Alas we have arrived at Un | Herd Archive Episode number 13. This one includes two performances, the main show being that of an improvisational duet entitled, Deeds. And they are Brian Mumford on electric guitar and Un | Herd veteran, John Niekrasz on drums. The second portion of the show will be a 6 minute clip from one of my earliest programs featuring John again on drums and Seth Brown on Fender Rhodes piano, performing as Why I Must Be Careful. The prior goes back to November 23, 2009, and the latter goes back to November 24, 2008. I believe they were both debut performances; the prior was totally new and improvised; the latter was freshly composed. So please enjoy Deeds and Why I Must Be Careful.
Welcome to episode 11, and the first 30-minute edition of Un-Herd archives. This one goes all the way back to January 26, 2009, featuring the spazz-jazz duet called Thicket. This band features the most frequently appearing guest of Un-Herd, drummer John Niekrasz, of notables such as Naked Future and Why I Must Be Careful. On alto saxophone we have Ben Kates, a long time collaborator with Niekrasz, in bands like Fly Fly Fly Fly Fly, and Naked Future. Ben is missed in the Portland avant-garde scene as of this retrospective while teaching elementary students in Alaska. With that, please enjoy, Thicket.
For International Women's Day, the women of the Old Mole Collective, led by host Denise Morris, take up issues confronting women in the building trades and their creative ways of dealing with them; women in the movie industry and a current film written and directed by a woman; and "The Science of Gender and Sex," the topic of this year's Gender Studies Symposium at Lewis & Clark College. In addition, Denise features the music of Yoko Ono in the breaks between segments.
The 29th Annual Gender Studies Symposium is coming to Lewis & Clark College, March 10-12. The Old Mole's Laurie Mercier talks with the Symposium's Faculty Director Kimberly Brodkin about the many perspectives on this years topic -- "The Science of Gender and Sex" -- including the medicalization of sexuality (for more on this, go here) and political responses to the AIDS crisis. All events are free and open to the public. For more information, visit the symposium's website.
For this International Women's Day show, Movie Moles Frann Michel and Jan Haaken discuss the film "Fish Tank," written and directed by Andrea Arnold and showing through Thursday at Cinema 21. Frann and Jan also discuss "the male gaze" and other issues around the presence of women in film making.
What's it like to be a woman in the construction trades? Johnanna Brenner talks with an electrician and a steam fitter about about the challenges facing women trying to break into and stay in the construction trades. They discuss how women support each other to meet those challenges, about efforts to make unions more democratic, inclusive, and activist, and why that is important to women and people of color working in the trades.
