On-Air Host for Echoes

We asked John about some things he'd want XPN listeners to know about him. Here's what we got.

Born & Raised

Born and raised in Massachusetts.

First Record Purchased

The Beatles Something New in mono. I bought it in fifth grade with money from shoveling snow off driveways. Still have it.

First Cassette Owned

I never actually "bought" a cassette.

1968: Jimi Hendrix Experience, Soft Machine and the Eire Apparent at the Carousel Theatre, Framingham, Massachusetts.

The Hendrix set list was:
- "Johnny B. Goode"
- "Hey Joe"
- "The Sunshine Of Your Love"
- "Fire"
- "Purple Haze"
- "Wild Thing"
- "The Star Spangled Banner"

The Soft Machine, who later became a favorite band, went right over my fourteen year-old head at the time.

Bands you've played in?

The Spontaneous Creation Space Music Ensemble. Really. A jam band put together by DJs on the airwaves of WXPN in the 1970s. We wired three studios together had mics everywhere, including the bathroom, and jammed on tape reverb and tape loops for five hours. I, at least, was not stoned.

Favorite Bands/Artists

Tough one... Jimi Hendrix, Brian Eno, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Lisa Gerrard, Sun Ra.

Favorite Local Bands

NuCultures, Caryn Lin, One Alternative, Tim Farrell, Ministry of Inside Things.

Favorite Movie or Book

It would be obvious to cite something like Citizen Kane, which is a favorite, but let's go with something less obvious, Spinal Tap. A quarter century later, and this film still rings hilariously true, which may be a sad statement. I've watched it more than Citizen Kane and just saw it again with some teenaged French exchange students and they were on the floor laughing and quoting lines the next day. "Turn it up to 11."

Book: The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. Someone finally nailed it.

Musician you were was most excited to meet

Brian Eno, every time.

How You Got Into Radio:

WXPN. Emmett Ryan and Pat Sherbourne, creators of Diaspar, Sleepy Hollow and a few other XPN shows, ran an Intro to Radio course at Penn's Free University.

College

University of Pennsylvania

Jobs before WXPN and Echoes

I was program Director at KALX in Berkeley.
I worked at 3rd Street Jazz & Rock in Philadelphia, the best record store ever, anywhere.

Three More Things You Don't Know About John:

I'm probably the only person in public radio who has been written about in Sports Illustrated. I played 33 miniature golf courses over 2 days in Myrtle Beach with an SI writer and a former XPN DJ.
I played football at Penn.
For me to know.