Fun 2 Know Podcast

On today's show: a conversation with poet and author Maryan Nagy Captan Maryan is a poet, writer and performer currently centered in Philadelphia. Born in Cairo, Egypt, Mayan's parents immigrated to the U.S. in the 1990s where they earned a somewhat hard-scrabble living and raised two girls. With English as a second language, Maryan approached language with a linguistic curiosity that helped fuel her early creativity. In recent years, Maryan has indulged her love of travel, visiting and sometimes teaching writing to young people in Vietnam, Portugal, San Francisco and as we discuss, The Lakota Native reservation in Pine Ridge South Dakota. Maryan also has unleashed her first chapbook this year, a beautiful volume entitled COPY/BODY, published by Empty Set Press. Across the interview we discuss the immigrant experience, small town America, Maryan's love of hip-hop, the 2008 Bonnaroo Festival, soul great Solomon Burke, author Gwendolyn Brooks, performing for audiences, living well beneath the poverty li

In the 90s I began seeing Travis Crawford's byline pop up in assorted magazines, and over the years he has written for publications including Film Comment, Filmmaker, Fangoria and increasingly in the liner notes of archival DVDs. Currently he writes regularly for the U.K. Publication, the Calvert Journal. Crawford's always intelligent and passionate writing, often about films that mix genre conventions with exploratory filmmaking, has made his a byline worth seeking out. Personally, his biggest impact was made in his years as a film programmer at the Philadelphia Film Festival, whose highlight was always the sidebar “Danger After Dark,” a series of films curated by Crawford that brought some of wildest and most thrilling films to the festival and promoted the work of major directors who had been otherwise under-represented. Film is a major passion of mine but we haven't had a guest to discuss film with on the show since we had Reelblack Cinema's guru Mike Dennis on twenty episodes ago. Travis and I ha

On today's show, a conversation with author and comedian Ritch Shydner. Ritch Shydner rode in on the wave of the 1980s stand up boom, playing stages coast-to-coast, working with the best comedians of the era along the way appearing on HBO, David Letterman, both Jay Leno and Johnny Carson's TONIGHT SHOW as well as working and writing on shows incl. ROSEANNE, MARRIED ...WITH CHILDREN, and THE JEFF FOXWORTHY SHOW. Shydner took time off from doing stand-up in the late 90s but has returned in recent years, I had the good fortune to see Ritch play the Borgota in Atlantic City a few weeks back where he took control of a crowded house and again delivered his lean compact set like the seasoned professional that he is. It's all in Shydner's recent memoir, “Kicking Through the Ashes: My Life As a Stand-Up in the 1980s Comedy Boom” on the Mr. Media imprint, a highly-readable book, where Shydner is witness to the birth of modern comedy while working with people of the stature of Jerry Seinfeld, Steve Martin, Robin Wil

On today's show, vocalist, bandleader and songwriter, Brandy Butler I first met Brandy Butler when she worked with my wife at a Philadelphia charter school, when Brandy was fresh out of college and teaching music to elementary school kids. I was aware that Brandy and her band Saigon Slim were performing around town in the same era when the Philly band The Roots were affiliated with Black Lily night at the club The Five Spot, when it was a showcase for talent like Jill Scott, Floetry and Jaguar Wright. We lost touch for a bit when Brandy moved to Switzerland to become an au pair but were happy to hear later of the success she had touring Europe with assorted bands as a vocalist, and making recordings with Chamber Soul, The Foxionaires and others. In 2013, Brandy was a contestant on the Swiss edition of The Voice, making Brandy an instant celebrity within Switzerland's borders. All these experiences influenced Brandy's latest recording, INVENTORY OF GOODBY (named after the Anne Sexton poem perhaps?) and it's

Today's show: entertainer John Davidson. The family traveled up to Saratoga Springs last month as my wife appeared in the pilot of a TV program called "The Caregiver Connection," following the stories of people involved in health care in America. The pilot was hosted by a guitar-strumming John Davidson, who has been an ubiquitous TV presence since the 1960s, appearing as a host with Fran Tarkenton and Cathy Lee Crosby on the ABC hit THAT'S INCREDIBLE, acting in various TV shows, recording a number of records for the Columbia label and singing and dancing on Broadway in Rodgers and Hammerstein's STATE FAIR and most recently touring as The Wizard in the hit show WICKED. It's been awhile since we've seen John in the spotlight and I wasn't sure what to expect, so it was a pleasant surprise to find the entertainer, now in his 70s, to be such a warm and open human being, taking time after along filming day to sit down and talk about his career, knowing Walt Disney, working with Carol Burnett, Telly Savalas, the Co

