Chris Hillman co-founded the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and the Desert Rose Band. He helped create iconic recordings like “Eight Miles High,” The Gilded Palace of Sin and Sweetheart of the Rodeo, and his latest record, Bidin’ My Time in 2017, was produced by Tom Petty. One of his earliest steady paying gigs, in 1964, was in a concocted band whose ersatz hillbilly songs included a tune about a mule. The music was “horrible,” he says. But great adventures were about to begin. Now 76, Hillman has collected some of his stories and experiences in his new book Time Between, and talks about a few of them today on Davisville.
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Even though the pandemic has closed theaters in Davis for most of 2020, we’re still presenting our annual movie show with Davis film critic Derrick Bang—even if only to learn what has survived the dislocations of the year. Derrick writes reviews for the Davis Enterprise and his blog, Derrick Bang on Film. We talk about how the pandemic has affected movie-making and his job as a critic, the films still coming out at what would normally be a big time of the year, and films he’s looking forward to. Because movies reflect the culture, I also asked him to list a few movies about pandemics, such as The Omega Man and Andromeda Strain.
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KDVS, the University of California Davis radio station run by students, is at a crossroads. It’s the last occupant of Freeborn Hall, and must move. It’s coping with a pandemic that has reduced access to its studio. Technology and patterns of how students listen to music has changed tremendously since the station began in the 1960s, so that’s another factor. And mixed in with all that is its legacy of decades as a voice for music and ideas that reflect the interests of UC Davis students. Today we talk with Noel Fernandez, the general manager of KDVS and a UC Davis senior, about where the station is headed.
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So … have you heard about the Book of Lists? Did you even know they exist? The lists collect information about Greater Sacramento and other large cities and metros nationwide – not just statistics that might interest an accountant, but also lists like minority- or women-owned businesses, or largest employer in Yolo County, or fastest-growing companies. You can learn a lot about an area by reading them. My guest today has helped research and create these lists for 36 years in our area: Sharon Havranek, who will retire as senior director of research for the Sacramento Business Journal at the end of 2020. Today we hear what the lists are all about, including some of the colorful details—such as the time they counted cars in an employees’ parking lot to help figure out how many people worked for a prominent but reticent company, and why she decided never to repeat the list of top state Lottery sales outlets.
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If 2020 had been normal, my plan was to talk about Frankenstein, which the Davis Shakespeare Festival was going to present this fall until the pandemic killed off in-person performances. Rob Salas, co-artistic director and co-founder of the festival, is my guest today, and we still talk about the play by Nick Dear, which is based on the book by Mary Shelley and presents a creature very different than the “green skin and neckbolts” image of the monster in the 1930s movie. We also talk about how the 10-year-old festival is holding up during the pandemic, how they’ve spent 2020, their thoughts about next year (which might still include Frankenstein), how Black Lives Matter has changed their mission, and why they chose Davis as a place to create a professional Equity theater company.
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On today’s Davisville we talk with Steve and Kit Boschken, Davis real estate experts and the owners of Boschken Properties, about the housing market in Davis this fall. Today's topics follow up our talk with Steve Boschken last May, and include apartment vacancies, the thin supply of homes for sale, rising home prices, the pandemic, unhealthy air from the wildfires, rents, buyers, trends, interest rates, lasting impacts, and not knowing when students will be able to resume in-person classes at UC Davis. Almost all UC Davis classes this fall are online, and could stay that way through the rest of the academic year.
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So, what’s your opinion of the Eagles? The band, not the team. How about Emmylou Harris, the unusual pedal steel of the Flying Burrito Brothers, or the pop twang of the Beatles’ “Rocky Raccoon”? If any of this resonates with you, or even simply makes you curious, then today’s guest might interest you: Larry Lobre, a retired administrator at UC Davis, a musician, and an instructor whose next class for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UC Davis in October presents “The Origins and Development of Country Rock Music.” We talk about the genre, what it offers, OLLI, The Flying Burrito Brothers'Gilded Palace of Sin, and the time Merle Haggard, his backseat full of 45 records, drove in to a Signal gas station where Larry was working in Oildale.
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Ryan Collins and Paul Doroshov first appeared on Davisville in July 2019 to talk about homelessness in Davis (“Many homeless people in Davis are finding homes, but more people are becoming homeless”). Today we catch up with developments since then, including the Daytime Respite Center that opened on L Street in February, and the impact of the pandemic. Ryan works directly with homeless people in Davis as the homeless outreach services coordinator for the city, and Paul is deputy police chief for Davis.
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The Palms Playhouse, with no clear end to the pandemic in sight, has gone on indefinite hiatus and isn’t renewing its lease for the location in downtown Winters it has called home since moving from Davis in 2002. However, co-owners Nora Cary and Andrew Fridae are keeping the Palms going as an organization. On today’s Davisville we talk with Cary about the pandemic, the last concert they held on March 7, running a for-profit business with no profit, the magic of a good performance, some favorite moments since she and Fridae bought the Palms in 2016, and what might come next. (Photo shows Peter Case onstage at the Palms in July 2019)
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The new book “Exploring the Berryessa Region / A Geology, Nature, and History Tour” makes clear that there’s much more to see and explore in the area west/northwest of Davis than the Lake Berryessa reservoir--from stunning views and the Hubcap Ranch, to the region’s cultural heritage and the features that make it a hot spot of biological diversity. On today’s Davisville we talk with co-author Marc Hoshovsky, a retired naturalist in Davis, about what’s up there, plus how and when to see it.
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