Music

The interlude is polished and playful.

“I have something very special coming up here. I just kind of have to set the stage .... we have a giraffe that’s going to be performing with us out here.”

The audience laughs away.

This is the opening of a song track on one of The Shaw Brothers’ records. They’re playing live at Prescott Park in Portsmouth. And if you’ve ever enjoyed a concert at the Prescott Park Arts Festival, you can just imagine the giraffe was either a prop or a set painting for a youth theater act that used the stage earlier.

Gretchen and the Pickpockets formed about six years ago while front-woman Gretchen Klempa was a student at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. Since then the band has been performing in and around the Granite State, pleasing crowds with mostly upbeat funky tunes enriched with lively horn hooks.

Think bagpipes, and you likely think Scotland. But one of the world’s largest bagpipe manufacturers happens to call Nashua, New Hampshire home.

That company, however, is facing an unexpected wrinkle in its international supply chain.

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and Sy Montgomery's 30-plus year friendship began with a ferret bite. Since then, the pair of New Hampshire-based naturalists and science writers have traveled together from Costa Rica to Tanzania.  

Their new book is called Tamed and Untamed, a collection of essays from their long-time Boston Globe column of the same name.  On this episode, Sy and Liz share scientific findings and personal viewpoints that argue the line between human and animal is blurrier than you might think. 

Also in this episode: Where to look for moose in New Hampshire, and singer-songwriter Liz Longley. 

Since 1847, the Exeter Brass Band has been filling the air with horns and cymbal crashes.

The New Hampshire ensemble is one of the oldest continuously performing bands in the country. This summer, they’re back at it, doing the usual Monday night run of free concerts from the Exeter bandstand, also known as the Swasey Pavilion.

One of New Hampshire’s most eclectic music and art festivals turns 10 this year.

The Thing in the Spring kicks off Wednesday in Peterborough, and continues to grow, adding a fifth day this year.

The festival features a wide range of independent musicians. There are art displays, film screenings, and even food trucks.

On today's show:

• Civics 101: Veto
• "Crazy Bet" from producer Nate DiMeo and The Memory Palace. Listen again at PRX.org. 
• Clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh was born in Damascus, but now lives in New York, where he wakes up to bad news each day. He’s going to be performing with the Kinan Azmeh CityBand at Phillips Academy Exeter tonight at 7:00pm and at the West Claremont Center for Music and the Arts tomorrow, April 19th at 6:30pm to celebrate the band's 10th season together. This is our previous conversation with Kinan and composer Kareem Roustom, recorded in 2013.

• "The Gift of Music" from Masumi Hayashi-Smith and the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. Listen again at PRX.org. 

On today's show:

• Last year, Virginia spoke with Katherine Towler whose book The Penny Poet of Portsmouth is now out in paperback. 
• "Friday Night Lights" from Meg Cramer and BackStory with the American History Guys. Listen to this story again at PRX.org.
• We did a final check in with R.C. Thomas who wrapped up the RPM Challenge at the end of February.
• "Whistle Register" from The World According to Sound. Listen to this story again at PRX.org. 
• The Bookshelf: Keiselim Montas and the Art of the Haiku
• "Music Never Dies" from producer Jessica Ripka. Listen to this story again at PRX.org. 

On today's show: 

• Civics 101: How to Amend the Constitution
• Voting by Remote - Listen to this story again at PRX.org
• Alex Preston joined us in the studio for an interview and a few songs
• 10-Minute Writer's Workshop: Ottessa Moshfegh

On today's show: 

• Civics 101: Calling Your Congressperson
• From Kremlin to Kremlin - Listen to this story again at PRX.org. 
• Maceo Parker at St. Anslem's Dana Center for the Performing Arts
• RPM Challenge
• Washing Machine Music - Listen to this story again at PRX.org. 

Yellowstone may be the first national park, but it was New Hampshire's White Mountains that for decades prior captured the imagination of American tourists, scientists, and artists. Today, a portrait of Mount Washington's artistic history.

Plus, from Bob Dylan to Yoko Ono, audiences have long had a fascination with the off-beat or out of tune - so why do we love some bad singers and love to hate others?

Then, America's great repository of world knowledge faces an existential predicament. In a world where information is stored in servers and googled at will, can the Library of Congress really keep up?

