Eye on the Air, July 17

Eye on the Air, WESU, 881.FM




Guests

Ruthann "Rae" Johnson, candidate for mayor of Middletown in the Realistic Balance Party and Dic Wheeler from ArtFarm and Shakespeare in the Grove.

Eye on the Air, Friday July 3

WESU, 88.1 FM and live on the web at wesufm.org, Friday from 1-2 pm.

Guests

Adam Kubota, from Wesleyan's Center for the Arts (CFA), who will talk about the summer program of dance, music, lectures and comedy sponsored by the CFA. FREE ticket giveaway to listeners!

Arthur Meyers, Director of the Russell Library, who will speak about the effect of potential cuts on library services.

Much To Do and See Around Town

This is the second and final weekend for the Oddfellows Playhouse Teen Repertory Company production of "Inherit The Wind." Performances are Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Reports are quite good about the young thespians' work on this play about the "Scopes Monkey Trial." Call 347-6143 for ticket information.

The Buttonwood Tree presents creative music of the highest order when the Kevin Norton Counterpoint Trio plays the intimate performance space at 7:30 p.m. Friday evening. Norton (pictured left), best known for his work with Wesleyan Professor Anthony Braxton and saxophonist Phillip Johnston's Big Trouble, is an excellent drummer who, in this setting, plays the vibraphone. Joining him are bassist Jesse Stern and drummer Garrett Brown. This is the most "jazz-like" of Norton's groups, with good melodies and plenty of improvisational fire. For more information, go to www.buttonwood.org.

The Kim Myers Group, led by the keyboard playing former Middletown resident, brings a delectable "soul-jazz" sound to Boney's Music Lounge, 120 Court Street. Myers, who can play and sing with great style, will take the stage at 9 p.m. For more information, call 346-6000.

WESU-88.1FM is celebrating its 70th Anniversary(!) and will host a series of events through the month of April. The celebrations/fundraisers (quite necessary in the light of the University's issues with its endowment) gets started this Saturday at 7 p.m. in Memorial Chapel, 221 High Street. "Democracy Now!" host Amy Goodman and her brother David, co-authors of "Standing Up To The Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times" will read from their book and answer questions. For more information, go to www.wesufm.org. As community newspapers disappear (or rather, shrink), local radio does its best to expose the diversity in our midst. There are many worthy causes in this world but this one stands out.


The duo of Lys Guillorn and Elisa Flynn returns to The Buttonwood Tree on Saturday evening for a 7:30 p.m. show. Both are singer-songwriters, both have a wry sense of humor,and are keen observers of the human condition (especially relationships.) They will each play a solo set then perform several songs together. That's not unknown territory as the 2 were band-mates earlier in the decade. call 347-4957 for more information. Go to www.lysguillorn.com and www.elisaflynn.com to learn more about these fine performers.

Dar Delights

Last night, Middletown was the recipient of a very special treat in the form of a concert by the ever talented Dar Williams.. As always, Dar delivered intelligent and thought-provoking messages through the angelic beauty of her voice and the simplicity of her guitar playing. She is a natural storyteller and her song introductions came across as if having a conversation with a friend. Dar graduated from Wesleyan in 1989 and it was apparent last night that her experiences there have shaped her songwriting ever since. She had tales to tell about the campus radio station WESU and wove those stories into the introduction of Are You Out There, the song about the deep influence that radio can have on youth. Her lyrics are so emotional and so real and delve so deeply into such painful topics, my friend and I were wondering how she sings her songs without bursting into tears – we certainly did! I thought the biggest tearjerker was “After All”, a song about the struggles of coming into your own self, which last night was introduced also as having developed under the backdrop of Wesleyan.

The audience seemed to be mostly students. One who I spoke to said she had never heard Dar Williams music before. If that student was at all representative of the audience in general, I can hardly imagine the triumph of discovery that this show surely must be for so many who were hearing Dar Williams’s soulful music for the first time. Another person I spoke to was a Dar Williams fan who came from Clinton to see the show. She couldn’t say enough about how impressed she was with the venue and all of the other amazing events, past and upcoming, that were listed in the calendars.

Wesleyan's WESU Is The Punch Line on CBS Situation Comedy

Carter Bays, a Wesleyan gard, and the c0-creator of the CBS sitcom, How I Met Your Mother, apparently sprinkles Wesleyan inside jokes in the show's script.

Here's a segment where Wesleyan's radio station, WESU-FM, takes its lumps. You can tell it's fiction because the radio station is not on the third floor of the student center next to the game room, but above Broad Street Books. You can get a cool WESU t-shirt by donating here.

But station manager, Ben Michael, also points out that WESU-FM receives kudos in an article in the Christian Science Monitor. The article is about the station's Youth Radio Project.
(Photo: Barbara Sloan, Christian Science Monitor)