In Praise of “Soundcheck”

With no elitist apologies, I’m a huge fan of public radio.  

Sure, I’m happy to see that indie rock has a new home on commercial radio in many markets, replacing those ungodly “classic rock” stations, and very little makes my “Triple AAA” music heart beat harder and faster than hearing there’s a new station with that format.

But, you see, there’s a problem with both of these commercial formats. You could easily have a band like, say, Wilco or Beck on both playlists and think, sure, anything from either “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” or “Odelay” would fit perfectly into both of them.  

You don’t need lil’ ol’ me to tell you where to find online music stations; after all, we’ve been doing that for years, right?

However, I’d like all of your to point your aural antennas towards WNYC-FM (93.9) during the week, between the hours of 2 and 3 PM.   

John Schaefer has been hosting his show “Soundcheck” for well over thirty years, and in the true spirit of public radio, you’ll just never know what you may get on any given day. 

And, for the adventurous music listener, this is a mighty good thing.   

You may hear “Carbon/Silicon” or “The Good, The Bad and The Queen” playing live, or that wonderfully fun band from Melbourne, Australia called “The Cat Empire” doing a live set. Or, it might be Laurie Anderson talking about her new book, YoYo Ma discussing his technique, or someone who wrote about Mahler and wants to have a deep, intellectual discussion about it. 

Now, here’s the fun part…as academic and serious as all of this sounds, John never, ever takes himself seriously. Of course, he knows more than you do, but he’s the “fun teacher” with all of the knowledge, and he’s got a great gift for presenting it to you.  

So, let’s see…it’s almost two o’clock, and class will be in session soon…I’ll race you to the best seat in the classroom, and I’ll see you there!

We’ll compare notes later.