The Sound of Young America

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The Sound of Young America is a public radio program based in San Francisco, California. The show is broadcast on KSFS-FM in San Francisco; WUSM-FM in Hattiesburg, Mississippi; KWCW-FM in Walla Walla, Washington; WMCO in New Concord, Ohio; and is also available as a podcast.

The program features host Jesse Thorn, "America's Radio Sweetheart," interviewing prominent personalities in arts and culture, with a special focus on comedy. Past guests have included Chuck D, Art Spiegelman, Shelley Berman, David Cross, Patton Oswalt and others. The program was also the first public radio show on the West Coast to be podcast.

In November 2005, Salon.com's Audiofile covered The Sound of Young America, writing that "If you've never heard of The Sound of Young America, The Sound of Young America is the greatest radio show you've never heard of." In January 2006, Time magazine selected the show as "Pick of the Podcasts."

In April 2006, the show began accepting donations from listeners. Also in April 2006, The Sound of Young America launched a second podcast, "The College Years," chronicling the pre-podcasting history of the show.

[edit] History

The Sound of Young America was originally the morning show at the college radio station KZSC-FM, based in University of California, Santa Cruz.

Past contributors to the show include Jordan Morris, "Boy Detective," and "Big Time" Gene O'Neill as co-hosts, and regular appearances from Thorn's joke-telling and sometime rock-and-roller younger brother, the King of "Would You Rather?" Jim Real, and Brian "Back in Business" Lane. In 2003, the show staged a radio drama of Sad Dad, an original play written by Morris and O'Neill. The show has also performed "Mace Detective, Private Detective," a noir-esque radio drama featuring an absurd private eye with a thirst for suicide (that is, all the different kinds of soda mixed together).

The Sound of Young America was first broadcast in 2000, with Thorn, O'Neill, and Matt Dobbs hosting. Shortly thereafter, Dobbs signed up for a class he could not miss, and Morris joined the team (Thorn was his resident advisor). O'Neill left in 2003, and Lane filled in periodically thereafter. Upon Morris' departure in May 2004, the show began to use rotating co-hosts. That autumn, Thorn went solo.