Tinseltown In the Rain: Nic Harcourt's last broadcast on Morning Becomes Eclectic
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Today in LA, it's a rare rainy day. The weather suits the day's events, as today's "Morning Becomes Eclectic" on the Santa Monica College radio station, 89.9 FM KCRW, was the last live broadcast with Nic Harcourt as its host and as KCRW's programming director. While he will be staying on as host of a live show on Sunday nights, I for one will miss having breakfast with him directing the indie-inspired FM A.M. serenade.
If you want to see a laundry list of acts that Harcourt broke in the US, I won't do that here. That information is easily gotten via Google, as many of those artists went on to international renown. My experience as an MBE listener is this: I began listening to the show while still living in Seattle, where I had been raised on our own local eclectic indie college station, KCMU (now KEXP 90.3 FM). Imagine how ecstatic I was to find another indie station out in the world. I found podcasts of MBE, then the internet simulcast for KCRW on iTunes. That led me to their web site, playlist, and videos of in-studio performances from bands, artists & composers. I'd never heard of many of them, but was certainly glad to be introduced. I stayed an online fan as I moved to New York, where for some reason there is no good radio reception (and few tolerable local stations). I always knew I could find the archive of his show, subscribe to podcasts, and see what I was new (or just new-to-me) musically while huddled in my crackerbox apartment in the city.
When I came to LA last year, I relished being able to tune my clock alarm radio to Harcourt in the morning, and in the proper time zone. He has the gift of weaving unpredictable playlists and booking guest artist performances to intrigue and delight the listener. For instance, as I write this, he is playing "Tinseltown In The Rain" by the Blue Nile…who else plays that stuff, and can boast such a wide audience while doing so? And just in the past year, I've enjoyed live on-air sets by Joe Henry, Federico Aubele, Rachael Yamagata, Jesca Hoop, Matt Hales of Aqualung, Koop, Nikka Costa, and Tom Jones, among many! Now that's eclectic!
Besides his programming wit and intelligence, he is one of few DJs to have the freedom and desire to play artists that are brilliant yet non-mainstream - sometimes bravely spinning demo versions of unreleased songs - and debuting artists that did not neatly fit into a single sound-bite genre. And here is where I reveal my bias: Nic Harcourt will forever hold a special place in my heart as the first DJ to play a song with my lead vocal on it on the radio (the recent single by Robin Danar - a cover of Jeff Buckley's "Last Goodbye"), just a few weeks ago, as the opening song on his Nov. 3rd show, a week before our song was officially released.
Perhaps it is not necessarily an end of an era, rather a changing of the guard…MBE and KCRW will still exist, and the new program director, whose evening show I currently enjoy, made it clear that he will take things in a new direction. Who knows what that means for the indie artists and singer/songwriters like myself, who have enjoyed Mr. Harcourt's support. In any case, for 10 and a half years, Nic Harcourt has been an undeniable influence on this generation of indie artists and fans. No doubt he will be continue to do amazing things in whatever role he chooses next.
Thanks and best of luck Nic.
Comments (6)
Morning Becomes Eclectic, or more to the point Nic Harcourt, has been one of my most trusted and cherished sources of new music for some time now. It, he, will be missed. Thanks MBE!
Everything changes, evolves, Everything stays the same. Odd, isn't it?
Sorry to hear this, I knew Morning Becomes Eclectic was changing not that Nic Harcourt was jumping ship. I have been listening to his show via podcast for at least the last five years and could not begin to name all the music he has exposed me to and not including his powerful insights with his live guests. A DJ that harkens back to those old times. It seems that anything of substance or quality is being abondoned.Will miss his show....
Well said, Celia, and quite representative of many people's feelings. There are a lot of people who've relied on Nic's ears for 10 years on MBE and i know i'll still be checking out what he plays on Sundays.
I've been heavily involved in the music scenes in both NY and LA for a long time. As creative as the NY scene is, one of my frustrations is that the artists there don't really have a way to get heard outside of their friends or "extended families". I see the same people at many artists' shows and at each others', even when I feel they should be heard by many and their audiences should grow.
Although I'll always be a New Yorker, I spend a lot more time in LA these days working with artists that CAN get heard and it's usually because of Nic. I really hope that continues.
Great eulogy. I listen to KCRW on my net radio, but with an 8hr time difference his show was an Evening Goes Eclectic, which made for some weird energies. He followed the able mind of Tom Schnabel, so I'm sure KCRW will continue with someone intelligent and wide-ranging. At least I hope so.
Cool that he played your track with Robin - it's a great piece of music.
I remember the first time I heard an interview from MBE was when he interviewed Belle&Sebastian in 2004 (that was my first exposure to the show but I was really into B&S by then) and ever since I've had the pleasure of seeing/hearing a bunch of otherwise unkown-to -me artists thanks to Nic.