September 29 , 2007 (#78) - The True Crime Show

Internet Sleuths
Sara Parker- Producer

Unfinished business doesn’t sit well in the human brain. We like closure. We like endings. We like to know where we stand at the end of the day. But of course, that isn’t always possible.  Crimes go unsolved, mysteries stay unknowable.  But this kind of unfinished business, unfinished criminal business, just feeds the flames of determination in a group of amateur detectives. This story was produced by Falling Tree Productions for BBC Radio 4.

Girl Detectives
Sue Mell- Independent Producer

Everyone seems to be fascinated by crime, as long as it doesn't hit too close to home.  Sue Mell is an independent Producer in California, who never expected to be writing about murder, crime, detectives, police work or housewives on the hunt. But then she found out first hand about the sheer frustration of a true crime without a true solution.

Featured Music:

Melodium, "Kribi", Vilnius (Autres Directions in Music, 2007)
Melodium, "Minsk", Vilnius (Autres Directions in Music, 2007)
Prints, "Meditation", Prints (Temporary Residence, 2007)

Extras:

Check out more Falling Tree Productions.

Check out more work by Sue Mell.

September 22 , 2007 (#60) - The Seeking Show
Originally broadcast November 11, 2006

Untitled
Benjamen Walker- Independent Producer

In the search for enlightenment, there probably isn't a more desperate, dark (or funny) story than this one. As a teenager, Walker bounced from congregation to congregation (Baptist to Lutheran to the First Church of Jesus Christ, Astrophysicist), dragged along by his spiritually lost mother. This piece, which falls somewhere between fact and fiction, originally aired on Walker's old show, Your Radio Nightlight.

New Violet Flame
Brenda Hutchinson- Sound Artist

When Brenda Hutchinson's sister joined The Church of the Universal and Triumphant in rural Montana, Hutchinson got a little nervous because she didn't know very much about the isolated congregation. So she decided to visit, and spent three months living in the community and documenting her experience.

Minister
Joe Frank- Independent Producer

Joe Frank, master of late night radio, assembled this piece: a phone conversation between himself and a cranky minister.

Featured Music:

Melodium, "You Can't Help Me", Music for Invisible People (Autres Directions in Music, 2006)
A Small Good Thing, "Saloon Dreams", Slim Westerns (The Leaf Label, 2002)
Melodium, "My Xylophone Loves Me", Music for Invisible People (Autres Directions in Music, 2006)
Melodium, "You're Gone", Music for Invisible People (Autres Directions in Music, 2006)
Melodium, "Saturday Morning", Music for Invisible People (Autres Directions in Music, 2006)

Extras:

Learn more about Brenda Hutchinson's sound art.

Listen to more of Benjamen Walker's work in our audio library.

September 15 , 2007 (#77)- The Hospice Show

Hospice Chronicles
Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister - Long Haul Productions

Over the course of eight months, producers Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister followed two hopsice volunteers through their training and first assignments in patients' homes. Trained to provide "respite care", the volunteers try to give family members a break from their caretaking responsibilities. It turns out that the volunteer/patient relationships, like most human interactions, are fraught with pitfalls. Strangers become intimates at a very intense time. And things aren't always what you'd expect: volunteers aren't always 100% altruistic and patients aren't always 100% grateful.

Curve of the Earth
Stephanie Rowden with Keith Taylor (from the TCF 2007 Dollar Storeys project)
Andrew Bishop- tenor saxophone
Andy Kirshner- soprano saxophone

A small bicycle bell rings in a big landscape.

Featured Music
SubtractiveLAD, "All Ways", No Man's Land (N5md, 2007)
Caribou, "Shim Shimmer", Tour CD 2007

Extras:

Listen to all the 2007 Dollar Storeys in the Dollar Storey Archive!

Listen to more work by Long Haul Productions.

Learn about the upcoming TCF Listening Room, which will feature a number of the Dollar Storeys, a reading by Dollar Store founder Jonathan Messinger, and fantastic door prizes. Not to be missed: Wednesday, September 19th.

September 8 , 2006 (#57)- The Emergency Show

A Tale of Two Townsvilles
Claudia Taranto- Independent Producer

Three years ago in the Australian community of Townsville, the death of an Aboriginal teenager at the hands of a white teenager sent shock waves through the seaside community. This piece explores what happened the night of the incident and the events that unfolded thereafter.

000 Ambulance
Kyla Brettle- Independent Producer

A sound portrait of a chaotic emergency call center in Melbourne (Australians dial 000 instead of 911). Producer Kyla Brettle blends recordings of urgent calls made to 000, interviews with emergency operators and ambulance dispatchers, and the sounds of the frenetic call center into a powerful piece about crisis and mortality.

Featured Music
Melodium, “Untitled 7 ,” Hum Hum & Bla Bla EP (Autres Directions in Music, 2005)
Balun, "Moving Pictures," Something Comes Our Way (Brillante, 2006)
Atone, "Verset," Un Jour EP (Autres Directions in Music, 2004)

Extras:

Hear "Affairs of the Mind", another documentary by Kyla Brettle, in our 2002 archive of Third Coast Festival winners.

Learn about the Errol Wyles Foundation, established since the first broadcast of "A Tale of Two Townsvilles." The Foundation was created to provide legal redress to Aboriginal people who continue to suffer the effects of discrimination and prejudice within the criminal justice system.

September 1, 2007 (#59) - The Haunting Show
Originally aired October 21, 2006

Haunting the Quabbin
Sean Cole - Independent Producer

A sound portrait of living history: four small towns in central Massachusetts that were evacuated, flattened, and then flooded to create the biggest drinking reservoir of its day. Though the evacuation began seventy years ago, the people who lived in the towns have clear, sometimes bitter memories of the event that took away their homes, schools, and essentially, life as they knew it. (Inside Out, 2005)

Elijah Haunt
Carolina Wheat - Sound Artist

Carolina Wheat is interested in the question of the body's demise and the soul's freedom. In search of answers, she spoke to someone whose ability to tackle questions of such gravity has not yet been impaired by things like reality and cynicism...her young son.

Featured Music:

Shogun Kunitoki, "Piste", Tasankokaiku (Fonal, 2006)
Chihei Hatakeyama, "Bonfire on the Field", Minima Moralia (Kranky, 2006)
Chihei Hatakeyama, "Inside the Pocket", MInima Moralia (Kranky, 2006)
Chihei Hatakeyama, "Toward a Tranquil Marsh" (Kranky, 2006)
Shogun Kunitoki, "Levionan", Tasankokaiku (Fonal, 2006)
Architecture in Helsinki, "The Cemetery", In Case We Die (Bar/None, 2005)

Extras:

Check out "Exodus '47", another one of Sean Cole's outstanding documentaries from the Inside Out series.