Today, voices of Terezin, the Nazi concentration camp used to divert attention from the final solution. We'll hear about how prisoners held under brutal conditions created art and music amid the horrors of the holocaust

Plus, what happens when a protest movement professing all-or-nothing absolutism splits in two? We'll find out how a splinter group of vegan activists toned down their goals and built a powerful machine for change.

Flagrantly unsubstantiated "facts", misrepresented news, and deliberately false memes whooped up by the partisan fringes have been fast and furious this election... And thanks to Facebook's algorithm, fake news stories continue to trend. Today, if you yell at the Facebook echo chamber to stop, does it only get louder?

Then, in a contentious election season full of bombshells, boasts, and social media driving the outrage, how do newsrooms determine what deserves attention what doesn’t?

A new study has confirmed a sad truth about our listening habits - people stop discovering new music around age 33.  Today on Word of Mouth, a seasoned music editor offers tips on how not to get stuck listening to the songs you loved in high school for the rest of your life.

The ad agency for Royal Caribbean chose a lively, catchy tune for a series of commercials for the cruise line, but it didn’t exactly match the wholesome, fun loving image they were trying to promote. On today’s show we’ll explore how the power of sound can make or break an experience.

Then, we’ll speak with the Israeli musician known as Kutiman, about crafting an album made entirely of unrelated sound samples from YouTube videos.

Studying medicine requires intelligence, discipline and considerable expense, making it one of the most prestigious professions in America. But that wasn’t always the case.  We take a look into the shady practices that lead the people of New York City to riot against doctors in the eighteenth-century. 

Grocery lists, to-do lists, guest lists – human beings are compelled to put things into manageable order…and sometimes the result is anything but mundane. Today we look at some of the most memorable lists ever written – from Walt Disney’s un-used dwarf names, to a day in the life of country legend Johnny Cash. 

Last week's debate among republican presidential candidates was so raucous that at one point, the closed captions couldn't keep up and simply read "unintelligible yelling". Today, a seasoned debate moderator sheds light on the tough task of keeping onstage arguments civil, and what makes for a great debate.

Then, are human beings wired to be swindled? Later in the show we'll explore the psychology of con artists and why it's so easy to fall for them.

Most Americans know far more about the names of the royals than how British democracy works, but many Brits are closely following the presidential primary here in the U.S. On today’s show, The Guardian's man in NH gives us a British perspective on America’s election.

Then, between the paltry snow cover and spring-like temperatures, suffice it to say, this has been a very strange New Hampshire winter, and the unseasonable temperatures have put a dent in many winter activities. Among the hardest hit? Ice fishing. We'll get the fisherman's perspective on the winter that hasn't really started.

A place can shape the music created there. And the music can return the favor and shape the place.

That’s the concept at the heart of Seacoast musician Mike Dunbar's new EP “Suitcase and Guitar in Hand.”

The term "protest song" conjures up songs from the 1960s...and artists from Nina Simone and Sam Cooke to Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger. If we are living in a new civil rights era, what do protests songs sound like in 2016? We have a playlist and analysis.

Then, we all have baggage. The things we inherit from our childhood that clutter our psyches. What happens when that clutter is actually physical -- from generations of hoarding? We'll hear from a woman who rejected her chaotic upbringing in favor of extreme minimalism, and found that less is not always more.

Nina Simone, along with Sam Cooke, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and countless others made important contributions to the rich canon of protest songs during the civil rights movement. A canon so strong, that the term "protest song" often conjures images of artists from the 1960s.

You might be surprised to learn that America’s murder rate has been steadily declining for more than two decades. Despite the drop, the number of murder cases being solved has remained flat.

On today’s show, technology, trust, and why cops aren't solving more murders. Plus, a grieving mother turns to art to remember her daughter, and other victims of New Hampshire’s heroin epidemic.

Among the challenges for people transitioning genders: learning a new voice.

On today’s show, a number of vocal coaches are now working with clients who are self-conscious about their speaking voices. The butterfly music transgender chorus is teaching them to sing.

Then, for all its cheer, December brings with it a number of potentially awkward or befuddling situations. We'll get advice from Slate's Dear Prudence who has some solid ideas for how to handle the holidays.