Hardly Sound
Airs at 10:30 pm Tuesdays on KLRU starting Jan 1, 2013;
Airs first Monday of the month on KLRU Q music block at 11 pm
or watch online anytime at klru.org

Here in Austin, music is everywhere: in our airport, in our restaurants, behind grocery stores, and even on the 6th floor of office buildings. Given the sheer supply of choices, one would imagine it to be a daunting task to really penetrate the local musical territory and make it big. However the thriving bond between creativity and music keeps people going at it here, which in itself is the essence of why Austin continually rules.

When local filmmakers Chris Kim and Randy Reynolds set out to find bands whose passion and creativity distinguish them within the overarching Texas music scene, their task evolved into an all-out adventure revealing some great insights behind this creative community. They’ve condensed their journeys into half-hour long segments for a new documentary series called Hardly Sound.

The show profiles one artist per episode and conveys their respective stories through conversation and performance, detailed in footage spanning the full month they spent with each artist. What I enjoy most about this program is that rather than simply offering a dry profile of the band, the filmmakers establish an emotional connection between the audience and their subject through the intimate dialogue about their creative process. This stands closely to the filmmakers’ mission to create “a creative series about creative people for creative people”.

Topics of past experiences, personal triumphs, emotional hardships and overcoming adversity make you feel what the musicians feel and give a true sense of what shaped their path towards adopting their creative lifestyles. Bands like twang-wave act The Bye and Bye detail important life lessons like “expect the unexpected”, “don’t wear shorts”, and “bask in the unlikelihood of life” while taking the filmmakers on a “birding” trip. Meanwhile, garage rockers The Bad Lovers express their sentiments for the community of outcasts who welcomed their eagerness to play rock n’ roll in sweaty basements and damp clubs. Through their POVs, these musicians come off as hopeful, devoted and relatable, as their rehearsals and reflections become transparent windows into their souls.

For anybody who’d enjoy an intimate look at bands trying to “carve out their own space in the crowded scene” (and we all know, its CROWDED), this is that plus more.

About the Reviewer: Kaitlyn Roche is a fourth-year student at the University of Texas at Austin and currently works in the Marketing department of KLRU. She has contributed to online and print publications such as A.V. Club, San Antonio Express-News and Verbicide Magazine.

Centuries later, a new generation of speakers is emerging under the direction of linguist Jessie Little Doe. A descent of the Wampanoag culture herself, Doe discovered the native language in researching her ancestors and found that they were attempting to communicate through a dead language. She decided to revive the language by creating the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, a group whose primary focus is to rescue Wampanoag from the verge of extinction. Through her continuous efforts, Doe’s research has developed into weekly vocabulary meetings and reading through Wampanoag copies of The Bible to search for words they have not recognized yet. Though tedious, the group’s passion to preserve their dying culture has renewed Wampanoag as a living language that is now being taught to even younger generations.

“We Still Live Here: Âs Nutayuneân” engages the audience in the story of the Wampanoag Indian language’s return while demonstrating how Americans are the link between preserving their heritage for future generations. It also places a heavy emphasis on the struggle between assimilation and cultural preservation with a focus on the tribe’s demise in the midst of European settlement. As the language disappears around the world, viewers are given insight regarding the traditions and cultural history of the Wampanoag community from the group’s discoveries, which may be the path towards a once again thriving future for the Wampanoag people.

About the Review: Kaitlyn Roche is a third-year student at the University of Texas at Austin and currently works in the Marketing department of KLRU. She has contributed to online and print publications such as A.V. Club, San Antonio Express-News and Verbicide Magazine.

Into the picture walks Cameron Crowe, established as both a successfully offbeat director (Almost Famous, Jerry McGuire) and former journalist for Rolling Stone magazine. A dabble in both spheres (along with being among the band’s inner circle when they formed) certainly qualifies Crowe as a contender for telling the story of Pearl Jam’s complicated yet lasting bond, a task which he grippingly accomplishes in the new documentary Pearl Jam Twenty.

The film traces the band’s early beginnings towards the chaos that ensued after being catapulted into celebrity status, their resulting digression from the spotlight in hopes of preserving the band’s values, and the making of an everlasting bond between the five members. Through grainy footage and raw recordings, we are given the ultimate perspective into Pearl Jam’s past as we are led through backstage antics and footage of a young Eddie Vedder singing timidly onstage as he notices violence ensuing in the crowd of their first performances. While some moments progress towards tragedy and dark problems, the band’s ability to learn from and adjust to fame work to make up the larger narrative: the premature development of a genuine rock band that both defined and survived the Grunge era.

