Music writer Alex Ross on John Williams' legacy as the composer receives his 50th Oscar nomination ... the Hidden History of Los Angeles ... Brains On takes us to the International Space Station and starts a Kickstarter campaign ... 5 Every Week gives you five cool things to do this week ...
Help 'Brains On!' — the science podcast for kids — hit its Kickstarter goal
For the last couple years, we've been sampling Brains On! — the science podcast for kids co-produced by KPCC's Sanden Totten — on Off-Ramp.
In that time, we've learned about spiderwebs, dinosaur sounds, human digestion through the eyes of a sandwich and why dogs sniff butts. This week, I lent my voice to a skit about the International Space Station.
Brains On! is not only fun — it's important. Kids need to learn about science, and frankly, we need kids to learn about science. And Brains On! does it in a smart and fun way that helps kids (and adults) learn and get engaged in the world around them.
And now, Brains On! needs to grow. They need $48,000 that will help them accomplish three important things:
1. Do our first special series: The science of National Parks.
America is full of so many amazing National Parks and each one has unique science to teach us. It’s tough to visit them all. But thanks to the magic of podcasts, we can go on an audio adventure to places like the geysers at Yellowstone and the singing sand of the Great Sand Dunes National Park. No need to pack your bags, just your imagination.
2. Find coast-to-coast co-hosts.
Our show is co-hosted by kids! However, we've been limited in who can co-host the show, based on location. Our team is split between Los Angeles, California and Saint Paul, Minnesota, but we’d love to work with curious kids from all over the country… Boise, ID; Tallahassee, FL; Portland, OR; Chattanooga, TN… everywhere. So we’ll use some of the money we raise to rent studios and hire engineers and producers who can help us collaborate with new kids in new places.
3. Bring the music back.
We used to have original, science-themed songs on Brains On! They were fun, catchy and taught us all about water and space and volcanoes… I mean, what better way to learn science than by rocking out? But to get fresh new tunes we need to pay our talented musician friends. With your support we can do that — and keep the music coming.
And that's why they've started a Kickstarter campaign. Won't you help with a contribution right now?
Listen to the audio to hear John and Sanden talk about some of the great questions kids send in to be answered on Brains On!
Composer John Williams, savior of classical film scores, conducts at the Hollwood Bowl all Labor Day weekend
UPDATE: John Williams will lead the LA Philharmonic in some of his best-loved music Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the Hollywood Bowl.
John Williams received his 50th Oscar nomination for the score for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."
Williams is so ubiquitous now, as former leader of the Boston Pops and the man behind the music for so many Lucas and Spielberg films, and old-fashioned lush orchestral scores are so common, that it's hard to believe they were endangered a few decades ago. But so writes Alex Ross in The New Yorker:
Perhaps [Williams'] most crucial contribution is the role he has played in preserving the art of orchestral film music, which, in the early seventies, was losing ground to pop-song soundtracks. “Star Wars,” exuberantly blasted out by the London Symphony, made the orchestra seem essential again.
— Alex Ross, "Listening to 'Star Wars'"
I spoke with Ross about Williams for this week's Off-Ramp, and he walked me through Williams' history and some of the complexities of the "Star Wars" score. (Go ahead. Hum the main theme. Alex says you're probably humming it wrong.)
He also debunked a popular trope:
It has long been fashionable to dismiss Williams as a mere pasticheur, who assembles scores from classical spare parts. Some have gone as far as to call him a plagiarist. To accuse Williams of plagiarism, however, brings to mind the famous retort made by Brahms when it was pointed out that the big tune in the finale of his First Symphony resembled Beethoven’s Ode to Joy: “Any ass can hear that.”
— Alex Ross, "Listening to 'Star Wars'"
Make sure to click on the arrow in the audio player to hear side-by-side comparisons with Williams' music and the music that inspired it.
Hawthorne legend Emitt Rhodes releases first album in 40 years
If you’re a music fan and we asked you to name a brilliant songwriter and studio mastermind raised in Hawthorne — the quiet suburban city in the South Bay — you’d probably pick the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, and you wouldn’t be wrong.
But there must be something about Hawthorne. Songwriter Emitt Rhodes has lived there nearly his entire life. Between 1967 and 1973 Rhodes recorded four albums that captured the imagination of underground musicians for decades. Rhodes put all the albums to tape in his home studio in Hawthorne, playing all the instruments himself.
