Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Summer Selections from Saturday Morning with Kim Hill: 9 January 2009

8:15 Jill Bolte Taylor (from 2008)

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a neuroanatomist affiliated with the Indiana University School of Medicine, and travels the United States as the Singin' Scientist for the Harvard Brain Bank. In late 1996, she woke up to discover that she was experiencing a rare form of stroke, and three weeks later she underwent major brain surgery. For the past ten years, Dr. Taylor has been successfully rebuilding her brain; a process she describes in My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey (Viking Penguin, ISBN: 978-0-670-02074-4).

9:05 Chris Knox (from 2006)

Chris Knox founded seminal Dunedin punk group The Enemy and went on to make music as a member of Toy Love, lo-fi duo Tall Dwarfs, as a solo artist, and with the Nothing, and to draw comics and write about books and DVDs. On 11 June 2009, Chris suffered a life altering stroke at his home in Grey Lynn, Auckland. In this interview from 2006, he talks to Kim about some of his favourite music tracks.

Music played on the programme

Jill Bolte Taylor "The Singing Scientist": Brain Bank Jingle
From her website

Will Oldham: My Only Friend
From the 2009 album: Stroke - Songs for Chris Knox
(A Major Label)

Chris Knox and the Nothing: Bitter Ballad of the Patriach
From the 2006 album: Chris Knox and the Nothing
(A Major Label)

The Beatles: Baby, You're a Rich Man
B-side of the 1967 45rpm single: All You Need is Love
(Parlophone)
Chris' note: "Mono, which is the way I'd like to play it, it's the way I grew up with it and the stereo version kills the vocals. It was one of those little obscure b-side things that showed how far the biggest band in the world had strayed from the mainstream. The sounds involved did me head in at the time and this was a throwaway! I'd play songs like this over and over on the old mono record player while me parents were out, trying to emulate the acid experience of which I'd heard so much..."

The Velvet Underground: Venus in Furs
From the 1967 album The Velvet Underground & Nico
(Verve)
Chris' note: "That album damn near made me into a drug addict in 1970 or so. And my most famous toon ripped off the lyrics."

Nina Simone: To Be Young, Gifted and Black (live version, then studio version)
From the compilations: Black Gold, and The Very Best of Nina Simone - Sugar In My Bowl
(RCA/BMG)
Chris' note: "I heard the live version on my tranny radio late one night in '68 or '69 on NatRad as part of a whole live b'cast and it electrified me - that she was singing to a white audience, that she was quietly putting them down and that they were loving it overwhelmed me with some deeply felt but indefinable emotion... and still does. "

The Clean: Fish
From the 2002 compilation: Anthology
(Flying Nun)
Chris' note: "They were our mates and also the best live band in the world at the time - and still are on a good night - and the nearest thing to the Velvets and a great pop band and, boy, the stories I could tell... Well, not really, they were good boys."

Neutral Milk Hotel: King of Carrot Flowers Pt 1
From the 1997 album: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
(Merge)
Chris' note: "Jeff Mangum took our heads off when we saw him live (supporting me! Stipe was there but left after Jeff, the loser) in 2000, Athens Georgia and we stayed in his house, in Julian NMH's room where the only light was fairy lights on a merry-go-round horse, and had the very best time. Then he and his then-partner Laura (Elf Power and NMH) came over and stayed with us, we took them camping, recorded them with Tall Dwarfs and made them play - unbeknownst to us - for the first time in two years and for the last time to date! And this album is the best overseas disc of the late 20th century."