Longtime radio DJ Dave The Spazz has compiled this meticulous overview of WFMU's LCD, their offbeat quasi-program guide that's been running since the mid-80s. Anyone in the Tri-State knows that WFMU is THE name in college radio, so very respected and always playing the cool shit before the cool kids even know it. Here's the description from the back, which I can't disagree with: "WFMU is the coolest radio station around. Since the late 1960s, it has been the country's premier freeform radio station, playing a unique and spontaneous medley of everything from hand-cranked wax cylinders to punk rock to the most obscure underground music (hot-rod music, twee indiepop, schlock-a-billy, exotica, spoken word mish-mashes, to name a few). Its now-defunct program guide, LCD ("lowest common denominator"), twenty-six issues of which were published beginning back in 1986, championed WFMU's eclectic, oddball programming with satire, cultural news, essays, and artwork as visually wacky, intriguing, and provocative as the sounds heard on the radio. If you ever wanted to take a crazy, whirlwind tour of the cultural underground with its greatest superstars," take a look at this one. Includes a foreword by director Jim Jarmusch. 238 pages; B&W with color.

reviewed by Chris Lemon-Red