Quantcast
Channel: Trey Kay on http://www.wnyc.org/
Browsing latest articles
Browse All 63 View Live

Political Resonance

In the dark fall of 2001, images from Moby-Dick surfaced in the press, as a strange literary footnote to the most shocking event of the last half century. Producer Trey Kay speaks with Professors...

View Article



Contemporary Christian Art

Roman Catholicism inspired centuries of great Christian painting by artists like Giotto and Michelangelo. But after the Reformation, many Protestants were content to let the visual tradition wither....

View Article

Future Tense

The painter Alexis Rockman gets worked up by news from the scientific world. He wants his paintings to help people visualize — and get a little freaked out by — big phenomena like genetic engineering...

View Article

The "Fun" Boss

The dark horse winner at the 2004 Golden Globe awards was the BBC series The Office, which is broadcast on BBC America. The series is shot as a mock-documentary about the mundane and ridiculous life of...

View Article

On the Record

Pop music is often endlessly toyed with, tweaked and layered before being released on CD. But producer Ethan Johns’ process is much cleaner without a lot of fuss. Trey Kay observed Johns at the helm...

View Article


Song for Wuornos

Last year the movie Monster told the brutal, horrific story of the real life hooker Aileen Wuornos, who was executed by the state of Florida for killing 7 of her clients. One of the artists who spoke...

View Article

Painting with Pills

For some art critics, calling a painter’s work "beautiful" is a subtle dis while calling a work “decorative” is a total slap in the face. But Fred Tomaselli’s work is decorative. It is also beautiful,...

View Article

Rugrats

In the 1990s, when animation took on a new edge, subversive wit became the order of the day, with the rise of The Simpsons, Beavis and Butthead, Ren and Stimpy and dozens more. We asked Paul Germain...

View Article


Rick Moody

Rick Moody burst on the scene in the 90s with novels about the dark side of suburban America. He's best known for his book The Ice Storm which was made into a film in 1997. Moody told us how he fell in...

View Article


Diamanda Galas

The avant-garde composer and vocalist, Diamanda Galas, tells us what she looks for in a critic of her music. Galas is Greek and sings many languages, so she immediately went to the etymology of the...

View Article

Brian and Gene

Rockabilly revivalist Brian Setzer was rummaging in the Sun Records vaults, looking for unknown gems to cover on his new album. He struck gold with Gene Simmons' "Peroxide Blonde in a Hopped-Up Model...

View Article

Edward Albee on Samuel BeckettSharon Olds on John DonneBranford Marsalis on...

A playwright, a poet, and a jazz musician all weigh in on the artists that mean the most to them. Produced by Trey Kay.

View Article

Bill T. Jones on Merce CunninghamWillie Nelson on Django Reinhardt

A choreographer and a country music legend talk about the people who inspired them. Produced by Trey Kay.

View Article


Sheila Metzner on Aaron Rose

Photographer Sheila Metzner praises the quiet genius of photographer Aaron Rose. Produced by Trey Kay.

View Article

Billy Joe Shaver

Billy Joe Shaver created romantic depictions of rambling, gambling, hard-living men, performed by the likes of Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, and Elvis. Waylon Jennings’ classic album...

View Article


Spalding Gray

This month Crown books released Life Interrupted, the last monologue of Spalding Gray, best known for his autobiographical stories Swimming To Cambodia and Gray’s Anatomy. In the final monologue, Gray...

View Article

The Marley Brothers

Bob Marley was the undisputed king of reggae music. When he died of cancer in 1981 he was just 36 years old. Marley left behind many songs, a legion of adoring fans, and quite a few talented children...

View Article


Brian and Gene

Rockabilly revivalist Brian Setzer was rummaging in the Sun Records vaults, looking for unknown gems he could cover. He struck gold with Gene Simmons' "Peroxide Blonde in a Hopped-Up Model Ford," but...

View Article

Lars Von Trier

The Danish filmmaker set Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, and Manderlay in America. But they were all shot on sound stages in Europe, because von Trier won't set foot in the United States. Produced by...

View Article

Niki Caro

The New Zealander grew up on blockbusters like Jaws, and as a director she has had wide commercial success with Whale Rider and North Country. But she remains wary of the hunger of the American market....

View Article

Cat

Catherine Russell has been a back-up singer to the stars -- like Madonna, David Bowie, Paul Simon and Dolly Parton. Russell traces her rich musical journey from her legendary father's gig with Louis...

View Article


Aha Moment: Lydia Mendoza

Alyssa Lamb sings in a Brooklyn-based band called Las Rubias del Norte, 'the Blondes of the North.' But her path to singing was circuitous-she was playing the accordion when an injury kept her home...

View Article


Courtney Love

Rock star, movie actress, widow of Kurt Cobain - Courtney Love has been attached to a number of labels over the years. At the age of 42, she is trying to put all that hard living behind her. Her new...

View Article

Bebe Bleue

You've heard it in the mall this season -- the 1981 song "Christmas Wrapping," by the Waitresses. Bandleader Chris Butler wrote the song as a goof, and it never went away: the Waitresses had a New Wave...

View Article

Diamanda's Valentine's Day Massacre

Avant-garde composer and vocalist Diamanda Galás brings her “Valentine’s Day Massacre” to the Knitting Factory in New York City later this week. The concert is billed as a “spellbinding night of tragic...

