Strung Out

Send us Fan Mail This is part of an ongoing project into the idea of rewilding: removing areas of semi-settlement in return to a legacy area....with very little human involvement.  It's the secret of how our planet will be able to remain a bit wild.    Support the show We are always grateful to have you listening to STRUNG OUT.    Here are some important links: SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.b...

Send us Fan Mail Gerald Dowd has been described as “the hardest working drummer in Chicago” (Richard Milne, WXRT), playing on over 100 albums, and averaging 150 live dates a year around the world. In recent years, he's been releasing solo albums of original material, starting with his 2012 release, Kingsize EP. In 2014, he was the recipient of an IAP arts grant from Chicago's Dept. Of Cu...

Send us Fan Mail ​​Gerald Dowd has been described as “the hardest working drummer in Chicago” (Richard Milne, WXRT), playing on over 100 albums, and averaging 150 live dates a year around the world. In recent years, he's been releasing solo albums of original material, starting with his 2012 release, Kingsize EP. In 2014, he was the recipient of an IAP arts grant from Chicago's Dept. Of...

Send us Fan Mail It's the World Roundup (from the backyard of Martin's house in Chicago). This week Martin talks about the college Palestinian encampments and how both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli factions are getting things half wrong.  Then we look at two very interesting stories that popped up in the news that you probably don't know anything about.  Support the show We are al...

Send us Fan Mail First of all, check out Cory's website at www.corygoodrich.com.   We discuss the visual art of Cory Goodrich on this podcast, and how her discovery of "a family secret" led her to creating art as a means of expressing her inner feelings.   Born in Wilmington, Delaware and raised in Clarkston, Michigan, Cory Goodrich is a Jeff Award winning actress for her roles as M...

Send us Fan Mail First of all, check out Cory's website at www.corygoodrich.com. Born in Wilmington, Delaware and raised in Clarkston, Michigan, Cory Goodrich is a Jeff Award winning actress for her roles as Mother in Drury Lane Oakbrook’s acclaimed production of Ragtime, and as June Carter Cash in the Jeff nominated Johnny Cash revue, Ring of Fire at Mercury Theater Chicago, where she was al...

Send us Fan Mail Martin discusses the significance of the anniversary of the start of the Civil War with the firing on Ft. Sumter.  How the war, which focused on the elimination of slavery, was also a war about class power, in this case, the Southern elite.  The slave owners were determined to hold power and economic power by keeping people enslaved.  Once the war ended, the next approach was to d...

Send us Fan Mail David Rocco Facchini is an artist's artist.  He's at once a visual artist, making amazing sculptures out of found objects, such as bits of old movie equipment, he's a storyteller, a stop motion movie maker whose most recent film was featured at the Cannes Film Festival, and also an adventurer of sorts.  He recently set out in a Sprinter Van to explore the psyche of...

Send us Fan Mail Creator of independent films, found object artist, college professor and cultural intellectual, David Rocco Facchini joins me for a two-part conversation that is a must-listen for those who truly wish to be an independent artist.    Support the show We are always grateful to have you listening to STRUNG OUT.    Here are some important links: SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacof...

Send us Fan Mail If there is one critter in the world that defies any logical explanation as to the benefit of its existence, consider the tick.   Having been around for over 120 million years, the tick feeds on the blood of its host.   The saliva contains an analgesic, an anti-coagulant and a glue to bond it to its host.  And oh, a bunch of various parasites that they are host to that cause such...

Send us Fan Mail The Irish have been a race of people that have known their share of suffering.  Millions died during the An Gorta Mor, The Great Hunger or better known as the Potato Famine.  The uprising of 1916 resulted in the partition of Ireland, a bloody civil war and untold dead.  English politics and the result of having an island next to a world power ended up with Ireland oppressed and ma...

Send us Fan Mail We take a little break from a lot of things to focus on one thing: that it is the young who will have to make the decisions sooner than later.   And in this case, I thought it would be interesting to interview my daughter Aine and hear what she (and her peers) are thinking about what worries them most, what sort of music they like, their grasp of current politics, the wars and mor...