Now he’s back, his first album in more than 40 years just came out:
https://soundcloud.com/omnivore-recordings/emitt-rhodes-dog-on-a-chain/s-RfJbL
Before Emitt Rhodes was Emitt Rhodes, the one man band, he played guitar and sang in the Merry Go Round, a psychedelic band with a couple hit singles, including "Live."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgmioAfzhXE
He went solo after the band broke up in the late 60s. Alone in the studio, Rhodes said he learned to love the autonomy.
"There's less conversation when it comes to bickering about what to do. You just do it yourself," said Rhodes. "I love tape machines, I liked being in the studio... I'd hit the button on my tape machine and then run, sit down at the drums, play the drums, It was a lot of fun." The albums he recorded in there would join the ranks of artists like Big Star and Rodriguez — treasured pop songwriters with a devoted cult following of songwriters, critics and record collectors. Count among them singer, songwriter and producer Chris Price.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgXBXHN_pko
"There's a few records in my life that have been kind of like sign posts," said Price. "Like when I first heard 'Abbey Road' by the Beatles, I wanted form a band and start to write songs. And the first time I heard 'Pink Moon' by Nick Drake I wanted to learn how to play the guitar. And when I heard Emitt's first record, I wanted to be a better songwriter."
Price grew up in Miami but came to Los Angeles to start a career in music. He said he immediately tried to track down Rhodes when he arrived. As soon as he got an address, he showed up Rhodes' door unannounced. They've known each other for 10 years now.
Price remembers the first time he found out Rhodes was working on new music. Rhodes had stashed the lyrics and music into separate envelopes — about 20 of them.
"I thought to myself 'wow, I'm hearing the new Emitt Rhodes record! Nobody else is hearing it'," said Price. "It was only after some time of processing that material that I really thought like 'okay, I need to do anything I can to help him make this stuff'."
When it came time to put together a new record, Chris enlisted names like Jon Brion, Aimee Mann, Nels Cline, and members of Brian Wilson’s backing band to track the first new Emitt Rhodes album in decades. "I wanted to put together kind of a dream team of people that have been influenced by... of fans of Emitt's that have gone on to do real notable things," said Price.
So they made Rainbow Ends. After working solo for so many years, Rhodes said working with a band was a refreshing change of pace. "It's easier," said Rhodes. "It's more immediate. You get to decide if you like is, or if you like that, and change it. And it changes immediately! When I did it by myself I would have to record the thing, then I'd listen to it back and if I didn't like what I had done, I'd have to go back and redo everything."
But, the question on everyone’s mind: Are we gonna have to wait another 40 years for the next record?
"Oh yeah," said Rhodes. "I'm planning on living to be 120!"
'The envelope, please': Oscars envelope maker Marc Friedland takes us behind the scenes
For more than 70 years, when it came time to hand out the Academy Awards, the envelopes on screen at the Oscars were just that: plain old envelopes. Until a custom invitation designer — the kind whose cards you get in the mail for weddings or baby showers — decided to turn the envelope into a shimmering, quarter-pound stationery icon.
"I think most people don’t realize that it’s not just like an envelope that your bills come in or your holiday cards come in," said Marc Friedland, the veteran stationery designer. His company, Marc Friedland Couture Communications, has been making custom invitations in Mid-City Los Angeles for 30 years now.
"Only 24 presenters and 24 recipients touch the actual Oscar envelopes, but it’s seen by a billion people, around the world, all at the same time," said Friedland. "They all tune in to watch that pin-dropping moment when that winner is announced."
In the beginning, there were no envelopes, no moment of drama as the presenter fumbled with the cards. But in 1940, when the L.A. Times leaked the winners' names before the big night, the Academy realized the awards needed a little more suspense. Enter the envelope, stage left:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_VJtDZBttY
But the envelope didn’t become the over-the-top creation it is now — with real flecks of gold, red lacquer and a tiny gold replica of the Oscar statuette — until Friedland pitched it to the Academy in 2011.
"Here’s a great piece of Oscar history that has never really been created before," Friedland said. "They had to come up with a way to secure who the winners are, so that really became a functional tool, just to protect it. But as it’s evolved, and since we’ve been doing it, it really has become the most famous envelope in the world."
The gold paper on the outside has flecks of real gold leaf — nothing better for Hollywood's big night. The paper features a pattern of the Oscar statuette to prevent forgery. It's heavy, too — each card weighs a quarter of a pound. Each envelope and winner’s card is meticulously handcrafted by a team of just six people. "It takes us about 110 man hours to create these," said Friedland.
