Rumble Strip

Latest Episodes:

A Talk About the F-Word, with Bill Schubart Dec 03, 2020

Show notes

Bill Schubart is a writer and a cultural and political commentator. He’s chaired a lot of important boards here in Vermont. He’s really smart and he talks a lot and a lot of people listen to him. What he talks less about is that he’s struggled with being fat his entire life. He’s not averse to talking about it. In fact he wrote a brilliant collection of stories called Fat People in 2010. But it’s not the sort of thing that comes up in conversation.

In this show, we talk about it.

For more about Bill Schubart

A link to Bill’s book, Fat People

Credits:

Music for this show by Brian Clark, who is awesome.

Thank you Tobin Anderson, as always

Headshot by Bill’s brother, Michael Couture

Biker photo by Erik Borg

Shaking out the Numb Nov 23, 2020

Show notes

I first interviewed them when they played in Vermont in 2017 and we became friends. In fact Amelia is the only person with whom I have two-hour phone conversations that start like this:

‘Hey. What are you doing?’
‘Nothing. What are you doing?’
‘Nothing.’

This podcast was an experiment. The interviews were all recorded over the phone during Covid….on back porches at night, by rivers, in fields, and sometimes in closets. Nick and Amelia weren’t interested in a standard set of questions about how they make their songs or what their songs are about. Instead…they told stories that cause songs.

The series is called Shaking Out the Numb.

I love them. I hope you will too.

Photo Credits: Above picture by Nick and Amelia. Banner picture by Shervin Lainez.

More Information about Sylvan Esso

Sylvan Esso has unveiled a new podcast today called Shaking Out The Numb. The experimental six-episode series is a revealing exploration of the creative heartbeat of this duo, and the impulses and experiences that led them to make their new album Free Love. Sylvan Esso has partnered with NPR Music to share the episode entitled “Make It Easy,” and all six episodes of Shaking Out The Numb are available now via all major podcast distributors and YouTube.

The podcast was created from hours of unadorned conversations that Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn of Sylvan Esso had with their friend, Rumble Strip producer Erica Heilman, shortly after completing Free Love. Both focused and freewheeling, each episode has a different scope, mixing together found sounds, reflections and discussions that celebrate the sheer thrill of the very essence of creativity. From a visit to a decommissioned particle collider to the electric feeling of getting ready for a party, Shaking Out The Numb opens a window into the soul of Sylvan Esso. The podcast was produced by Erica Heilman and Sylvan Esso.

This past weekend, Sylvan Esso performed three songs from Free Love on CBS Saturday, from a roof in their home city of Durham, NC. Watch them perform “Ring,” “Ferris Wheel,” and “Rooftop Dancing.” Since May they’ve also performed for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, where Amelia sang “Ferris Wheel” from the bed of a moving flatbed truck.

Last week, Sylvan Esso also shared a remix of their summer bop “Ferris Wheel,” transformed into a “woozy headtrip” (Stereogum) by celebrated producer/multi-instrumentalist Terrace Martin (Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Travis Scott) and featuring Robert Glasper (Kanye West, Erykah Badu, JAY-Z).

The duo has also been hosting a virtual concert series throughout the fall called FROM THE SATELLITE – which will conclude December 1 at 9PM ET with a performance titled WITH LOVE.

Officer Clemmons Nov 13, 2020

Show notes

François Clemmons was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1945 on the plantation where his great great grandmother Laura May’s family had been slaves, then he moved with his mother and siblings and aunts and cousins to Youngstown, Ohio during the Great Migration. Youngstown is where he started singing, and he never stopped singing. He sings in the middle of sentences, he sings on the way to the bathroom, he sings like the world depends on it, which maybe it does.

But you know him already. Or those of you who are of a certain age. For twenty-five years François played Officer Clemmons on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. And recently he wrote a book about it, called Officer Clemmons.

Now he lives in Middlebury, Vermont. I drove over there to talk with him about his life in the South and about Mr. Rogers, one of the great loves of his life.

Credits and More

François Clemmons’ Website

Clemmons’ memoir, Officer Clemmons

Additional music by Brian Clark

Article in Seven Days about François Clemmons by Dan Bolles. Thank you Dan for writing it.

I Am In Here Oct 29, 2020

Show notes

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/230694656″ params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /] Mark Utter was born with a form of autism that makes it impossible for him to say what he’s thinking. For the first thirty years of his life, Mark did not have access to the world of words, except as a listener. An observer. When he was thirty, he was introduced to supported typing, and for the first time in his life, with the help of a facilitator and a typing pad, Mark started his life as a writer of words. This is an interview about what it’s like inside the life and mind of Mark Utter.

Kudos and Credits

50 Best Podcasts of 2015, The Atlantic Monthly…#38

Mark Utter lives in Colchester, Vermont. He receives services that assist his day to day ventures with negotiating a world that functions differently than he does. The more you read about him the more you will realize that we are more alike than different.

Emily Anderson is trained to support people who type to communicate. She was the producer of “I am in here.” She has a background in social/political theater and uses it to assist creative projects that bring odd people more positively into the limelight.

Mark’s Web site: www.utterenergy.org

To view the “I am in here” trailer or purchase the DVD: http://www.utterenergy.org/iaminhere/

Mark’s Blog: http://www.utterenergy.org/blog/

For more information on the form of communication Mark uses: http://www.utterenergy.org/supported-typing/

Music for this show by Podington Bear, and the Free Music Archive

Kudos

Best in Show from The Timbre!

