Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

Listener sponsored radio is one of the few mass media outlets remaining that resembles democracy in America. Corporate advertising driven TV, radio and newspapers are full of fluff and omissions and are products of professional entertainers, posers and profiteers. Let us not forget our basic freedoms of speech and the press, unless we lose them.

The San Francisco Bay Area is home to a number of outstanding public radio stations that are frequently in need of support, listed below. Please do what you can, and preserve human sanity. Thank you.

KPFA 94.1 FM: Founded in 1949 by Lewis Hill, a pacifist, poet, and journalist, KPFA was the first community supported radio station in the USA. Much of KPFA’s programming is local, original and eclectic, with a well produced mix of news and in depth public affairs, an ongoing drama, literature and performance series, interviews, and reviews. My personal favorite programs are Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, Sunday Salon with Larry Bensky, and Flashpoints with Dennis BernStein.

KQED Public Radio: NPR and local programming, such as Forum with Michael Krasny.

KCSM The Bay Area’s Jazz Station. KCSM Jazz 91 FM houses one of the USA’s largest collections of jazz recordings, and plays a wide variety of commercially uninterupted jazz music. This station is a great treasure with a lot of heart and soul.

KXPR 90.9 FM is part of Sacramento’s Capital Public Radio and plays a steady stream of fine classical music.

Just received my copies of a newly released CD, Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band Amsterdam 80. This is an extremely clear 74 minute recording of Don Van Vliet and his band performing live at The Paradiso in Amsterdam on November 1st 1980. The CD album jacket includes 6 color photos I shot of a Beefheart show from the same tour in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on December 10, 1980. For more details about that fateful December show, looky here.

The CD jacket also includes some fine shots of Don by photographer Deborah Feingold. As the man says, This could be the best batch yet.