MeFi Projects

KCRW’s acclaimed music documentary podcast, Lost Notes, is back for its fourth season! Co-hosts Novena Carmel (KCRW) and Michael Barnes (KCRW / KPFK / Artform Radio) guide you through eight wildly different and deeply human stories, each set against the kaleidoscopic backdrop of LA’s soul and R&B scene of the 1950s-1970s. (The fifth of eight episodes releases this week on Wednesday.) [more inside]
posted by mykescipark on Apr 23, 2024 - 0 comments

Lost Notes is a music documentary podcast from KCRW (Santa Monica, CA). For our third season, the poet and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib explores a single year: 1980 - the brilliant, awkward, and sometimes heartbreaking opening to a monumental decade in popular music. Check out the episode guide in the Extended Description. Here's my essay introducing the series. [Previously on Projects: Season 1 | Season 2] [more inside]
posted by mykescipark on Sep 26, 2020 - 3 comments

I wanted to wait until we had a sufficient pile of episodes out there to share, but ... Lost Notes is back for another season! Our exec producer/host this season is the great Jessica Hopper - one of the sharpest music writers and critics in the room. Check out the episode guide in the Extended Description. [more inside]
posted by mykescipark on May 22, 2019 - 1 comment

My brand-new podcast for KCRW! Wheee! Over a year in the making, it's a brand-new series devoted to “the greatest music stories never truly told.” [more inside]
posted by mykescipark on Apr 12, 2018 - 4 comments

For one fleeting moment in the summer of 1989, college radio, MTV, classic rock, and the avant-garde intersected when The Ordinaires, a nine-piece orchestral art-rock band from New York City, summoned the ghosts of ‘70s stadium-rock bombast with an infamous cover tune. And after a decade surviving near-death experiences and religious condemnation, the band was about to face its most formidable obstacle: itself. This is the story of a time and a place never to be repeated, in which an unlikely group of people made a most unusual noise. These are Nine Views of the Ordinaires. (59m) [more inside]
posted by mykescipark on Nov 8, 2016 - 0 comments

A radio documentary on the AIDS crisis and its impact on the “gay paradise” of Fire Island throughout the 1980s. The 25-minute piece airs this week on KCRW’s “UnFictional” program, in commemoration of World AIDS Day 2013. My Web site has a companion page introducing the guests and featuring additional content not heard in the broadcast version. [more inside]
posted by mykescipark on Nov 29, 2013 - 5 comments

A short film documenting my recent trip across the Republic of Mali to record indigenous and regional music. After the kidnappings and murder in Timbuktu in December 2011, I had forfeited all plans to go to the northern half of the country ... until the day I was piled into a 4x4, completely unplanned, and swept away to Timbuktu as the personal guest of a Malian gendarme. This film documents my early work in Mali ... and the utterly unique experiences that awaited me in Timbuktu. [more inside]
posted by mykescipark on Jan 26, 2012 - 1 comment

My documentary radio project, ShortWaveMusic [prev], has gone global! This is a new short video documenting the 2011 season, filmed on location throughout the United Arab Emirates in October 2010. (Future editions will include Ghana, Indonesia, and Ethiopia. Prior seasons were recorded in Ibiza and Bulgaria.) [more inside]
posted by mykescipark on Jun 14, 2011 - 2 comments