David Krasnow

Using a whammy bar and a fuzz box, Hendrix captured the sound of bombs falling overseas and screaming protestors.  “I didn’t think it was unorthodox,” Hendrix said. “I thought it wa...

Matt Schickele is a tragically underrated songwriter who has put out a handful of solo records of piercing strangeness and beauty. Delicate and jagged, Schickele's harmonies constantly edge toward the dissonant while staying just this side of earworm. On The Badger Game, he sings over perfectly realized small chamber arrangements, but there's nothing trendy about it. Son of the composer and educator Peter Schickele, Matt comes to his classical eclecticism by birthright, and he has composed an opera (in progress), a large number of published bagpipe tunes, and music in many other genres. Fans of Sufjan Stevens and Andrew Bird should all take note: this record bears repeated -- obsessively repeated -- listening.

A volume of collected stories by any writer can be daunting, but Lydia Davis’s are all so small and seemingly light that dipping in and out feels easy. Her tone often seems dry or ironic (as with the wonderfully titled 'Samuel Johnson Is Indignant'). But beware: Davis packs a punch. ...

Guillermo del Toro was an inspired pick to direct the The Hobbit, the prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  If anybody can keep Bilbo from getting cute – and keep Gollum genuinely creepy -- it’s the director of Pan’s Labyrinth.  When del Toro visited Studio 360 last ...

For more than fifteen years Sam Coomes led the band Quasi along with the drummer Janet Weiss - who has been his ex-wife for most of that time. Coomes tells the story of how he found his calling as a rock musician. It all began ...

Caetano Veloso is called the Bob Dylan of Brazil; it may be Dylan who’s flattered there.  At 67, Veloso continues to make music with the grace of a poet and the ebullience of a kid.  In recent years his sound has been reinvigorated by the sharp edges of his son ...

The late Leslie Buck (nee Laszlo Büch) had no training in graphics – he was in the cup business – but he had an eye for design, and he achieved something singular: an immortal disposable cup.  The pseudo-Grecian lettering and ornament celebrated the venerable New York institution of the Greek ...

We've heard how contentious the process of confirming judges has become.  So how exactly did Denny Chin get appointed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals by a 98 to 0 vote?  Perhaps the senators took into account his extracurriculars.  Chin has led an unusual project in which lawyers create ...

Four twenty-something women (and their lone male buddy, good-looking but a loser) navigate careers and relationships in the hippest precincts of New York. But let's be clear: Smith Rakoff's novel is not Carrie Bradshaw territory. Instead, it's an homage, 70 years later, to Mary McCarthy's satirical novel The ...

Like Michael Jackson, Alex Chilton hit it big young, charting #1 with "The Letter" before he could vote. But Chilton was not like Jackson. His most serious effort at stardom, the early-70s Big Star, never went mainstream; the songs were too innocent, too authentically teenage - the sex ...

Would you trust this man with your radio program?

First movie greatness; then starring in TV's smartest, funniest show; co-hosting the Academy Awards -- all culminating in his performance as guest host of Studio 360.

It is the role of Alec Baldwin's lifetime.

You ...

Last weekend Kurt interviewed Owen Pallett, a violinist who makes indie-electro-classical-pop, either as a one-man band or with a live orchestra.  This weekend, one of Brooklyn’s coolest clubs hosted Miracles of Modern Science, who play violin, cello, mandolin, and double bass, and cite Tears for Fears ...

It's a great day for jazz: Henry Threadgill's first major release since 2001.  Saxophonist, composer, bandleader Threadgill is one of the most important and underknown figures in American music.  He made his mark in the 1970s with the trio Air, arranging and improvising on Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton songs; unlike many modernists, Threadgill never lost that sense of connection to jazz's earthy, vernacular roots.  His dense, knotty, polyrhythmic music may tease your brain, but you'll feel it in the gut – from his Zooid quintet, he builds a visceral propulsion like a symphony.  If you're hip to Coltrane or the late Miles, you should acquaint yourself with this living master.

Composer Andrew Byrne spends most of his time in the U.S., but White Bone Country is about the ferocious, almost abstract deserts of his native Australia.  The instrumentation of piano and percussion sounds austere, but -- played by crack musicians Stephen Gosling and David Shively -- the ...

When I first talked to Phil Kline about his boombox Christmas carol “Unsilent Night” (for a Village Voice article in 2002), I went in assuming that Kline was Jewish. Nothing weird about that, I figured; “White Christmas” is by Irving Berlin. Wrong. Kline was raised by devout Christians in Pennsylvania. Still, he rejected the idea that his piece was religious music.

In this month’s Vanity Fair, contributing editor Jim Windolf tries to analyze the wave of cute overtaking our culture.  From Hello Kitty to the laughing baby (you know which baby) (yes you do) (you don’t?  Really?), Windolf leaves no fuzzy, big-eyed stone unturned.  And he thinks it’s getting worse.  Why now?

Bill Frisell Scores Buster Keaton

Generally when somebody says to the editor of a radio program "I’m going to get a grant to do long-form multimedia reporting with a poet writing about the working poor," the editor gets a look on his face.  Poetry and poverty -- not the most popular subjects in the rundown.  But when that somebody is very persuasive, and also one of the most talented and tenacious producers in public radio, the editor swallows the small thing in his throat and says sheepishly "Great.  When’s our first edit?"

Andy Warhol told people he painted soup because he ate it for lunch every day, but the paintings remain mysterious more than 40 years later.

Chimamanda Adichie is an award-winning Nigerian author whose writing has brought Nigerian history to global audiences. She explains the role Achebe has played in her work, and what it is like being compared to such an eminent figure. Produced by David Krasnow and