Interview by Michael A. Brown
Bryan Carroll, Grace Reyer, and Jenny Schurk share the hosting duties. They bring varied radio backgrounds and musical tastes to the broadcasts. We spoke on Sept. 23.
Michael A. Brown: What were y’all doing in radio previously, and what brought you to KOOP?
Grace Reyer: I apprenticed on The Clear Spot and that was my very first radio experience. Bryan was my trainer and once I was qualified as a programmer, he invited me to stay on.
Jenny Schurk: I started in college radio. In my senior year I had a morning show five days a week on KUOM in Minneapolis. Then I moved to Milwaukee and was involved in community radio there. When I moved to Austin and discovered KOOP, I thought, “Maybe I’ll become a programmer so I can sub on Stronger Than Dirt or The Clear Spot.” Well, things happened fast and after two shows as a sub, I’m now a regular on two collectives and it’s been really great.
Bryan Carroll: I did college radio for two years in Duluth, Minnesota, then I was away from radio for quite some time until I moved to Austin. On a random Saturday night, I tuned to 91.7 and heard Lisa Rickenberg and Linda Maher, two of the original Clear Spot hosts. I was astounded! I had never heard anything like their show before. So I started volunteering at KOOP and pestered Lisa and Linda to apprentice with them. They agreed, and after a while I was invited to join the show.
MAB: The Clear Spot recently celebrated the 1,000th episode. Big congratulations! How has the show evolved over time?
Bryan: When Lisa founded the show in 2005, her music was very wide-ranging … no specific genre … and she played some really far-out stuff that you couldn’t hear anywhere else on the radio. Linda did much the same, focusing on early rock ‘n’ roll and garage rock. Nowadays, the original spirit of the show survives and thrives. Because it’s a free form show, our setlists are driven by our personal tastes and we each have a bit of a different vibe and set of sensibilities. Each of us do our own thing.
Jenny: Not a ton of changes to our free-form programming, but we have done more shows together, either two of us or all three.
Grace: I echo Bryan and Jenny … the free-form spirit is alive and well, including with more local music and musicians!
MAB: Does the show name … The Clear Spot … have special significance?
Bryan: It’s the name of a Captain Beefheart album, and the title track of that album is our intro music every week.
MAB: The show’s tag line is “Freeform music for voracious consumers of sound.” Please tell us what that means and the artists each of you like to feature.
Grace: It means that we craft our shows to have a “glow,” so you can hear absolutely anything. My theory is that the best music comes out in the last three years of a decade and the first three years of the next decade. So I play a lot of late ‘70s – early ‘80s … which are some of the best years of music. I love the Nashville band Country Westerns and I play The Replacements quite a bit.
Jenny: Definitely The Replacements. We all also play Wire and Yo La Tengo. What I love about The Clear Spot is that we can get a bit noisier and experimental. Our listeners are very open-minded … they love being introduced to new artists and new sounds.
Bryan: For me, the show is like having a few patron saints, and Captain Beefheart is definitely one of them. Jackie Shane is another. And Michael Hurley. The show’s tag line has remained the same for all 20 years on the air, and it works well because it imposes no boundaries on the music we play.
MAB: How did you decide to do the show as you do, with three alternating hosts?
Bryan: I got tired. (Followed by the rest of us laughing.) I was doing the show by myself for a while and then Grace showed up. She’s so good on the mic and brings a great depth of musical knowledge. Jenny came out of nowhere with enormous energy and drive and an equally deep knowledge, and I just had to ask her to join the show.
MAB: When you hear from listeners, what do they tell you most often?
Jenny: I ran into a listener at a show, and he said The Clear Spot blew his mind. That was so cool to hear because we don’t get direct feedback often and we don’t really know who’s listening until we encounter people in person.
Grace: One particular phone call stands out. I had just played Here’s Where the Story Ends by The Sundays. The phone rings and the caller says, “I can’t remember the last time I heard The Sundays on the radio. I turned it all the way up and I felt like I was back in college again.” It made me tear up.
Bryan: I have met people in person who have said they’re a fan of the show and they listen every week. That’s really gratifying because we don’t get much feedback, either positive or negative. More often, people will call and say they can’t believe what they’re hearing and will thank us. Or they’ll ask the name of the song we’re playing so they can track it down and listen again. That’s the best … knowing we turned someone on to something they’re excited about.
MAB: Y’all like to promote Austin music. How do you go about that?
Bryan: We try to bring local musicians into the fold both by playing their music and having them live on the air. We consider it part of our mission to support new and “under-heard” artists and bands that are unlikely to be featured on another radio station.
MAB: Besides The Cear Spot, what other stuff do you do professionally and in the community?
Grace: I co-own Plum Creek Records and Tapes in Lockhart, along with KOOP’s Max Yancy, and I moonlight as a graphic designer.
Jenny: I’m involved in the Down syndrome community here and nationally, and I volunteer at my daughter’s school as well.
Bryan: KOOP is my big community involvement. I’m also involved with my son’s band and his music teacher’s efforts to support students’ music activities.
You can enjoy The Clear Spot every Saturday evening at 7pm.