Spinning On Air Archive
September 2006
Bridget St. John
Sunday, September 24, 2006
When her first album came out in 1969, distinctive British songwriter
Bridget St. John sang of stepping away from daily concerns and eating
"buttercup sandwiches," and of birds, flowers, the sea, and the
pleasure of walking barefoot. A few years and a few albums later,
Bridget opted out of the English countryside and became a New Yorker.
She's lived here in Manhattan for decades now, continuing to write
personal, deeply affecting songs. With new reissues of her albums
available, the value of her early work is getting proper
acknowledgment. Bridget joins host David Garland to perform new and old songs in the WNYC Studio, and to talk about her life and music.
View photos from the session
Bridget St. John's "Celebration of Sixty Years on This Earth" takes
place Wed., Oct 4th, at Kenny's Castaways, 157 Bleeker St., NYC. More
info about Bridget, and this benefit event
Vetiver
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Andy Cabic's San Francisco-based group Vetiver has a relaxed and
tuneful sound. Their new album, "To Find Me Gone," lets the songs
accumulate momentum gradually, and revels in the textures of voices,
and plucked and bowed strings. Visiting WNYC for an in-studio session,
Vetiver is a seven-piece band ready to weave their instruments around
Andy Cabic's voice and explore his songs about outlaws, arboretums, and love. Host David Garland welcomes them and talks with Andy about his music and the band.
view photos from the session
Vetiver's website
Songs and Views of the Magnetic Garden
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Songs and Views of the Magnetic Garden is a piece by Alvin Curran,
recorded in 1973. Weaving his voice, flugelhorn, glass chimes, and
synthesizer with the sounds of high-tension wires in Sardinia, swallows in Rome, bees, water, and frog peepers, Curran created music that still sounds unique after 33 years. The piece has an unusual beauty: focussed and expansive, casual and precise, experimental and warmly human. On the eve of Sept. 11th, when something thoughtful and heart-felt seems called for, we listen to this piece in its entirety.
alvincurran.com
Mind Games
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Some experimental songs make the experiment happen in your head. If the music is "normal," but the words or singer's voice are surreal or unexpected, then the listener has to make adjustments in their well-worn paths of perception. It can inspire a little extra thinking about who the artist might be, what they're doing, what we're hearing, and what our assumptions are. Host David Garland presents a few songs that might cause such refreshing re-adjustment, by Death Vessel, Wooden Wand, Bosque Brown, MV & EE, and others. Also, a brief experiment in musical memory, and more.
Windows 
Windows 
Windows 
Search current and archival WNYC broadcasts. More
David Garland, host of WNYC's Evening Music and Spinning on Air, is also a composer and a performer. He has performed his music extensively in the U.S. and Europe and several of his recordings and downloads are available on his Web site, DavidGarland.com.
- The Leonard Lopate Show: The Lyme Disease Epidemic (July 01, 2008)
- The Leonard Lopate Show: Underreported: Nurse-Patient Ratios and the Future of Health Care (July 03, 2008)
- The Leonard Lopate Show: Give Us This Day, Our Daily Meds (June 30, 2008)
- The Brian Lehrer Show: Before There was Stephen Colbert, There was George Carlin (July 02, 2008)
- The Leonard Lopate Show: The End of Food (June 30, 2008)