In today’s frenetic world, sometimes it’s hard to step back and just listen to what’s going on around you. From the beats of street noise to the hum of the natural world, it takes a certain kind of ear to hear music in everyday sounds.
NYC-based musician Chuck Palmer has that talent. Palmer is sitting on the edge of Rhodes Skate Park in downtown Boise, watching kids and some adults practice tricks. He's the current artist-in-residence at Surel’s Place in Garden City, and he's come to one of his favorite spots to gather sound in Boise.
“I am a skateboarder," says Palmer. "I started skateboarding when I was about nine years old."
And later, when Palmer became a musician, he used sounds from skateboarding on his record “Waiting On The Rain.”
“It’s like a skate collage of skate sounds, of my younger brother Max Palmer who’s a really incredibly successful and famous skateboarder. I’m recording all these things, I’m hearing rythym in it. When you’re a skateboarder, it changes the way you see the world forever.”
And just by listening, he hears the poetry in his sport.
"When I’m skating, the sound makes me so happy," he says. "Even the wheel bite is a cool sound, or the grinds, the tail slides, the wheels rolling on sidewalks … to me it’s just like a symphony and it just makes me really comfortable and really happy. And I absolutely love it.”
And as an artist living in urban canyons of New York City, he’s also become enamored with the natural world he’s found here in Idaho.
“I’ve just been totally captivated and very impressed by the amount of spider webs that I’m coming across," Palmer says. "And they are just absolutely beautiful but completely enveloping the bridges along the Boise River. I go out to the parks and stuff and just the trees – the tree limbs are hanging there and they’re covered with this beautiful white web. I’ve gotten bit by a few spiders at the house which is great!”
"If I could help other people become more present through this work, that would be best case scenario."
Spider bites aside, Palmer hopes to build a framework for inspiration and active listening – something he says is missing in modern times.
“If I could help other people become more present through this work, that would be best case scenario for sure."
Palmer is leading a listening workshop Saturday at Surel’s Place in Garden City. And on Thursday, August 23, he’ll perform his final work at Audio Lab using found sounds gathered here in Idaho.
Find reporter Frankie Barnhill on Twitter @FABarnhill
Copyright 2018 Boise State Public Radio
