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SpHEARS (2018 - 2020)



A live broadcast radio show that invited artists, writers, curators, and filmmakers to discuss a sonic experience, song or film clip that informs their practice. Sound can be the train that takes you to far away places and this is one aspect of the show that Academy Records liked to promote. Using sounds offered by the show’s guests as a point of departure, each weekly episode included complementary tracks selected by Academy Records to expand on ideas and concepts that came from conversation.
Season II of SpHEARS was cut short due to a technical issue and then came the pandemic times. In the radio broadcast’s stead, SpHEARS also hosts a Quarantine Video Round Up on its Instagram feed. Guests are invited to discuss a film they feel is inspired viewing during this shelter in place we find ourselves in.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, SpHEARS is temporarily on hiatus. Check our Instagram QVR posts for guests posts on thematic cinema to watch while on lockdown.

F

or a full list of seasons’ guests and songs selected scroll to the bottom of the page.

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SpHEARS Season I (2018-2019)

Liz Corkery, an artist from Sacramento, joins us on Week 15 to discuss Prokofiev’s Peter and Wolf, particularly the Boris Karloff performance. There are tons of versions of this piece of music making it fit nicely in the matrix of narrative, cinema, performance, and illustration. Take a chance and follow along with the conversation as it happens about mechanical reproduction, hunting wolves and how man over nature really is just a leitmotif for timbre...or something like that.

Track Selected: Peter and the Wolf. Sergei Prokofiev. Boris Karloff/ Mario Rossi and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra. 1957/36.

References: Printmaking, Pellerin Curtain, Memory, Childhood, time, cinema, gardens, tableau.

Liz Corkery, artist/printmaker extraordinaire recently relocated to the West Coast joined us for an episode of dramatic notions back in April 2019 .  We discuss all things narrative, diorama-esque and cinematic impulses in patterning and timbre.

Her Jazz? His circle? Pancakes are round and round is funny. So many lead-ins to Week 14’s guests the Organizers of the International Pancake Film Festival, Damon Bishop & Cara Kuball. They each pick two distinct tracks that we discuss in relation to the cinematic use of pancakes and how pancakes might just be a good way to bring people together. Get ready to carb load on movies on the radio.

Tracks selected: Her Jazz, Huggy Bear. 1993. J. Mascis: Circle. 2011.

References: Echo Park Film Center, Brattle Theatre, Chicago, San Antonio, Edie Brikell, Riot Grrls, Feminism, Dead Milkmen, Jessica Fletcher, DIY.

April 20, 2019 SpHEARS had long time Academy Records friends, Cara Kuball and Damon Bishop come on the show to talk all things pancakes, publishing and pubescence.  They run the long standing film festival, the International Pancake Film Festival.

Where Are You Tonight? I know where I'll be, and it'll be sitting and listening as Ken Tighe, painter extraordinaire appears (audibly at least) on SpHEARS back in Spring 2019 and we trip (or is it trapped?) the light fantastic, sonically speaking on all things Dylan, Caravaggio, and the rest of the motley gang, as it were... so it goes. Light does move at the speed of sound... or is it vice versa painter man? 

Guest-Selected Tracks: Where Are You tonight? (Through the Dark Heat). Bob Dylan. Street Legal. 1978.

References: Caravaggio, Chip and Dale, MassArt, A Civil Action, The GI Bill, Schwinn Stingray, The Rathskeller, Nostalgia, ST. Anthonys, Gold Leaf, Judith beheading Holofernes, The incredulity of St. Thomas, allegory.

Where Are You Tonight? I know where I'll be and it'll be sitting and listening as Ken Tighe, painter extraordinaire appears (audibly at least) on SpHEARS back in Spring 2019 and we trip ( or is it trapped?)

Mimi Cabell, description forthcoming.

Mimi stopped by the studio on a great spring day back in 2019 and we had great rap about punk, post punk, art school, photography, jeans, mosh pits all while we try and break down how even alt scenes don't veer too far from the majority, patriarchachly speaking that is.  Meet the new boss, same as the old boss anybody?

Leah Triplett Harrington, description forthcoming.

Lean Triplett Harrington joins us on Sphears for a great conversation about Finding you way and how music helps present pathways for discovery, as it were, as it is.  She chose tracks by Nirvana, Eliot Smith and Crooked Still.  This episode took my down the path of Boston's sounds from the 60's until now.  Good finds! 

Jim Drain, description forthcoming.

Providence based artist Jim Drain came on the show March 9, 2019 to talk about Belafonte's turn with Day-O or what is oftentimes called the Banana Boat Song.  We dug deep and travelled far.  Sit back and enjoy the soothing sounds on this one.

Marcela Caruso & Arthur Daraujo, description forthcoming.

Now Brooklyn's own Marcela Caruso and Arthur Daraujo previously of Boston then Previously Sao Paulo come on SphEARS for Episode 9 with a selection from the great Tim Maia.  We talk all things travelling, jazz, baiao, cults and MBP.  Tasty!

Jim Woodside, description forthcoming.

Jim Woodside, a painter hailing from Massachusetts came on the show back in March and talked about the great cover of Just Like Tom THumb's Blue's by Nina Simone.  Tune in to hear the convo on SpHEARS episode 8!

Amy Beecher, description forthcoming.

Amy Beecher, Artist, educator and podcast host extraordinaire came on SpHEARS for a lively discussion about food based innuendo in food, being a young new yorker discovering Riot GRRL, cake tastings and how it all wound up to make the totality we all know and love as Amy. 

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SpHEARS Season II (2019-2020)

Audio-files forthcoming.

0: Portals into Dawn: Season 2 Introduction 1: Jeffrey DeBlois
2: Sheida Soleimani
3: Theresa Ganz (postponed TBD)
4: On Stasis {spectrums / wavelengths / frequencies} (postponed TBD)
5: Martina Tanga (postponed TBD)
6: Angelina Gualdani (postponed TBD)

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Spring / Summer 2020

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Academy Records created the QVR series as a placeholder to SpHEARS during the strictest days of the lockdown. Guests were invited to select a “Quarantine Ready” film to recommend and write about.

Check Instagram.com/SpHEARS_AcR instagram posts for their short essays.

Guests:

1: Dan Sutherland: The Red Shoes,1948.

2: Dan Gleason: The Rider, 2017. 3: Anthony Elms: Carlos, 2010.

4: Damon Bishop: Raising Arizona,1987.

5: Jennifer Reeder: Silkwood, 1983.

6: Kristin Lamb: Amadeus, 1984.

7: Garry Noland: Fail Safe, 1964.

8: Jeff Marshall: Beneath the Planet of the Apes, 1970.

9: Jeremy Pickett: Poetic Justice, 1993.

10: Fred Lonberg Holm: The Magic Christian, 1969.

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