On today's show, composer, alto saxophonist and the new Director of Jazz at Princeton University, Rudresh Mahanthappa. Rudresh Mahanthappa came out of Boulder Colorado, was educated by Berklee College of Music and DePaul, and received national attention not long after moving to New York in 1998 where he soon beginning collaborating with the then up-and-coming, now major jazz force, pianist Vijay Iyer. Besides making a series of major statements with Iyer, Mahanthappa has collaborated with guitarist Rez Abbasi and trumpeter Amir ElSaffar for some of the freshest and most-ground-breaking jazz releases of the last decade. He's won the yearly Downbeat Poll multiple times, has had a string of recordings under his own name for Innova, Pi Recordings and the Clean Feed label.and BIRD CALLS, honoring the work of Charlie Parker is his latest on the ACT Music label. Rudresh has reached out to the Princeton community, checking in with WPRB in Princeton, where DJs have been playing his music for over a decade. He dr

Mary Lattimore has been lending her harp to a number of avant rock recordings for over a decade, as well as releasing her own haunting improvisational work for labels including Thrill Jockey and Ghostly International. Our conversation was recorded just days before Mary left Philadelphia (where she lived for a decade) to relocate in Los Angeles. We talk about her relationship with the harp, the music scene that came together in Philly in the 2000s, making music with Thurston Moore, Jarvis Cocker, The Arcade Fire, The Valerie Project, and Kurt Vile, composing music for soundtracks, playing the classical world vs. the rock world, The American Harp Convention, NKOTB, gentrification, her move to L.A. and more. You can find out more about Lattimore's work at marylattimore,net

On today's show, violinist Diana Monroe. I spent most pf the 90s living in San Francisco and when I returned to my old home of Philadelphia around 2000, I was struck by how rich a pool of musical talent existed in Philadelphia, particularly across the world of Philadelphia jazz. A great place for talent spotting is in Bobby Zankel's incredible jazz orchestra, The Warriors of the Wonderful Sound a striking group led by saxophonist and composer Bobby Zankel whose numbers can swell to a dozen and beyond, all instrumentalists that can play the music to the highest standards. But for me, Diane's fiery and passionate violin playing always stood out as particularly beguiling and brilliant. Entering her name in Google and looking at her credentials informed me on how rich and varied her career has been, from leading the string quartet in Max Roch's ground-breaking Double Quartet, to playing with Wynton Marsalis and Yo Yo Ma and touring with Barbara Streisand, Monroe has been a first-rank session musician and in re

It's the return F2K's most popular guest, musician and songwriter Kenn Kweder. Our two-part episodes 6 & 7 squeezed in a lot of Kweder's story, growing up in Philly and playing hundreds of gigs a year for decades on stages between New York and Baltimore but mainly in and around Philly, where Kweder is nearly a household name. In the year and a half since he has been on the show Kenn has been the subject of a feature-length documentary, ADVENTURES OF A SECRET KID: THE MASS HALLUCINATION OF KENN KWEDER. Directed by John Hutelmyer, the feature has screened locally and is currently playing the festival circuit. We discuss the film and as you'd guess, a lot more in a slightly melancholy conversation in which Kenn recounts a number of friends who have passed away over the years, but also touches on Pokemon, Miley Cyrus, maintaining friendships in the world of social media, playing prisons and casinos, the secrets of Lithuania, Philly free form radio pioneers, the secret accelerator of the cocaine epidemic, and the

Today it's conversation with writer, music journalist, WFMU DJ and record producer Kurt Gottschalk. Originally out of Illinois, Kurt's earned a masters at the Columbia School of Journalism in 1997. He has written about arts and politics for All About Jazz, Signal to Noise, Time Out-New York, The Village Voice, The Wire and publications in Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Russia. He has twice been recognized for "best feature writing" by the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalist. He also has hosted the Miniature Minotaur radio show on WFMU. He's also the author of two works of fiction, LITTLE APPLES: A STORY CYCLE and SENTENCES. Kurt's cover story on guitarist Loren Connor is the cover story of the June 2016 issue of the British magazine The Wire. I became familiar with Kurt in the most modern of ways, a mutual Facebook friend neither of us really know saw our shared interests and recommended that we became Facebook friends. We both have avid interest in jazz music, 20th century rock