I Hate Google Meet Oct 29, 2020

Show notes

I’ve been doing a couple freelance jobs for extra money. One requires a great deal of video conferencing. I have learned that I do not excel at video conferencing and at the moment I knew this with certainty, my recorder was close by, so I recorded some thoughts on the subject. Then an audio producer in London heard it and did a remix version of it. So here is a short dip into my state of mind during this election season, this world burning, this age of video conferencing. There is some justifiably strong language.

Credits

Arlie Adlington, Audio producer for podcasts and radio

Maya Goldberg-Safir, an excellent person who also happens to be the artistic director of The Third Coast Festival

**Karl Hammer and the Donkeys** Sep 24, 2020
Show notes

Karl Hammer is the founder and president of the Vermont Compost Company in East Montpelier, right up the hill from Montpelier, the state capital. I first heard about Karl from my friend Rosana, who used to be married to him. She told me about how they had puppies one winter, and Karl decided to compost their poop on the floor in the house, which he sweetened with donkey manure and hardwood bark and hay.

Karl started as a vegetable and dairy farmer on a hill farm in Vershire Vermont. He had a business card that said, ‘Have fun. Make money. Save the world.’ How do you make more land better land to make more food for more people? I think it was that question that finally made him leave farming and get into compost production, long before composting was a virtue.

Recently, Karl’s been running a donkey cart into town to pick up food scraps at restaurants and the local coop. Karl has always had donkeys. He loves donkeys, especially the American Mammoth jackstock, which is endangered. And Karl figures the only way to protect them is to give them a useful job to do…to make them indispensable.

I tried to interview Karl a few years ago and failed. He has a mind that connects politics and history and feces and he talks about them all at once and he’s impossible to corral into any one subject at a time. I figured this time I could keep him on the subject of donkeys. But I couldn’t. But it didn’t matter. Karl knows a lot of things I wish I knew.

Pictures and video by **Sid Hammer,** except the less good pictures, which are mine.
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**Karl Hammer and the Donkeys** Sep 24, 2020
Show notes

Karl Hammer is the founder and president of the Vermont Compost Company in East Montpelier, right up the hill from Montpelier, the state capital. I first heard about Karl from my friend Rosana, who used to be married to him. She told me about how they had puppies one winter, and Karl decided to compost their poop on the floor in the house, which he sweetened with donkey manure and hardwood bark and hay.

Karl started as a vegetable and dairy farmer on a hill farm in Vershire Vermont. He had a business card that said, ‘Have fun. Make money. Save the world.’ How do you make more land better land to make more food for more people? I think it was that question that finally made him leave farming and get into compost production, long before composting was a virtue.

Recently, Karl’s been running a donkey cart into town to pick up food scraps at restaurants and the local coop. Karl has always had donkeys. He loves donkeys, especially the American Mammoth jackstock, which is endangered. And Karl figures the only way to protect them is to give them a useful job to do…to make them indispensable.

I tried to interview Karl a few years ago and failed. He has a mind that connects politics and history and feces and he talks about them all at once and he’s impossible to corral into any one subject at a time. I figured this time I could keep him on the subject of donkeys. But I couldn’t. But it didn’t matter. Karl knows a lot of things I wish I knew.

Pictures and video by **Sid Hammer,** except the less good pictures, which are mine.
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Crossing Guard Aug 24, 2020

Show notes

A GUEST SHOW from one of my favorite radio producers….Bianca Giaever.

During a period of personal loneliness, radio-maker Bianca Giaever set out into New York City, hoping to connect with another lonely stranger. She began visiting Catholic churches, and eventually, she met Sophia — a school crossing guard. In this piece, Bianca documents Sophia’s life for many months… weaving between the ordinary life of a school crossing guard, and larger themes of loneliness, God, and the quest to live a meaningful life.

This piece is the first episode in a new podcast by Bianca and The Believer Magazine called Constellation Prize, which you can find in the iTunes store or wherever you get your podcasts. In this series, Bianca talks to subjects about their daily existential problems, both big and small.

If you like Rumble Strip, you will like Bianca’s show. It never fails to surprise me.

Music in this episode is by Zubin Hensler and Stellwagon Symphonette. It was written and produced by Bianca Giaever, and edited by Hayden Bennett. Special thanks to Andrew Leland and Laura Irving.

Artwork by Sludge Thunder

**Winnie** Aug 11, 2020
Show notes

Winnie Wilkinson is originally from Jamaica but she spent half her life in New York City before moving up to St. Albans, Vermont, where black people make up 2.52 percent of the population. Winnie has family all over the country, and she has a lot of family members who’ve been harassed by the police, which is what I went to talk with her about. But it’s not what we talked about. Instead, we talked about God and about slavery–two things that have a profound impact on how Winnie thinks about everything else, including police brutality.

Thank you David Glidden for introducing me to Winnie. And thank you Winnie for going to look for my glasses. And thank you Tobin for bearing with me.

To learn more about Winnie’s seasonings, spices, hot pepper sauce and African products, visit her here.

**Knots and Pandemics** Jul 23, 2020
Show notes

Clare is the curator of the Museum Of Everyday Life, which lives in a barn on Route 16, about eight miles from Glover, Vermont, population 2000. Over the years, the Museum of Everyday Life has given us the toothbrush, the mirror, bells and whistles–celebrations of objects we use everyday in our unglamorous everyday lives. This year’s exhibit features the knot. It’s not quite finished, because as Clare was preparing the exhibit, she was also working her other job as a nurse at a small rural hospital, in the middle of a pandemic.

She showed me the exhibit, which is not quite done but which is already strange and brilliant, and we talked about knots, and about her work as a nurse, in a pandemic and beyond…

THANK YOU to **Bianca Giaever** for her insights on this show. She just launched a podcast and it’s really frickin good…

**More**

Visit the Museum of Every Life

Images from the new exhibit:
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