View Article


David Maisel

Aerial photographer David Maisel shoots environmental messes -- like cyanide leaching fields and dried-out lakes. But his color prints are big, gorgeous, and mysterious. Maisel talks about his pictures...

View Article

Michelle Shocked

Folk-rocker Michelle Shocked is a kind of a godmother to a young generation of singer-songwriters. For her, sleepless nights are sometimes the only way to write a song -- so she keeps a guitar right...

View Article

Sherman Alexie

Sherman Alexie stays up all night too. The author of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and the new novel Flight says it all started when he was a kid when he would stay up waiting for his...

View Article

Porter Wagoner

In the 1960s and ‘70s, Porter Wagoner was Nashville royalty. His television variety show helped keep the Grand Ole Opry alive. This month, a new Wagoner album comes out on a rock label, but don’t call...

View Article



Billy Joe Shaver

Billy Joe Shaver’s country tunes have been favorites of performers like Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Waylon Jennings, and Elvis. These songs were a huge part of Trey Kay’s childhood. And he says Shaver’s...

View Article

Courtney Love

Rock star, movie actress, widow of Kurt Cobain -- Courtney Love has had a number of labels over the years. At 43, she is trying to put all that hard living behind her. Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of...

View Article

Brian and Gene

Rockabilly revivalist Brian Setzer was rummaging in the Sun Records vaults, looking for unknown gems he could cover. He struck gold with Gene Simmons' "Peroxide Blonde in a Hopped-Up Model Ford," but...

View Article

Eco Art

Photographer Brandon Ballengée hunts for frogs with extra legs and missing eyes. Andrea Polli translates hurricane data into soundscapes. By seeking out these (sometimes bizarre) ecological phenomena,...

View Article


Alexis Rockman

Alexis Rockman wants his paintings to help people visualize big scientific phenomena like genetic engineering and global warming. But Rockman, who has an exhibition at The Rose Art Museum through July...

View Article

Eco Art

Photographer Brandon Ballengée hunts for frogs with extra legs and missing eyes. Andrea Polli translates hurricane data into soundscapes. By seeking out these (sometimes bizarre) ecological phenomena,...

View Article

The Great Textbook War

In 1974, during the most turbulent schoolbook boycott in U.S. history, schools were bombed and buses hit with sniper fire in Kanawha County, West Virginia because local community members objected to...

View Article


American Icons: Dixie

This is the tune the nation brought to war. It’s been a century-and-a-half since a minstrel tune called “Dixie” debuted in New York.  The song went viral, and soon North and South alike were whistling...

View Article


Eco Art

Photographer Brandon Ballengée spends his days hunting for frogs with extra legs and missing eyes. He's an eco artist, and by seeking out these mutant anomalies, he hopes to bring environmentalism to...

View Article

American Icons: Nirvana's Nevermind

This is the last great invention of rock and roll.Twenty years ago this month, a new sound blasted the cobwebs out of every radio station in America. It was angry and bracingly cynical; the album...

View Article

Eco Art

Photographer Brandon Ballengée hunts for frogs with extra legs and missing eyes. Andrea Polli translates hurricane data into soundscapes. By seeking out these (sometimes bizarre) ecological phenomena,...

View Article

American Icons: Nirvana's Nevermind

This is the last great invention of rock and roll.In April, the band Nirvana is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — it’s been 25 years since the release of their first album, a gnarly...

View Article


American Icons: Mad Magazine

This is the magazine that made America snarky.In 1954, a U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating juvenile delinquency called William Gaines, publisher of the successful EC Comics, to testify. “You think...

View Article

American Icons: “Mad Magazine”

This is the magazine that made America snarky.In 1954, a US Senate subcommittee investigating juvenile delinquency called William Gaines, publisher of the successful EC Comics, to testify. “You think...

View Article


American Icons: Nirvana’s “Nevermind”

This is the last great invention of rock and roll.Nearly 25 years ago, a new sound blasted the cobwebs out of every radio station in America. It was angry and bracingly cynical; the album featured a...

View Article

Political Resonance

In the dark fall of 2001, images from Moby-Dick surfaced in the press, as a strange literary footnote to the most shocking event of the last half century. Producer Trey Kay speaks with Professors...

View Article


The Great Textbook War

Trey Kay, producer, of the radio documentary “The Great Textbook War,” discusses the controversy that broke out in 1974 in Kanawha County, West Virginia, over newly adopted school textbooks. Supporters...

View Article

The Teacher’s Vet

Among the twentysomethings graduating this spring from Vassar College is a thirty-five-year-old Texan named David Carrell. As a tank commander in the Army, Carrell spent four of his eleven and a half...

View Article

A Hymn for Orlando

The hymn writer and Presbyterian minister Carolyn Gillette was taught in seminary to write sermons with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. She does the same when she composes her hymns,...

View Article

Mike Sabath Made It

When the New Yorker editor Andrew Marantz met Mike Sabath on an airplane, the slick teen-ager, a native of affluent Westchester County, New York, was tinkering with a song on his laptop. At first,...

View Article


American Icons: Amazing Grace

This is America’s anthem for civil rights.There is exactly one old hymn that everyone recognizes, and moves people who have no feeling for the spiritual or religious. “Amazing Grace” transcended the...

View Article

Browsing latest articles
Browse All 63 View Live




Latest Images