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Performers

Live Performances

Music is an important and integral part of a Joe Frank program. Joe worked tirelessly drafting a show and when half-finished, he’d play selected music in the background as he revised his script. He had a keen ear for what type of bass, drumlines, and looping melodies would aid his voice and serve the story.

When performing live, Joe hired many of the same musicians he’d known for decades. Beginning with the Wadsworth shows in 1998 and the band “Brazzaville,” Joe’s relationship with members of this group—both personal and professional—grew and deepened. During rehearsals, Joe had a unique ability to describe what he wanted with specificity, but mostly without words. It was both challenging and exhilarating for all involved.

Joe and the musicians, and later singers and dancers, shared the highest standard and respect for what could manifest onstage with a Joe Frank show.

Find out more about these performers. We also have music CDs from a few of these musicians for sale. All proceeds go to the musician.

Brazzaville & David Arthur Brown
Carolina Cerisola
Danny Frankel
David Ralicke
Ed Valfre
James Harrah
Judith Owen
Julie Christensen
Kenny Lyon
Lorca Hart
Tara Nicole Hughes

Reviews of Joe’s Work

"Mixing bizarre monologues, multi-sequenced dramatic vignettes and mock-solemn critiques, [Joe Frank's work] is both sophisticated and surreal. A sizable cult has been growing around Frank...a rare radio talent."

The Village Voice

"To me, he's what radio is really for... his show makes me think he's getting to some great truth... so completely captivating and just unlike anything else."

David Sedaris, writer

"Frank has created a series of dead-pan radio monologues so sharp and intelligent that during the quiet bits you can almost hear God taking notes."

The UK Guardian

"Frank wanders deeply into the unconscious, producing Dionysian stories with a fairy-tale intensity whose effect is often funny, disturbing and deeply memorable."

Salon Magazine

"[Joe Frank] is one of the great, original radio performers. He's created a sound and style for himself - a complete aesthetic that's entirely his own. I first heard him when I was 19 and it changed everything for me. His work demonstrated the intensity and emotion that the medium is capable of; ingenious…fantastic."

Ira Glass, This American Life

"I came upon Joe Frank's work by accident a number of years ago while driving to my home in the Napa Valley late at night. I couldn't believe the originality and sheer brilliance of what I was hearing. From that moment on I became a dedicated Joe Frank fan. Joe Frank's shows raise the most interesting and enduring questions in new and original ways and are consistently thought-provoking and very funny."

Francis Ford Coppola, filmmaker

"[Frank] travels in the emotional landscape of Bergman and Fellini; there's a tension and sense of mystery halfway between Kafka and Chandler... and a satiric edge worthy of Firesign Theatre and Woody Allen... No one else in radio is doing what Frank does."

The Washington Post

"Joe Frank's often bizarre scenarios for the mind are decidedly offbeat radio fare...part surreal satire, part bizarre meditation, part fever dream."

Los Angeles Daily News

"Joe Frank is a singular voice in radio. What he has done is hypnotic, psychotic, neurotic, sad, terrifying, and some of the funniest stuff I have ever heard anywhere. I can't think of another radio performer who has come close to achieving this kind of alchemy."

Charlie Kaufman, filmmaker

"[Joe Frank is] the most imaginative, literate monologist in radio today... If a microphone could capture the nether recesses of the modern psyche, it would sound like Frank's absurd comical excursions: Radio Vertigo."

The Village Voice