Inspired by the staccato brilliance of political bitch-fest The McLaughlin Group, rocker Andrew W.K. has composed a song (direct mp3) based on a particularly scattered exchange. Here he is explaining the process on the public radio show "Fair Game." The song has already sponsored a video tribute.
posted on Mar 11, 2008 - View this thread

To The Best Of Our Knowledge is one of the most wide-ranging and literate public radio shows in the US, a two-hour "radio salon" featuring leisurely exploration of weekly themes like No Smoking, Identity Crisis, Weekend, and The Mind, Music, and Math. Host Jim Fleming approaches these big ideas through the works of authors - journalists of all stripes, memoirists, poets, fiction writers, essayists. Five years' worth of shows are available on audio archives; you can also search the impressive list of authors by name, or subscribe to the podcast.
posted on Feb 27, 2008 - View this thread

Glenn Mitchell passes away. If you don't live in the Dallas area or listen to KERA "on the sly," as Glenn used to say, you have no idea who Glenn Mitchell was. If he had lived a few months longer, you would have heard him on XM Radio starting in early 2006. Possibly the best interviewer of our age. He left us far to early. Check out the forum to see what he meant to his listeners. Rest in peace, Glenn.
posted on Nov 21, 2005 - View this thread

After the Storm Sometime this weekend, you may be able to hear one of the best expressions of New Orleans’ role in music and culture available in any mass media. It's American Routes, a weekly show carried on many US public radio affiliates. Programmed and hosted by folklorist and UNO professor of folklore and culture Nick Spitzer, the show normally broadcasts from a studio in the heart of the French Quarter, but has found a temporary home on a Creole/Cajun French/English public radio station in Lafayette. Spitzer told the NYT that he began planning the music for this week’s show as he was fleeing the flooding city in his car, playing Fats Domino’s “Walking to New Orleans." This week’s show highlights New Orleans’ recovery from disasters past, emphasizing the city’s role as the greatest single wellspring of American music. The Crescent City, after all, has either birthed or nurtured everything from jazz, R & B, cajun and the related black-influenced zydeco, soul, blues, gospel, and rock and roll.) With an encyclopedic knowledge of American vernacular music, an utterly democratic spirit, and an unmistakeable respect and love for American musical forms and the people who create them, Spitzer has stepped forward several times this week to serve as a compassionate and optimistic spokesman for the irrepressible creative spirit of a suffering city and a culture in diaspora.
posted on Sep 10, 2005 - View this thread

Public Radio Exchange: Part of the future of Public Radio? I heard part of this great interview with husband and wife authors Michael Chabon & Ayelet Waldman on NPR today and had to find the transcript, or preferably the audio of it. Thank you PRX!
posted on Aug 18, 2005 - View this thread

House Appropriations panel eliminates ALL public funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS Ready To Learn. From this morning's Cynopsis:Kids e-newsletter: "In our nation's capital yesterday, a House Appropriations subcommittee voted to approve a new bill that will see budgets sliced for both public TV and radio. Specifically in the line of fire in the kid TV universe is the elimination of the full $23m in funding for Public TV's Ready to Learn initiative. Ready to Learn provides some funds for PBS series including, Sesame Street, Between the Lions, Arthur, Reading Rainbow, Clifford the Big Red Dog and could have Buster sending smoke signals instead of postcards. [...] Though the President proposed a small budget reduction for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting this past winter, yesterday's subcommittee vote would also eliminate all government monetary funds intended for the CPB over the course of the next two years, beginning with a $100m decrease in funding to $300m for next year." Perhaps this will free up some money for No Child Left Behind?
posted on Jun 10, 2005 - View this thread

It's All Pledge Drives Considered. This is Coordinated Fundraising Week, where stations pull Ken Jennings out of a hat and go for all the gimmicks in the book, while your favorite shows subtly change formats. All this, by the way, mainly to reach the so-called "Cheap 90" percent of people that listen but don't contribute. Because we couldn't do it without you!
posted on Apr 5, 2005 - View this thread

Screw Howard Stern. But Save Sandra Tsing Loh!
The radio culture wars have claimed an unlikely victim, and an unlikely victimizer (America's favorite NPR station, KCRW).
posted on Mar 5, 2004 - View this thread

The Audio Kitchen. Music, spoken word, conversations, phone messages and anything else recorded — played on a radio program. Most of the material is found in thrift stores and flea markets. [RealAudio required]
posted on Feb 23, 2004 - View this thread

The popular radio show, This American Life, has an upcoming series devoted to Jerry Springer's previous life in politics. Along with the radio piece, an entire website has been launched to try and convince Springer to re-enter politics and "revitalize the Democratic Party." Is Springer the new Arnold of the left?
posted on Jan 27, 2004 - View this thread

PublicRadioFan.com An extensive customizable list of (almost) all public radio stations that offer streaming audio and what they have playing now and in the future.
posted on Oct 28, 2003 - View this thread

American Routes with Nick Spitzer is one of the best radio shows ever. It's a "... two-hour public radio program produced in New Orleans, presenting a broad range of American music -- blues and jazz, gospel and soul, old-time country and rockabilly, Cajun and zydeco, Tejano and Latin, roots rock and pop, avant-garde and classical. Plus stories and conversations with musicians and everyday people, known and unknown." There are great archived interviews with people like Dick Dale, Calvin Cooke, Sleepy LeBeef, Koko Taylor, Bob Moog, Nick Hornby, Ahmet Ertegun, John Hammond Jr., Keely Smith, Jim Jarmusch and everyone in between. Playlists back to April 1998. Photos. The shows usually have a theme--"Cool", "Arabs and Jews in Jazz & Blues and Beyond", "East Texas / West Louisiana"--and are always interesting. Get even more info. at Deep Routes .
posted on Sep 24, 2003 - View this thread

The Appalshop, nestled in the hills of coal-stained eastern Kentucky, was founded in 1969 as a War on Poverty project designed to train young people in Appalachia for jobs in film and television. Today, it flourishes as one of the premier cultural outposts of a proud and struggling swath of America. Its projects include documentary films, a record label, and one of the best public radio stations in the country.
posted on May 8, 2003 - View this thread

It's a slow Sunday and so I thought I would share with you the best public radio station out there.
posted on Oct 1, 2000 - View this thread