About

Muddy Boots wanders where sneakers never will, moving on the back roads through the backwoods and to the forgotten cracks of our imagination. Tune in to hear a patchwork of sound, snippet, and song; field recordings from wherever, the random whimsical, and the rare, and not-so-rare.

Intertwined throughout the musically driven playlist - aka sound painting - are artisanal and anachronistic cuts, film clips, one-off sounds, folktales, literary snippets, poetic whimsy, cut-ups, foley, and other assorted oddities. Music is culled from blues, jazz, hillbilly, ethnic, and folk from the 1920s & 30s, splattering of keepsakes from the 1960s & 70s, and strokes of curious songs from the dawn of the recording age through the present.

The intent is to impart a loose-knit story within the playlist in order to provide the listener with the opportunity to marvel at what musician, Robin Williamson, refers to as “the sheer unspeakable strangeness of being here at all.”

There’s something to be said for radio – streaming or the good ol’ radio waves – being a vehicle to journey into a sonic wonderland. Lend an ear and embark on a voyage. . . Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay!!

Besides the usual podcast listening feeds, you may tune in to Muddy Boots on two wonderful radio stations - Wavefarm Radio and KVMRx. Follow the links for a complete schedule. Check out Muddy Boots on KVMR: Archives 2012 – 2016 *** HERE ***

Also, check out the rainbow gathering field recording podcast HERE

Producer, Host, and Creator:

Tenali Hrenak grew up in the Kettle Moraine region of southern Wisconsin. When he was a teenager way, way back in the early 1990s, he discovered a very different world of sound than the one he was accustomed to during his weekly visits to a local library. On a whim - and being ever curious - he would sift through the music collection, and the various field recording compilations in particular perked his ears like never before. This musical opening, coupled with listening to Ron Cuzner's  wildly eccentric late night radio program "The Dark Side" (which would keep him awake into the wee hours of the night), propelled him into acquiring field recording gear, as well as, hosting a radio show on a local community college station. He's been involved with sound ever since. At some point in the mid aughts, he put on a (sonic) pair of Muddy Boots, which has been aired on a variety of radio stations around the country.  In 2016, he launched the podcast version of said show that brings us to this very moment, ever changing, and different, it's now.

Labels, Projects, and blogs I cherish:

Dust-to-Digital, Yazoo Records, Old Hat, Tompkins Square, Honest Jon’s, Document, Excavated Shellac, The Other Side, Heritage, Canary Records, Haji Maji, Victrola Favorites, Marco Dacio, Baby Gramps, The Dunghill Rooster Strutters,  Archeophone, Field Recordings, JSP Records, Nonesuch, Sublime Frequencies, Lucky Mojo Curio Co., Gate 5, Twilight Zone, Cultural Equity, Ubu, Bear Family, Shellac Head, Ocora, Internet Archive, Ceints De Bakélite,  Trailer-Park, Juneberry 78s, Grammercy, Smithsonian Folkways, Mississippi Records . . .