WNYC's Soundcheck
WNYC, New York Public Radio, brings you Soundcheck where John Schaefer hosts lively, inquisitive conversations with established and up-and-coming figures from New York City's ever-evolving music scene.
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The Sounds of the City (Soundcheck: Monday, 19 October 2009)
Arline Bronzaft, chairwoman of the noise committee of the Council on the Environment of New York City, joins us as part of our new monthly segment on noise in New York City. Today's topic: Traffic and transit.
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Califone Live (Soundcheck: Monday, 19 October 2009)
The Chicago-based experimental indie group Califone is hard to pin down – and so is their latest project. It’s either an album or a feature-length film. The band’s primary songwriter, Jim Rutili, joins us to talk about “All My Friends Are Funeral Singers,” a joint music-and-film project that the ban …
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RZA's Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Soundcheck: Friday, 16 October 2009)
The Wu-Tang Clan earned rap acclaim in the 1990s and spawned solo careers for Method Man, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon and other members. Today, the storied hip-hop collective's leader, The RZA, joins us to share The Tao of Wu, a new book that is part street memoir, part religious manifesto.
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Anna Ternheim (Soundcheck: Friday, 16 October 2009)
Anna Ternheim has that Swedish knack for setting melancholic words to catchy pop music. Now a New Yorker, the singer songwriter joins us to talk about her latest album, Leaving on a Mayday, and she plays live in our studio.
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How Could Something So Wrong Make Me Feel So Right? (Soundcheck: Thursday, 15 October 2009)
Neko Case and Damien Rice are among the indie belters whose fame owes to technically stunning voices. But others in the genre are beloved for their vocal imperfections - say, the nasal yelp of Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum, or the elfin squeak of Joanna Newsom. Paste magazine's Rachael Maddux tak …
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Baaba Maal (Soundcheck: Thursday, 15 October 2009)
Senegalese pop star Baaba Maal is a music ambassador of many causes: poverty, AIDS, religious tolerance, and the culture of the Fulani people. He is also an ambassador of music mixes, and has often combined traditional West African sounds with pop, reggae and even hip-hop. On his latest album, Telev …
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Picks of the Week (Soundcheck: Wednesday, 14 October 2009)
This week’s picks feature blues from 1920s America, from 21st century Mali ... and from the upcoming film Where the Wild Things Are. Read our full reviews here.
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Sixty Years Before Obama...There Was Mr. B. (Soundcheck: Wednesday, 14 October 2009)
Once more popular than Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, singer Billy Eckstine stole the show with sex appeal, sophistication and black machismo - all in an era of segregation. Music critic David Hajdu joins us to share Eckstine's tragic story, which appears in his new book, Heroes and Villains: Essays …
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Sixty Years before Obama...There Was Mr. B. (Soundcheck: Wednesday, 14 October 2009)
Once more popular than Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, singer Billy Eckstine stole the show with sex appeal, sophistication and black machismo - all in an era of segregation. Music critic David Hajdu joins us to share Eckstine's tragic story, which appears in his new book, Heroes and Villains: Essays …
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David Krakauer and the Orion String Quartet (Soundcheck: Wednesday, 14 October 2009)
American composer David Del Tredici won a Pulitzer in 1980 for his music inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In celebration of his 70th birthday last year, he composed the Hungarian-inspired "Magyar Madness." Clarinetist David Krakauer and the Orion String Quartet join us for a live perfor …
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Smackdown: Alan Gilbert vs. Gustavo Dudamel (Soundcheck: Tuesday, 13 October 2009)
One is the product of Venezuela's famous "El Sistema" ("the system"), a visionary music education system which teaches poor children classical music. The other grew up blocks from Lincoln Center, the son of two orchestra musicians. Conductors Gustavo Dudamel and Alan Gilbert may come from widely dif …
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The Stooges: The Authorized and Illustrated Story (Soundcheck: Tuesday, 13 October 2009)
Punk rock pioneers The Stooges were recently nominated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Fronted by the man often cited as one of the most influential figures in rock, Iggy Pop, the band is now also the subject of a book, The Stooges: The Authorized and Illustrated Story. Iggy Pop and photographer …
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Here Comes the Bride (There Goes Tradition) (Soundcheck: Monday, 12 October 2009)
Selecting a song for a first dance is among the toughest aspects of wedding planning. We talk with Melissa Maerz, music critic and bride to be, and with Erik Marshall, a partner at Hank Lane Music & Productions, about the challenges of picking wedding music. (Since this segment first aired in June, …
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Ari in the Family (Soundcheck: Monday, 12 October 2009)
The son of a classical singer and a violinist-pianist, Ari Hoenig was learning how to play several instruments at age 4. By 14, he was drumming in clubs in his native Philadelphia. Now a composer, drummer and arranger on the New York jazz scene, Hoenig joins us for a live performance. This is a repe …
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Behind the Universal Language (Soundcheck: Friday, 09 October 2009)
Does our response to music have a biological basis or is it shaped by our culture? We pose that question to two experts today: Dr. Jamshed Bharucha, a neuroscientist, musician and Provost and Senior Vice President of Tufts University; and Dr. Laura-Lee Balkwill, a psychologist at the Music Cognition …
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Soundcheck's Picks of the Week (Soundcheck: Friday, 09 October 2009)
Read our full reviews of this weeks picks and download a free MP3 from Mulatu Astatke and the Heliocentrics. Click here. Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette. Yesterdays (ECM Records) - picked by John Schaefer Mulatu Astatke and the Heliocentrics, Inspiration Information, Vol. 3 (Strut) - …
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Stephanie McKay (Soundcheck: Friday, 09 October 2009)
With shout-outs to rapper Kool Moe Dee, phat-laced shell-toes and amorous B-boys, Stephanie McKay toasts hip-hop's formative years on the retro-funk track "Jackson Avenue." The Bronx native joins us with her band to play songs from her latest album, Tell It Like It Is, live in our studio. This is a …
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What Recession? (Soundcheck: Thursday, 08 October 2009)
Lincoln Center, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and the Metropolitan Opera have all recently achieved major milestones in fundraising. Today: we find out if other New York-area arts groups are experiencing the same success.
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Alex Cuba (Soundcheck: Thursday, 08 October 2009)
With two of Canada's Juno Awards under his belt, Cuban-Canadian singer-songwriter Alex Cuba was tapped by pop star Nelly Furtado to guest on her upcoming Spanish-language album. Cuba tells us about the experience -- and about his own album, Agua del Pozo. And, he plays live in our studio.
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Lenny Kravitz (Soundcheck: Wednesday, 07 October 2009)
Lenny Kravitz debuted 20 years ago with an album called Let Love Rule. Since then, he’s released monster rock hits ("Fly Away" and "Are You Gonna Go My Way," to name two), won the same Grammy four consecutive years, started a design company -- and spent time on a farm in Brazil. Before a five-night …
WNYC's Soundcheck