Today show, an epic conversation with artist and painter Skirmantas Pipas. Skirmantas Pipas is a Lithuanian-American artist in the process of painting fantastic otherworldly landscapes that serve as History Paintings of a world yet uncharted. I first met Skirmantas (aka "Skip") when he briefly worked at a Philadelphia cafe in my neighborhood, a lovely spot called The Chapterhouse, where Skip revealed himself as an unusually thoughtful and perceptive 29 year-old. Only after getting to know him better did he share his story as a 21st century American Immigrant relocating from Lithuania to Philadelphia in the years after the Soviet Union's collapse. Living under the Soviet system and the West, has given Skip a rich perspective on our country and our moment in time. Over our expansive conversation Skip discusses arriving in the U.S. as a non-English speaker, navigating the city's somewhat insufficient English as a Second Language program, attending art school, we discuss modern Lithuania, ROBOCOP, Iphone

Today our guest is novelist Beth Hahn. Beth received her masters in writing from Sarah Lawrence and has had her short fiction published in The Hawai'i Review, The South Carolina Review, The Emrys Journal and Necessary Fiction. Her debut novel THE SINGING BONE through Reagan Arts in hardcover, e-book and as an audio book as well. The book is a sort of psychological thriller following Alice, who along with three friends in 1979 fell under the spell of a con man named Jack Wyck. A horrible act of violence occurred that changed the course of these people lives and the story continues twenty years later, when true crime fans begin to search for the answer of what ever happened to Alice after these violent events. We talk to Beth about the novel, its writing and its ramifications as well as talking music, the 1970s, religious cults, free range kids, teenage girls, and "zebra wealth"...

Today, our first show to feature two segments, and three guest as we welcome film director Jeremy Saulnier and Will and Brooke Blair, known professionally as The Blair Brothers. The Brothers are childhood friends of Saulnier's who have scored all three of his features as well as writing and performing with two popular Philadelphia bands over the past decade and a half, the hip-hop group Infectious Organisms and the dreamy pop rock group East Hundred. The third Blair brother, Mason Blair, was the lead in Saulnier's 2014 breakthrough film BLUE RUIN playing the haunted murderer at its center and he has supporting roles in both Saulnier's first film, 2007's MURDER PARTY, a gore satire about young artists in Brooklyn as well as Saulnier's latest, THE GREEN ROOM. THE GREEN ROOM gives Saulnier's nuanced work a wide release for the first time as the film is being marketed to young audiences as a seat-clutching thriller. It succeeds admirably on that level, helped immeasurably by performances by a top-flight set

On today's show, musician blogger and label owner, Jim Slade. I met Slade back in the mid-80s, when his band Nixon's Head was a regular in Philadelphia area clubs. A five-piece rock and roll titan, The Head specialized in loud rock and roll inspired by 60s garage pop nuggets and the early New Wave all brought to life by a quintet of close-knit friends. Their shows are some of the most joyous rock and roll shows I've ever witnessed and they were a big part of a under-documented Philly scene of the mid to late 80s, sharing gigs with similarly-minded bands like The Ben Vaughn Combo, Baby Flamehead, Sky-Grits, The Wishniaks, Electric Love Muffin as well as the Dead Milkmen, whose reputation spread world-wide. You can check out all these bands and more on a compilation called “You're Soaking in It” a compilation produced by New York rocker Palmyra Delran, released in 1988 on Apex Records Although the Head broke-up for a few years in the early 90s they soon reformed and have continued on for over three decade

F2K Ep. 24 William Parker Among the most prominent New Yorkers in the world of contemporary jazz and creative music, Parker first gained notice playing with the groundbreaking pianist Cecil Taylor in the 1980s and has gone of to release dozens of his own recordings on numerous labels internationally as well as on his on Centering label. Parker has worked extensively with many of the most-uncompromised talents of his time including David S. Ware, Matthew Shipp, Billy Bang, Charles Gayle and Jeanne Lee. For me, he is a favorite artist among musicians worker today with an endlessly searching quality that makes each of his many diverse releases a discovery. Much like his music, I was delighted to find the man to be of big ideas and goods humor and our time together seemed to go by much too soon. We discuss Parker's beginnings on the bass, his love of foreign films, The NYC "Loft Scene" of the 70s and 80s, "The Hallelujah Stage," his late collaborators Billy Bang & David S. Ware, his poetry and other writing,

