Barry Smolin (born April 20, 1961), also known as Mr. Smolin, is an American radio host, teacher, composer, and writer. He last taught at Alexander Hamilton High School in

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, and is the host of a radio program on KPFK.

Career

Radio

''The Music Never Stops''

From 1995 to 2012, Smolin was the host of ''The Music Never Stops'', a psychedelic radio show on KPFK in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

for which Smolin won the first ever

Jammy Award The Jammy Award (also known as the Jammys) is an awards show for bands typically referred to as jam bands and other artists associated with live, improvisational music, created by Dean Budnick and Peter Shapiro. The Jammys are sponsored by Reli ...

for "Best Radio Show" in 2000. Smolin's program was also nominated for an '' LA Weekly'' Music Award in 2004 in the "Best Radio Show" category. ''The Music Never Stops'' began as a program featuring live recordings of the Grateful Dead, but after the death of Jerry Garcia; Smolin expanded the scope of the show to include contemporary jam-rock and miscellaneous psychedelia, paying special attention to music being made by musicians in Los Angeles. The program has been covered in ''

Relix ''Relix'', originally and occasionally later ''Dead Relix'', is a magazine that focuses on live and improvisational music. The magazine was launched in 1974 as a handmade newsletter devoted to connecting people who recorded Grateful Dead concert ...

'' magazine and Jambands.com.

''Head Room''

Smolin is currently the host of the program ''Head Room'' on KPFK, heard every Sunday night from 8–10.

Teaching

Smolin's teaching career has been featured in articles in ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' and the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'', as well as in the ''

Larchmont Chronicle The ''Larchmont Chronicle'' is a monthly community newspaper serving Larchmont Village, Hancock Park, Windsor Square, Fremont Place, Park La Brea and Miracle Mile in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is independently owned.Larchmont Chr ...

'', and the Library Foundation of L.A.'s "My

Moby-Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship ''Pequod'', for revenge against Moby Dick, the giant whi ...

" tribute. From 1987 to 1992, Smolin taught English at Fairfax High School (the school Smolin himself graduated from in 1978) in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Since leaving Fairfax in 1992, he was on the faculty at Alexander Hamilton High School, teaching English in the Hamilton Humanities Magnet program until 2021.

Music

Pop music

As a songwriter, Smolin has composed music for the

Showtime Showtime or Show Time may refer to: Film * ''Showtime'' (film), a 2002 American action/comedy film * ''Showtime'' (video), a 1995 live concert video by Blur Television Networks and channels * Showtime Networks, a division of Paramount Global w ...

television series '' Weeds'', with his song "The Earth Keeps Turning On" appearing in Season 3's Episode 7, entitled "He Taught Me How to Drive By" as well as on the Weeds Season 3 soundtrack album. Under the performance moniker Mr. Smolin he has released four albums, ''At Apogee'' (2004) and ''The Crumbling Empire of White People'' (2007) (both produced by

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...

-winning composer/dramatist Stew), a

song cycle A song cycle (german: Liederkreis or Liederzyklus) is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice ...

entitled ''Bring Back The Real Don Steele'' (2009), and a collaboration with Double Naught Spy Car entitled ''Heaven's Not High'' (2013). In 2015, Smolin released two singles: "Fairfax High School", about his alma mater, and "The Man I Met Once".

Experimental music

Since 2016, Smolin has primarily composed experimental pieces, both instrumental and spoken word. With Double Naught Spy Car, he set chapter 1 of

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

's ''

Finnegans Wake ''Finnegans Wake'' is a novel by Irish writer James Joyce. It is well known for its experimental style and reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the Western canon. It has been called "a work of fiction which combines a bod ...

'' to music as part of the ''

Waywords and Meansigns ''Waywords and Meansigns: Recreating Finnegans Wake n its whole wholume' is an international project setting James Joyce's novel ''Finnegans Wake'' to music. Waywords and Meansigns has released two editions of audio, each offering an unabridged m ...

'' project, which was released in 2016 as was an album of the project's instrumental tracks called ''That Tragoady Thundersday''. In September 2017, he released an instrumental album entitled ''The Sooterkin Library,'' a trio project that Smolin describes as "12-tone avant-freak mongrel psycho-tonk".

Writing

Smolin is the author of two novellas: ''Narcissus in the Dark'' (2012), whose narrator is God sentenced to eternity in a dungeon and whose consciousness thinks new universes into being while sorting through the detritus of his troubled past, and the experimental prose project ''Wake Up in the Dreamhouse'', composed one sentence at a time on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

. In May 2011, Smolin released a volume of selected poetry covering 1988 to 2010 entitled ''Always Be Madly in Love''. His most recent fiction project is a trilogy entitled ''The Miranda Complex'', Volume 1 of which was published in 2016 with Volume 2 following in 2017, and the concluding Volume 3 in 2018. ''The Miranda Complex'' chronicles the unconsummated romantic relationship between Lance Atlas and Miranda Savitch, two teenagers in 1970s Los Angeles.

Discography

Bibliography

*''Wake Up In The Dreamhouse'' (2011) *''Always Be Madly In Love'' (2011) *''Narcissus In The Dark'' (2012) *''The Miranda Complex Volume 1: Munchkinland'' (2016) *''The Miranda Complex Volume 2: Poppies'' (2017) *''The Miranda Complex Volume 3: The Man Behind The Curtain (2018)''

References

External links

*
''Head Room'' website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smolin, Barry American singer-songwriters American rock songwriters American rock singers Schoolteachers from California California State University, Northridge alumni Radio personalities from Los Angeles Writers from Los Angeles University of California, Los Angeles alumni 1961 births Living people