The first 30 minutes of the film are terrific. The archived shots seemed to be nostalgic for many fans in the packed Alamo Drafthouse advanced screening (nearly half were uniformed in aged Pearl Jam tour tees), but proved to be more of a history lesson for me. Footage of Chris Cornell recounting his initial infatuation with Eddie Vedder preceding a clip of Kurt Cobain calling his “too mainstream” illustrated a division within the Seattle grunge scene I hadn’t previously known. If Cameron Crowe taught a college course in History of Rock, I would certainly be the first to enroll.

The rest of the film kept my attention for the most part, although some parts seemed out of place in the overall context of the story. Breaking off in the middle to accompany each band member in a “day-in-the-life-of” tour was an appropriate update in the midst of their trials, yet somewhat distracting from the timeline I thought had developed. Nonetheless, such digressions seem to only illustrate further the band’s attempt to stay true to their art, demonstrated clearly by Stone Gossard’s not-so-celebrity abode (the man keeps his Grammy in a dusty basement corner!)

In the end, the band makes it out alive in what one could call an antithesis to a “Behind The Music”, seeing they are still performing and well. Crowe gives great insight into the life of a band whose members are not perfect, but still successfully maintain the Grunge legacy whose foundations have since perished.

About the Review: Kaitlyn Roche is a third-year student at the University of Texas at Austin and currently works in the Communications department of KLRU. She has contributed to online and print publications such as A.V. Club, San Antonio Express-News and Verbicide Magazine.

Martinez’s mother, Pauline, asks at one point, “Why are people killed for being who they are?” As Nibley tells Fred’s story, she sets out to answer his mother’s question. The director squarely places the blame on Western culture, particularly Christianity, and its dualist concept of gender. Rooted in a literalist reading of Genesis, it claims that people are only male and female, and nothing in between. Nibley contrasts this with an explication of the Navajo understanding of four genders, ranging from the asdzaan, or “feminine woman,” to the nadleehi. Mainstream Americans and Christianized Navajos, she suggests, lack a nuanced understanding of gender and so respond with hostility to transgendered people. Such sweeping generalizations, however, are a major problem for Two Spirits.

While rightly criticizing certain Christian churches for their narrow and damaging understandings of gender and sexuality, Nibley broadly paints all of Western culture as a two-dimensional villain, a straw man set up only to be knocked down. History, however, provides evidence of a more complicated understanding in the West than she offers. Nibley could’ve mentioned, for example, the “Boston marriage” in nineteenth-century America. Here, two women would live in the same household, with one taking the traditionally masculine role and wearing men’s clothing. Such relationships were more common than many today realize and were often tolerated, looked upon with everything from humor to affection by their neighbors. In setting up this straw man, then, the film effectively obliterates the lives of LGBTQ people from Western history, a history that scholars and activists have long struggle to reclaim. Furthermore, Nibley fails to comment on or provide evidence of the growing acceptance of transgendered people among other contemporary Americans.

The point is that a more nuanced approach might have greatly helped Nibley in answering the question, “Why are people killed for being who they are?” She never fully explores Murphy’s motivations in the killing. In fact, her film presents them as fairly murky. She leaves the viewer to conclude instead that the influence of Western dualism lies behind such deeds. Yet, Nibley nowhere draws a direct connection between that and the killer. She doesn’t provide evidence that Murphy was Christian, for example. A drug dealer, he doesn’t seem to be someone who takes the teachings of Christianity—right or wrong—very seriously. We know that not every Christian hates transgendered people, let alone publically insults or even kills them. Something more had to be behind the killing. By delving more deeply into that problem and spending less time on broad generalizations, Nibley probably could’ve made her sparse account of the murder and Murphy’s plea bargain weightier, more insightful and more helpful.

An even greater problem for Nibley is her apparent equation of being transgendered with being gay or lesbian. While it is true that Martinez was attracted to men, this isn’t the case for every transgendered person. Being transgendered is as much or more a matter of gender identity than sexual attraction. There are men who are married, identify as transgendered and often express that by dressing in women’s clothing. Sometimes the wife is aware; sometimes she isn’t. (Just last year, at another Community Cinema screening, I met a man who occasionally assumes a feminine identity and who is openly and happily supported by his wife.) If equating gender identity with sexual orientation is part of the Navajo tradition, perhaps Nibley could’ve made that clearer. However, the concept of the nadleehi is so nuanced that I wonder if that is the case. By making transgendered synonymous with gay, Nibley limits our understanding of and does a disservice to the transgendered community.

