This evening KDRT begins a week of special programming to mark its campaign to boost the station’s signal. On Davisville, “special” means playing a few short segments created for other uses at KDRT that have never appeared on this show before: The Change Monster, and a skit we might call Rudolph’s Lawyer Negotiates With Santa on That Foggy Christmas Eve. But first we talk briefly with Davis Media Access Executive Director Autumn Labbe-Renault on why expanding KDRT’s signal to cover all of Davis is a good idea. This photo shows three of the folks behind tonight’s show (Autumn was gone before we could rope her into this shot): host Bill Buchanan, center, engineer Jim Buchanan, right, and Officially Unbiased Professional Singer Megan Buchanan, left, who shares her verdict on the musicality of Bill’s semi-finished boost-the-signal radio spot you’ll hear near the end, The Weak Signal Blues.
|
Derrick Bang, who writes movie reviews for his blog Derrick Bang on Film and The Davis Enterprise, returns this week for his annual conversation about year-end movies with program host Bill Buchanan (in the photo, that’s Derrick on the left). Bang talks about movies he thinks will be good, a few he believes will fail, sequels, the problem with first-run movie theaters that serve meals, and how 2016 has fared in terms of quality. “Hollywood stuff has lacked imagination this year, until summer, when things picked up a little bit,” he says. “[But] it has been a superb year for smaller, independent movies.”
|
The Davis Shakespeare Ensemble is an interesting story for at least two reasons: their work, and the way they continue to grow. Today we talk with Rob Salas (in photo), who co-founded the group in 2010 with Gia Battista, about the support they’re getting, the professional theater they’re building, the appeal of Shakespeare, their 2017 season, why they chose Davis, and one of the festivals they’re learning from: the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.
|
Rachel Cross lives in Davis, works as a registered nurse at a state prison, and previously taught developmental psychology at Sacramento State. For four Thursdays starting Oct. 27, she's teaching a short, free series on gratitude -- not for money or as part of a program, but because she “can’t not" do it. She feels compelled, driven by the demonstrated value of gratitude as a practice -- as something you do. Next month, many people won't be happy with the result of the presidential election, whoever wins. How does gratitude apply there? Does too much gratitude breed complacency ... and who should you be grateful to? We get into all that. Her thoughtful answers draw on her training and experience.
|
We all face it. It could do us some good to talk more about it. That’s the premise behind the Death Café, where people meet without a program, agenda, or speaker, to talk about death. The next Death Café in Davis is Nov. 6, and on today’s show we talk with two people organizing the event: Elizabeth Banks, senior minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, and Kristi Dvorak, community outreach director of the Davis Cemetery District and Arboretum.
|
More people are coming to Davis to study, work, or live, but the supply of housing isn’t keeping pace, especially with UC Davis adding thousands of new students. Today we talk with Davis real estate broker Steve Boschken about current prices, rents, the spillover to Woodland, other trends, and potential options. Boschken has roots in town -- he grew up here, and also studied environmental design and urban planning at UC Davis.
“I don’t think that the way we patchwork new subdivisions in, when they do finally get in, is the best way to plan a community,” he says. “They’re planning it only on what’s here in front of them today, instead of what Davis is going to look like 100 years from now.
|
Today we conclude our interview with Gene Parsons, 72, who was part of The Byrds from 1968 to 1972 and performs with David Hayes in Davis this Saturday, Sept. 10 (here's part 1 of the interview). We hear more about his songs, The Byrds, the note-bending Stringbender device he invented in the 1960s, a steam engine he built in his shop, new music he’s recording with Hayes and the Mendocino Quartet, a long-ago trick in a Yucca Valley bar & grill that tapped his skills with an acetylene torch, and what's coming next. “We have a few other performances that are on the books. We don’t do a lot. We’re kind of basically semi-retired in the music biz,” he says. “We’re kind of just letting it unfold.”
|
Gene Parsons, son of a classical pianist, grew up in the Mojave desert, practicing banjo and guitar in an empty 10,000-gallon water tank on his father’s homesteaded ranch. One day, as a teenager playing banjo in a music shop, he was invited to join a recording session by Gib Guilbeau—a Cajun fiddle player who would later play with Parsons in at least three bands. The experience set Parsons on a path that led to him playing in The Byrds from 1968 to 1972. On Sept. 10 he joins David Hayes, an equally accomplished musician, in concert at the Davis Odd Fellows Hall (that's Hayes on the left in the photo, with Parsons), and today we present the first of a two-part interview with Parsons (here's part 2). The conversation includes memories of fellow Byrd Clarence White, Gram Parsons, and Sneaky Pete Kleinow; his songs Gunga Din and Yesterday's Train; and the “oddball story” about how a kid who had wanted to play fiddle grew up to play drums for one of the top bands of the 1960s, contributing to its revival after most of its original members had left.
|
|
Most people in Davis live in rentals, the vacancy rate is well below 1 percent, and enrollment at UC Davis keeps growing, further stoking the demand for places to live. That’s the context for a new rental ordinance Davis is developing this summer, and today we talk with Brett Lee and Lucas Frerichs, City Council members working on this project, about what the new ordinance would do, why it treats apartments differently than rented houses or granny flats, and why they're pursuing this change.
|