The Cat Piano: an animated short by The People's Republic of Animation.
posted by fatllama on Sep 7, 2009 - 32 comments

The spoken-word poetry (and music) of Sarah Kay: "B". "Hand Me Downs". "Not Just Another Math Problem". "Scaffolding". [more inside]
posted by dolca on Apr 15, 2009 - 26 comments

"Not until I put them there." David Antin worked in a wide range of innovative modes until landing in the early 1970s on what he calls the talk poem. Antin speaks extemporaneously and then transcribes his talks using only space as punctuation. The implications of positioning these works as poetry are, of course, part of the point.
posted by roll truck roll on Apr 14, 2009 - 15 comments

Not much is know about Bobby Gaylor, aside from what can be gleaned from his "songs," actually spoken word pieces set to music worlds apart from either Henry Rollins or King Missile. His official webpage now redirects to Google, and he has no wikipedia entry. His sole album, Fuzzatonic Scream (2000), was a buried treasure for anyone who could find it, with good music backing a born storytelling everyman from Massachusetts giving sometimes gentle, sometimes harsh, insights into life through the details of his own. Now, the only songs you may find video for are "One Moment," which discusses his first kiss, and "Suicide," the closest thing he had to a "hit," but his full (sadly bleeped) work may be found here. Personally, I recommend "Smelt," "I Hit a Guy With My Car," "Masturbation," and "Business End of a Gun."
posted by Navelgazer on Jul 20, 2008 - 13 comments

Poet Sekou Sundiata died on the 18th. If you aren't familiar with his work, you can listen to him here. Interviews here.
posted by serazin on Jul 19, 2007 - 13 comments

Frank Zappa - The Gigantic Spoken Word Project. Numerous volumes of a very large collection of Frank Zappa spoken word releases. They consist of radio interviews and journalist reporter type personal interviews. During the radio interviews sometimes music was played as background or added before the broadcast in between questions and answers. Sometimes FZ acts as D.J., plays records from his collection and talks to the radio audience. But the main focus of this series is FZ interviews which to me is as interesting as his music. (Just a quick warning; the download mechanism is a tad annoying)
posted by KevinSkomsvold on Jul 5, 2007 - 6 comments

"What is love?" by Anthony Quinn. [via]
posted by miss lynnster on Jun 17, 2007 - 8 comments

CRUD CRUD, brief reviews from a thrift store record collection. Also, Gibble Gabble, spoken-word record reviews, from the same collector.
posted by serazin on Jun 8, 2007 - 6 comments

Gorgeous - a spoken word poem by Rives. {via TED Talks}
posted by dobbs on Dec 24, 2006 - 5 comments

The Incredible Mouth Band is the product of an idea. The idea was simple: Instead of people actually playing their instruments, why don't they just say their names out loud, to the rhythm of the music?

note: The organist tends to get a lil' creepy. Do not watch late at night if that kind of thing bothers you.
posted by alona on Oct 9, 2006 - 14 comments

In the late Seventies and Early Eighties, Dial-a-Poem put out recordings of William S. Burroughs, John Giorno, Sonic Youth, Cabaret Voltaire, Coil, Diamanda Galas, Anne Walderman, Charles Bukowski, Amiri Baraka, Gregory Corso, Phillip Glass, Patti Smith, and many many more. Apparently, the incredibly awesome Ubuweb has streaming mp3s of all twelve Dial-A-Poem releases here. Yay!
posted by elr on Sep 1, 2006 - 14 comments

For nearly two years now, Ben T Steckler has been reviewing, posting album covers, and making full albums available for download from his seemingly inexhaustible collection of out-of-print, spoken word, sound effect, educational & other kooky recorded ephemera. If you're a fan of album titles like How To Buy Meat, What Smoking Has Done For Me, or The Catholic Marriage Manual, this site will provide you with endless hours of reading/downloading/listening pleasure.
posted by jonson on Aug 17, 2006 - 15 comments

The Language of Saxophones At 55, L.A. musician and poet Kamau Daáood is finally beginning to acknowledge the possibility of his own place in local letters with his debut book of poetry, The Language of Saxophones, a 30-plus-year retrospective published by City Lights. Though he’s recorded a solo CD and read nationally and internationally, Daáood had never seen fit to collect his material in a book. Until now. “I never liked the idea of poetry sitting on a shelf somewhere, lost in all those book spines”.
posted by matteo on Apr 17, 2005 - 2 comments

William Shatner's new album hits the stores today. Produced by Ben Folds, of course.
posted by eustacescrubb on Oct 5, 2004 - 45 comments

Coyle and Sharpe were two geniuses of street improv. Their man on the street interviews and bizarre senses of humour were unique and daring. Check out these great mp3s. (Great to see MeFi back!)
posted by dobbs on Jul 15, 2002 - 4 comments

Free Radio Linux is about to go online, reading the entire Linux kernel over the internet using the Ogg Vorbis codec. Free as in beer.
posted by j.edwards on Feb 3, 2002 - 15 comments

I was looking through my old posts, and found a mention of mp3lit.com from several months back (yeah, yeah, I know, I'm going to the well for new material...). It's still just spoken word mp3s for download, but the quantity and quality seems to have gone up considerably. There's a great fiction piece by Parker Posey (mmmm...Parrrkerrr Pooooseeeey), one of my favorite musicians Nick Cave talking about religion, Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo doing some self-help stuff, Bill Bradley talking about affirmative action, and hey look! Douglas Coupland is doing a live event next Friday!
posted by mathowie on Jan 21, 2000 - 0 comments