Media
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Updated: In Light of Plummeting Ratings, KPFA Launches a New Morning Show
Media Rachel Swan — Wed, May 16, 2012 at 2:30 PM
And thankfully, it's sort of like the old one. Former Morning Show host Brian Edwards-Tiekert, who was reinstated at KPFA last year after a protracted battle with station management, will host the new "Up Front" news show alongside Sonali Kolhatkar, producer of another morning show, Uprising, at sister station KPFK in Los Angeles. Up Front was formally approved on Monday and launches tomorrow at 7 a.m., and, much like Edwards-Tiekert's previous news program with Aimee Allison, it will feature local and state news coverage, interviews, and investigative reporting. According the Edwards-Tiekert and interim general manager Andrew Phillips, it's designed to pick up some of the slack for metro newspapers, some of which have been forced to slash their editorial budgets. It's being touted as the broadcast equivalent of a "news magazine."
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Kreayshawn's Latest Exploit: "Murder"
Media / Bay Area Bands Rachel Swan — Tue, May 15, 2012 at 11:44 AM
Surely you're wondering what Oakland expat Kreayshawn is up to these days, lest she risk ceding the throne to a rival mistress of swag. If the emcee has her way, that won't happen any time soon. Kreayshawn has made a new song to supplant the "Gucci Gucci" anthem for which she is best known. This time, she's traded the Minnie Mouse ears for a vampy femme fatale outfit, designed to fit the dark palette of "Murder," her new collaboration with Georgia rapper 2 Chainz. Set in a dungeon with candelabras and taxidermied animals, it borrows a couple motifs from the opening credits of Dexter (including the trickle of blood from a shaving mishap), but ups the ante by having both rappers dine on giant platters of meat — apparently the spoils of a recent slaughter. We found it a little unsettling, though Kreayshawn's rap skills have clearly improved. You be the judge:
Thursday, May 3, 2012
"Quiet Storm" Brand May Dissolve in Wake of KBLX Sale
Media Rachel Swan — Thu, May 3, 2012 at 10:33 AM
Perhaps the most conspicuous change at beloved local R&B station KBLX is the absence of morning show host Kevin Brown — aka "Your Cousin Kev" — who also served as the station's program director. That, and station announcements touting "the new KBLX" clued most listeners into another tectonic shift in terrestrial radio. For months, rumors about a possible change in ownership had burbled throughout the blogosphere, and a few weeks ago they were confirmed. KBLX, one of the only black-owned commercial radio stations left in the nation, had indeed been sold to Entercom, a Pennsylvania-based broadcast conglomerate that operates more than a hundred stations in markets throughout the US, vying with three other kingpins (Clear Channel, Cumulus, and Citadel) for control of an increasingly narrow constricted FM radio domain.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Chris Rock to Produce New FX Series by W. Kamau Bell
Media Rachel Swan — Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 12:39 PM
Yes, *that* Chris Rock, W. Kamau Bell announced in a mass email sent out this morning, bearing the modest subject line "A Little Bit of Big News." Bell, who has gained local renown both for his ever-evolving solo performance, The W. Kamau Bell Curve, and for his role in the three-person political comedy group, Laughter Against the Machine, has long used race, pop culture, and topical social commentary as his stock-in-trade. He'll traffic in similarly racy themes on his new TV show.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
What Hidden Economies? A Refutation of Channing Kennedy's Oakland "Rap Bohemia"
Media Rachel Swan — Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 10:35 AM
In a new Good magazine piece about the DIY Oakland hip-hop crew Sick Sad World, local writer Channing Kennedy claims to have uncovered the "1 percent of the no-budget rap game." The implication, of course, is that the "rap bohemia" he's profiled isn't just the product of artistic ingenuity and youthful enterprise, but that it also relies on a certain degree of hidden privilege. Kennedy articulates that thesis in value-loaded terms - "One Percent" being the most salient of them. He deploys is as shorthand for "elite strata" when it's actually a term for taxpayers with $380,000 adjusted gross income. He also characterizes the members of Sick Sad World as part of a leisure class, arguing that they have the luxury of time, tech know-how, art-school connections, and full Rolodexes to support their full-time arts careers. Moreover, Kennedy argues, most of the "skilled jobs" are held by white dudes. Essentially, he's attempting to portray Sick Sad World as a marriage of white technorati with young African-American prodigies from the 'hood. That's a reductive, idea, and it's not borne out by his evidence.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Mike Daisey (Partially) Fabricated the Foxconn Story
Media Rachel Swan — Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 10:35 AM