In sum, then, Nibley misses an important opportunity to present an important story with the nuance and insight that her subject calls for. Fred Martinez was a beautiful, wonderful, strong person who lived bravely at the crossroads of two prejudices. I encourage everyone to watch Two Spirits for his story. Yet, his tragic end is couched in broad, paper-thin generalizations that may actually do more harm than good. So I also encourage everyone to avoid accepting Nibley’s wholly unsatisfying answer to Pauline’s question “Why are people killed for being who they are?”

— Scott Hoffman

About the Review: Scott Hoffman currently works on the programming department of KLRU-TV. An independent scholar, he has a Ph.D. in American Studies from Purdue. He recently published a paper, “‘Last Night I Prayed to Matthew:’ Matthew Shepard, Homosexuality and Popular Martyrdom in Contemporary America,” in Religion and Popular Culture. He is currently revising his manuscript, Haloed by the Nation: Popular Martyrdom in Contemporary America. He also volunteers at the Austin History Center, cataloging its LGBT holdings.

Manchester Detective Chief Inspector Sam Tyler is having a bad day. Forced to release his chief suspect in a murder case, fighting with his co-worker/former lover Maya, who then disappears while tailing the suspect, Tyler finds himself standing outside his Grand Cherokee after being nearly run off the road by a careless driver. As he collects himself to the strains of David Bowie’s “Life on Mars?,” he’s suddenly hit by a speeding car, and his reality skews off-kilter in a way he couldn’t imagine.

Sam awakens to find himself on the same stretch of road, but in a very different time: 1973. Demoted a rank and tracking the same killer in the ’70s as he was in the ’00s, Sam fights to accept his bizarre new circumstances as he finds direct connections between the case he’s working on now and the one he unwillingly left behind. Assisting Sam in very different ways are Annie, a friendly WPC to whom he confesses his state of mind, and DCI Gene Hunt, his aggressive boss who prefers physical confrontation and coercion to forensics when it comes to solving crimes.

While the circumstances of Sam’s arrival in 1973 are deliberately left vague, major hints get dropped. Sometimes Sam hears the sounds of medical workers and machines trying to save his life. He also watches an educational TV show whose host unexpectedly shifts from talking about math to talking about Sam’s coma and responsiveness. Sam also meets Neil, Annie’s hypnotherapist ex-boyfriend, whose first words to Sam are “Sam, can you hear me?” and who may be a direct link to 2006.

A set-up like this one has to be handled carefully in order to be convincing – too much emphasis on one element and the whole story becomes ludicrous. Fortunately, everyone involved in the show works hard to maintain a sense of balance. There are bits of the expected culture shock humor, but they’re handled with deadpan logic – no sitcom-style zaniness or over-the-top one liners here. The actors have strong handles on their characters’ personalities, giving them the human qualities that raise them above the mere figments of imagination Sam believes them to be. There’s also great attention to detail in the set design and atmosphere – the gritty, faded look to 1973 stands in stark contrast to the clean, blinding whites of 2006, giving the show a real sense of place and time. The vintage early 70s rock tunes on the soundtrack don’t hurt, either, though the thick Mancunian working class accents might prove off-putting to those not used to them.

Ultimately, Sam is torn between doing his job to the best of his ability with his new limitations, and finding his way back to his own time to save Maya. Nelson, the Rasta bartender at his precinct’s local watering hole, tells him, “You’re not lost, pal. You’re where you are now. And you have to make the best of it.” Will Sam take that advice to heart? We’ll have to tune in to every episode to find out, and if they’re all as good as this one, it’ll be a pleasure.

– Michael Toland

About the reviewer: Michael Toland is the archivist and assistant producer for Austin City Limits. He also writes about music for Blurt, The Big Takeover, Sleazegrinder, Trouser Press and The Austinist.

“What do I want?” That’s the primal question at the heart of Lennon Naked, Masterpiece Contemporary’s biopic of John Lennon in the 60s. Forced at six years old to make a choice no child should ever be asked to make, Lennon spends the years depicted in the film (roughly 1964-1971) searching for the answer, aware that the consequences of any choice he makes will haunt him, no matter what the outcome.

