May 20, 2013 (World Cafe / WXPN-FM) — The singer-songwriter combines soul, blues and punk on his blistering new album, Head in the Dirt.
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Hanni El Khatib. (Courtesy of the artist)
Next: Hanni El Khatib
by David Dye
May 20, 2013 (World Cafe / WXPN-FM) — The singer-songwriter combines soul, blues and punk on his blistering new album, Head in the Dirt.Hanni El Khatib is a first-generation American who grew up with a Palestinian father and a Filipino mother in San Francisco. His music has origins in '50s and '60s soul, blues, R&B and garage rock, with all those influences filtered through an intense love of punk music.
El Khatib's 2011 debut, Will the Guns Come Out, was a raw and profane blast, while the recent Head in the Dirt is a product of time spent with The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach in his Easy Eye Nashville studio. Hear two songs from Head in the Dirt here.
Copyright 2013 WXPN-FM. To see more, visit http://www.xpn.org/.9(MDAxNzgwMTg5MDEyMTQ4Nzc4MjdiNWVmMw004))
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- "Nobody Move"
- "Family"
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Once vehemently opposed to the idea, comedy legend Brooks had a change of heart about being made the subject of a documentary. The result is a new American Masters episode, Mel Brooks: Make a Noise. (WNET/American Masters)
Brooks: "I'm An EGOT; I Don't Need Any More"
May 20, 2013 (Fresh Air from WHYY / WXPN-FM) — The legendary screenwriter, producer, director and entertainer whose name has become synonymous with American comedy, talks about his penchant for spoofs and his decades-long friendship with Carl Reiner. Brooks is the subject of a new American Masters documentary that premieres May 20 on PBS.Over the 60 years that Mel Brooks has been in the entertainment business, his name has become synonymous with comedy. He is the man who broke Broadway records for most Tony Award wins with The Producers (an adaptation of his own movie), who satirized Westerns and racism in Blazing Saddles, and who poked fun at monster movies with Young Frankenstein.
Before the films, there was his TV career: Brooks was a writer for Your Show of Shows, one of the most influential comedy series in television history and a precursor to Saturday Night Live, and he was the co-creator of the spy spoof series Get Smart.
Brooks, who is the subject of a new American Masters documentary, "Make A Noise," that premieres Monday, May 20 on PBS, says his penchant for spoofing genres was firmly in the tradition of poking fun out of love .
"I loved Westerns as a little kid, and I loved horror films," Brooks tells Fresh Air's David Bianculli. "I had fun with them, but I also saluted the glory of the Western and the glory of James Whale's Frankenstein and Dracula.
Brooks grew up in Brooklyn, raised by a single mother (his father died of tuberculosis when he was two) who was just scraping by. Going to the movies was his introduction to a larger world and his mother recognized this. Even though she couldn't afford it, she encouraged his enthusiasm, one time even asking a neighbor for the final penny to pay the price of a movie ticket. The neighbor acquiesced.
"I was able to go see the Western," Brooks remembers. "So I cherish those movies because they really lifted my spirits and are indelibly ingrained in my brain as important steps in my world education."
That neighbor made an excellent investment. Brooks is one of eleven people to have won Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards — widely considered something of a benchmark in the entertainment world. And his position as an American institution was further cemented in 2009, when he was tapped for the Kennedy Center Honors.
Funny story, Brooks says: It wasn't the first time he'd been offered the award.
"I shouldn't say this ... but I'll say it anyway," he says. "I was offered this — the Kennedy Center Honors — maybe a year or two before, and I said, 'Well, I'm going to wait for another president, if I'm still alive, if you don't mind.' I just didn't feel comfortable when Bush was president to accept the honors. ... Had I not gotten 110 awards — you know, I'm an EGOT so I don't need any more. ... The Kennedy Center Honors, at the moment, I didn't need them. ...
"The only award I haven't received, I think, is Woman of the Year, and I don't know if that's not in the works. Just as an honorary Woman of the Year. I may get that too, but I'm not looking for it."
Interview Highlights
On Hitchcock and 'High Anxiety'
"I wrote a letter saying, basically, 'Dear Mr. Hitchcock, I do genre parodies and in my estimation you are a genre. I don't mean that you're overweight. I mean that you've done every style and type of movie and that you're just amazing and I would like to do a movie dedicated to you based on your style and your work.' And ... he called me and he said, 'I loved Blazing Saddles. I think you're a very talented guy, and come to my office.'
