4 posts tagged “radio”
Some time back I switched my allegiance from KQED to KALW. No particular reason. Just that KALW is the little NPR station here. One of my favorite shows on KALW airs on Friday nights at 8:00 PM. The show's called My Word!...a British show where "four professional writers compete for marks by attributing, or rather misattributing, quotations to authors and origins to words, and fumbling through foibled fables".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Word
http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/radio/myword.htm
Listen to the show:
http://jrabold.net/radio/2myw.shtml
I remember the first time I heard Joe Frank. I was working on my Masters Thesis and had an old walkman with a radio propped on the window sill next to my table tuned to KPFA. The program was a monologue in a deep almost conspiratorial voice (as if this person was speaking only to me) intercut with phone calls, voicemails, hypnotic electronic music. I loved it and tried to find it and listen to it every chance I got in those weeks. Cut to 4 years later. I am driving back from work and a Hearing Voices special on Circus is on the radio. The show features a most outrageous story by Joe Frank. I am back in his spell. I seek out his website and listen to all the free shows. You should too.
Working late has its benefits. One of them is the pleasure of listening to public radio at 8PM on the drive back home and discovering new shows. The 8PM slot at my local public radio is dedicated to wonderful radio documentaries. A few months back I heard radiolab. It's difficult to describe what is radiolab. You really have to listen to an episode.
Go to: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab
(Actually the WNYC website does describe the show pretty accurately: From WNYC, New York Public Radio, its Radio Lab. Radio Lab® is an investigation. Each episode is a patchwork of people, sounds, stories and experiences centered around One Big Idea. On RadioLab, science bumps into culture... information sounds like music. But you still have to give it a listen to understand why it's so good.)
While you're at it also check out a few documentaries at American Radioworks
On most days, when I drive home from work, I listen to Fresh Air with Terry Gross (an interview program on Public Radio). I get bored whenever it's to do with the US Government, US history or Politics. But I particularly enjoy her interviews with musicians, authors and other artistes. Here's my top five:
The Rza
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4829782
DJ Cool Herc
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4821646
Joan Didion
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4956088
Rock historian Ed Ward profiles New Orleans pianist Professor Longhair
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5237296
Bruce Springsteen
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5079313
