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A soundtrack for Tehachapi
Topics: FolkScene, Music, Tehachapi, Peter Cutler, radio
Posted by editor Mon Jan 14, 2008 11:53:36 PST
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0 responses 0 comments FolkScene to broadcast live
local performances

Unfortunately, newspaper articles don’t come with a soundtrack. While many may perceive the written word as lyrical, with some completely atonal exceptions, there’s a really good chance you’ll want to turn on the stereo or just hum a familiar tune out loud before you finish reading this story, so you might as well do it right now.

We’ll wait. Some suggestions include Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon or James Taylor, but suit your own tastes, please.

Done? Good. Because a feel-good, custom soundtrack is what resonates for weeks after an interview (more aptly a “session”) with Tehachapi resident Peter Cutler.

Cutler has spent the past 28 years as the sound engineer for FolkScene, folk music’s award winning radio show. FolkScene, is the brainchild of Roz and Howard Larman and has aired on KPFK public radio, out of Los Angeles, for more than 30 years. The show features live music and intelligent interviews with critically acclaimed independent artists, as well as many big music industry names.

Last November, Cutler aired the show’s first live broadcast from Mama Hillybeans Coffee & Community, featuring a prerecorded session with musician Anais Mitchell. The musician enjoyed the experience so much, she plans to return to Hilly’s on Jan. 17 for an encore.

Future locally-taped performances will be aired on FolkScene and tagged with the familiar sound of a train whistle accompanied by the Tehachapi audience’s lively response, taped during Mitchell’s November performance. The show airs on Sunday nights, from 7 to 9 p.m. with a live streaming broadcast available at www.folkscene.com. These segments will be broadcast on more than a dozen stations around the world, from Boston to New Zealand.

So what is folk? Some folk music purists feel that the genre must be acoustical (folksy?) or inspire social awareness or 1960s style protest, hence the “Great folk scare of the 60s,” so dubbed by Cutler’s on air partner, Roz Larman.

“Folk music at its best tells great stories,” said Cutler. “Very specific stories about characters, either real or made up. Old time dance music from Appalachia descended from the villagers who got drunk and had dances and parties. That’s about as folk as it comes.”

He continued, “If Roz likes it, then it’s folk.”

Cutler laughted, “As a kid, I liked everything because it was music,” said Cutler. “To me there’s only two kinds of music. Good and bad.”

A guitar player since the age of seven, Cutler comes from a family of musicians who reached the “foregone conclusion” that he would become one also.

While he does enjoy performing — occasionally as half of the duo, Peter & Debbie (he is married to Mountain Music’s own Debbie Hand), Cutler’s passion for FolkScene comes across in major chords and quickly progresses on to intricate scales, transitioning smoothly back into a catchy, folksy rhythm.

Cutler’s first experience with radio came at just 14-years-old, when he and some friends were brought to the KPFK station to answer phones for a fund raising drive
“We never answered the phone,” said Cutler, “We just sat there singing and playing guitar. It was like an old movie, when somebody asked us to be on the air. We couldn’t believe that somebody thought it would be cool to have these 14-year-old kids on air.”

Too nervous to perform on the spot, Cutler and his well-rehearsed friends returned a week later. He became instantly fascinated with the medium of radio broadcasting.

“I was completely bitten by the radio bug,” said Cutler, who quickly eased into running the sound board, playing records (remember vinyl?) and announcing, obtaining his FCC license at the age of 15.

It is clear that Cutler and the Larmans produce FolkScene “for the love of music,” as he puts it. The show is completely funded by donations and is certified as a non-profit entity for the sole purpose of preserving and promoting the cultural art of folk music.

“Eventually, I took over the live segment, doing all the setup and mixing myself,” writes Cutler, on the show’s Web site.

Cutler describes himself as a “an unstoppable force of kinetic energy” when he’s behind the sound board. “I have absolute tunnel vision when I am working. My hands and ears are synchronized as I step INSIDE the music that pours out of my headphones and speakers.”

He said he’s never once considered not being an integral part of FolkScene.
“It is as much a part of my life as breathing. The high I get from doing a live mix of a band, cooking away in the studio, is like surfing a huge wave and never losing your balance.”

That is how Cutler describes his work.

But that’s just the half of it.

Like the “working man” folk musicians tend to sing about, Cutler had to make a living.

“It’s two different worlds. Very, very different worlds,” said Cutler of his crossover from non-commercial radio, “mostly supported by listeners raised around that free, creative, anything goes kind of attitude.”

Cutler tuned in to his “real job” in the commercial world of comedic radio production and commercial sound engineering in 1979. He has gone on to work with big names like Stan Freeberg, Buddy Hackett, Carol Burnett, Danny Kaye and members of the Fire Sign Theater.

Cutler’s self-professed “method style” of really getting into sound engineering was validated when he worked with one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

“Don’t be surprised he’s in character,” warned Cutler’s commercial partner as they approached their client’s home.

Shortly before his death, Marlon Brando, a true “method actor,” greeted Cutler and his partner at the door of his Malibu home dressed and ready for his voiceover part in a yet to be released animated film. Brando always said the one part he had always wanted to play, was a woman.

“So we got to his house and he comes down in full old woman drag, wearing a muumuu,” said Cutler. “He made the ugliest woman you’ve ever seen!”

Although they were unable to  follow up on the plans they made for future projects, Brando’s warm regard for Cutler and his partner led him to direct his staff to make sure they were invited to his final performance.

“Every star you can ever imagine was there to pay their respects,” said Cutler, of Marlon Brando’s funeral.

Although it’s hard to top working with Brando in drag, music remains Cutler’s passion and he is looking forward to putting Tehachapi “on the map” as more artists are lured here to to perform.

“They don’t know exactly where it is,” said Cutler about the artists he’s negotiating to bring to Tehachapi. “One asked if it was in Kansas. They just never thought of this as a place to come to play. But when they’re playing up and down the state, we’re in the middle of all that.”

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