The Internet all but imploded this morning after Public Radio International show This American Life issued a retraction for what had been one of its most popular shows ever, "Mr. Daisey Goes to the Apple Factory." It turned out that playwright Mike Daisey at least partially fabricated the story of his trip to Shenzhen to investigate execrable labor conditions at Apple's Foxconn factory, where many of of the companies products are manufactured. Reporter Rob Schmitz of American Public Media's Marketplace has combed through the story and raised many doubts about Daisey's anecdotes. This American Life will devote its entire program this weekend to Schmitz' findings — the broadcast is currently embargoed on the station's website. However, you can read Schmitz' account here.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Jelly Donut Solicits Fan Mail for His New Web Series
Media Rachel Swan — Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 2:41 PM
It's probably appropriate that local freestyler/minor web celebrity/adored folk hero/"greatest rapping pastry alive" Jelly Donut (aka Andrew Bancroft) began his new web series, Dear Donut, with an episode called "Masturbation," given that the entire project is driven by fan mail — indeed, few things are more masturbatory. That said, Jelly Donut is one of the few East Bay characters who gets (or could get) such correspondences on a regular basis. Formerly a sketch artist with the group Killing My Lobster, he won local acclaim by prevailing at a whole slew of rap battles at the monthly variety show, Tourettes Without Regrets. Dressed in a giant pastry costume that was sewn together by a friend who makes pillow sculptures, the donut would cream opponents with his sharp delivery and wicked turns of phrase. He consolidated his career by engineering a highly-publicized date with British rapper Lady Sovereign, and then trying to battle her at Mezzanine. (She spat on him.)
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
A Man and His Records: Documentary on Music Man Murray Screens This Week
Media Kathleen Richards — Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 3:03 PM
Even with the resurgent interest in vinyl, it's safe to say that the format will never have the same mass appeal it once had. Which is a shame, especially for 88-year-old Murray Gershenz, who has struggled to find a buyer for the half-million records he's amassed over the decades — supposedly the world's largest collection of vinyl. The records, which currently reside in Gershenz's LA record store/warehouse, and the vinyl enthusiast's son, who struggles to hold on to his father's legacy, are the subjects of a new documentary by Oakland resident Richard Parks, a graduate of UC Berkeley's journalism school and a sometime Express contributor.
Music Man Murray, will screen twice this week (March 14 at the Pleasant Hill's CineArts Theater, and March 18 at the Orinda Theatre) as part of the 17th annual East Bay International Jewish Film Festival. If you can't make it to one of those screenings, Parks reports that on Record Store Day, April 21, the 22-minute film will premiere on the Documentary Channel, and will stream for a week at NPR's All Songs Considered site.
Music Man Murray (trailer) from Richard Parks on Vimeo.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Mike Daisey Makes His Entire 'Agony and Ecstasy' Script Available on Twitter
Media Rachel Swan — Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 11:45 AM
Famed monologist Mike Daisey, who presented two monologues in concert last year at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, has always walked a fine line between dramaturgy and investigative journalism. His play The Last Cargo Cult provided a shrewd critique of mass production, developed largely during a trip to the island of Tanna. It's only outpaced by The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, a piece Mr. Daisey wrote to explain how his infatuation with and curiosity about Apple technology ultimately led him to visit the Foxconn factories in China. The phrase "Agony and Ecstasy" is entirely apropos, since the play, which was recently featured on Public Radio International show This American Life, is both a diatribe and a somewhat reluctant hagiography.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Jonathan Mann Assails Virginia Policy of Transvaginal Ultrasounds
Media Rachel Swan — Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 1:40 PM
Even in the calculatingly self-promotional medium of Internet video-making, it's really hard to just make something go viral. But Song-a-Day producer and former East Bay Express intern Jonathan Mann has better luck than most, perhaps because he's consistently topical and unimpeachably charming. Maybe it's because he knows how to pimp key words — like "vagina" and "Virginia" — or maybe it's his gift for alliteration. Whatever the case, Raw Story writer Stephen C. Webster declared Mann's "Mandatory Transvaginal Ultrasounds" video a sure viral hit. It pertains to the current debate over a GOP-sponsored bill that would require doctors to perform unnecessary external ultrasounds on any woman requesting an abortion in Virginia.
