Barry Smolin (born April 20, 1961), also known asMr. Smolin, is an American radio host, teacher, composer, and writer. He last taught atAlexander Hamilton High School inLos Angeles, and was a longtime radio host on L.A. area public radio stationKPFK.
From 1995 to 2012, Smolin was the host ofThe Music Never Stops, a psychedelic radio show onKPFK inLos Angeles, California[1] for which Smolin won the first everJammy Award for "Best Radio Show" in 2000.[2] Smolin's program was also nominated for anLA Weekly Music Award in 2004 in the "Best Radio Show" category.[3]The Music Never Stops began as a program featuring live recordings of theGrateful Dead, but after the death ofJerry 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 inRelix magazine[4] and Jambands.com.
As a songwriter, Smolin has composed music for theShowtime television seriesWeeds, with his song "The Earth Keeps Turning On" appearing in Season 3's Episode 7, entitled "He Taught Me How to Drive By"[12] as well as on the Weeds Season 3 soundtrack album. Under the performance moniker Mr. Smolin he has released four albums,At Apogee (2004) andThe Crumbling Empire of White People (2007) (both produced byTony Award-winning composer/dramatistStew), aLos Angelessong cycle entitledBring Back The Real Don Steele (2009),[13] and a collaboration with Double Naught Spy Car entitledHeaven's Not High (2013). In 2015, Smolin released two singles: "Fairfax High School", about his alma mater, and "The Man I Met Once".
Since 2016, Smolin has primarily composed experimental pieces, both instrumental and spoken word. With Double Naught Spy Car, he set chapter 1 ofJames Joyce'sFinnegans Wake to music as part of theWaywords and Meansigns project,[14] which was released in 2016 as was an album of the project's instrumental tracks calledThat Tragoady Thundersday. In September 2017, he released an instrumental album entitledThe Sooterkin Library, a trio project that Smolin describes as "12-tone avant-freak mongrel psycho-tonk".[15]
Smolin is the author of two novellas:Narcissus in the Dark (2012),[16] 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 projectWake Up in the Dreamhouse,[17] composed one sentence at a time onTwitter. In May 2011, Smolin released a volume of selected poetry covering 1988 to 2010 entitledAlways Be Madly in Love.[18] His most recent fiction project is a trilogy entitledThe Miranda Complex, Volume 1 of which was published in 2016[19] with Volume 2 following in 2017,[20] and the concluding Volume 3 in 2018.[21]The Miranda Complex chronicles the unconsummated romantic relationship between Lance Atlas and Miranda Savitch, two teenagers in 1970s Los Angeles.
