KFAI's MinneCulture Presents

This week, the Listening Lounge is "loud, fast and firing on all cylinders." I stole that line directly from Barrett Golding , the independent producer of Engines , part of his 29-minute "The Plan" series. In Engines, Golding focuses on fast cars that excite people, including Flamin' Betty Berkland, a 63-year-old grandmother who races Hemi engines. In the first piece on the show, she talks about the kind of car one wants to be driving when one crashs a car and how she got her nickname (something about an engine on fire). Other pieces on the show are from the very funny Amy Borkowsky and an excerpt from Hog Heaven, something connected to Harley-Davidsons, no doubt.

I've never aired taken three weeks of Listening Lounge airtime to air a single program. But that's exactly my plan for Shades of Gray, an unusual documentary on a much discussed subject. Producers Jonathan Mitchell and Ahri Birnbaum-Golden present what they call an "audio mosaic and a stark portrayal of the intensely personal nature of our relationship with abortion." This program uses sound and music in a way that is seldom done in radio documentaries. One reviewer called it "impressive ... artistic and balanced." Shades of Gray won a Golden Reel Award from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters in 2004. Listen in.

In addition to the world debut of Miltyway (see earlier post), we'll feature two other stories on the Lounge: In Search of James Brown and A Clandestine Recording of My Parents at New Years . The Godfather of Soul died just days ago and a Listening Lounge tribute is definitely in order. And the piece on New Years is just as its billed. A young woman takes her tape recorder and points it in the general direction of her parents and their friends as they watch TV and quack like ducks to celebrate the new year. Weird. And worth hearing.