Derek John

It's like an amazing ad hoc auto museum, with open hoods and idling engines. Every week hundreds of car nuts gather at this diner parking lot in Burbank, CA to show off their big, beautiful, all-American machines. Produced by Studio 360's Derek John.

At the Dub Magazine car show at the L.A. Convention Center, photographer Jae Bueno introduces us to the customizers behind tricked-out Cadillac Coupes and fancy pin-stripes. Produced by Studio 360's Derek John and Ave Carrillo.

Big Brother is just a mouse click away. Our online activity is being tracked, recorded, and then sold to the highest bidder — all thanks to a little line of programming code called a "cookie." Its inventor, Lou Montulli, says that without cookies, the web would be even ...

Pixar is still tops when it comes to animation, but don't overlook Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon, recently out on DVD. The movie's unlikely hero is Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, a scrawny Viking who uses brains over brawn to befriend a wounded dragon.  The real star, however, is legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins, who directed the 3-D flight sequences.  The whoosh-bang joy of fire-breathing dragons soaring through the sky is a reminder of why we still go to the movies.

There's a new movie out about Muslim-American punk rockers living in upstate New York.  Sound familiar?

Since the inception of hip-hop of the early 80s, protest and politics have served a central role of the music. But who says its just for liberals? MC Hi-Caliber, aka Mr. Conservative, raps about reducing taxes and voting Republican, and he's challenging the conventional wisdom that protest music is only for the left. Studio 360's Derek John joins us to talk about today's Tea Party troubadours.

If, as predicted, the Tea Party fuels a Republican surge in today's midterms, you'll likely hear pundits credit the usual suspects: an awful economy, a broken political process, and a President unable to communicate a clear vision of what to do about it.   But special recognition should go to some Tea Partiers who not only got the message out, but encapsulated their anger and frustration in song.

Who says protest songs are just for liberals? Chris Cassone, a right-wing Woody Guthrie, and MC Hi-Caliber, aka Mr. Conservative, have a beef with the government. They're channeling their frustrations into their music and bugging liberals in the process. Produced by Studio 360's

Pianist Jason Moran tells Kurt how he's always drawn inspiration from unlikely sources, from avant-garde and hip-hop to modern painting and rural quilts. Moran also performs songs from his new album, Ten, live in the studio.

Kurt's brother David Andersen went to L.A. to pursue rock n' roll thirty years ago, but today he's one of the top piano technicians in southern California. Now rock stars are his clients, along with film composers and jazz musicians. Produced by Studio 360's Derek ...

This Memorial Day weekend kicks off the Lightning in A Bottle festival in Irvine, California.   The four-day event bills itself as 'equal parts music, art and green workshops' — and the name isn't a bad description for the music of one of its headliners.

The musician and producer ...

Paul Greengrass' recent theatrical release, Green Zone, gets bogged down with heavy-handed story about the search for (nonexistent) WMDs in Iraq. Far more satisfying is his 2002 film, Bloody Sunday. It portrays the Irish civil rights protest and massacre at the hands of British paratroopers in ...

Musician and producer Daedelus creates music from orchestral samples, funky breakbeats, and anything else that strikes his fancy - including an inkjet printer. It sounds au courant, but his primary inspiration is England's Victorian era. Produced by Studio 360's Derek John.

Mingering Mike lives!  As soon as I saw the homemade cover art gracing the new debut album from Milwaukee-based soul band Kings Go Forth, I knew it could only be the work of one man.

I first stumbled upon the magical realist tale of Mingering Mike ...

Last month, one of reggae’s founding fathers, Jimmy Cliff, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On this week's show, Kurt talked with Jimmy about his long, illustrious career and whether he had plans to retire soon; to which Jimmy replied, “Oh ...

Architecture critic Paul Goldberger's new book is called Why Architecture Matters. To talk about that idea, Kurt and Paul headed to the High Line, a formerly dilapidated train track thirty feet above the street that was recently transformed into an extraordinary public park.

The directors of the New Orleans and the Indianapolis art museums have a lot more riding on this weekend's Super Bowl than a couple of bucks in the office pool. After an arts blogger posed a challenge, they've each put up a treasured painting from their ...

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is in political hot water this week for past remarks he made about President Obama's race. According to the new book Game Change, Reid encouraged Obama's run for the White House, in part, because he was “light-skinned” and had “no Negro dialect, ...

Forty-eight years ago, Donald J. Sobol put sneakers on Sherlock Holmes and set him in small-town America. Produced by Studio 360's Derek John.

The hottest music out of Brazil at the moment might actually be from Minnesota.  On Rádio do Canibal, Twin City beat-makers BK-One and Benzilla have crafted one of the most musical hip-hop records of the year.  As the title indicates, the American DJs cannibalized a slew of records gathered on a recent trip to Brazil.  Dirty salsa beats mix with Tropicália melodies in a seamless 19-track excursion from the City of God to the beaches of Ipanema.  It helps that the roster of guest hip-hop talent includes such stellar wordsmiths as Black Thought, Murs, and Raekwon.