"There’s a very definitive schedule," he added. "We get things prepped right before the announcements of the nominees. That usually takes place-- this year was January 11th. And we do the handoff to PricewaterhouseCoopers probably five, six days in advance of the actual awards. So we have that window of time to do all of the proofing and printing and assembly and preparing these little babies to go out in the world."
And security is tight. Of course it's tight — it's the Oscars. Not even Friedman and his team know who the winners are. They just print cards for every possible outcome... in triplicate, in case one (or tw0) sets get lost or destroyed. "We do three sets for every nominee," said Friedman. "So this year, there happens to be 121 nominees. So that’s 363 cards that we do."
When the job's done, Friedman's company leaves the sealing, sorting and handing off to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm entrusted with the Oscars ballots.
These types of precautions make the project expensive, as you might've guessed. Friedland doesn’t like to talk money, but the Hollywood Reporter says the Academy shells out around $10,000 for Friedland’s services every year. So it’s a pretty lucrative gig.
But the Oscars aren’t even Friedland’s biggest project. He gets plenty of work throughout the year: parties hosted by Oprah, openings of huge Las Vegas hotels... but the Oscars feel different.
"For me, this is my own Oscar in a way," said Friedland. "Because 'The envelope, please' has probably been one of the most famous phrases for the last 80 years. And this is that envelope."
The Hidden History of LA: The mayor who helped lynch a man
In Los Angeles City Hall on any given day, Mayor Eric Garcetti, might be inside working on his agenda for the city. But on that very site, 160 years ago, another L.A. mayor was working on a distinctly different effort.
Stephen Clark Foster was elected in 1854 and is often referred to as the first "American" mayor of L.A. Because right after Americans seized California from Mexico, the state was placed under military rule, and Foster was appointed alcalde, or mayor, to replace the dissolved Mexican government. After serving as alcalde, Foster served as a city councilperson and state senator before being formally elected mayor of Los Angeles in 1854.
In the 1850s, L.A. was small and lawless. When a man named David Brown killed one of his friends, a vigilance committee formed to lynch Brown. But before the mob could act, Mayor Foster intervened and argued that the courts should be given a chance to administer justice. He promised that if Brown got off, he would resign his office as mayor and lead the lynching party himself.
And — as Robert Petersen tells the story in his Hidden History of LA podcast — that's exactly what happened. Foster was not only re-elected, but also went on to serve as L.A. County Supervisor. Listen to the audio for the whole story, and learn more of LA's Hidden History.
And check out Robert's web page for more stories of LA's Hidden History, or sign up for the podcast on iTunes.
5 Every Week: Black Mountain College, Alt Movie star handprints, LA's finest beltfish!
Behold: Five great things you should do in Southern California this week, from art to food to music to an adventure we'll call "the Wild Card," from the makers of the 5 Every Day app. You can also get this as a new podcast in iTunes. If you want five hand-picked things to do in Los Angeles every day, download the free 5 Every Day from the App Store.
ART: Leap Before you Look: Black Mountain College
Give us a time machine, and the first place we’ll go — well, after we prevent the Kennedy assassination, of course — might be North Carolina in the late 1940s.
That’s where — and when — to find Black Mountain College, a bucolic art school near Asheville on the edge of the Appalachians. It closed in 1957, but in its glory days, it provided an education unlike any other in the United States.
A typical campus day might include geodesic dome construction with professor Buckminster Fuller, or some manual labor on the campus farm. Students learned pottery, weaving and dance alongside visual art and literature. It was a utopian experiment in education that attracted some of the most interesting people in the world.
The school’s visiting faculty in those days reads like a who’s who of 20th century intelligentsia: Everyone from Merce Cunningham to John Cage to Willem de Kooning taught at Black Mountain. Ah, what we wouldn’t give.
Short of a time machine, the next best thing to visiting Black Mountain is Leap Before You Look, a new exhibition at the Hammer Museum that happens to be the first comprehensive exhibition to examine the history of Black Mountain College.
On view are documentary photographs and archival ephemera, books printed by the influential Black Mountain Poets, sound recordings and works by the college’s most illustrious faculty and students.
And, in the spirit of Black Mountain’s unorthodox mix of disciplines, the Hammer will host both in-gallery performances and craft demonstrations over the next few months.