"I came to his office at Universal, and he told me to come back every Friday at a quarter to 12, because at 12:30 we would eat. So 45 minutes of work. And he would work on my script — on High Anxiety — with me. And he said, 'Well don't leave out this and don't leave out that.' And he said, 'What are you going to do about The Birds?' I said, 'Well, gee, at the moment I haven't included it.' And he said, 'Well, why don't you have them attack you with ... their doody? If they all sh-t all over you, I mean, it's going to be funny.' I said, 'Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hitchcock.'"
On thanking Gene Wilder three times when he won an Oscar for The Producers
"Gene brought a certain something that was never before, that was kind of creative comedy. And he worked tirelessly to play Leo Bloom. He's really the nucleus, the brilliant key to the emotion of the whole piece — and Gene worked for almost scale, for nothing, day and night. And ... I couldn't thank him enough. When I finally put the movie together, I said, 'It would have been a good movie with just Zero Mostel and anybody, but with Gene Wilder it's a wondrous movie."
On Madeline Kahn
"I'm in tears thinking about Madeline. What an incredibly gifted gift from God, Madeline Kahn. The funniest and most talented comedienne I think, including people like Carol Burnett, who are great, you know, and Gilda Radner who was magnificent. But nobody — listen to me, David Bianculli — nobody could approach the magnificence and wonder of Madeline Kahn.
"She was really a great gift to us all. ... I saw art [in her], not just funny. But I saw a person who was gifted with art. She's the only one who actually could have worked in opera as an opera singer, as a coloratura. She was that talented. Or I think she could have worked as a longshoreman in New Jersey. I don't think there's anything that Madeline Kahn couldn't do."
On being good at writing for and directing women
"It was respecting their ability to deliver comedy as well as — and sometimes a lot better than — male comedians. And they knew that I respected their ability and their talent, and they gave all because of it. And they weren't ashamed or afraid to reveal maybe unconscious aspects of their comedy talent, [aspects that] may have been a little off-color or a little crazy or a little bizarre, that they wouldn't show anybody. But they'd show it to me, because they knew I respected the full range of their gifts."
Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.9(MDAxNzgwMTg5MDEyMTQ4Nzc4MjdiNWVmMw004))
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- "Nobody Move"
- "Family"
Missing some content? Check the source: NPR
Copyright(c) 2013, NPR
Once vehemently opposed to the idea, comedy legend Brooks had a change of heart about being made the subject of a documentary. The result is a new American Masters episode, Mel Brooks: Make a Noise. (WNET/American Masters)
Texas Company Scraps Controversial Lesson Plan System
by Eyder Peralta
May 20, 2013 (WXPN-FM) — The CSCOPE curriculum had come under intense criticism for lessons some conservatives called un-American. Activists called the attack on the lesson plans a "witch hunt."See this
![In 1960, Carl Reiner (right) and Brooks teamed up as a comedy duo, together creating such now-legendary skits as "The 2,000-Year-Old Man." "Carl's still my best friend in the world," says Brooks. (Pictured here with Reiner in 2012.)](http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/05/09/mel_carl_reiner_2001_enl-7d386a0d10a4a88b70a709c3b19fffa72d43f332.jpg&s=51 "In 1960, Carl Reiner (right) and Brooks teamed up as a comedy duo, together creating such now-legendary skits as "The 2,000-Year-Old Man." "Carl's still my best friend in the world," says Brooks. (Pictured here with Reiner in 2012.)")
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Eyder Peralta
After uproar over some lesson plans some conservatives deemed un-American, a Texas company has decided scrap a curriculum system used by 877 school districts that were too small or too poor to produce their own.
"The CSCOPE era is over," Texas state Sen. Dan Patrick, who was leading the charge against the program, said in a statement. Patrick and others had introduced legislation that would have added more scrutiny to the lesson plans produced by the program. The legislation was scheduled to be debated, but CSCOPE pulled the plug before that.
Texas Monthly wrote a piece back in April that detailed how we got here. The magazine reports:
"[CSCOPE] first gained national attention last November when conservative talk show host (and recent Dallas transplant) Glenn Beck mentioned a lesson on his show that said that, from the British perspective, the Boston Tea Party could be considered an act of terrorism.
