Davisville Archives

Music programs are only online for two weeks after they are broadcast.

Davisville, July 10, 2017: Catching Up with Firefall Co-Founder Rick Roberts

Rick Roberts was about 20 when he went to Los Angeles, looking to make his name in music—and he succeeded. In 1970 he was invited to join a country/rock band with an odd name but great musical genetics, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and then in the mid-1970s he co-founded Firefall, writing several of its hits (including “You Are the Woman” and “Just Remember I Love You”) over the next half-dozen years.

Now, decades later, we talk with him about his life from the Burritos until today, including the dormant years, alcoholism, other musical ventures, a head injury he writes about in his book Lame Brain, his recovery, his persistence, and his return to performing. He shares a few stories behind his songs and talks about playing again as a solo act.

Davisville, June 19, 2017: Dan Walters exits the Bee, keeps writing about California

If you follow California politics, then you’ve probably encountered the work of Dan Walters. For 33 years he wrote a column for the Sacramento Bee, writing about this state’s extensive cultural, demographic, economic and political changes since the 1960s and 1970s. He left the Bee this month, signed on as a columnist with the nonprofit journalism venture CALmatters, and joins us today to talk about our complex state, where change is constant and common ground can be very hard to find.

 

Davisville, June 4, 2017: The Summer of Love, Plus Pin A Go Go Outgrows its Local Home

Fifty years ago, the Summer of Love made San Francisco an international focus of pop culture, and people are still talking about the ripples. Today we join the conversation by talking with Gary Lee Yoder, a Davis guitarist/singer/songwriter who lived both here and in San Franciso in 1967. We discuss the Davis band Oxford Circle (he was a member), sitting next to Jann Wenner as Wenner typed up the first issue of Rolling Stone, and events that summer in Davis ... including a concert in Central Park where Yoder called the bluff of a police officer who said the band was playing too loud. In the show's second segment, we interview Steve Faith of Davis during this year’s Pin A Go Go pinball festival, which has grown too big to stick around at its longtime home at the Dixon May Fairgrounds. (This photo shows Davis' Sycamore Lane in 1967.)

Davisville, May 22, 2017: Net neutrality + building a better network for Davis

Today’s guests talk about two internet subjects in the news – net neutrality, the rules of which the Federal Communications Commission recently began to repeal, and the status of the civic effort to build a municipal fiber-optic network in Davis. The outcome of each could greatly affect your experience using the internet in Davis. The guests are Mac Clemmens, founder of Digital Deployment in Sacramento (and a well-regarded recipient of a UC Davis MBA) and Steve McMahon, a broadband expert and longtime board member of the Davis Community Network.

Davisville, May 8, 2017: Troop 1999 Ditched Their Screens Every Night for a Week

So, how many hours have you spent today being entertained by images on your phone or laptop? Maybe more than you know or want. Today’s guests have a remedy for that—they decided to turn off their screens each weeknight for a week at 6 p.m., and invited others in Davis to do the same. Today five of the members of Davis Girl Scout Troop 1999, all 10 to 11 years old, and parent leader Jacqui Alldritt (in the back), talk about how the experience changed them, the response from friends and classmates, and the value of looking away from YouTube so you can do something else. They played with friends, read, talked and spent time talking with their families. Some have dogs who were happy to get their attention back!

Davisville, April 24, 2017: Going Lowbrow in Davis

Maya Sinha writes a new Davis Enterprise column, “Lowbrow,” about “the hidden value in despised things.” Davis, like any place, has its conventions, and on today’s show we talk about bad music, schlocky TV, the value of not being pretentious, the relief it all provides, and how far she’s going to take this concept.

Davisville, April 10, 2017: Watching California, from Davis, for the NY Times

Mike McPhate lives in Davis, where he writes and assembles stories about California for the online edition of The New York Times. Newsprint is fading as a format, but the Times is no longer just a newspaper. It remains one of the most influential news organizations in the United States, which means McPhate’s work helps to shape the way the country sees and understands California. Today's topics include the job, the “enemy of the people” media criticism from President Trump, how McPhate finds his stories, and why he chose Davis as a base.

Davisville, April 3, 2017: Five Things I’ve Learned About Journalism, Plus a Bonus

Today's program is a KDRT it's-fundraising-week-so-let's-do-something-different kind of show. Several years ago, a friend at UC Davis asked if I’d consider speaking to his class someday about what I’d learned as a reporter and editor during my newspaper days. I’ve never recorded that talk, but today’s show is based on my notes. So if you're interested in one community journalist's take on the trade, tune in. Among other things, you'll hear segments about what many people seem to really want from the media (“Protect me! Expose them!”); the day a Berkeley City Council member did me the favor of pointing out an obvious hole in a story I'd been proud of; and Ray Bradbury’s advice, when he spoke at Freeborn Hall in the early 1980s, about the best place to get advice when you're trying to figure out how to do something you love. As a news person, you get to talk to many people and learn from their experiences; I try to distill a little of that in today's program.

Davisville, March 20, 2017: We End the Marijuana-in-Davis Series with an Advocate’s Perspective

Today we talk with Amelia Paterson of Blessed Extracts, a medical marijuana nonprofit that wants to make products in Davis and so is keenly interested in the new marijuana law that the city is creating this spring. We talk about security, regulation, keeping recreational marijuana away from kids, research, why Blessed Extracts wants to make Davis its home, and more. This interview is the last of a three-part series on Davis’ effort to create a new municipal cannabis law now that Californians have legalized recreational use of marijuana throughout the state. If you missed the first interviews, here are links to part 1 (with Davis city administrators Dirk Brazil and Diane Parro) and part 2 (with Yolo County Public Health Officer Ron Chapman).

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