Send us Fan Mail Chicago has had a poetry scene for decades, going back to the 1980's when such events as the Uptown Poetry Slam began.  Chicago poetry has a unique cadence and flow that today is found almost everywhere.  Poet Howard Friedman has been part of the scene for some time now.   His approach to poetry is akin to the way Jackson Pollock would take on a canvas--stream of consciousnes...

Send us Fan Mail I have a habit of collecting interesting sounds.   Since I do a lot of traveling with my band, I find myself in places where it is easy to hear something.   So on this podcast we listen to the shoreline of Lake Michigan in the winter, New's Year gunfire.  A Mexican restaurant in Phoenix.  Bell choir rehearsal in Scottsdale.  The quiet of the desert near the Superstition Mount...

Send us Fan Mail Oh, Chicago.   Once upon a time you had the WLS Barn Dance.  Once upon a time you two professional football teams. One upon a time you had the stockyards. Once upon a time you had the world's tallest building.  Once upon a time you had a music scene that was the envy of the world.    People would migrate to Chicago to play here.  Sure, there were other scenes like Greenwich V...

Send us Fan Mail Film maker, social activist and artist David Rocco Facchini returns to Strung Out to discuss with Martin his years practicing Freeganism.  According to Wikipedia, Freeganism is an ideology of limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources, particularly through recovering wasted goods like food. Freeganism is often presented as synonymous wit...

Send us Fan Mail Film maker, social activist and artist David Rocco Facchini returns to Strung Out to discuss with Martin his years practicing Freeganism.  According to Wikipedia, Freeganism is an ideology of limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources, particularly through recovering wasted goods like food. Freeganism is often presented as synonymous wit...

Send us Fan Mail Most musicians dream of growing up and forming their own band.  Or perhaps joining one.  As a young musician, growing up in a predominantly African-American community in Cleveland, Ohio, Gary Geiger was exposed to rock, soul and many other forms of roots music.  Later in life, he turned toward classical music and on a chance, was given direction of a children's choir.  Inspir...

Send us Fan Mail Most musicians dream of growing up and forming their own band.  Or perhaps joining one.  As a young musician, growing up in a predominantly African-American community in Cleveland, Ohio, Gary Geiger was exposed to rock, soul and many other forms of roots music.  Later in life, he turned toward classical music and on a chance, was given direction of a children's choir.  Inspir...

Send us Fan Mail Part Two During an arts conference last September, Martin met Ananda Bena-Weber, who performed part of her one-person show, Fancifool .   So unusual was the combination of choreography, humor and acting that a request for an interview was made.   Not only is Ananda a great artist, she also has a strong mission to present her art in an effort to bring all people together as in the...

Send us Fan Mail Part One During an arts conference last September, Martin met Ananda Bena-Weber, who performed part of her one-person show, Fancifool .   So unusual was the combination of choreography, humor and acting that a request for an interview was made.   Not only is Ananda a great artist, she also has a strong mission to present her art in an effort to bring all people together as in the...

Send us Fan Mail This podcast looks at some of the statistics Martin received regarding STRUNG OUT on Buzzsprout, the platform we use.   It's gratifying to see that the show has listeners in other countries, and a great shout out to our listeners in Germany.  Danke!   Martin's daughter, Aine reads out the stats, and we listen to her wishes for 2024.  We end the year playing two cuts from...

Send us Fan Mail Like a ship stuck out in the doldrums, the holiday season is an odd stillness of time, when activities slow down, families gather together, and less attention is paid to what is going on around them.    Sure, there will be that odd family that loves to post pictures of everyone making snow angels, but for most of us, it is a welcome time to let time run its course, without us glan...

Send us Fan Mail Invasion and Migration.  Two words that are used quite interchangeably.    Both are the displacement or change of an existing population by a new group.  While migration can be beneficial to a country, there can be a tipping point where a country either will not or cannot be able to host such a surge of humanity.  In the case of ancient Rome, migration, fueled by violence in borde...

Send us Fan Mail On this episode of Strung Out, Martin plays some of the music performed by the Evanston Children's Choir at the holiday concert given on December 8, 2023, at Alice Millar Chapel at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.  Just back from a Switchback holiday road trip himself, Martin talks about the need to cultivate joy, spins one of his own holiday tunes and features a...