"Patrick, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, had explained that he drafted SB 1406 because of his "great concerns about the management, the supervision, and the oversight" of the system. Proponents of the bill who testified shared those concerns; some complained that another lesson on Islam said that 'Allah' was another word for 'God.' Others complained that material in the lesson plans was not always appropriate for grade level."
After today's news, the Texas Freedom Network, an activist organization that tries to fight against what it calls "textbook censorship at the Texas State Board of Education," was not happy.
"Today political bullying resulted in hundreds of school districts getting thrown under the bus and essentially told to figure out for themselves where to find the resources to replace the service CSCOPE had provided them," Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller said in a statement. "The big lesson here is that if you can generate a witch hunt that includes enough incendiary and distorted claims, then there are politicians at the Capitol who are ready to throw their supposed commitment to local control out the window."
Scripps Texas Newspapers reports that during a press conference Patrick said his issue with CSCOPE was that it ran afoul a system of "checks and balances." That is, curriculums should be able to be reviewed by parents or some other Texas entity. Patrick said the "future legislation would take a deeper look at online curriculum that private companies might develop to fill the void left by CSCOPE."
Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.9(MDAxNzgwMTg5MDEyMTQ4Nzc4MjdiNWVmMw004))
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- "Nobody Move"
- "Family"
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Copyright(c) 2013, NPR
Dawes. (Courtesy of the artist)
Dawes: Songs And 'Stories' From Laurel Canyon
by David Dye
May 20, 2013 (World Cafe / WXPN-FM) — The newly independent California band plays songs from its new record, Stories Don't End, and singer-songwriter Taylor Goldsmith talks about the inspiration behind the album.Dawes' Taylor Goldsmith writes heartfelt first-person songs, somewhat in the style of Laurel Canyon predecessors like Jackson Browne. In an exhaustive interview with World Cafe's Michaela Majoun, Goldsmith describes the inspiration for the songs on the band's new album, Stories Don't End.
Dawes recorded Stories Don't End across the country in Asheville, N.C., on its members' own dime; they've decided to go independent and release their records themselves. Their last album, Nothing Is Wrong, was a major success which led to gigs opening for Mumford & Sons, among others.
This segment originally aired on April 26, 2013.
Copyright 2013 WXPN-FM. To see more, visit http://www.xpn.org/.9(MDAxNzgwMTg5MDEyMTQ4Nzc4MjdiNWVmMw004))
Playlist
- "Nobody Move"
- "Family"
Set List
- "From A Window Seat (Rivers And Freeways)"
- "Most People"
- "Just My Luck"
- "Someone Will"
Missing some content? Check the source: NPR
Copyright(c) 2013, NPR
Dawes. (Courtesy of the artist)
Do You Really Listen To Full Albums?
by Robin Hilton
May 20, 2013 (WXPN-FM) — With so many distractions and different ways to hear songs, it's getting to be pretty impossible to give full albums the attention they deserve. When was the last time you actually listened to one all the way through, without any interruptions?I sure do love albums. We all do. But it's gotten to be pretty impossible to give them the time they deserve. For starters, we can hear pretty much any song we want, by any artist, in any order, any time we want, anywhere. The whole world is one gigantic mix tape, now. And even if you do play an album all the way through, chances are it's mostly background noise, right? Add to that the fact that our attention spans are the most fragmented than at any other time in histo...
OMG! Have you seen this puppycam video feed?? I'm totally tweeting it.
Anyway, be honest. When was the last time you really listened to an album all the way through, from start to finish, without interruption? The keywords here are "without interruption." I listen to entire records all the time, but almost never manage to make it through one without stopping multiple times.
It's so hard that I can actually remember the last time I managed to pull it off without so much as a fly buzzing by to distract me. It was the fall of 2005, and the album was Iron And Wine's Our Endless Numbered Days (brilliant record, by the way). It was my evening's entertainment. This never happens anymore for me.
How about you? When (if ever) was the last time you really listened to an album all the way through, giving it the same rapt attention you would to, say, a new Mad Men episode or a movie?
Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.9(MDAxNzgwMTg5MDEyMTQ4Nzc4MjdiNWVmMw004))
Playlist
- "Nobody Move"
- "Family"
Set List
- "From A Window Seat (Rivers And Freeways)"
- "Most People"
- "Just My Luck"
- "Someone Will"
Missing some content? Check the source: NPR
Copyright(c) 2013, NPR
