FlyOver: April 2007 Archives

Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast; it can also, I've learned, wake a baby.

On Earth Day -- Sunday, April 22 -- my wife gave birth to a nine-pound boy. As a lifelong lover of classical music -- and of Shostakovich's 5th Symphony in particular -- the story of how our baby came into this world is almost eerily fitting. Read about it, here.

This past week I had a chance to chat with a trio of music critics who are currently in the process of putting together a book proposal. Their idea: profile the local music scene of one town in each of the lower 48 states. As luck would have it, they chose Missoula as their first stop. I wrote a story about their project for the Missoulian; you can read it here.

I can only hope they complete the book, as it seems like a great antidote to the L.A- and New York-centric attitudes of most rock writers and publications.

Most people who have ever seen a David Lynch film have, at some point, wondered: where the hell did THAT come from? Well, in at least a small sense, it came from Missoula, Mont. -- Lynch's hometown. Last week, the Missoula Independent ran a lengthy interview profile with Lynch. Few papers in America expend as much ink on their cover stories as the Independent (disclaimer: I write for a competing paper), which in this case is a good thing, as Lynch is obviously a pretty compelling conversationalist.

Hesitant to trust a professional critic? Maybe you'd prefer what the critic's mom and dad have to say. This week in the Burlington Free Press, staff writer Victoria Welch reviewed a performance of "Parenting 101: A Musical Guide to Raising Parents." She also enlisted her parents to review the performance. The result is a truly fun read, and a clever way of bringing new voices into the paper.

Jaci Webb of the Billings Gazette reviews a production of "La Mano del Diablo," an original one-act play by two Billings locals. Webb says the play "dregs up issues about Manifest Destiny, war and ethnic discrimination. It's almost too much to take in during one evening, and it's bound to leave you wondering about the seeds of discrimination and mankind's lust for land." Heady stuff.