Flagship program on
KCRW 89.9 FM, the
public radio /
NPR station of
Santa Monica College in
Southern California.
"Morning Becomes Eclectic attempts to present
the best new music that is coming out around the
world and infuse it with the best of the old as well,
reaching back into the vaults on a daily basis--to
flesh out the new alongside those that have come
before it."
-- former 'Morning Becomes Eclectic' host Chris Douridas
The three hour weekday morning program is dedicated to playing a
wide variety of
music, especially non-
mainstream, new, and
unreleased tracks. A key feature of the show is a
live performance and artist interview segment during the third hour (11:00 AM) almost every day. The staff have put a lot of effort and money into making the studios for the live performances sophisticated enough to please the most
discerning of artists, and thus the listeners as well. Despite this commitment to superb sound quality they are known to play recordings on everything from
home-studio cassettes to DATs to transmissions recorded off the air in far-off places -
the medium is not the message, the music (or just
the sound) is.
The broad range of styles played is refreshing in the increasingly micro-
genre L.A. radio scene, but there are
for many occasional times when it seems they haven't played anything familiar or even
tangential to one's tastes for quite a while. Still the show is worth catching at least a slice of most every day.
The station also has put out a couple of compilation CDs representing the kind of mix they strive for, and traditional concert performances are sponsored under the "Sounds Eclectic" name. In addition their website features 'streaming audio 24 hours a day'.
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The show's name is a clever play on the title of
Eugene O'Neill's play
Mourning Becomes Electra. Luckily the radio show is anything but
tragic,
dark, and
fatalistic - unless it wants to be.