As a result, Lennon spends most of the film on a quest to leave the past behind – not just breaking with it, but scorching the earth and burning any bridge that leads to it. Whether it’s for his own sanity or because he’s a selfish git, Lennon either abandons the people in his pre-Yoko Ono life – his first wife Cynthia, his son Julian, the Beatles – or forces them to abandon him, as with his childhood friend/right-hand-man Pete. It’s a cycle, of course – his father leaving the family when Lennon was six (a pattern repeated by the son) and the unexpected death of Beatles manager Brian Epstein, the father figure Lennon didn’t have as a child, left deep wounds which clearly never fully healed. Only his time with Yoko Ono (who, except for one offhand comment from Paul McCartney, is never portrayed as “the woman who broke up the Beatles”) seems to bring him any peace or happiness, though his own inner anguish still vibrates just below the surface of his man-in-love smile.

Occasionally you wonder at this film’s daring – can you really base the emotional twists and turns of this complex man on one (admittedly tragic) moment from his past? Even when remnants of that moment come back into his life, in the form of the previously shadowy figure of his father? But whether you buy that in the case of the real Lennon or not, Christopher Eccleston sells it here with a powerful, nuanced performance you won’t be able to take your eyes off of. Even in Lennon’s coldest, cruelest moments (and there are plenty of those), you get the sense he’s focusing his inner anguish into a sharp blade of anger and contempt at a world he doesn’t want to deal with until he knows himself what he truly wants. And when Lennon finally gives his pain voice, whether it’s in conversation with Yoko, in commiseration with his psychiatrist or in confrontation with his father, Eccleston portrays the tortured Beatle with just enough passion to squeeze your heart, but not enough to go over the top.

“It’s not peace I want – it’s pandemonium,” Lennon seethes following the press conference for the infamous Bed-In for Peace. Only that choice works out, given Lennon’s fragile emotional state, and finally Lennon and Yoko wipe the slate clean by leaving the country of his birth for a new life in New York. Has Lennon finally discovered what he wants, or is he simply running away, pretending his former life didn’t exist, as he believes his father did? When he’s asked at his final British press conference, in which he announces the move, “What about your son?” the film leaves the question hanging. The viewer will feel the same way at the end, but it’s an appropriate conclusion. Resolution never comes easy, not in real life, nor in Lennon Naked.

– Michael Toland

About the reviewer: Michael Toland is the archivist and assistant producer for Austin City Limits. He also writes about music for Blurt, The Big Takeover, Sleazegrinder, Trouser Press and The Austinist.

What the HELL is Ken Burns thinking! With about a week to go in the Major League baseball season – with division and wild card races at a fever pitch – Mr. Burns has decided to release “The 10th Inning” addition to his ridiculously successful series “Baseball.” After watching the just the first two hours(Top of the 10th) on a weekend when my own beloved Atlanta Braves were in the processes of sweeping the New York Mets to remain in the thick of the NL Wildcard race — I was left with such a baseball adrenaline rush that I felt the need to canvas the neighborhood to see if anyone wanted to play a little catch or maybe find a vacant lot to get a game going.

No I’m not kidding. This series needs a warning label. WARNING: Watching “The 10th Inning” could leave you lightheaded and in need peanuts and crackerjacks.

I think one reason for the strong emotion that washed over me as I watched this 4-hour addendum — came in part from the fact that I was reliving some of the most important baseball memories in my life. While Burns’ “9th Inning” from the 1994 documentary relived my formative baseball years (Steve Carlton, Fernando Mania, the wizard of OZ…etc ) “The 10th Inning” is packed with some of my most loved players, teams and moments. It also feels the least like a history. I need innings 1 through 8 to learn about the greats that came and went before I was born. The 9th and new 10th innings instead provide a key to unlock my own baseball memories. I often found myself watching a key game and saying, “…I remember what I was doing then.”

Now the show isn’t all fun and games as it lays out the game from 1994 to 2009. It also has the arduous task of tackling major league baseball’s steroid era. It shows the abuse and overuse of performance enhancers in a very balanced way…almost to the point of sugar coating how it all began. There is also plenty of blame spread around — from the players union, to the owners, to the players and even the fans – who labeled Barry Bonds a cheater while at the same packing every stadium he played in to see if he’d hit another home run. When talking about steroids — there are thousands of opinions to choose from — and “The 10th Inning” gives each a voice.

