoon. And Sunday night it’s going to calm down, and then we go back to school on Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: It was his father, though, who got him into music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: He would take me record shopping, got me my first guitar, got me my second guitar, which was the guitar that people watched me play for eight years with Husker Du. So, yeah, very, very important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF HUSKER DU SONG, “ZEN ARCADE”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: Is there a tie here to the music? There’s so much anger in it, and I guess I wonder if you were venting some of the anger and frustration from being in a tough family environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: Yeah, in some ways it was an extension of my childhood – not being heard as a child and now as a young man wanting to be heard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “ZEN ARCADE “)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HUSKER DU: (Singing) Something I learned today…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: And he was heard. But not by that many people in the early days. He remembered a typical performance in San Francisco in 1981.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: We were one of five or six bands on the bill. It was Wednesday night. We made $12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: (Laughing) A whopping $12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: Twelve dollars and three plates of spaghetti and meatballs. And…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: Which might have been more important than the money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: I think it was at the time. There wasn’t a goal of, let’s make $2,500 so that we can do this. It was more like, let’s at least break even so we can do another show. That was enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: You know the ’80s are known to some people as a happy time. I mean, I’m thinking about, you know, Bobby McFerrin and “Don’t Worry Be Happy” and it was the happy Reagan years to some people. Where was the anger and loudness and frustration in this scene coming from during that time?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: Well, I think when you say the world Reagan, he was the coal that fueled that train of discontent for hardcore for so long. Personally, for me as a not-out gay man in the early ’80s and what the Reagan administration did to – I guess more importantly what they didn’t do – they couldn’t say the words AIDS until the middle of 1985. So here I am, 20 years old, sexually aware but not out, confused, sometimes self-hating, with a president who cannot name the disease that may or may not kill me or my friends. That would be a source of anger for anybody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: And Mould coped by drinking a lot. He decided to quit. It’s a decision that helped drive a major wedge in the band just as they were getting big. How much was your father in your mind when you decided to quit?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: My father was in the mirror when I decided to quit drinking. (Laughing) You see what you will become if you don’t stop. That’s why when I looked in the mirror, and was like, I can’t do this. I know where this is going to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF HUSKER DU SONG)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: I think about, you know, a group like Nirvana exploding. And then here you are, you’re on that potential road, but then you make this big decision. Where was your head as you were sort of exploring something new and personal, and you’re watching a band like Nirvana and kind of the world around you take off?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: Well, at the beginning of ’88 when Husker Du wrapped up, I moved up to northern Minnesota. And I bought a farm up there and sat more or less by myself for a year relearning music and relearning how to write songs for myself. I had no friends. I had cut myself off from everybody just to focus on my work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF HUSKER DU SONG)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: I was looking for a new way to look at music because the last thing that I wanted to do in 1988 was emulate the band I had just been in. I didn’t want to use that language anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: Over the years, Mould experimented with different kinds of music – acoustic, electronic and pop. But now at age 53, he’s been revisiting the past. He wrote an autobiography, and he just put out this new record, “Beauty And Ruin.” It was inspired by his father’s death from cancer in 2012.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE WAR”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DU: (Singing) And all these songs I write for you, they tear me up. It’s not hard to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: There’s a song called “The War” that you said has something to do with your dad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: You know, it touches on my dad’s battle at the end. It touches on, you know, life in general as a battle for all of us. It deals with a number of not-so-happy things, but I tried to wrap it with an uplifting melody. Seems to be my M.O. these days – the dark lyric and the happy melody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: I guess I wondered if “The War” was in some ways between you and your father.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: No. I mean, I gave up that war a long time ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: Loud as this album is, there is a sense of peaceful resolution. He even mocks himself in a song called “Hey Mr. Gray”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “HEY MR. GRAY”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DU: (Singing) Hey, Mr. Gray. That’s what the children say. Life used to be so hard, well, get out my yard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: It’s funny because it has this image of an older guy, maybe a guy about your age in his 50s, yelling at kids to get off his lawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: Isn’t that awsome? (Laughing).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: It’s pretty awesome. It’s pretty awesome. What strikes me while listening to it is, you might be this guy yelling at kids to get off your lawn, but you’re also rocking like you’re 20-something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: I know. I love the contrast in this record all the way around. But I think the beauty of it to me, you know, for so many years, I ran away from my own sound. And other people took it and ran with it. And it’s almost as if I’ve caught up with myself somehow. You know, for so long when I go back to ’88 and the farm and wanting to be so different – you know, now it’s like, people like what I’m doing right now. They like it when I play fast, and it might not be like that forever. It might not be like that in five years. So I’m just going to go for it while it’s working.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “HEY MR. GRAY”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DU: (Singing) Gets him – it gets him down…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: Well, Bob Mould ,it’s been a lot of fun of talking you, really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOULD: Great. Thank you, David.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GREENE: That’s Bob Mould. His new album came out yesterday. This is NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The California Report",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 8
},
"link": "/californiareport",
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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/26099305-72af-4542-9dde-ac1807fe36d5/kqed-s-the-california-report",
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"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/tag/tcram/feed/podcast"
}
},
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"id": "californiareportmagazine",
"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
"airtime": "FRI 4:30pm-5pm, 6:30pm-7pm, 11pm-11:30pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Magazine-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/tag/tcrmag/feed/podcast"
}
},
"city-arts": {
"id": "city-arts",
"title": "City Arts & Lectures",
"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.cityarts.net/",
"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
"title": "Close All Tabs",
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"info": "Close All Tabs breaks down how digital culture shapes our world through thoughtful insights and irreverent humor.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/CAT_2_Tile-scaled.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"order": 1
},
"link": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"code-switch-life-kit": {
"id": "code-switch-life-kit",
"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"meta": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnByLm9yZy9yc3MvcG9kY2FzdC5waHA_aWQ9NTEwMzEy",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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}
},
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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},
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"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"info": "Freakonomics Radio is a one-hour award-winning podcast and public-radio project hosted by Stephen Dubner, with co-author Steve Levitt as a regular guest. It is produced in partnership with WNYC.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
"rss": "https://feeds.feedburner.com/freakonomicsradio"
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},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
"info": "Hosted by Terry Gross, \u003cem>Fresh Air from WHYY\u003c/em> is the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues. One of public radio's most popular programs, Fresh Air features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.",
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"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/381444908/podcast.xml"
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"here-and-now": {
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/hiddenbrain.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/series/423302056/hidden-brain",
"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510308/podcast.xml"
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
"id": "how-i-built-this",
"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/3zxy",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510313/podcast.xml"
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/6c3dd23c-93fb-4aab-97ba-1725fa6315f1/hyphenaci%C3%B3n",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC2275451163"
}
},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1492194549",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
"meta": {
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/0OLWoyizopu6tY1XiuX70x",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-Our-Watch-p1436229/",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/show/on-our-watch",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"
}
},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
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