CITY: Vista Theater Handprints
https://www.instagram.com/p/8Empehn48n/
The Vista is a single-screen miniplex in Los Feliz and a really great neighborhood movie theater.
It looks like a cross between a gilded-age collection of Egyptian relics and some kind of plush Masonic lodge. The seats are spacious - they knocked out every other row - and the tickets reasonably-priced. It always seems to be playing exactly the blockbuster we secretly want to see.
But the really special thing about the Vista is a tiny roadside attraction built into its front sidewalk.
The Vista’s got its own alternative version of Mann's Chinese Hollywood handprints, a fact that definitely does not get enough play, in our opinion.
Right there in the cement in front of the box office, you'll find handprints and signatures from a spread of countercultural figures. All people too cool for the real thing: John C. Reilly, Martin Landau, Penelope Spheeris, Bud Cort, Spike Jonze, and ur-science fiction fan Forrest J. Ackerman.
FOOD: Seafood City Supermarket
https://www.instagram.com/p/9bpVXTtSX8/
We are rich in ethnic grocery stores in the Southland, but few have a sense of place as robust as Seafood City.
Seafood City is a Filipino chain with locations all around Los Angeles, and it offers all the comforts of the islands: swiss roll cakes and dried packaged noodles on the shelves, avocado ice cream in the freezer, Tagalog tunes on the speakers, and, of course, a totally wild fish market.
You’ll smell it before you can see it. Mountains of glistening fresh squid, clams, and oysters; heaps of perch, anchovy, and mackerel piled on crushed ice. And lots of fish you’ve never heard of. Beltfish, anyone? They don’t call it Seafood City for nothing.
The Eagle Rock location, our favorite, anchors a mall that serves a largely Filipino community, so post-grocery run you can always complete the experience with a burger from Jollibee and, from Leelin bakery, some colorful Halo-Halo.
That’s shaved ice studded with tropical fruits, beans, and purple yam ice cream — it’s the best. A roundtrip ticket to Manila for the cost of an afternoon in Northeast LA.
MUSIC: Lower Dens @ Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum, once a staid receptacle of gems and bones, has transformed in recent years into a groovy indoor-outdoor museum, with three and a half acres of meandering nature trails, planted with flora designed to attract local wildlife.
For March’s fun/edifying First Friday series, the party spills out into their verdant Nature Gardens for wonders of science and sound: behind the scenes museum tours, presentations by scientists Maddalena Bearzi and Chris Thacker, and live music from Baltimore’s stellar Krautrock progeny Lower Dens, plus Gardens & Villa.
Beyond the party, staying late in a museum is always a chance to reenact your mixed-up file fantasies, and the Natural History Museum's meticulous taxidermic vitrines are particularly affecting in the twilight hours.
WILDCARD: Super Tight
Alternating between the stage at Cinefamily and a concrete driveway behind a house in Hollywood, Super Tight is an uncommonly well-curated monthly bouquet of stand-up, music, and cool tacos presented by three tight bros: Simon Ore, Kevin Riggin and Casey Rup.
Super Tight Volume 10 goes down this weekend. It’s leap year time, so Super Tight’s managed to cram two days worth of surprises into a single Saturday night’s festivities.
It’s SO super tight, in fact, that we're inclined to just lay it out for you:
Jokes by irascible lounge lizard Neil Hamburger, Alanna Johnston, and our beloved Power Violence; a special multimedia performance from Katia Kvinge; a magic stage-show by magician Rob Zabrecky; music by Jerry Paper and Yung Jake; visual art by Lola Rose Thompson and Amber McCall; DJ sets by Nina Tarr and Hevin Spacy; edibles by The Art of Edibles; plus the aforementioned cool tacos by the gastro-visionaries of Stiff Peaks.
It starts at 9 p.m., but you’re welcome to pop by anytime — they’ll be there until they get the boot sometime around 4 a.m.
Song of the week: "Camelblues" by MNDSGN
This week’s Off-Ramp song of the week is “Camelblues” by the LA musician and producer MNDSGN (pronounced "Mind Design").
MNDSGN is the project of Ringgo Anchetta, a New Jersey native who came of musical age in Los Angeles. He’s collaborated with Danny Brown, Jonwayne and is signed to Los Angeles’ Stones Throw records. “Camelblues” is off his latest album “Yawn Zen.” Check out the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_ZKRFxxFU0
MNDSGN plays at Low End Theory at the Airliner on Wednesday, March 2.