Episode 23: Cellist Tomeka Reid We caught our guest today composer and cellist Tomeka Reid in the midst of a career moment. She arrived in New York City from Chicago on January 1st 2016 to join her quartet for their NYC debut, just two days after Ben Ratliff described Reid in the NYTimes as “A new jazz power source.” Over the next two weeks she played with a dizzying number of the East Coast's established and up-and-coming talent in gigs and jam sessions in DC, Philadelphia and Connecticut. In the midst of all this activity we convinced Ms. Reid take the train down from New York to join us in the studios at WPRB, where I host a weekly jazz show. Ms. Reid moved from the D.C. area to Chicago in 2000 as has recorded with flutist (and former F2K guest) Nicole Mitchell, drummer Mike Reid, vocalist Dee Alexander and the elder statesmen Anthony Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell among others. Ms. Reid also co-leads the internationally recognized string trio, Hear in Now who have performed in Poland, Paris, Rome, Veni

Multi-disciplinary artist Stephen Decky originally came out of Southern New Jersey but has flourished in his many artistic endeavors since moving to Northampton, Mass. twenty years ago. His paintings present Decky's uniquely sweet but treacherous world filled with anthropomorphized fruit and critters, angels and demons and 50's-styled spaceships that buzz his wide-open skies.. Decky has also created foam and cloth sculptures of these creatures that he has animated in his short films and more recently multi-media installations. Decky has also recorded and occasionally performed live with a trail of musical conglomerations, incl. Jeezus Jones Must Die, The Look-Ups, The Space Drunks & Steepletop. and the music we'll hear their music throughout today's episode in from Decky's voluminous catalog. I first met Stephen in 1985, when he was a teenage usher at the Deptford GCC movie theater and I was a 20 year old assistant manager. It was quickly obvious that he was furiously creative, already writing novels, pai

Mike Ferguson, aka Mick Cancer of the Philly punk band The Sic Kidz is our guest. The Sick Kidz, the brainchild of Ferguson, were willed into existence as a literary prank come to life. The band can make their claim as being Philadelphia first punk band as that cultural revolution blew its shockwave out from New York City and across the globe. The Sick Kidz were fueled by Mike's deep love of music, being a witness to the birth of rock and roll in the 50s. to the counter-culture revolutions of the 60s, to the Southern pop of the 70s and the original punk wave as the 70s turned into the 80s. With the Sick Kidz, and his extravagantly theatrical alter ego Mick Cancer, Mike has turned a fan's love into a slow but steady stream of potently fun recordings with the bands Pink Slip Daddy, Das Yahoos and most recently the country punk of Dixy Blood where he has been re-dubbed “Clarence Cancer.” He's a longtime collaborator with popular producer and performer Ben Vaughn and Palmyra Delran of the NYC band The Fr

Writer and novelist, Mike DeCapite is on today's show.. In the late eighties DeCapite began building a cult audience for his free-floating fiction when punk legend Richard Hell's literary magazine CUZ excerpted DeCapite's unpublished novel “Through the Windshield” in its first three issues. The novel is a gorgeously-written reverie to Mike's hometown of Cleveland as seen through the eyes of a young working class dreamer being given a tour of racetracks and betting parlors by his tale-spinning older friend, Ed. DeCapite's love of music imbues his work, which contains many musical references and his work has attracted an audience especially among musicians. Mike has done numerous liner notes for releases from the jazz band Curlew and as we post this episode, Mike has just completed a reading with the acclaimed singer/songwriter Amy Rigby in their hometown of New York City. Coincidentally, our last guest, documentarian Robert Gordon mentioned after our interview that he was still hoping to direct a film ba

Writer, film director and musicologist Robert Gordon is a specialist in the music and history of the town of his where he still lives, the legendary American Music hub of Memphis Tennessee. He's written about Muddy Waters. Al Green, B.B. King, Otis Redding, Alex Chilton and beyond. Many writers have charted the course of Memphis music but almost none have done it with the emotional depth and deep historical knowledge that Gordon has and his works always stood out to musicians and music lovers as the work of a deeply-devoted fellow soul. Since 2003 Gordon has transformed himself from writer to filmmaker, making acclaimed documentary films, contributing to Martin Scorsese's THE BLUES series, adapting his Muddy Waters bio for the PBS "American Masters" series and producing works on ultimate cult band Big Star and Memphis' powerhouse r&b label, Stax Records. Gordon's vast curiosity and sense of history takes him away from music for his first theatrical film, the documentary BEST OF ENEMIES, co-directed wit