Overall “The 10th Inning” does a fabulous job of retelling the stories that are freshest in our baseball minds. With its content coming from the most recent events — in an age of ESPN — the show could have felt like a rehash that didn’t provide any new information. But Burns easily overcomes this obstacle. As each story is laid out — there is at the very least a single nugget of new information that makes hearing the story again worthwhile. But most of the time — the interviews, still pictures and game footage provide enough raw emotion and great storytelling to satisfy the fan in all of us for years.

About the reviewer: Ben Philpott covers state politics and policy for KUT News and the Texas Tribune and has been an Atlanta Braves fan since 1989. When he’s not at the Capitol, Ben can be found at home teaching his two girls the finer points of baseball and wondering why the younger one has decided to become an Astros fan

From the opening notes of the pounding soundtrack of Ken Burns’ Baseball: The 10th Inning, we realize that the game of baseball has moved on. We aren’t watching a quaint documentary about the history of America’s game, rather we’re embarking on a new, sometimes dark, chapter in the story of the game.

It has often been written that the game of baseball is a metaphor for life. The 10th Inning proves this metaphor to be true. Burns’ interwoven storytelling mixes together the highs and lows, the dark and light, the championships and the bitter defeats in such a way that we realize we cannot have one without the other.

Much of the documentary tracks the effects of two key events in recent baseball history, the fallout of the 1994 baseball work stoppage, and the rise in the use of steroids to enhance player performance. Burns not only documents the obvious negative aspects of both events, but also carefully shows how baseball owners, players, and fans grew the game, and created some of baseball’s most memorable moments by reacting strongly to the strike and ignoring the use of performance enhancing drugs.

Ken Burns’ Baseball: The 10th Inning is not just a documentary for hardcore baseball fans. Rather, this masterful film does for all of us what baseball has always done. Through its simplicity, it forces us to question what is truly important to us, regardless of how complicated our lives have become.

About the reviewer: Shane Guiter is the Director of Development for KLRU. He’s worked at the station since 2005. When he’s not raising money for KLRU, Shane blogs about technology and new media, while listing to Radiohead.

This documentary for PBS by award-winning filmmaker David Grubin and narrated by Richard Gere, tells the story of the Buddha’s life, a journey especially relevant to our own bewildering times of violent change and spiritual confusion. It features the work of some of the world’s greatest artists and sculptors who, across two millennia, have depicted the Buddha’s life in art rich in beauty and complexity.

This is a beautiful film, visually, musically and theologically. It blends the Buddhist traditions and practices with the life story of the struggles and learning of Siddhartha. His experiences and insights are as relevant today as in his own time. A wonderful 2-hour respite from the world. A time to hear the story, but also to reflect on the world we live in and what our response to it will be. I encourage you to set aside the time to watch this beautiful film.

— Betsy Gerdeman

About the reviewer: Betsy Gerdeman is Sr. VP of Development at KLRU. She returned to Central Texas and to public broadcasting in 2008. Being a news hound, her favorite PBS shows are Frontline and PBS NewsHour. She formerly worked in interfaith initiatives in Washington DC and Houston, Texas and was the Boniuk Center Fellow to the International Summer School on Religion and Public Life in Birmingham, UK in 2009.

Haunted Texas examines unexplained phenomena by blending the past with the present, the contemporary with the historical.  The show uses both modern technology and historical research to shed light on the paranormal.  This combination is on display in the pilot episode, which investigates ghost sightings around Peyton Colony, an old freedman’s settlement near Blanco.  The tech side is highlighted by a digital tape recorder with shielded cable and directional microphone that’s employed to capture EVPs (electronic voice phenomena).  However, prior to attempting to physically document any paranormal activity, the history of the area is reviewed.

It’s this emphasis on the past that makes Haunted Texas unique from other similar shows. The producers have partnered with the General Land Office’s Save Texas History project, allowing access to original documents and rare photos.   The pilot also includes interview segments with Lawrence Coffee, an area-resident for 69 years, who provides a first-hand perspective on life in Peyton Colony.  Haunted Texas offers an authentic historical context to their investigation.

The show was created by Jeanine Plumer, owner of Austin Ghost Tours, and Rebel Rebel, a local production company.  They are currently seeking the funding to expand the Haunted Texas pilot into a series for public television.

— David Lauderman

About the reviewer: David Lauderman is KLRU’s Director of Programming Services. A retired hoopster/gym rat, he and his wife Joie now enjoy competing in dog agility with their two border collies. Two of his personal favorite KLRU series are American Experience and Secrets of the Dead.